Podcast S2:E9 - Finding Your North Star with Eve Earley

You can connect with Eve over on Facebook or on her website!

Show notes:

(Please note that these are computer generated and therefore imperfect).

Ellie: Welcome to the capable collective podcast, a place for women who want to ditch the overwhelm and learn to run their business with ease. I'm your host, Ellie McBride. And I firmly believe that as women and non-binary folks, we are best as a collective. So together with my expert guests, we are sharing the tools, systems and ethos behind a simple yet thriving business.

This season, we are talking all about working with your natural rhythms and the episodes will be coming out every other Wednesday. I'm so excited to dive into topics like working with your menstrual cycle, living with lunar cycles. Living seasonally working from a place of rest and creating boundaries and so much more ready to dive in. Let's go! 

Eve early has nearly 50 years of work experience across industries as varied as legal accounting manufacturing and the counseling professions. Her earliest experience delivering change management programs was that Motorola. Grounded in the techniques, which went on to become six Sigma which was in development there. Since moving to Ireland in 2008, she has worked with startups, founded a social enterprise and catalyze connections among Changemakers and reformers and social enterprises, SMEs, and micro businesses.

Her career spans two global recessions. During the first, she was employed to outplace senior and C suite corporate employees made redundant in the early eighties. In 2009, she founded empowering change and applied those skills and supporting startups among the many reluctant entrepreneurs coping with the aftermath of the 2008 crisis.

She is passionate about helping clients form the necessary support systems to employ whatever tools, keep them moving forward, even incrementally in the direction of their dreams. That work is grounded in helping clients get clarity about what they value. Finding one's true north is key to making life and work choices that are utterly congruent with our values on what she does.

She says "I don't teach entrepreneurship resilience and creativity. I'm also working at it as a way of life." 

I'm really excited today. I have Eve Earley who is a fellow American living in Ireland, and we have been in touch for a good couple of years now. I think I, my friend, Alison moved connected us way back. And yeah, I've worked with Eve on her businesses and ideas quite a few times.

Um, and I just thought she would be a great person to come in. And this season about living and working with your rhythms, because she talks quite a lot about this and some of her programs. 

So, hello Eve!

Eve Earley: Hello. It's good to be here. 

Ellie: So excited to have you here. Are you ready to jump into the rapid fire round?

Eve Earley: All set.

Ellie: All right, so let's just kick it off with where are you from? 

Eve Earley: So I was born in Raritan, in and around New York city, the city itself in the suburbs. Um, and I joke that I used to live at the corner of 68th and Broadway. And now I lived two fields over from Cooley kingdoms, which is a Gaelic football club in Carlingford, um, county lounge.

So I've been in Ireland for 12 years. Very, 

Ellie: very cool. And what are your preferred pronouns? 

Eve Earley: She, her 

Ellie: Awesome. And when did you start your business?

Eve Earley: Um, I started shortly after I got here. I came in November of 2008 and in 2009, I went out on my own. Um, I [00:04:00] had been working for a wonderful guest house in Carlingford.

Um, learning really tough things. Um, at 54 years old. Uh, like how to dial a phone number Ireland and the UK. We don't actually agree between Ireland, north and south numbers look like, and I don't know about you, but when someone is speaking very rapidly, as they do in Northern Ireland and they tell you their phone number is treble seven.

I had a really hard time with trouble, but anyway, yes. Yeah. So my, my orientation was six months of employment and then I went out on my own. 

Ellie: Very cool. Yeah. I, um, I definitely hear you about some of that stuff of the immigrating and the language and stuff. You're like, oh, I'm moving to an English speaking country.

You understand everything? 

Eve Earley: Definitely not. My redemptive moment was letting young marketer called Jean Liga ASCO put up a series of Vox pops about what people thought of redevelopment and Belfast. And it had subtitles. If the locals needed subtitles, I wasn't that bad.

Ellie: There are a lot of accents in Northern Ireland.

All right. So tell me about how you started your business. 

