What does aligning with your core values look like in your side hustle?

In this Side Hustle Support Group spotlight episode, I’m interviewing Joyce Agne about her rewilding methods and her experience inside the Side Hustle Support Group program. Listen here!

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Full Show Notes (Transcript)…

Marissa: Hey Risers, welcome back to another episode of Empathy Rising. We are here with our annual series of Side Hustle Student Spotlights. That was a lot of S's where my kid would be like, It's alliteration. She's so into that. But we are here with these student spotlight episodes because it's that time of year where one cohort of Side Hustle students are moving into alumni, and we are opening the doors for the next round in 2024. If what you hear on this episode and what you see going around in the online space about Side Hustle resonates with you, you are absolutely welcome and invited to apply over at marissalawton.com/side-hustle. Applications are open until the end of November. So sit with it, feel into it, and if you're called, I would love to have you apply. With that said, we are here with our student spotlight, and that is soon to be alum - like, a week and a half, what is it, two weeks, I guess? - Joyce Agne. So, Joyce, long time no see; we just hung out earlier today on our Friday Side Hustle call. If you could introduce yourself a little bit, let us know where you're at, what you do clinically, and what you are working on with your side hustle.

Joyce: Yeah, thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I listen to the podcast so much. I know we talked about this in the beginning, like when we started Side Hustle, but it's so fun to now be on the podcast. It's like a full circle moment.

Marissa: Yes.

Joyce: So, I live in Northeast Ohio near Cleveland. I practice out of my home doing teletherapy in my practice, but I also am a behavioral health consultant for a larger research university in the area as well. So I keep myself quite busy, but I'm very excited to hopefully be moving out of private practice more and out of my full-time consultant role at the university to lean into my side hustle, which is working with women who are overwhelmed, feeling just stuck and unfulfilled in their life and not really sure why. I know we'll dive into that a little bit more, but I know it's definitely something that after the pandemic really was illuminated for me personally, but also for a lot of the women I was seeing in my practice. So that was where I really leaned in, and we'll talk about how I got there. But yeah.

Marissa: And I love that you're candid about that goal. Like, I would like to leave clinical work, please, and then just keep the consulting and then bring this program to life. How was coming to that decision? Was that like a decision of necessity? Is this something you've been thinking about for a while, kind of stepping out of the clinical role?

Joyce: Yeah, so it was something that came up for me after I left my first agency job, actually. I was a clinical supervisor for eight years in a small non-profit, and I was doing online therapy at the time as my side hustle and I loved it. It was really what gave me life while I was in the productivity world of agency work at the time. I loved my team and I loved the work I was doing in family therapy, but it was really difficult to balance things. What I did recognize after some things that happened in my life was that I couldn't share my own story to help women and kind of hearing myself in their stories in therapy. So recognizing, obviously, our ethical boundaries there and knowing that if I could just maybe share a little bit more and do things in a different way with them, I think it could have made a lot of difference. These were women who were very much higher functioning as far as probably didn't need ongoing therapy, but at the time it did with everything that was going on in the pandemic. But if the pandemic wouldn't have happened, they probably wouldn't have sought treatment, to be honest with you.

Marissa: Yeah, and so I love a few things here, which is one of the few reasons why clinicians are drawn to the coaching space. Not necessarily that they're going to go be one-on-one coaches, but this side of the industry is, I can show up more fully. I can have more of a communal relationship with these people instead of a blank slate kind of relationship with the people that I'm working with. And also, I can work with people who are a bit more above baseline, who are coming more to solve a problem or coming more to achieve a goal rather than in this healing space. And I know that whenever I talk with students about that, they're like, Oh, I'm kind of already doing that. I've been doing that in session for a long time. I just didn't realize it was different. Right? And it's like, Well, what if you were doing it without the red tape, the regulations, with higher pay, without notes and admin and all of that? And they're like, Oh, I see now. I see now. And it doesn't necessarily, like I said, have to be one-on-one coaching, but entering this online space where we can still use the skills that we probably use almost every single day in almost every single session, but use them in a way that serves us a little bit better.

Joyce: Oh, yeah. I completely resonate with that. I've definitely seen myself in sessions being like, Oh, stop right there. Don't go any further. Right on that line. But I do see those big aha moments and the light bulbs go off when I start to get a little close to that line as far as what we're talking about in treatment and what we're working on. But it is just this almost unforeseen identity crisis that I feel like women in general went through after the pandemic, at least the ones that I'm working with. And I definitely am pretty niched as far as my population, my age. I only work with women at this point, or individuals who identify as women, and we're talking early twenties to late forties. It's pretty much where I'm at. So again, seeing myself, being a mid-thirties female, in a lot of their stories and hearing what they've been going through after the pandemic and having this, the world started to go back to quote-unquote normal, and I still feel like shit kind of feeling, you know, What's wrong with me for feeling this way, if we're supposed to feel better now?

