Em (00:00.719)
Welcome Karen to the show. Thank you so much for being

Karen Kissane (00:02.52)
Yep.

Karen Kissane (00:07.16)
Hi Emily, thank you, excited?

Em (00:09.393)
Yes, and we were just discussing how hot it is in France right now. Yeah, we're melting. Yeah, me too. So sorry guys, if you can hear the fan, that is what you can hear right now. But we spent half of the year, because we're both British, complaining about the weather. it's good. Me too.

Karen Kissane (00:13.71)
think it's like 40 degrees outside and I'm so hot. I've got a fan going as well.

Karen Kissane (00:29.036)
I love the sun, I love the heat actually. I don't complain about it at all, it. One of the reasons I moved to France.

Em (00:33.104)
Yep.

Same, exactly. Like I could not have moved back to the UK. Like many people listening to this podcast know the story of coming from Saigon to France and France was the option because of the weather. Like I could not have gone back to the north of England. So yeah.

Karen Kissane (00:49.045)
That's that.

Em (00:49.902)
Yes, but anyway, I wanted to bring Karen on because Karen has been such a huge support and we met each other maybe the start of the year, I think on Instagram. And I've been following Karen for ages and all of her amazing social content and her emails. And then I went on to her website and I was like, wow, this is legit and dialed in. And I wish my website was like this. And then I went on to join her group, Thrive, and it's been the most amazing support and amazing help.

get so much time with you in the groups. It's amazing. And you've really, really helped me, especially with all the projects that I'm working on. And so I wanted to just bring you on because I want other people to experience you as well and experience the current magic. yeah. And I really want to know, what brought you into this space? Why are you helping so many people? What's the drive?

Karen Kissane (01:36.012)
Thank you.

Karen Kissane (01:47.096)
I'm gonna answer that question in just a second, but I wanna say thank you for stepping in and you're thanking me, but actually I should be thanking you because you're the one who became my client, so thank you. I really appreciate that little big up there. What brought me into the work and the world that I'm in now?

To a lot of people, it seems a little bit convoluted and a little bit kind of full of twists and turns, but it isn't. It's actually pretty straightforward and pretty streamlined when you kind of really look at it and break it down.

So I'm a scientist, I like solving problems, I have an analytical solution focused mind and obviously that's pretty good when it comes to being a business coach because lots of people's businesses are littered with problems and people pay me to help solve their problems. So that's a really good basis for what I'm doing now.

When I set off on my career, I didn't plan to run my own business. It kind of happened by chance. But what I would say is it was very much the scenario of when your worst day turns out to be your best day. And for anyone who's listening to that feeling like, there's such a lot going on, it's really, really hard. It's like sometimes that needs to happen in order to catapult you into a completely different place. And that's exactly what happened with me. I had a corporate job. I was a sales trainer and

technical.

Karen Kissane (03:12.686)
product specialist in a great company. I looked after really high tech, high value instrumentation. I was based from home. had like the company car. had the flexibility of driving to people's workplaces, which were kind of labs and things all across the Southeast of the UK and do demonstrations. I loved what I did. I love my job. I never wanted to leave my job. Then I had my son, had some maternity leave, went back to work after my maternity leave and my goodness, experienced the worst. I mean, clearly

not the worst, but really bad maternity discrimination. And honestly, Emily, at that moment, I remember like it was yesterday, it was so vivid still in my mind because it was such a tipping point and a turning point for where I was at that point and where I am now. And at that moment in time, I vowed I would never work for anyone else ever again. There was no way I was going to line someone else's pockets when I could build my own business and take all of the things.

that I'd learned over those many years of building my career and apply them to my own business. And that's exactly what I did.

Em (04:21.266)
Amazing. They always say don't they

before the breakthrough comes a breakdown, like something has to happen. We have to be catapulted forward. And I think I'm very sorry that you had to go through this. I think quite a few women listening to this who have had children or are planning to have children are also concerned about this, especially if they're in the US. The US has, I mean, the UK isn't great, but the US is even worse. And so this is something that's always on their mind. And I think it's very interesting because actually people pick the corporate route to help them on this

journey to motherhood to make sure they've got the benefits and stuff and I think that's why people get stuck. They feel like they have to keep living in someone else's box, lining someone else's pockets, being away someone else wants them to be and it just keeps them stuck for the rest of their lives if they're not careful. And so it usually takes this kind of like horrible situation that becomes a blessing eventually to get you out of that.