Eve Earley: I describe myself as a reluctant entrepreneur because I came with a business plan. I mean, I actually had planned to open, um, you know, a kind of proper bricks and mortar business. Um, but clearly, uh, the recession was not the time and I started doing some networking and the first work that I got was.

Kind of embarrassing to say this, and I'm not putting myself down when I do it was hired an awful lot in the beginning, based on my accent. Have a, a [00:06:00] sense here that, um, I don't know, we don't welcome our own as much as we welcome quote unquote, an outsider. Um, but one of the things that I was doing was presentation skills for young people who were presenting for investment or, um, competitions, things like seed corner and the like, and I, I used to joke with my friends at home saying I'm really just sort of being a Jewish mother, stand up straight, protect your voice.

They're not telling people you're wonderful because heaven forbid we get above our station. You're telling people your product is wonderful. So I have to say it was fun. It was right up my alley. And I found out that I was a good networker and networking was new. Um, there weren't a lot, there were a couple of BNIs, one that failed and Dundalk, um, and I got very involved in networking in John doll, Canary.

And, um, I started connecting people and then I started running groups because while I trained as a career counselor, there wasn't a market for it. People couldn't figure out what good I could be if there were no jobs about right on. Um, so I just put myself in a position where people got to know me and trust me, and then I was able to build a practice.

Ellie: And so what do you love about your business? 

Eve Earley: There's a moment I'm in a relationship with a career developments clients, or even the people who. Who attend, um, the artist's way workshops, which are, uh, right now I'm working with a big population. Who's moving into retirement or into Encore careers. And there is a moments when the penny drops and someone suddenly gets that they aren't their job title.

They aren't what they've been doing for the last five or 10 or 15 years [00:08:00] that they really can or be, or do anything. They set their mind to, once they get clear it's it's like, there just aren't words for that aha moments when someone really comes to believe that about themselves, right. 

Ellie: When they get to a really specific, like when they get really clear, they get clarity, it seems like, 

Eve Earley: yeah.

I, in my own life, I find, I call it finding my true north. 

Ellie: True north. I like it. I like it. And so tell me a little bit, um, I like to ask everybody what help they have in their business, because I think when you see solopreneurs like this, there's a lot, sometimes this myth that we actually do it all ourselves.

And I think when we start out, we do, but then eventually you can't keep on like that forever. Right. So tell me a little bit about the help you have. 

Eve Earley: No, I think, um, and as you mentioned, we met through Alison Matthews [00:09:00] and I would've met Alison a virtual assistant. Um, I would've met her through a networking group in Bambridge and she's a home comer.

And as you described us both as Americans living here, um, I truly believe that blowin's as they call us. And so governors have an entirely different perspective. We speak a different language and, um, whatever it was about her, like I knew what a virtual assistant did. But whatever it was about Allison's presentation and the way she would break it down, you know, different different months.

We only meet once a month, she'd present a different aspect of her business. I don't know. She was just very approachable and convinced me that that was going to be the number one. Critical, um, outsourcing I was going to have to do. And then [00:10:00] GDPR happened, and that was my cry uncle moment. And suddenly I had a relationship with a virtual assistant and I, you know, I had all manner of help coming and tools.

And, you know, as you well know the tools that help you automate your business. Um, and someone to just hold your hand in that process. 

Ellie: Yeah, absolutely. I think having help from virtual assistants and other things like that are super, super helpful and working with contractors makes it so that you have that flexibility in your business to get help without necessarily having, being tied down to a certain level of like when you are having an employee. You know, 

Eve Earley: I also think there's this real hesitation I, you know, and the first thing everybody says is, well, I can't afford that. Um, because we know how long it takes us to put out an email sequence when we don't know what we're doing. But as you know, from your [00:11:00] past experiences of VA and, and Alison, like, what do you mean that took you 15 minutes contract for five hours in a month?

And, you know, the BA is calling you toward the end of the month, reminding you that you still have two hours to you. 

Ellie: There's something about letting people work within their zone of zone of genius. And there's something about knowing that if you're working with Europe in your own zone of genius, you can make the money to pay that person so much easier.

