Jaimie: Well, my guest today is Lorraine Murphy and Lorraine is an award winning entrepreneur, best selling author and speaker. She started her business, the Remarkables Group in her spare bedroom in 2012. And that business went on to secure multi million dollars in turnover. During her time in business, Lorraine and the company received several awards, including the named one a BRW Fast Starters, entrepreneur of the year emerging agency of the year content marketer of the year and Australian startup of the year well, as well. As being a finalist for the Telstra Business Awards. Lorraine has featured frequently in media including the Project Sunrise, Today Shows, Sydney Morning Herald, Collective Hub, Marie Claire, Sky News, ABC News and the Australian. In December 2017, Lorraine, Seoul, the Remarkables group in order to focus on her soul on fire work, writing, speaking and mentoring. She is the founder of bold, darling a platform for female entrepreneurs who wish to grow their businesses without sacrificing themselves. In the process. Lorraine now lives in Spain, and it has been married to a fellow entrepreneur way for 10 years. And he's also a ridiculously proud mother of their daughter Lexi and son Wilder. Lorraine Murphy, welcome to Perfect Public Speaking.
Lorraine: Thank you. I feel like I'm blushing after that intro, thank you. Suck but it's funny because you said nothing more uncomfortable than sitting through your own bio.
Jaimie: You obviously haven't heard it for a while because it still says you live in Sydney because you have recently moved to Spain. Tell me about how you got to be in Spain.
Lorraine: We just moved. Yeah, well, we I'm obviously probably already guessed from my accent. I'm originally from Ireland and moved to Australia 14 years ago and met my boyfriend which then became my husband over there and then as soon as I met him, it felt like you know Australia was really my home. And then with COVID I didn't get to see my family back in Ireland for three years. I just missed out on I felt so much I went back to Ireland in July last year with a one year old who my family had never met and I have a two year old nephew that I had never met and my sister was gonna call she five months pregnant with with my third niece or nephew who turned out to be nephew so it just it just felt like it was time to to spend a little bit of time on this side of the world. Thankfully, the business that I built enables me to work from anywhere. There was a few tweaks that I made to it over the last week. Once the decision was made to move to Spain. There was a few tweaks I made to the business just to make sure it was a very seamless transition to the other side of the world, which thankfully, it has been. So yeah, it's our chance to do a bit of a Euro adventure. So we're using Spain as a base to go back and visit my family more frequently. And do some travel around Europe as well. And it's just been a really, really good test to see. I think many people can say, oh, I can do my business from anywhere. So it's just been very interesting to test that there was elf over the last few months and just see what needed to be tweaked in the business in order for this to, to be the transition that it's been. Hence the Spain move.
Jaimie: You are living proof that it can work. I'm very very jealous and I'm sure you just put it all over Europe whenever you feel like it.
Lorraine: Everywhere’s two hours away Jaimie, everywhere. Yeah, I feel like I've been Australian nights in that sense. Like you just so used to everything being so far away. Or this is something I couldn't get my head around when I moved to Australia. You get on a flight for what is it five six hours, and you're still in the same country? Like I just couldn't? I don't think I could still get my head around that. So yes, it's been really, really great to be.
Jaimie: Yeah, for sure. So I think you're well for a little bit on your mailing list. So I listened to your podcast, and so I'm going to have you on while we're having me. Thank you so there's so many things I could have asked you that today. I could talk probably all day do a mini workshop with you. And you know you talk about personal, you can just go to the Lorraine’s website which I'll link in the show notes and you can just see all the different things on the right specialises everything from personal branding to entrepreneurship mindset, and I love talking about mindset. But the probably my main overarching question and interesting for a lot of our listeners is, what makes someone a successful entrepreneur compared to someone who's not? Is that an easy answer?
Lorraine: It Isn't, it isn't I think So as you've actually shared a lot of my work is is mentoring mostly female entrepreneurs. So whether that's within my membership group, which is ball darling, or it's more of my high level one on one mentoring. So I've got mentees I've worked with for for four plus years. So I think there's definitely hallmarks to what makes that I guess what separates the people who really make it in terms of I do believe that making it is it's very individual as to what that looks like for each of us. So if we're to think about the traditional kind of trappings of making it, it's the revenue, it's the team size, it's not feeling like you're on the tools yourself constantly in your business that you've got to you get to work in your zone of genius as much as you possibly can. So I think the key differences between those who are running businesses and feel like they're really thriving in their businesses versus those who are on struggle Street and feel like they're on a hamster wheel of not not making progress.
