Success Without Alignment Still Feels Empty with Michelle Thomas

What if the life you’ve built looks successful on the outside, but doesn’t actually feel good anymore?

In this episode of The Dragonfly Perspective, Paula sits down with Michelle Thomas, founder and Chief Fun Officer of The Happy Business Club, for a powerful conversation about business culture, burnout, connection, authenticity, and the growing pressure to constantly perform online.

Together, they explore what people are really searching for beneath success, why so many business owners feel disconnected from themselves, and how modern hustle culture is impacting our emotional and mental wellbeing.

This episode is a reminder that happiness, joy, and genuine human connection are not weaknesses in business, they’re necessities.

Because eventually, the noise gets loud enough that you either keep performing or start listening to yourself again.

Knowledge is power.
Awareness is freedom.
Travel is living.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Dragonfly Perspective. This is a space for seeing clearly. Through travel, business, and real life. We explore what's real, what's not, and how to trust your own intuition in a world that often pulls you away from it. These are conversations about awareness, discernment, and building freedom in a way that actually feels right. I'm Paula Fern, and I'm glad you're here. Welcome back to the Dragonfly Perspective, where we look beyond the surface, we challenge the noise, and we explore what's really shaping the way we live, work, connect, and see ourselves. Because perspective changes everything. And today's conversation feels really important because we're talking about something the world is deeply lacking right now, and that's genuine human connection. It's joy and it's building businesses without losing yourself in the process. I'm joined by Michelle Thomas, founder and chief fun officer, CFO, I love that, of the Happy Business Club, a community built around heart-led business owners to step away from pressure comparison and the constant should and reconnect with some purpose and happiness in a business. We've got lots more to share about where that's going for Michelle. And what I love about how what this conversation is going to bring is that although Michelle and I come at things from different angles, at the core of it, we're both asking the same question: how do we stay human in a world that keeps pushing performance? So today we're diving into authenticity, connection, burnout, online culture, intuition in business, and whether people are actually building lives they enjoy or just surviving the pressure to keep up. Welcome, welcome, welcome, Michelle. Hello, lovely. A little bit more about you.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Well, first of all, I'm gonna say happy birthday. And you did make a wish before we came back here. Thank you. And secondly, do you think that 20 minutes is enough for everything that you've just been saying about? Because I can flap my chops for England, let me tell you.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Let's see where we go, because I know this is gonna be a good one because we have brilliant. Good relationship. Tell us a bit more about where you're at, Michelle.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Okay, so Michelle Thomas, founder of the Happy Business Club, and yes, uh Chief Fun Officer. I'm a happiness expert. That's what I love to do. My mission in life is to lift the mood of the planet along with the other people that are lifting the mood of the planet, because ultimately happiness is something that we take our eye off the ball with quite a lot. But it's absolutely fundamental to make our lives have meaning, especially if we're in business. Because if you think about it, you're all things to everybody in business. You spend a lot of time on your business, and if you're not happy in your business, if you're not proactively happy and fundamentally happy in your business, then you're basically a big chunk of your life is going to be um living in misery. And nobody wants to work with a person who's miserable, do they?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Oh, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

So the way that I do this is I work with small business owners who uh work with purpose and heart, who are building their own businesses, people who are solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, have small teams, scaling up, have a passion, have a vision, and want to make a living out of it. Um, a lot of it is about connecting to who you are as a person and making sure that that's right first. Because if you're the face of your business, you're putting it out there, your ideas, your heart and soul, that needs to sit right with you first. That's very much um what I work on. Um, one of the biggest ways that I do this is I create a community within a magazine called The Happy Business Express. I'm now building it to become the most trusted small business publication in the UK. So I've got big plans for it. Um, but over the last few years, so I've been doing it since November 2022, I have um connected with hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of small business owners who are not just in it for the money, who want to make a living, who love doing what they do and who love connecting with people and bringing themselves to them um in their within their businesses. Um, but I've also got them to uh over 250 individuals to write for me. Some of them time and time and time again, I think you've been in the publication on more than one occasion, haven't you? Um and show the person behind the business. Yeah. Because when we when we connect with people or when we buy from people or when we work with people, we work with the person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not necessarily the business. We connect with the person, we build a relationship, and then we go off and we do the important stuff of fixing things that we need fixing or um going on journeys of awareness or healing or creating or whatever it might be that you want to do that you're collaborating with somebody with. So this community is something that I am passionately going full health a leather on right now and making it into something absolutely fantastic, um, and giving people opportunities where they probably feel a little bit lost and a little bit invisible. We're opening that back up for everybody and we're making it more human, exactly what you just said. Making it human.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

