#awinewith Heidi Albertiri
MEET Heidi
Heidi is the founder of The Lifestyle Edit, You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:07):
Heidi, welcome to Spark tv.
Heidi Albertiri (00:11):
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
Very excited to have you on the show. You came very highly recommended. So yes, I'm excited to talk to you and share your story.
Heidi Albertiri (00:22):
Oh, cool. I hope I can live up to the expectation.
Danielle Lewis (00:25):
I am sure you will. So let's start there. Who are you and what do you do?
Heidi Albertiri (00:32):
Well, so my name's Heidi. I have a business called the Lifestyle Edit. We're based in Ji Beach in Sydney. I have a digital marketing and content agency. So all that fluffiness really means that we take care of digital businesses today. So anything a digital business needs to run in the world today, which is very different to what it used to be. It's so things like social media, imagery, content, all the reels and photography videos, digital ads, strategy, all those things we basically do at the lifestyle edit.
Danielle Lewis (01:14):
How good. I love it. And it's so interesting. I don't believe operate a business without any of those things these days.
Heidi Albertiri (01:22):
Not anymore, no. And it's probably when you look at those future forecasts of jobs that don't exist today, that will be big in five years or 10 years in a million years, did I ever think that I would be running my own agency Now it's just didn't exist for me before.
Danielle Lewis (01:43):
Yeah, I know. I reflect on that often about time at uni a decade or so ago, and I go, wow, social media didn't even exist back then.
Heidi Albertiri (01:54):
No, it
Danielle Lewis (01:55):
So crazy. And now my entire life revolves around posting reels.
Heidi Albertiri (02:00):
Yeah, right.
Danielle Lewis (02:01):
Yeah,
Heidi Albertiri (02:02):
It's extraordinary. I'm 50, so when I went to school, didn't, there was no computers, even at high school, we didn't have computers. It wasn't, computers weren't a thing that existed until much later on. Even I had businesses in my thirties and we didn't even need to have a website back then. So 20 years ago it was very different.
Danielle Lewis (02:24):
Yeah. Well, I mean, that's an interesting thought. What is your background? So how did you get into digital marketing agency territory?
Heidi Albertiri (02:32):
Good question. I never went to university. I've never really studied. I went to TAFE and I studied floristry for a year and I became a florist and I opened my first flower shop when I was 19.
Danielle Lewis (02:44):
Wow.
Heidi Albertiri (02:45):
Full of positivity and energy and time and rose colored glasses. Really, I didn't know what I was doing. I just made it up as I went along and I bought a little old flower shop in Newtown in Sydney, and I just thought, yeah, I can do this. And then I just did it, and then I just kept doing it and I learned on the run and I built it up to be quite successful business, and then sold it and did it again. And I just kind of kept doing that until I got to my last one. I had my son when I was 30, and I went back and I started a shop after I had him, after he was year old, I felt like I'd still had some unfinished business in the industry. I still wanted to kick a few goals and make sure I'd done everything that I could do in it.
(03:35):
And I did that. And that was my last shop in Paddington in Sydney. And once I finished that, I just kind of ballsy, again, I don't know why or how I got it, but I sent an email out to all my contacts that I'd made and someone at home beautiful magazine had replied and said, we are looking for an assistant stylist if you're interested. And I was like, sure, I've got no experience in that, but if you're willing to give me a go, I'll give it my best shot. And it worked. And then five years later, I was a style editor to there, and then I finished up there and moved into digital media. I saw a real shift happening in the print media industry, and I just thought, there's something in this. There's something in this. So yeah.
Danielle Lewis (04:20):
Yeah, it's certainly not going anywhere, anytime. No,
Heidi Albertiri (04:24):
It's not. No.
Danielle Lewis (04:26):
So how did you, I'm just reflecting on your comment, never went to uni and then have taken bigger ballsy steps like opening retail businesses, then moving into a completely new career, then moving in a completely new direction again, going into digital. How have you learned then if you never went to uni and you keep changing all the time?
Heidi Albertiri (04:50):
Yeah, good question. My son says to me all the time, he uses it against me. See, you didn't go to uni. I'm
Danielle Lewis (04:55):
Like, it's important. It's important.
