Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life. I’m your host Brook McCarthy, and I’m a business coach, trainer, and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Cammeraygal people here in Sydney, Australia. In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love and money, magnifying your impact and doing work you feel born to do. We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work and the meanings we derive from work.
17 years in business and all the stories I could tell. If I had less integrity, I could tell stories that would make your blood curl. One thing that I noticed a lot over 17 years is particularly in Facebook groups where I was a community member and it would be filled with business owners, oftentimes women in business, lots and lots of Facebook groups that are female business owners only.
And what I saw happen over and over and over again is that people exploded in the scene with a great big crash and everybody turned to look at them and go, Oh my God, look at that person, their business is exploding. Where did they come from? How are they doing it? My God, it’s so impressive. And then about nine months later, they would not be there anymore. And sometimes those same characters would pop up two or three years later, different brand name, different business, and it would almost always repeat.
Now, I’m not saying that we should not make a fuss and take up space and make a noise. Absolutely, let’s all do that.
But what I saw happen over and over and over again is a lot of hustle and not a lot of sustainability. The other thing that I saw happening was a lot of heart with not a lot of hustle. So if you have been following me for a while now, you’ll know the name of my business is Hustle and Heart and that is no coincidence.
I saw lots and lots of business owners where the profit motive was priority number six, perhaps, in business. And oftentimes they’d only be working with me because their husband, their wife, their significant other, their accountant, their financial advisor, or perhaps in some cases their business partner who was funding things would give them a hard talking to and let them know that they needed to hustle, they needed to get sales, they needed to take profit and money making seriously, and then they’d reach out to me and become new clients.
So I saw a lot of hustle without the heart to sustain it. I saw a lot of heart without the hustle to make it viable and sustainable. And I saw a lot of short term thinking with the training and the coaching programs that were available on offer. So lots and lots of training programs and listen, it’s 2025. We have the university of YouTube. We have Google, we have chat, GPT. Uh, we’ve got innumerable AI tools now to make it super simple, super easy, but the same problems remain, right? The same problems remain.
We can churn out LinkedIn posts, we can churn out hundreds, we can churn out thousands of emails, we can have a whole email sequence generated in moments, but that doesn’t mean we actually do the thing. So training is only as good as you implement. The other thing that I saw a lot of is the other side of the spectrum where we had lots and lots of fluffy coaching programs. Lots and lots of mindset stuff, you know, particularly about 2018, there was a lot of mindset stuff. It’s all about mindset. It’s all about your identity for a while there. And I’m sure this marketing still exists in some corners of the internet, but thankfully not in mine.
There’s a trend of coaches talking about, oh, you just have to be you and money will rain down upon your head. You just have to be more of you. And somehow or another, you know, the universe will deliver gazillions into your bank account without you needing to do anything except be in alignment. So I kept seeing these extremes, yeah? All hustle, no heart, all heart, no hustle. All coaching, no actual tactical, strategic, training all training, no actual coaching psychology to get you over the hurdle. Of implementing, right? Because it’s all about implementing.
So I’m not interested in quick wins. Like quick wins are brilliant. Don’t get me wrong. There is something very thrilling about having a 60 K month or a hundred K month. There’s something, you know, who doesn’t love that? We all love it when we have a 10,000 K day. Brilliant. Pop the shampoos. But I’m interested in the long term sustainable, deep, rooted, you know, and apologies for using that word again, aligned businesses and business owners who are rested and resourced and joyful because I did not see, I do not see a lot of that.
I see a lot of business owners who, if they are successful by the traditional metrics of success, if they do have the big numbers, they’re oftentimes an absolute misery to be around. And I can feel their energy is grasping and dissatisfied, anxious and stressed. They’re always on. They’re never in the moment. They oftentimes got a trail of, you know, broken marriages, destructive relationships. They’ve kind of got a terrible reputation among those in the know, those who’ve been around for a while. They might have plenty of, you know, clients because they’ve, they’ve dialled in the lead gen, they’ve dialled in how to generate leads, but they have a terrible reputation. The word on the street is avoid them.
