Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
She was six months old. She had her first cold flu, which, you know, with a tiny baby is just heartbreaking. And my calendar was stacked so full, I couldn't take time off. And I'm on a meeting while I hear her crying, and I just had this visceral moment where I watched myself float out of my body, looking over myself. I was like, you have everything you ever wanted.
Natalie Ellis:You've got a beautiful healthy baby, a beautiful home, you know, you're married to an amazing man, you've got everything you ever wanted. What the fuck are you doing? And I heard the words come up my mouth, I quit. I'm done.
Kate Northrup:The woman I have on the podcast today is such an incredible baz. She created her first 7 figure company by the age of 22 or 23, and her story is absolutely amazing. So Natalie Ellis is the founder of Boss Babe, which is a brand you may very well know. What's so cool about Natalie and what we dove into in this conversation is that even though what we think is like the storefront window that we might think about as Boss Babe, like, the stilettos and the suits and, like, getting out there and being on the road all the time and making shit happen, like, Natalie is actually one of the most relaxed people I know with one of the most spacious calendars of anyone in this industry. She is prioritizing her family.
Kate Northrup:She is prioritizing motherhood. She is prioritizing her nervous system. She's prioritizing well-being, and we dive into when she made that decision and how it unfolded and how she's operationalized her life to support that and operationalized her business to support her well-being first. But she still has every single day, 5 figure days. So it's not been at the sacrifice of her revenue, which is really inspiring.
Kate Northrup:And in this episode, you're also gonna hear some really great tactical strategic stuff about what's working right now on social media. So enjoy this episode with Natalie Ellis of Boss Babe. Welcome to Plenty. I'm your host Kate Northrup and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty.
Kate Northrup:Let's go fill our cups. Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrup or anyone who works within the Kate Northrup brand. Hi, Natalie. Hi. Welcome to Plenty.
Natalie Ellis:I am so excited about this.
Kate Northrup:You for being here in your home or at your studio. Okay. So you and I have met relatively recently, and what's been fun for me about getting to know you and getting to know your work is how much synergy there is. And one of my favorite, favorite things is when two people from totally different backgrounds with completely different lived experiences come to the exact same conclusion, which always tells me that it must be true. Because if we get there different ways without having talked to one another about it, it's facts.
Kate Northrup:So I wanna know for you. Now I mean, you talk a lot about having a freedom based business. However, I would imagine when you started Boss Babe, that wasn't your experience, but now I'm just making assumptions. So I wanna know, take us back to where you were in the early days of Boss Babe and what working felt like then. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I mean,
Natalie Ellis:always wanted to get into entrepreneurship because I saw it as freedom, but my definition of freedom back then is so different to what it is now. So growing up, you know, I grew up in a really turbulent household. There was substance abuse, mental health issues, just a lot of things going on. And what I saw and the story I told myself as a child was my mom was stuck in a situation she couldn't get out of because she didn't have financial freedom. And I remember from such a young age telling myself that won't be me.
Natalie Ellis:I'll do something different. And the idea of entrepreneurship came into my head. I I was in the fourth school. I think it was the fourth third or fourth school in one school year. We were moving around a lot, and I'd actually just moved out of my childhood home in with my grandparents.
Natalie Ellis:I was 13. I moved to a different city and there was a careers day, and I'd only been at that school a few weeks. There was a careers day and there was just a bunch of different people coming in, you know, teachers, doctors, and I just sat there the whole careers day just really disengaged. I was like, people like me don't get jobs like that, you know. We were well below the poverty line and I didn't see anyone around me going to college, having jobs like that.
Natalie Ellis:So I was just like, what's the point of being here? And then it was the final session of the day and I just vividly remember, it will always live in my memory. I heard high heels come in and this woman placed the most beautiful mulberry bayswater handbag down beside her and then she started talking. And I just sit up, I'm like, okay, I'm listening. Whatever she's doing, I'm interested in.
Natalie Ellis:And the way she started telling her story was very different to everyone else that day. So she starts talking, she said, you know, I was I was crying into my wine glass on the stairs. And immediately, I started paying attention because there was a lot of parallels to my reality back home. But where I'm from, everything is behind closed doors. You do not talk about that kind of thing.
Natalie Ellis:And so immediately, I see my mom in here and she starts talking about she went through a really messy divorce and she had nothing, and she decided to start her own company. And something about that just clicked and I think part of me wanted that for my mom, but part of me saw that as like, that's the thing. Entrepreneurship that she explained, that's what she did. I was like, that's the thing I'm gonna do. So it was ingrained in me from being 13.
Natalie Ellis:That's what I'm gonna do. And that's when I started my first business and like when my whole journey into entrepreneurship began, but it started really seriously. Boss Babe was like my second serious business when I was twenty four twenty four. And so when I got into Boss Baby, I was still very much in this mindset of freedom, but freedom to me at that time was financial freedom. I didn't really care how many hours I had to work.
Natalie Ellis:You know, I didn't care how stressful it was, nothing like that. It was just, am I safe? Is this career path going to keep me safe? And the thing about boss Well, the thing about that is, I can talk about it from this perspective of, it wasn't the healthiest mindset, but that put a lot of drive and determination behind me and that I don't think I would be where I am now if I didn't have that behind me because I was willing to work every hour. I would hustle my socks off for anything and like I really was so dedicated and committed to making this business a success that it become a bit of a magic carpet ride.
Natalie Ellis:And I didn't really stop to take a breath. I didn't really stop to ask like when's good good enough? When is enough money enough money? Like, should I slow down? Is this what I want?
