Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
New Year, New You: How to Make 2026 Your Healthiest Year Yet
In this week's episode of the' Work It Like a Mum' podcast, we’re joined by Ro Feilden-Cook, a personal trainer, women’s wellbeing expert, and founder of The SHE Collective. Ro helps busy midlife women create sustainable breakthroughs in their health—without guilt or perfectionism. She’s also a mum of three and carer to her disabled son, bringing personal experience, resilience, and compassion to her work.
Through her award-winning platform, she combines movement, nutrition, mindset, and nervous system support, all within a supportive, empowering community.
What we cover:
- The 4 pillars of health: Exercise, nutrition, mindset & nervous system.
- Mindset hacks: Navigate setbacks, “week three wobbles,” and hit your “Magic 10” breakthrough.
- Exercise made simple: Find the best time to move, whatever fits your life.
- Nutrition without guilt: Why journaling beats calorie counting every time.
- Power of community: Connection and accountability that make habits stick.
- Stress-proof your life: Tools for managing stress, inspired by raising a child with complex needs.
- Self-care that works: Why prioritising yourself is the ultimate gift to your family.
- Business with heart: Lessons from growing a high-support membership sustainably.
Key Takeaways:
Self-care isn’t selfish: Taking care of yourself benefits both you and your loved ones.
Consistency beats perfection: The “Magic 10” shows small wins compound into breakthroughs.
Your community matters: Support and accountability keep habits alive.
Food and fitness without guilt: Focus on habits that feel good, not just numbers.
Manage stress before it manages you: Breathwork, journaling, and mindset tools.
Adapt, don’t give up: Life throws curveballs, including parenting challenges, so adjust and keep pressing play.
Why Listen:
This episode is full of actionable tips, mindset shifts, and practical tools from Ro to help you show up for yourself, your family, and your future self.
Show Links:
Connect with our host Elizabeth Willetts here
Connect with Ro on LinkedIn here
Visit The SHE Collective website here
Follow The SHE Collective on Instagram here
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willis, and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mum with over 17 years of improvement experience, and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women, redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, their boundaries of balance, the challenges they face, and how to overcome them. Find their own version of success. Shy away from the real talk. No way! Money, struggles, growth, loss, boundaries of balance. We cover it all. Think of this as coffee with your mates, mixed with an inspiring TED talk, sprinkled with the career advice you wish you'd really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, make sure you're cozy, and get ready to get inspired and chase your oldest dreams. Or just survive Mondays. This is the Work It Like a Mum podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Ready to find your perfect job?co.uk and find your next part-time flexible job opportunity. Now to the show. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Work It Like a Monkey Podcast. Today I have got a really special guest. I've got Ro Fielding Cook. She is a personal trainer and women's well-being expert. Helping a busy and mid-life women create sustainable breakthroughs with their health. Through her award-winning platform, the new collective Ro empowers women to feel strong, happy, and empowered without guildable perfectionism. She's a mum of three and a car to her disabled son. Road journey into a well-being was born from personal struggle and resilience. After facing her son's life-limiting diagnosis and her own burnout, she discovered the power of movement, mindset, and community, and now helping other women do the same. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm really excited to chat with you and learn more about the She Collective.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:I think all you've done is great. So tell us, what is the She Collective? What do you do and how do you help women?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so like you were saying, it's an online platform. So it's run through an app, but it's much more than an app, it's sort of like a membership and a community, really. We just host it on an app. And we really base a woman's journey around uh our core four pillars. So that's exercise, nutrition, mindset, and nervous system. I have learnt the hard way on all of these pillars. And so, you know, I started as a PT through making big breakthroughs in terms of what exercise could do, just not just for my body, but for my mind. Um, and then I found that, you know, it was one thing doing the exercise, but filling my body with crap and real self-sabotage around kind of nutritional habits, you know, growing up in the 90s and noughties, lots of toxic diet culture, that sort of thing. So I started to work on nutrition, but then I found that, you know, being a busy woman, having kids, curveballs come aplenty. And I was seeing this with my clients, and actually, there was a lot of like unlearning to do as well as learning. So trained to be a mindset coach, which I absolutely loved, found that that kind of tended to be like the glue that held it all together. But I've had a lot of years of a lot of trauma with my son, a lot of kind of stuff that's gone on with my nervous system. Have absolutely this has been the this is the kind of final thing that I'm really working on myself at the moment, and discovered that really when we're neglecting those nervous systems, that again you're kind of driving with the brakes on, and it's just really, really hard work to make changes and have some fun with it and stuff. So um brought in nervous system practices into the She Collective, um, and then yeah, that was sort of our core for, but it's wrapped up in the beauty of doing it as a community. So we have the most amazing community, 14 community leaders based all across the country. Um, you know, people roll their eyes at the idea of another WhatsApp group in their lives, but these are really special places and places that you can go on the journey with other women with. So it's it's a really special place. I'm really proud of what we've got because it feels like somewhere that women can go on that journey, whilst like having all those mess-ups, having those weeks where it's just not gonna happen and not feel judged, which is something that I really, really felt in that world.
