Episode #45 – Liz Melville – Using A Passion For Helping Women In Business To Bring About…

Podcast Introduction and Mission 0:00

Welcome to the Startup Support Surgery podcast, where we light the entrepreneurial spark in medics and healthcare professionals. Join me, Dr. Jo Watkins, GP, business coach and co-founder of The How People, on a journey to discover where your medical know-how meets the business world. This will help you find some clarity on how to balance work, passions and family so that you can gain more freedom and control over your life but also continue to help people, which is actually why most of us went into medicine to start with.

Embarking on this entrepreneurial adventure is not easy. It is a roller coaster of emotions, but it's hugely rewarding and exciting in the process. Drawing in on my 20 years of blending medicine and business as a GP, I am here to share experiences, insights and lessons. Expect lively chats, expert interviews and real life stories from medics who have taken their own path. Let's break free from traditional healthcare norms and explore more innovative ways of making a real difference to people's health and wellbeing, along with paving the way for a brighter future for us as healthcare professionals.

Oh, don't miss my free PDF called From Stethoscope to Startup, which is an 11-page guide in the show notes full of practical help and advice. This is your roadmap to kick-starting your journey with us. Enjoy the Show. I am delighted to welcome one of my online business heroes. to be interviewed again on the podcast. I love bringing these brilliant people into this room and sharing with you their tips and tricks because I have learned so much from Liz and people like Lisa Bean and Kate Toon who've been featured in previous episodes.

Liz Melvilleu2019s Background and Business Journey 1:51

So I wanna share that all with. You so Liz Melville is a highly regarded online business coach with over 15 years of experience helping online course creators and experts build successful businesses. Liz is now, as you will hear, on a mission to help midlife women regulate the stress of life and release what's holding them back so that they can rise into a business and life that fully supports them. As a side hustle, she also personally manages millions of dollars in ad spends for six and eight figure entrepreneurs.

including influencers such as James Wedmore. And that's how I first came across Liz to start with. When she's not doing either managing somebody else's million dollar ad spends or working on her own business, you will find Liz mostly paddle boarding in the middle of a Scottish lock, chomping chocolate or chilling at home with her husband, son, cat and Labrador puppy. And on my random fact about Liz that she shared with us today is that, she is a fully qualified dog trainer. Is that right, Liz? That is correct.

Yes. Of some 15 years. Really? So you must have the best behaved dog in the world. Correct? No, I don't. No I do not. I absolutely do. He's a big, soppy Labrador. His neurotic as anything. And I wouldn't say he's always well behaved either. So I'm not sure that's the testament to my skills. Stick to the day job then, is it? Absolutely. Brilliant. Oh, well, I'm really, really thrilled to have you on. So thanks so much for giving up your time and for coming along to tell us a little bit more about you.

Obviously, we've been connected for quite a long time. I think I must have first found you through James Wedmore, which I am sure is going to come up in conversation. fantastic and I've got so much I want to ask you. But just tell the listeners a little bit more about how you got here, a bit of background and then we'll go into what's going on now more specifically. Yeah, cool. I started my own business back in 2010 and at that point I was made redundant for my corporate role because I wanted out and thought I still need to earn some money, better start my business.

And did that and that was initially it was social media and I would have, you know, help businesses, any type of business with any kind of platform on social, just anything that would make me money. And I think gradually over the years that's evolved into niching down, getting more specialized that it went to just Facebook marketing and then really into paid advertising on Facebook as well. But I've always done a lot of work with this kind of strategy side and how do you actually grow an online business?

And I would say that's my kind superpowers to kind look at what's happening and spot how you can simplify it, how can you make it so much easier and scale it. And that really I guess what I do now and particularly for women because I think we have A particular melting pot of things to deal with on top of trying to grow a business. And it's how do you do that in Among All The Noise? So yeah, that's the kind of potted history of the last 15 years. So you kind most famously, historically have been known for your Facebook ads and meta ads.

I'd love to ask you a little bit more about that. as well as talking about this piece that you've talked about, about women running businesses, you know, particularly women in their 40s and 50s, the juggle, things that can kind of send us curveballs. And, I'd love to get really into all of that if that's okay with you. Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with ads. I'm going to go straight into it because I think it will filter down. But my audience generally are medics and healthcare professionals who are Starting to look outside of the NHS, starting to think about getting out there as a personal brand, maybe bringing their skills, professional skills maybe lived experience into something that is able to help people in a different way.