Karen Kissane (05:20.43)
Well, I think

I can see how this applies across a lot of different levels, including in business as well. Now I work with a lot of people who feel like they are at their wit's end in their business. They want to burn their business to the ground. They did a launch and it failed or something terrible happened. it's like sometimes it has to be really bad in order to create the change. Because if it never gets really bad, then you never really make the change.

Like, yeah, how can we take this and learn from it? And this thing about being in a corporate role is exactly right. People think it's secure. People feel like they're safe and secure in a corporate role. But honestly, the most secure thing you can do is be in charge of your own destiny. And like, how many people get made redundant? How many people don't get pay rises? How many people work their butt off?

for no real gain year on year. I think people need to really shift their thinking around this. This is actually about you taking control and ownership of your own life. You're the best investment you can ever make.

Em (06:31.525)
Exactly.

That safety, like fake safety is what keeps people playing small. And we talk about this quite a lot actually in Thrive. And I think I had a bit of a breakthrough a while ago because of a Thrive call actually. And it was around, I'm playing small. I'm not taking risks. I'm just like doing things that I might not work. like I even caught myself doing it a while ago when I was looking at podcasts that I wanted to speak on. I thought I can't possibly apply to them. Yes, you can. Go, do

And I think you're really good at seeing the best in people and giving people the confidence to just kind of take the next step. And you actually say something great, which is like, just take the next step. Like the next, what is it you say? Like the next average step or something. I can't remember what you say.

Karen Kissane (07:03.0)
Not yet.

Karen Kissane (07:19.82)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, what a lot of people do is they create catastrophes in their mind and they go, well, this is what I want to do. my God, there's all of these steps between where I am now and where I want to get to.

And the best way to take action is to break it down. What is the next actionable step? Okay, what's the step after that? What's the step after that? And there's a saying, it's not my saying at all, but I love it, which is you don't need to see the whole staircase to take the first step. And I think that's what people do is they need visibility and clarity on everything. And I think that the visibility, clarity and confidence comes from actually doing the thing rather than thinking about doing the thing.

Em (08:03.854)
Definitely. do you think that that's like, did you apply that when you were first kind of stepping into business? Like what, apart from the situation at work, what did it take for you to step forward and be like, I can just do this. Like I'm able to lead myself into a business and build it myself.

Karen Kissane (08:21.696)
Yeah, this is a really interesting question. It's something that I talk about quite a lot. I'm a scientist, as we've already said, and I have a really experimental mindset when it comes to my business. And I believe that anyone starting out needs to have an experimental mindset. I'm going to tell you what I mean by that in just a second.

I don't think that people who are trying to scale their businesses should have an experimental mindset. It tips. So if you're trying to get a business off the ground, if you just put in yourself out there, if you've got an idea and you don't know if it's a great idea and you haven't got a proven concept, and you haven't got clients and you haven't got things that actually people are buying, and I mean, maybe you have, but a little bit, but what I'm saying is if you haven't reached that kind of snowball rolling down the hill kind of feeling in your business,

And the best thing that you can do is have an experimental mindset. Okay, what shall I try? What's my idea? Okay, well, if I put it out there, how can I learn from that? How can I build on it? Okay, well, that worked, great. I'm gonna do more of it. Hmm, that didn't work. Right, what do I learn from this? What do I need to change? Shall I stop it? And people don't have this. They wait for perfection and they put stuff out there that takes so much.

time and energy and then they don't even know if it's going to work because you don't until you put it out there. It's like if someone wants to do an online course, I know people who spend six months creating an online course that no one wants to buy.

Em (09:56.651)
Yeah.

