On this episode of The Hayley Osborne Show I am talking with Laetitia Andrac about the power of using your intuition as part of your business strategy and how you can actually start to shift your business to work in a more aligned way to your intuition and doing what feels right for you. Laetitia is a beautiful soul with powerful words that will move you to take action as we head into 2024. This episode is FIRE!!
Summary
0:00-3:18 – Introduction and welcome to guest Laetitia Andrac
3:18-5:01 – Laetitia introduces herself and what she does
5:01-5:31 – Hayley asks how Laetitia uses intuition in her business
5:31-8:36 – Laetitia discusses leveraging intuition daily and tuning into how it expresses for each person
8:36-10:05 – Examples of using intuition in business decisions and new offerings
10:05-11:53 – Avoiding burnout, prioritizing self-care, and setting boundaries
11:53-13:01 – Laetitia’s experience with past burnout and signs of it recurring
13:01-17:28 – Strategies Laetitia implements now to prevent burnout like “RAM moments”
17:28-18:37 – Setting boundaries with clients and being unavailable outside work hours
18:37-20:53 – Empowering team members and making herself redundant
20:53-22:54 – Laetitia’s journey moving from France to Australia
22:54-26:23 – Falling in love with Australia and raising bilingual children
26:23-28:50 – Connecting with indigenous culture and advocacy
28:50-29:01 – Thank you and details on Laetitia’s book and podcast
Hayley Osborne
Welcome back to another episode of The Hayley Osborne show. My name is Hayley, and I am your host. I’m really proud to bring you episode 93 of the podcast today. And today I bring you my beautiful and most adorable French guest Laetitia Andrac and lots has, you know, so much wealth of experience. With 15 years plus of strategic consulting, startup mentoring, and corporate leadership experience, she has led many successful growth and innovation programmes in so many high profile global organisations, which include Telstra, Deloitte, Dublin, Bloomberg, and the French government. She understands firsthand the daily juggle of successful entrepreneurs, which can really leave them feeling triggered by time poorly spread thin and burnt out.
We talked a lot today about how to use intuition as part of your business strategy. And really how to harness that into business. Because, you know, you do use intuition in your own life and you know how your gut feels about something, but how do you actually leverage what that feels like and input it into part of your business strategy. And I’m really grateful to bring you this episode because Leticia unpacks this for us. And, you know, she has known burners all too well and experienced that a long time ago in her business in 2014.
As well, she wrapped her head around how she thought being burnt out was an impossible feat to have people like her don’t burn out, you know, and I’m sure you can think this, you’re thinking the same thing right now. But what it did do is taught her the importance of reconnecting with her intuition, which was what we talked about today, to be able to avoid this. And if you do a lot in your business, don’t get to that point, adopt some of the strategies that she talks about to be able to help you. And she shares with us today, as well as in her book lighter, how to trust your intuition and build a thriving business where she explains her life framework. Anyway, let me just introduce her herself. Without further ado, let’s get into it. Hello Laetitia and welcome to the Hayley Osborne show. I am very, very glad that you could join me in today’s episode. What I like to do, I’ve obviously already introduced you in my own words. So just so everyone knows, I love to have conversations. And then I’ll go and take out the parts and pieces after we chat. And then I’ll do a little intro. So you’ve just heard that so in your own words, I would love to tell our listeners, who you are and what you do.
Laetitia Andrac
sure. So I am Laetitia Andrac. I was born in the south of France in the French Riviera. And I moved to Australia about nine years ago now, after burning out from being a strategy consultant in the heart of Paris, living the perfect lifestyle on the outside, you know, going for a nice exhibition, traveling across Europe and the US and all of that. But actually, I was working way too hard. So after burning out, I was called to move to Australia and followed my intuition.
And we live in this beautiful country in Sydney in our country, with my husband for the last nine years and we have two little ones, while five and seven, Zoey and new, two little girls. And what I do is I am a business doula, I forgot to say what I do. So I am a business doula. It’s how I carved my work. So basically, I hold sacred space for women in business to birth their next offering their next products, then next incremental growth, innovation for them to grow the business in a way that’s aligned so I work in the conjunction between intuition strategy.
Hayley Osborne
Beautiful. So straight off the bat, how do you use intuition in your business?
Laetitia Andrac
Oh my gosh, every day.