Heidi Albertiri (04:59):
Look, I think it's a different time as well. I think the one thing I do do when the way I operate is I educate myself. So I might not have gone to uni and done the time there, but I read and I watch and I observe, and I'm very strategic about where I've put myself over the years. So when I wanted to buy a flower shop, I got a job at the flower market because that's where the whole industry went every single day. And so I watched and I learned, and I listened from the people who had gone before me, and I looked at what they did and then I went, how does that work for me? And what can I do to get where I want to be? So I was always working towards something, even though I didn't really know what it was or how I was going to get there, I knew that I wanted it to be something.
(05:52):
So I've just always done that and I've just always, I taken a little bit of a risk as far as putting myself forward for what I knew my skills could measure up to. So if I don't know something, I'll educate myself and learn or I'll get advice or I surround myself now in my business with extraordinary young women who are completely capable of running the world and we all work together. And I think eventually you have experience to know that's going to work or that's not going to work, or maybe we should try this or let's look at it in a different way. You can't ever, as an entrepreneur, not that I call myself that, but as women working for themselves in the world now, you always have to stick to your instinct and how you do things, but you can never be so stuck in your ways that you never take advice or learnings from people around you and outside of you. It's really important.
Danielle Lewis (06:55):
Oh, absolutely. And I think just the world changes so quickly now as well. You can't sit still. You really do, like you say, have to be learning, connecting with other people. And I do like that, trust yourself and back yourself, but be open to hearing the signals and incorporating and innovating. Otherwise you do kind of get left behind
Heidi Albertiri (07:21):
Because there's always something that we can take from every conversation that we have with someone, and even someone's lack of seeing something, we can learn from that. That alone is a lesson in itself. So never stop learning ever. You just got to keep looking for new information and how can we do this and why do we want to do this and what do people need and how can we meet that? How can we go above and beyond? How can we do it differently than everyone else is doing? It's important to not sit back too much. I'm working from Melbourne at the moment. My team's all in Sydney. I'm obviously having your moments of I'm in Melbourne on. That's nice, but you have to keep the ball rolling.
Danielle Lewis (08:08):
Yeah. Well I, and it's interesting you say that. What's your perspective on the old hustle culture that we're all saying is canceled and over, or do you have a perspective still on the hustle bandwagon? So this girl at this event asked me, I went to a business networking event and we're all trading stories. So it's like, oh yeah, I've run this for 10 years, blah, blah. She's like, oh. She's like, when did you feel like you were totally all over it and everything? I was like, I still don't, is that day coming? So then it always interests me like hustle, culture is over. And then some people are on the mindset of, well, you really have to hustle in the beginning, but then you can kind of start to perhaps get a bit of balance going on. But I don't think that's right.
Heidi Albertiri (08:54):
What's your thoughts on it? You I'm like, you can sleep when you're dead, guys. Seriously, I'm 50, my partner, right? Here's an example. Guy 65 launched a tech company in his sixties and traveling the world start again because he is just obsessed with business. And look, I love balance. I'm a Pisces, so I know a lot of people. I get a lot in my day. So I'm up at four, I meditate, then I put my swimmers on, I go to the beach, I exercise, I run, I swim, I train, I have my coffee, I come back by seven 30, I've done a whole day and then I start my day with my team. So we've changed a lot of the way we work and I think you can, I'm old school, so my thinking pre or two years ago was you turn up at the office, you do your work, you put in the hard yards, you get shit done.
(10:01):
You don't leave until you're done and then you can go home. And I always manage my team that they always have a balance. I'm probably the one that expects more my personality and what I expect of myself. But also we changed. So we moved our office, we got rid of our massive studio where we were shooting all the time. We got rid of them in the massive space that I was paying crazy amounts of rent to someone else with. We've moved into to, I have an apartment in Koji, so we work from there two days a week. The girls only come in Mondays and Thursdays now all the other days they work from home. We were supposed to have a team meeting today and I had to just adjust the time. And one of the girls was like, I can't do that. I'm having my eyebrows waxed.