Karen Kissane (09:57.26)
No, don't put it out there ask people. Hey, I think about doing this. Is this something that would be useful for you? can we jump on a call? I'd love to get your ideas and you know, I'll give you I'll give you a beta test version when it's ready. You know, it's just that kind of like letting go of the need to have everything done because you can't have everything done. So that's this experimental mindset really helped me when I started my business. But there reaches a point where you go through the stages of business and

I talk about the three stages, like the starting up, which is like all of this stuff. And then there's that kind of messy middle phase where you're like, I need to do things in a different way.

And when you're trying to get from the messy middle phase to the scaling phase, you can't have an experimental mindset. It's the opposite of that. It's like, I'm going to put a lid on all of these ideas now because I, at this point, know what works. I'm making good money from it and I want to scale this thing that's working. And I think a lot of people make a mistake at the scaling stage where they just keep churning out more ideas, more content, and they never scale anything.

Em (11:04.69)
Mm -hmm.

I see this all the time. In fact, I did this as well. I still make these mistakes all the time because I'm in the start stage. If we apply it to you, because a lot of the people who listen are in emerging tech and fintech, and they're building tech products. You also have a tech product, techsas, and we can talk about that in a bit because it'll be very relevant. But what I see in MySpace is people have an idea, they build it, they get VC funding, then they try to take it to market and they don't have PMF, they don't have

market fit and then they are responsible to get this money back to investors. They have pressure, they make decisions they don't want to make and then they end up with a business that they didn't even want to

Karen Kissane (11:46.882)
Yeah.

Em (11:47.494)
and it's a mess and this happens again and again and you can't develop as a leader when you're constantly in like stress mode like what's the word fight or flight you're constantly like this is not going to work this is not going to work I'm now responsible for all this money and it happens time and time again especially some of the male listeners who because you might know about the stats but it's very skewed when it comes to female investment getting investment as women is a lot harder than it is for men and so we see lots of male founded businesses with a lot

VC funding doing not a lot of stuff. And it's very frustrating as a woman who's building because you're like, I my product, actually has product market fit. I have like, like you, you had a pool of people who wanted a product. So I would love to know more about like how you found product market fit first and how you started, you use that to kind of build, build your own thing.

Karen Kissane (12:20.088)
Yeah.

Karen Kissane (12:31.137)
Yep.

Karen Kissane (12:39.886)
It's all about solving an expensive problem. Is the problem you're solving an expensive enough problem? Is it a problem that people will pay to solve? And for me, it's about demand. I've got lots of models and frameworks with how I work with my clients. You'll have been exposed to many of them already, but one of them is a lot like icky guy, which is what do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need?

and what will people pay for? What can you monetize? And honestly think that if you apply those four pillars, principles to the work that you do, as long as you're solving a problem, like what can you monetize? What will people pay for? What does the world need? Those two things coming together, then market fit will happen. I think people go off tangent, off course, when they build something.

that they haven't validated, that they don't know people actually want and need, and they build something for themselves rather than build it for their target audience. I see this a lot. It's like, don't build what you want, build what your audience wants. It might not be the same thing, and if you're not sure, you've got to ask them.

Em (13:56.869)
Yeah, I see this step skipped very often. Like I was really fortunate when coming into building my own business because that was what I was exposed to, like product market fit. I was a product marketer at the end of the day. And it's very interesting to see people put products out there and they haven't even had a discussion with anybody who's going to use it yet. It's really interesting and it happens a lot. What was the process for you? Like how did you, like, and we go enough on one as always, I always do this podcast, but

Karen Kissane (14:16.984)
Yeah.

Em (14:26.756)
What happened? What was the catalyst for you to be like, actually this is a cool idea and I should invest in a team to build this, developers get it all sorted. What was that looking like?

Karen Kissane (14:37.838)
Yeah.

I hired my first team member really early in my business. I didn't need to, not stupidly early because she helped me. But I went to a networking meeting really early on in my business as a lot of people who start off in businesses do. Okay, I'm going to go networking. I'm not a fan of networking and haven't been since. But I went to this networking meeting in the town that I lived in and I just happened to be on a table with someone who said they were a VA.

and we had a conversation, I think we probably even sitting next to each other. I was like, what kinds of things do you do? And she's like, well, I help my clients with this and this. And I was like, And instantly I was like, click. I can see how if I pay you this much money, this frees up my time to be able to do other things in my business. I needed no convincing of that at all. And so was like, do you want to come and do some work for me then? Because there's some things that I'm just not getting around to doing and you could, by the sounds of our conversation, do these and take them off my plate. And she was like, yeah.