This is incredible because this is exactly what the world needs. I know as a mum, as a daughter, as a sister, as a business owner, it's so easy to lose your identity of you, and yet it's you that makes your business. So when you're bringing, you're actually bringing people back to themselves so that they can perform better, because a lot of people talk about AI, and I don't necessarily use AI, I think it's a useful tool if it's used in the right way. But people are talking about there being no authenticity out there, it's because they've not necessarily got the tools that they need, like yourself, Michelle. Yeah, that they're actually being taught, you know, what's you that are people are coming to, it's you that people are buying, not your pretty picture on your branding. It's you, it's all about you. But when we've not got that identity in the first place, we kind of lose ourselves in it.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Absolutely, absolutely, and I think the fact that now with the rise of AI, and it's literally, you know, got its fingers in every single pie, every single I'm I'm making it sound omnis ominous, it's not ominous, it is a beautiful tool, it can enhance so much, but it also means that the world is getting bigger, it's getting noisier, and it's a lot easier to get lost. And when you start losing connection with everybody else, then it could be a lot easier to lose connection with yourself. And that is the important thing. It's the the remembering that you're human, it's a lot easier now, strangely enough, uh that there's a duality in this. Um, it's a lot easier now to be able to make mistakes in in the culture that we live in, in the society that we live in, especially in the online world, than it ever used to be. But at the same time, it's a lot harder for us to accept the fact that we're able to make mistakes. But the thing is, it's it's starting to become our key factor in being human, the fact that we do make mistakes. I mean, even sometimes, you know, when you when you type in a text, I've got sausage fingers. I don't know about you, but I got sausage fingers, and predictive text does not like me. So when I send messages that sounds like gobbledygook, and and the the perfectionist in me, the person that grew up always wanting to get things right and do things better, always wants to go back and change it, put all the full stops and everything in it. Yeah. And then I have this thing that says, actually, if you send it the way it is, then they know that AI's not written that. Yeah, they know that a bot's not written it, they know that it's you and that you're okay making mistakes, and and that genuine that that builds genuine connection.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

How dare you be human, Michelle? How dare you? Proud to be a human now. You talk a lot about happiness in business.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

What do you think people are actually chasing underneath that success, visibility, and achievement? What is it that they're looking for? So we need happiness in business. No one wants to be around someone that is doing something and feels resent around resentment around it. Yes. What are people, what brings that happiness? What are people chasing?

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Right, okay. Well, well, but you know what? This is a fabulous question. It's not that I haven't been asked it, but I've never been asked it so succinctly. And um, again, it's something that I think about a lot, I speak about a lot, um, and I write about a lot as well. And the the word that springs to mind is agency. Okay. Right. So agency is about being self-led and being able to create your own lives. Now, when you're a business owner, correct me if I'm wrong, but of the thousands and thousands of business owners that I've met from when I was little, I'll tell you that story later on. Um, but the thousands of people that I've met, they're more they're very rarely in it just for the money. If it was just for the money, then they wouldn't be, they wouldn't be on, you know, in my circle. So but the pe the kind of people that I work with, and there's so many of us, incredible, brave human beings, what they really want is to be in control of their own lives, to be in control of their own destiny, to not have people tell them what they should and shouldn't do. And the world is being open to let people be who they are and more closed at the same time. But these brave human beings, these incredible human beings, are starting from scratch, and yes, they're promised success, they promise this, this, that, and the other, and they forget how hard it is to be in the thick of it. But what they're doing is they're coming at it from a place of um uh belief. When they start out, you believe in yourself. It's very rare that you don't have some semblance of belief in yourself, and they come from a place of creativity, they want to create something, and they more than anything else, they want to help somebody else, they want to do something, they have this integrity that they want to help somebody and make them feel better and do better and be better. So, this is the thing that they're trying to do, they're trying to create a living, and ultimately, you know, you do need to make a living out of it, or you need to have some way of making a living, but they're doing it in such a way that gives them life, purpose, and meaning. And if you think about it, what however long you've got in your life, if you are, if you go nine to five, then about a third of your life is is at work, yeah. Uh, and if you're happy in work, brilliant. If you're not, then you've got two-thirds of your life where you're sleeping and you you're living you're living your life. When you're a business owner, the uh the proportions are not the same. Absolutely not. We think it's gonna be 10% work, 30% sleep, and then the rest of the time we're gonna do whatever the hell's hell we want. And it's generally about 20% sleep, and the rest of it is business. We talk business, we breathe business, we we do. So when you're talking about having fun in business and and being happy in business, if if you're in business for that 80% of your waking, you know, of your wake in life, then and it's rubbish, and you don't have purpose and you don't want to help people, and you're just in it for the money, you you're gonna burn yourself out really quickly for a star off, and you're never gonna feel at the end of your life like it was ever worth it. You don't feel like you're the master of your own destiny. That's ultimately what we want. I think success is that that agency, that being able to create your own life, create your own way of working within it, and that is actually because sadly becoming an a necessity for a lot of people. Another conversation completely for another day. But um, yeah, so it's that underneath it is is is happiness, but it's about being able to be ourselves, being able to show up and create a life that's ours, that belongs to us, because we uh as business owners really are um very, very strong, capable human beings. We have to say I can because if we can't say I can, then we wouldn't we wouldn't even set the set the first step take the first step to do it in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