(10:49):
And it's like she's running out doing that in between. So I guess we find balance in our culture and the way we operate as a team as far as you are all grownups is what I say to them. You're all grownups. You have to work this amount to get paid. You do that in your week. As long as you are connecting with your clients, you're connecting with me, you are doing a really good job and we're all staying connected. Go and get your eyebrows waxed and go for a run and go to your Pilates class in the middle of the day. I don't mind that, but you have to be responsible for managing your time within my business and respect that. And do you know what? The girls always show up when I need them. Always. They're unreal. So we have created that balance and it works really well. But I think a lot of people expect to find the balance way too early. And it's like, my thinking is, guys, if you want to be extraordinary, you've got to do a bit extra. Just don't wait for it all to come to you and be a magical entrepreneur that's making a hundred thousand a month. And it just to be like you have to do nothing. That's like fantasy land really. I just don't think, I don't know, maybe I'm in the wrong industry or wrong age, but I don't know if that happens. Does it
Danielle Lewis (12:11):
Happen? I don't think it does. Look, and I think depending on the type of business you have, perhaps there is in the very, very early days, a lot of stuff you've got to get off the ground. And also you are one person in the early days. I think perhaps it's magnified because you are creating the website yourself and out there selling and delivering whatever you're selling. And then as you grow, you can get people. So maybe there feels like there's a little bit of balance, but I trying to think if you're a business owner and you are willing to put yourself under that level of stress, once you get a team member, you're just thinking of the next idea that's going to take up all that time.
Heidi Albertiri (12:54):
I speak to a lot of women in business as well. You would, and one of the things I hear from them is, oh, it's just not working. And all the whinging and it's like, are you doing this? Are you doing this? Oh no, I don't have time. It's like, is it a business or is it a hobby? Guys,
Danielle Lewis (13:15):
Come find time. Let's
Heidi Albertiri (13:16):
Get real. How much money are you going to sink into a hobby that you are not going to commit every single breath to make successful? If you've done all that and it still doesn't work, then maybe you are doing something wrong and you need some support or coaching around it. But I hear so many women say to me, oh, it's just not working. But they're not putting the time and effort into them. It doesn't just come easily. You have to work at, especially now, look at it, look at how many people are in business and what your competition is these days.
Danielle Lewis (13:47):
Totally. And I was watching a masterclass the other day, American Express put it on and had the founder of Frank Body and the founder of Hero Packaging. And they were like, so they had the same kind of rant where people say, it's not working, I dunno what to do. And they're like, oh no, but I don't want to use social media. Or they say, I don't want to do this. It's like, cool, but then you've got to double down on something else. And the girls were saying, they're like, people think that something like social media as a channel, you just show up, you create your post, whatever. And they're like, we were posting five times, 10 times a day. One at the Frank Body, I can't remember what her name is, Jess. She was saying I would have my alarm set so that I was up before scheduling tools existed, posting at this time, so that when people were waking up in the US, they were seeing my post first. I'm like, that is just the level that some people are willing to go. And if you are not willing to go that hard, fine, but maybe you need to adjust your expectations on how quickly things might pan out.
Heidi Albertiri (14:56):
Yeah. I always say to my team, short-term pain for long-term gain, you've got to put it in, keep putting it in, keep putting it in. And now Jess would be running her business very differently because she would have so much support, but the headache doesn't get less. It just becomes different.
Danielle Lewis (15:14):
Totally. Well then you have team headaches or even more fun,
Heidi Albertiri (15:19):
The financial stuff and all the things. It's all relative. But I don't know. I don't think you can be in business and not want that. That's cool. But where is your happy place and how are you going to get there? So if you are happy making a certain amount of money a month and you get that and you are like, yeah, this works for me and I can have a balanced lifestyle, then that's it. That's your happy place. But don't not put in the effort and not get to where you want to be and then whinge and blame everybody else. I can't handle that.
Danielle Lewis (15:53):
No, I completely agree. I feel like that's just a good life philosophy. Even people who don't have businesses, if they're whinging putting in the effort, I'm like, I can't deal with this.
Heidi Albertiri (16:03):
Yeah, sorry, I'm a mom. No,
Danielle Lewis (16:06):
But it's so true.