One is planning to consistently planning their businesses. So whether that's annual planning, I'm a big advocate for a quarterly plan. So a 90-day plan, which is what I work with my mentees and it's actually built into my bill darling group that every 90 days we have a full day together which is devoted to quarterly planning. So I think that's a huge difference. Because I think if we're not taking that time to step out of our business review, where we have been planning where we're going, where we're going forward, then the problem is that we never get off that hamster wheel we're constantly in the doing have to do in the business rather than being on the business. So I think that's one huge, I guess, distinguisher of those businesses that do really go go that extra mile versus those that don't.
I think a second one as well is resilience. I think we under, under bake how important resilience is in business. I was just mentoring What am I meant to use this morning and she had a really tough time during COVID parent her husband put in quite a quite a bit of their own personal money into the business. It was a mindset marathon with her I was thankfully I was her mentor for all that time and she really had to dig deep in terms of her own personal resilience and she had one experience last year that really nearly broke her mindset wise and and she has constantly had to come back and pick herself up and and I'm committed to keeping going. I know all entrepreneurs that I've had the pleasure of spending time with whether it's my friends, my mentors, my mentees have at least one time they've considered just giving it all off because surely something is easier than than walking this business path. And I think the ones that succeed are the ones that have built that almost like that. That well of resilience that they can keep showing off and undoing it. And I know Jaimie from our past conversation, it's something you've had to do, you know, having those experience of really intensely challenging professional experience, experiences that you've had to navigate and what got you through those is your resilience and it's a testament to you that you're now growing the brilliant business like you're growing because you it's nothing of you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting and I wouldn't be weren't sitting where I'm sitting if I didn't find the resilience to get through those challenges. So I think that's a huge one. And I think it's something that's not talked about enough in entrepreneurship circles. It's almost that entrepreneurship is gone. Become this trendy, cool and exciting thing where it's like that famous picture of Richard Branson and he's sitting on his hammock with his laptop, you know, and that's not the reality of life 99% of the time running your business as you will I'm sure BP testament to as well. So I think that piece about resilience is huge.
And I think the third piece is well is it's nurturing that growth mindset. The entrepreneurs that I really see succeeding are the ones who are curious, they're ambitious, they're open to new ideas. I'm sure you've had people in your world as well you you're coaching them on speaking and they just don't they know better. They don't want to hear it or they just want to do it like they've always done it because either that's safe or all the different reasons. So if someone isn't nurturing that growth mindset and aren't open to growing, then they don't grow and therefore their businesses don't grow. I really love one of my very first mentors and one of my dear friends is Jeff Deloso so who's the founder of The Entourage. And I remember him saying many, many, many years ago, that a business will never outgrow its founder. So if we're not growing as founders and business owners, then the business is never going to grow. We will always keep the business playing small because we're playing small of ourselves. I think it's so incredibly powerful the work that you do in terms of helping people step into their potential as speakers and as thought leaders because you are you're you're you're helping them step off and and really move forward and their that they probably wouldn't if they were left to their own devices. So yeah, I could probably do a whole day workshop on that.
Jaimie: Yeah. That was great. So I just want to take you back to the first thing you talked about, because I'm probably in that sort of area where you explained I'm doing a lot that I shouldn't be outsourcing and outsourcing is probably just one part of letting go and being able to scale and it's funny I've been doing a bit of mindset stuff lately. I read Denise Duffield Thomas's book “Chill and Imposter”.
Lorraine: It’s so good.
Jaimie: Yeah, and it's all about the golden goose and protecting that. And I’ve done a mindset training recently and one of the things they said to was “if you knew your success was inevitable.” So you thought I want to be earning a million.
Lorraine: No matter what you do.
Jaimie: You're gonna get yeah, if you knew like you just someone said to you, I can tell you now in two years, you're gonna need a million. What would you do today? Knowing that you're going and for me, I knew I'd get a nanny. I've got two kids. But how do you know because obviously financial decisions come into play. People are not earning enough yet to be able to afford a full time marketing manager aren't earning enough yet to get an old pair or nanny or something like that. isn't a matter of just assuming you're going to be successful and taking that risk and saying, Well, I'm going to invest in this because the only way I can piggyback off that and what's your thoughts around that?