And so that was literally like week two or something of my business. But it was smart to do that. It was really smart to do that because it gave me some of my time back. I think she did like 15 hours a month or 10 hours a month or something, so not that much.

I think that this is what happens a lot with team and hiring people is people love the idea of building a team because it makes them feel like their business is doing really, really well. I think that there's such a thing, especially in the online space where people are like, I'm building a really big team and I've got all of these people. I I think people do that, but the smart way to look at it, that might've been smart a couple of years ago.

Karen Kissane (16:26.648)
But I think that what's much smarter is to automate first and outsource second. So let's not even outsource, let's only outsource what can't be automated. And that's what I think is super cool about my own tech platform, which is an automations platform and leveraging AI, leveraging automations, leveraging tech. You don't need as many people in your team as you maybe once did. Now.

We can't replace humans and there's a lot of human input that can't be replaced. But what I say is like, what are the things that only humans can do? And what are the things that humans are doing currently that they don't need to be doing? So automation could do. And when I work with my clients, we can massively reduce their team costs by just applying that logic and that thinking.

Em (17:17.642)
Yeah, that's incredible. And it's also been my own experience, but it was really difficult to experience that. when I, for example, when I had a marketing team, it was figuring out, okay, who do we need to bring on? We've got this budget. We have to spend this budget on XYZ. I would love to know your process, especially the one that you take clients through for...

understanding where to start outsourcing and building teams, even if they've got like, for example, lot of my clients have got tech businesses and financial investment businesses. They feel like they have to build a team, like otherwise they're not successful, otherwise they're not growing. Where would you advise that they start with this?

Karen Kissane (17:57.784)
Yeah, I have an exercise that I take my clients through called the workhorse and the show pony. It really is called the workhorse and the show pony. And as the name suggests, where are you being the workhorse and where should you be the show pony? You have to be the show pony in your business. You have to do the stuff that people, other people can't do, that only you can do. But actually what happens time and time again is people end up being the workhorse. So the exercise is...

I mean, this could be on a big bit of paper with a marker pen. This could be on a Trello board, which is where my first version of this came from, whatever system that people use, but essentially it's three columns. What are your $10 tasks? What are your $100 tasks? And what are your $10 ,000 tasks? So what I mean is, what's the really basic stuff that...

you find yourself doing in your business that has very little value attached to it.

write it all down in that first column. Okay, so what are the other things that you're doing which, you know, a little bit more important, a little bit more valuable, but still, they don't have a big kind of price tag around it because it's not gonna move the needle that much in your business, i .e. you don't have to be the person doing them. And then what are the thousand or 10 ,000, 100 ,000 dollar tasks that you have to be doing? So this might be seeking out new opportunities, this might be doing live streams or doing interviews or

collaborating, it might be doing the visionary work, like doing the planning, tapping into the purpose, doing the icky guy stuff that we talked about.

Karen Kissane (19:36.834)
There are things in businesses that only the business owner or entrepreneur or visionary can do. And there are things in business that can be outsourced or automated. And so that what I do with my clients is say three columns, track a week or track a month. And then let's have a conversation and let's see what we can do with this column and this column to free up your time so that you're focusing on this column. Cause that's where people have to spend their time in this right most column.

But they don't because what happens is people do columns one and two and they don't have enough time left in their diary every single week to focus on the really important stuff which is why often businesses don't grow.

Em (20:19.08)
Yep, 100%. That's actually what I've witnessed.

with lot of my clients who are like in team clients who are just executing. They cannot move out of this role of executing. Usually there's some kind of belief behind it and some kind of fear, but having this kind of exercise is gonna be so useful for them. Even if they're not the one bringing in the revenue, for example, some of them are not business owners, they're able to put this into a different context. Okay, so what's gonna give us the biggest output? What's gonna help us get to this KPI quicker, right? That's very useful. Thank you so

Karen Kissane (20:49.496)
Yeah.

