Angela Counsel – an educator supporting women to thrive in menopause

Meet Angela Counsel

I live in the Northern Beaches in Sydney in a house that overlooks Dee Why beach, I live with my husband and my 2 children – Izaac (18 years old) and Maddie (16 years old).

My biggest hobby is reading crime novels and when I am not reading crime I am watching it on television. Over the past few years, I have been doing a fair few craft workshops and I have fallen in love with fluid art. I love watching the free flow of the paint or alcohol ink over the canvas, never knowing how it will turn out until the piece is finished.

I also love walking in the bush and scrambling over rocks, I try to do this as often as I can. I am currently training to do a couple of big walks in 2021 (depending on how far we can travel).

What business are you currently running?

I currently support women as they move through menopause. I use my skills as a Naturopath, Kinesiologist, and Personalised Health Coach to do this.

Assuming you are now in “Your Next Chapter”, what led you here? Was there an internal discontent or an external issue you felt strongly about that prompted a change in direction?

I am in about my 4th next chapter. I left the corporate world when I was 40 to train to become a Naturopath and I also became a Mum for the first time as well. My first shift was due to a miscarriage at work and me realising that the high level of stress in my work was impacting my health. I wanted to learn more about how the body worked so I took time off to study to be a Naturopath and never went back to the corporate world.

Over the past 18 years of running my own business, I have made a few different pivots. From running a large successful multi-modality clinic to running my business online from home. I started out as a clinical Naturopath but now I see myself more as a life/health coach and educator as I help women learn more about their hormones and show them how it is possible to thrive in menopause. Over the years running my own business I have changed the business based on the clients that I worked with.

When I started out my children were toddlers and I worked with new Mums, as my children grew and went to school I then moved to work with Mums of toddlers… I have always been a few years ahead of my clients. I now work with women who are in menopause because I am now post-menopausal. I feel that my experience and understanding of the different stages of life is one of the gifts that I can bring my clients along with the many tools that I share with them.

What did you find most challenging about getting started/moving in a new direction?

I moved from running a clinic to running my clinic solely online at a time when there were no other practitioners doing what I was doing, in fact, our professional associations didn’t even have rules or guidelines around online clinics.

It is difficult because I didn’t really have any other businesses to model, I had to create everything as I went along. Then there was the challenge of getting clients to work with me online when they had only ever been to see me in a clinic. I also started running group programs, this was another thing that was virtually unheard of in my profession at the time. I remember being told once that I was a leader in my industry because of the different way that I was doing things.

At the time I didn’t feel that being a leader was a great thing because it was a very lonely place to be.

I had no one to talk to about the things I was doing, I was modelling my business on businesses that were in completely different industries to me and not everything worked as well for me as it did for them. Of course, things have changed now, particularly this year, with many practitioners working online and running group programs.

What have you found most fulfilling?

There have been some very big highs over the years. My first “baby”, that is the first time one of my clients had a baby after having worked with me. In fact, there are a few teenagers running around today who I helped bring into this world – that is pretty fulfilling. Now when I see the differences in the women who do my embrace program, many of them join the program to lose weight, and while they do that what they gain is a deeper knowledge and acceptance of who they are.

I love seeing how they are able to take what they have learned and continue to live healthy lives. These days I love the easier lifestyle that I have, I give myself space to spend time in nature and start the day off slowly.

Have you experienced self-doubt? What causes it to flare and how do you work through it when it hits?

I used to experience self-doubt most of the time but over the past couple of years, I have learned to let the doubt go. For many years I thought it was my job to ‘fix’ my clients and if they didn’t get better I thought it was my fault, that I had done something wrong. My self-doubt was very strong in the past.

These days it doesn’t really come up too much, I am pretty confident in what I know and I don’t see my role is to ‘fix’ people anymore, I simply educate and hold space.

I also know that not everyone will agree with what I teach or say, that’s okay with me. I don’t feel like I need to prove myself to anyone. Those who want to hear my message will, those who don’t will find someone else.

How do you feel you have grown since you started?

When I started my business I had a business degree as well as a health science degree.

I had done marketing as part of my business degree so I thought I knew exactly what it took to market and run a business –
all I had to do what follows the textbook! I was so wrong, they say that running your own business is the greatest lesson in self-development you can learn.

I have changed so much in the past 18 years. I know that I am a lot calmer now than I was even 5 years ago, I am more accepting of myself and I have a lot more confidence in who I am.

Have you developed any particular habits/strategies that facilitate getting things done in your business?

My latest strategy is yellow sticky notes all over the wall.

I put my ideas and things that need to be done on a sticky note and as I do them I throw the note away.

I am also doing a lot more project planning to keep me focused on what needs to be done.

Why do you feel women in the 40’s and beyond make fabulous entrepreneurs?

I think that they bring a lot of world experience and I know for me that because I was older when I went back to studying to learn a new profession I was more interested in what I was learning.

I had a reason to be learning all of these new things and in the past, I just did it to get a piece of paper at the end.

I also think that older women tend to be more resilient, they have been through tough times and survived. I mean anyone who can give birth and then survive the early childhood years can do anything!

What would you say to other women who are standing on the edge of their own Next Chapter, not sure if they can take the leap?

Treat it like an experiment, try it out to see if you like it. You don’t need to commit to starting an international business in the first 6 months.

Start slowly, ask for help, and if things don’t work out one way try something different.

These days it doesn’t take a lot of money to start a business, so why not try it and see what happens but don’t expect to be the next Richard Branson in your first year.

What’s next for you? Share your vision with us!

I have one child still at school, she has 2 years to go and once she has finished school I plan to move to the farm that my husband and I bought a few years ago.

We have 10 acres on the Gold Coast Hinterland. I have a vision of this farm being a place where women can come to be part of a community. They can come and stay for a short time or a longer time, everyone will contribute to the running of the farm.

I had a dream a couple of years ago that is still with me, in the dream I was sitting around a big fire with a circle of women who were laughing and talking. This is my vision, to create a place where the wise women can come and become part of a community.

 

When I’m facing a something new and challenging I…

learn more about it so that it doesn’t seem so challenging anymore

 

I know my greatest strengths are…
learning and sharing my knowledge

 

The best piece of advice I’ve ever been given is…
you might not be able to change the situation but you can always choose your reaction

 

Some of my favourite books are…
Any crime fiction

 

My favourite podcasts are…
At the moment I am binging Brene Brown but I listen to so many different podcasts it is hard to name a favourite

 

My favourite business tool or resource is…
Ontraport, just about everything in my business is run through Ontraport

 

My favourite quote is…
Never forget – you are strong, you are unique, you are determined, you are bold, you are enough

 

Not many people know that I…
Used to be a State Level Coach and Judge for Women’s Gymnastics in Qld

 

You can connect with Angela here.

Therese Bince

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