Marissa: Yeah, I really resonate with that. I mean, and it's funny because, and we'll talk about this too, you and I both have a passion for this concept of rewilding. And I built a whole side hustle myself called Rooted around this concept of rewilding, returning in my case to a sacred place and in a more spiritual place, but it doesn't have to be that. It can just be like, you know, it's another word for like deconstructing or deconditioning. Both of those words are really kind of buzzwordy right now. Returning to a more pure, wilder, unsocialized, or unconditioned, deconditioned version of ourselves. And I certainly went through that in the same period of 2020. All of a sudden, my little family of four was home. We still were getting paid by the army. Obviously, my business was still working, but yet we were like going to the creek or doing these things that just felt so much more nourishing. Then what these demands were, then all of a sudden we're expected to just be back in, meeting demand. And it's like, Wait, I just had a profound experience where a different part of me was allowed to thrive and live. And now there's conflict between those two things. Right?

Joyce: And so that, and all the while you have to homeschool your kids, essentially, and you can be around people again, so you know, it's almost like we're kind of in a safe bubble, where it was probably introvert heaven because you couldn't go out and see other people. You really, you know, you kept your circle small, and I think for a lot of people it also helped them to learn a lot about themselves because they had to during that time. But there were a lot of extra demands as we, again, quote-unquote, went back to normal and this not knowing, Are my kids going to go to school next week or is the world going to shut down?

Marissa: Yeah, so in this uncertainty, what it sounds like is your therapy clients were kind of finding or working to find themselves in that. And then you realized and recognized, 'Hey, I could do this on a different scale, on a lighter scale,' and all the things we were just talking about, but even on a bigger scale of helping more people at the same time. So, with that, let's think back to Joyce a year ago, who's kind of on the cusp of joining Side Hustle. What was going through your mind? What led you to this program in particular? What kind of helped you make the decision to go ahead and join Side Hustle?

Joyce: Yeah, so if we went back a year ago, I already knew I was joining SideHustle. I already promised myself that the year before.

Marissa: Oh, that's interesting.

Joyce: Yeah, the year before I just had a lot going on in my life. Again, a lot that had occurred in 2020. Losing my dad unexpectedly was really what I call it now that I've gone through a lot of my own rewilding. I call it the death of my old self; it also died with my dad. And I came into this rebirth period, to get a little woo with it, because that's definitely when that was always something I was very interested in as a child. And my grandmother really leaned into that with me. She was not one to talk about it, but my dad was very open to allow us to have these differing ideas about higher powers in the world and things like that. But losing her, I could see, was difficult for him. And I didn't recognize how difficult it was until I lost him. You know, we would talk on the phone for two, three hours sometimes when I was living in Texas because my husband was in the air force. So, you know, we had moved, and it wasn't near him, but I ended up going back home because he got sick in 2020. And my ex-husband was getting out of the Air Force at the end of that contract, so they allowed him to move back to Ohio as well. And after losing him, I recognized there are a lot of things in my life that I want to let go of so I don't end up in a place where I have this regret in my own life around not opening up with him. He was a very strong, stoic person, but I knew deep down he was very warm and loving. Also, one of those people that you had to be close to him to see that funny, goofy side. But, yeah, in his final days, I remember laying in bed with him just wanting to ask all the questions like, 'Are you scared?' or 'What are you thinking? What do you think is going to happen?' It's so different when you know you have a diagnosis that allows you the gift, but also the curse of knowing that your life is going to end. But I didn't do that because I was very caught up again in the hustle culture. I was still working my agency job. I remember turning in productivity reports, sitting in my dad's garage on the morning that he died, trying to get paperwork done because I knew once he passed, I was going to need to take a couple of weeks off. And it was me trying to prepare paperwork for a job that was not serving me in the way I was serving it. It's kind of like that was really the beginning. Oh, yes.

Marissa: Yes. And then so that was like, 'Okay, I want to do side hustle, but this isn't the best time.' So then you promised yourself next year, which I think is so sweet. That touches me so much. And then the enrollment period comes around, and you were like, 'Count me in,' basically.

Joyce: Yeah, I probably didn't even need our call. I was happy we did it, but I probably didn't need it because I was already all in. I already told myself the year before that this was an investment I was making for myself. It was something that I rarely did for myself, like invest in myself. So it was my promise. And I was all in. But before that, I had been listening to the podcast, and I was definitely one of those who listened religiously. I couldn't wait until the pod would drop every week, and then I would be like, 'It's so good! If she gives away this much on the podcast, then the program is going to be great!' The transformation I've gone through in the program, I couldn't have even imagined at the time.

Marissa: All right, so moving the timeline forward a little bit, we're now in like January of this year and the program is starting. Going through phase one, which is where we go from kind of concept to really like business infrastructure. At the end of phase one, the mechanism of your business is built, which for some is the fun phase, for others is a challenging phase. So I'm curious if you could talk us through just kind of your experience of that first part.