Heidi Albertiri (16:08):
Yeah, I have seven young women that work for me and they're awesome, but they're all my daughters. At some stage I'm like, guys, get your shit together. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (16:16):
Totally. Oh, I love it. So how have you found the dynamic change from when you were solo in business to now scaling up to a team of seven?
Heidi Albertiri (16:29):
Yeah. Well it used to be 13 and then the big C hit and then we all changed and recalibrated. But I love having a team around me. It's definitely something I love. I've probably changed the way I work a bit when we were previously because I'm the stylist for all the shoots and stuff we do, and I still am, and I've tried to get different ones in over the years and it just doesn't quite, it's not, doesn't translate into the new way I want the business run. So I pulled myself out of styling and shooting so much. So we do, we're selective on what we shoot, and we work with great brands, so I can go in and out of that without it drawing all my attention now. So if I'm fully in styling, it makes it really difficult to run the rest of the business because as much as the women that work for me are capable and extraordinary, you need to run your business.
(17:34):
I need to be on every day and I need to be guiding. So I feel like I love having a team around me to work with. I love bouncing off the ideas, but I also, and I have a lot of them, but also I've learned to manage that flow with my team who are able to work together to actually make that stuff happen. So I think really when you start managing a team, you really got to be aware of yourself and your behaviors and how you manage and how you delegate. I didn't like to delegate when I first started getting the team, I felt, but now I'm like, okay, just it's part of your job guys. Is this what you want? Do you want this balance of lifestyle where you can go and get your eyebrows done or whatever, go for lunch or Pilates and then do that?
(18:30):
So I guess there's a payoff and you've got to have mutual respect between your team. So everyone's got their own way and style of doing it, but I have a very high expectation of output and the quality of work that we produce. And you can see that by what we do produce. The girls are extraordinary at what they create. I love the way my team manage themselves amongst each other. One of my favorite things to witness is when the girls are sitting together around my dining room table and they're talking about how to work on the lifestyle edit for the next month for our social strategy, because not only do we work for brands and create their strategy and rollout, we also manage the lifestyle, edit exactly the same way. And we have a house that we manage down the south coast that we have that we have designed for photo shoots and things like that.
(19:22):
So that's part of our client list as well. So the girls are constantly working on that to push and create. So that's what gets me excited and seeing them come up with ideas to roll out, and you have to give people the space to be able to do who they are and work to the best that they can do. Not always the best that I can do. I'm good at other things, so I always make sure I do that. And they do. If a girl comes to me and says, I can do this and this is my thing and I want to evolve my position into that, I'm like, great, how can we do that? So I'm happy to evolve and work with people's strengths when you get the best out of them.
Danielle Lewis (20:06):
And somebody once said to me, you're not going to scale unless you do start to let things go. You can't can't be a single person growing this giant Well, and it depends your point before where if you have a goal and that goal is to make whatever income and have balance, fantastic. If you do want to really scale a business, I don't think you can do that yourself. So you do need to, as you say, let go trust people and find great people,
Heidi Albertiri (20:40):
But you have to enroll them in the possibility of creating what you're creating. One of the things I always do is get them excited about what my vision is. So if you can do that and enroll people to come on as part of that journey, then they're going to give it what they've got to actually see that come to a head as well. But you have to be excited and you have to hold people accountable and you have to push them along the journey. Just give someone a list of things to do. They're just going to do the list of things to do.
Danielle Lewis (21:18):
Totally.
Heidi Albertiri (21:20):
You have to push people to go above and beyond. And sometimes that is out of people's comfort zones to do that, but that's part of growing. I always say to the girls that work for me, if you are not ready to look at yourself and own your shit, this is not the right position for you. This is a personal development workshop every single day because I value communication, I value transparency, and I value really good work. So if that's what you're up for, come on board. But not everyone can handle that.
Danielle Lewis (21:58):
They really can't. And it's interesting hiring people with that level of expectation as well. I find that really challenging. I love the, what's the work-life balance at your organization. I'm like, shit house.
Heidi Albertiri (22:17):
Yes.