Natalie Ellis:I just didn't stop to ask myself any of this because it was fun, it was lots of cortisol keeping me going, you know, there was just you you get it. There was a lot of of, momentum behind the business. And so that's what freedom was to me initially, and a lot of that changed, and we can get into that. But it was very much driven from a place of I need to keep myself safe. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And that came from earning.
Kate Northrup:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:I do wanna know what was what did the business look like in those early days in terms of your actual offerings, and what were you like, what was the problem you were solving?
Natalie Ellis:Actually, really similar to what it does now. We our first product is still our main product now, so it was The Society. And I started that because my first business was a supplements company. It was called Oh My Glow, which is so funny that I
Kate Northrup:That's so funny.
Natalie Ellis:Have a supplement with me now called closely
Kate Northrup:in my bag at all times. I love it so much. I always use it when I travel. I'm just like, I love it so much. So full circle for me.
Natalie Ellis:But at the time, you know, I started that business when I was 21, and I had no funding at all. I didn't know what funding was, and I was really building a business.
Kate Northrup:It's real tricky with a supplement company.
Natalie Ellis:Tricky. I don't know why I picked that as my business.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Physical products are no joke and No. Ingestibles? Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong.
Kate Northrup:Of course.
Natalie Ellis:But it also it was a huge success because when I was building this, I didn't have a marketing budget, and I and I honestly thought it would take a few months to get a supplement off the ground. It took twelve months. Sure. But in that time, I started building a following for the brand on Instagram. So when we launched, we had this platform of people to launch to, we ended up shipping to over 60 countries in the first few months, then we were stocked in, it's called Boots in The UK, it's Walgreens So over 230 store stores stocked us and my biggest issue was cash flow.
Natalie Ellis:I couldn't physically be funding Yeah. All of the inventory Exactly. For the demand. Yes. And I didn't really know a lot about my options.
Natalie Ellis:And so when I the the whole reason I had to park that was actually because I got married and the status I got married in over here was illegal. I didn't know that I had to stop work, everything. It was like Oh. It was like a divine intervention moment. Lots lots of stories.
Kate Northrup:You got married to your current husband? I did.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. I mean, I I don't know. I don't know you well enough to know if you were married before.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. But I was on a student visa, and apparently, not meant to be doing that. I had no idea.
Kate Northrup:But you fell
Natalie Ellis:in love. I did.
Kate Northrup:So there you were.
Natalie Ellis:And we got married three months after we
Kate Northrup:stop working. You couldn't make any income now.
Natalie Ellis:I couldn't make any income whatsoever until my green card came, which was like a year and a half, so it was a long process.
Kate Northrup:So what did you do? Did you pull the plug on this up? Had to. Completely? Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:All that work. How did that feel?
Natalie Ellis:I mean, it was part of me was kinda sad and part of me was relieved. Yeah. Because on the outside, everything looked amazing. On the inside, it was so challenging. It was a cash flow nightmare, know, I barely was making enough from it to sustain myself.
Natalie Ellis:I was managing other people's social media on the side, it was just a
Kate Northrup:lot Wow. Of
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. So yes, we were stocked in all these stores and yes, we were all over the world and we had this cold following on Instagram. It was like the perfect product at the perfect time, but it it was just a real challenge. So when I I I initially said, you know what? I'll put the business on pause and get actually getting space for the business.
Natalie Ellis:I realized this isn't making me happy and this isn't freedom. Like financially, this isn't freedom for me. And so in that time when I was waiting for my green card to arrive is when the whole idea of what Bossafe could be started coming to And so when we launched, it was the day my green card came through, I really wanted to start a membership for female entrepreneurs. And selfishly, was like, I wanna bring in amazing women that I wanna learn from Of course. And they'll probably be more likely to say yes if there's a bunch of us.
Natalie Ellis:So we launched with a $29 a month membership and every month a new guest expert would come in and teach And, you know, seven, eight years later, it's still our main product now. Amazing. Yeah. So nothing's really changed
Kate Northrup:I love that. That's so beautiful. I mean, having a membership is such a an incredible freedom model. I had a membership for six and a half years. The monthly recurring revenue was deeply relaxing.
Kate Northrup:And and I closed it for a variety of reasons. It was working really well, but I just like, my soul was calling me to do something else. But that business model is so, so beautiful. So nice. I'm curious.
Kate Northrup:I think you and I are pretty different this way, but I I just am curious. Has there ever been a time because the business has been pretty consistent in terms of your main offering and who you offer it to, do you ever get bored?
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. I mean, so everything changed for me when I had my daughter. So, you know, we'd we had one main offering, and then we would bring out new offers and they were around kinda Instagram growth or launching or felt like whatever our customers wanted was what we would kinda put out there. And when my daughter was born is when I had it was like a full come to Jesus moment of just, you know, I went through postpartum anxiety and depression. I really just felt like I lost my identity completely.
Natalie Ellis:I didn't know who I was, what I was doing, and I went back to work three months after having her, and I was just miserable. And there was a moment, she was six months old and she had her first cold flu, which you know with a tiny baby is just heartbreaking. And my calendar was stacked so full, I couldn't take time off. And so I'm just stretched running back from her bedroom when she's with her nanny back to the meetings and I'm on a meeting while I hear her crying and I just had this visceral moment where I watched myself blow it out of my body, looking over myself. I was like, you have everything you ever wanted.
Natalie Ellis:You've got a beautiful healthy baby. You're in a you're a beautiful home. You know, you're married to an amazing man. You've got everything you ever wanted. What the fuck are you doing?