So I wanted something different. I wanted something different, not just for myself, but for my clients. I wanted to create a program that really kind of was the sum total of everything that I saw that was wrong with the world. Everything that I saw that was missing in the online business space. And I should say that a lot of my clients have bricks and mortar businesses. A lot of my clients are clinical psychologists or allied health professionals or yoga studio owners that have traditional bricks and mortar service-based businesses.
So I created the Hustle and Heart Program and the Impact Framework that underlines it because of these experiences. And the three key pillars of this Impact Framework are all based in long-term deep sustainable business.
So the first pillar is to grow your reputation. Now your reputation is a bankable asset as a business owner. And I took that for granted coming from public relations. I knew this innately, I knew this already. This was my, you know, my whole life. My dad worked in PR. I knew a lot of people in PR, like I understood this concept. But a lot of business owners don’t necessarily appreciate this.
And they don’t understand that in order to grow your professional reputation, it’s going to take more than just a week’s diligent posting on LinkedIn.
The second pillar of this impact framework for the hustle and heart program is build thought leadership. Now I know you’re probably thinking, Oh, here we go again. Thought leadership. There’s a thought leader on every street corner nowadays, right? I love getting ready, you know, to go out and meet people and I put together an outfit and I think I look pretty cool and I say to my partner do I look like an international thought leader and sexy and funny and on the cutting edge and he goes yep yep yep or you know words that affect sometimes he just rolls his eyes and mixes me another cocktail.
So building thought leadership is about developing your thinking. It’s about developing your ideas. It’s about not relying on AI to come up with your original point of view. It’s about not outsourcing your creative thinking, but with my help to poke, poke, poke to question, to make sure that your thinking is as robust as possible, to develop your thought leadership. And your thought leadership is separate from your marketing. It’s related, but it’s different. I think about marketing as opening up, you know, as many conversations with as many people in as many rooms as possible. Hopefully with the view that it’s a service of sales, it generates leads in order for the sales process to kick off, but thought leadership is different.
So then the third pillar of our hustle and heart impact framework is to invest in your character. And again, this is all about longevity. This is about resilience. This is something that is really, really desperately needed. And it’s desperately needed for reasons that you may not necessarily appreciate. So yes, we know that as business owners, we need to be motivated. And yes, we know as business owners.
You know, we need to kind of have a reason to get out of bed in the morning and all of that, but what I think is missing from this conversation and what I see a lot of is business owners start businesses oftentimes for negative reasons. A lot of the people that I work with in business have started because they have been bullied in the workplace, they have children that have, you know, it turns out that having a family is completely incompatible to having a big career that is almost impossible to keep all the balls spinning. And then they do not want to, you know, be like some kind of juggling magician. Lots and lots of business owners start a business on the back foot.
And a lot of us are technically brilliant at what we do, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we know anything about running a business. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ve been taught to negotiate, that we know how to advocate for ourselves, that we know how to deal with slippery personalities or charismatic personalities that are actually energy vampires in disguise. We don’t necessarily know all the intricacies that really can be a blow for the self-esteem and terrible for one’s mental health. And so we’re starting businesses oftentimes in a defensive position. And our resilience and our resourcefulness can oftentimes get beaten. And this is something that I find absolutely heartbreaking.
I have had innumerable conversations with people who are bonafide leaders in their field. They are people that have been at their business, you know, doing their thing for decades. They are very highly respected by those in the know. They have an excellent reputation, but in conversation with them, it turns out because, you know, I don’t like to kind of skirt the surface. I’m not great at small talk. Small talk makes me nervous and awkward.
I just like to jump in and go deep. And it turns out when we do go deep, that their self-esteem is oftentimes in tatters. People who should be at the prime of their careers earning the best money of their lives, commanding respect and having the best opportunities landing in their lap are instead struggling to pay their bills, are instead questioning what they’re doing because they have not made it sustainable. And I’m talking about money. Yeah. Money is a form of self care. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy massage. It can buy operations. It can buy, you know, time off. It can buy holidays. It can buy many things.