Most of work that I do is that initial kind of setup, confidence building, you know, this sort of niche piece. And you've mentioned that you went from corporate and you started helping anyone with anything. How important do you think is that differentiation between actually just getting out there and doing it versus knowing exactly who you're going to help to start with? That's a great question, Joe. And I think I probably took the approach of, oh, that sounds like something I'd love to do, social media.

Because back in 2010, it really was just coming the crest of the wave. It was taking off, particularly in the UK. I thought the US was ahead of us. But social as a marketing tool for businesses was really just beginning.

Why Clear Niche and Messaging Matter 6:48

Um, and I was hugely interested in that because I'd been using Facebook for a little hobby business that I had and telling friends and family what I was doing. And I could see that from a business perspective, how that could help people. So I, that's why I chose social media marketing as my kind of my own business. Now I did go with the, I just want to do it and I want just to get out there probably without really thinking through, is there a market for this? Who do I to help? And, and, I'm a great believer in taking action and that will create clarity for you in what you want to do.

I think you also need to just take a pause and think about who you really want to work with and who your ideal audience is first before you get too far into it. Because otherwise you end up trying to speak to everyone and talking to nobody. And I thing it's so important for your messaging and resonating with people and bringing them into your world and growing your business to be very clear on who it is you're talking too. So yeah, I would say take action, get in there, but have a bit of an idea about where you're going and who you want to talk to.

Yeah. So clear, strategic action. And I think in this world, like you said, 2010, this was the beginning. We're now in 2025, and even in the online world and the course creation, AI has come along and jiggled things up even more. It's a different beast, isn't it? It really is, it really. And I think that's the thing, you know, when you start out you get an idea of what you want to do for your own business. If you've got even that inkling of who you wanna help, that can change and that is okay. It did for me, because I started out with everyone and gradually niched down and niches down in what I was doing, what was delivering as well.

So I almost nich down into the audience I wanted to work with and what it was I helping them with. That will evolve and it's okay, But at least from a starting point, have an idea who you want to work with. And let things evolve. You've got to be brave and take those first steps, haven't you, when you come out, particularly of the corporate world or the healthcare world, or this supportive place that you've been. you have got be to brave, and to take action. But making sure that, you think about these things early on.

Who are you going to help? Is there a market? Like you said, that whole action creates clarity. create and then hope that everyone's going to find you. Yes, that whole build it and they will come. They don't. You actually need to do something to get yourself out there. And I think particularly for women that can be a really hard step to take, especially if you are in a corporate world or you're in the NHS and you've got teams around you who are doing their own specific roles. And then suddenly you're doing your own thing and you are it.

You are the marketing department, you our sales, your accounting, everything. And you've got to show up and be visible to be found. That can take quite a bit of guts to do that. Yeah. Okay. So when we're looking at that sort of organic, organic reach and getting out there and telling people what you're doing, and then we get into this sort paid marketing space, how important is it when you are thinking about Facebook ads or Google ads, or meta ads sorry, Google Ads, How important it is to be clear on your audience at this stage or are they a good thing to do when they first start out?

So I wouldn't go with Facebook ads when you first start out. Two reasons. I think it's better to test out your messaging, what feels right for you, What's resonating with your audience, do that organically. So just show up on social and it'll be raw, it will be messy, doesn't matter. Just start saying something from the heart. But you'll start to see which messages are landing with people. which ones that they're going, right, that's not for me or yes, you are for Me. And I think when you know that, That's the point when You can say, Right, I can turn that into an ad and get it to even more people.

But don't test out your messaging by paying Facebook to do it. The other side of that is if you're just starting out, You want to get some cash flow behind you. You Want your business to be in a place where you can spend money on ads and it's Not going to leave you destitute. So I'd absolutely do those two things first, test it out organically, your messaging. And then when you've got the cash flow, reach a wider audience and a bigger audience by turning to paid traffic at that point. Yeah. I think there's a message in there as well about having that understanding of what you're doing, isn't it?

Because I've never managed to get my head around that Facebook ad dashboard. You know, I've looked at it with you and I have looked it up with other people. I got your training, which is excellent. It is a bit of a minefield, isn't it? It's not for everybody. That it's a big like somebody that loves a spreadsheet. Some people just absolutely geek out on Facebook ads, but it is it. Not so it not as simple as just one option. Is it it a better mine field? Is not. And I think we lump it to this one one term Facebook Ads, and it just an ad that goes out.