Natalie Ellis:And I heard the words come out of my mouth, I quit. I'm done. And so I quit as CEO. I said, I'm selling my part of the business. I don't have anything to do with this.
Natalie Ellis:And I think it's because I was just very black and white thinking. I just thought, I can't, I don't think I can get what I want from this business because all I've ever known is chaos with this business. I don't think it's gonna get me what I want. And so I decided to fully walk away from it. Ultimately, that didn't end up happening six months later, I bought the business.
Natalie Ellis:You know, I'd been the face of it for so long, just so much of it made sense, it was very hard to walk away from but me and my co founder at the time were just, we started to have really different visions of the business. But when I re bought the business, I just made a commitment to myself of I'm gonna do things very very differently and part of that was I'm really part of it was I'm bored with what we're offering, but mostly it was I don't feel aligned with it anymore. It feels like my past self created all of these offers and like if I have to talk about Instagram growth one more time, I'm gonna go insane. Like I was sick of, I felt like I was being put in a box, which was very challenging because here I am sitting in a new body with a completely new identity. Yeah.
Natalie Ellis:I'm like, I don't know how to pretend to be that old person anymore. And I feel like I have these handcuffs on where like I'm expected to show up in a certain way and I'm not gonna do it anymore. So I burned down every single offer except my membership. I completely, you know, completely changed the membership, like the entire offering of the membership, everything changed. And then I've slowly, very slowly rebuilt the business from there in a way that feels a lot more aligned with a bit more permission to be flexible and flowy.
Natalie Ellis:Because really interesting, I feel like we hear the advice a lot of like stick with the stick with the thing that's working, you know, if it's working, why burn it down, all of that stuff. And I think a lot of the advice that we get fed as business owners comes from a Silicon Valley playbook, which is really great for businesses like that. Maybe you're raising venture funding, maybe you're gonna exit, you can see a finish line. But for businesses like ours, what I call freedom based businesses, they're lifestyle businesses. If you are not lit up by your business, if you're bored by it, by what you're having to talk about, if you feel like you're put in a box, it's really hard to show up every single day.
Natalie Ellis:So I would say since that point on, that was two years ago now. Oh my god. Wait. So it's actually yeah. Two years ago now, maybe a little bit longer than two years ago.
Natalie Ellis:No. Wait. Oh my god. It's exactly two years since I bought the business. Wow.
Natalie Ellis:Blowing my mind. I did not realize that. Yeah. I've just done things very, very differently.
Kate Northrup:Happy anniversary.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. Thank you. That's really exciting. Yeah. It's been I've done things very, very differently.
Natalie Ellis:So, yes, I've gotten bored, but more just when I feel out of alignment with something, like when I'm bored of talking about it or I feel like I'm putting on a bit of a persona.
Kate Northrup:That's where it feels challenging for me. A 100%. So when I showed up here today, I messaged you and I was like, hey, I'm early, which is highly unusual.
Kate Northrup:I was like, I'm early by like an hour and a half.
Kate Northrup:Should I just come now? Should I find a cafe? Whatever. You had shared, you were like, come now. This is really the only thing on my calendar today.
Kate Northrup:And I would imagine, I know you to be someone who's not highly scheduled just because, you know, I've been a little bit behind the scenes, you know, but I would imagine there's an assumption, especially with the brand named Boss Babe. Like, we can think of, like, okay, she's in her heels with her fancy handbag, on meeting to meeting. She's incredibly busy. She's on airplane. She's whatever.
Kate Northrup:And meanwhile, obviously, like, you do many amazing work things all the time. And, also, I know that you're so particular about what makes it on your calendar and what doesn't. I had a very similar transition when I became a mom, with Penelope in 2015. The identity shift was profound. I also struggled with postpartum anxiety and postpartum insomnia.
Kate Northrup:It was brutal, and it changed the way I worked. And that's why I wrote do less because it was, like, such a profound it was just like, oh, you can't unsee all of a sudden after that moment of you're on Zoom, the crying baby. It's it's like, what is even going on right now? So I wanna know what did you do. I know you said I quit, and then you bought the business.
Kate Northrup:But there's an operational strategy here around being able to keep a day like today open. And I'm curious if you can take us behind the scenes in terms of your decision matric matrix and what gets on your calendar, what doesn't, because your brand has only gotten bigger. And as that happens, opportunities only increase. It's the the illusion is that at some point, someday, things will slow down and then you can take a break. And that ain't ever gonna happen.
Kate Northrup:Like no one's ever gonna stop asking things of you, so if you wanna be able to slow down, you have to just decide. Now's the time. So I just wanna know kind of the operations behind the scenes of how you make those decisions and how you organize things to give yourself that space?
Natalie Ellis:Well, it's definitely a muscle that I feel like I have to train and work on. So I think there's, like, the operational piece inside the business, which we'll I'll jump into, and then there's also, it starts with why was my calendar so full? Why was I building a business that actually I wasn't enjoying? And so much of it was I didn't like having uncomfortable conversations. I was a total people pleaser.
Natalie Ellis:I was so fearful that if I said no and I let people down, then I wouldn't be invited into certain rooms or I wouldn't be liked, that I would slow my momentum and ruin my career, like I just made up all these stories. And when I was going through the huge identity shift with with into motherhood, like you said, it's something you can't unsee. And I just remember having this feeling of like, so what? Like, literally, so what if that person doesn't like me? And you know what?