SPEAKER_00:Because I guess like I've never done it, but you know, like you hear about Slimming Wheel and Weight Watchers, and then you go and get weighed.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, yeah. I mean, we are the polar opposite to that. And in fact, weight chat is actually banned in the wet so WhatsApp groups, it's the only rule that we have.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, right, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just because I think the thing is is that we're not saying that you know women aren't gonna lose weight or then that weight loss is a bad goal. But what I've just discovered is when you make it your why, the whole thing becomes so miserable. And it means that when you have a bad week or you're measuring your worth by the scales, then what happens is like, you know, you you could be stepping on those scales one week and then two weeks later, not considering the fact that you've got you know, maybe water retention, you're having a you know that you're about to go on your period. You're about to go on your period, exactly. You're a cyclical being, and so then it can just send you into that spiral. And so that is something that I've seen is that actually, yes, that can be an outcome, but when you make the goal different, you make the goal about you know, doing it for your future self, showing up for your kids if you've got kids, having more energy, having more confidence, all of those things, then actually you're far more likely to stick to it, and it just becomes a lot more fun.
SPEAKER_00:Like that. So you so you join the app, um, and then is it like is it like a call? How you know, so you've got the four pillars. How do you immerse yourself, I guess, in those four pillars?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like I always recommend to women that they join a program because I really believe that otherwise you are looking at a journey and it's like standing at the bottom of a really daunting like mountain. So we have like seasonal challenges, and again, that is because what you need at a certain time of year is going to be so different. So like in September we had like Ignite, and that was all about the fire and like kind of reclaiming yourself after maybe a long summer of kids on holiday and things like that. And but then in January, actually, like I really want women to honour the fact that it's okay that it's winter, it's okay that we're doing things a bit slower. So it's like that slower strength stuff, it's working with your hormones. And so when women join a program, then it is like that like step-by-step kind of these are your workouts, you've got that variety so that you can choose what you enjoy, yeah. Um, but also having that community, having somebody lead you through it. Because I actually think that women need that support, and so actually, when you're going into the abyss of like going into YouTube and going, all right, okay, well, there's these, I'm just gonna pick this and that or whatever. By the time that you've done that, quite often you've got so much mental load in your life as a busy woman that actually it's like, all right, I'm done, I'm out. So like even when we haven't got like a seasonal program going on, like we have all these different programs within the app, but we have a weekly schedule. So like people would go in and just be like, Okay, these are my workouts that have been selected, letting somebody else do the hard work for you because it's just exhausting, otherwise. We've got enough on our plate.
SPEAKER_00:So you upload you record and upload workouts onto the app, do you? Yeah, yeah. Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How long are each workout as well? Well, 20 to 30 minutes, because honestly, you'd be amazed by how much you can get done. Like that sometimes people are like they get more from the 20-minute ones, even from the 30-minute ones. So we we don't had to go over that. And then, you know, it's not just me, there's options for yoga, pilates, bar, lots of variety. Because I do I I really do believe variety is so key to uh to women, like, and their bodies love it as well.
SPEAKER_00:Really?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, your body and your mind loves variety. It's that when you get into that monotony of doing the same thing over and over again. You quite often, again, even if it your goals are just aesthetic, your body just you know, it's essentially you get the results by putting exercise is essentially a stressor on your body, your body adapts and gets stronger. You know, you break down those muscle fibers, they build back up stronger. If you're doing the same thing over and over again, then you don't get that progression. So it's just really important to me that I'm always helping women get bang for their buck. 30 minutes, we're making sure that their bodies are being challenged, their minds are being challenged, but also with a really great playlist because that's really important. Oh, is that oh yeah? I love that. Oh my god, it's so important. I mean, like my favourite part is like, right, what are we doing to this one? And it was and it there's so much nostalgia in that as well. Like, we'll do like 90s boy bands versus girl bands, or like a noughties dance party, you know, that sort of thing. And it's like, oh, it takes you back to like in your mind at a moment. It's so fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Love that. Okay, so you join us. Um, I'm just very curious. I'm not thinking of potential customers. You join at you've got you get a night on a Monday say whenever I don't know where you send you. This is these are your workouts for the week. Do you also have like meal plans had?