#awinewith Luisa Hogan
MEET Luisa Hogan, Founder of Whisper & Thread.
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:00):
You are listening to Spark tv, where we bring you daily interviews with real women in business at all stages. I'm your host, Danielle Lewis, and I am so grateful to have you here. So good. Louisa, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Luisa Hogan (00:17):
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:20):
Oh, anytime. Let's kick off by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Luisa Hogan (00:26):
Sure. So my name is Louisa and most people call me Lou. And I'm the co-founder of a brand called Whisper and Thread, and we create intimate apparel with customized embroidered affirmations inside of them, and we're starting a revolution in positive self-talk. And I'm also a leadership and resilience consultant and coach. So I've got two businesses. One's been going for eight years and has been going for the last officially launched a couple of months ago, but we've been setting that up for the last year. So my passion is resilience, cell talk, change, dealing with change, leading change, leadership, resilience. Those are my passions that I work in. I'm very lucky to be able to do that in both my businesses.
Danielle Lewis (01:14):
That is so cool. Now I came across you, well firstly because you're a Spark member, but when I read your article about positive self-talk, so I want to explore that. What is it? Why is it important? Who needs it in their life?
Luisa Hogan (01:31):
Well, everybody needs it in their lives. So everybody has self-talk, right? And I'm sure everybody listening to this would relate to this, especially if you're a woman in business. It's that little voice inside your head that tells you you can do something or you can't do something. Everyone has it. You can't avoid it. We talk to ourselves most of the day. We talk to ourselves more than we talk to anyone else. So self-talk is really the thing that fuels you and it can fuel you or drain you. And it's really surprising how many people have or allow the negative self-talk to run away with them. And I do it too, so I'm perfect. Same.
Danielle Lewis (02:11):
I'm sitting here thinking mine's really mean sometimes
Luisa Hogan (02:14):
Really mean to ourselves. Yeah, she's the worst. We wouldn't talk to friends like that or our family. I can't imagine ever talking to my daughter in the way that I talk to myself sometimes, but it's such an important thing because can you imagine if we spoke to other people in the way that we spoke to themselves and then told them, okay, now you also need to thrive and do well and perform and achieve and be resilient and be kind when all you do is her negative comments all day. So there's a lot of research out there about it and how it has a huge impact on your life and your success. And also there's a little bit of research of negative self-talk is okay a tiny bit because it can be motivating, but when it becomes extreme, it can be very demotivating and very dangerous for you.
Danielle Lewis (03:12):
And I find it interesting you said the words when you let it run away with you. And I kind of think that almost plays into what you just said. It's when it gets out of control. It is that almost that spiral that happens where whether something triggers it, you're having a bad day or it's just a bad pattern that you're in. It kind of sometimes starts, if you don't get it in check, it does start to spiral or escalate. And yeah, it can really derail your day, your week,
Luisa Hogan (03:44):
Your
Danielle Lewis (03:44):
Life
Luisa Hogan (03:45):
For sure. And it'll set you up for a bad day. So you make a mistake. And so common people say, that was so stupid, why are you so dumb? Something as simple as that. And then that just puts you in that frame of mind for the rest of the day where you get frustrated with yourself and every time you make another mistake after that, it's another negative comment. So if you can switch that self-talk or when you make a mistake or something happens and reframe it, well, that's okay, I'm just learning it'll be better next time. How it can shift you into a more positive mindset for the rest of the day.
Danielle Lewis (04:23):
Oh my God, that's so funny. I just thought I'm training someone at the moment and when they keep going, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, and I'm like, oh my God, don't even stress. I still am figuring it out. And then when you just said that, I was like, why don't I say that to myself? It's so
Luisa Hogan (04:41):
Funny. It's crazy. So often I do resilience coaching and I'll often tell people, what advice would you give a trusted friend in this position? And then they give the most wonderful advice. And I'm like, okay, well how about we follow some of your advice? And they go, oh yeah, okay. It makes complete sense. So yeah, I just find it bizarre how we train ourselves to not speak to ourselves as kindly as we would to anybody else in our lives. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (05:14):
Yeah. It's interesting. Someone once said the phrase to me, don't believe everything that your brain thinks. And I was like, oh, just because like a thought that comes into your mind doesn't mean that it's reality. And I think there's such a nice parallel between what we're talking about is just because you are having this negative doesn't mean that it is real. The things that you're saying to yourself.