But there's actually So many different types of Facebook ads that you can run and it's really important that You tell Facebook exactly what it is you want to do with your ad and the type of person you Want to reach and because it will do that for you It knows it has got so much data on its audience and our behaviors and whether we're likely to buy something or just sign up for something Or just watch a video so when we give it that nudge and that information and It's important and it will then go and find you the right people, even without an audience selection.

I mean, it's getting so sophisticated now. Facebook's actually removing a lot of targeting selections that you're almost going quite broad, but the algorithm knows where to find your people as long as you are messaging. is speaking specifically to them. So that's why it always comes back to that. Do that first, hone that, first before you get into paid traffic. But Facebook ads are becoming ever more technical.

Business Challenges, Grief, and Midlife Change 13:03

The AIs is putting a whole new spin on this. And there's a lot of fear around doing it, but I think what people don't often realize, I myself hate numbers. I hate detail. But for me, it's about how do you simplify Facebook ads that they're not necessarily easy, but they can be simple if you follow set principles of how to make them work and that you cut out all the noise of looking at the data to tell you whether they are working or not. So that's really what I'm all about. But it all starts when you're messaging.

It's so, so important. And I'll often say a Facebook ad is not going to put glitter on a message that's already weak or poor. It's not going to turn into something great, it's just going amplify something rotten. So you really got to start, you know, from the beginning, get your message right. You can't polish a turd, isn't that the expression? I was going say that, but I thought, should I do that on our recording? Ha ha ha! I have been known to say, that you can polish turds. Yeah, so true. For those of you that are I think people, it's hard.

We all want a kind of quick fix or a like shortcut to get to this sort of end point that everybody's trying to reach. And the bad news is that there really isn't one and that this messaging comes every single time it comes back to that, doesn't it? Is what you're saying landing with your audience? Do they understand how you can help them? 100%. And I have so many people say to me, well, my Facebook ads aren't working. Facebook Ads don't work for me. My audience isn't on Facebook. Bullshit. They are.

It's just that you're not seeing the words that they're identifying that, they are for you. Yeah. Okay. Great. Love that. So that's how we kind of met. And you actually run Facebook ad campaigns for many, people, including James Wedmore. Whenever I see any of his ads I'm like, I know who did that. So you're doing some big things, aren't you? Well, James is. I am just merely running his ad to promote them. But yeah, he's obviously very prolific online. It's a deep honour and a privilege for me to run his ads.

And I have done for, I think I'm into my eighth year of doing that. I learned so much just by being in that world and seeing how he runs a launch. That's what then allows me take that to my audience as well and to students. It is a huge privilege. So let's talk about that movement now, because I've watched over the last sort of five, six years, I watched your direction slightly changing. And I'd like to talk sort about where you are now and the kind of people that you help. But I think one of the things you've talked about on social media, one written about in your newsletter is these life challenges that come along and knock us sideways and happen, particularly for us in our 40s and 50s.

How has that impacted you, your business, everything? I don't think you can underestimate it, but nobody talks about it. And you don t know that it's coming over the horizon until it hits you. I think that's been my experience. So it s particularly just in the last two years that I would say my world has shifted on its axis and it really makes you take stock. So in May 2023, my mum suddenly took ill and was hospitalised. And three weeks in, we thought she was going to be coming out. She would need a care package.

Three weeks after that, so after six weeks hospital, she passed away. That was quite a shock. And that then put me into the situation where I was dealing with the life admin that comes after death. And there's a lot of that that you don't realise until you're in it. But also being a carer for my dad who had dementia and was living with us. It was sorting out care for him longer term because we weren't equipped to deal with that, specialized enough to do that which we quickly came to realize. And there's a lot of emotional stuff going on and in the thick of that your livelihood depends on you running your business.

At a time when you haven't got the emotional bandwidth to it, you have got time to to because it's all consuming like dealing with life. And I very quickly realized that, and ironically I was actually in the middle of a launch for James when all that happened and was spending thousands, tens of thousands of dollars on his ads every single day while I doing the daily trips to the hospital looking after dad and then after mum passed all it came with that. So that was a hugely stressful time and It squeezed the time I had to work on my business, but there were things that had happened that only I could do, that I have to be squeezed in somewhere.