And it's interesting what you bring up there because before we went live, we were talking about some um not pivots but some some rejigs that are happening in your business or that have happened recently. And I talk a lot about alignment, and I think some people that are unhappy in business is not because they don't love being self-employed and having their own business, it's because it's not aligned to what they want to deliver. I've been there and I've in the past and I've been at a point where I'm ready to throw the towel in.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Oh, yeah, I'm gonna get a job at Tesco! Exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

And rather than me go do that, I can't, I've realized I cannot work for other people now. I'm 10 years in, uh much longer being self-employed, but 10 years, you know, solely self-employed. I it's just not something that I can do now. I can't take orders off anyone else, it's just not how um, but when we don't have that alignment, it's not fun. Now you've you I've had this, but you've also had it quite recently, and it's been something that's been like in front of your face. Tell us a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

I know we've touched on it already, but the magazine element of what you're doing is well, I wouldn't I wouldn't say it was fun, not about not being fun, because I've had I've literally had so much fun along the way. Fun it fun can be in the discovery, fun can be in the research, fun can be going down the rabbit holes and seeing what happens. There's a there's an element of you know, allowing your surrendering to the universe a little bit, and that is very fun. That can be very, very, very fun. It can be very risky as well. But hey, yeah, um so you know there's there's so many components to it, but I think when you're talking about alignment, it's almost that coming home to yourself. It's like you've been out, you've had your fun, but now it's serious. Now it we're having fun on a serious level. Now all everything's you know uh lining up and everything's a lot clearer and everything makes more sense, and and it's it's the beginning of um what a lot of people would call like a quantum leap. It's a little a leap in energy that that's so fast and so big and so furious that it can make your head spin, but you know it's the right thing, and it doesn't necessarily mean that that everything's gonna be fine and dandy going forward, it just means that you're working on another level, things are more right, things are going in the right direction, things feel like it's it's meant to be. Everything's meant to be the way that it's meant to be, and ultimately making your choices to get onto the right path, but you've got to become aware enough to get yourself on that right path in at the at the right time. And and I think this this whole idea of alignment, yeah, it's very much an internal internal things. It you you just know, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah, just and I think it's the clarity that brings. So you can be you can be kind of pottering around and doing your business, not pottering because it's bloody hard work, but you can be working on your business and going in one direction, and then you suddenly have that moment of clarity, however, it comes to you. And when you've got that clarity, it's like, what was I doing all this time? Because it's so crystal clear, yeah, it doesn't it doesn't make it easy because you still gotta put you're still in the trenches, you still gotta put the work in, but it when it's clearer, it's easier to do it, and you're more motivated to do it as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Absolutely, it's an energy activator, it's very much an energy activator. If you think about something where you've had the most epic idea, everything is clear, you can see it from beginning to end. You've it lights the fire up, you bum. It gets you out of bed at four o'clock in the morning and makes you write out your big massive business plan, and and you're on the phone at nine o'clock telling your best friend that this is what you're gonna do, and is she up for the ride? And you know, and you you've you've by 10 o'clock, you've booked yourself into network meetings and and you've sold three, you know, three, I don't know, of your offers, and and that's how that's how quick it can be. Not everybody's like that. I'm not saying everybody's like that, but that that's an example of of how it can look. But I wanted to go back to something that you said about about this whole view that what the hell was I thinking, what the hell was I doing? Yeah, it we cannot dismiss the things that have led us here. We have to be eternally grateful for the fact that we've had the opportunities that led us to this aha moment or this this alignment or this quantum leap or this this knowing that we're we're doing the right thing now. Because the what we're doing right now is not necessarily what we're gonna be doing in five years' time, exactly. And that will be right for then. And three years ago, we weren't in the place that we are now. We we're so much further ahead. So you've got to acknowledge the fact that even if it's taken you 10, 20 years to get to the point where you are, you needed that 10, 20 years to learn everything that you needed to get to that point in the first place. And a lot of that comes from appreciation and and trust, and that is all built into this idea of creating your own life. We can't beat ourselves up for the things that we've done because we can't go back and change them, but we can look at them in a way which means that where we give ourselves a bit of grace. Oh, maybe I did that a way that I wouldn't do it now, but that was the only way that I knew then. And I'm gonna pat myself on the back for the fact that I actually did it, never mind whether it was right or wrong. I was human enough to take the plunge, be brave, do the thing, and that led me to here, and that that could have left me to a completely different path if I hadn't done it in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