Lorraine: I mean, I think on a very granular level, I come back to the early race, you know of my time versus time within the business or with family or whatever it might be. And I think there's some really obvious low hanging fruit that I see a lot of entrepreneurs still holding on to. So one is doing their own bookkeeping, which just to me, it's just, I did it. And the reason I can roll my eyes is because I did this for the first six months of my first business 11 years ago, and I said, I'm just gonna do my own bookkeeping. I kind of enjoyed tinkering around with Xero. But the thing was I wasn't doing it properly. It was the tasks that I procrastinated most on because I didn't know how to do it and it wasn't a priority. It wasn't revenue generating, obviously. And I fucked it up so bad. I made so many mistakes with Xero. And then I had to pay an accountant even more to come and actually unpick the mess that I had made. So I think just the low hanging fruit is the bookkeeping, the tech support. calendar like just diary coordination. I've outsourced my diary management for I would say eight years now just I've had someone for the last eight years where I can cc someone else in so for example, Jaimie, you reached out about a podcast interview. And then I say “I would love to Jaimie, that sounds wonderful.” For eight years I have had someone that I can cc in and say blah, well, I guess the sound was my brilliant operations manager now. So as I've seen the exam and she'll coordinate dates with you so just those things that aren't you when you're most potions, I think a lot of entrepreneurs really do hold on to that. And it's tight, taking time away from the real earth shattering stuff that they could be doing in their business. So if I'm sitting, do my bookkeeping that for hours that I could be as you've correctly identified, updating my speakers bio for example, you know, getting out there and thinking about what's that next program that I want to create or reaching out and doing some kind of extra hand holding with some of my mentees, there's there's so much more potent things that I can be doing.
Jaimie: Yeah, it's not just the, it’s brain space the brain energy.
Lorraine: The bandwidth. Yes. Well, one of my friends Tracy Harris, you may know whoever she is, a brilliant business.
Jaimie: I’m in her Mastermind. That's who I was quoting.
Lorraine: No way, I love Tracy, and just before we left Sydney, I was like, I'm so glad you like to hang out before I left to give you a case.
Jaimie: I mean, I’m in her Inner Circle Mastermind with Colin just joined it because she and I love her. I love Carl. I just love their brains and that things they said if you know in two years time your success is inevitable. What would you do today? And so it really stood out in such a small world.
Lorraine: But anyway, so why is it oh yeah, I was saying Tracy has a term called Mental Calories. I don't know if like brain calories. So it's a matter of thinking okay, well, if you've got X amount of calories that you will want to spend over a day, how do you want to spend them? And mine is not bookkeeping.
Jaimie: For you learned that the hard way. It's funny. I've recently just outsource my bookkeeping for the very first time. Shout out to Sophie and it's great. I don't have to think anything, anything.
Lorraine: Because she has taken all the mental load of that it's not on you anymore.
Jaimie: Yes. So worth it. So worth it. And so on the issue of resilience and I guess a big part of resilience in mindset. And this time last year, I would never I probably wouldn't even have had you on my podcast because mindset is a big part of what you do. And I didn't buy into it. I thought, oh, yeah, whatever. Just give me the systems, give me the procedures. Tell me what I need to do for a launch. And I now know and that's why I'm in our mastermind, like, Tracy. I mean, Tina towers, her Empire Builder as well. Because mindset is really important. And I see those around me who are succeeding, and it is the mindset that really sets them apart. So for someone who doesn't know that or doesn't know what they need to do to get into that successful entrepreneurs mindset, what's your advice there?
Lorraine: Such a good question. And I was just reminded as you were talking there about something Emma Isaac, I feel like I'm name dropping like a mofo in this episode. Emma Isaac, she's the CEO of business. She said to me years ago, I was hesitating on making an investment in my business and she said the rain you know what, I realised that 90% of businesses mindset, so I think that's kind of the light that you've seen, as well because I, I realised it back then when she said it to me.
And I think in terms of kind of really nurturing your mindset. It almost sounds counterintuitive, but it comes back to actually looking after your body and I can speak with full transparency to you today. I have been working kind of it's almost like shift work. I realised because I get up quite early in the morning in order to talk to my one on one mentees back in Australia. So I've been doing that we just got back to Ireland. So we were kind of doing the kind of late dinners early mornings. It was just that the capital about dancing, and I just wasn't sleeping. I had a shopping to really, really terrible night's sleep and yesterday. I honestly feel like the world is coming down around me. I felt awful. And last night I had a brilliant sleep and it's like my whole day has changed. So I think we can often underestimate the power of just the basics like the sleep, the eating well, the hydration, the not over caffeinated or over alcoholic ourselves that that doesn't it doesn't work for our bodies, because I think it can get quite competitive. I know Arianna Huffington talks about this a lot in her book thrive. The whole almost like sleep competition like who got less sleep and I do think that conversation is changing now in business circles. Thankfully, people are waking up to that. But it's a very kind of macho push yourself really hard override, you know what your body's telling you. So I think just first of all in terms of that resilience, I do think it comes from because I had zero resilience yesterday. One cranky text message from my mom would have sent me over the edge yesterday. So I think it's just about looking after those basics and making sure that almost like we're parenting ourselves, just like if we're parents, we're parents with children. So I think that's number one.