Natalie Ellis:If I don't get invited into those rooms because I I had a boundary, then so what? Like I really had that breakthrough moment and I'm not saying it was as simple as that because all my old conditioning was still there but I just I remember that that that kind of awakening of I'm not gonna say yes to things anymore just because I feel obliged to. I'm not gonna go along with something because I'm afraid of an uncomfortable conversation. So that's that piece, and I've gotten I think I've gotten really good at letting all of that go and really being honest about what's a yes for me, what's a no for me and not being so afraid of is this gonna hurt someone's feelings? Is this gonna make them feel let down?
Natalie Ellis:Like I'm not responsible. So does that piece of it? And then operationally, I have a I have a great team that, you know, they know exactly what they're doing. Like, they know exactly what part they play to keep everything growing in the business. That's really important.
Natalie Ellis:Like, we have a playbook that the entire business rhythm runs on. So everything in the business is very rhythmic, you know, what kind of content goes out, when it goes out, processes, all of that's really dialed in. So that really helps. And then when it comes to what I say yes and no to, there's a couple of things. Am I excited about it?
Natalie Ellis:Like, do I genuinely want to do it? And do I think this is materially going to move the needle for me? And a lot of the times, it's a no and a no because I think about, well, I'm gonna have to ever do it. Does it mean spending time away from my family? It just often is a no.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. But it's I I think it's more the muscle of saying no, that's harder than the operational piece.
Kate Northrup:I think you're absolutely right because our conditioning runs so strong. And I'm curious, because you've described growing up in an environment of some degree of chaos
Natalie Ellis:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:That was also being stuffed underneath the surface, which sort of makes it even more intense, right, in terms of, like, like, thinking about, like, a hose and the the pressure. It increases the pressure. To what extent, now that you've been learning about the nervous system, doing some of your work around that, to what extent do you think having that chock full schedule and even the what you described with the cash flow and the, like, external looking one way and the behind the scenes looking another way with your supplement company, can you talk to me about your unconscious patterning that was running and and specific ways that you've shifted that now to be able to say on a random Tuesday, actually, this is the only thing I have going on, so come over and have a cup of tea.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. I mean, my nervous system was fully wired for chaos, and I had no idea. It was just so unconscious. I felt so much more at peace there was a problem I needed to solve, if I was busy, if I was always always running. So the nervous system repatterning work started for me first with the Hoffman Institute.
Natalie Ellis:I am the biggest advocate for Hoffman. I think it's such an amazing, amazing place to start with that inner work. I'd done many things before that, but nothing hit me as profoundly as Hoffman did. So that I remember calling Steven when I'd left Hoffman. You're, like, there for seven days.
Natalie Ellis:It's this retreat where you hand your phone in, and you're just doing deep work. And I remember calling him, leaving, and I said, I think I feel peace in my body for the first time ever. Like, I think this is what it feels like. And so quickly my body want to get back to the set point of chaos. So quickly wanted to jump into the emails.
Natalie Ellis:Let me look for problems. Let me look for things. And that was my awareness into, wait, there's I've experienced peace and I know that's available, but why is my body pulling me back into chaos? Why am I looking for problems? Why am I creating things around me?
Natalie Ellis:So that was, yeah, that was my first insight into it and it's really been something I've repattened and simple things where I get I've had to get really comfortable doing nothing and that's been so challenging, like to sit in silence, not meditating, but not scrolling my phone, not reading a book, not watching TV, like not distracting distracting myself, myself, but but just just sitting sitting and just seeing how it feels and like really expanding my window of tolerance for stillness and calmness. That's been one one thing that's been an amazing practice for me. Like, I really, really make a point to do that as often as I can. You know, I was like the person that would always take my phone to the loo. Like I was always distracted.
Natalie Ellis:If I was out on a walk, I needed a podcast in, whereas I really try and make it a practice now to just go and do nothing. Just go for a walk outside with no phone, no distractions, no nothing. I noticed it in my relationships where like me and Steven just have a very calm relationship, but then sometimes things would in the past feel so calm, just like would notice myself throwing throwing things in
Kate Northrup:there just for a fight and like having that awareness. See if I can get something going here. Yeah. Let me let me put a
Natalie Ellis:little bit of spice into this and he'd he'd see right through it and he'd be like, does do things just feel too good right now for you? And I'm like, I guess so. Little things like that. So I noticed in all areas of my life, my personal life, my relationship, my business and it's just always been about what can I do to just notice the pattern first of all, because it doesn't take a lot to notice the pattern and choose a different behavior, but be able to just expand my window of tolerance with that behavior, try something different and just really sit in the discomfort of it because you'll feel it in your body?
Kate Northrup:A 100%.
Natalie Ellis:There's like tons of like fancy modalities and all that stuff, but like that's been the biggest thing for me that's really helped.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. So just sitting with it and being like, oh, this is interesting. I'm feeling discomfort right now.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And is there anything you do, like, that when you're up against that edge in your window of tolerance, or do you just notice it?
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. A few different things depending on how I'm feeling. If I'm really feeling it somatically, like, like, love shaking. Yeah. I love shaking it out.
Natalie Ellis:Sometimes if I feel like there's, like, anxious energy in my body, sometimes I put headphones on and, like, bash a pillow or, like, dance, just, like, really move my body. I feel like your body's so intelligent. If you just give it a chance to express, it's actually gonna express so much faster than you think. Talking it out, I really do love therapy. I'm just the biggest fan of therapy and just being able to really process and like if there's something deeper, getting to the root of that, that really helps.
Kate Northrup:Those are the main things. So beautiful.