Joyce: Yeah, for me, it was—I thought it was fun at the time until I got to the end of it. And I realized I'm building a program that I'm not in love with because I was still stuck in some of that masculine energy of just get it out there. You can change it if you want; it's your business. But at the same time, I knew deep down what I wanted to do. So I was building a group program for burnt-out women, and that's how I was going to sell it. And that's what I wanted to do. And I probably could do really well doing that because I think a lot of women do identify as being burned out. But I knew at the core of the burnout, what was going on. So I really wanted to shift to, again, increase accessibility on my part was very important. And that's why I did shift to a membership model, and having this kind of tiered approach where there's access to these concepts and these things that I want to put out into the world. But it took me that whole—you know, it did take me that phase to really realize like, Oh no, that's not what I want to do. But I had to go through it all. Like, I, and I think I remember in one of our—it might have been in an office hours call or in a Friday call—but sitting there saying, I should have done this from the beginning, but I got in my own way and just didn't trust my—

Marissa: Gut.

Joyce: Well, and you know, of course, we talked about this inside hustle, but it's like, there is so much to moving from concept to real. And there's multiple points in the program where that happens, and the end of phase one is the first one where it's like, Oh, there's a page on the website that talks about this and it's real. And people can type in www.website.com and they can see this. It's like, Yeah. There is so much wisdom that comes from the doing, right? And this is part of my job, as a lot of the students can get stuck in the head part, right? The thinking about part, and then be it fear, imposter syndrome, whatever. They don't necessarily get to the doing. And I think part of it is, Oh, what if I do the wrong thing? But by doing, we get so much knowledge from that. And my guess is, and you can confirm this or not, when you went back and did the work for the offer that felt right, it probably just flowed; it probably just came right out.

Joyce: Oh, there's been so many times where I've gone back and looked at things, and I'm like, This was so hard because I knew—mm-hmm—I wasn't really building what I wanted to be building. And now it's crazy to think, I feel like—you know, we were talking before we started like, Well, let's do a sales page for that. And I'm thinking in my head like, Well, if I can crank out a sales page in like a couple hours, I know Marissa can probably do it in even half that time. So crazy. Yeah, I already have a copy on my phone. Right. It's crazy to think like I, and I can do that now too, where I just—when thoughts come to my head, I go to my notes, and I'm like, I gotta write this down so I don't lose it. Yeah. And then, it's like you go pop it in, and Wow, I have a webpage. And I—

Marissa: Think that what you're sharing with people who are listening is, you're modeling something really cool for us because it's like, I joined, I thought I had one idea, I even started making progress on that idea, but I had the permission to change my mind. But that didn't also derail me from participating in the program. I just changed my mind within the program, utilize the resources, the tools that were available to me, and just kind of ended up almost right back on track, but with this offer that was authentic. And some of that, like I said, you learn from the doing. And if you hadn't have gone through the process of kind of doing it for the quote-unquote wrong offer or whatever, the one that wasn't the best fit. Would you have even arrived at the one that feels like the right fit? So there's some bravery required here. There's some bravery and some courage to do, to take action that's required.

Marissa: All right, so moving the timeline forward a little bit, we're now in like January of this year and the program is starting. Going through phase one, which is where we go from kind of concept to really like business infrastructure. At the end of phase one, the mechanism of your business is built, which for some is the fun phase for others is a challenging phase. So I'm curious if you could talk us through just kind of your experience of that first part.

Joyce: Yeah, for me, it was fun at the time until I got to the end of it. And I realized I'm building a program that I'm not in love with because I was still stuck in some of that masculine energy of just get it out there. You can change it if you want; it's your business. But at the same time, I knew deep down what I wanted to do. So I was building a group program for burnt out women, and that's how I was going to sell it. And that's what I wanted to do. And I probably could do really well doing that because I think a lot of women do identify as being burned out. But I knew at the core of the burnout, what was going on. So I really wanted to shift to, again, increase accessibility on my part was very important. And that's why I did shift to a membership model and having this kind of tiered approach where there's access to these concepts and these things that I want to put out into the world. But it took me that whole phase to really realize like, Oh, no, that's not what I want to do. But I had to go through it all. And I think I remember in one of our calls, it might have been in an office hours call or in a Friday call, but sitting there saying, I should have done this from the beginning, but I got in my own way and just didn't trust my gut.

Marissa: Well, and you know, of course, we talked about this inside hustle, but it's like, there is so much to moving from concept to real. And there's multiple points in the program where that happens and the end of phase one is the first one where it's like, Oh, there's a page on the website that talks about this and it's real. And people can type in www.website.com and they can see this. There is so much wisdom that comes from the doing, right? And this is part of my job; a lot of the students can get stuck in the head part, right? The thinking about part and then be it fear, imposter syndrome, whatever. They don't necessarily get to the doing. And I think part of it is, Oh, what if I do the wrong thing? But by doing, we get so much knowledge from that. And my guess is, and you can confirm this or not, when you went back and did the work for the offer, that felt right. It probably just flowed, it probably just came right out.

