Episode 15 Transcript
00:00:39:13 - 00:01:21:11
Carrie Kwan
So we talk about harmonising ambition, livelihoods and well-being as a triangle or a holy trinity, if you will, where they are all linked and no one part is more important than the other.
Your ambition, your business and your career drive require your livelihood, which is your family and well-being, your individual health and vice versa. It's all interlinked just like we've heard that you can't pull from an empty cup. No business is going to grow if the owner isn't well.
If your family isn't healthy, then you're going to be distracted. Lucy, you first connected our mums with today's guest at our powered conference in June. Please tell us about Delia.
00:01:54:19 - 00:02:08:04
Lucy Kippist
Yes, thank you, Carrie. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for ambition and livelihood, but I have to say my favourite aspect of harmony is wellbeing. This brings us to today's guest. Dr Delia McCabe is on a mission to improve our well-being for us.
A neuroscientist, nutritionist, mother and the founder of Lighter, Brighter You, Delia has also recently completed a PhD in the female stressed brain. She has been very gently but convincingly weaving her message about great nutrition all over Mums & Co. Delia, we are delighted to welcome you to the podcast.
00:02:28:22 - 00:02:33:03
Dr Delia McCabe
Hi Lucy and Hi Carrie. Thank you for the invitation. I'm delighted to be here.
00:02:33:08 - 00:02:46:06
Carrie Kwan
Julia, our first question to any business owning mother is always to hear her pitch. Women should embrace every opportunity that they have to make introductions and connect with customers. So please may we invite you to practice your pitch.
What's your 30-second elevator pitch?
00:02:48:24 - 00:03:09:24
Dr Delia McCabe
Thanks, Carrie. Your goes. It's still metamorphosing, but here we go. I help overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted women find calm, clear and creative thinking and energy again by applying strategies targeted to them that lie at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and nutrition.
00:03:10:07 - 00:03:13:08
Carrie Kwan
What do you love most about your business right now?
00:03:13:13 - 00:03:33:10
Dr Delia McCabe
It's an interesting question, Carrie, because I'm only just starting out having been mostly a bit of an academic. But I think the best thing that I feel when I see someone that I'm helping have that aha moment when they realise they can actually feel great and they're beginning to figure out how to do that, that's a good feeling.
00:03:34:00 - 00:03:50:16
Lucy Kippist
That would be such an amazing feeling. It actually relates to my next question, Delia, because I'm wondering, you obviously achieved a lot, top of running a business, doing a PhD as well and being a mum. But my question is, what have you had to stop doing to enable all of these wonderful things to keep turning along?
00:03:51:04 - 00:04:13:00
Dr Delia McCabe
Well, that's a good question. Actually two things and one stretches back like 25 years, the other one is more recent. So I'll tell you about the one. 25 years ago, after I had my daughter, my first child, my hair, which was previously really straight, suddenly became curly and I would spend so long drying it because it's really thick. I would keep on trying to get it blow-dried straight. One day I just had this epiphany and I thought to myself, how many hours for the next 30, 40 years am I going to spend blow drying my hair?
So I went on a mission to find a hairdresser who could cope with curly hair. That was the first thing I gave up. But if I calculate the time? Oh my goodness, having curly hair that's cut well has saved me eons of time.
That may seem a little weird and a bit personal, but for me, that was a very big step.
00:04:45:02 - 00:04:57:23
Lucy Kippist
Incredibly sensible and such an amazing amount of time saved. That's not a joke. How much time does that save?
00:05:00:12 - 00:05:14:19
Dr Delia McCabe
No, it isn't, because really my hair was. So I think it would take me a good, jolly hour to do it. So that was the first thing. But more recently, I think in the last, maybe five or six years, especially when I got very enmeshed in my PhD in my research, I had to give up on being a perfectionist with having everything tidy in my home. That doesn't mean that I now live in a pigsty at all, but I just stop being fastidiously perfectionistic with lining up every box and making sure every bookcase look perfect.
That the garage was completely coordinated alphabetically, so I had to step back from that because it was not serving me in any way, shape or form. It wasn't yielding any results. So I learned a good lesson then because I still my house is still perfectly fine to everybody else and to me too now. I don't feel that obsessive drive anymore.
00:05:49:19 - 00:06:00:03
Lucy Kippist
It's such an important point, and thank you for sharing that because it's, not always easy to share those kinds of personal things, but the time saved. But also, things like the garage being tidy. I'm also guilty of that.
It's just another thing that we tend to add to a To-Do list that we don't need. We don't need it in our heads.
00:06:05:03 - 00:06:10:01
Dr Delia McCabe
100%. It stops us from pursuing the things that really bring us joy and that we are passionate about.
