Trading Law Books for Business in Paradise - Vadrine Boullé is RightOffTrack

Anya Smith:
Welcome back to RightOffTrack, your go-to place for stories of people who march to the beat of their own drum. I'm Anya Smith and today's episode features a guest who's quite literally made a business out of paradise, Badrine Boullée, the founder of Seychelles Retreat, or TSR for short. Vadrine is not your run-of-the-mill entrepreneur. She began her career as a virtual assistant while studying law, only to discover her true passion lay in empowering others to grow their own businesses. From small startups to established brands, she's become a go-to source for amplifying success. Now let's talk about TSR. It's not just a travel company, it's a unique space where people come together to learn, share, and grow their businesses, all while surrounded by breathtaking beauty of the Seychelles. Imagine discussing your next big project or getting advice on scaling your business, but doing it on a beach with an amazing ocean view. But the magic doesn't end there. But Dream and her team also offer a comprehensive planning service for anyone looking to host their own retreat. They sweat the small stuff so you can focus on the big picture. It's business made easy in a setting that's hard to beat. So buckle up as we dive into a story of a woman who's combined business savvy with an idyllic setting to create something truly unique. If Vadrine can chase her dreams and catch them, There's nothing stopping any of us from doing the same. You'll want to hear every part of this exciting journey. So let's dive in. Good morning or good evening, Vadrine, how are you?

Vadrine Boulle:
Hi, I'm doing really well. Thank you, Anya. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Anya Smith:
I'm excited to have you here and quick shout out to our friend Jane who introduced us. So thank you Jane You've just been amazing and introduced me to incredible people like my dreams. So yeah It's always interesting how paths connect to incredible people

Vadrine Boulle:
It's a small world at the end of the day when we're on social media.

Anya Smith:
Yes, yes, absolutely. And it's fascinating. This is probably my favorite part of the journey is connecting with incredible people from all over the world. And so let's start with that, like around the world. Where in the world are you right now? Just to give us a little context. I know to me I had to like, how do you pronounce Seychelles? Where is that? Ripple horn, I'm familiar, let's start there.

Vadrine Boulle:
Of course. So yes, I'm currently based in the Seychelles Islands. For our listeners who don't know, the Seychelles Islands is a group of 115 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. So on the map, we are to the east of mainland Africa. We do form part of the African continent, but we are 115 islands spread quite wide, widely across the Indian Ocean. And this is where I'm from. I was born and raised here. And we ended up moving back here during the pandemic. from that started the Retrieve company, which we're gonna talk about, but that's where I am at the moment.

Anya Smith:
sounds magical and I love that you were bringing back your work to a place you grew up with. How special is that? But you did mention it, so you moved away from there and as I mentioned in your bio, you were doing law. So quite a different place from where we are today. So can you show us what got you interested in law and maybe what were some of the things that pivoted you out of that space?

Vadrine Boulle:
Yes, I love talking about this journey because I feel that it's so relatable for a lot of people to feel that they thought they were going to go into one thing and then discovered that actually this wasn't what I thought it was going to be and I don't actually enjoy it and going to something else. I had always thought I was going to be a lawyer purely because it's in the family, right? My father is a very successful lawyer here on the island. You know, we have a history of legal I considered him one of my heroes, and so I wanted to be a lawyer as well. And for the longest time, I also wanted to study in London. So I wanted to study at a Queen Mary in London, which is what I applied for, what I went and did, essentially. So I moved to the UK in 2017 to start my law degree. And while I enjoyed studying law, because I've always been very academic, there was a lot about... the legal space and the corporate space that was quite a harsh reality check. And there were a lot of things that I found that I disagreed with that didn't feel like the path I wanted to go down. And so it was actually while I was in law school that I had continued a travel and lifestyle blog that I'd been running for a little while. And essentially I had the best of both worlds. So I was doing my law degree and starting my online business, running my travel and lifestyle blog at the same time. And so I slowly began to be pulled towards the potential of the online space, which is where my online career began.

Anya Smith:
That's amazing. And you mentioned this beautiful element of your dad inspiring you. I can imagine that when you decided to make the pivot, it must have been also hard to let him know about the decision. What was that process like for you?

Vadrine Boulle:
It was really hard, but on the other side of it, once I had kind of shared with not just him, but my whole family that I wanted a different trajectory, I realized that a lot of the pressure that I had placed was self-imposed. While I had thought that I was gonna be this big disappointment and I was ruining a family legacy or whatever, my parents were actually really supportive. And I think... Parents of a certain generation always do the best they can with what they know. I think every parent does that for their children. And so they wanted the best for me based on what they knew. And they didn't know the online space, as most people still don't fully understand it. But they were really supportive. And I recognized that a lot of the pressure that I felt was a lot of pressure that I put on myself.

Anya Smith:
I'm so happy to hear that. I know not everybody gets that reaction and I'm sure it was still really hard even having supportive

Vadrine Boulle:
Hmm.

Anya Smith:
background. And were there challenges for you personally, you know, going from, I'm sure it doesn't, you know, you don't get a law degree in a day. There's a lot of sacrifices I'm sure you have to do to get to that place in the beginning. So what was it like maybe going from feeling, I sacrificed all this to more of maybe. Oh, I built up all this and I can use it somewhere else. Like what was that mental process from going through like this big goal dream that you achieved and

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah.

Anya Smith:
then realizing, maybe something different for me.

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah, I think about halfway through my degree, I sort of, I like to say it this way, I stopped doing the degree for other people and I started doing it for myself because I like to finish things that I start. And so when I realized, okay, I know I'm not going to go into law, but I'd really like to finish the degree again, because I am quite academic, I enjoy studying, I enjoy learning. And so I said, you know, I'm going to finish my degree because I've worked so hard already. And I enjoy the subject matter. and I had really essentially created my five-year plan. I knew that I was gonna finish my degree and as soon as I finished my degree, I would go full-time with my business. And I was, I say lucky, but it was luck with a lot of hard work. By the time I graduated, I had positioned myself to go full-time. I was financially able to support myself through my business full-time by the time I graduated. So it was a lot of hard work balancing both, but I was very intentional about what I wanted and I really worked towards that.

Anya Smith:
And is there anything that, you know, I don't want anybody to hear this, like, oh, well, why even bother getting a law degree? Why even see it through? It's such a time commitment investment. So were there things that you took away from the degree that helped you now running a business?

