330 MINISODE Darla LeDoux: Power in the Present

Women Innovating Networking Growing Scaling – that’s WINGS … I’m Melinda Wittstock, my mission is to help women take flight and soar to success in business, with abundance in all areas of our lives, so on this mentoring Minisode of Wings of Inspired Business … I’m excited to talk about how to get into alignment with your true power and purpose, how to find your voice and stay anchored in the present moment where your power truly is, and much more.

Here with us today to provide some insights and inspiration is …

Darla LeDoux.

Darla is the founder of Aligned Entrepreneurs, helping thousands of business owners around the world discover the power of intimate retreats to transform their lives and build thriving businesses based on intuition, deep connection, and freedom. Author of Retreat and Grow Rich – rich being an acronym for right-brained, intuitive, connected and heart centered – Darla says she envisions a world in which regularly scheduled transformational experiences are the norm, not the exception.

Darla LeDoux is a business coach and leader of sold-out transformational retreats across the globe. In business since 2009 she’s generated millions of dollars in revenue, and supported hundreds of clients to align with their truth and maximize their profits. She believes that intimate retreats have the power to heal and transform beyond one-on-one work or information alone, and are precisely what’s needed in the world today.

She’s the CEO of Aligned Entrepreneurs and recognizing that her clients long for the same ease and deep transformation in their businesses that retreats provide, she went on to found Retreat and Grow Rich. Now Aligned Entrepreneurs is on a mission to make coaches, consultants, and healers wealthy from their deepest work with the transformational power of retreats.

Melinda Wittstock:         Darla, welcome to WINGS.

Darla LeDoux:                   Hi Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:         It’s so good to hear your voice. What’s inspiring you right now?

Darla LeDoux:                   Inspiring me right now, I just returned back from a retreat in Santa Fe, and what’s inspiring me is the courage that the women in the room had to really go within and look at the things inside them that are blocking them from putting themselves out there in business. Not just all of the stories that they tell themselves when they sit home behind their computer and watching what everyone else is doing and thinking, “I need to learn how to do those things,” but they’re really looking at, “What’s blocking me from actually being visible and being able to lead a retreat and own the room.”

Melinda Wittstock:         What are some of the biggest epiphanies, you know, some of those internal blocks that hold us back that you noticed there?

Darla LeDoux:                   Yeah, so our theme for the retreat was trust, and we actually looked at four trusts, trust in God, trust in self, trust in others, and trust in life. And what we found is, you know, it was pretty scattered between the group where the trust breakdowns were, but we explored this really interesting connection between trusting others and trusting ourselves. And there’s this whole place where, as you know as a business owner, to market yourself you have to put yourself out there and be seen and have something to say.

Darla LeDoux:                   And there is this breakdown where I don’t quite trust other people to fully get me or receive me, so let me hold back just a little bit. And what we found is that’s a real connection to trust in self, trusting ourselves in our own intuition, trusting ourselves to discern who to put ourselves in front of, all of that, so there was a really profound connection there.

Melinda Wittstock:         That is so intriguing, because I think women, often in business, go out and get credentialed, and credentialed, and educated, and all that sort of stuff, and it’s almost like putting a block in front of actually going out and building a business. And maybe that’s just that lack of trust in ourselves.

Darla LeDoux:                   Yes. We find that a lot, especially when people choose to host retreats, they’re really wanting to bring all the tools in their toolkit together. I know you maybe have this experience for your retreat that you’re hosting, and it’s a great way to be able to take all the different certifications, and business experience, and job experience, and bring it together into one offering, which is awesome.

Melinda Wittstock:         Thank you, because it really is about stepping into abundance in all areas of our lives, and that’s the theme of the retreat that I’m doing with my partner in this, Amy Stefanik, because women are so stuck, I think, in scarcity thinking. We’ve been acculturated that way and we sometimes play too small as a result, so what does abundance actually look like within our lives, like in an abundance of opportunity, of health, of wealth, of all of these things, of love, everything, but also creating abundance so we can lift each other. We’re not just scrapping for little scarce pieces of things, but we’re actually collaborating to lift each other. And so it’s interesting, though, to these retreats where you’re absolutely right. I mean, you bring together and cross-fertilize all these different things that you’ve learned along the way.

Darla LeDoux:                   My belief is until you get to a place where you’re doing something that you recognize you don’t have a skill for, don’t start getting certifications. Right? Start learning to work with clients and put yourself out there and invite them in, and if you find you’re missing a skill, go get it.