Joyce: Oh, it, there's been so many times where I've gone back and looked at things and I'm like, this was so hard because I knew I wasn't really building what I wanted to be building. And now it's crazy to think, I feel like, you know, we were talking before we started like, Well, let's do a sales page for that. And I'm thinking in my head like, well, if I can crank out a sales page in a couple hours, I know Marissa can probably do it in even half that time. It's so crazy. I already have a copy on my phone. It's crazy to think like I, and I can do that now too, where I just, when thoughts come to my head, I go to my notes and I'm like, I gotta write this down so I don't lose it. And then it's like, you go pop it in and, Wow, I have a webpage.

Marissa: I think that what you're sharing with people who are listening is, you're modeling something really cool for us because it's like, I joined, I thought I had one idea, I even started making progress on that idea, but I had the permission to change my mind. But that didn't also derail me from participating in the program. I just changed my mind within the program, utilize the resources, the tools that were available to me, and just kind of ended up almost right back on track, but with this offer that was authentic. And some of that, like I said, you learn from the doing. And if you hadn't have gone through the process of kind of doing it for the wrong offer or whatever, the one that wasn't the best fit. Would you have even arrived at the one that feels like the right fit? So there's some bravery required here. There's some bravery and some courage to do, to take action that's required.

Joyce: Yeah. It was a lot of trusting the process too. And I think we said that a lot throughout the program, but writing, you know, working through the sales page and sitting down to think about that, like I'm writing a sales page already. Like this feels crazy, but it was in writing that sales page that I was like, This is where I was really struggling to use the words. And Jen really helped me out a lot with that. It was through some of my work with Jen and the copywriting where I was like, Yeah, this is not how my ideal client customer is talking in their mind because the people I'm talking to on the sales page are not my ideal customer. I'm talking to the people I want to be talking to. So it was, it was really great doing that sales page, even down to the design piece because I do have this feminine rewilding aspect behind it, which, and I was trying to keep it very professional for this burnout side and Shane and I've talked about it a few times too, in doing design work, like, Go with that, like, follow that feminine aspect that you love about the design, but trying to make it professional. It doesn't need to be; this is your stuff.

Marissa: And I love that. So it's not only me and my guidance. It's the guidance from the support staff that helps this whole thing come together. So Jen, in her copywriting role, being able to kind of call you out and be like, Joyce, is this really what you're meaning to say? Because I'm picking up something different here. And then Shana being able to like, really say, Okay, here's the magical thread. Let's follow this thread. And so we all kind of work together as a team, almost like, so I call them the support team, right? Then we get to phase two, which is marketing. And at this point, we've got the funnel up and it's the funnel for the offer that feels most aligned. It feels right. And then we move into marketing and you've grown a big list. Like, I think you probably have grown the biggest list of the students this year, I think.

Joyce: Yeah, it was. I think it honestly was going through that maybe difficult process. When everyone in Phase 2 started on their

marketing, I was still kind of back and fine-tuning my offer, you know, my freebie to get people coming into my funnel. So, but if I wouldn't have shifted gears, I would not be at the audience I'm at now because I did speak to the woman I wanted to work with, so it was a lot easier for me to speak the language that they were like, Oh, finally someone who gets me, and like my offer became something that was valuable, but it was hidden under messaging and kind of a professional overlay that wasn't resonating with the people I wanted it to. So I was a little bit behind in marketing as far as where we were on the program, but I think I caught up in that when I was doing what I loved.

Marissa: So, yeah. And marketing only works if it's consistent and authentic. And if you don't love what you're talking about, you're sure as heck not going to show up for it consistently. And when you do show up, you're not going to be authentic. And so even by taking that little extra time, you kind of rebounded and skyrocketed past where you, where you would have been if you'd been sticking with this program that felt difficult and hard. To get behind, you were able to get behind this one, like 100%. Um, do you mind sharing numbers where your list is at?

Joyce: Yeah. So I am at about nine.

Marissa: 950? 950 and you started with, you didn't have any audience coming in, did you?

Joyce: I had zero. I got the free MailerLite plan and went from there and now it keeps telling me, You've reached 94 percent of your subscriber rate. Right. You're going to have to pay us more money.

Marissa: And it's like, it's, it's like, uh, a pride moment but also like a, ah, oh my God, this is real again. One of those, this is real moments. Cause it's like, Oh, I've built this list that now I'm too big for the free tier, so to speak. But, but, Oh my God, that means I've got to start paying for this tier and I've got to start doing the thing, it's, it's legitimate. So you have an audience of almost a thousand. That's two to four times what we recommend in this program for your first launch. That's incredible.