Vadrine Boulle:
Of course, there were so many life skills that I took from being at university. Communication skills, negotiation skills, the ability to be in a room and present your case to different people, you know, the ability to research, the ability to write. You know, there's so much that I think people could take from any degree, but a law degree specifically, that's what I took away from it. And having an understanding of the legal systems is very helpful in business in any context, in contracting, in pricing negotiations. So, and my experience at university formed a lot of who I am today in the sense that had I not been in London, I don't know if I would have had the chance to travel as much as I did throughout Europe. I don't know if I would have had access to other things that I had access to in London, like. the culture, the people that I met. And so I don't believe in regretting things in my life. I'm very proud of what I accomplished with my degree and I think I can take a lot of what I did during those years into the rest of my life.

Anya Smith:
I love that perspective. It's very empowering. And one thing that one of the biggest blessings of my life has also been travel. And I always also have the perspective, everything happens for you and not to you. And for example, like I got laid off recently and that perspective could have been like, oh, this was such a bad thing that happened to me. I feel really bad for myself. And I had obviously all those emotions that were even physical manifestations of stress and anxiety. But then. trying to see like what is the positive outcome of this, you know, and even if I'm doing something very new, I'm not starting from zero to your point. You have all these skills that you bring and that's a very empowering perspective to go to as opposed to like, oh, I'm starting from zero. I have nothing to bring to the table. Why will it even matter to, no, I'm actually building from the ground up and I'm making these steps and everything that, you know, the soft skills that I grossly undervalued. earlier on, I was like, oh, like, well, I can talk to people, I can connect with people, like, who cares? And really, you realize how much those things are about, is that a bird? That's

Vadrine Boulle:
It

Anya Smith:
beautiful.

Vadrine Boulle:
was a lizard, a gecko.

Anya Smith:
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. If you listen to that, wow, I don't ever hear anything like that. That's incredible. So, I love your perspective because it reinforces that, you know, whatever journey you have, even though it's not ideal, like, I think oftentimes we have these grand goals and they never quite manifest how you want them to. And

Vadrine Boulle:
Ooh.

Anya Smith:
you know what's funny, my friend the other day said that all success is out of mistakes. And I thought like a failure and success is all a mistake. And I was like, oh, that's provocative. What do you mean by that? My friend, El Tava, he's on the podcast, if you want to listen to him. But he mentioned oftentimes success isn't like we knew we were going to get there, how, how exactly it worked out. It kind of happened and we were happy about the outcome. So like, oh, that was a success. But oftentimes it's not exactly how we planned it. It's more like we got there through preparation. So. I thought that was really interesting and that's a good perspective to also balance out that sense of like failure. I didn't get quite like

Vadrine Boulle:
Ooh.

Anya Smith:
how I wanted to. And then you mentioned that while you were in your law degree, you decided to start blogging and created this path for yourself that led to this incredible opportunity. What got you even thinking about blogging and all these other endeavors while you're super busy and achieving this great goal?

Vadrine Boulle:
Well, the story goes a little bit further back than 2017. I actually started blogging in 2014. I must've been maybe 15, I don't know, 16, if my math is right, either 2014 or 2012. I always mix up. I think it might've been 2012, actually. I started blogging, basically, purely as a hobby because that's what everyone was doing in 2012. Tumblr blogs, WordPress blogs, and I just, I fell in love with it. My blog was about, I wrote book reviews, you know, and so I did it completely for free as a hobby and from that I learned so much about creating content online. So I always tell people I've been creating content online for over 10 years. I learned WordPress, I learned SEO, blog writing, I managed social media accounts for myself and I used to get some really cool opportunities. I worked for a small magazine. I'm doing the book review section in the kind of media section of more traditional published magazines. I had a couple of indie authors send me their books to review. So my little blog did pretty well and it was all for the love of it. And so when I went to London, my vision was that I was going to transition into the island girl who moved to the big city. That was the angle

Anya Smith:
Aww.

Vadrine Boulle:
of my blog. And I just, I wanted to share my story. of moving to London, going to university. I did write a lot about university life. And then I started food and travel and lifestyle blogging. And that led into a couple of brand partnerships. I started doing affiliate marketing and I was earning, you know, couple small hundred dollars a month. And I would reinvest that into learning a variety of different things. I bought a camera, I used to do a bit of photography. And so...

Anya Smith:
Mmm.

Vadrine Boulle:
I've always believed in following your pulls of curiosity. And so when I got to London, the world was my oyster. And so I just said yes to almost every opportunity because I was so excited to try all these different things.

Anya Smith:
Oh, amazing. And you talk about following your curiosity. That's the thing that I hear a lot of good, like successful entrepreneurs follow, like whether it's, you know, follow the Jews, follow the energy, follow your passion. And I'm learning, I'm trying to, what is that? Like, is it just you follow the energy of the day? Is it just like, how do you, I'm trying to balance out, you know, getting overwhelmed with like, what is the right strategy? Because entrepreneurs, there's so many things you could be learning. So.

Vadrine Boulle:
Anyway...

Anya Smith:
as somebody who has been able to manage things successfully, now started a business, do you have any advice for people? I feel like I have so much to learn, and I'm not sure if it's my passion or that juice or just the crazy desire to try to tackle it all. How have you learned to balance and follow that right energy?

Vadrine Boulle:
This is such a good question. I think, based on my experience, it's been a combination of two things. The first is of intentionality in decision-making. So I've spent a lot of time trying to live an intentional life and rewiring a lot of subconscious mindsets and conditioning and really focusing on taking time in my day to just think in quiet about what it is that I want to do. For me at the moment, my grounding practice is just going outside and sitting on the beach and having no distractions and just thinking. So allowing yourself the time to actually think and almost speak to yourself. I talk to myself. I'm like, wait, what do you want to do? Like what is happening? What is interesting you right now? And then the second part of that is recognizing that you can have everything and you can try everything, but you probably can't have it all at once. So pick something. That's something that I have always done. I've reflected, I've made my lists of things that I want to do, all the things that most people would do, and then I've picked one thing, made a plan for myself on how I'd like to implement it, and I've taken action knowing that I can always continue or try the next thing if this thing doesn't work out. I can try the next thing or I can one day stop. If I don't enjoy it, I can actually move to the next thing. I think that's a big thing. And it comes into the conversation around fear of failure, fear of it not working out, fear of judgment. And I'm not saying that I don't feel those things. I absolutely do. But I have deep trust in myself and my ability to think that if this doesn't work out, I'm going to be OK and I'll try the next thing. I'll invest in the next thing because you make money back. You're never going to make your time back, you know?