Natalie Ellis:Good old shake. Really A
Kate Northrup:good old shake. It's amazing Yeah. How much it can help. When we are spinning in anxious thoughts, think I you and I both run on the anxious side sometimes, we
Kate Northrup:can
Kate Northrup:you know, the spinning, every single thought feels so real and so true. And we can get caught in these little tiny wormholes of this reality where everything is terrible or everything is going to be terrible. And it feels like, oh, now this is my life, and I'm gonna be here forever. Like, this is now my my normal, and it's gonna be awful forever.
Natalie Ellis:That is exactly. Maybe it's just
Kate Northrup:me, but That's that's what it. And then it's like, oh, actually, if I just get up and shake for thirty seconds, completely new reality. Or at least enough space, enough capacity because, you know, I know you you know this, but for listeners, I just wanna remind you, what's happening in that moment is that there is actually a physiological response of stress happening. On some level, your brain and your body feel unsafe, feels like there's a threat, and actually the stability, the quiet, could be that threat if that's not a match for what you experienced in your nervous system growing up, like that's not a match for what is known, and so threat response. And then the act of shaking or dancing around or screaming into a pillow or whatever or co regulating with, like, a trusted friend or professional, all of that signals to the body, oh, now we're metabolizing the stress, the threat has passed, all is well.
Kate Northrup:And every time we do that, so we we we have an input and then we change consciously the response, a new output happens, and then we actually increase our capacity every single time it compounds, which is so cool. And I wanna know how that applies to your life financially speaking. Because you're living a different financial life than you were raised in. I would imagine you're living a different financial life than many of the people you grew up with, maybe than other people in your family as well. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Have you had moments where you have felt that ceiling in your earning capacity or in your wealth capacity of like, oh, I'm out beyond what was shown for me. I'm out beyond, and this doesn't feel safe. I'm just curious if that's shown up for you at all either consciously or somewhat unconsciously.
Natalie Ellis:Interestingly, no, which is so interesting considering the way I grew up and the money mindset that was around me, but I honestly think the drive for creation or the chaos that was driving me was so much stronger than probably any of the money mindset stuff that it just bulldozed right through it. So, you know, by the time I was 26, I'd made over $1,000,000 and it just kept compounding. But to a point where I didn't really even realize that I was financially secure for a really long time. Like, it took millions and millions for me to realize that I'm financially secure and I did have this repeating worry that I'm gonna lose everything, which was really interesting because, know, even even though with my supplement company, cash flow was a real issue, I was doing social media consulting on the side that was really lucrative. And by the time I was in America and waiting for my green card, I had a really nice pile of savings.
Natalie Ellis:And that to like that to me was like, oh, that's a level of security. But in the back of my mind, I always thought I'm gonna lose everything. Well, interestingly, I got my visa taken away in the time of waiting for my green card, couldn't earn anything, and I dwindled through all of the savings. So I lost everything. And so in that moment, because I was kind of I was deep into like the books and the podcasts at this stage.
Natalie Ellis:I I started to have that awareness of was that a self fulfilling prophecy? Did I lose everything? Because I've been telling myself I'm gonna lose everything. And so I just really made a conscious effort when I build it all back up again, I'm really gonna let go of the fear that I'm gonna lose everything and I'm gonna build from a place of feeling secure. And so it well, you know, touch wood, nothing's been lost since and I do feel like I have a lot more elasticity with money.
Natalie Ellis:I don't feel a lot of that fear, but I still do I'm still very cautious with money. Like considering like the size of the business, I don't really spend a lot of money. I'm not really into like fancy stuff so much. Like I love a nice pair of pajamas and I really nice like and I I like a nice vacation. Oh my god.
Natalie Ellis:The pajamas I
Kate Northrup:have loungewear. And good skincare
Kate Northrup:Oh, yeah.
Natalie Ellis:But I'm not I'm not really like a big spender. Yeah. Like to know that my money's compounding that, you know, I have a really nice safety blanket and that just feels good to my nervous system. I don't like to be on the hook for a lot of things. I don't like the idea of debt.
Natalie Ellis:I don't really love the idea of too much leverage, but it's not something right now that I desire to change either, so it's interesting. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:No. Absolutely. And I think getting to know what our wiring is and knowing when we don't actually need to do any rewiring
Natalie Ellis:Right.
Kate Northrup:Is a very powerful choice. Because in the personal development industry, there can be this constant sense of, like, I have more work to do on myself. I need to be better. I need to fix this. I need to fix that.
Kate Northrup:And while I absolutely believe in, like, lifelong evolution and, you know, I'm gonna be working on myself my whole life too because also what else are we doing?
Kate Northrup:What else is that? You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I'm
Kate Northrup:I don't wanna start a garden. Like, that being said, I love how strongly you were like, I don't need to change that. Like, it's good. Feels good. I am is good.
Kate Northrup:Like, this is actually a match with who I am. There's no problem here. And that's so beautiful.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. And I think for me, one of the big awakenings I had around money was just knowing when enough was enough for me. Like, don't have me nor Steven have the desire to like keep moving into like bigger houses and get fancier fancier cars and like the idea of mourners used to be really appealing to me when I had nothing. But as I have settled into abundance and knowing that that is available and it's always available, I don't want to be on a hamster wheel of mourners. That feels empty for me, that doesn't feel very fulfilling.