So. This last part, invest in your character, this third tenet of our Hustle and Heart Program impact framework is about the longevity. Investing in your character is investing in your resourcefulness, your resilience, your self-care, because your profit and loss statement will reflect your mental health. And I don’t want to get into dangerous territory here. By all means, if I pissed you off or you disagree with me, please send me a note, reach out to me. I’d love to hear from you. Let’s, let’s debate it, please. Like, let’s do it respectfully, ideally in private. That would be brilliant. I would love that. You’d be doing me a great favour.
But if you are at the top of your game, if you are legitimately a bonafide expert, if you have decades of experience under your belt and you have clients who adore you, but you are the town’s best-kept secret and you don’t have enough money in the bank and your prices are well under what your competitors are charging, who you know have far less experience, far less expertise and are frankly far less interesting than you are, then there is something wrong.
There is something wrong, yeah? So this is not just about pricing. This is not just about pricing. This is about long-term sustainability in your business. Yeah, this is about working with what you’ve currently got because this is the other thing that I saw a lot of business programs, group programs where they’re designed for thousands of people. So it’s not really, if I’m gonna be fair, as fair as I can be, it’s not really the fault of the coach because they’ve designed a program for thousands and thousands of people. They’ve designed a scalable thing that just has no upward limit, right? So they have to come up with a simple one, two, three. They have to come up with step one, do this, step two, do that, step three, you know, money rains on your head.
But of course the problem with this is that people in the audience are as unique as their fingerprints. And so they need a unique approach. One size does not fit all in business. And I know that new business owners particularly are great at copying other people, this is how we learn, right? I don’t want to cast aspersions. This is how we learn.
You know, one, two, three, one, two, three, repeat after me, right? Learning. We learn through observation and through mimicking other people. But there has to be a point where we realise actually this is not a one size fits all. My business model doesn’t fit me. It’s too tight under the armpits. I can’t take a deep breath because it’s way too tight across my chest. I’m using other people’s business models, other people’s strategies, other people’s tactics that simply don’t fit. Rather than doing what we do inside the Hustle and Heart program, which is as unique as you are, we work with what you’ve currently got. And that includes your current audience and audience size.
Because the thing that I hear every day of the week is I need more leads. I need more leads. If I, more people knew about me, if only more people knew about me, then surely my business would be successful. Surely consistent 10 K plus months would be easy. And yes, that’s true to a point. That’s true to an extent. If three people know who you are and one of them is your mother, it’s going to be hard for you to make sales. Yeah. There is an element of maths and it being a bit of a numbers game. Yes, absolutely. But most of us are obsessed with the new audience and the new people and where’s the special tactic, where’s the special room, where’s the place I go that’s full of my ideal clients. And meanwhile, we’re neglecting the audience who are right in front of us.
The other thing I hear from people is that, no, you don’t understand Brook, my audience can’t afford it. But this is not true. This is just not true. You’re ideal clients are likely in your vicinity right now. And they are waiting for you. They are waiting for you to step it up. They know or suspect how brilliant you actually are. That’s why they’re in your vicinity, right? That’s why they’re lurking on your emails, in your emails. They’re not necessarily responding. It’s why they’re lurking on your social media. They’re not necessarily commenting but they know that you know what you’re talking about and there’s something about you they find incredibly attractive, but they’re waiting for you. They’re waiting for you to step up. And in order for you to step up, you’ve got to deepen your self trust.
And this is underpinning the whole hustle and a heart program. This is not about me as a strong leader saying, do as I say, follow me and riches are surely yours. It is not about that, that is infantilising. We are adults. We are adults in a mutually respectful, mutually beneficial, flourishing relationship equals, yeah, as a coach, I’m not some kind of Buddha. I don’t, I lose my temper not very often mind you, because I wasn’t allowed as a child. You know, I am just as flawed, just as lazy as the next person. But the difference is that I know how to manipulate myself. And this is a word I’m using on purpose.