Danielle Lewis (22:19):
But it is interesting. I feel like you have such a strong sense of vision, strong sense of culture, strong sense of expectations, which I think would help you actually attract the right people, set that expectation internally and get the best work out of people.
Heidi Albertiri (22:37):
But I think it's taken some practice. There was a time when my business was growing really, really fast and I needed to hire, I'd landed a big account and I didn't have enough people to do the output and I had to hire really fast. And so I knew and my instinct was like, no, but I needed to hire because I needed the manpower and I did it. I thought it'll be fine under my management, under my guys, and I'll
Danielle Lewis (23:12):
Make this work.
Heidi Albertiri (23:13):
We can do this. But it didn't. It really didn't. It came back and it bit me on the ass really, because there was two people that upset the culture of the way we operated so badly that it just imploded. Was heartbreaking for me to see firstly that some young lady could come in and destroy another woman's try or just based on her personality because it fit upset that so much. But I learned so much from it. It was the most awful time of my business life at the lifestyle of it. But I can't, the lessons I learned from that is so invaluable and I've taken that and really worked on it and grown again, a really strong team. So it's not always shiny and rainbow happy days. Yeah, no, it's hard work sometimes. At that time, I was really busy and I trusted my team to do all the things, but it was just this thing happening in the background that I just wasn't aware of because I was busy and it just upset so much stuff. And then when it imploded, it really did implode and then you just got to go, okay, how do we all get through this?
Danielle Lewis (24:37):
Yeah. How do we take a giant leap forward, leap forward? Oh my
Heidi Albertiri (24:42):
God.
Danielle Lewis (24:44):
Have you had that before where you didn't trust your gut and it should hit the fan?
Heidi Albertiri (24:49):
Yeah, it was with staff mainly. And occasionally you'll get a client that you go, they're not our ideal client, but we can do the work and we can do a really good job and we can make a difference in their business. But they're probably not aligned in communication styles or just ethics really. And we did it recently and oh, I tell you, it just goes to show again, it's just like it comes up to go, you know what? You should have trusted your instinct. The money wasn't be worth it.
Danielle Lewis (25:28):
You
Heidi Albertiri (25:29):
Go, yep. But I managed it really differently this time. I was just really clear on, please don't speak to my staff that way. That's not how we operate here. We don't think you're aligned with us. Let's draw the line and you can move on and we'll move on. And that was it. But it takes a long time to be able to get to that stage to be able to go, this is not working. It's like a relationship.
Danielle Lewis (25:52):
Yeah, totally. And I think in the early days of business, you are like, I have to say yes to everything. I've got this income goal or revenue goal or whatever it is. And if I say no to people, then how am I ever going to achieve that? But you're so right. Sometimes it's just not worth it. No,
Heidi Albertiri (26:10):
Not worth it. But like you said before, we do attract very aligned businesses. Our client list at the moment, I'm just in love with. I love everybody. And it's so nice to have that, to be able to work with clients who get you, who trust you, allow you to do what you do best because we become an extension of their team so much that they rely on us to do stuff and be in response to what they need. So you have to have good communication. You can't take things personally, and you just have to get on and do the job. So if you are in a situation where you don't have matching communication styles or someone's a little bit rude or aggressive in their communication, it's unnecessary. I just think is that necessary way of communicating? Probably not. Let's just not go there and I just don't need it anymore. I'm too old for rubbish. Obviously I'll take the lessons, but I just don't need to be around people that are not nice.
Danielle Lewis (27:14):
Well, and I mean, it is interesting. We talk about the fact that we perhaps don't have the balance and we are obsessed with our businesses and hustling till the day we die. So then if you are putting in that much effort, this is where I go, when you love your business, you kind of find joy in it. So yes, I work a lot and yes, I'm hustling, and yes, I'm probably stressed a lot, but I love it. I so love it that when you are tolerating those people that aren't the right fit, that's where it doesn't make sense. So that's for me where the balance is out of alignment. If you have the wrong customer, the wrong team, the wrong product that you're trying to push down people's throats, that's where I think the hustle becomes the problem when things aren't aligned.