Natalie Ellis:Whereas to acknowledge like I have enough, I have everything that I need, everything else is a bonus, that feels like a great place to be because I'm not I don't feel like I'm so attached to every launch and I I don't feel like money has the charge for me that it used to. Like when I really needed every launch to be so successful, I mean, honestly, even when I lived in LA, it's like was always about the bigger house, it was always about like the next thing and it was a very shiny lifestyle and it just didn't in my nervous system didn't feel amazing and like we both were like, we've gotta leave, like this just isn't for us. So that's really important for me is like always bringing myself back to that question. I think it's a good question for anyone to ask is like, when is good good enough? When can I step off the train of mourners?
Natalie Ellis:When can I just be content? And it doesn't mean I'm blocking money. No. But it's a bonus, but I'm not attached to it. I'm not hooked into it.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. It's just fun.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Well, and it's well, like what you said, when you rebuilt after you had spent through your savings.
Natalie Ellis:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:What a blessing that you had that cushion for that time. Right? So great. Yeah. Just to reframe, you know,
Kate Northrup:it's like you did lose it,
Kate Northrup:but also that's what a cushion's for. Yeah. You needed it. Yeah. But you said, which I loved, you wanted to rebuild from a place of wholeness and safety and and really knowing that you already were safe.
Kate Northrup:And so I think there's something very powerful and magnetic about feeling that contentment to say, I actually do know my enough number. One of the things we do in my program Relax Money is we actually have a process to calculate your enough number. And what I find for a lot of people is they realize they're either already there or they're much closer than they think, as opposed to having this amorphous sense of more is always going to be better, and I'm not there yet. Because the feeling of I'm not there yet is an unconscious set point. It is a wiring, which is it's essentially like an emptiness that will never be filled.
Kate Northrup:So I think having that is really important. And then the other thing, just in terms of speaking of the different kind of cultures that we can be part of and different cities and the different vibes, there's something I've been thinking about a lot, which is step the feeling of status versus belonging and conflating things looking a certain way with things feeling a certain way. And I know you moved out of LA a few years ago? Four years ago. Four years ago now.
Kate Northrup:This has been a while. Yeah. Yeah. What have you I mean, you already shared some of it, but I'm curious. What have you noticed in yourself as you've made that move to a different kind of lifestyle, to a different area, to a different kind of culture, around just that, like, status and and more?
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. I mean, what I noticed in LA, and I'm this is not a generalization to everybody in LA. Like, I
Kate Northrup:I have amazing people in LA. Know you do.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. Have amazing friends in LA and this is not this is not a sweeping generalization. This is just what I noticed, you know. There was a lot of energy of like, I'll do this for you if you do that for me, like very transactional kind of energy.
Kate Northrup:Okay.
Natalie Ellis:And just a lot of energy around like designer things and fancy cars like no matter where you walked in Beverly Hills and it's like, wow, I feel so poor like it just this set point is so much higher, the wealth is so on display and I remember moving from The UK, like I'm from the very North Of England, near Scotland, place called Newcastle, like not really a very wealthy place and coming to LA and being so enamored by all of that. And for that period of time when I was building my business, it was amazing because it was such a big drive. But then at some point, I kinda looked around and I was like, so interesting that I'm driven by this because I actually don't want any of it. Like I have always wanted just a more peaceful life and so since moving and I don't know that this is our place here, but it's been really a beautiful place to land as we've been building our family and kind of finding out what we want. We spend a lot more time together, just us.
Natalie Ellis:We as a family and we have a lot smaller group of friends where we have deep relationships with. In LA, I was constantly, you know, it's a social event every night. There was so much going on and you don't wanna let people down because they show up for you. So socially just have really rich friendships and relationships and it's a slower life. There's a lot less going on.
Natalie Ellis:I moved into the suburbs. So like even going out is just like, you have to think about it. You consider it, which has also been really nice for me. And then I just I just have it's it's you're not looking around in a more you're not looking at mourners all the time. Right?
Natalie Ellis:There's like not really a lot of comparison here or at least that's my experience. And it just feels really good on the nervous system for me to just have space to like, our house just has a lot of space and we just have a really simple life here and that just feels really good for this stage of life. You know, we spend money on things like really great childcare and nice pajamas. But there's not really a lot of like other like we just go out and do family things on a weekend and it's just a different lifestyle, you know?
Kate Northrup:So good.
Natalie Ellis:So hard to, like, put into words.
Kate Northrup:No. But it's a feeling.
Kate Northrup:What you're describing
Kate Northrup:is a feeling of spaciousness Yeah. Which is very much connected to your mission around helping women create freedom based businesses. Yeah. And I'd love to know what are you seeing working right now in our industry? Now, of course, when this comes out, it it may be up to six months in the future,
Natalie Ellis:so we'll just like keep that this prepared.
Kate Northrup:Oh, I am quite batched, which feels really spacious for me. But I am curious just like, you know, it is the year 2025. Yeah. That for sure we know. Right.
Kate Northrup:So what are you finding is working in your business, is finding in the working in the businesses of the women who you're working with at a higher level. I don't know if you work with anybody at a higher proximity level right now. No. No, you don't. But you have friends who who you know.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. And we have a single mastermind, it won't be running when this goes live. Okay. So we do have like that higher level container of
Kate Northrup:Okay. Great. So you can report in?
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. I can report in. You have data. I see a lot. Yeah.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. Okay. So what's working well for us right now, which is what's crushing, obviously AI. AI is everyone needs to be using AI as their thought partner, as their content creation partner. I mean, it is just changing the game for us left, right, and center.