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
And so I... That's my belief. It's living a really intentional life and really listening to, as you say, that gut feeling, which can only be explained by saying, you know what that gut feeling, like you know what your gut feeling is. And then

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
making the decision to focus on it, to pick one out of the five or the 10, taking action towards it and trusting that, exactly as you said, everything will happen for you. Everything will work out as it's meant to be. And if it's not meant to be, you'll get to try the next thing.

Anya Smith:
That's beautiful. I just could listen to you all day. We'd have this inspiring conversation of wisdom and whatnot. And if you don't mind me adding one thing that sometimes I do struggle with is as a mom, when we say you can have it all, it is, I completely agree that it's possible. It's hard when you do have things like, I wish I could have a quiet time that's just like, oh, Anya, anytime you want, just quiet time. But it's okay, I can still make it happen. I don't use that necessarily as an excuse, but. being in a situation where there's things that sometimes are more out of my control and I have to be more intentional about it, it's also a superpower, right? Like being a mom means like I have to be very intentional about what I need to be doing at a certain time and if I don't, then that's gonna have consequences. And also it opened up like my superpower of having a lot of compassion for myself to your point

Vadrine Boulle:
Ooh.

Anya Smith:
that sometimes we have a plan and if it doesn't go well, you could have this perspective like, oh. Well, I didn't do this, da da, who am I? I can't do this, all that spiral of judgment, negativity versus, okay, well, that didn't happen. What can I do better tomorrow? Or having

Vadrine Boulle:
Mmm.

Anya Smith:
a question like, oh, you know, today was just a really busy day. The kids were, you know, da da, I had to do X, Y, Z, there were more poopy diapers than usual, whatever it was, right? But having that compassion and intentionality as a parent is in some ways easier and harder. but it also becomes a superpower. So if you're a mom busy and like, oh, I wish I could have this time for reflection. I know it's hard, but we also have this blessing in having to be more intentional. And I'll ground it in a unique way. Like, your children ground you because they force you to get out of your head and like, I need you right here, right now. So I've had this really big blessing about this. And I was like, I can still do anything. Now, just because

Vadrine Boulle:
Hmm.

Anya Smith:
I'm a mom and I have certain limitations, like I can't always go and be free, you know, on my own. Like, I'm jealous. People are like, I can just go outside. I can just go out to the bar, wherever. I don't have to pack a diaper bag. Like, what is that

Vadrine Boulle:
Mmm.

Anya Smith:
life? That sounds amazing. But at the same time, yeah, go ahead.

Vadrine Boulle:
Well, I'd love to kind of speak to that conversation. And I think it's really, really cool that we're having this conversation because I find on the online space that a lot of people who are in my position, call them younger founders, whatever you wanna call them, child-free entrepreneurs. I think there tends to be this assumption that we... We don't think that other that we think that everybody is able to just have the lives that we have because we don't have children, right? And I think this is a really important conversation to have because as a business coach, I don't have children. I have a roof over my head. And I acknowledge my privilege and having more time than other people have. But I never something that I'm very, very intentional about doing is I never pretend that the strategies that I use are going to work for you. or that the

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
way I live my life is gonna work for you. Because I work with a lot of clients who are moms. And I was having

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
a conversation with one of my clients exactly like this the other day. She was like, she's got three kids. The week turned out, went absolutely mad. She had a breakdown

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
in the car and she wasn't able to do anything she wanted to do. And the first thing

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
that I'm responsible for is saying that I cannot relate to your experience as a mother, but I want. to hold space for that and how valid both of these experiences are. I'd love to

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
be a mother one day, you know, and not yet, but one day. And so I think, I feel sometimes there's some resentment on the online space

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
towards younger entrepreneurs

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
because we have more time. And I just wanted to address that, to say that I see both experiences as super valid. And, you know, one of my big goals is to make sure that my clients are living lives that make sense for them. and have strategies that make sense for them. And so I wanted to speak to that.

Anya Smith:
I appreciate that. It's so heartfelt. I'm so inspired by all of these amazing creators. To me, it actually motivates me and I've never found anything but support from

Vadrine Boulle:
Hmm.

Anya Smith:
like entrepreneurial community in general, but the young entrepreneurs I work with, they're all very supportive and like if my kids are screaming or whatever, they've been like, okay. Very understanding community. So I appreciate you saying that. And I think we can just all learn from everybody. Right, like there's no one path, even if we're different humans, like we in different, you know, even similar situations, we're all going to experience the world differently. So let's like learn from each other and see what's possible and not have limitations, but see ways to overcome our unique challenges to learning of each other. So I appreciate you bring that space in creating a space for others, you know, wherever they are on their journey. But as a mom, I also like speaking from my heart, you know, we can do anything for a powerful, your store.

Vadrine Boulle:
You can.

Anya Smith:
Now let's dive into your amazing business in this paradise setting. Can you spend like, what does it feel like to be on one of these, not resorts, I guess it's gonna be more of a professional getaway in a paradise. What does that look like, feel like, smell like? Can you describe that to us, so people who maybe aren't there right now can't attend.

Vadrine Boulle:
This is such a multi-sensory question. I love it so much. And it's interesting because, you know, I was born here. I'm from here. So to me, this is home. And it's funny because every time anybody visits, whether it's family from overseas or friends or my clients, I'm always seeing it in a new light, you know, and I'm always having the chance to talk about it differently and to share it in new ways. And, you know, the Seychelles is a small country. And if made up of very small islands. And so what I found before we started the business was that, yes, it's a luxury five star, seven star wedding destination, honeymoon destination, couple destination. I saw that there weren't people who were creating a business opportunity in the travel space here. Now, that being said, there are business bigger, I suppose, conferences, there are lots of meetings that go on here. But there wasn't that connection between the transformational travel retreat space and the business masterminding space. And so I

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
thought, what better place to create a hub where innovation and collaboration can unite, where creatives and entrepreneurs can come. And exactly as you said, you know, sit on the beach and talk about how do we build wealth, go on

Anya Smith:
Ha!