Em (20:52.762)
for sharing. It's amazing. And I would also love to speak to you about what kind of systems do you have in place that keep this running smoothly? So you've got how many people do you have on your team now?

Karen Kissane (20:54.03)
Pleasure.

Karen Kissane (21:06.946)
There's four of us.

Em (21:08.69)
for. Is that just in because you've got your two different businesses? Do you split people over both businesses? Yeah.

Karen Kissane (21:13.79)
actually no, there's more. So I have two businesses. I have a tech platform called CoachSpace, which we'll rebrand soon to ExpertSpace. I have fantastic tech manager in that platform, Hugh is incredible and he works for us almost full time.

I can breathe a really big sigh of relief that all of the tech is taken care of. So he's amazing. In my coaching and mentoring business, we have my VA, we have...

an almost full -time marketing operations person, that's Jen, and Ariane's the VA, and have someone in the team called Amy who supports with Facebook ads and running some of the kind of data behind the scenes. Of course, both of

businesses dovetail. I Tim is doing the stuff in the tech platform, but actually there's a lot of overlap and Tim could come over here a little bit and the others could. So in the future, I think what will happen is they'll just kind of merge a little bit more as well. I used to have way more people in my team and over the years I've actually got rid of people.

just because I've realized that there's smarter ways to run my business. don't need that person and that person and that person. I just need to be able to run a slicker operation that puts tech at my fingertips. I think what's also really interesting, I've definitely caught myself in this trap, and let me know if you have, Emily, is that sometimes we hire people.

Karen Kissane (23:04.918)
to avoid doing the work that we need to do ourselves. So it's almost like a destination. It's like, don't want to do that. Who can I pay to help me or who can I pay to do it? But of course, what sometimes happens is they

Em (23:08.978)
Yeah.

Karen Kissane (23:19.65)
do it to the standard you need, because actually it's you who should be doing it, not someone else, because you're the leader of the business. And so you end up doing it yourself often, and you didn't need to pay the money for the person, and it was just actually a really big procrastination job that you were putting on yourself.

Em (23:35.202)
That's a huge point, really. So many people will see that in themselves.

I definitely have gone through that process recently. I've actually heavily reduced the time that I'm working with other people on my team. used to have five people working with me, especially on the podcast, the VA, especially when I was doing lots of other B2B contracts. And I just felt like I had no time even for scheduling. I have time for scheduling. I have a bloody automation to schedule everything for me. And so I came to that realization, like I'm actually just procrastinating. Like I could sit down and do this in

20 minutes. was just, yeah, and it's such a, it's a huge thing. And I think it's really interesting. Like if you look at people who've built big teams and there's, always give it like a marketing example, cause that was my world. they bring in a CMO really early and then the CMO comes in and they're like, I'm a CMO. Like, what do you expect me to do? I'm here to do strategy. Now we need to hire all these people. But what they could have just done is like hired a social media manager to start off with. And they just spend so much money at the start and wonder,

Karen Kissane (24:11.554)
Yeah.

Em (24:40.429)
why they're not moving forward.

Karen Kissane (24:42.712)
Yeah, well it can be really dangerous on your cash flow to spend too much on a team at the very early stages as well. It's a catch -22, you think the team will enable you to go faster, but what it does is it often swallows up the cash flow in a business, which limits growth in itself anyway, so there's a balance to be had for sure.

Em (25:06.436)
100%. And I really wanted to speak to you because you're talking about this all the time at the moment and it's my topic. I love this topic. And it's very much the topic of energy, biohacking, being your best self, making sure that you're showing up as a strong leader. Where did that all come about? When did you start really focusing in on this?

Karen Kissane (25:27.192)
Well, I had a massive realization some time ago that, what am I doing in business? I'm helping people from a strategic perspective to...

leverage and simplify, know their business, figure out what works, do more of it, stop doing the things that don't work. It's all about driving profitability. It's all about getting the best out of your business from a strategic perspective. These are the foundations, the fundamentals that all businesses need to understand is leverage and simplicity is going to get you there way, way quicker. What do you need to do in your business to get the best results or your career, I guess?