And you know what? Go us. It's amazing. We are fantastic, and you guys that are listening, you are this as well. Absolutely because the lessons that we learn when we go through that process are the gold, absolute gold, because you'll either learn how to not do it or you'll learn skills how to start doing it in a different way. Yes. I mean, you can't go wrong. It's not that it's been a bad turn, it's just that it's been a learning curve.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

And you're gonna feel frustrated and you're gonna feel cringe and you're gonna feel regretful, and you're gonna all these things, you're gonna feel it. You you're gonna feel it. Just don't think that you're not. If you think that you're not, you're absolutely Dululu. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're gonna feel it, and it's okay. It's actually okay to feel that way.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Now, both of us work with people who feel overwhelmed by the noise online. There's a hell of a lot out there. Do you think modern business culture is pulling people further away from themselves? That's one of the questions I wanted to ask you today. We've kind of touched on it already, but not in line with the noise. There's a lot of people claiming that they are the master at this, they are the master at that. Oh, yeah. How do we kind of navigate that noise that's online?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Right. Um and keep it. You'll notice about me, I've I look like a fence sitter. I always say it depends because I can see different the benefits and the pros and cons of lots of different perspectives. Um, I do have an opinion of my own, and it's always built about resilience. I am a proud Gen Xer, and I, you know, I'm a scrappy old lady who gets stuff done. Um, and I do understand that different generations have come, um, you know, have come along and are doing things differently. Culture is different now. I remember, um, oh god, how long ago was it now? We're talking Christ on about late 90s. So we're talking almost 30 years ago. Um, I've always been interested in in publishing, I've always been interested in in media and marketing and things like that. 30 years ago, there was no social media. 30 years ago, there was barely mobile phones. Smartphones weren't even a speck on the horizon at that point. Um, the way that we got into marketing, the way that we put ourselves forward was a lot more difficult, but it wasn't as noisy.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So what's happened is is all of a sudden, all these these connections, these possible connections have literally all opened up overnight through the internet, through social media. It's just exploded, and people are starting to feel invisible in a way that they weren't then. People were still invisible because it was a lot harder to get into newspapers, it was a lot harder to get in, but it was it was easier in that if if you followed the way to do it, you were more likely to be seen. Yeah, if you see what I'm saying, whereas most of the people were invisible. Now people are being visible, but they're being invisible being invisible in lots of different ways in lots of different pockets, and they're being also invisible to the people that they want to be visible to. So a lot of it is not necessarily about um you know fitting in with the noise or even standing out, it's being in the right room with the right people at the right time, and this is why human connection above social media, above all the I don't get me wrong, I love a flipping phone all, I love systems, I love being able to send emails to people without thinking about what I'm gonna write because it's been sent to the all the people. I love all of that, but at the same time, um, that's just the beginning of it. That's not how I build my community. How I build my community is very much what's the who's the one person that I can speak to today that me and them, if they work together, we can. Amazing things, even if the only thing that they do is sign up to my magazine, have a read of it, be inspired by it, and then pass it on to somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Even if it's just that, obviously, there's a lot more that you can do with that. Um, so you know, the this is this culture, yeah, it's pulling us away, it's not pull, it's not pulling us away. We just have to kind of shift the way that we do things so that it works better for us. And and I think because it we it's like I also think of it like little eddies, you know, like you get little currents, little eddies, yeah. They go around in little circles. Yeah, those are the kind of that's the kind of visibility that that is available to us. And it's more than there used to be when, you know, back in the day when there was no social media, so we do have opportunities to be visible, but that people forget that you know, going viral is a thing, you know, that that comes about by chance. You can try and try and try, doesn't necessarily you'll be that meaning you'll be viable viral. There's so many more variables to it than that. But the things that we can control, which is the things that we better off putting our energy into, are the things within that we can show up to. We can show up for this, we can show up in our own Facebook groups, we can show up um and and speak to the person who you know is most aligned with us. But it's nice because it means that we get we get pure connections, we get connections with the right people. We can say no to you who you know lives across the other side of the planet and has a uh a four-bore shotgun, who likes, you know, running through swamps and hasn't got a business and works in a factory. That's that's not my person. I'm not speaking to them, and there's nothing that I can say that's going to be interesting to them. But the person who lives, you know, across the other side of the country, who's been through who's got a few kids, who's had to, you know, be scrappy and earn a living and and gets overwhelmed, and I can help that person. I can show up and be in the room with that person, even if it's online. And I think when you start thinking of it in those little eddies, those little community groups, that's when you start building, putting them together like little, you know, like little pieces of the puzzle and growing your network. And that is exactly what I'm trying to do with my magazine.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