Hayley Osborne
Like, what? What is that? Firstly, like, you know, like, for me, I think about that as my gut feeling. But I mean, how do I use that as part of my business strategy? And I’m sure that’s a question on the tip of a lot of listeners’ lips at the moment. Yeah. So first
Laetitia Andrac
Of all, everyone is intuitive, you are more or less intuitive, depending on how he was nurtured, in your childhood, in your young adulthood, in your current lifestyle, and so on. I was, you know, I grew up in a family of healers in the south of France. And we’ve always been told that intuition was our guide. So really listening to this voice to this feeling in your body and all of that, but knowing that each and every one of us is intuitive, and our intuition is expressed in different ways.
So for some of us, it may be in our guts, that we feel that for some of us, it may be way more subtle, like a kind of tingling in the crown of our head. For some of us, it’s like, you know, your hand being warmer or hotter for other people is this kind of hot expansion. For some people, it’s this noise in the ears, I’ve worked with so many clients and discovered with them how their intuition is expressed that I can tell you there is as many different ways for your intuition to be expressed as tastes, and you know, what you like and what you dislike in terms of the food. So all of us are different, and all of us are intuitive is how I like to start.
So once you’ve defined how your intuition is expressed, and I guide my clients through exercises for them to do that, or I’ve put some in my book as well, it’s like, connecting with how your intuition is expressed, because this is unique to you. And then once you know how your intuition is expressed, it’s every single day in your business connecting with that sense, how does it feel for you, and then making decisions from that space, that intuitive space, and then once you have this confirmation intuitively, then you put a strategy in place. So I’m not about just going with your gut with your feeling with your intuition with this inner knowing I am about weaving both together in a way that works for you. And we’re all different beings.
And for me, I definitely rely a lot more on my intuition than other people, but it’s how I am as a person, then we’re all very different. So how do I use it? It’s for all like, right now I’m designing my vision for next year, my planning for next year, my strategy for next year. And from there, what is going to be all the strategy in every part of my business, you know, from marketing, to finance, to team and all of those kinds of things. But I started with the overarching strategy. But rather than starting with the overarching strategy first, I started with the intuitive vision, what is the big vision? And what is my intuition, guiding me to create an impact to grow to scale in my business, or in the way I serve my community.
And then from there, I put the strategy lens. And from there, I put the actions that need to be put in place for me to achieve this tragedy. And every step of the way I connect inwards rather than outsourcing this decision to someone else, I connect in ways and like, how does it How does it feel? Do I really want to do that? Or am I doing it to play someone else? While I’m doing it, because this person is doing so I should do this. So really going back inward and cutting through the noise?
Hayley Osborne
Yeah, I love that. And I feel like so many things came up for me, then I was like, so intuition is like, you know, if you’re, if you’re better at working more strategically and creatively in the morning, then you know, in your guts that you shouldn’t have any meetings at that time, because you’re better off doing this at that time. And then also, as an example of launching or incorporating a new product into your product suite. Like if it feels really good. And if it feels right, not worrying about what anyone else is doing, then that is what you go with.
And it doesn’t matter if it’s not even on the market. Because if you believe it, and you are backing yourself, and your gut tells you that it’s the right thing to do, it will be the right thing in your business and it will take off. And then I was gonna say one more thing, like intuitively, it also can stop you from doing things. So for example, like I had a client who would be part of that too if she is producing an online six week course and she set the time for like seven o’clock at night every week. She was like, I really don’t like that time. But I feel like that’s the one thing like the one time that everyone’s going to be free and I was like, Well, if that doesn’t feel good for you, you’re clearly not going to do lever at the best that you could use to change the time. Is that what you mean? Yes, it’s really
Laetitia Andrac
Connecting inward for every decision. So rather than outsourcing, you know what I usually say it’s like outsourcing your intuition is the best way to then create a business that you hate basically, rather than someone else saying you, okay, so we read this book and Tim Ferriss said, we need to work four hours a week and wake up at 4am. But actually, we both have young kids, we know that the boys who are waking up are not going to work because we’re tired. And we don’t want to wake up at 4am. So it’s like finding something that works with your own season.
You’re in a season, your lifestyle, your cycle, the moon cycle, the energy around us, and all those kinds of things. So it’s tuning in, rather than tuning out and being like, okay, so Tim Ferriss said, so I think I should do that. It’s really Yes. Read things. Be curious. Look at everything that’s happening around you. I am not saying that you shouldn’t do that. I am the most curious person I love to read. I love to consume. I love to do all of this. But then, what does it mean for me? Yeah. Right with me with my own intuition with what I really want to do, and how I really want to do it for myself.