And we can only do that when we measure and we have data and we make data driven decisions. I use the phrase a lot, what gets measured gets improved. If you're not measuring stuff, how do you even know whether to improve it? How do you even know what to do or to change? don't. So I've been talking about this for eons in business. But then what I started doing is becoming really interested in

my own longevity, my own personal wellbeing, my own performance, how can I operate at the highest level and what do I need to do to get the best out of myself so that I can run my businesses at the highest level?

this massive realisation that what I was really becoming interested in for myself was already what I was doing in business. And this is where the whole kind of biohacking business, merging business and biohacking comes. So biohacking has knocked on my door through a variety of different routes. Number one, the parallels and the massive synergies with what I'm already doing in business.

Karen Kissane (27:20.278)
and the need for data and the need to optimize. But also, I'm just conscious that I'm getting older. don't, I'm the breadwinner of the family. My businesses support everything. And when we moved to France, my husband was able to quit his really stressful job as a partner in a business.

You know, I need to look after myself. I need to be able to do what I have to do pretty much every day. I don't want to have brain fog. I don't want to start to feel fatigue like a lot of women my age start to talk about. I'm like, I don't want any of that. What do I need to do to make sure or to at least to the best of my ability to stop that from happening?

We can take so much responsibility for our own lives. And I have a bit of a thing with personal responsibility. It's very easy for people to go, well, there's nothing you can do. It's going to happen anyway. I actually say, no, that's not true. There's a lot you can do. I'm really big on personal responsibility and ownership. so that was happening at the same time. I was like, well, how do I continue to feel amazing? I'm a high energy person. Lots of people say to me,

your energy Karen, you know.

that's why I'm working with you or whatever. I meet people for the first time and they're like, wow, I really like your energy. And I realized that my energy is my most important currency and my energy is what actually translates into my business success. So there is nothing that I will risk my energy for. And that's really the story. so I'm just like, okay, so the business parallels, they're getting older, the scientist in me, because of course what biohacking is, like,

Karen Kissane (29:07.657)
biology, it's like understanding yourself on deeply personal level. So just feel like I've full circle and I'm like all of these things, it's like a massive amount of stars aligning in one place.

Em (29:18.681)
Thank you so much for sharing. The biohacking piece is essential. Like you said.

People can accept their reality or they can take responsibility for it. And the mass population just accept their reality and they just float through life and they just think that everything happens to them. When really we create our reality and what we put into ourselves is what is reflected on the outside. And it's no wonder that you attract similar people into Thrive for example. Like everyone in Thrive is like boom, boom, boom, boom, pow, loving it. And we vibrate off each other and it creates an amazing result, right?

Karen Kissane (29:56.098)
Bye.

Em (29:57.75)
And when people meet you, your energy is contagious like it is. We impact mass. so not to go too, we'll go down the quantum field route. having this is a secret key to success. And I think.

having the awareness that everybody can actually harness this, like everybody here is like intuition, everyone is intuitive. If you know how to use it, if you don't know how to use it, it's like crazy theory that is up in the air. But with biohacking, what is it that you first started focusing on?

Karen Kissane (30:37.998)
Well, I've been doing a lot of these things for a long time without necessarily realizing it was biohacking. I think there's a lot of people misunderstand what biohacking is. And there's a huge education piece that we need to do around what biohacking is and how it actually helps people. Biohacking isn't just pumping yourself of wacky supplements and walking around with a drip in your arm. Like people think that that's what biohacking is.

It's about many things. It's all of the mind, body, energy, spiritual, all of the things that you can do that shift and create an incremental change to how you think, how you feel, how you perform, how you act.

So the very first things that I was doing that, you know, I didn't really use the word biohacking, yoga, meditation, self -awareness, like listening to, you know, my inner voice, being able to like calm myself down, all of those things, which are really powerful skills to have for anyone and also form part of like getting the best out of yourself and therefore biohacking. What I then...

really enjoy doing is the cold water therapy. So I started realizing that if I got myself immersed in cold water in the morning, I'd feel great for the rest of the day. I mean, I feel pretty good anyway on most days, but that gave me an edge and we all need to find our edge. So I'm fortunate enough to have a swimming pool. I know not everyone has a swimming pool, but everyone can get.

themselves under some form of cold water every morning if they wanted to, like the whole concept of the cold shower. I've been going in my freezing cold swimming pool every day this year. So that's seven months now, give or take a few where I've been traveling and I haven't been able to do that. Even in February when it's freezing cold outside, bizarrely on a really, really hot day, it feels colder getting in it because of the temperature differential.