In the same way that the name of this season five for the podcast is Summer of Selfish, I am using manipulate on purpose, learning how to manipulate yourself, learning how to do the rituals, routines, and habits that are as unique as you are, to get yourself in the mood every single day to do the big brave thing that’s going to actually change your business, transform your business, because it’s not the busy work. Most business owners are stuck on the 85% of things that aren’t very interesting. 85% of their work is yes, you know, absolutely it’s necessary. And yes, you could argue it’s important and maybe sometimes you might even be right. But it’s not actually where your focus needs to be. Your focus needs to be on the two extremes.
What are the points of tension? What are the stresses? What is the biggest problem, biggest hole in my business right now this week, next week, the week after that? I’m constantly seeking out problems. I’m looking to proactively find those problems and fix them. I want to find those points of stress and tension in my business and solve them before they become a bigger deal. And then the other focus is the opposite, which is where do I have the biggest impact, where is my unfair advantage? What are those special skills? That special thing that magic I have that people absolutely crave. And it’s oftentimes the thing that I’m taking for granted. It’s a thing I’m overlooking because it’s so easy for me that I don’t even equate it with work.
I think it’s play. I think it’s, well, it’s just a piece of piss. It’s nothing. I couldn’t possibly charge for that, the high value activities and having the discernment, not just today to know what they are, but every single day. Because as I said before, I’m a slob, I’m a normal person. And on a bad day, every single hour, or more regularly than that, more often than that, I’m pulling myself up and saying, Brook, is this the most important thing you could be working on right now? Your approach in manipulating yourself, your approach in coaching yourself is going to be unique. And you know yourself and your business better than I’m ever going to know it.
Even though inside the Hustle and Heart program, we are talking every week, even though I’m giving you one-to-one feedback on your profit plan and your marketing plan, even though, you know, I’m going to get to know you because we’ve got small group, it’s always been a small group, I’ve always limited the numbers. You’re still going to know yourself and your business better than I’m ever going to know it because this is the other thing that we need to do.
We cannot outsource our creative thinking and nor can we outsource our responsibility. And by joining course after course and program after program, hopping from coach to coach to coach to coach, always seeking the God amongst mortals. You know, the coach that’s just going to unlock your magic.
You’re wasting your time and your money, and you’re failing to recognise that you are the one. You and only you are the one. And when we’re constantly hopping from thing to thing to thing to thing, never slowing down enough to take a breath, to actually get to know our own thoughts and opinions, to actually know our own desires, is this the kind of business that I want? What are my optimum conditions for success on a day-to-day base? What do I need to do my best work? What does success look like to me? What kind of business model?
And there are, as I said, innumerable business models. Do I want that’s going to actually satisfy me? Not just with profit, because yes, of course we want profit. Then one and only rule of business is we exchange value for cash. But beyond that, everything else is up to our interpretation. That’s up to us to decide.
For me personally, I love the creative self-expression I get in business. I love recording this podcast. I love writing blog posts and emails. I love getting feedback from people. I love the ability, the privilege to be able to share my thoughts on the internet and to be able to reach through screens and pluck the heartstrings of strangers. And when somebody reaches out to me and says, Hey, I just wanted to say your email really spoke to me. I just wanted to say that that blog post was like you were scotting in my brain. I love that. The self-expression that I get, the creative self-expression I get through my business is something I value very highly. It is, you know, it is right up there with make a lot of money. So being bold, being memorable, deepening our self trust learning out how to coach ourselves, getting better at making decisions.
Cause this is a key, a key skill in business, right? Learning how to make better decisions all day long. Decision, decision, decision. And knowing also when actually we need to step away, it is not a good idea to be making a decision. This decision needs to be delayed. We cannot make a decision on this. We are our biggest liability right now. That’s also part of it.