I think the second is having people that you get around you. I can be having a shocking day. In business like a launch isn't going well or I'm really panicked about cash flow or revenue or whatever it might be a 10 minute conversation with some of my business besties. I've got three best friends for actually who are in business and who just get it. The people that I can just call and go, “this is box”. They get it and it's not like they can fix it for me or it's not like I need them to fix it or give me some pearl of wisdom that's gonna change my whole perspective, even though they often do that, which is amazing. It's more just that it's seen and that space is being held for me as a business owner the challenge that I'm having so I think having those people around you who get it and you don't need 70 people. Like even just one person, a business bestie who you can go have a coffee with who just gets it. I honestly feel having an hour with one of my business besties it like keeps me going for weeks, weeks to come. So I think that's really, really important.
And I think the third thing is investing in the experts. So having the coaches I see my Kinesiologist religiously. If I'm in launch period and a really full on period of my business. I see her twice a week. So just clearing before the kind of before I manifest all the self sabotage behaviors, it's just clearing it all before it even gets into reality. Having the brilliant people like you, have like Tina Tracy, like exceptional women in this online space, you know, having those people who you can tap on who've been there before and who can. I like to see mentoring and coaching is almost like, more so mentoring because I kind of see mentoring as you've been there before you walk the path and you're helping someone else walk it up to you. It's like you're walking down a path and then there's someone else who's spotting spotting the potholes because they've already fallen into those potholes. And they're saying they're just watched I did that you probably don't want to think about that. Do that. It's just that person who has your back I think is really, really important.
Jaimie: I love that. I love that analogy with potholes. It's funny, you know, business buddy he's a physio and we've just met through a local networking group. We had nothing in common. He he has he hates 80s music like Delta Goodrem, he hates Delta Goodrem that loves all bad religion and most people. We have nothing in common. We are not in the same world but we are connecting as far as our calls go and she's really motivating for me and for him to have someone to be able to do quarterly business planning sessions with and accountability buddies with and I love how you use that analogy to check in with your business besties. Do you think, because this is really I didn't have any questions prepared today because I knew was just now we've got loads of other things. So you know, I have a lot of friends, my Mum's Group friends, for example, my political friends and they don't get the online world. And so do you think it's really important that I seek out those fellow like minded entrepreneurs who do get it because it is a lonely well being an entrepreneur, let alone digital entrepreneur. Do you think it's really important that we build our tribe of like minded go getting entrepreneurs if you aren't that way? Is that really a key to your success?
Lorraine: Yeah, I think so. And I think for me, this is Ryan Murphy. Business is my second business. My first was a social media agency and even back then I had friends who were running and creating similar businesses. And those friends are still doing those. They haven't transitioned into the personal brand business as of yet and they may not. So I think yeah, even just having the one person who gets it but I feel I mean for your situation, Jaimie and where you're in, I feel I mean, you're you're you've got your ass covered completely in that sense, because you've got Her Empire Builder, and you've got Tracey’s Mastermind, you're actively seeking out those connections. So, as I said, it can just be one person and that one person can change your whole world if I mentoring someone, and it's just getting it's a new mentee and we're just getting to know each other. It's a real red flag for me when they don't have anyone else who's who's walking the business path, whether it's a similar business models theirs or not. Because as you said, it's so lonely. It's really really is incredibly lonely. And the online elements just add to that, you know, it's I'm planning to international retreats next year, because I'm already kind of future proofing myself like I need the people I need real life with me. Before I left Sydney, I've got annual mentees and I spent a full day I had a VIP day with each of them in January, because I was on the thing that like filling filling our tanks all together and filling my in person tank as well. So yeah, I think even if it's just one person, it's it's really key.