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, we do we so we do so we do lots of there's lots of resources in terms of um recipes and things, but actually the nutrition side is more like coaching. So is it interesting? Because recently I was looking into doing like smaller group programmes, and I was like, well, I can't do that because I've literally given everything away as it is, because I really have always felt that that was an exciting part of my um opportunity. Was that once I'd put together one resource, everybody got to get the benefit of it. So there's no gatekeeping. So actually, what I've put together are a load of coaching resources, which are audios, because busy women, they're gonna want to listen whilst they're walking the dog, whilst they're driving the kids to school, that sort of thing. And actually, with nutrition, a lot of it is actually very simple. We just we overcomplicate nutrition, and so there's got to be this process where, first of all, in terms of the coaching, it's that unlearning before you have to start that learning. Because for so many women, they've been taught a million pieces of absolute rubbish about nutrition, or they're seeing it, they're being bombarded with it on Instagram. And actually, when you strip it all back, start to understand the simplicity of it, start to understand the mindset around it, because a lot of people, like I say, have been incredibly like um kind of brainwashed around it being all about calories in, calories out, nothing else matters, you know, low fat, all of these kind of things. And actually, it's really important to unpick that, first of all, because otherwise, what you're creating in terms of those habits, they're not going to be sustainable. I mean, for me, I used I'm somebody who I grew up with all of that. I tried every diet, was always on the wagon, off the wagon, um, ended up with an eating disorder in my late teens, like had such a toxic kind of relationship with food. And now to find that sweet spot where I'm not good in quote all the time at all. But to have found a level where I know that I am nourishing my body for energy, for consistency. I'm going out on a Friday and having wine and pizza, whatever it may be, without that guilt, that is a sweet spot and that is a gift I really feel for women. Because once you live in that sweet spot, oh my god, the the capacity you have to give to so many other areas of your life, because you think about how exhausting that is when you're just constantly that food stress is just it's exhausting. So when you can remove that, that's when you get into that place of just like really thriving, and that's that's what and I suppose eating the right food gives you more energy as well. Oh god, yeah. I mean, you look at like what most, you know, what most of us, including myself, did from for you know, the majority of when my twins were really little. If I think about the way that I used to feel myself, breakfast would either be no breakfast at all, or just coffee on an empty stomach, or it'd be grabbing a piece of toast, grabbing a bit of cereal, and then you know, by mid-morning I'm crashing, I'm having to bring myself up with a boosting with a biscuit or whatever it may be, lunch is a lunch deal from like a petrol station. All these things, you think about that, and you think about that roller coaster and how much energy that takes your body to sustain those peaks and troughs. It's no wonder that people feel exhausted. And I think that's the thing is that you've got to think of all these things not as a chore or a bore, it's a gift that you can give yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. If someone's, I mean, I know that obviously it's in your app, but you know, are there any uh um top tips for people that want to take you know better care of themselves with their nutrition?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. No, I like like you know, whether someone's part of the Chi Collective or not, like it really is part of my mission to help women, and there's so much that we can do. And like, you know, one of the best things I think if you're in terms of when it comes to nutrition, I would say it's just really about starting to look at your day and look at the bookends of your day. So look at the beginning of your day and the end of your day. That's one of the simplest things that you can do because then you the you'll find the middle parts start to fall into play. So, how are you starting your day? Because you know, you're waking up and your cold soil, your stress hormone is at the highest point that is going to be in in the entire day. So then if you are simply coming off the bat of then filling yourself with some caffeine, you're gonna be spiking that cold salt even further. And if you're not having that protein, you've got nothing to balance it out, and so essentially you're spiking everything up on top of all of those emotional stresses, which are often the highest at the in the morning, anyway. Um, you know, so if instead, if you can wake up, get some water into yourself. It's amazing how dehydrated we are when we wake up, you know, habit stack that, put that by the kettle, have that pint of water, sip on it slowly, make yourself a drink. But if you can make it that first one if you want that ritual, I just have a decaf coffee, but I've hydrated myself first. It's still, you know, it still feels that kind of coffee vibe, as it were. Yeah, you're getting the taste, and then and then I do, and I'm having so I am, you know, a creature of habit when it comes to my breakfast. I'm having um porridge and I put Greek yogurt on it, some protein granola, some uh some fruit, so I have some berries, um, you know, and that is so simple, right? I'm constructing my breakfast, it's taking me probably two and a half minutes, then two and a half minutes to eat. Yeah. So sometimes it's it's quick, and sometimes these things unfortunately are about calling yourself out on your own BS because if you're saying I haven't got time, well, you do not need to be cooking your breakfast. You can be construct it if you haven't got time to even put it in the microwave, you can have overnight oats, whatever it may be. Or you know, if you have got time on a Sunday, you can make yourself some egg muffins or whatever that sit in the freezer and you put them in the microwave to warm up, all of those things, but then you are setting yourself up for success, and that is the thing. I think that the then you are on such a different trajectory throughout the day. Um, and again, it's like it's those really simple things, so it's like looking at your plate, like having that balance