Absolutely. Like I, I think I've talked about this on the season of the podcast, but I edited the entire season. One of my podcasts by myself. And at the end of the season, I was like, Nope, no more, not happening. And so I w I searched around, found someone that I wanted to edit my podcasts and went, that's an investment.

And then I thought, you know what? I will find the money because it is like, as opposed to me being not only is it going to save me time, [00:12:00] energy, and all of that. But it might save my marriage a little bit. Like, like not meeting, you know, my husband having to tip toe around my desk and like, is she going to like freak out?

Because she's really stressed out about trying out how to do audio mixing when she doesn't get audio mixing, it all works out. All right. So tell me about some of those tools you were talking about you, how you have some tools. And I want to hear what simple tools and systems you're using to do business with ease.

Eve Earley: So the first thing that I put into place was help for GDPR in the way of a virtual assistant. And at the time she snapped me up, set me up on MailChimp and, uh, from there a newsletter, uh, went out and I actually took advantage of some marketing assistance, uh, um, uh, program, uh, through one of the council areas which offered, um, help Denise SAML, uh, digital den.

Okay, very cool. One of the best things about networking is when you engage [00:13:00] with people and they're the right fit for you, help you figure out how to best work with them, you know, and at the time Denise was able to sign post-MI to the program that was going to help pay for her. Yeah. And so that's really an important piece of getting help.

Ask the helper. How best to engage with them. Yeah. So at that point, um, there was help with the newsletter, MailChimp was in place. And the next thing that went into place, I think was calendar. Um, there are other tools out there acuity, but a scheduling tool so that I didn't have to play email tag with people trying to figure out when we should get together.

Yeah. And maybe some point I had a situation this morning where someone needs, she needed to, um, reschedule for the third time. And this is something that if we had been doing this in person, I would have blown off this [00:14:00] person and this meeting, but the fact that it was being all handled on calendar and I was not in the least bit.

I was not in the least bit inconvenienced and I could very graciously and honestly say, don't give it a thought, just put something else on the calendar. So irritable piece going around us and has allowed me to be far more gracious with potential clients. 

Ellie: Yeah, I think it does help when you, you, and it helps you put those boundaries in place, right?

It makes it easier for you to respect your own time and commitment while creating a lot of flexibility and availability for your clients. It's a really good win-win. It is usually the tool that I'd recommend first to people. If you have no systems in your business, the very first thing I tell people to do is get a booking software.

Eve Earley: Yeah, no, I, and I couldn't agree more. And then the other one, and I'm still learning it, um, is Trello. [00:15:00] And, um, that in terms of working with virtual assistant helps manage whether it's a sauna or Trello or any of the other platforms you decide to use. You find the one that works for you. I think it was you who suggested Trello because I'm much more visual.

I've discovered this feature, which the VA has not yet objected to, but you get your notification that there's something on Trello and you get to respond by email. Yes. No, I don't know whether I'm as expert as I could be with the platform, but it is in place and it is making your life easier.. Yeah. 

Ellie: And I think that that's sort of the point, like you don't have to be an expert in the platform, as long as you can work it in a way that's works for you.

So if it, if you love being able to respond to those emails, that's great. If you don't like to have to go sign in and find where the notifications are and all of that, like if it's just handy or that it's in your inbox, that's part of the point, right? 

Eve Earley: Yeah. Definitely. 

And then the other tools that are in place.

So things like buffer, some people use HootSweet, but they're really the things that are making it possible for the virtual assistant to help me. Um, and at that point, I honestly would encourage people go ahead, but calendar into place for yourself, but then find a VA book, a couple of hours to determine how to streamline your business.

And then. Get the kind of input that's going to help you. Not waste time with the tools because that's a rabbit hole. You don't want me to go down yourself. Yeah. Really want an extra pair of hands, you know, as in your case saying, yeah, no, if visual, is it, try Trello, not well check out these four platforms.

Yeah. 

Ellie: Right. And that's a w essentially a big part of why I started the capable collective free community. Um, so I've got a free Facebook group and it's essentially that it's people saying, how do I do do this thing? Wait, what tool do you use for that? Does anyone know how [00:17:00] to do this thing? And it's very, very helpful because it's a community.