Jaimie: Is it a matter of dropping those people that used to be in our lives? Because I mean, sometimes I get a bit of criticism from my friends will say, “why are you doing reals?”, why you, my accountant who is not one of these people, he'll always give me a shit and say I wish I spoke on there's a real from you dancing. I mean, he's just doing my job so he's part of the best he can get this negative or you know kind of you know in jest criticism from those who don't get it, especially in the online world. They don't do accounts and stuff.
Lorraine: And it’s interesting thing about us I don't think it's about getting rid of those people because the thing is your mom's group friends and you know, my mom friends, they really speak to the mom hat that I have, you know, the right around as a mom. So I think it's almost thinking about I love Taylor Swift's song Mirrorball. Here the fact that we've all got like different facets of ourselves and we reflect different parts of ourselves to different people in our world. But what I have found is that and it's a weird one. I don't feel like I've ever gotten the kind of the judgment from other women about my life choices and but I think it's because I'm so it's almost like this happened on Teflon. What am I talking about? Teflon. It's Teflon. It doesn't stick answers, because I know that I've got those other women who do get it and it's almost like I value their opinions so much more than I do, than those who might be commenting on on my business, but if they're not in that space, so I think there's something around as an insurance policy around having the people around you do get in there who are making similar life choices, that if we do get some criticism for people who don't get it that it's not the end of the world because we know that there's a validation and a sense of it because think about it as humans one of our core needs is belonging. And and we have that sense of belonging even if it's just that one person who does get it.
Jaimie: Yeah, so you always seem to have like your own personal board of directors. So you've got up to talk to you about breastfeeding challenges. You need to choose squad, you need your advice. Yes. It's gonna give you that hard advice. So I'm going to show you because beings need to have that whole different floor.
Lorraine: Yeah, and think about it, they're just mirroring all the different parts of you like the kind of the tough love side, but also there's the side that actually just needs a hug and a warm cup of cocoa, all those different facets of view and we just seek those different people out to reflect those back to us.
Jaimie: Yeah, it's funny because I'm Tracy Harris, who you mentioned. She's very direct with the feedback she gives me. First, I didn't like it. So I have my PR club and I hope she won't mind me sharing this. She might be listening. So I put it out. I've got I haven't been I had 33 founding members, but it's fun. The first masterclass came off, and I put a celebration post in our little Facebook group at the Mastermind. And she basically said, that's great, but we've done a debrief, launch the figures, how many people have got to annual where they come from within a minute. And she's like, yeah, celebrate, however, and I kind of like got to be fancy with first then I realised, well, hold on. No, she's on my board of directors. We're not there to make me feel good. She's there to keep making me performance. Do I have to do better purpose, I don't need her to blow my trumpet. It's the matter of recognising all the different things you need and and putting people in those roles to pump up your tires and to make you keep doing better. So yeah, really great advice there. Anything else further you should add before we let you go? I know that you've got so much knowledge about you know, helping entrepreneurs and helping people scale and helping people become the best they can be anything else further you'd like to add.
Lorraine: I think I'd probably just underline what we've talked about. Because I think yeah, we opened up another conversation when we were going for another two hours. But I think it's more just about acknowledging that. I do think we get sold the bright shiny version of our business can be particularly online business, you the whole idea of you do a launch and you make 75k and then you know you're sweet but no one sees the amount of work that goes into that launch and the work that then you obviously you do to deliver a great product to to your your clients and whoever has, you know, invested their hard earned money and time in you who so I think it's just about acknowledging that. It's not the tricky right that you can kind of say it's easier to work for someone else and and go down that path. But I like to be the captain of my own ship and I'd much rather put my feet in my own hands in some kind of middle managers hands. That was a decision that I made 12 years ago to do that. So I think it's just acknowledging that is a tough road but I think having the right support around you looking after yourself and and almost seeing the looking after yourself whether it's exercise or meditation or having the friends around you or having a really beautiful bottle of wine at the weekend, whatever it is that really fills you up. Seeing that as a essentially an insurance policy against future challenges. So when those curveballs do happen, because it's not an easy, it's a win in business when they do happen that you are the most resilient strongest version of you that you can be in order to navigate those curveballs.
Jaimie: Absolutely. Lorraine, thank you so much for coming on huge podcast today. I know you're all over in Spain, and you were so busy. It was great liaising with your operations manager to lock you in. I was stoked for you said yes. So you'd like to know more, people listening to this now like to know more about how you can work with the rain. He can look at the information in the show notes, but for now, thank you so much, Lorraine Murphy.
Lorraine: Thank you. It’s a delight.