of I know that like protein has become a buzzword, but it's a buzzword for a reason because actually, the more protein and good quality protein that you can get into your body, you are supporting all of those other kind of healthy habits. So when you're doing that strength training and you've got that protein alongside, it's you know, you're gonna be able to build that lean muscle that is gonna support, you know, your bone health, but also your metabolism, all of these things. But then we need fibre as well. So it's like looking at that, like fruit and veg, it's all actually within our knowledge. Like we probably know all of this stuff in terms of you know what we should be doing, but that's why I always say that actually it's quite often that self-sabotage that comes into play, and so that mindset alongside the nutrition and alongside the exercise is that's the glue that's gonna hold it together. Um, but yeah, and then it's and then you get to your evening and it's about you know giving your you think about sometimes you've got to think about yourself like a toddler. So it's like you get to the evening and it's like your body, your gut has been working over time all day to sustain these crazy lives that we get. When you get to that evening, if you're then sitting on the sofa and going, instead of giving you a break, as in you think about your like gut as a toddler, no, I'm gonna make you work even harder and I'm gonna spike your blood sugar by sitting on the sofa, having you know, maybe something sugary, whatever it may be. And then that's all obviously gonna have a knock-on impact on your sleep, and then that has a knock-on impact on your energy, so it's just understanding the impact of all these things, and so that's why I don't I would never get a woman to count her calories because actually it it's absolutely like it just calories are not all equal at all, yeah. And of course, there's science in it in terms of if weight loss is a goal, calories in, calories out, but to simplify it to that, that is not a sustainable journey. But what I would get a woman to do is to keep a diary and actually understand what certain foods, certain behaviours, certain exercises, whatever they make you feel. So, like actually journaling alongside when you start that journey is one of the most powerful things that you could do because once you start to understand, oh, okay, yeah, it's not just that biscuit, it's raising me up and then dropping me off a cliff, and then I'm feeling angry or whatever it may be, then you're much you're going on a journey to understand yourself, and you're much more likely to get habits that stack and stuck, stack, yeah, stack as well, but stick, yeah. Stick like that.
SPEAKER_00:Is there a good time of day to exercise, or is it just whenever you can do it?
SPEAKER_01:No, it's whenever you can do it. It's an absolute myth that like you know, obviously, there's a good time to exercise in terms of oh, like if you were an athlete, there's probably a good time, but we're not talking about that, we're talking about when you can find the motivation. I find it really fascinating because quite often I see women in the community saying that they've just done their workout at eight o'clock at night. I mean, I couldn't think of anything worse because it's a spin class one um on one night and I can never get to sleep because it puts all the adrenaline in my body. I'm not an evening exerciser. I'm also not an exerciser like first thing in the morning. I actually find like I really like a lunchtime if I can, because then it it it cognitively it breaks it breaks up the day, and a lot of the women within our community have got their own businesses, are working from home, so that works for them. But for somebody who's working in nine to five, that's not gonna work. So, you know, so it's got to, I would say the best time to exercise is the time that you feel the most energy, but there's the least resistance. Like if you're gonna be doing it in the morning and you've got kids hanging off you and it suddenly becomes this awful kind of contentious thing where yeah, it that that's never gonna work, that's never gonna be sustainable. So, yeah, just when it works for you, really, and your life.
SPEAKER_00:I think a lot of women feel guilty, don't they, for looking after themselves. Node like thinking about the the children analogy. Oh sorry I'm knocked my notepad off. You know, I've been exercising and the kids have maybe watch TV or been on the iPad and there is that all I've done it and I've gone over it, but I know that there is that guilt of feeling like you're putting yourself first.
SPEAKER_01:It is literally the least selfish thing that you could possibly do. I do get it because I think that's why I didn't exercise when my twins were little. I felt like it had to be all about them. But now, you know, I've got a nine-year age gap between my twins and my third, and I see with Freddie, with my youngest, it is the least selfish thing that I can do. I am so much a better human when I have moved my body, when I have looked after myself. The other thing is that it's now like the studies coming out about it are insane about what you are modelling to your children, the the in terms of how likely they are then to go and have healthy habits, you know, build strength. Like you think about all those things, like you were saying you've got a daughter, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and for your daughter, that is the most positive role modelling possible because also what you are doing now means that when you are 80 and she is caring, for you as an aging parent, you are far more likely to be able to, I don't know, have a fall on the bathroom floor and not break a hip, be able to get up. It is a gift, even if you feel like in that moment, it is a gift to you and to her future. And it's just so interesting how like it's not just that modelling, but really for you in that moment, it's like you cannot pour, you know, we've heard it a million times, but you can't pour from an empty cup. And you the the gift of like the return on energy, return on time that you get for those 30 minutes. I always say it's actually very little to be.