Um, women in business and we're kind of working to pull back the curtain on the mechanical side of business, because we all have these great ideas, but there's no reason that you would need to fall down the rabbit hole of project management software. I go kid, you not, I get an advert for a new one, like all the time because of this sort of what I, you know, the tools thing.

It's my, it's my life, but I kid you not, there's probably a hundred on the market, at least. So, yeah. There's no reason to dive into that when you can get good recommendations. 

Eve Earley: And the last one is staying current. Um, you know, for those of us who, who were, are required to do a continuing education CPD, I think we call them here.

The continuing education units stateside. Once we become micro-business owners or solopreneurs, we also need to be doing continuing education in systems. Which is [00:18:00] not to say I need to be expert at all of them, but I do frequently tune into what the virtual assistants are saying about running an event or setting up a course, previewing a new platform.

I think you're doing one coming up on memberships and Squarespace. Yes. I don't need to be the expert. I can hire someone to do that, but I do need to know enough about what I don't know to decide what's next. 

Ellie: Absolutely true. Yeah. And I think that, like I said, there's, and like you said, there's so much, that's always coming out and there's new systems and new tools or new features in these tools that will make our lives easier.

And so updating your understanding of these tools. Can make it so much easier for you to make your business work. Yeah. All right. Well, bring it back [00:19:00] around to the actual topic of this season. We're talking about working with your natural rhythms. Will you tell me a little bit about that in your work and in your life?

Eve Earley: So I talk about being a, an entrepreneur by necessity or a reluctant entrepreneur. Um, I also talk about the mission and purpose of my work is to have people be able to find their true north, um, with a much shorter learning curve than I had. And as far as working with rhythms, that didn't happen to me until I moved here and it happened for two reasons.

And I think pandemic. Has has made this real for people. I was able to step away and out of all of the automatic responses in my life, things were fresh and new. I also, once I became self-employed and even in my job, because I wasn't working nine to five, um, when I first came, I was up with the sun, which 54th parallel.

In about April is five o'clock in the morning. But what I, what I learned was even come winter where I'm about five or six in the morning, till 11, I am in high gear. I, it doesn't matter what I put my mind to doing. It gets done in half the time and far more creatively. I'm not sure. I would have learned that about myself until perhaps I had retired, um, from traditional work.

Give yourself a chance to do that. Whether or not you go on vacation, but do one of these download one of these mood charts or whatever else, and look at the rhythm of your day. And then look at the rhythm of the seasons because. The worst thing that happened to humanity was the [00:21:00] industrial age and the clock.

I'd also argue daylight savings time, but that's another conversation. We are not programmed to work 24, seven, 12 months a year. You know, if you look at the natural world, there is a rhythm. There are exuberant Springs. There are, you know, amazing energy in this. There's amazing energy in the summertime when there's all that light.

And in full, as the light is waning, an agrarian society bites it and brings in the crops and they work against the waning light to bring in those crops. And then they collapse. And they properly go into slow gear for November, December, January [00:22:00] until the thaws and February. And then they pick up again, it's perfectly reasonable for us to pace ourselves, you know, and, and to look at, I mean, I have clients who I can predict when they're going to come to me and tell me they're depressed.

And it's around the 15th of November. And at some point you just want to say it's seasonal, effective disorder. You know, it's really just seasonal, take it easy, lower your expectations, lower your expectations of yourself. So ritual and habit really needs to follow the seasons. And the last thing I would encourage people to do is get a chart, a lunar chart.

There's no accident that the word lunacy is related to the word lunar. [00:23:00] And honestly, if you just chart your moods around what three or four cycles of the moon, are you also going to see changes, embrace them. You know, I know for me, it's the new moon. The new moon is the darkest. I dunno why we call it the new moon, but it's the darkest it's when you can't see anything, I have traditionally, you know, brought a gathering of friends and people together, you know, in this kind of celebration that says.

Um, okay. It's the darkest day and we are not going to despair. Um, start your month from there. 