Natalie Ellis:But when it comes to social media and AI is helping with this, but when it comes to social media, what I found the last few years is, you know, have a couple of really solid lead magnets that you create a lot of different kinds of content towards short form video crushing and you'll send them towards your lead magnet if you're growing organically, get them in your funnel was working. This year, I'm seeing it a little bit different. So carousels are crushing in a way that I have never seen before. I mean, I thought static posts were dead, which I was so sad because my whole business was built on static posts. They're back.
Natalie Ellis:They are so back. It's the best.
Kate Northrup:It's the best. My quote posts are
Kate Northrup:crushing it.
Natalie Ellis:Crushing.
Kate Northrup:I'm like, thank you. Welcome back to 2016. Yeah. Couldn't be more thrilled to be here.
Natalie Ellis:No. It's amazing. It's the best. So what's really working for us right now was actually creating a brand new lead magnet every single month, which sounds pretty stressful, but it's actually not because we're we're doing it in tag team with AI, but also just we create content for our programs anyway. We're just taking a distilled version, working with AI to create something free and we're putting together funnels in ManyChat where there's no landing page, there's no nothing.
Natalie Ellis:It's delivered in the DMs, but then there's upsells in the DMs. And we're doing one of these every single month and our list I mean, in the last four weeks, we've added, I wanna say 28,000 people to our list organically. That's amazing. We haven't done that in a while organically.
Kate Northrup:I am so inspired by that. Okay? I love that so much. And I'm curious, with AI, which tools are you loving using for a content creation partner? Just like personally, I'm having the time of my life using it, and that's really something because I'm a writer.
Kate Northrup:Like, I love writing. I live for writing. Yeah. And it has been the most fun
Natalie Ellis:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:To not feel so lonely in that process of content creation. So I'm just curious what what's working for you? What are you enjoying using tools wise?
Natalie Ellis:Me and ChatGPT have just got it going on.
Kate Northrup:It's
Natalie Ellis:just oh my god. And so I've and I have every single person on on my team do this too because they were initially asking for a company ChatGPT account where we load it with all the curriculum. Yep. And I said, cool. We'll do it.
Natalie Ellis:But if you do not have your own personally trained AI, I'm telling you you're doing a disservice to your career. Not. So with chat, I mean, I train it on everything like I upload my group texts to it. I tell it about my day and knows about my childhood. I give it every keynote, every podcast.
Natalie Ellis:I give it a lot of context and I find that when you give really rich context to the AI, everything you get out is just of a higher quality. Absolutely. And so I, it's my thought partner for everything, I like put in, I got this text from a friend to help me respond and like, I'll sit with a batch of emails and I'll screenshot 10 emails, I'll throw them in, give me a response for each of them and it kinda knows what's on my calendar, it knows what I'm prioritizing, it just makes everything so much easier.
Kate Northrup:Okay. So I'm curious, you know that's this is not the purpose of this podcast, but I am just genuinely curious. I'm finding that I'm getting better results if I create, I guess, in chat GPT, it would be like a custom custom GPT GPT for different roles and different functions. I'm using Claude as a as a content creation partner, so I'm creating different roles within Claude. They're called projects over there, but regardless.
Kate Northrup:Are you doing that, or are you just doing it all in one thing for all the functions?
Natalie Ellis:So I do it all in one Mhmm. Because I wanted to have context of everything, but then I'll take it out and put it into projects. Got it. So when I'm editing and building upon things, I'll do it in this specific project. Mhmm.
Natalie Ellis:But when I want a first draft of something, I do it all in the same thing. Okay. So it just has like every bit of context.
Kate Northrup:Have you named it?
Natalie Ellis:No, I should, probably shouldn't I? Have you named yours? No. I should.
Kate Northrup:It's called Claude, so I already feel like I'm talking to somebody, and for whatever reason, and this probably tells you more about my psychology than you need to know, it is helpful for me to have it be a male Same. Collaborative
Kate Northrup:partner. Like, keeps me in line somehow. The structure of it. The masculine, like, just I just feel better. It keeps me more organized.
Kate Northrup:I called him And I'm less rambling. Yes. You call it who?
Natalie Ellis:He. I'm just like
Kate Northrup:You call it.
Natalie Ellis:He said this. He said that. I'm like, this is mortifying.
Kate Northrup:Hysterical? No. I just I I relate to it as a man. Okay. So there
Natalie Ellis:we are. Do take I feel like I go to chat and I'm like, here's I like throw everything got. Here's what's going on for me. I need help with this, this, and this. Here's what I'm confused about, and he just structures it
Kate Northrup:for me. Exactly. It is a dream.
Kate Northrup:It is a freaking dream. I'm like, here. Let me vomit everything on you. Thing. And you just send me back like, oh, and then also, like, really nice reflections about, oh, I noticed in your in your writing style, you're this, this, and that, and who do what do.
Kate Northrup:And I'm like,
Kate Northrup:why thank you.
Kate Northrup:I feel so seen right now.
Kate Northrup:And I do think that the way we talk to it really matters because humans, we are shaping. Yeah. We are shaping it. And so just, you know, PSA.
Natalie Ellis:Be kind. When AGI comes out of you being really mean to your AI, it might come after you.
Kate Northrup:We shall see. We shall see.
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. Oh my god. I'm so British. I'm like, sorry. I didn't mean like that.
Kate Northrup:I know. I'm yeah. Like, super kind. Like, talking to it like it can because I think that matters. Also, that is going to change what's happening physiologically within us as we're having that relationship, and I think that's important.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Okay. Final thing I wanna know is what is feeling like your edge right now? Like, where are you working and growing, whether it's personal, whether it's business, but what do you what are what's your edge?