SPEAKER_00:It's a bit like a pension in a way, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:You're putting more money in now, you are paying in you are paying into your health pension. I always say if you cannot be asked, if you cannot be bothered for yourself now, do it for your older self. Like imagine your 80-year-old self. And I was talking to someone about this the other day, and she was saying that sometimes one of the things that she does is literally write herself a letter from her 80-year-old self, and it is just like thanking her, thanking her for doing it now. And I literally imagine, like, I do these ridiculous reels with like me in a granny wig, and it's granny Rowe, and she's like fab. She's like dancing and doing the funky chicken, and she's lifting her grandchildren, and that's what I want. Like, I've got a mum who's just had a hip replace, and that's two hips, one knee, and she now does the she collector, but she's like, Oh, I just wish I'd done it earlier in terms of lifting those weights and doing those things. So it's that reframing is so important because otherwise you will never prioritize it unless you see it as a gift to yourself, a gift to your children. Then yeah, it's it's definitely not selfish, but I do get it, and it's something I see all the time, so you're not you're not alone in that.
SPEAKER_00:So we've got exercise, nutrition. I know we'll you will come onto the nervous system, remind me of the other pillar. Mindset, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Talk us through mindset, yeah. So mindset is so important because what I was seeing is that in so it was in 2020 that I started the She Collective, yeah, and you know, and again at that time, I think my my own mindset was very much like we do these things for the way that we look, you know, we've we look better, then we feel better, and that is a big part of it, there's no doubt about it. But I really was going on my own journey with it because I was in lockdown, I was doing about six zooms a week, and it was the first time in my life I had created the body that I thought I wanted, and I felt totally empty. It was like, oh, I've achieved this, why do I not feel good? But also, what I am seeing time and time again is that all these women, we're in this together and stuff, and that's great, but every time life lifes or anything, then I'm seeing these women feel guilt, feel shame, fall off the wagon, then like you know, just get these wobbles, not be able to kind of bring themselves back up. And it just became really clear to me that there was this other part that we just were totally ignoring, and that was firstly the damage that had been done to these women growing up in the 90s and noughties, around what these practices were for, why it was important, all those kind of toxic diet culture messages that we got, but also the fact that we are women who are running crazy busy lives, and you don't know when the next curveball is coming, it's coming all the time, like they never stop. And so it there was something in it. And then I was doing my postnatal um qualification, and in there there was a there was a module. It was um it's it's by an American company called Girls Gone Strong, and they were very progressive, and they had a module in there about mindset because of course for those new mums, like we were talking about, so many of them were struggling to to kind of prioritize themselves because they had babies, and I was like, God, this mindset stuff, this I love this. This is what this makes so much sense. Like, why are we not covering this? And then I looked into sort of it kind of blew up mindset coaching in lockdown, and I started looking into it and ended up doing a course on it because what I discovered was that we see these patterns, right? And now, because I've seen these patterns and had hundreds of women through these challenges, I've seen week three, it's all about the week three where wobbles everybody gets them. Really? Is that the is that it really gets them? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the wobble about? So, so week one, you've got that, like it's novelty, it's exciting, it's fun, it's like I'm on a journey, this is exciting. Week two, you know, okay, it's like you know, you might have like a little kind of curve will come, but you're still keeping going. And then week three is often where people go, This is too hard, or life lives, and you get all these things come in and it collides in week three. And so, by knowing that and understanding what happens, and understanding that these curveballs are gonna come in two forms. So you're gonna have potholes, which are the ones that you can avoid, which are like those things of like having the boundaries around your time, setting up yourself up for success, or you're gonna get the waves, and you just gotta ride those waves and understand that you'll come back out on the other side, and all the things that you've been doing have been compounding beneath the surface. They are not lost, they are still there, and you can pick back up at any time. And so once you understand that and you can say to women, this week is gonna be a challenge, and we're gonna take that on together, and we're gonna navigate this together, then it changes the game because you're removing the guilt, removing the shame, starting to understand the process, you start to get to know yourself better, and you start to adapt rather than give up. And that's what I say to women all the time adapt, don't give up. And so when you find these adaptations, then you keep pressing play on your well-being in some respects. So on a day where you can't do a workout, you listen to a podcast, whatever it may be. Like, oh, that's why I put loads of mindset audios into there, because actually, what you need on any given day is going to be so different. And the more that you build up that resistance in your mind on a day where you really don't want to exercise, the more it becomes this negative thing. And then the more that you're just like, I'm just somebody who doesn't exercise, and you've got this whole narrative around it. All my life, I told myself I was just someone who doesn't exercise, can't eat healthily, all these things. But the more that you build up those small little success stories, that's when you start to rewrite the story. So it's mindset is about it's about navigating those curveballs, it's about rewriting those stories, it's about getting to know yourself. And the more that you can step out yourself yourself, almost be like out of your body, and understand that these are processes that are going on, and you can keep pressing play regardless, then that like I was saying, those compounding effects. Because what happens is that so many women do people give up too quickly, give up, yes, just before the magic. Exactly. So it's like pushing a jumbo jet down the runway, yeah, and all the time you're not seeing that you're building this momentum, and they talk about it in atomic habits, like it's it's basically builds, builds, builds, and then you get takeoffs. So that's why I always talk to women about the magic 10, because actually What's the magic 10? So the magic 10 is basically what we discovered was that actually so many women were saying around that 10th workout, we would see the ones who pushed through rather than gave up, that's when the breakthrough happened. It was always around that 10th workout. So we're then again in mindset, right? If you understand that basically, if you say to women, okay, listen, it's gonna be pretty shit until that point, like you know, you're not gonna enjoy it. All that we're gonna need to do up until that point is just try and support ourselves, have compassion, understand that we've just got to do those small little things setting ourselves up for success, then you've got no expectation up until that point because otherwise, we've been taught that it's all about these quick fixes, quick wins. You're like, What? I'm on workout six, seven, and I'm not feeling anything. Why is it not?