So you end up just stretching yourself thin and squeezing all that into the tiny moments in between when people have gone to bed. And it's not fun. That was quite a prolonged period of time having to do that. So I looked at something's got to give here and I don't want it to be me, but it was feeling like it Was going to me. So it really made me restructure my business. It really Made me look at who, who do I want to work with? And how do i want To work With them? What kind of offers Do I wanna put out that I can do it?

That it's not, it hasn't got To me in the business that if I need to step aside, the business isn't going to crumble and I'm not going see my income that I need going down through the floor. So that really put me and then it's when I started to talk about this and what I was experiencing so many women that i talked to who had stayed silent that they were dealing with children who died and Menopause itself was a big, big thing that just saps your energy, you can't think straight and it affects everything you're doing.

And there are days when you do not want to work in your business, but because you've built it in a way where you are the business and you have to be in it to make money, your trapped. And I thought, there's got to be a better way. There's gotta be better ways. So I figured out for my business what that looked like. And so I really, really want to help other women do the same thing before they hit that crunch, before there in it and it's too late. So that's really what's been driving me for the last two years.

And then my dad, which was inevitable. It was almost like, you know, it's going to happen. He passed away in April this year. So while that hurt probably just as much, if not more, losing a second parent, feeling orphaned and the emotional stuff that comes with that. my business was in a different place. It was more streamlined, it was much more simple. There was probably less reliance on me being in it, that I could step aside with it and I couldn't be by his side without having quite the impact.

And that's really what's driving me now, is what I want for other women, Jo, no matter what is going on in your life, because I know that even if somebody is losing a loved one, your experience of that is not going to be the same as mine was because it's so intricate you know our relationships with other people and it might be a relationship breaking down there's, so many things that hit us particularly in midlife that that experience looks very different But the principles of what your business needs to look like to support you through that are very similar.

And I think it also made me reflect on how important it is that you take care of your own internal state to get through. Because I had days where, well, not even days, weeks, months where it felt like it was this constant heaviness and tension in my chest. where it's like, I just want rid of this anxiety. I want it to go away, but I couldn't shake it. And it is really hard to about your day-to-day when you're coming from that place to make decisions that are grounded, that're calm, and that's good and sensible.

When you open the fridge door and you can't remember why the hell you went in there, you take that into your business, making decisions about the direction of that, when don't know what you've went into a fridge for. It's horrendous. And my saviour through that was almost DIY, looking for breath work exercises I could do that would just calm me down. That honestly was what got me through. It just gave you those little moments of calm in the hecticness that will allow you to grind yourself and move forward, even if it was just that one step.

So that's what I now really, really want to bring to people. I love that so much, there's sooo much there, soo much gold to talk about and thank you for being so honest and sharing that because I think you're right, I thing people muddle through. I've often said there is this period of time when you, in life, when your in your 20s or 30s maybe starting a family, maybe younger children and we share and say I didn't sleep either. you know, I'm potty training and you have this sharing experience that's completely acceptable with young children.

You then move into this dark age of teenager-dom and, you, know people start not wanting to share in case their teenage is not quite doing the same thing. And then you enter this next chapter, which we cannot, if we take a retrospective scope, You can kind of predict it's coming. The teens growing up, leaving home, the problems get more complicated and difficult. Then you add in this caring role, people dying, It's really difficult. And all of that is in this hormonal mix. I'd like to talk a bit more about the hormonial mix, but you talked about being trapped by your business.

That is something that I really try and help people understand is that when you're building a business, you don't want to be building yourself a really different job that no one else can do. You want support you. Otherwise, that feeling of trapped is tough, isn't it? But you must see that again and again with people you work with. Oh, all the time. And even I've done it. The thing is, you do it without realising it, And I would liken it to if you decide that you want to paint your floor or revarnish a wooden floor in your house and you start and this is great and end up you're doing it and the next thing you know you've actually gone backwards and in a corner and go oh I've just got wet paint around me, I can't get out.

And I think that's what we do with our businesses. We start and we're all excited and build this structure and I'll help them with that and go and do that over there and add on all the layers and then we realise we've built it around ourselves. And we can't get out because you are the one doing all the fulfillment. You're the ones doing 90% of the operations. And that can be a really hard habit to break, I think, particularly as women, because we are not known for asking for help when we need it.