Heidi Albertiri (28:03):
And I think you need to take time to actually work out what does the ideal client look like as well. At the beginning of the year, we always sit down as a team and go through the strategy for the lifestyle edit and for Heidi Alti for the year. And it's like I've always, I come in with 5 million ideas because I've had some Headspace to just be in my own space and I smash the team and they just literally put it into a working document and we roll it out and we make sense of it. But one of the things that we really focused on this year was who are the people we want to be aligned with? Who speaks our language? Who gets what we do? Who are those people? And we have attracted it apart from this one particular client, and I did it because they were connected to someone that I really loved. So it's like that.
(29:03):
But anyway, lesson learned again. So it made me step up in my communication to actually be really clear and not be bullied actually in a way that was like, you know what? That's not okay. And I got protective of my team. So my team know that at any time I have their back and I totally trust them. And I think what's important as well, the mama bear protecting her cubs, my team work really hard. They might work unusual hours sometimes or have that hybrid space, but we still do a bloody good job. So I get protective if anyone goes in there. I'm like, rah.
Danielle Lewis (29:44):
Good, good. I love that. I love that. And so reflecting on many, many years in business, I mean obviously we talked about things like not trusting your gut, having team members that might be a little bit challenging. What do you think? But I love how through the whole story, you always say lessons. That was just a lesson that I learned. And another thing in the toolkit, what do you think has been the biggest lesson in business that you have taken away from all of the years?
Heidi Albertiri (30:22):
All the years. There's a lot of years. I think as a person running a business, whether it's a guy or girl, it doesn't matter. Women are pretty extraordinary in what they do with raising the children and running businesses and stuff as well, relationships. But I think our business life is such an extension of who we are day-to-day in ourself. So from a very young age, I didn't have a strong foundation. My family was a little bit not balanced,
Danielle Lewis (31:05):
That was very diplomatic,
Heidi Albertiri (31:06):
Thank you. And so I was yearning for balance and I was yearning for something more. And I've always wanted something more. And that's always been the driver for me personally. And what I discovered as I got older was that drive was also in me for my career. Now, I never thought, if you talk to the guys I went to school with, they probably would say, oh, we expected you to have five kids and a husband and be a housewife. Because I never thought in a million years that I would be who I am today. I never thought I had it in me. So it was something that I discovered on the journey of unlocking who I was, what my skills were, what was I good at. I am a stylist, and I think back to when I was a kid rearranging the bathroom products in the bathroom, like the shampoos and conditioners and the perfumes, because that was my job.
(32:05):
I had to clean the house. Now am I a good stylist because I learned that when I was back then, or is that just in me? And I've developed it over the years, and I think nurturing who I was all that time and not losing those core beliefs of how I operate, I think that has gone a long way to actually develop me as a person and in my business life. So I guess my biggest lesson would be to don't stop evolving. I guess just don't ever, obviously I relax and I'm very good at being chill, but I never stop wanting to evolve who I am and learn from what I've done. And I guess for me, that's really in me. And I think people disconnect from who they are and what their core stuff is and how they operate from that human being fit like space because there's so much that they want to be because they can see it on the outside happening around them. I want to be like that, or I want to do what she's doing. I want that type of business. If you just stop and go, what do I really want? What can I do? What am I good at? What makes me happy? Where do I want? What can I do with that? I think people would be so much happier.
Danielle Lewis (33:32):
That is, that is a really interesting point. As you you're speaking, I was just going in my mind, who am I? Is that what I want? Is that the business I want? So it's really interesting process to take yourself through. And I do like that the idea of evolution. So I am a big believer in just because you did something yesterday doesn't mean you have to do it tomorrow. It doesn't matter if you are 20 or 80, it's your life is your choice. And I love looking at it as in an evolution and always growing and building and reflecting on what it's you want and working towards that. I think that's beautiful.
Heidi Albertiri (34:16):
Oh, thanks. Well, I don't know where that came from. It just came out. But I think perfect. I'm always questioning everything. In my mind. It's like I probably have a bit of a checklist that I am, I question, but I think because I just turned 50, right? So it's really interesting having turning 50, I'm 50 like, holy crap, I'm not 40, I'm 50. Oh my God, how did that happen? So that in itself is like, I've just gone. I'm a grownup lady. I might not always act like it, but in the world people call me sometimes. It's like, what? So I think just going through that next level of my womanhood, going through menopause, going through that change of life and my femininity and who I am as a woman also questions, what do I want to look like for the next 50 years? What does my life look like? Who do I want to be with? Where do I want to live? Who do I want to surround myself with? How am I going to get there? So I think for me, the questioning is always something that keeps me going.