SPEAKER_00:You know, you'd know you ban weight loss, but you know, you might think I'm not lost anyway.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So it is exactly that, and that is what had happened to me all my life is that I just gave up that little bit too early. And that's what that's why community and accountability, I think, are so key. So if you're going out on your own, you know, into the wilderness and going, okay, I'm just gonna look at these recipes, look at these YouTube videos, it's just so hard, so hard and so lonely. I think that's the thing.
SPEAKER_00:What do the community leaders do then?
SPEAKER_01:So the community leaders, so we have like Team Whitney, tip team Beyoncé, like they all have like every team has their like little identity, yeah. Um, you know, some amazing female name or whatever. And um, and then the community leaders essentially run that accountability. So they'll be like, How's everyone going this week? You know, what what who's who's working out today? I mean, what they have to do is quite minimal because actually these these spaces are quite self-led because these women have already been through a challenge with our community manager. So our community manager, Lucinda, is like she's trained in all the stuff I just talked to you about. So she knows what week, what's gonna happen. I mean, it used to be me, but I just we've grown to a point where I haven't got the capacity. Also, I'm way too much of an empath. So if anyone hasn't is struggling, I'm just she can't can't stop thinking about it. You know, it's hard not to take it personally and just kind of want to jump in and save. Um, but but Lucinda knows how to how to coach people through that challenge. So bit by bit, she's done that process, and then essentially you graduate from a program, and then they go into a WhatsApp group with the women that you've already done that program with.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, right, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So that then you stick together. What's incredible though?
SPEAKER_00:Does everyone start at the same time? Then do you have like yeah, can you join? Do you so you've only got certain times?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, they could join, they could join at any point and they could be doing the weekly schedule, but then we have you know quite a few opportunities every year where people join and they go in all at the same time. But like these a lot of a lot of my members have been with me, they're coming up to five years, we're five years now, and they have like been together for that amount of time, they've been through like births, divorces, all these things all together, and then they meet, you know, some of them have met at events or the retreats or whatever, and so they but it's amazing how I'm sure you've experienced this. You can develop quite incredible bonds with people online, like it's amazing. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:I've I've made some really good friends. Like, I'm going out tonight with two ladies that I met online and we've become, you know, we've translated that friendship now offline, but like really good friends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you you develop really it's like they're really like authentic friendships, and it's yeah, it's amazing. And also sometimes you can feel like actually quite safe in a space where if you are somebody who's really busy, like these women aren't expecting any of your time, you they're not waiting for a reply, they're not demanding your time for a coffee or whatever it may be. It's just quite nice for us to have spaces of being like the commonality is like we're all living these messy lives, we're just trying to navigate it together, and there's no like there's no kind of like, oh well, I've done I've done four workouts today. It's like a space where you could go, haven't worked out in two weeks, life's been a mess, but I'm planning on getting back on the mat, and everyone would go, Yay! We're here for you, like you know, kind of like cheerleading you on.