I see so many women doing that. It's exactly as you said, it often will share our woes when it's about raising children. But when you get to that point, when it's all the other things and the hormonal mix coming in and you're going, oh my God, this is just not what I expected. This is not why I built and I can't cope. And we don't ask for help. We still keep going. Oh yeah, I'll help you over there. Yeah, family phones up, need help, yeah I will go and do that too. and we pile on all of the emotional responsibilities and physical responsibilities, and mental responsibilities.

More and more goes on and then we just go down. If your business isn't built on solid foundations, it is going to sink. Yeah. Someone in the group I was in, the other day talked about feeling like a table. You know, she feels like that, just that sort of thing that is gradually bowing under the weight of everybody else's needs. And I think that analogy we have to be very, very careful of. I mean, I, think now we're living in a time where people are talking about the menopause. We are looking at wellness.

we are, looking, at this whole like selflessness of looking after ourselves. If we don't look after ourself, then everything else will fall apart.

Menopause, Breathwork, and Cold Water Therapy 26:00

We'll need to talk to you about breath work for sure. Because I know you've done something exciting recently. But this menopausal mix, how have you seen that change in terms of what you wanted for yourself and your business as you have gone through the menoppause? Many of my clients are in their 40s heading perimenopause, menopsause. Have you found the manopouse has impacted you from a business point of view as well as looking in the fridge and not finding anything? Yeah. Oh, God, yeah. I've always looked after myself actually pretty well and I really enjoyed exercising, walking the dog every day, getting outdoors in nature, fresh air, all of that.

So I have always been quite proud that I'm in relatively good shape, especially for my age now. But menopause and perimenopaus, what that does to your energy levels, that absolutely took me by surprise. And, you know, it's that when you wake up in the morning, and you've had a really good night's sleep, but you're still knackered. You go, why is that? And it is your hormones just adjusting. And I think we always associate perimenopause with the hot flashes and the mood swings and all the memes that go around about that, about women wanting to stab people just for saying hello.

But I there's all of the other things that we don't talk about and you don t realise and just how tired you can feel even after a good night's sleep, even have to exercise, that you still just want to just lie in bed or sit and watch Netflix. And I think the typical advice would be, well, you've just got to push through. You've got push though. But that can really feel like wading through treacle because your body is just not in the place where it wants to do that anymore. And I think we need to recognise that.

You need find a different way of doing things. I almost beat myself up because I'm lazy, I should be working hard in this, further ahead. I just don't feel like it. I've lost my mojo, I lost purpose. Maybe I'm doing the wrong thing and you start to doubt things and, you know, the self-confidence starts to tumble. And that's an easy slide to get on. All these hormones, it's all hormones. Men don t experience this. But how many of the influencers and the experts that we're following to give strategy advice on how to grow businesses are men?

And that's no fault of theirs, but their worldview is completely different. And I think even a 30 year old woman would give different advice to what a 40 year, 50 year or 60 year woman needs in running a business. I don't think that is a space that sadly lacking. Not anymore? Not any more. I think there's a lot of us out there that are talking about it. But almost in little bits, it's like there are a few people who are specializing in menopausal care and how you navigate menopus, but not the effects that menopia actually has on you running your business and your livelihood.

And I thing that's the thing at the end of the day, this is your lively hood. If that goes down, you lose your security, lose income. and all the knock-on effects of that. So it's a huge impact. And I think it is interesting that in the corporate world, I reckon that 40% of women over 55 who leave their jobs are doing it because of menopause and how they're feeling about themselves, unsure, uncertain, lost, and there's no support. Now that's in corporate worlds. What if it's your own business that you're running?

There is no HR department. There's definitely no support. So what do you do? Yeah. And it is the same for those life things that get in the way as well. Bereavement, difficulties with our children. If you are in a corporate world or the NHS, you might take some time off sick to be able to sit there at the bedside to manage the stuff afterwards. But when you run your business you can't. What you offer is really that support network as well as the, you know, practical tools, but a support networks to get people through this tough time because actually there are some incredible women.

I think, women in their fifties are just this like proper superpower of a cohort of people, aren't they? Like huge amount of huge, amount have lived experience often, professionally at the top of their game. It's about moving into this space because you know, you don't go back to how you were before. You're living this transition and moving it to a different phase of your life, which has different challenges. And we've got to look after ourselves, but also look at each other because it's bringing that community feel back.