Vadrine Boulle:
these beautiful emerald green hikes and talk about the future of social media. sit by the pool, you know, sipping your mocktail or your pina colada, talking about whatever the conversation is, copywriting, web design,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
growth, expansion, investing. I just think that there's such a power, and you recognize this already, in traveling, in stepping out of your comfort zone, in experiencing new cultures, new foods, unlocking new parts of yourself, new interests that you didn't even know you had, and combine that with business. I think that's really amazing because I think that as entrepreneurs we are our businesses, even though there is a separation, I do believe

Anya Smith:
Yes.

Vadrine Boulle:
that we are our businesses and our personal growth is the growth of our business and vice versa. And so I really believe that we're creating something here that nobody else is doing in the Seychelles, but I don't know that anybody is doing anywhere else either.

Anya Smith:
It sounds amazing. I can just imagine this paradise setting, right? And just how healing that is for the soul. Because as

Vadrine Boulle:
Mm.

Anya Smith:
I'm sure a lot of people are like, it is very rewarding, but also hard work. And to get away and to unwind on the soul level to be in this gorgeous place with incredibly smart people and amazing food. And to me, what's really personal is also your home. Just to share your home with you must be such an amazing experience because you don't have. just, you know, you're not there as a, you know, a foreign or share an experience. You're sharing your own, you know, where you grew up and that love for it. So I can imagine there being that really sweet sentiment as also somebody who's joining that and getting to experience your love for this area.

Vadrine Boulle:
Thank you. And there is, you know, I'm very proud to pay homage to the islands. I'm looking forward to showing people the culture. Yes, the landscapes, the beaches and the mountains,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
but the people, my people, the Creole culture. And essentially, whether it's busting misconceptions about a group of islands on the African continent or, you know, showing somebody... a country they may not have even heard of before meeting me, right? Because

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
it's so small. A lot of people have never heard of it. I am really excited to also create new business opportunity here on the island. A lot of the activities

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
that we're going to be doing are authentic and true to the culture. We're working with local service providers. And so I'm really looking forward to bringing in the business community here in Seychelles to people on the international playing field. And who knows, create new opportunity on the islands that I may have not even... thought about yet.

Anya Smith:
Oh, that's amazing. Could you share a little bit more, what are some of those opportunities that are very native and true? Or what was it like growing up in such a magical place? What are your favorite parts, the experience, the culture? I'm sure there's overwhelmingly a lot, but just share with us a little bit of the world we don't know or I'm not really familiar, so I'd love to learn what was like growing up there? What were some of your favorite traditions or things that people can also get a tiny taste for, perhaps, as part of this experience?

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah, so one thing to note is that the Seychelles is a melting pot of cultures. So we are a dynamic mix of races from, originally from the African continent, from Europe, from Asia. And so the really incredible thing about growing up here is that everybody looks different. Everybody may have different religions, different backgrounds, different lifestyles, and yet we all integrate in a really beautiful and unique way. A big part of the islands is our food culture, right? We love our spices, we eat lots of curries, lots of seafood. So the food is a big part of the experience that you would have here on the islands, whether it's a Sunday barbecue or an octopus curry,

Anya Smith:
ooo

Vadrine Boulle:
it's, or a grilled fish or the variety of fruits and veg. We have over 20

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
types of bananas here on the islands. And...

Anya Smith:
Oh, my little one loves bananas. He would go crazy for this one.

Vadrine Boulle:
And so, you know, it's an adventure for the taste buds, but also the ocean, you know, it's white sandy beaches, it's these beautiful rainforests and the endemic fluorine fauna. You know, the Coco de Mer is something that would be interesting for your listeners to Google. It's the largest nut in the world, found only in the Seychelles. The nut is shaped like the female genitalia. The male is shaped like the male genitalia. It's a marvel of mother nature. And so there's all of these wonderful things that are found only on the islands. But

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
of course, I sort of think, don't even think twice about it because it's where I come from.

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
But I am excited to bring people here. And it's why I started my, I have a series on LinkedIn called Saturdays and Seychelles where

Anya Smith:
Yes.

Vadrine Boulle:
I share a little bit every Saturday, just a little bit of the

Anya Smith:
Hmm.

Vadrine Boulle:
behind the scenes as we're recording this. The last Saturday I shared a video of one of our tortoises. So. We have

Anya Smith:
Mm-hmm.

Vadrine Boulle:
two giant land tortoises at my parents' house. That was a big part of us growing up. And yeah, so it's really, I suppose, when you think of the islands, you think about tortoises and coconuts and spices. I think there is a lot of that, but there's also much more to it in terms of the culture, the dance, the music that I look forward to continuing to share in growing this brand and this community around it.

Anya Smith:
sounds magical, I'm just still thinking about all this incredible experiences that I, like I mentioned before this call, like this is definitely on my, not bucket list, but entrepreneurial checklist. Like once I get ramp up a little more, like it's definitely in one place that I don't want to miss and look forward to joining. But let's talk about how did it start? So now, writing back a little bit, you're wrapping up your law degree and you were writing the blog and thinking like, yes, I will have this transition where I'm going to the island and this is getting part of the blog sprints. it probably takes a lot of work to get there. So what was it like making that transition and now starting this business, like the real behind the scenes of all of it?

Vadrine Boulle:
To be completely honest with you, it was one mix matched canvas of everything happening at once. And it's only with

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
looking back that I can sort of say, okay, this happened and this happened and that happened. But it was while I was in law school that I got my first role, my first freelance role essentially in a team with, with an online team, with an online client. And what I did for her was virtual assisting and content writing. That was within the first year of of my law degree. And what happened there was because I had built a really good platform with my blog and I thought, oh my God, freelancing, that's pretty cool. I leveraged

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
the audience that I had grown for my blog to get my clients for my services. And in doing that, I sold a variety of different things based on, again, following those polls of curiosity and my interest. I offered web design and SEO. I offered copywriting. I offered social media management. And as I worked more with different types of businesses, I worked with everyone from small businesses to seven figure coaches. The more I got into it, the more I discovered that my clients were wanting me to, and I was good at, the core of business development. And how I define that to me is things like offer development, messaging, ideal client ideation, systems and processes, and then into marketing. organic social media marketing and human first sales and human first business growth. And so it was while I was in law school that I was, again, taking all of my money that I earned, reinvesting in, okay, how do I work with teams? How do I create frameworks? How do I offer this service in a professional way? And so by the time I graduated again, I had all my clients lined up. And I also then began coaching other freelancers and founders who saw what I was doing and were curious. I think a

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
lot of coaches can resonate with. you know, somebody comes up to you and says, teach me what you do and you say, all right. And then you get more of the coaching experience afterwards. And then it was during the pandemic that I sort of fell into, okay, I wanna do something in the travel space again. Cause I had stopped, when I started my online business growth consultancy, I stopped travel blogging and lifestyle blogging because priorities and gotta figure out where you wanna put your time, right? But I know I wanted to go back into the travel space because I believe in the power of travel and I believe in the lifestyle industry as well. And in my role as an offer development expert or specialist, I have learned to identify gaps in the market and I pride myself on being quite innovative and creative. And so I saw in doing market research that nobody was doing this here in the Seychelles. Everybody was going to. Bali, Thailand, Europe, which are all incredible places.