Ellie: That's really cool. And it does talk about, you've kind of touched on a lot of points that we've had this season where I've had a lot of people talk. We've had somebody come in and talk about living with nature seasons.

We've had someone talking about living and working with lunar cycles. We've had someone come on and talk about menstrual cycles. [00:24:00] Um, we've had someone come out and talk about morning routines, which I know is another thing you're a big proponent of is having a good routine and morning pages and kind of following some of those things.

So I think it's, it's, it's really cool to hear this all kind of coming together as some of the most influential things in your life have been the same as some of the topics and some of the things that have been really influential and other guests lives. 

Eve Earley: There's a book called wintering. Um, the author is British and she was interviewed on a wonderful podcast called on being comes out of the states on being.org.

And you can Google wintering and on being, and you'll hear a wonderful talk essentially on that, but also respecting it as a life stage. Because it is absolutely ridiculous for me to expect, um, at [00:25:00] 66 to have the same energy levels that I did at 26. So again, it's, um, wintering and I highly recommend it. 

Ellie: I will definitely need to read that.

So can you tell me a little bit about some of the, how those things actually work in your life? And so things like your, your morning productivity and how you harness that and how you. Your how your days look, um, and some of your routines and those kinds of things that you, that you work with, or if there's certain types of work that you keep really for the more energized parts of the year, um, so that you can kind of tone down and the winter rain, the stages of the year.

Eve Earley: So about 30 years ago, when the book, the artist's way came out, I picked it up, you know, and I found it helpful. And I managed to get through the 12 chapters, the 12 weeks of the book, and never wants to, um, the prescribed tool, the bedrock tool called the morning pages. [00:26:00] A couple of years later, I did it in a facilitated group.

And that's basically what I grounded my work in. And I ground my work in, in, uh, in part to keep me honest and keep me doing the morning pages, which is simply. A routine that the author Costes meditation for Westerners, because those of us who aren't particularly good at being still or listening to our inner voices, we are waking and as close to that unconscious state pouring out everything onto the page.

For me, I'd argue that it creates a vacuum where I put everything negative or that I didn't know was bothering me or whatever comes up. Sometimes it's the shopping list on the page. Um, and then I'm fresh for the day to start. In my case, it also has me writing and it allows me [00:27:00] then to create the necessary content for my work.

I've been working on a post storytelling project. Um, where I have for the last few years been assembling photos and family stories. And the like, as a, um, as a means, if you will, of communicating with grandchildren who are across the pond, um, one of the things that I think we've all experienced in pandemic is without the family gathering Sunday dinners or the holiday dinners and the life.

We've missed the opportunity to have that kind of intergenerational experience, those conversations that happen and are overheard among the grandparents, the grandparents who are in-laws, who are getting to know each other and younger families, um, where. Really is that, is that how, what you did or, oh, your grandmother worked in a defense plant too.

And [00:28:00] just all of the stories about how we became who we are with our worldview, how we're oriented to the world. So writing is important to me and those morning pages get me started and I'm able now at this stage of my life, self-employed able to do that kind of writing from between say six or seven and 10, 11 o'clock in the morning.

And then I can base client times and schedules energized in a different way. Seasonally. My groups work in 12 week groups. And, uh, so I, I don't take on a new group between November and the 15th of February. It's just, yeah, I've just learned to respect my energy. 

Ellie: That's huge. I think so much of the reason I'm doing this season of the podcast is because I'm really not great at most of this stuff spending the time in the morning, too.

Whatever it is, you know, whatever your morning routine is, whether it's working out or journaling or morning pages or meditation or yoga or whatever, whatever it is, essentially, all of those practices help you be aligned with yourself and in tune with yourself, doing that and being in alignment can ripple out to the rest of your life.

You're right. You then go and to every stage of your life, your business, your marriage, your relationships as a better and more whole person, because you're listening to yourself. And I think that that's a practice that I need to get better at is just spending the time listening to them myself. 

Eve Earley: Well, but, but it's, it's a conversation.

And I just read this recently and I'm going to have to remember the source, but it's this conversation that you're having, not just Eve with myself in this time and place at this life stage. I'm meeting my child self, my adolescent self, my rebellious self. When I'm, when I'm reading in the page, there is a community of who I have been, where I am and who I would like to become.