Isn't it? It is okay to talk, it is OK to feel like this. Not everyone has hot flushes and has those somatic symptoms. Sometimes it much more subtle. It certainly has been. has been for me anyway. So I love what you're doing. I think it's amazing. You've talked about breathwork, I'd love for you to tell me, because I know you went on this amazing ice diving trip. But breath work is something that is now becoming talked by medics, right? Medics used to be thinking, oh, you know, breath works, what kind of hippies do.

But, you know, I relatively recommend some sort of breathing exercises in most of my consultations around anxiety and depression and bring it into our normal day-to-day life. So tell us a bit about your kind of breathwork journey. Yeah, so my breathwork journey is a strange one because it's almost like I haven't realised I've been on a breath work journey until recently. But it probably started about five years ago when I had my first true breath-work experience on the retreat as part of a mastermind that I was a member of at that time.

And we all laid down on our floor and we did a full conscious connected breath where you're basically over inhaling, you're over breathing and the CO2 levels in your body can create some real release and not necessarily hallucinations but you certainly release a lot and I described that at the time as it was like having an exorcism because I was lying there thinking well this isn't doing anything and i'm doing the breathing the way I'm being told to do it what the heck's this all about and it's almost like the rational brain's dismissing it And then all of a sudden I found myself swearing.

I was shouting at a person from my childhood and a trauma with a small T I would say, but still a Trauma that had been caused that has really affected me my whole life in terms of my own self confidence in speaking up and not being laughed at or judged. And this was all coming out. This was ALL coming and I was in floods of tears, puffy eyes, snotty nose, everything. And it was like, what the hell just happened there? But didn't really do anything more with that. except for looking at, well, without being as extreme as that and having a full breath work session like that, is there something around the breath that I could do?

I did a little bit of learning about why did it have that effect? Because I'm like, I need to know the nuts and bolts of why things happen scientifically and rationally. And the more I kind of read about, why breath can have that kind of effect on your body, just by breathing in a different pattern to what you normally would. And all the different ways that you can do that to have specific effects on the body. It's just, it was eye-opening. So I think when it came to the point where I was anxious and I, you know, was in bad place going through the loss of mum and dad, and, I always was like, well, okay, what can I do breathing exercise-wise to calm myself down?

Just as I'm walking into that hospital ward, I'm going in with a smile on my face to see mum and I was DIY research about what would work and it was working. It might only have been for five minutes, ten minutes but it And I kind of came out of that experience going, I really want to learn more about this. I want learn the full thing, which is kind what I did with Facebook Ads. It's like I wanna understand how to do this, and I'm gonna conquer this! So I've been undergoing a breathwork certification, but I am just discovering so much that already I can help other people with, just from a functional perspective of breathing correctly.

because most of us don't. I mean, that sounds absurd that, you know, we all breathe. We do it without even thinking about it, but we're not breathing properly. And when you do that in itself can have such a huge effect on how calm you are. So I think that's the kind of journey I've been on, But I'm so passionate about. But along that way, it's a very long garbled journey because it is not clear the path. I also got myself into cold water therapy because it was suggested to me, not necessarily as it proves I can do hard things.

I don't see it as that. It was more about people were saying about how the calm and the clarity it gave them to get in the coldwater. Now the way to prepare to go into the Coldwater, as has been made popular by Wim Hof, is to do the breath work first. It is about calming your system that you can get into the cold water and almost regulate your state. So those two things started to work in tandem for me from a personal practice and perspective. And that led me to the ice dive in Finland in February this year, where we learned really at a deep level, how do you use the breathe to get yourself into icy cold water.

I mean, it was zero degrees, 30 centimetres of ice sitting on top of the water, and we dived in through one hole and under the ice for about 10 metres and came up the other side. That's an experience most people don't get to do. It's some experience that most wouldn't want to, do and your body does go into fight or flight. What the hell are you going to put yourself in that icy water? But using the breath to to get into the state where you were going to do it. And that, for me, was just a transformative experience.

I almost can't describe it because for, me I just felt a calling, I wanted to go into that hole, and I want to into get that water, go under that ice, experience it and it felt like going back into my element. but it's made me realize just how important breath work is predominantly, but also cold water and what it can do for your health, your clarity, you mindset, all of that. So I'm really deep into looking at how can I bring that into my retreats to really help women ground themselves, kickstart their nervous system that you're not stuck in fight or flight, that actually it learns how to get out of and into a calmer situation and be healthier.