SPEAKER_00:Like that's so nice. It's nice, yeah. So, what's the nervous system part of it then?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so the nervous system was again something that I was just totally neglecting myself, you know. Um, so I think so. With my twins, one of them is very disabled. Um, he had a very dire prognosis, which is sort of how I found exercise myself, was because I was living through that and it really at a very low point in my life. Um, and you know, thank goodness he has been they developed a treatment and he's still he's wheelchair bound, he um, you know, he's very, very disabled physically, but um he's still here, which is much more than you know, kind of we I was living with that prospect of him not being, and I was a single parent, and it was a lot, you know, it was a lot, and so I had a lot of nights um with him in intensive care, and that was a lot of trauma, like his diagnosis, him being in intensive care, and I kind of just kept going, just kept going, just kept going, just kept going. Um, and you know, like we all do through life, and it would start to manifest its way in just little tripwires, like I would hear a certain type of alarm, and it would sound like an alarm that you get in intensive care, and it would, I'd suddenly, before I knew it, I was in a panic attack, or be on the motorway and suddenly again just having a panic attack. And then two years ago, um, I slipped two discs in my neck, and they are called the trauma discs. And essentially, it was that I was building up all this tension, all this stress life living with my yeah, like to a point, like you know, managing it through exercise, but actually layering high impact, high-intensity exercise on top of a high impact life, on top of unresolved trauma. And it was like my body just went, enough, like we've had it, like enough. And so it was really interesting to me that during that time, um, you know, I was going, I was spending such an eye-watering amount of money on trying to get to the bottom of it because it was my job, you know. I was going, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna lose my business. I've spent all this time building up this business and all of this. And so I was building that up, and so there was so much fear in that time of what was gonna happen if I couldn't get better. And it was just really interesting that I was being told left to right and centre, they were just like, until you work on your nervous system, this will never resolve itself. So I was started having like I had things like Then what was the treatment then? And do you have to go in the hospital for it? No, because no, there's no you it other than you know, so I was trying to avoid surgery. It's like calmed down, really. Yeah, I mean I had to go on two weeks' bed rest to just literally like actually come away from because it was my son's care that would trigger it every time. So it was lifting his wheelchair out of the gravel that eventually like made it go, but actually it that was, you know, it was again a compounding effect of everything that had gone over the years. Um, but I did I did two weeks bed rest at my mum's because I stopped being able to use my hands, and that got really scary. Um, and then when I was there, um I actually a friend reached out who was a hypnotherapist, and she does cognit cognitive behavioural therapy in conjunction with hypnotherapy, and the hypnotherapy would give me more pain relief than oral morphine, like and I was like just blown away by it because coming in as somebody who was quite skeptical about it, it just really blew my mind. And then breath work, so all these things, then I I realized that these could benefit my community so much. So if I invested in one of those resources, then everyone got the benefit. So I got a series of breath work, a series of meditations, a series of hypnotherapy and had them on the app. And women were really saying, like, that it really, you know, it really helped them. And it's taken me two years since then. I've you know, I'm really open about my own process, and I've just started trauma therapy because that's been the right timing for me. So I think with with nervous system, it's something that I just would encourage women to just not think of it as in like your body can just handle all this stress without any release. Like it's it's having an impact. So whether it be five deep breaths in the bathroom or whether it be starting your day with a bit of you know, uh morning meditation and some journaling, all of these things essentially you've got to think of yourself as like this pressure cooker. And all of these things that we're doing in our lives, whether it be kids, work, whatever it may be, they feed into it. So we've got to do these things like exercise, nourishing ourselves properly, taking those breaths in the bathroom to essentially just release it. It's like that backpack that we're have, you know, heavy backpacks. So I've really found that actually, this is the one, you know, I'm always really honest. I won't preach about it. It's a work in progress for me. Yeah, as somebody who, you know, as a business owner and has this inner driver and wants to make this big impact, but like recently we've like paused the push with the She Collective because it was too much for me. I was finding it so exhausting, it was really impacting me, and so you know it's great. I I'm doing stuff like this where I'm actually getting more like I'm talking about my mission. Yeah, I'm trying to get bring that mission to light, but I'm not actually purposely pushing, yeah. Because my body was going enough. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So how many members have you got now? And how if someone's listening to this, how do they join?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so at the moment, um we've got 350 members. We we last this time last year we had four 450. But what I've actually so the reason, and I'm always again, I think it's really good for women to be honest about this situation. So the situation that I've had is that with growing a membership, it sort of flew up until a point. And I know that a lot of business owners have experienced this. You used to be able to get on Instagram, do a launch, and fill your spots. Yeah, now organic growth with memberships is so hard. And I haven't I've always done 100% um like all the revenue has gone back in.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so it's I get that as some fellow business owner, I get that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so so it's been it, so it's been a real journey. So it basically for the last year I've seen that like launching and working in the way that I was working wasn't working anymore, and we were we were sat on the VAT on the VAT threshold, but 30% of somebody's income was being taken by Apple. Like, and then you know, then you've got the app company. So I had a business that was suddenly generating good revenue, but I was being totally penalised for it. And then I've got to have you know that support within the process.