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
And so I said, what is this gonna look like? I started doing the market research. I started figuring out the business model. And this was a year ago, a little over a year ago. But at that point, it wasn't the right time because people were still figuring out, do we wanna travel? Who's traveling?

Anya Smith:
Mm-hmm.

Vadrine Boulle:
How's it working with travel? And so I said, you know what? I've got the idea, but I'll bench it because it's not the right time in the world.

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
And then early this year, things started to line up, conversations started being had, opportunities arose and

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
I was like, yeah, now it's the time. And so we launched and the momentum has been so much more than I could have anticipated or expected to be honest.

Anya Smith:
I love so many parts of that. What's it out to me and I hope people hear is that sometimes you can have an idea you're passionate about and it's okay to also put it on the side for a bit. It doesn't mean that you're failing or giving up. It's also trusting the right moment for it to flourish. And that the experiences along the way will help only propel it forward. So that experience you were getting while it was maybe put on the side, we're still helping you make it more successful when you did actually launch. Speaking of that, I saw some,

Vadrine Boulle:
Can I

Anya Smith:
oh,

Vadrine Boulle:
pause

Anya Smith:
go ahead, go ahead, yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
you? I need to pause you for a second,

Anya Smith:
Yes,

Vadrine Boulle:
because my dog

Anya Smith:
no

Vadrine Boulle:
barged

Anya Smith:
worries.

Vadrine Boulle:
into the room, and I

Anya Smith:
No

Vadrine Boulle:
need to get,

Anya Smith:
worries

Vadrine Boulle:
and

Anya Smith:
at all.

Vadrine Boulle:
he's a scratcher, and so he makes so much noise.

Anya Smith:
Oh my gosh,

Vadrine Boulle:
I need to just put him outside,

Anya Smith:
he's welcome

Vadrine Boulle:
because.

Anya Smith:
to say hi. Oh, sounds perfect, no worries. Let me mark this. Hi, you! Hi, handsome. He's like,

Vadrine Boulle:
Get out. Mommy's recording. Out of here. Get

Anya Smith:
I wanna

Vadrine Boulle:
out.

Anya Smith:
be famous, mom, I wanna be famous.

Vadrine Boulle:
He's like, why? There we go. Sorry about that. I'm going to go.

Anya Smith:
I'm beautiful! Look at me!

Vadrine Boulle:
I'm good, sorry to have interrupted your thought. I hope

Anya Smith:
You're

Vadrine Boulle:
you can get

Anya Smith:
so

Vadrine Boulle:
it back.

Anya Smith:
good. No, no, you are so good. No, where I was gonna go next was, I saw you lined up with speakers and they're all incredible people who I look up to in the space. So I'm curious, could we talk a little about the power of networking and building those connections? Maybe speakers, maybe you met them randomly and just invited them, but I'm guessing you probably had some relationship with these people that you invited to be speakers. So what... was your process for building this network of people that helped you with your business or now are speakers? What impact did that area have in your business?

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah, so all of the speakers that we have coming to next year's dates, so March and May, I met through LinkedIn.

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
And my LinkedIn journey actually began about 18 months ago. So I've maybe been on LinkedIn for about two years now. Before that, I was predominantly on Instagram for my coaching and my services. And something that I deeply value as an entrepreneur is stepping outside of my comfort zone with conversations and not being afraid. of Whether you say being wrong or being the smallest fish in the pond or

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
sometimes making a fool out of yourself to kind of say, hi, hello, I enjoyed what you do. I'm interested in meeting you and sort of learning more

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
about you. Are you open to this? You know,

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
they say, I saw a quote once they said, every entrepreneur is to accept the fact that we're all a little bit cringe sometimes. You know, we're all a little bit. But

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
to go back to your question of like. the value of networking has been huge. You know, I've always valued starting conversations. I have no problem starting and igniting a conversation. A lot of those conversations get ignored, but that's fine. And I understand that

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
could be for a variety of different reasons. Somebody ignoring me doesn't mean that they are ignoring me. It could mean they didn't see the message, they're super busy in their life, something's going on. Like I don't automatically make it about me, but also, I'm not afraid to step into a room and just listen and just be there in that room where other people are talking. And in terms of our guest speakers, because I've been on LinkedIn now for two years, I spend a lot of time just engaging with other people, having conversations, having networking calls and exploring wherever conversations might go. And for a lot of our speakers, I had conversations with them before. The others, I had not, but I'd been following their work. and I basically sent them a pitch. I made a spreadsheet of all the speakers I wanted to have and there's a list more for all our future retreats because there are too many people on LinkedIn that I want

Anya Smith:
Love

Vadrine Boulle:
to invite.

Anya Smith:
it, love

Vadrine Boulle:
And

Anya Smith:
it.

Vadrine Boulle:
we want to do these retreats yearly, we wanna have several a year, so there's gonna be many more to come. But I made a pitch and I emailed them my pitch and we went from there and they said yes, which is super exciting.

Anya Smith:
I'm excited, I saw the lineup, I'm really excited. Everybody there is gonna be just incredible, like oh my gosh, it's gonna be a power group over here. So much to learn from, like a lot of people that are on there, people actually, I personally follow, so I was very intrigued by that experience too. Quick question for you, A, an observation. I note that you are a very attentive and analytical listener, and I really admire that.

Vadrine Boulle:
Thank you! That's from the law degree.

Anya Smith:
I know, I was thinking, that's your superpower right here, that's worth a degree in itself. I can see your ending sentence very thoughtfully and the giving it pause, yeah, clearly, clearly that girl has it. But one thing that I struggle with to be very transparent is sometimes networking is great and I really enjoy all the calls I have, but sometimes I have too many calls. I'm looking at

Vadrine Boulle:
Mm-hmm.