And then encouraging any business owner was listening to this or any leader or any, you know, events from motherhood, it’s like you can read all the books around teaching your kids how to sleep, how to read how to eat, how to Lala, but then what your intuition is telling you as a mother is what’s most important, and no one can tell you how to raise your child, but you and it’s the same thing for your business. No one knows better, why you’re in business. What’s your vision? And how do you want to run it? So just with, you know, just sound a bit down for everyone else?
Hayley Osborne
Yeah, I love that. And I also like the idea of creating rather than consuming, I feel like consuming has its place. But as long as you’re creating first, so that when you are consuming, the sound is down. Yeah, but you’re creating comes first. So yeah, I totally love that. You touched on before you were really burnt out before, early on in your career? Like, what are some of the things that you have, I guess, done and implemented in your business to avoid that happening again?
So tell us what you were doing when you flex hit that stage of burnout? And then what did you do to fix it? And how do you now run your life to avoid that place? Because, like me, you know, I work quite hard. I work odd hours, because my children are small. And I don’t want to get to that place of burning out. But I want all the things right. I’m not here for a haircut. I’m here to run a big business. But I want everything. So what can you offer in terms of advice? And like, what does that look like for you? Yes.
Laetitia Andrac
So if I take myself back to when I burn out completely in 2014, after seven years in strategy, consulting, and then how I nearly hit it again, during COVID, during the pandemic, being at home and being a general manager in a big corporation, and having two young kids at home with my husband is a GM as well in a B Corp. And you know, I was like, Oh my gosh, I’m gonna hit that again.
So at that time, at both those times the time where I really hit the burnout, and then I learned from that, and then I could see myself having the early sign of burning out again during COVID and decided to exit this role to create his business and then since then, never saw any early sign of burnout, because I’m very aware and I have put clear things in my business. So let me take you back to those moments. Those moments, it was all about saying yes to everything, and everyone but me. So yes, yes, I’ll do that. Yes. All right. His point of view. Yes. All right.
So leadership, yes, I will hire this person. Yes, I will mentor the woman in leadership. Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Laetitia, can you buy tomorrow at 6am? Yes, yes, yes. Yes. To the CEO. Yes to the CCTS to everyone but me. So as a first thing, the second thing apart from the Yes, yes, yes, was not making any priority in my life, for self care, and for spaciousness, and for rituals, which is how I grew up. And I know the importance of self care rituals, and you know, honoring the cycle of the moon and so on. But I had lost track of this. And the third thing was really going out in nature and connecting with nature. So those were the three main things that I was not doing anymore.
I was just sitting in front of my laptop and working, working, working, working, working, working, getting in a cab getting into Paris Metro, and just got a lot on a plane or in a hotel room and just working all the time. So then what happens since I’m running my business? I put a high price on it and it’s right in my calendar and some things that no one can touch. It’s what I call RAM, which is Hyundai vous avec mermen. So I made an appointment with myself and it was a beautiful thing. In my calendar. It’s like, every single day, I have Sri Ram moments in the morning, after lunch, and before school pick up. And those are three moments where I am allowing myself, the space, the time, either for ritual is a full award, or for a moment in silence in solitude and introspection, and all that. So this is one very simple thing.
It doesn’t have to be two hours, right? I don’t have this time between, you know, 9am drop off and 3pm pickup. So it’s like really something that I do, it’s 30 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes after lunch, I never have lunch in front of my laptop.
By the way, I’m French. So this is not possible. Even when I was working in cooperation. Here in Australia, we take the whole team and like we go out we have a picnic, we don’t do it in front of the laptop, so lunch is not in front of my laptop, but then having a walk after lunch. And then before school picks up having this kind of search space where I can have a breather, I can really get out of my day and really be present and with my daughters.
So those are three key moments, which are my RAM moments with my work mom. And then the other tips. It’s like I am very clear with my clients about when I work and when I don’t work. So I work in a different capacity. I am a consultant for what I call macro businesses scale up. So big businesses, as you call them, really hire me to do the strategy workshop, do some speaker engagement with them and all of that with them. I’m very clear about my hours, that I have a mastermind, I have a membership, I have courses and all of that. But in my contracts through all the way I’m clear about when I am available, what are my working hours. So, if it’s outside my working hours, I am not doing cancer research. So, I am not going to save their life. They can wait. They’re all adults. And I’m not interested in creating codependency.
And that’s some things that I learned from running, you know, leading a team of 60 or 200 people in my leadership career. I am not here to create codependency with anyone you’re grown up with, you know how to do things. If you think you’re going to die, you can dial 111, I am your 911 Sorry, I am not here to save your life.
Hayley Osborne
You’re my people.