00:06:10:14 - 00:06:29:02
Lucy Kippist
Absolutely. So Delia Carey mentioned before that we are part of Mums & Co we to help our mums practice their pitch, but we also really see the value in making introductions to each other in our networks. So if there was one thing right now that you needed in your business or your or your life, what would that be?
00:06:29:04 - 00:06:45:01
Dr Delia McCabe
I think I need a woman to share the fact that I help women in the way that I do. Because I think a lot of women don't want to put their hand up and say they need help. So I sometimes battled to find that women who really needed the most help were kind of embarrassed to ask for help and none of us should be. I can promise you after my research, they are so many millions of women battling. So maybe people in this wonderful community can just share my skills with women when they see they're really battling?
00:06:56:18 - 00:07:03:15
Lucy Kippist
Love it. What have you found to be the most transferable skills between being a mum and running a business?
00:07:04:08 - 00:07:19:23
Dr Delia McCabe
Oh, look, I think the fact that we can not really multitask, but we can hold a few things in our brain at the same time. We get used to doing that as being mums. I mean, we have to because if we don't get that skill right, our kids really don't get those forms filled in. They don't get lunchboxes, they don't get all of the things that we know instinctively to do. So that really can help us going forwards with a business because we hold those things in our mind and we also learn what to prioritise.
Sometimes that's a really important skill that people forget in a business. I'm transferring those skills now, so I'm still in the early stages. But those are important things that we learn as mums.
00:07:42:22 - 00:07:55:09
Carrie Kwan
We're also the community of support around us at Mums & Co. That means the partners, husbands, friends, family, clients tell us about your co and how they support you.
00:07:55:23 - 00:08:11:16
Dr Delia McCabe
This is a good question, Carrie. My mum is fantastic support. She has been my whole life and my husband is a wonderful support as well. He's never, ever stood in my way once he really wants me to be the best that I can be in whatever I do.
I'm really very fortunate there as well. I do have some key friends that, I can just phone them and say, Oh, I just need to vent for five minutes and they let me in.
They give big hugs and say see you again. They're also busy women, so I really am grateful for those people. I think without that community, especially now in the world, it's really challenging to go to be on your own. I think learning to put my hand up with my close friends was really a big step for me because I really have always liked to be independent.
00:08:42:07 - 00:08:48:01
Carrie Kwan
So there are so many things that we have to think about when we're running your business. How do you protect your business?
00:08:48:19 - 00:09:01:11
Dr Delia McCabe
This is it's a good question, Kerry. I never wanted to be a business person. That's the irony of life. I just wanted to gain lots of information and be an academic.
I think the most important thing is you need to know your mission. So my mission is now really to help women cope with stress because I know that it's a global phenomenon.
Everything that I've done, writing books and doing a couple of degrees, you have to be very focused. I think I'm just taking those skills and applying them to the business process as well. But in the beginning, you are still figuring things out and seeing what works and what doesn't.
But I think that overall focus has to be there for any or any big project you busy with, and a business is a big project.
00:09:34:00 - 00:09:42:13
Carrie Kwan
Now we know from your Instagram page, Delia that you love to cook. What is the meal that every business owning mother should have at the ready?
00:09:42:14 - 00:10:04:08
Dr Delia McCabe
Oh my goodness, there's only one. That's coconut beans. It is seriously the simplest recipe to toss together. You just toss together cooked beans, coconut cream and a bottle of tomato pasta sauce. I use that organic one from Woolworths. I'll put a few spices into that, some onion, garlic, and I just let it simmer for 30 minutes. You have the best, best nacho sauce ever. You just mash up an avocado with some to make some guacamole and you're good to go.
00:10:15:13 - 00:10:19:12
Carrie Kwan
That's to sorted for tonight.
00:10:20:04 - 00:10:37:23
Lucy Kippist
I love doing just to carry on for that question about your social media because we have been following along and I certainly have been watching your recipes with great interest. But I wondered, what is it about Delia as a businesswoman and a mother that we might not actually see on social media with a little insight into who you are behind the scenes?
00:10:40:00 - 00:10:56:01
Dr Delia McCabe
Oh, that's really a good question. I suppose I'm someone that likes to do things really quickly. Maybe that does come across a little bit on social media. So one of the reasons I love yoga, for example, is because I can stretch, I can meditate, I can move my body and gain fitness all at the same time. So I'm kind of like a person who wants to use my time really well. Maybe that doesn't come across. So I think I'm kind of like to fuse with everything that I do. I do it quickly, and efficiently.
00:11:09:05 - 00:11:14:04
Carrie Kwan
I think that's a gift of motherhood, isn't it? It teaches us to do things that we need to do for ourselves pretty fast.