Anya Smith:
my account like, oh my gosh, how do you balance the positive element of, yes, network is very empowering and has... a lot of opportunities with it, but also not doing it too much to your detriment. Is there a kind of a balance that you found helps you asking for a friend?

Vadrine Boulle:
Yes, and I think that this may be a little controversial, or we'll see kind of how it comes across, but this is where I really put on my business owner hat as opposed to personal Vado in hat.

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
And I'm very intentional about who I have calls with. I

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
don't have calls with everyone. I do my research on the people I have conversations with, and I... I do have to believe that it's a mutually beneficial conversation because

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
our time is precious and while I would want to speak to everyone in my business, I am looking to make impact whether it's, I'm not talking about I'm only looking to speak to people I can sell to, that's not it at all, right? I'm

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
looking to people who I want in my... in my circles, who I want to have conversations with, who I want to learn from, who I want to buy

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
from, who I want to create opportunities with. Something that I am really proud of with these retreats is that we are, we're creating opportunities that don't exist. And I believe in putting together unlikely pairings. I believe in innovation. I think that's what we need and what people are calling a saturated market, right? But again, to go back to the question, because I feel like sometimes I go on a couple of tendons. I'm very intentional about who I have calls with. And I have calls with people who I think will add value to my conversation, to my communities. And I guess I filter it out. I guess that's the simplest way I can say it.

Anya Smith:
No, that makes perfect sense. And that brings me back to the notes you had earlier about, you know, sometimes people are busy as well. So we have compassion people who, two point, I also reach out to a lot of people, not a lot of people, but I reach out to people who inspire me for the podcast or other opportunities. And it's very natural that not everybody is gonna respond. And to also have a personal sense that, you know, sometimes I'm very busy and I can't respond to everybody because I just have to prioritize my time. And that gives you a sense like, what's that about me? If somebody doesn't respond. They probably aren't doing it, oh, Anya, I don't wanna talk to you personally. It's like, they probably have like 100 messages coming in and they're busy running their business or just have any life situation. So reframing that gives you power to brush it off. Like, okay, let's see what happens. And I also find it beautiful. Sometimes like the world just opens up at the right time in the right places. Like somebody may not respond, you know, for a day, a week, whenever, and then they reappear. And sometimes it was just like, oh, that was perfect for that moment. So

Vadrine Boulle:
Hmm.

Anya Smith:
if you're struggling, you know what I also found is like, there are billions of people in the world, right? Like we know who are doing incredible things. So if somebody is not responding, is it really essential for that one person to respond? Like maybe it is, and you can kind of keep trying, but could it be that other people could be feeling that value to you, right? Could you expand the horizon and not give all this energy? I find that when we... focus so deeply and give all energy to one place and it's not working. We're just like, oh, you put more negative energy when we actually just need to release it. Ground

Vadrine Boulle:
Yes.

Anya Smith:
it and let the universe kind of find its way and maybe repurpose the energy somewhere else.

Vadrine Boulle:
I love that you've said that so much because I think a piece of advice, I do get lots of pitches for conversations that I decline and I am very compassionate because I know what it was like to want to have conversations with people ahead

Anya Smith:
Yeah.

Vadrine Boulle:
of me and I completely understand with that. But at the same time, to what you said, I want to know that a call is going to energize me, not drain me. And I think some people reach out in a way that makes you feel that they just want to take. and I need to respect my time and my energy. So I'm going to say no to that. But if you reach out to me and you have something to add, value to give me, energy to give me, it doesn't have to be value in terms of even if it's not a business opportunity, but energy to give me, I'm more likely to reply back. And I love that you said that we have to give people grace because you know, you have to give people a reason to want to have a call with you if you're a stranger, because that's what you are, you're a stranger on the internet. And I'm not going to reach out to somebody who's way ahead of me unless I know that I have something incredible in terms of value to give them in 15 minutes or less, right? Because there's 15 minutes calls and there's one hour calls and then there's things that drag out. And so if you're wanting to have a conversation with somebody who's X steps ahead of you, know what you're adding to the conversation, be mindful of their time and lead with, here's what you're gonna get out of this conversation versus here's why I want to talk to you.

Anya Smith:
Uh, solid advice. And actually this is a great transition point. If you were starting, if you, if somebody's listening to us and they're like, okay, well, this is amazing what you've built out and you had this great experience now, you know, through freelancing, through being a virtual assistant, now creating your own business in this paradise setting, how do I even start something like this? Are there maybe a few top learning points through this experience that maybe somebody starting out or maybe struggling right now could learn from?

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of free resources on the internet. And so I would say start with that. But before you even start with that, you need to build a mindset of discernment. And I don't think people talk about that enough. You need to be able to discern all of the information that you're going to consume online from actionable advice that you're gonna take to unrealistic get rich quick schemes. from five top tips to do X versus, you know, 10 things that you're gonna have to implement over the next year. There's a lot of free advice on the internet. And I would recommend researching as much as possible about your area of interest, whether it's virtual assisting, content writing, coaching, launching retreats, doing in-person events, whatever that looks like, researching with your sense of discernment and being ready to invest. I know this is a conversation that a lot of people have, but you can only take so much free information before you actually have to start implementing. And it is very difficult to implement on your own if you have no context around implementation. That is what mentors and coaches and or training programs and courses and universities are for, right? We go into an environment where people. can teach us what needs to be done from an implementable practical setting. And so preparing yourself to invest in something, whether it's a course, whether it's a coach, but also in that using your discernment. Do you need a $97 ebook to start a five-year business plan for your business, or do you need to work one-to-one with a coach, right? And then from that, it's more mindset. It's the mindset of trial and failure. It's going back to this idea that I tried one thing, maybe made some money out of it, but didn't actually enjoy it. If I have to go back and get a part-time job while trying the next thing, that doesn't mean that I failed. If I have to borrow some money from a loved one to invest in the course, that doesn't mean that I failed. And these examples are people that I've worked with who continue to strive and grow their businesses. It's this recognition that it's a long-term journey, which I am just at the beginning of as well, right? And so that's really the simplicity of my advice. It's do as much research as you can with your sense of discernment, pick up, take what's relevant, leave what's not, you know, vanish, imposter syndrome and the overwhelm of the information. You're a strong human being with a strong mind who can assess all this information. And then whether it's saving up to invest or investing slowly, whatever that looks like, learn from people, learn from different types of people. and start to take action slowly, knowing that it's a long journey filled with ups and downs and lots of exciting things.