Joyce: And I will say, like my social media is not there because I'm much more comfortable sharing in a different space like through my blog and in my Facebook group. So just it's, it's a more, I don't want to say it's a more comfortable space for me because I think sharing your story like vulnerability is brave regardless of where it's done, but it was about the women around me and knowing who I was sharing for versus into that large void of social media was a little daunting for me at first I know we talked about that a little bit today in the call, you know how to share with, especially people who know you, I think was even more difficult. Yeah.

Marissa: And I don't use social media for either of my businesses. If there's any social presence, it's because a team member does it for me, and we do not focus on it at all. We focus on other places and you really utilize visibility, marketing collaborations. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you did to grow that list?

Joyce: Yeah. So I did a lot of collaborations with other side hustlers, but also with just other women in the online space. I sold some memberships to owners in the space that were, you know, I was just eager to go out and say like, Hey, this is what I'm working on. If you're interested, put your email down here, kind of thing. And it was honestly really easy to, again, put my free offer out there with my emotional wound guide because there were so many women that were like, Yeah, that's me. That's why I do that. And again, I think back to where I was a few years ago. If I would have had it, I would have been like, Oh, that's why I do that. That's why I get so mad at myself when I do that. That makes so much more sense. But, you know, it's definitely, I had to go through some of those rock bottom moments to figure it out. And I felt some of the pain. If I could help women avoid those steps to get there a little bit faster, I definitely want to do that.

Marissa: And so building quite the audience in phase two and moving into phase three, which is launch. And I think that you really, again, talking about moving things around, give the listeners that sense of permission and maybe a little bit of relief, because even though this program is designed for you to launch at the end. There's also the fact that it supports you wherever you are, right? People have life stuff come up, and just things that happen. Sometimes it's not the best to launch in the middle of October. Also, we have students who want to bring six-month programs to life. It doesn't even make sense to launch in October because you're going to run through the holidays. So the program still adapts to you and to your timeframe. So, do you want to share what phase three has been like for you so far? Maybe your decision-making around kind of shifting your launch?

Joyce: Yeah, I think once I made that shift in phase one into phase two, where I felt like I was really aligned with my offer, I felt good. Sorry, my dog is going to make me have to let her outside. Hold on a second. But yeah, I think it was about aligning with my offer and knowing that there was no question in my mind anymore that I had an offer that I was going to put out into the world. So it was easy for me to know. If I launch in November versus October, I was okay with that. It felt better for me. And I wanted to nurture my audience before I started to put a program out there and that was really important to me. It was a lot of why I chose Side Hustle as the program that I did. It was around that very nurturing aspect of not only what I heard from you on the podcast, but even just during our call. And I think Bobby said it earlier today, like we had videos from you where you said our name, like we were real people to you. And that's also really important for me, to put that out into the world for women to feel like I see them. They are not just another person coming into my membership. They're not going to be just a part of a launch debrief number, and that's not how I viewed them.

Marissa: Right. And it's not that you're choosing to shift because you don't have the audience. In fact, you have double the audience than you even need to go through a first launch. It's really aligning with what serves you. In this program, we are lifestyle first, not business first, not revenue first. We are lifestyle first. And so I love that you're like, What's going to serve me? What feels right for this audience? What feels like the right timing for me to bring this online? I have people who might have kids or family members whose birthdays are in October. That's happened in a round before. And it's like, I'm not going to launch in October because I have this and this and this and this, plus Halloween, whatever. And so, I'm like, Okay, awesome. Let's find a new date for you that you can show up fully for enrollment because the launch is a time. I wouldn't say, this is my opinion, you can say what you think Joyce, but I don't think the launch is any harder than the funnel build. I think it requires different energy because in the funnel build, you're not necessarily having to be on. So you're building all the behind-the-scenes stuff. The launch is a little bit less work in terms of what you're building out than the funnel, but there's the element of having to be on. So if you know, Oh, I have five birthdays this month, or my wedding anniversary is this month, or I want to take a trip this month, if that's going to prevent you from being on, then don't launch that month, right? So,

Marissa: And I don't use social media for either of my businesses. If there's any social presence, it's because a team member does it for me, and we do not focus on it at all. We focus on other places and you really utilize visibility, marketing collaborations. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you did to grow that list?

Joyce: Yeah. So I did a lot of collaborations with other side hustlers, but also with just other women in the online space and some other membership owners in the space that were kind of, you know, I was just really eager to go out and say, 'Hey, this is what I'm working on. If you're interested, put your email down here.' And it was honestly really easy to again put my free offer out there in my emotional wound guide because there were so many women that were like, 'Yeah, that's me. That's why I do that.' And again, I think back to where I was a few years ago. If I would have had it, I would have been like, 'Oh, that's why I do that. That's why I get so mad at myself when I do that.' It makes so much more sense. But it, you know, it's definitely, I had to go through some of those, you know, hitting rock bottom moments to figure it out. And I felt some of the pain that if I could help women avoid those steps to get there a little bit faster, I definitely want to do that. Yeah.