Danielle Lewis (35:32):
Yeah. Do you have a process that you go through or is that just like an inbuilt? Are you just questioning everything or do you take yourself out for a wine or do you
Heidi Albertiri (35:42):
I meditate every day. I meditate every morning, so I make sure I have time. If I don't do it in the morning, I'm usually do it in the morning, awake so early, I have to fill in the hours somehow. I usually do a meditation, and at the end of the day I have quiet time. I really like quiet space to just sit in my thoughts. So it could be I run in the mornings and stuff, but that's just my time to make sure that I'm physical and taking care of my body so that I can be doing what I want to do for the next 40 years. Right. Yeah. So I'm always making sure I can be the best and sort of push that. I obviously relax and chill out. I love it when it rains because means I can kind of gives me permission to have a chill on the couch and watch something crap. But yeah, I feel like meditation has been extraordinary. I've been doing it since I was probably 19. I first discovered it. And then that has evolved, and that has been the one thing that has been with me in my entire journey through all my ups and downs, through my childbirth, through labor, through the last few years. Anytime there's a big decision that needs to be made, I'll sit in my meditation and just let it bubble to the surface. So yeah, I think that helps.
Danielle Lewis (37:07):
I love it because it's like the intentionality. I think sometimes we get ourselves into a bit of a tears around decisions we have to make, but we don't actually give ourselves the space to make them.
Heidi Albertiri (37:19):
Totally. And you see all the time, especially with women who are busy moms and partners and business owners, and they're doing everything for everybody else. My son's 20 now, he's kind of super capable and busy. And so I have a lot of time in my home by myself. My partner travels for work, so my home is really quiet. When the girls all go, it's like, oh my god, quiet. And then I might cook and have a glass of wine, and that in itself is just that quiet time of just the questioning or whatever. But I do kind of have my own questions that I ask myself, oh yeah, I shared them when we first started. It's like, I'll always go, what's the situation? One of the questions I always ask myself is, am I making it mean something that it's not
Danielle Lewis (38:15):
Shit? That's good.
Heidi Albertiri (38:18):
And as girls,
Danielle Lewis (38:20):
We always are.
Heidi Albertiri (38:22):
We make meaning out of everything. I did a course a hundred years ago that was said, humans are meaning making machines, and we will make meaning out of the smallest things and make it into this big thing. And it's actually not. It might be just that client doesn't want to work with us anymore. You don't need to make it mean anything. So I always say, am I making meaning out of it? What am I making it mean? What is the reality? How do they match up? Or is there a gap? What am I not seeing in this? So I try and take myself out of it because another thing I learned, someone said, we've probably all heard it. It's not personal. It's not personal, it's business. And I think for me, that was a really valuable mantra that I play over in my head when I'm running my business, because my personal life, I'm very generous in my business as well.
(39:19):
I always go above and beyond. I expect the team to go above and beyond. I'll always do things because we can. And in my personal life, I'll always make sure the people around me are okay. I want to look after them. That's what I do. And so I have learned sometimes to draw the line in my business, and that's just business. This is what you get. This is what you paid for. We've given you lots of added value already. Don't take advantage. There's the line. And that's the business line. Impersonal and a little bit softer. But in my business, I have become way tougher than I used to be.
Danielle Lewis (40:00):
I think it's important.
Heidi Albertiri (40:01):
Yeah. People take advantage. They'll just push and push and push and push, and then you're like, you get the shits, but you didn't create the boundary. They didn't know when to stop. They just kept going because we let them
Danielle Lewis (40:12):
Totally. It's like you keep saying yes. Why would they stop asking
Heidi Albertiri (40:16):
A kid with wanting a lolly or a toy when you go to the shops and they're like, can I have that? Can I have that? It's like, no, create the boundaries. So yeah, I guess, and one of the other things I have learned, which I'm into the hustle as much as you, but I have learned that there is a time in the day where I put it aside and I go, that's family time, or That's my partner time, or that's just my time. And I'm like, I'm a little bit non-negotiable about that now.
