Natasha Wallace is founder and chief coach of Conscious Works, an organizational well being company. As a former HR Director, Natasha left her job having reached burnout. It led her to recognize that there are two fundamental things getting in the way of people staying well at work — self knowledge and self care. She set up her company and wrote her book, The Conscious Effect: 50 Lessons for Better Organizational Wellbeing, to help fix that problem. She now ‘inspires a well world of work, coaching and advising leaders and their teams to create healthier and happier workplaces through a greater focus on wellbeing and its connection to high performance.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Stuart Hearn founder of Clear Review
When business started difficulties overcame:
“I had to learn everything at the same time so it was a massive culture shock. I had been protected, that’s what I feel now, in business for so long, there was a IT team, there was a marketing team, there was pretty much a team for everything that I needed. And of course, when you set up your own business you quickly have to learn all of that stuff. I am not really a detailed person so the thought of building my own website or creating a client management system or anything like that was just urrh”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity by Arnold MindellFavourite Quote:
“believe in God but tie your camel to a tree”
Recommended Online Resources:
The Oxford Review – Be impressively knowledgeable with zero effort. Making our Leaders, Managers, HR, OD, L D, consultants and coaches the most impressively knowledgeable professionals around bar non
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“take time out to take care of yourself and realise that working all of the hours that God sends isn’t going to produce the best results… Through consciously being aware of your habits and how you operate each day and through asking yourself the question of what do I actually do to take care of myself? It’s amazing how many people, especially parents do very little. So, I would say that is probably the single most important thing”…[Listen for More]
More About Natasha Wallace:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“Success is the culmination of failures, mistakes, false starts, confusion, and the determination to keep going anyway.” Nick Gleason
Other Quotes From the Chat with Natasha Wallace:
- “the relationships I have now is a businesswoman so, so keen. Not just for the development of the business but just to my well-being. To have people on the end of the phone you can talk to about all the different things you face as an entrepreneur or in my capacity as a coach, somebody working in leadership development, it’s so important to have that network around me”
- “when I am a bit overwhelmed or overworked or I got so much to do, I’ve got so much to deliver it’s just so lovely to come home and just sit down with your kids and bring yourself back to reality”
- “my old patterns of behaviour were still very much a part of me. So even though I was pretty clear that given that I had burnt out that I wasn’t ever going to work in the way that I had again. It was just part of my DNA and I have since realised that I am probably a bit of a workaholic. So, no amount of me just rationally telling myself to work less hours actually leads to that happening. I have to be so intentional about structuring my week, making time for wellness, recognising when my energy levels are depleted, understanding the importance of spending time with my kids… I have to make lots of intentional decisions about it because if I was left to my own unconscious devices, I would probably just work round-the-clock. So that has been a real learning curve for me because I thought that it was probably being in a business environment in a corporate organisation that drove my work ethic and I realised that it wasn’t that at all it was just me.”
- “I think it’s really important to believe, I think it’s really, really important to have faith…You have to have almost unwavering faith to make your business a success but you also have to work really, really hard to make it happen”
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