And that then allows you to make better decisions about your business, come at it from a place of clarity. Yeah, I love this. So it's all, it comes full circle essentially. And we've got these tools within us and this is, you know, this available to us. You know our breathing is available 24 hours a day and can make a massive difference. in every aspect of our life. So anyone that links up with you and might come on one of your retreats, this is probably going to become more and more of a part of what you do.

I guess up in Scotland, you've got this great place that you host retreat there, is that right? Yes, I do. It's a beautiful, gorgeous old house on the banks of Loch Lomond and we ran the first retreat in October last year and the second one's coming up in october this year because there should be one in May but unfortunately had to cancel that for obvious reasons with my father but Yeah, that first retreat was predominantly business strategy and doing masterminding and helping people simplify and everything that I'd learned about how to build a business that sustains you when you need help, when your mind needs to be elsewhere.

So we were looking at all that, but one of the girls had said, you know, I would love to go into the loch. Could we do that? And I said yeah, no problem. She said I'm a little bit worried about it. And some of others were like, yeah but oh my God, it's going to so cold. I know enough about breathwork and how to get into that. I'll help you. We'll go down, we'll do it. And we did. Yeah, you walk in and it's like, and I was helping them calm down. Okay. For me, seeing their facial expressions change from Oh my God, to, oh.

And the, no, I don't want to say enlightenment, but the realizations that they had about themselves coming out of that. I've had some of them, you know, message me months after going, it was that moment that has given me the realization of what I want to do,

Advice for Starting Out and Where to Find Liz 39:30

what really want do in my business. And I was feeling quite lost, but I'm now so clear, just by the effect it has on your nervous system. So, I, was like, right, okay, this is gonna give me a formal part. I think that's really evolved in the last 12 months, that that not just someone wanted to go into the loch, You come on one of my retreats, you're going in that cold water. And it's overcoming that fear, which is natural. But just to come alive within yourself again is such an experience. Wonderful stuff, wonderful stuff.

Well, we have covered a huge amount in a very short period of time. We've talked about Facebook ads, grief, menopause, breathwork, business strategy. I could talk to you for hours, but I always try and keep under a 40-minute mark. But I would love to know from you, if you were talking to your younger self, maybe your corporate self or maybe me or somebody like me 10, 15 years ago, what would be your advice to somebody kind of starting out in this business world, making their first steps, taking their, you know, make making the first decisions, decide, just what, would you say to them?

What do you think would really help them on that first step journey? I would say don't overthink it that you get into paralysis by analysis, that your sitting and thinking about who should I help and I don t know who that is. So just pick someone. Just pick the low hanging fruit and if that needs to change that s fine but just picked something and go. But do pick something. Don t just think I m going to help everyone and anyone as I did. I will definitely start there but I think also trust yourself.

Listen to yourself and what you need first and not be told by other people what they think you should do because they are not you. And I think, you know, that's been a long time coming, but that something I've definitely, definitely learned that even the most successful of people, they're successful because what they did work for them and their lifestyle and what's going on in their lives and how it suits them. That's not necessarily going to translate into your life and you're dealing with. So I thank every stage of your journey.

Just check in with yourself. Am I doing what really truly lights me up and I love to do or am I do what I'm good at? Because there's a big difference. And yeah, just stay on that path, but don't not do it because you're worried you are doing the wrong thing. Do something and just go for it. Amazing. Well, Liz, how do people find out about you? Where is best to follow you. How can people get on your newsletter? That sort of thing. So if you email me at Liz at lizmelville.com, I'll get you onto the newsletter.

Just let me know you'd like to connect and you'll find me on Instagram at the underscore Liz Melville, that's the best place to come and hang out with me. Great. Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you so much for your time. Hugely appreciated. I know there's going to be A lot of great feedback about this podcast. So thank you so much for joining me. Oh, thanks for having me, Jo. It's been lovely. I hope this episode has sparked some new ideas or challenged your thinking. Transitioning from medicine to business is not easy.

It's about adapting our skills while embracing the unknowns of entrepreneurship. for support and don't forget to grab the free pdf from the show notes from stethoscope to start up which is your go-to guide and resource for diving into entrepreneurship. Many thanks for tuning in I will see you next time. Thanks for spending your precious time with me. This has been a Monkey Pants Productions Podcast.