So we're meeting every version of ourselves. And the only thing I would caution you is be gentle in your expectations. You know, the thing about the morning pages and the artist's way, disciplines, tools, and tasks. Is Cameron. And she speaks openly of this is in recovery for many, many years and a hundred years ago in the days.

Well, and in the 1930s and forties, when AA was founded, there were no rehabs. And if someone presented themselves and said they wanted to get sober, they were told to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. And it's very interesting because now we understand the neuroscience. Of doing an activity or adapting a behavior and doing it consistently over that period of time, three months, there is something about 90 days and you just change one little thing.

You don't have to change your life. Start a physical training program and a cooking course and a this and that, that one little thing, just pick up one thing for three months. And if it's not working for you after that, let it go and pick up something else. 

Ellie: I think that there's loads of things like that, where you do need to be mindful, that things take.

Time. And as somebody like me, I'm a recovering perfectionist. I am an Enneagram one. I I'm really hard on myself. Um, I always want to do things at like the highest level that I possibly can and really get upset if I have this something isn't to the standards that are set for myself. And I think the pandemic's been really tough on me in that way to where I don't have the bandwidth that I would normally have to be the overachieving.

And I'm putting this in air quotes, like overachieving person that I'd like to be. Um, and it's brought me down to like being more in just my day to day life. And I've been forever grateful that I simplified my business before the pen or kind of as the pandemic set in. But yeah, I think those things like remembering to take, to be kind to yourself is something we all should be practicing.

And I think those things that we do to tune in with ourselves are a kindness. We're we're when you are listening to yourself, you can. Be more empathetic to whatever you're going through. You know, if I don't tune in and I don't know that say maybe I didn't tune in and I didn't realize that I slept really poorly that day, that I might not know why I'm really grumpy the next day.

And it's those kinds of things. 

Eve Earley: It's when the blindingly obvious isn't and that's how we go through life. We go through life with this automaticity. That says, [00:33:00] oh, it's seven. O'clock the alarm rang. I have to get out of bed and go into high gear and, and that's a kind of professionalism. There's a wonderful, and, and every one of Cameron's books, you can go to the back, look up perfectionism and trust me, there's a whole chapter, but she's this wonderful quote that really puts it in perspective for me because I too am a recovering perfectionist.

I wouldn't have called myself a perfectionist until a therapist. Friends said, you know, if you were one of my clients, I couldn't actually say this to you, but since you're my friend, I'm going to, would you stop being such a bloody perfection? And my reaction to it was. If I were a perfectionist things would not be going as badly in my life.

Ellie: Sorry. I'm only laughing because that is like so on the news for me. 

Eve Earley: But, but if you can't laugh at that, then you're really not [00:34:00] understanding that you're probably a perfectionist, but Cameron has this fabulous quote and it's. If I didn't have to do it perfectly, what would happen? Well, you'd get a lot more done than you're doing now.

So give the gift to yourself, a productivity by just lowering your standard too. Good enough? 

Ellie: Yeah, I think that's, it's not just even just about productivity even. It's. I don't know any other perfectionist that don't struggle with this. So, but like, if you don't do a good enough job, then you beat yourself up over it.

Or if you are really pushing yourself, you're so much more stressed out than you need to be. And it's those types of like, add on benefits that you get from just like toning it down a bit. And it, it takes practice. Don't get me wrong. I would not say that [00:35:00] I'm anywhere near like. I've got this sorted because I don't, but I'm working on it.

Eve Earley: Yeah. Yeah. For me, it manifests itself in not trying things, you know, whether it was skiing or art forms or the like, because if I couldn't get it right the first time I assumed I would never get it right. As opposed to. Getting the help I needed to upskill to do it, to practice in perfectly to get it right, 

Ellie: To let yourself be a beginner.

Eve Earley: And that's, you know, that's another message that comes through loudly and clearly, and all of the titles of the artist's way. And all of the coursework that I do and Cameron's quote is the sustained ingredient and a creative life as the humility to start the new.