Danielle Lewis (40:48):
Yeah. Look, and I agree, and I think there are so many usable hours in the day that you can hustle and you can still have a really strong boundary around family or
(41:02):
Partner or personal, whatever it is. I mean, I know for me, you mentioned running, I do really have to set aside an hour for Danny where it is yoga or reading or a hot bath, or it is just not in front of the laptop or standing in the sun or something that feeds my soul, because otherwise I'll crack it. Yeah. I just know that about myself, that my mind, and again, like you said, thousands of ideas, all the things, if I don't consciously set aside that time and do it, I know the days. I know I see it happen all the time. I'll not do it for a few and think I'm, I'm invincible, it's fine. And then I'll cry, and then I'll be like, oh yeah, I haven't really stopped for a week. Maybe we have the afternoon off. So
Heidi Albertiri (42:01):
Funny, isn't it? So I run on the sand, right? So I'm in Melbourne and I'm like, there's no sand.
Danielle Lewis (42:07):
Oh no.
Heidi Albertiri (42:09):
And we've just been walking and walking and walking and walking and walking. But yeah, it's like, like, I need the sand. So yeah, the same. But yeah, I think, look, my partner has his own business as well, so he just talks all the time. And now I'm like, no dinner. Put your freaking phone away. We're doing live talk now. Business talk can be after because he's the same. There's just bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble. But it's in those magical little quiet times that stuff. You get ideas because you give your brain rest and it can just actually wind down. So I wouldn't say it's balanced. It's just crazy. And the life of, exactly. But there's certain personality types, I guess you've just got to know who you are. You said it before, you know how you operate. If you know how you operate, just do that. Just that's where the flow is.
Danielle Lewis (43:13):
Totally. And so I love it because you and I completely different, but we've both figured out who we are and we make it work for us is, I hate the, so I know you're an early riser. I'm not an early riser, but I used to feel bad about that, but now I don't. I'm like, no, I know what my thing is. So I think it's great. The whole idea of this podcast is to share experiences. Hopefully people will draw in something and find something that works for them, but it's not to make you feel bad. Like, I can't get up at 4:00 AM and run. Can't do it. I've tried have
Heidi Albertiri (43:50):
Myself,
Danielle Lewis (43:51):
Can't do
Heidi Albertiri (43:51):
It. Like I said to you before, most people think I'm really annoying. Actually, 95% of people think I'm really annoying, but that's how I am. And consequently, I was a florist and I had to get up at three o'clock, which never bothered me. Perfect. It worked for me. And I would work all day, but at eight o'clock I'd be shutting down because that's what I've been up since three o'clock. So that works for me. So you just got to do you in the world. If you do that, then that's okay. No one else has got that.
Danielle Lewis (44:26):
Exactly. I love it so much. I feel like we could talk all day. Lucky we don't have wine, otherwise we would be,
Heidi Albertiri (44:35):
It would get more drawn out. It
Danielle Lewis (44:37):
Would. It
Heidi Albertiri (44:37):
Would.
Danielle Lewis (44:38):
Well, okay, so let's just wrap on one final piece of advice. Our audience, amazing women in business, anything. Any one last piece of advice for a woman in business who perhaps is in a moment of turmoil or struggle, anything that's gotten you through challenging times?
Heidi Albertiri (45:05):
Yeah, music is really good. I have theme songs.
Danielle Lewis (45:11):
Oh, cool.
Heidi Albertiri (45:15):
And when I'm running, I play my anthems and I'm like, if I can do this, I can do anything. And it's never as bad as it feels. And if you just do one thing at a time, you're going to get closer to what you want to achieve. Baby steps. If you do one good thing a day, just do that. If that's all you can do, just do that. But just don't give up. Keep going.
Danielle Lewis (45:46):
You are incredible. Heidi, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on Spark tv. You're amazing. Thank
Heidi Albertiri (45:55):
You. Oh, thanks. So lovely to talk to you.
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