Luisa Hogan (05:40):
Yeah, your thoughts on facts, your thoughts on facts. It's just a thought. It's just a feeling. And it's not a fact. My husband actually reminds me of that all the time. Is that a fact or is that just you? And I'm like, yep, okay. And I'll walk away. He's really great at shifting myself too. He's really good.
Danielle Lewis (05:58):
I'm not teaching my husband that. Oh my God, I love it. That's so good. Do you have any suggestions for, because I'm sure I'm not the only one that goes through the negative, I'm sure everyone dialing in right now is like, yeah, that's me. Is there a way or any kind of strategies if you find yourself spiraling into the negative self-talk, anything that you find helpful to get yourself out of it?
Luisa Hogan (06:28):
Yeah, the first thing I'd always suggest is you have to understand when it's happening because it's such an automatic response.
(06:39):
It's not easy just to go, oh yeah, okay, I'm just going to change that. So you first have to identify when you're doing it, and then you actually have to do some work in terms of, some people find it helpful to write down what is it that I said? What's the actual truth? What evidence do I have against this? And then you work through and slowly as you work through changing some of the things that you say to yourself or thinking about them more solidly when it happens again, you go, oh yeah, that's something that's come up before and you shift it then. So it's not going to happen. Just one off like, oh yeah, I'm just going to shift my negative. Now. You have to identify it, name it, say, yep, this is, pick the most common one. You'll find that people have most common ones.
(07:27):
It could be, I'm so dumb, so oh, I'm never going to do this. I make so many mistakes. There's ones that you'll say to yourself very often, identify that one, analyze it, and then pick something that reframes it or shifts it. So again, using that example of, oh, I'm so stupid. I make mistakes all the time. Shift it to making mistakes is learning. What have I learned from this? I'll do better next time. And then you land up practicing every time the negative self-talk comes in, countering it with the positive thing. And then as you counter it with the positive thing, the more and more that you do that eventually you shift the talk. So it's not an overnight thing. It's very much why my sister and I started with Friend Thread because we wanted to have the words visible to you, and we started it specifically with the view of our daughters.
(08:22):
She's got two teenage daughters, I've got a 4-year-old, and we were talking about how, especially with her teenage daughters, how we see already the negative self-talk starts creeping in from such a young age. And how as moms, we are the ones always encouraging them. And she's like, I don't want to put notes in her lunchbox. I want her to carry around this note with her all day. And so that she believes in herself. And so some people will put the note up on their mirror to shift their self talk. Some people have a note that they carry with them, something that reminds them. We put it in our underwear because it's something you wear every day. You can start the day with the positive thing. That's the thing that reminds you and you put your underwear on and it just reminds you in that way. So that's my other bit of advice. Find a way to have the phrase that you want to remind yourself for visible to you so that once you know what your triggers are and the thing that you say to yourself without even thinking to read it and reaffirm that with yourself to shift that thinking. So yeah, the two ways you can do it.
Danielle Lewis (09:28):
So good. I love it so much. So tell me, do you have a fashion slash clothing slash apparel background or is this brand new?
Luisa Hogan (09:37):
This is brand new. So my background up until I started my consulting practice eight years ago. Before that, I was a CEO for another consulting business. Prior to that, I've worked in community services, in executive roles in training organizations. So I've always been in service kind of based roles. My space has changed management, community resilience, space training. So naturally started the melo, which is my consulting practice, been working in that for eight years and change management. Resilience is my passion. And then my sister and I have been talking about this idea and just so I've got a master's in business, I've got an MBA, I shifted all of my knowledge from that into e-commerce and realized Cooley, Dooly, I know how to run businesses really well, but an e-commerce business is a whole different kettle of fish.