Ellie: Hmm. Absolutely. So if [00:36:00] somebody were going to start tuning in to their own natural rhythms and working a little bit more along those ways, what recommendations would you have?

Eve Earley: So my, my recommendation would be to read up on the artist's way series. Julia Cameron can be found at her website, Julia Cameron, live.com. There's a wonderful guardian article. If you're going to sit here and tell me you're not looking for creativity guru, there's a wonderful guardian article called, uh, just Google morning pages will change your life.

And it's a recommendation for the morning pages apart and aside and independent of the artist's way process. Um, and what I try to do with tools is just credit. Um, where they came from, they were originator tasks and tools are only as good as your willingness to work them and whether or not they actually even work for you.

And you can explore all of that on my website, which is empowering-changed.com. You know, and you can dip a toe in and explore it, um, or book a call or. Whatever, but just, you know, know that I'm not in this to sell the book or a program, but really to have you imagine that there's a penny that can drop that allows you to find your true north to get out of your own way, if you will.

Ellie: Yeah. So just kind of recapping some of the things we talked about, we talked about having, um, a bit of a morning routine. But like allowing yourself to be a little flexible with that. Again, you don't have to jump out of bed. If you've had a really crap night's sleep to experiment with new tools and systems, um, new [00:38:00] routines, new things, give yourself quite a lot of time and try and be really consistent.

But then if it just isn't working after a couple of months, it's okay to like shed that and find something better that suits you. There is no one size fits all. And then the last thing you mentioned, quite a lot was finding some sort of tool to record, and that could be a worksheet. It could be writing it down. It could be an app. Um, but recording your, your practices and your routines, um, so that it's easier to stick with it. Right? 

Eve Earley: Absolutely. And, and the bottom line is don't go it alone. Um, one of the things that comes out of, you know, our conversation on getting help in your business, you know, our conversation on getting help with whatever it is you decide you want to do is not to go it alone.

I call it having a family of choice. You know, we all have families of origin. [00:39:00] But by surrounding ourselves with people who are living a life in process who are working on being a better version of themselves, that's who you want in your orbit. 

Ellie: Yeah. Surrounding yourself with community is huge. It's so important to have people that get it in our lives.

Right. No matter what the, it is to have people that understand where we're at. 

Eve Earley: Definitely 

Ellie: so important. All right. So. Last few questions. What has been your biggest win in business so far? 

Eve Earley: Really? And I owe it to the pandemic. You helped me, um, get a new website up and running and get my business online in 2019.

And I had a very difficult times speaking to the people who I had been speaking to my practice was largely between Dublin and Belfast and convincing them that we could move the next group online. We tend to go through a progression of courses and the like, uh, [00:40:00] Noey. W we really have to see each other.

We couldn't possibly do this online and then pandemic. And so not only did I have people embrace the idea of meeting up and doing groups online, I was able to then bring a larger, um, and I have to say mostly American and Canadian, uh, north American audience. And, and it has changed the dynamic enormously because we do have cultural obstacles to change.

And I think people hearing each other's challenges in different voices and different perspectives has it's really made an amazing difference. 

Ellie: Yeah. I love that. And what would you say on the flip side has been your biggest mistake or learning experience? 

Eve Earley: So the biggest mistake or learning experience in my business and in my life is self-doubt when I don't have the competence.

And I would argue when we collectively don't have the confidence, um, when we're not clear about the fact that we're on a right track, whether it is a life choice or a word choice, that's utterly congratulate with our values. And that's the bottom line for me about right track. We make decisions with our heads and not our guts.

And so my regrets are those decisions that I have made with my head and not trusted my gut and chosen unworthy partners had not had that proper tribe of believing mirrors of people who were supportive and honest and authentic. Um, so yeah. And I'm learning slowly 

Ellie: You all are. We all are. I think we've all had those moments and we all will continue to have those moments, but it is self-trust is something that is so easy when, when you actually remember to do it, but it's so easy to kind of forget to do that sometimes to tune in, to focus on the gut.