Marissa: And so building quite the audience in phase two and moving into phase three, which is launch. And I think that you really, again, talking about moving things around, give the listeners that sense of permission and maybe a little bit of relief because even though this program is designed for you to launch at the end. Um, there's also the fact that it supports you wherever you are, right? People have life stuff come up, people have, and just things that happen. And so sometimes it's not the best to launch in the middle of October. Also, we have students who want to bring like six-month programs to life. It doesn't even make sense to launch in October because you're going to run through the holidays. So the program still adapts to you and to your time frame. And so do you want to share what phase three has been like for you so far? Maybe your decision making around kind of shifting your launch?

Joyce: Yeah, I think once I, again, once I made that shift in, you know, phase one into phase two, where I felt like I was really, again, very aligned with my offer, sorry, my dog is going to make me have to let her outside. So that's okay. Hold on a second. Pause there. But yeah, I think it was aligning with my offer and knowing that there was no question in my mind anymore that I had an offer that I was going to put out into the world. So it was easy for me to know. If I launch in November versus October, I was okay with that. It felt better for me. And I wanted to nurture my audience before I started to put a program out there and that was really important to me. And it was a lot of why I chose side hustle as the program that I did. And it was around that very nurturing aspect of. Not only what I heard from you on the podcast, but even just during our call and I think Bobby said it earlier today, like we had videos from you where you said our name, like we were real people to you. And that's also really important for me to put that out into the world for women to feel like I see them. They are not just another person coming into my membership. They're not going to be just a part of a launch debrief number, and that's not how I viewed them.

Marissa: Right. And it's not that you're choosing to shift because you don't have the audience. In fact, you have double the audience that you even need to go through a first launch. It's really about aligning with what serves you right in this program. We are lifestyle first, not business first, not revenue first. We are lifestyle first. And so I love that you're like, 'What's going to serve me? What feels right for this audience? What feels like the right timing for me to bring this online?' I have people who might have kids or family members where every family member's birthday is in October. That's happened in a round before. And it's like, 'I'm not going to launch in October because I have this and this and this and this for Halloween, whatever.' And so I'm like, 'Okay, awesome. Let's find a new date for you that you can show up fully for enrollment because the launch is a time.' I wouldn't say this is my opinion, you can say what you think Joyce, but I don't think the launch is any harder than the funnel build. I think it requires different energy because in the funnel build, you're not necessarily having to be on. So you're building all the behind-the-scenes stuff. The launch is a little bit less work in terms of what you're building out than the funnel, but there's the element of having to be on. So if you know, like, 'Oh, I have five birthdays this month or my wedding anniversary this month, or I want to take a trip this month,' if that's going to prevent you from being on, then don't launch that month. Right? So,

Joyce: No, I think that's exactly it. The funnel was, it's all behind the scenes. Nobody knows it's happening. But once you get to that launch part, it's like you're putting things out there. So you need to also have some energy to back that up. Like you said, like 'be on' and do these things. And sometimes life happens. That definitely happens for people.

Marissa: And I think too, like when we say 'be on,' it's not that if you're not a bubbly person that I'm asking you to all of a sudden be bubbly. It's to be in, again, that authenticity of you. And show up fully in that and that takes energy. So when we move into phase three, we're talking about that. We're not only talking about time management, we're talking about energy management and emotion management. So how have those two things showed up for you in phase three, the energy and the emotion?

Joyce: I will say, and I might be on my own in this one, but

phase three has been the easiest for me. Because I was going through so much growth in phase one and phase two, like figuring out, I really aligned with what I was doing, but that took growing pain. It was a lot of reflective work for me to make sure that I wasn't kind of going back into this very masculine energy of just, 'Well, I'll just stay up all night tonight and crank out this funnel.' And then, you know, it was very much like, 'Just take your time.' My dad, if he had a grave, that would go on this, he always said, 'Sweetheart, just take your time.' I could hear it, 'Take your time.' Even when I was just rushing up the stairs, 'Just take your time. Nobody's going anywhere.' And that was something he always said to me and always said, 'No matter what you do in life, you always want to be able to be an attorney. Write everything down because one day you'll want to tell your story and you'll want to remember it all.' And I feel that now because there is so much where I'm like, 'I wish I would've written more down.' So now I do. I do write a lot of things down. I know we were talking about taking notes in my phone and I don't want those, even if it just feels like a little nugget to me, I feel like to someone else, it could be that big 'aha' moment. So I don't let those moments pass me anymore. I do write a lot of things down. And I think that's why phase three has been easier for me because I've had so much growth and transformation doing this program, even though I was building a business, building a side hustle, I've personally transformed in the way where it's okay that I'm not launching it on the timeline that was there. And you say that all the time. There's no such thing as being behind and everybody's doing it on their own timeline. And I think sometimes we're like, 'She says that to us all the time,' but I really feel that. And I know that I have a plan and I've made a plan to stay brave behind that plan and not say, 'Oh, well, I could wait another month,' because we can also do that and self-sabotage a little bit. But this was much more about my energy management and just aligning again and nurturing my audience than it was about self-sabotage.