Yeah. That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 24:19

Yeah. The thing is, it's so true. I think we have to use our own discernment and we've got to take our, we've got to be accountable for our own actions as business owners as to whether or not we're gonna move in that circle and whether we're gonna turn to find another Eddie or circle or that I see it as a s like a swirl in a in, you know, when these little swirls in the water. Um, and I've I mean, to such an extent that I've actually started I'm gonna be starting very soon uh free networking in one of my groups. I've actually called it the ripple effect because the ripple of that water, how much more alive can it be? I know, but it's so important to have that, and also we can be dragged, not kicking and screaming, but we can move within that that little eddy and that little swirl, and it's not quite for us, so we break off into a different area. We have to consciously decide whether that's gonna be we're gonna be there or there on one side or the other, and that is when I've talked recently about some of the fears around travel because one of my businesses is in travel, and the perception of that fear doesn't necessarily weigh up to what the evidence is in a lot of ways. Yeah, and there's a lot of things that can be overreported, there's lots of different things happening in the world, but it also depends on where you're looking. Yes, I'm a member of several travel groups, millions of people are traveling every day, and then on the other hand, when you look in a different swirl in a different eddy, they're saying no one's traveling, it's too scary. And that's the kind of discernment we have to decide what circles we're gonna hold our truth in.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah, it's about asking asking asking the questions. That's very much what it's all about. Um, you know, as an intelligent human being, you can ask and answer your own questions, you know, metacognition and being able to think, look at our own thoughts is something that we've got that is an absolute gift as a human being. Um, and I think you've got a this this this idea of discernment, it leads us to our own truth. Now, there are eight billion versions of the truth on this planet, yeah. Probably more, probably more. Um, but the only one that that really matters is yours, and you get to choose, and it goes back to this whole build the life that you want, uh, that you really want. This is the thing. Everybody, really want you know, 10k months and you know, sitting by the pool, drinking, sipping pina coladas while you know, typing up your emails to your email list and showing them that they can have this life. Yes, some people that is absolutely what they want. And some people look at it thinking, God, that would be amazing because it's so different from what I have now. I'm not happy with what I have now, but I can guarantee you if they actually ask themselves the question and put themselves, imagine themselves in that situation, they would not want to be there. When I go on holiday, I am not taking my laptop. When I go on holiday, I am not looking at my phone and replying to messages. No flipping way. My holiday is my sacred time. That is the time that's not for everybody, but the vast majority of us. If you had to say, right, the way that you live on holiday is the way that you live every single day of your life, it would get flipping boring. And I know this for a fact because we're all creative people.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