Melinda Wittstock:         Well, actually-

Darla LeDoux:                   You can get all the skills before, and it’s a smokescreen, right?

Melinda Wittstock:         Even better, if you don’t have a skill, hire it.

Darla LeDoux:                   Yeah. I love that.

Melinda Wittstock:         You don’t have to do it all yourself, and in fact, if you want to scale a business, you certainly must not be. So Darla, what are some of the things that are challenging you right now? Because I always want to de-stigmatize that. Business is challenging, and it’s okay to admit that, so what are some of the things that are challenging for you in your business?

Darla LeDoux:                   A challenge that I’ve really taken on for myself this year is I am a huge believer that Spirit, or I speak to it as Source, is guiding us, and we have been brought up in this culture. I’m a recovering engineer, so I used to work in corporate as an engineer, and spreadsheets and data were my friend, and I believe in really trusting Spirit to guide us, which happens in the moment and usually not 10 steps ahead.

Darla LeDoux:                   So for me, there’s been a challenge in transitioning from old way of running business, which is having a year-over-year plan, which I never was really great at by the way, Melinda, but I did it, to trusting Spirit to give me exactly what I need to market. For example, so in the realm of retreats, what is the date, and where is the location? And allow that inspiration to form how I show up in my marketing as opposed to the other way around.

Melinda Wittstock:         Darla, I love that. I love that you’re opening yourself up to inspiration. I think that is really the best way to go. The more we become sort of instruments of some other higher power and get out of our own way and apart from our egos, you know, the better we do actually in business, and I think that’s true for everyone, but especially women. So what are your top three go-to pieces of advice for women in business?

Darla LeDoux:                   I always start with alignment. Alignment first would be my first piece of advice, and that means what you’re doing and what you’re saying and who you’re being all line up, so there’s no disconnect when people hear your message, or you know, get exposed to your offerings. It really is coming from what’s true for you, as opposed to setting aside your power to follow or model what someone else is doing. That inner alignment, to me, is what makes it sustainable, is what makes you get up every day. This is my 10th year in business, get up every day and actually want to do the work you do, so alignment first would be my first piece of advice.

Darla LeDoux:                   If anyone’s resonating with what I’m talking about around really letting Spirit guide us to do the work on this planet that needs to be done, then I would say that the advice for that person is embodiment and really practicing feeling and being in your body, using all of your senses to be able to pick up queues. And yeah, the more I’ve gotten tuned in to that I’m a spiritual being in a physical body, which I … As an engineer I could disconnect really easily and stay in my head, the easier and the more delicious life has become, so that would be my second piece.

Darla LeDoux:                   And then the third is, you know, what we focus on grows, so where we put our energy is what we grow, and it’s practical like taking action in the world, and it’s also energetic. The things we think about and the things we focus on grow.

Melinda Wittstock:         So I know you host these amazing retreats, Darla, and I want you to be able to give a shout-out for your next one, and also tell people how they can find you and work with you.

Darla LeDoux:                   Thank you. Yes, our next retreat is happening May 22nd to 24th in Dana Point, California, and you can find that at RetreatandGrowRich.com/Retreat, and it’s really focused on how to use transformational retreats to amplify your message in the world and to make more money. When people go on this journey of transformation, they actually are willing to invest more in the journey when they know they’re going to come out being different and feeling different.

Darla LeDoux:                   We have a Facebook page, Aligned Entrepreneurs, and I have a free quiz, RetreatLeaderQuiz.com, that if folks are interested in hosting retreats, they can get a sense of what their retreat leader archetype is, which affects everything. How do you form your agenda? How much content do you have or not have? Some of the biggest barriers people run into is when they have so much more content than they need.

Melinda Wittstock:         Oh, yes. Oh, god. I’ve been to so many events like that where there’s no white space and there’s no chance to connect with everybody, so having the confidence to actually create white space is a major challenge, I think, for a lot of people running events and conferences and retreats.

Darla LeDoux:                   That’s a great titles, Confidence to Create White Space. I love it.

Melinda Wittstock:         There’s lots of white space in mine, I tell you, because it’s like one of those things that I’ve suffered through, especially if you’re an introvert and you just need to have a little bit of downtime to kind of actually get away and integrate all the stuff you’re learning. Darla, thank you so much for putting on your WINGS and flying with us today.

Darla LeDoux:                   Thank you, Melinda.