Marissa: And that's part of my job in the course is to ask you that question, 'Is this are you really feeling called to this? Or is this a coping mechanism or a defense mechanism? Is this you sabotaging?' And I hold that line for a lot of the students. And you know what, Joyce, I'm just realizing, even though I've been working with you for a year, I think I'm just realizing how personal this is for you. This feels like kind of like a body of work almost, and that's not the right term, but it's what's coming through. There's so many pieces of your experience that are coming into a culmination in this one program and I think that that is so beautiful to see how personal this is to you and how much of you is shining through. I don't know why I'm just picking that up, but this one conversation I'm just seeing that.

Joyce: Yeah, I think, and I think that is again why I'm so okay with the timeline because it's really important to me to show up as my raw, real self and I can't do that when all the pieces and parts aren't quite there. Like I don't want to be fumbling around like, 'Oh, we're supposed to launch this month, so I just have to get something out,' and then feel like, you know, start to come up short. I really set myself up to. I mean, I could sit and talk for hours, but I also want to make sure I'm providing this value. So it was really about how I brought women along that journey with me and that was important to me. And again, I think that was a big part of the nurturing piece, was like, I love to give information, I love to give resources, but also how am I bringing them along my story? So they recognize where this is coming from. And I'm in this role, raw, like, you know, being a guest person, but at the same time, I'll hold space and be very compassionate.

Marissa: In month two, we kind of talk about these different brand archetypes - the teacher, the cheerleader, the whatever. I feel like you're the epitome of the guide. Right? Like, 'walk with me. Let me show you.' That is just coming through so strongly. Let's talk about what you built. We've been talking about this whole time. Let's talk about what you built. So, tell us about your offer. Who's it for? What problem does it solve? What promise it makes? All the good stuff.

Joyce: Yeah, I'm very excited to talk about my offer and not have any questions about it. I don't have to look at a piece of paper to even be able to talk about it because we've just been talking about it the whole time. Essentially, my offer is, again, it's a membership tier. So, there will be multiple tiers again to increase accessibility, but to also allow women to come along that journey. So at each tier, there is a different monthly cost. I feel like sometimes when you're just getting to know someone, you don't want to pay them a lot of money a month until it's going to be worth it. So there's still access points like that for women that just want to take the information because I definitely used to be like that where I was like, 'just give me all the information. I'll figure it out myself.' It took me some time to be like, 'okay, now I want Marissa to tell me how to do it in person. I'm going to go along that journey with her.' The 'Rewilding Collective' is the name of my membership tier. The program I'll be launching in November is the 'Feminine Rewilding Society,' so that will be my mid-tier offer. Working with women, again, who are feeling just overwhelmed, stuck, and unfulfilled but really unsure why. And again, I remember being that woman who was saying, 'I have the job, I have the marriage, the kids, everything on paper sounds perfect,' but I didn't feel it. And I felt bad for not feeling it. I'm like, 'what more could I want? Why do I feel this way about my life?' So, it was really exciting to bring my own story into it because I think that's what makes it more relatable. I'm not a therapist here talking to you. I'm just another woman who is maybe a couple of steps ahead of where you're at right now, but I still don't have it all figured out. So we're still learning together too. And I love that idea. In my therapy practice, I talk about it a lot - healing the collective. Now, I'm really looking to rewild the collective and the women I work with. This idea of going back to our real, raw self - what is underneath all of the societal expectations, the gender roles, and the multiple roles and hats that you're wearing and juggling? How do we really feel about things? And I recognize that when I first started to reflect and journal about things, I had no idea how I really felt. And it was me judging myself, really. I don't know what to write down on this blank page of paper. How do I reflect about things, because it might be wrong? I might reflect wrong. I think that was, again, something I learned just being very heavily in my masculine energy and just kind of judging myself. But it was getting back to that inner truth that I needed to find. There's so much power in that now that I feel, to the point where I don't feel that I can keep it to myself.

Marissa: I'd love that. What are some of the exercises or the things that they'll be doing when they join the society?