(10:39):
And so that's been learning curve like this, but at the same time, been able to just apply it some of my knowledge across and then just think about, okay, I'm not selling a service anymore. I'm selling a product and what does that look like? And had to find new coaches and mentors, a whole new network of people because yeah, that's been totally new for me. So it's been quite an adventure. I've really enjoyed it. It's been out my comfort zone, but I enjoy being out of my comfort zone. So I'm one of those weird who likes being out of their comfort zone.
Danielle Lewis (11:14):
I love it. They say that's where the growth happens. And you, so you've teamed up with your sister, are you or is she doing the sewing or how's that dynamic working?
Luisa Hogan (11:29):
My sister lives in Portugal and I live in Australia. I'm running the business here from Australia. I'm the managing director for the business here. You can see the embroidery machine behind me.
Danielle Lewis (11:43):
Yes. That's why I was like, are you on the tools? I want to know.
Luisa Hogan (11:47):
So the embroidery machine is in my office. You'll also see a computer screen behind me that's my husband working behind me. So we share an office. We both work from home. My sister works lives in Portugal. She's also got her own business over there. So she's more of my sounding board and the creative side, the story building side, the, she's the creative energy behind the brand. She's thought up this idea. She leads the color choices, the brand in that regard. And for me, I'm more of the build the business, the sales, the e-comm side strategy, social media marketing, all of that lands on me. So it works quite well in that regard because we play to our strengths in that way and we don't live together. So it's not like we can just turn around and go, Hey, what do you think about this? So we have great informal meetings on WhatsApp with our daughters in the background. It's like a family chat. And then every now and again, we'll throw in my business talk. It's quite interesting. So that's how we play that. But we're on tools here. My husband will help if we've got a big chunk of orders and we need to send them off the embroidery machine. Basically it's plug and play, but he'll help out with doing whatever we need doing. So it's very much a, you do what you got to do to make
Danielle Lewis (13:19):
It happen. Yeah, absolutely. And tell me then, so I mean, coming from being the CEO and executive level consulting, how's that transition been to now? Like, oh my God, I have to do everything that needs to be done?
Luisa Hogan (13:40):
Yeah, I don't regret it at all. I love it. I mean, the things that I miss about, I haven't been in the corporate world as such where I'm working in a business in the corporate world for eight, nine years. So the transition thread hasn't been such, it's just another thing that I do from home. I've got a 4-year-old daughter. I could not be raising my daughter the way I am now if I was working full time in a role for somebody else.
(14:14):
The flexibility that I have is just amazing. And it's funny because I would say I work longer hours in many ways. I mean, you would know when you work on your own business. I work late night, I've never done right, it's never done. And my daughter goes to bed and I'm up until 11 o'clock at night because I refuse to when she's home from school, from kindy, I refuse to work while she's home from kindy. I wouldn't be able to do that if I worked for somebody or in my previous roles as executive roles, that those were long hours that I could be home. I'm very grateful.
Danielle Lewis (14:52):
Yeah, I love that
Luisa Hogan (14:54):
For what I have. Yeah,
Danielle Lewis (14:56):
And it's really interesting that you talk about that flexibility because that's, I think the missing link with starting your own business sometimes is I think people have a corporate career and they say they want to start their own business to not work the long hours and get away from the nine to five and that type of thing, but then they kind of skew into this, oh my god, I'm working all the time now. But I think it is that reframe of it's just different. It is actually, no, I get to schedule it. So if it is kids or if it is family, there are carers out there. There's all of these different ways that our lives exist now. Or even there might be a hobby that takes a lot of time, whatever it is for you. That's the amazing thing about starting a business, isn't it? It's like, yeah, it may not be all in one chunk and it may feel like we probably are working a lot longer, but we can do it in and around our life and have it support our life.