Laetitia Andrac
And then the third thing that really, really helped me it’s like, planning ahead of time, days off day holidays, really like from the first years that I run this business, I went five weeks in France with my family, the second year of running my business, we went six week, next year, we’re going two months in France, I’m disconnecting, I am not serving anyone, and I plan ahead of time, what am I going to do in the months before to generate, you know, the profit, the cashflow, what is going to support me during that time so that I can really enjoy some time off.
So, it’s about being intentional, when you plan ahead of time and when strategically, you’re aligning your business with why you’re running your business. And I’m very clear about my value in my business. And I always encourage my clients to do that. So, then you know what to say no to? And you know what to say yes to intuitively with this full body? Yes, in this moment of intuitive knowledge, which is like you can do with it. And I’m not going to do that.
Hayley Osborne
Yeah, it’s only like probably the last year and a half that I’ve put firm stops around my, like business boundaries. And my hours before that I used to say YES, YES to everyone. And honestly, it is the best thing I’ve ever done. Yes, ever done. And so, yeah, I just think if for those people that are listening, do you think it’s harder when you’ve got, like established relationships with clients and things to set boundaries? Or, like easier when new clients come in to set new boundaries? Or do you think like, you know, it’s, it’s easy enough.
When you tell somebody that you’ve been working with for a while that you have these new boundaries? How would you address something like that? Oh, now guess what? I’m not accessible. 24/7 Because I can guarantee you there’ll be people listening that are like, I’ve got this one client that just, you know, or I mean, so there’s that question, and then there’s the question around the membership. So, if you’re going to go away for eight weeks, who looks after the membership? What does that look like? Members?
Laetitia Andrac
Yeah. Okay, so let me answer the first question. Yeah. So, the first question is, for me, it doesn’t matter if it’s new clients or clients, legacy clients, whatever clients, yeah, when you have this strong, intuitive nudge and you’re clear in your strategy about Okay, I’m ready to lose these clients to choose myself.
Then set these boundaries, then we say it doesn’t matter if there is a new legacy, whatever, I’m just, I always encourage my clients to just share it. I have a client who runs a very successful marketing agency. And she was on the verge of bending. I’d like clients to hire me. I’m on the verge of burning out. I lost my spark, I don’t know where I’m going next, I created this business, but I don’t love it anymore. So, it’s just about reconnecting with your true vision, your true intuition. And what you really want to create in which impact do you want to add and then put the strategy around it, and you need to be ready to let go of some.
And if some are not ready for you to choose yourself and serve them in a better way. And you were serving them before when you were depleted and not inspired and not creative? And all of that, then just let them go. It’s fine. I could have made them happy. Yeah,
Hayley Osborne
That’s right and have the balls to do it. Because essentially, what’s around the corner is so beautiful, and you free your time up for those that really are your people. You know, your vibe attracts your tribe and all of that. I think that’s great. So, tell me a bit about your journey. So like, what did you do in Paris? Like, what made you move to Australia? This story is beautiful.
Laetitia Andrac
Yes. Do you want me to answer first?
Hayley Osborne
Yes, the membership? Yeah. Okay. So how do you personally ask that for myself?
Laetitia Andrac
I’m sure someone else would be like, how do you know that percent? So basically, I don’t run essential shifts by myself, I run it with a team. And it’s a beautiful moment to empower your team members. And you plan that in advance, which is a beauty of planning, and strategizing, and all those kinds of things in advance. Because then you’re like, okay, I am away next year, June, July. So, we already did our team meeting around, okay, this is when I’m away, what are we doing in the membership, who is going to step up and deliver those kinds of calls, who is going to, and as I don’t create codependency, with my clients, you know, it’s like, they don’t necessarily need me to deliver the message. So it’s all good, someone else can do it, and do it potentially better than me if we choose the topic being more aligned with their skill sets.
So, it would be my operation manager stepping and speaking about the operation, which is much better than me talking about. And then the other months, it would be my content marketer way but as I need to speak about marketing, so then you align the theme to that and love the strength. Yeah, I am not indispensable. It’s what I always said, when I was a GM general manager in a big corporation, or when I was, you know, a strategy consultant to any of my clients. I’m like, I am not irreplaceable, and I’m not interested in becoming irreplaceable. I truly believe that empowering people around me, for them to be able to do my job and make myself redundant is my goal in life.
Hayley Osborne
I love that so much that it makes me redundant. That would never come out of people’s mouths, like,
Laetitia Andrac
Yeah, but I love being made redundant. And then you know, it’s like the business can run without me. And I see my profits. I’m happy to be there.