The Hustle and Heart program won’t just do all this. It will also help you turn up the volume to be bolder, to be braver, to be more memorable in your marketing and also to have the courage to repel those bad fit people on purpose, to repel the energy vampires, to put out marketing that’s deliberately designed to repel the people that you don’t want to attract. Cause if you’ve been in business for any length of time, you would have had a few doozies, right? You would have had a few doozies. And so part of what we’re trying to do here is to pick ourselves up. And if I can get philosophical for a moment, cause I just can’t help myself. Just can’t help myself.
I think that this is one of the key life skills. It’s not just a business thing. It is a life skill. How do we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? How do we suffer the traumas, the everyday traumas, and continue to wake up in the morning full of hope and optimism? This is like a key life skill because our default response is to get bitter and jaded and closed-minded and angry and depressed and sad, right?
And we all know people like this. People who have let life really wear them down. They’ve lost their joy. They’ve lost their sparkle. They’ve lost their sharp edges. And when we’re self-employed, make no mistake, your mental health, your joy is imperative. Yeah. And the more robust you are, the more you invest in your emotional buoyancy, the more money you will make.
So I have designed this season very much on purpose. Why selfish is a good thing. What they didn’t teach you at school, making joy a KPI. How do we turn insults into assets? You know, hustle. It’s a bit of an insult. It’s been used for years to talk about, you know, all those hustlers. And it’s so ridiculous because the people that say that stuff are normally people with trust funds and savings and independent wealth. You know, good for you. Well done. Isn’t that lovely that you don’t have to worry about your pension or your superannuation. Well done.
So all of these connections between joy and profit, between hustle and heart, the paradox of hustle and heart, the paradox of how do we keep going? How do we keep our ambition fired up? How do we keep being driven and focused? How do we keep marketing and selling? Even though we’re not sure, we’ve got no guarantee. There is no certainty in anything. We could be completely wasting our time.
This is the paradox that business owners grapple and dance with every single day. And this is what the Hustle and Heart program is all about. If you’re keen on consistent 10 K plus months, let me start again.
If you are no longer judging your desires and you’ve decided enough is enough and consistent 10 K plus months are your floor and you have no ceiling because make no mistake, this is just the first step. When we can solidify that there is consistent 10k plus months, it’s easy to get to 20k months. It’s easy to get to 50k months. It now just becomes a problem of maths, a challenge of maths. So there are so many things going on inside my business right now.
We’ve got our Life’s a Pitch Challenge, Feb 10 to 14, completely free at last for you to come and participate, land your next best paying client, land those publicity opportunities, have the audacity to ask for what you want.
And then we’re following that up on Monday, the 17th with a webinar. And this webinar is going to be all about your no fluff profit plan to get you to consistent 10 K plus months.
So I’m going to go behind the scenes of what’s working right now. No more out of date stuff that worked that had its moment in the sun and worked like a charm in 2018 or 2011. The heyday. What is this no fluff approach to consistent 10 K plus months? I’m going to share everything I know.
And of course, I’m going to invite you into the Hustle and Heart program. If you have any questions about it and believe me, it is a small group program. I do not say yes to everybody. I’m very happy to give you another option. If we both decide actually, this doesn’t make sense for your business and your goals and where you’re at right now. But if you’re listening to me and you’re feeling the call, you’re feeling the pull, you’re like, this woman keeps squatting in my head. I consider her my business coach, even though she doesn’t know it. Then it will be a great privilege to work with you inside my flagship hustle and heart program.
So you can sign up for the wait list and you’ll be the first in line for bonuses, fast acting bonuses, valued at well over a thousand dollars. At hustleandheart.com.au/program108/. hustleandheart.com.au/program108.
So this whole business, this whole brand of mine, this website, which is now well over 500 pages, started with a single program page, and the thank you page once people registered, once people joined for the Hustle and Heart program.
I built my business around this program. The program came first, the business came second. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. And let’s go make it rain.
Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited, or has you changing the way that you do business or life, would you do me a super quick favor and write me a short review? Your podcast review means so much to me and it helps other values-based business owners just like you to find this show, which is a fantastic gift to me.