Anya Smith:
Absolutely, yes. People who have done this before can definitely help you accelerate your path. Right, so I think to your point, there's a lot of information that could be overwhelming. So trusting your gut, again, what works for you, trying it out, not just reading, but like trying it out. And if it doesn't work, you don't have to stick through the whole thing. Like, yes, there's balance. You don't wanna give up too quickly, but also something's not working, don't beat it to the ground to where you're just gonna see it not work for longer. But. to point investing in people or even just spending the time at first to see does that knowledge resonate if you like, there's an amazing LinkedIn community or wherever you find people that are sharing knowledge that probably they have experienced a similar situation like you have, right? Those people in the world, probably somebody has done something at least similar to where you can learn from their resources or again, start investing little by little, whatever that right. investment amount looks like to you wherever you are on the journey and see does that resonate? Do you want to spend more? You don't have to start with like a $5,000 investment

Vadrine Boulle:
Absolutely.

Anya Smith:
in from the ground up, right? It could be the right thing for you. But again, the point is that you're making trade-offs either way of your time, your energy, your money. So if you're going to be doing something, you have to decide like, yes, you could be spending less, but how much longer would it take you to get somewhere? And what is your ROI for delaying that return? You know, so there's always trade-offs and there's no one right way, right? You may be saying like, well, I don't have the money for that. So it hints I do have the time. So completely understand

Vadrine Boulle:
Alright.

Anya Smith:
that. But so much about that. One thing you mentioned earlier is that confidence. And also you talked about your zone of genius. If I, if I'm describing currently, which I love, I actually didn't hear that before. And he's like, oh, that's common. But can you describe to me a, how did you maybe find confidence in your zone of genius or kind of define it for yourself? And then. have this confidence where it seems like you're kind of like, okay, yeah, I can, quote, fail, or something may not work, but I'm gonna keep going. So, we're the things that helped you shape that confidence and define your zone of genius.

Vadrine Boulle:
An interesting perspective, the way I look at it, is that my zone of genius can also be ever changing in the same way that my business is changing. And for me, again, it's been quite a messy journey. And I think so many entrepreneurs will relate to the fact that it's such a messy journey. And it's only when you sit down and think back that you can reverse engineer what it is that you did. At one point, I thought my zone of genius was content writing. but I didn't want to sell content writing services. I still think that I could consider content writing a zone of genius, but I don't particularly enjoy selling it. And so when I talk about my zone of genius, I talk about it in the context of what I sell and how I serve my clients. But for me, it was going back to what I said earlier on, picking something, choosing to invest in it, choosing to experiment with it, to work with clients on it, until I got to the point where I am right now, which is that for the time being, I feel pretty confident in the fact that I can help people develop their offers, nail their messaging, figure out their ideal client, create systems and processes, market and sell. So this is my framework. It's a very holistic sort of step-by-step journey. And that came from trying different things and eliminating what I didn't want to do. I think this is a problem a lot of entrepreneurs face is that we're good at so many things. How do I pick what I want to sell? How do I pick which one to go down? You pick it. Pick one and roll

Anya Smith:
Just

Vadrine Boulle:
with

Anya Smith:
do

Vadrine Boulle:
it.

Anya Smith:
it!

Vadrine Boulle:
Pick one and just go with it. Something that I fundamentally trust as well is that I have time. I find that a lot of business owners stress about not having enough time because we feel constrained by 24 hours, but I have the rest of my life to figure this out. And I have clients who come to me who are past retirement age, who also think the same thing, who are like, Bob, I have the rest of my life to figure this out. And how cool is that?

Anya Smith:
Right.

Vadrine Boulle:
Because at the end of the day, while we are our businesses, it is also just business. It's a service that we're offering, that we believe can help people, but it can change. It can evolve. And if you're looking to find your zone of genius, the first thing that I... suggest is try stop trying to find it. Do you know what I mean? It's like everybody talks about I'm trying to find my why. Stop trying to find your why. Your why is ever changing. Your purpose feels ever evolving as you grow and you unravel different parts of yourself. Your zone of genius could be whatever you're really good at doing in this moment in time. Next year, it might be something completely different. And sure, you could build an entire career around one zone of genius, but in today's day and age, people are multi-passionate, people are multi-hyphenated. We want to do different things, we wanna have different interests. And I think a big pressure on LinkedIn is that everybody wants to be the expert. You don't have to be the expert, you just have to be really good at what you do. And we can have many different people being really, really good at what they do. And I think that's pretty cool.

Anya Smith:
I love that you say that, and especially about LinkedIn, it is, you know, I'm starting out there. I'm definitely, you know, not, you know, super experienced. I've been using it professionally in my former days at Metta, but now it's a very different kind of experience. But I think it's really beautiful to see content creators who are authentic about their growth experience, right? They're not saying like, I'm just this person. You know, it's great to have experts, but also to embrace the human experience of us evolving. We never really know what we want to be when we grow up. We're always just evolving and it's really, I think, empowering to say like, you don't have to be stagnant. You know, if you're in a place, even if you're doing well, it's okay to say, okay, I can still evolve and keep going. Or if I'm not in a place and I'm stuck, I hope it empowers you to think, well, that doesn't mean that's it. If I got to a job, you know, I finished a degree, whatever that checklist is, there's still growth for me. That's why I wanted the podcast to exist, is to give people a sense that your success journey is not an end goal. It's a journey that where you reflect and decide, how do I want to live? Because we shouldn't be waiting for retirement to say, oh, now I'm gonna start living, only 30 more years to go. Nothing gets the, I was one of those people like, oh, I can't wait to retire. But then I decided, you know, well, what did I do if I really wanted to, if I envision myself living today, what would that look like? And a lot of times like, you know, it's not about getting more, it's about what can I, how can I be happy now with what I have, if the messy room, if the kids, if diapers, if all the things that are not perfect, if I can learn to be happy now, then my brain is trained a very differently than if I'm always like, it needs to have a goal. Because then we have like this neuro pathway of always achieving in the future and we're never in the future, sadly. We're never in the future, we're only here present. So that's been a journey for me as well. And then you're embracing it with the sense that we're always learning. We're giving ourselves the permission to embrace that on LinkedIn or wherever, because that's the true nature of us. We're not stagnant as human beings.

Vadrine Boulle:
Yeah, yeah.