SPEAKER_00:And I suppose it's difficult for you because I'm VAT registered, but most of my um clients are businesses, so it doesn't impact them, but yours.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I can't put that. So I've never put my prices up in five years. So even when I became VAT registered, I didn't put it on my prices. Absorbed it, did you? I absorbed it and it was hell. So right now we're at a really key point because actually what we're doing is capping the membership. Um, and you don't go over the VAT threshold? Because we are I'm going for investment and that's been a real process. So once I get investment, then we get the so by the time this is out, hopefully I've got an investor and it's just you know that's exciting though. Yeah, it's really exciting. It's a lot of people. Well, it's prompted you to want to go for investment. I I really believe in what we're doing. I want to scale this to a point where we've we we're not just you know a few hundred, I'm talking thousands and thousands of women because it I really believe that it's part of this movement of changing the narrative around women's health and well-being. So to be able to have that impact, I can't keep bootstrapping. It's exhausting. Like I need resource. Um, you know, it's just myself and I've got um the lovely Victoria who's over in the corner over there. She's she's working with me, she's my assistant, and but we are we are so stretched as it is, like in terms of you know, there's always like this baseline of what we can create, but we could do so much more. And I do believe that I need that resource, you know, it would be it would make the world of difference to have some paid marketing, you know. At the moment, you know what it's like. You could you you you are in every single role. I'm marketing, I'm on podcasts, I'm doing the actual physical things of like doing the workouts and stuff. And when you are operating in that space, you're not operating in your zone of genius, and it's just been it's felt really bad to be talking to women about their own health and well-being when mine's suffering because of what I'm trying to get out there. So yeah, so I think that I I'm really confident that actually having an investor is the right option. If if it if that doesn't come off, I think it will, but then I would very much have to change the model um of of the membership and stuff. But that's kind of a a bridge I'll cross when I get there because I really do want this to be a one-to-many because I want to make that impact. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because I know there's obviously some people that do similar to what you, but I think they have smaller cohorts. Um but it sounds really similar as well. But yeah, I guess it's that it's that annoying Vat threshold.
SPEAKER_01:It's well, I know, and and it's funny because at the moment we're like what we're in that real kind of decision making of what we're gonna do, but my accountant's like, don't do anything until the budget's out.
SPEAKER_00:Like yes, because we're recording, I know this will be out after this, so we don't know what's gonna happen. We record what's gonna be, but I think it's two weeks we're on the budget, and every business owner I'm speaking to is talking about the budget.
SPEAKER_01:Well, they're talking about the thing is it's because they're talking about some a lot of people are saying they're gonna reduce the VAT threshold, possibly. So at which point I'm not I shouldn't be capping the membership at all. So at the moment, how much does it cost to become a member? Uh£30 a month. That's good to know. Good value. Yeah, I would try I've tried to keep it, and I think that's the the that's been slightly to my detriment, is that that you know it was£30 a month in 2020, and it's it's a a way higher value membership, and actually that's the feedback that I get a lot because there's such a high level of support. Yeah, and you know, it there's a lot of apps that you just get sort of exercise, but the resources, I like I say, like what how what would I do with a coaching programme because I've given it all away. Like that's the thing. You know, all these coaching audios, all the mindset, the nutrition, the nervous.
SPEAKER_00:Do you go live as well? Do you go live, you know, within the do you feel like everyone got it?
SPEAKER_01:I used to, but I would be doing it to like two people. My it's it's my members, it suits them to do it when they want to do it. Yeah, yeah. They don't they just don't turn up to live, so we used to have it, but there wasn't really much point.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, nice. Brilliant. And how can people then sign up then? Where's the website and all the yeah?
SPEAKER_01:So we're theshiccollective.co.uk, um the she collective underscore UK on Instagram. And then you download the app. And then you download the app um through through the website, otherwise uh it's uh if you do it uh through Apple, I wouldn't encourage people to do that. They take an extra amount. Apple are slightly criminal. Really? Slightly criminal.
SPEAKER_00:Do they take that from you or the people that are downloading the app?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, from the p yeah, well, as in like the it's all round, it's just like it's honestly it's it's mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_00:That's I'm now gonna be really conscious about all the apps I download.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's just like if if a if a business has the option to sign up via a website, it just is such a better way to do it because it just means that Apple aren't taking such a criminal amount, but yeah. All these things, right? It's like you just navigate it all, don't you?
SPEAKER_00:You do you know what? I'm so mad. I love speaking to entrepreneurs because gosh, you learn a lot about yourself. I know, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So over five, you know, and well done for doing a business for five years. I know a lot failed in the first couple, so uh you know, most down. Yeah, I know, and as a fellow business owner, this year, I don't know if you found it, but this year it's been a tough year.
SPEAKER_01:It's been it, yeah, yeah. And actually, I think it is comforting, and that's where it's so important that you know, I think it's great that you're having these conversations because I do find there's so much smoke and mirrors, and I found it really, really hard with like when you're in a time where you're like you you're putting it on yourself, you see it as like a personal failure. And actually, the conversations that I've had, I think the last year has been remarkably hard, like really noticeably. So, yeah, yeah. So well done us for keeping going. Well done us, we're still here.
SPEAKER_00:Now I set up in lockdown as well. Yeah. Oh, well, thank you so much, Roe, for joining us today. It's been a real pleasure to chat. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work It Like a Mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. And don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willett and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site, Investing in Women, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dream.