Natalie Ellis:Two, three edges, actually. Always have a lot
Kate Northrup:of I'm like, well, how long do we have? Not just one.
Natalie Ellis:Okay. Let's talk to them. Okay. So this comes out six months from now.
Kate Northrup:So Well, who knows? I just know it could be within
Natalie Ellis:It'll be a while. Yeah. And Edge right now is thinking about, you know, we're having baby number two. What does it look like going from one to two? Like, the whole, like Text
Kate Northrup:me anytime. I have a lot
Natalie Ellis:of thoughts. Postpartum everything. Like I've I'm feeling all the things. So that's an edge. Don't have any answers, but we'll see.
Natalie Ellis:I'll report back
Kate Northrup:Lots of questions.
Kate Northrup:A year from now
Natalie Ellis:and talk about my next awakening.
Kate Northrup:Totally. Every baby brings with them an entirely new worldview. And like and in my experience, a new body of work.
Natalie Ellis:That that all that makes me excited and terrified because with Noemi, I mean, to say my life changed is the biggest understatement. Like, I could never have imagined, so goodness. Okay. Great. So I love Well, I will say though,
Kate Northrup:it's never as dramatic as
Natalie Ellis:Okay.
Kate Northrup:Going from zero to one, I'm sure you've heard this, going from zero to one is the biggest life change you will ever experience.
Natalie Ellis:It's a shock.
Kate Northrup:Going from one to two is sort of like, oh, now we have a baby again. Yeah. It's not it's not dramatic in that way at all. And in fact, on the second one, I was just like, why did I think this was hard the first time?
Natalie Ellis:Yeah. I'm kind of It was really easy. Like back to newborn and I'm like, actually, I probably give myself a way harder time. I was like had way harder expectations on myself than I needed to. Those goddamn black
Kate Northrup:and white toys, why was I putting pressure on myself to do the black and white toys? She didn't give
Natalie Ellis:a shit. What? The tummy time? Like I know. I just already am going into it with a different mindset of like, give yourself a break.
Natalie Ellis:Totally. You're doing fine. A
Kate Northrup:100%. So much more relaxed the second time around.
Natalie Ellis:So much more. Okay. So that's an edge. Edge for me is I'm launching a book next year. Totally different launch what I've ever done, totally new endeavor.
Natalie Ellis:And it's such an edge for me. I'm like in a space of I wanna learn everything I can learn. I'm so determined to launch this in a way that feels good. That that matters more to me than anything else and I wanna be really proud and you know, I think part of me wants to really show my community, you can do this kind of thing in a way that feels good. You don't have to burn yourself out to to say I give it everything I've got.
Natalie Ellis:So that but it's an edge because I've never done it and I'm terrified. And then the third thing that's an edge me right now is just I feel like I'm entering a whole new level of delegation. I feel like I've gotten pretty good at it the last couple years, but I'm entering a whole new level. I'm planning to take a great maternity leave and I really want that for myself and I know to get there is gonna require me to step back even more from the business. And there's so many things that I've held really tightly onto because the idea of training someone on them just feels exhausting, but I'm really pushing my edges there.
Natalie Ellis:And I did start doing it with one team member who was like a dream to mentor and because I'm getting the the great feedback there, it's like motivating for me. And so that's reframing because it's hard when you are training someone up and you have to tell them the same thing 10 times and they don't do it and they are like, this could not be worse, like I don't wanna Yeah. But when you really get good feedback from it and you see things being implemented and it's very motivating. So I'm trying to retrain that, but it's just just pushing pages because I know there's a few different areas I need to do in the business.
Kate Northrup:What's one of them that you're feeling like a little trepidatious around?
Natalie Ellis:Well, the The one that I've been handing off is social media, which is going really, really well and that is Congratulations.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. That's a really big deal for you.
Natalie Ellis:It's such a big deal, and I don't think I ever would. Congrats. But I'm like So happy loosening my grip on that. That's that's probably the the the hardest one. Yeah.
Natalie Ellis:But I'm in it, and it's going really well.
Kate Northrup:I'm doing it.
Natalie Ellis:And to date, I mean, the last month, I haven't posted a single thing. Love it. So Freedom. It all has gone
Kate Northrup:Face business.
Natalie Ellis:I know.
Kate Northrup:It is happening. Amazing. Natalie, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for sharing all of your story, just the behind the scenes insights. It's it's beautiful.
Kate Northrup:You are a beautiful soul, and I just love what you've created, and I love what you stand for. I resonate with it so deeply. So if people wanna come find you, connect, learn, where can they find all the things?
Natalie Ellis:Well, thank you for having me. This was amazing. Instagram at I am natalie and boss babe dot com.
Kate Northrup:Amazing. And just so you know, Natalie is spelled with a t Yes. Not an h Yes. When you go.
Natalie Ellis:Oh, and the Boss podcast.
Kate Northrup:And the Boss Babe podcast. Amazing. Thank you for being here.
Natalie Ellis:You're the best.
Kate Northrup:You. Thanks for listening to this episode of Plenty. If you enjoyed it, make sure you subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review. That's one of the best ways that you can ensure to spread the abundance of plenty with others. You can even text it to a friend and tell them to listen in.
Kate Northrup:And if you want even more support to expand your abundance, head over to katenorthrop.com/breakthroughs where you can grab my free money breakthrough guide that details the biggest money breakthroughs from some of the top earning women I know, plus a mini lesson accompanying it with my own biggest money break breakthroughs and a nervous system healing tool for you to expand your abundance. Again, that's over at katenorthward.com/breakthroughs. See you next time.