Joyce: Yeah. So in the first phase of any tier, it's around emotional grounding. Kind of getting to know your emotional landscape. This was something that was very important for me because, again, throughout this process, I recognized as much as I wanted to be unstuck, I didn't want to feel so trapped anymore. I also needed to feel better. Like I had these real moments of just feeling overwhelmed, and I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. And I needed something to get me out of that. I needed to understand why. So that first phase is really about understanding your emotional landscape, doing some deeper self-assessment, but also learning how to identify your own personal emotional wounds. How do you do this deeper reflection work? Because I remember how intimidating it was looking at a blank piece of paper. So my exercises are very guided for that reason. But also saying, This is just an example. This doesn't have to, you know, if you feel like you can write on a blank piece of paper, then you write. But here are some guides in case you need them. So it is very much like, I hesitate to call it handholding because I don't think it's handholding. It's just meeting them where they're at. And if they're not there, then go to that blank piece of paper, and more power to you for being a step ahead of where I was when I started this journey. So it's really about getting grounded and having that foundational piece that so many of us lose in the process of daily life. And then being able to dig into the why as we move into the next phase of work. What's underneath? Why do these things happen? What are the societal expectations that are masking us in our life? And how do we set different intentions for our life and start to live more authentically? Then, in phase three, it's about how do you live a life that sets your soul on fire? Where you don't want to escape from your life, and where you don't need to take a vacation. You take a vacation because you want to, not because you need to in order to get through the next week of work. I worked with a lot of women in therapy who said, I don't like my job anymore, but it's not okay to leave my job. So it's giving even that permission to say it's okay to align with your core values and your true path. It's okay to find that, and it's okay to do that. But before we get to that point, let's figure out why there's this underlying fear about who you might upset if you do that. If it's society, then forget it. Go take the other job because society will find someone else to focus on. But if it's your mom, or your sister, or your best friend, I'm going to help you find some other ways around that. Some work you can do to rewild that emotional landscape. So there are a lot of tangible tools, especially in the beginning, but then it becomes much deeper, very self-paced shadow work, with elements of intergenerational trauma and breaking those emotional patterns, and also those intergenerational cycles that we often see.

Marissa: So if you are someone who loves the idea of cycle-breaking, shadow work, and really digging deep into what aspects of your conditioning have contributed to a life that you feel disconnected from – Joyce said it can look great on paper, but do you feel it? How do you feel about the life you're living and actively taking action and making choices to come into alignment around those two things? That speaks to every part of me. I just love all of it.

Joyce: Yeah, I'm very excited. A lot of it for me is about making it more accessible and easier. Deep reflection can sound scary. It's like, You need to reflect on this and get to know yourself. Well, that sounds terrifying. I don't want to go in there. I'm pointing at my head. No one else can see me doing that on the podcast right now, but I know so many women who say, Well, I avoid going into my mind as much as I can. And I'm like, Exactly. And that's what we're here to help you with. Because there's nothing scary there. If anything, that's the key to understanding why you're feeling stuck. I lived in avoidance for a long time personally, so I know that to be true.

Marissa: For people who are interested in learning more about this, who know they have some shadow work to do, who are ready to have that courage we mentioned earlier, who are feeling brave and ready to step in and lean in, where do they go? How can they find out more?

Joyce: Yeah. So they can go to my website at rewildthecollective.com/waitlist. That will be where they can see the Feminine Rewilding Society, or they can follow me on Instagram at rewildwithJoyce. I tried to stay the same across platforms. Same with Facebook, it's rewildwithJoyce. TikTok was the only one that got me, and I had to put a little dash: rewild_Joyce. But those are the best places to find me. And if you just want to check out the Emotional Wounds Guide, it is rrewildthecollective.com/emotionalwounds-guide.

Marissa: Oh, I love all of that. I want to scoop it all up. Okay. So, Joyce, if people are listening right now and they're contemplating a side hustle, what do you have to say to them?

Joyce: Wholeheartedly, I say, Go do it. But it truly has been such a journey for me. I think about when I started listening to Empathy Rising back in 2018, and I was at that point just starting to think, I think I want to do private practice. I think I want to do online therapy. And that was when I realized I didn't really want to get away from therapy. But it was really through listening to your journey where I was like, Oh, I can do more. And then it was really through the program that I have to say I came full circle in my own deconstruction and rebirth of this person that I've become. I love everything that I've done here. I will not say that it was all easy. I definitely had those growing pains. But I feel very calm and aligned and just ready and excited for what's next.

Marissa: You guys can't see the smile on my face, but I'm like, Oh my God. It's just like, that is the coolest thing ever that you're just like, 'I'm just ready. I'm here. I have arrived. It is now time.' Oh, I love it. Awesome. Well, Joyce, thank you so much for being here. All of your links will be in the show notes, so people who are feeling called to you will be able to check all of that stuff out. So, thank you again.

Joyce: Thank you. I'm so excited.

Marissa: I love listening to Joyce because she's just, she is grounding. I love that part of her work in the world is to help people return to a calm nervous system and return to their inner truth. Because even just listening to her talk, she doesn't rush. She takes her time. That lovely lesson that she got from her dad speaks to me so much. It is integration, right? I feel like what Joyce shared with us today is integration of a new identity. People come to Side Hustle because they're time freedom motivated, revenue motivated, or because they're bored or burnt out in therapy. And they're searching for something new. But I think what Joyce really gave to us on this episode today was that she fully embraced this new identity. Side Hustle was a part of that journey. You'll have so much personal growth in this year. And so I love that part of Joyce's story. If you're feeling called to this, head on over to MarissaLawton.com/side-hustle, fill out your application, and then you'll hear from me shortly after. All right, guys, this has been really lovely chatting with you here. Until next time, keep on rising.