I'm sitting there doing bog all day. It's not a creative thing. This is interesting because it leads me to another question, which was you look online, you see on social media that all the influencers and all the people that you like to learn from, they're always online. Appear it, well, it appears so. They're always switched on, they're always visible, they're always in the thick of everything. Now, you and I both know that that's not actually true. They're just clever at the way that they provide their information. Now, what do you think that is doing emotionally and psychologically to people when they're watching and they're thinking, oh my god, they're always online. They they mustn't have a moment. Like you said, you wouldn't take your laptop on holiday.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

What where when are people going to realise that there's very, very, very clever strategy behind that? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 28:34

I think a lot of a lot of it is right. So if you're a business owner and you're at the beginning of your journey and you want to be doing what X person is doing, and they seem to be online all the time, but half the time they're actually it's a it's a big trap to fall into. So they're they're off on their hollybobs, they're not doing anything, they've set up their systems, they've got a CRM system that everything's scheduled, they're still telling their message. Um, and and their responsibility is to put themselves out there as much as they possibly can so that the people who are watching them get the opportunity to see them.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

I think one of the things that they don't consider, and they don't have to, but just to kind of mitigate what you're saying, is is this honesty about this is what I'm actually doing now. I'm not at my desk today. You might be getting emails from me about this, that, and the other, but this is how businesses can be set up now so that you can have it all. And then when that person who's just started up a business sees that, it's more, it's a lot closer to the truth of what is, and it makes it easier to understand that that's the thing that they can aspire to, not necessarily being on all the time, so they start as the mean to go on. Oh no, it's not that I have to work, you know, 24-7 and never have a holiday and and this, that, and the other at the beginning. It's that right now I need to create the systems and put the systems in place in as much as I can to take some of the load off me. And there's a much, a much real picture then, and and it's I wouldn't say it's the responsibility of the person that that looks like they're there everywhere, but at the same time, if they can if they can consider that, and and that's just being genuine, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

That's just showing behind the scenes that's just it. I think it's I think that's a part of business that's been hidden for a long time, and I think it's only because I used to think when I first started out, I'm like, how the hell do they do all of that stuff? And I'm getting an email every like other day, and now how do they and I've worked with CRM systems in a corporate environment in a job, and I've worked with CRN systems in my own business, and I think saying to people, look, I'm going away, you're still gonna get stuff off me because I've got a lot to share and it's really important. But I'm just gonna be honest, I'm on holiday, I'm on the beach this week. So I'll get back to you after I'm home, but still consume my stuff because it's gonna help you.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

But in the meantime, I'm just gonna go on the beach and I think I think we're doing it a lot more.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

I mean, I don't particularly if I'm switching off, I'm switching off.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

Yeah, um, if things are dropping up, necessarily, but I think sometimes that behind the scenes moment is really crucial to getting the authenticity out there.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, maybe just talking about it a little bit more, maybe just yes, just saying this is what I generally do, this is how I work, and giving people people a clearer picture of how it is that you're doing because people are coming to you for inspiration, people are looking to you and and seeing how you do things to to take your lead and see if that's possible for them as well. Um, you know, and being honest about it is is absolutely key. But being honest doesn't mean just showing one side, it means you know, being open to showing the other side as well. And I'm not talking about trauma dumping, it's one of my pet peeves, and and and I know a lot of people would come to me and I was like, you know, be authentic online. Be authentic online is not necessarily you know airing your your your laundry. Yeah, but it's about being honest enough to show that you know life isn't all unicorns and and rainbow dust and and things like that. That's a lot of this is what I talk about in my book, uh Radical Happiness, again for another podcast, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:22

Um you'll be on again, Michelle, don't you worry?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

I think we've been here more than 20 minutes, haven't we? Yeah, so um it's it's about it's about taking the good with the bad, making sure that it's part of life, not all consuming, because happiness isn't la la la, I'm amazing all the time. Happiness is doing your best to make sure that you you feel life to the fullest extent and make sure you bring joy in intentionally as much as you possibly can because the world is gonna throw shit balls at you, things are gonna go wrong, you are going to fail, expectations are not going to be met, you are gonna be disappointed, you're gonna feel angry, you're gonna feel frustrated, people are gonna, you know, stab you in the back. Um, but how do you do how do you deal with that and move through it and move forward and still go back to having a plan about what your life could look like, how how you want to feel, and making sure that it's the best that it can be. And that kind of honesty is crucial, I think, when we're connecting with people.