Hayley Osborne
Yeah oh, my goodness. So okay, now, that last question. Tell me about this. This role. Tell me about your journey to get to Australia. Yeah, I really want to know,
Laetitia Andrac
Okay, so I grew up in the South of France in a very, very small village. And I absolutely grew up in communion with nature. We’re always going on high. We’re always connected with, you know, harvest things and mushroom and spending time in nature. And I had a whole sense things like that. So then I moved to Paris because of my career. And it was amazing. I was traveling the world and I was, you know, enjoying the museum and the opera and the nice food and the nice designer clothes and designer bag and boots, and shoes, and all of those kinds of things. It was amazing. It was amazing. But at some point, I burned out and when I burnt out, and when I took that time off work to rebuild myself. Australia called me so that’s where it’s intuition lies.
So austrack on me never been didn’t know anyone there. I didn’t watch any movies or anything about Australia. And it’s happened before when I moved to India and other countries that I visited before training, but so he called me like, okay, so I told my husband, we need to go to a strip now. Great. So let’s try and find a job there. Very quickly. We landed a job with a working visa, we were not at the age to get the Working Holiday Visa anymore. So a visa works all that all settled. And actually before all of that happens. My husband asked me to get married and he offered me this ring, which is with an Australian Sapphire. And we got married under a eucalyptus tree.
So Australia was already there without us knowing that Australia was there and getting married in a vineyard in the south of France and the eucalyptus tree is quite abnormal. Do we have olive trees with goosebumps already on the map, but I guess we’re not seeing that. So we weren’t called to like I was called to come to Australia. We mapped this out. It happened really quickly, as soon as we had the vision and put all the steps in place and all the strategy in place, and we moved to Australia and we haven’t been disappointed. Initially it was a plan to stay for two or three years, travel around Australia, enjoy his country, enjoy the lifestyle of living by the beach in Bondi Beach and, you know, enjoying the space and all of those kinds of things.
But then it changed, then we decided to actually have a family here and now we’re pretty in love with this country. And we don’t know when or if we will go to another country. It’s not clear yet in our vision. So every year when we do that with my husband, we’re asking ourselves where, where do we feel called to do and where do we stay next? And for some moment, it’s still Australia. So here we are, our girls are loving it to their most friendly and and ask for sure, like correcting my accent when I say something like Ma’am, it’s not like this. Or whatever, is it correct me all the time, but that’s okay. And it’s so lovely to hear them with a girlfriend. You know, my mum and my dad speak French. So that’s why their English is not perfect. Yeah, thank you.
Hayley Osborne
That’s so cute. And your children speak fluent French. Yes. Because that’s all you would talk about at home.
Laetitia Andrac
Yeah but with an Australian accent
Hayley Osborne
If you had told yourself nine years ago that this would be your life, you probably would have gone. What are you talking about?
Laetitia Andrac
Yeah, definitely not. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, my younger self, didn’t see you know, all of that unfolding. But I always had this calling. I’ve lived abroad in other countries before Australia or warehouses calling to leave in another country and discover the culture and I love this country for all the indigenous knowledge that it has coming from a family very connected to the land and to the roots in the south of France.
Here. I’m learning a lot from elders, I’m sitting in a circle in a yarning circle a lot in the community and learning a lot from this land. And I know what called me here is this indigenous magic that, you know, I’m here to advocate and heal and help. So that’s really something I’m a huge advocate for, right and indigenous culture.
Hayley Osborne
Yeah, I love that. And I really love using intuition as a part of your own life strategy, but as well as your business strategy, because when you can get that mix right of what works. It is honestly such a beautiful thing. So if we want to know how we can get more of your beautiful self and what you have to offer, how can we buy from you, work with you and stock all the things you have? What does that look like? Tell us tell us tell me. If they want
Laetitia Andrac
to hear more of my voice and my accent, you can just go on the essential shift podcast wherever you’re listening to this podcast, you can go on the essential shift podcast and give it a listen and see if it’s your vibe. It’s really weaving together intuition and strategy for business owners. Then if you’re like, I really want to listen to your book, you have my audiobook as well on any platform.
My book is called lighted how to trust your intuition and build a thriving business. So you can listen to the audiobook or you can buy the book anywhere on any platform. And if you really want to just chat with me, you can connect on Instagram at an essential dodge shift. Or you can connect with me on LinkedIn literacy on hack. And those are my two favourite platforms.
Hayley Osborne
Beautiful. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for taking the time to come and chat with me and to share your beautiful knowledge and wisdom. Thank you.
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