Anya Smith:
One thing from the beautiful side of like transformation and power, I also want to give just one last topic is this element of challenge. A lot of times when we talk about these things, especially on LinkedIn, it's like, oh, yes, we have this magical situation and you overcame adversity, but we don't really talk about like, what was it really like in depth? So if you're open to it in any way you feel comfortable, what were maybe some biggest challenges you personally had to persevere through on this journey to this space?

Vadrine Boulle:
Something that I speak really openly about is that I suffered from severe depression when I was in law school.

Anya Smith:
Mm.

Vadrine Boulle:
And to the point where I would regularly have panic attacks and they stemmed from a fear of the future.

Anya Smith:
Mmm.

Vadrine Boulle:
That feeling of I'm stuck on what I call the treadmill of life and I cannot get off. I'm just running, running. because I had always been taught that life is, go to school, pick a career, go to university, get a job, buy a house, have children, retire, die. And I used to get panic attacks, I had anxiety, I used to cry myself to sleep at times because I so disagreed with that and I wanted to get off. And what I felt was, like I say, I'm very grateful for my journey in law school and I enjoyed studying it, but I felt that pull towards the online space and towards what we call the freedom lifestyle with all its caveats, right? but didn't know how I was going to unleash myself from the treadmill and get off that path. And so that's a big thing that I had to overcome. And a huge part of that was therapy, right? Getting therapy to unravel where those fears came from, where that pressure came from, generational traumas. I'm no mindset coach, I'm no therapist, but I'm really. happy to share kind of what my experience has been with trying different modalities, whether it's hypnotherapy, I've done various group coaching, you know, one-to-one therapy sessions, and yeah, a big part of it was reclaiming trust in myself and this acceptance that I get to live my life on my own terms, I get to be the author of my own story. And for me, once, for me, it was a pretty hard cut. Once I got that therapy and I was able to... I don't know if you can hear. there's people upstairs, which is why it's making noise. Sorry, anyways. Okay. Once I was able to like cut that cord, I freed myself. And since then I gave myself the tools with which to speak to my fears. That's the best part about therapy. That's the reason I think everybody should go to therapy. Right, I think we need to get rid of the stigma around therapy, everybody needs to go to therapy because there's these psychological tools that more of us need to learn how to speak to our fears, on how to speak to people around us who trigger our fears. So when people come to me wanting to do business coaching, I often ask them what type of mindset work they've done first. And I've had several times where people are working with me where I've said to them, and I have no problem saying to people, no amount of strategy that I can do with you right now is gonna fix this problem. Here are some therapists that I know and love. You know, I want you this to succeed for you, go and do this work. And I think when you speak to many, many entrepreneurs, you'll hear that it's this mindset story that is the biggest piece you have to overcome. Today I still feel those fears, but as the quote says, I do it anyway. I am able to have this internal dialogue where I am very optimistic, I'm generally a very positive person. And I also feel the feelings and then get over it. But not get over it in the sense that I, you know, sort of squash the feelings. If I need to cry, I'm gonna cry. If I need to be angry, I'll do a boxing class. You know, if I need to just... be away from people, I'll tell my loved ones, hey, I'm having a bad day today, I love you, but I need some space. I'm gonna be really mean to you if you have to talk to you right now because I'm feeling angry. So I'm gonna go here and just feel all my feelings. And again, coming back to you are your business, if you can learn to tackle these things in your personal life, you're better able to then show up as a creator, as a leader, as a business owner and make all of these decisions you have to do to go on this journey of entrepreneurship. Hmm. Yeah, I talk about building a relationship with yourself and learning how to speak to yourself. The way that you would probably speak to your friends, your children, your siblings. And I've had similar experiences of learning how to reframe the dialogue in my head. I tend to be, I feel a lot of emotions. I'm a very big emotional person and society might tell me that I'm over dramatic. or that I overreact. And I've learned to say, I don't overreact, I just react. This is how I react. I was telling you early on, reframing busy to be full, just all of these things that are our subconscious immediate doom spirals, or negative thoughts, learning to reframe them to create a positive experience intentionally in our lives. So I love that. Mmm. He is one of my biggest supporters. He is, you know, he is also, he's a lawyer, but he's also a businessman. He's an entrepreneur. And, you know, he's just one of my biggest fans and I can go to him for business questions. You know, I consider him a mentor and I'm very privileged and lucky to have him in my life. Being a lawyer has also been helpful with setting up the business here. So any legal advice, I go to him and all of that. But I. No, he's incredibly supportive and so is my mom, so is my partner. Everyone has just been incredibly supportive. And I think, you know, in seeing, I think everyone is quite happy that I've brought an opportunity home because I think that in working on the online space, while I do believe that the world is much smaller thanks to the online space, I do think it's important to bring it home. I'm very proud to come from the islands. I'm very proud of my heritage. And I think everyone's excited to see something. happening at home as much as the incredible things that I've done sort of internationally on the online space. Yeah, so yeah, at the moment we have two dates for 2024. We have March 6th to 13th, 2024, and we have May 8th to 15th, 2024. So it's a seven-day bucket list itinerary featuring our guest speakers and our business mastermind workshops. At the moment we do have, since this is coming out relatively soon, an early bird special for early adopter tickets. So that will be accessible until November and December at the end of this year. So we have time, but we do have limited spots. So we only have 12 tickets per retreat because we wanna keep this really intimate. We wanna create a personalized bespoke journey where everybody has the chance to be a student and a teacher, enjoy the experience. And what I call, I like to say, you know, experience the luxury of peace and quiet in a space where you have the chance to learn and network with others. Yeah, so the website is thestaychelsretreats.com, but the best place to kind of, that acts as my hub is my LinkedIn platform. So if you're on my LinkedIn, all the links are available there, and I'm very open to conversations. Drop me a message if you have any questions or wanna share any thoughts, and I'm very much available there on LinkedIn. Okay, yeah. Okay, so every year I reread Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. So if anybody asks me favorite book I need to read, Big Magic is on the list. If you haven't read it, read it. I read it every year and I cry every time. time blocking in my calendar. If it's not in my calendar, it's not happening. Everything from business related, but also personal. So I actually block in lunches with family and friends, fun activities, days off, everything's in my calendar. No. Following your polls of curiosity, even if it goes against the status quo. It's been amazing. Thank you for having me again. No, that's not, no I don't. I love like, I love, I love podcasts.