SPEAKER_00 33:24

And it's achievable. It's not something that's just pie in the sky, it's absolutely achievable. And there's people like you that are proving that to be so. Now we're gonna be wrapping up very shortly.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Where can we find you and what are you doing at the moment? Are you looking for collaborations? Is there anything happening in your world that we can help with? Have you got anything coming up? Tell us more.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Right. Well, my front door is open, and the only front door I've got open now. Well, it's not the only, but it's the main main door, great big double doors, yeah, with fancy knobs and things on, and uh a ring doorbell, which haven't even got my own house, but having this uh virtual thing, um, is the happy business express. This is my main platform, uh, the happy business club. I am online, I'm on uh primarily on Facebook and Instagram, um, at the happy business club.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Um, and through that, people can come to me and they can join in and be part of the community. The first thing that they can do is they can subscribe to the Happy Business Express. It's a monthly magazine, it's uh digital. At the moment, it's digital, so that is gonna start changing a little bit over the coming months. Um, the the plans are foot. But basically, you you get it in your inbox, you you open it up, you read the stories, and they are real, genuine stories. So, all this thing about being transparent, telling people your stories, showing the good and the bad and the ugly, that that is what happens in the magazine. You see that from people who are doing incredible things, who are building incredible businesses, who are being themselves, um, and you can connect with them. It doesn't cost you anything to subscribe, it's it's been free for the last three and a half years, it's never going to be anything other than free to subscribe. Um, and I'm always looking for new writers, even if you've never written before, but you're a business owner, you have a point of view, you have a great story, um, or people tell you you have a great story, even thing you think your story's boring. We have themes as well, so you can write for any theme that you like and you can submit um your articles, and we'll pop you in there. You've got a digital asset, you can say you've been featured in the magazine, you you've got a little badge, you've got um custom graphics, all these we make it easy for you to be a little bit more visible, to create little pockets of visibility in the right places, and the right place for a lot of us is in the small business community. Um, so that is that is where we start. The Happy Business Club, the Happy Business Express is my front door. Um, and then after that, it's like there's a hell of a lot going on behind the scenes. You know, if you want to work with me a bit closer, I can work with people uh one-to-one, looking at plans and projects. I'm incredible at um, you know, getting people's businesses, shaking them up, and making them absolutely accessible to themselves so that they're not feeling overwhelmed. I've got uh tiny little resources called hacktices that I'm gonna be launching um over the next year or so, which means that we can start being the people that we want to be through practicing tiny little things in really fun ways on a daily basis. So if you want to be confident, how do you get to that confidence without making it into a big deal, without paying thousands of pounds for a course that teaches you how to be confident with it and by doing it in a way that makes sense to you? So there's lots of different things coming up with that. Um, yeah, I'm always hoping for a zoom and a brew. Anybody wants to come and have a chat with me and tell me about their business, it it's like for me, it's like being in a cake shop and eating the most amazing cakes. I just love people's stories, I love finding out about what they're doing, and I love coming up with ideas and sparking off them and and and letting them dance off into the the sunset, feeling way better than they did when they first uh came and sat down with me. So yeah, that's hope to get in touch with you.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Thank you so much. You're such a you're such a beautiful soul as well, and you're such a warm personality. It's always such a pleasure to chat with you. Thank you so much for today.

SPEAKER_01 37:16

And it's always a pleasure to chat with you. And I'm gonna eat your cake in a minute.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Eat my cake because we're gonna be wrapping up now. Um, this conversation with Michelle is such a reminder that success without alignment is gonna feel empty eventually, and we've got to find that, we've got to keep that real. Maybe that's the deeper shift happening right now. People aren't just looking for more money, more followers, or more product productivity anymore. They're looking for meaning, authenticity, connection, and spaces where they can breathe and be themselves again. Whether that comes from intuition, community or awareness, or just slowing down long enough to hear yourself think, because that can be a problem as well. We're so busy all the time. It all comes back to the same thing eventually. Coming home to who you really are beneath the noise. So if this episode sparks something in you, don't ignore it. Because awareness starts quietly, and often the smallest perspective shift changes everything. Knowledge is power, awareness is freedom, travel is living, and this is the dragonfly perspective.