Luisa Hogan (15:54):
And I think there's one added element, and I mean, I was passionate about the work I was doing when I was working in other businesses, but I think when it's you're passionate and you're building it yourself, it doesn't feel as much as work because when you're working for somebody else, even as a CEO or you're leading organizations, you're still tied down by the rules of what you need to do for those organizations where when you've got your own business, you're passionate about it and the rules are what you make it. If you don't want to do this thing, you don't do that thing. And there's that element of freedom and passion that comes around it. So when you are doing the work, it actually doesn't feel like work. It just feels like hours that you're putting towards something that you're trying to grow and make successful, and it's so rewarding. That's wonderful. So yeah, it might be longer hours, but there are days where I'll go through and my husband thinks I'm mad, but I'll go through sometimes a month and a half and I haven't had a day off where I haven't sat down and done something for work or for business. And he is like, whoa. And I'm like, wow, it's been a month and a half. I probably should have a day off.
(17:04):
We like to
Danielle Lewis (17:05):
Swing to extremes, I find.
Luisa Hogan (17:08):
Yeah. But in saying that, it's not like nine, 10 hours straight days. Exactly. Get up, take my daughter to school, come back, do a few hours, then she comes home, we'll play a little bit, then she goes, then I'll do another couple of hours. And then on the weekends it's like maybe sneak something in the morning or she's at swimming. It's like little blocks here and there. And I never feel like, oh, it's been a 12 hour day. I need a wine. I never feel that it just do what you've got to do.
Danielle Lewis (17:38):
I often feel like I need a wine, but I dunno if it's because of the long days. No, I get you Friday and I'll have a whiskey. You'll partake. Yes. So good. That is so good. So what do you think, so thinking about both the consulting business that you've run for the last almost nine years now, the e-commerce business in apparel, what do you think over that time has been some of the bigger challenges that you weren't expecting in business?
Luisa Hogan (18:14):
All of 'em, the bigger challenges. I think for me, the biggest hurdle I've had to overcome actually is believing in myself. And I know it links to the negative self talk thing, but it's actually just believing that it's possible.
(18:36):
I think I've always been really confident in my career and very career driven and very motivated and knowing exactly what my career three was going to be. And then I decided to get off that a complete change of lifestyle, trying to start a family with my husband. That was challenging for me. I had to go through IVF and all sorts of challenging things, and I had a complete flip in what do I want out of my career? And it's not that latter, but then it was believing in myself that, yeah, actually I do have the knowledge and skills and capabilities to make something successful. People do want to buy your services. Initially that was with people do want your advice and your services, you have good things to share. And then when we started Whisper and Thread, it was such a, it's happened so fast, I can't even tell you how fast it's happened.
(19:29):
It's happened so fast that it's been every day. I'm like, people actually want to buy this product. They actually want to buy it. And then every time we make a sale, I'm like, wow, people actually want to buy it. They just believe the idea is good and that we can pull it off and we can make it happen. That's truly been the biggest challenge because everything else is you can learn it. If you dunno it, learn it. You can find somebody to teach it to you. Get yourself a good coach, a mentor, join a course, do something. You can learn everything. And especially today with AI and online forums and socials, there's a teacher for everything. So if you don't have the knowledge skills, you can learn it. So really the thing that's going to hold you back is that self belief
Speaker 3 (20:19):
And
Luisa Hogan (20:19):
Just going, yep, nope, this is good. You just got to put one foot in front of the other and you will get there.