It can be, our brains are so loud, much louder than our, our like, intuition. And are, um, like self-critic and like interfere of how things work can be a lot louder than our intuition as well. 

Eve Earley: Yeah. And I've learned really to understand when I say that I opted for my head over my gut, uh, that it's ego, um, and that that's not the truest representation of me.

So, so I encourage. I encourage people to look at their disappointments and regrets in terms of where they were coming from. Forget all the outside influences, forget blame. And if you need encouragement there, there's a fabulous RSA video. I think it's three minutes. FiberNet brown on blame and you'll never do it again.

So yeah. Trusting your gut trusting yourself. Um, and not your head, not your ego. 

Ellie: That's totally. That's. That's amazing. Are you working on anything exciting right now? 

Eve Earley: Very. So there, um, there was, uh, there is a, uh, Philadelphia area psychologist called Dan Gottlieb. You says the five most powerful words in the English language are, tell me your story.

And as a blow in. I mean, that was how I learned about this place. You know, we joked about accents and things like that, but just because I spoke the language did not mean that I was ready, um, especially for life and medial space. That is the border between the Republican Northern [00:44:00] Ireland. So I, I have spent the better part of the last 12 years asking people to tell me their stories.

So I understand where they're coming from and it has made me humble. And empathetic and far more open-minded than I think I would have been in my life in America. And I see us all in this place right now, where we need to heal. We need to be able to embrace each other and not other each other. And so, so this storytelling workshop is going to use the.

Kind of rhythm of, it's never too late to begin again, which is the artist's way book. Um, for starting over the artist, Ray in retirement is how it's actually published here in Europe. And we're going to take a look at the lives of our families. Our stories [00:45:00] are familial unconscious between 1947 and 2015 and each week we're going to explore a seven year period.

Um, and. You know, 46 to 52, I wasn't born yet, but I do know that my parents and grandparents experiences of those years, post war in the life shaped who I am. And so, um, I'm looking forward to doing that with a, uh, with a group of, uh, the first group will be Bita testers, and, uh, just having a, a chance to tell our stories.

Not to convince anyone, not to teach anyone, just to invite other people here. Um, how we came to be the people that we are. 

Ellie: That is so cool. I love that idea. It's almost like the deeper form of like genealogies, essentially. It's the it's, it's more than just the [00:46:00] names and dates of where you came from. It is the whole story that has created you. I love that. 

Eve Earley: So it, it actually, I, I was having a casual conversation with some folks and some remarks were made about immigrants to Ireland. And I kept in my polite smile, but I was raging inside and there's an expression. I, I don't know to whom it is owed. However, if it's hysterical, it's historical. And I had to do a deep dive to find out where that rage was coming from, because yes, I'm an immigrant to Ireland, but like it's not been an immigrant experience like folks coming from post-war or post, you know, just conflict areas or economic need.

Why was I going ballistic? And then I was catapulted back to that. Family dinners of my childhood were around those tables. We were all the first and second generation of immigrants. So they were talking about my parents and my grandparents in this core way. Yeah, no, I don't have to get angry at the person who's intolerant. I can simply witness my story. 

Ellie: That's beautiful. All right. So tell everyone where they can find you. I know you mentioned it before, but we'll circle back 

Eve Earley: empowering-change.com. Um, and it's empowering change without an, a and change on Twitter or an bond Facebook empowering change. And, um, that's literally it.

I hope that what in the end we're doing is what it says on the gin. 

Ellie: Fantastic. I'll put all of that in the show notes as well, so, right. Thank you so much for coming on Eve.

Eve Earley: Oh, thank you. It's fun. A lovely opportunity.

Ellie: Thank you for listening to the capable collective podcast. I, I really hope you enjoy this episode and have gotten value from it. If you did, please subscribe on your chosen listening. And if you happen to be listening over on apple podcasts, please take a moment to leave a review. It helps other people to find and trust this podcast.

And it would mean the world to me. This episode was edited by Emily Crosby media. She's amazing to work with. And if you are looking to start a podcast or for some practical media solutions, definitely check her out. Thank you so much. Again, have a great day.