00:11:14:13 - 00:11:29:24
Dr Delia McCabe
Yeah, I think that's right and absolutely we do have to become very efficient. But the other thing that I think people maybe don't know is that I actually really like silence. I really like being quiet and that can't come across on social media because that's the place you've got to really be vocal.
That's so that's the part of me that you don't see. It’s me walking along outside in nature, just listening and being silent, not listening to a podcast, just enjoying the silence.
00:11:39:24 - 00:11:54:10
Lucy Kippist
Beautiful. I love that too. I find that very nourishing. So I was going to ask you about where you get your sense of well-being from. So you've mentioned yoga there and you've mentioned silence. Is there anything else that's sort of part of your daily routine that's essential to feeling good?
00:11:54:17 - 00:12:08:02
Dr Delia McCabe
Yes, I do something else that is a bit weird, but I do this special backstretch. Even though I've got a standing desk, you know, we spend a lot of time hunched over our keyboards, even if we are focusing on our posture.
I've got this beautiful backstretch from a friend of mine who's a fantastic physiotherapist. I do that maybe two or three times a day. If I get into bed at night and for some reason, I haven't done enough of them, I can actually feel it in my back. It opens up your chest it just gets the blood flowing to your brain again. I do that regularly. So that's really a must-do for me in the day.
00:12:30:01 - 00:12:35:04
Lucy Kippist
That's great. We might need to get a video of you doing that and share it. It sounds like something I need. Thank you for sharing.
00:12:35:04 - 00:12:36:04
Dr Delia McCabe
My pleasure.
00:12:36:09 - 00:12:42:22
Carrie Kwan
What is the most important tip in growing a business?
00:12:43:11 - 00:12:58:22
Dr Delia McCabe
One needs to have a focus and a why? Why are you actually doing this thing? I think that's really important. If you're not clear on your why, I think you can drive all the other things that need to be driven in running a business.
So that's really, I think, the most important thing. I'm sure I'm going to discover other things as I go along. I think also knowing who your audience is, who are the people that need you and a way to find them.
Those are important things that you need to figure out. Probably earlier than later when you start out. But I think the people that are in your community, in the Mums & Go community have an advantage. They've really got an edge because they can call on all sorts of people with different skill sets to really upper-level themselves really quickly. That's a fantastic thing to have at one's disposal.
00:13:33:21 - 00:13:42:05
Carrie Kwan
At Mums & Co we often talk about harmony as a triangle of ambition, livelihood and well-being. Describe the shape of a good life for you.
00:13:42:09 - 00:14:04:06
Dr Delia McCabe
This is a great question, Carrie. Funnily enough, the slow food movement has a lot to say about that triangle. They do it according to eight hours to work, eight hours to sleep or rest, and eight hours to do other things that you need to do to make you feel good.
We don't always get those eight hours right, especially when we starting out in business and we busy mums. But if you can have those eight hours kind of like your goal to bring balance. It makes a huge difference because we're so mobile and we use technology as much as we do for work.
We can really get those eight hours mixed out. That's a huge challenge because we need to find more balance because being at one's computer all the time doesn't bring you that you don't have that wellness and you don't sleep well.
So you have this vicious cycle. So for me, this slow food movements idea was really a good one and ties in well with your triangle as well.
00:14:47:06 - 00:14:57:02
Lucy Kippist
I love that. I'm just trying to do a quick calculation now of how I can fit eight hours of other stuff in on top of work and sleeping, but I'm sure I can do it.
The last question we had for you is obviously our network here at Mums & Co is all about supporting other women. Who is someone in your network that you feel is really ambitious and doing a great job that you'd like to shout out to say hello, to hear, to bring our attention to them and what they're doing?
00:15:13:15 - 00:15:31:22
Dr Delia McCabe
I actually don't have anyone particular person. I see so many people in this community who are stretching themselves and offering wonderful services. I just look at you and Carrie, for example. Lucy, I know you from before and I know that you've been juggling and being a great mum and working hard.
I don't know, Carrie well, but I know that you are also doing the same thing. So I can't really shout out to anyone specific person. I think we all need a shout out. I think all of us are really working hard, and many of us juggle with that struggle or struggle with the juggle.
So I think we all need a shout out. I don't think there's anyone particular person. I think we're all doing really well. We working hard. Corona has definitely impacted all of us and our well-being and our sense of security in the world. Generally speaking, we work from home and bring our kids up at home, they can’t go to school a lot and lockdowns. I think all of us need a great shout out.
00:16:12:21 - 00:16:24:10
Lucy Kippist
Well, it is so beautiful and what a great place to end. That's very true. Wise words, Delia. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today and being our first ever guest. We hope you'll come back on again soon.
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