Danielle Lewis (20:27):
You're just spot on. I mean, I know I've had so many conversations with women in business around that self-belief, something that I run into a lot with the grant program, the people. Is my idea any good is my business or my product or service any good? And I'm like, yeah, look what the hell? People buy from you every day and I see your brand online and you show up to the calls and all the things. I'm like always. That is probably the one thing that always gets me about women in business is that lack of self-belief or lack of feeling enough or good enough. But in saying that, I've been in business for 14 years and I still have that. So I think it is one of those things where it is we need to, like you said before, identify what's going on and find our ways and our strategies to overcome it, because I kind of think it's something that's probably going to stick with us for a while and we just need to keep reminding ourselves. And I love what you said about find that evidence of No, this is evidence to show that that's not correct. Yeah. It's something that I don't think ever leaves us, unfortunately,
Luisa Hogan (21:40):
That imposter syndrome, everybody has it. People work in businesses, people who run their own businesses, and even the people you think are the most competent people who you admire and you look up to a hundred percent
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Know that
Luisa Hogan (21:55):
Everybody gets that little bit of imposter syndrome it
Speaker 3 (21:58):
There,
Luisa Hogan (22:00):
And you silence that voice or just ignore it for a bit and just keep going and don't let that hold you back. You'll make it and it might not look like you expected it to look, but you'll make something. Something will come out of it. The opportunities will come,
Danielle Lewis (22:16):
Oh, that's so good. And you're just so right. I think about all of the women I've spoken to. It's never the, oh, I raised millions of dollars or I sold out, I went viral, I did this. I listed on the stock exchange still, no, it doesn't matter. They're still like, I don't know. I wake up every morning in a cold sweat thinking, can I do it? It's just wild.
Luisa Hogan (22:37):
Also, you always like the next thing. So making the first sale, 20 people bought the product or first sale and I'm like, oh no, it's not good enough because they're people we know. Then the next 10 people came along and they, people we sort of know, I'm like, no, still not good enough. They're being nice because they're our friends or they're being nice. And then people who've been following us on socials and I dunno them, but then they, I'm like, oh, it's because they've been on socials for a year and they finally lost. It's never good enough. You never believe in yourself when you're getting all the evidence that actually people want what you have. Oh my God.
Danielle Lewis (23:17):
I know I've been, you're crazy. Even talking it out loud, like what? I know, I'm laughing. Like I've had this moment this week where I said I did something and I told my husband. Then I was like, but I don't know. I don't think he is like, what's wrong with you? You still did it. It happened. You can't downplay that. I was like, oh yeah. So I get it. We always find a way to diminish our achievements somehow.
Luisa Hogan (23:45):
Somehow. Yeah. It's crazy.
Danielle Lewis (23:47):
Totally. Oh my god, I could talk to you all day, but I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice. So reflecting on your time in business in multiple businesses, what would be a piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Luisa Hogan (24:06):
Just start it. If you've got this burning desire or idea inside you, don't wait for it to be perfect. Just start it. That's what my sister and I did with Whisper and Thread. The melo started because I was sort of forced into this situation. That's a story for another day, but I just had to start it. I had no choice. It was like, do this or that's it. Just go. And sometimes it's a good thing that if you have no choice and you just do it because you make it happen. So pretend like you have no choice. Pretend like you have no choice and just go. Because if you just make that decision, just make a decision every day. It doesn't have to be perfect. Imperfect decisions are fine too because you can always fix something and that's where you make the progress is just make a decision today, execute the thing, and tomorrow you've got one more thing that you didn't have the day before.
(25:09):
And truly a year later you'll look back and go, wow, look at all the things I did. That's it. And then always build people around you. Let support you with that. I feel like a no brainer and everybody says that, but it's so true. Find the support and the knowledge that you need around you because they're going to be the people who cheer, lead you and talk to you when you say, can I do this? Is this real? Is this something that you would buy? And they're going to be like, yeah, you get those people around you.
Danielle Lewis (25:39):
Well, I love it. Absolutely incredible. Louisa, thank you so much for sharing your time and your story and your wisdom with us. Absolutely incredible. Thank you.
Luisa Hogan (25:50):
Thank you.
Danielle Lewis (25:51):
That wraps another episode of Spark tv. Shout out to Spark TV sponsor IP Australia for their amazing support of the Spark Podcast and women in business. And if no one tells you today, you've got this.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