Em (32:54.034)
Interesting. Yeah.

Karen Kissane (32:57.558)
So I was doing that and I don't go into swim. I mean, sometimes I swim, but I go in just for the cold exposure and it doesn't take long. You don't need to be in for very long, just minutes. And so it doesn't even take anything out of your day. And so I go in and then what I realized, what I started bolting on top of that was breathing exercises.

because I realized that, Jesus, it feels really cold going in. How can I kind of manage this process internally? So I started getting into breath work. And so now when I go in, I use breath work and instantly relaxes me and I don't feel the cold like I used to, partly because I've got used to it, but partly because I'm controlling that within me. I also like heat exposure as well. So I use heat exposure too.

I do intermittent fasting and I love it because it makes me feel really, really sharp and it's known, fasting is known. I mean, as a woman, you've got to be really careful with your cycles and you've got to kind of read up on it and make sure that you're doing it in the right way. But it's not rocket science. Fasting is really, really good for getting rid of...

like the dead cells, the rubbish in your system that your body doesn't need. It's a process called autophagy. And I mean, you've got to fast for quite a long time for that to kick in, but even doing an overnight fast can help you. There's lots of things I do. I take some supplements. I've got right up here next to me, I've got Lion's Mane supplement, Lion's Mane mushroom, Chagamushroom, Reishi as well, all part of the mushroom family.

Em (34:19.195)
Mm -hmm.

Karen Kissane (34:45.262)
Rashi is really good

blitzing stress and boosting mood. I really, really like it. Lion's mane is really good for cognitive ability. mean, this stuff's proven. Chagr is really great for the immune system and inflammation. You know, it's not, I'm not measuring pills out every day. I'm just like, I'm going to put a spoonful of that in my coffee. So it's a combination of factors. There's more I do as well, but kind of on a daily basis, it's kind of mostly, you know, those and probably some other things that I haven't even mentioned.

Em (35:17.796)
Yeah, it's,

You've created a ritual that works for you, right? And the key here is you can create whatever ritual works for you, whatever the focus is. And for you, the focus is very much on being sharp, focused, energized, feeling your best self. And some people would just be like, I just want to feel like excited or a bit energized today. Like that would be a great first step. it's like, take all these things that Karen is saying and maybe try one, right? Try something today and see how it works for you. Cold exposure.

It's cold water exposure. I did a full month last year of cold baths because it was just so bloody hot here. And I ran a cold bath the other day, I'm not even joking. I was just like, nah, nah, I'm not doing it today. I was like, I'm not doing it today. But yeah, breath work is something that

Karen Kissane (36:02.934)
not hot enough.

Em (36:10.564)
so beneficial at getting you through any kind of difficult situation. It helps to reground you, resend to you. Is there a type of breath work that you use? Are you like down the Wim Hof route? Do you do your own kind of breathing? How does it work for you?

Karen Kissane (36:24.46)
Yeah, I mix it up actually. Wim Hof's good. We've done some Wim Hof.

called IceBaths on my retreats and so definitely connected and tapped into Wim Hof breathing techniques. I have this great app on my phone with some people that I connected at a Biohackers retreat. He's a Wim Hof guy, he's really great. His name's Lee Ewan and he has this Patreon.

The thing that I download and there's just loads of things on there which are really, really good in terms of breath work as well. Meditative breath work, different types. His company is called Inspire Ecstatic and I've got that on Patreon. He's got Patreon. It's a bit of a plug of him. Yeah.

Em (37:03.701)
Ew.

Em (37:12.811)
I'm gonna make a note of this. Yeah, let's plug in. Honestly, everybody asks me like, what is the best meditation app? What's the best breath work? And I'm like, really depends on what you like. So great one. Inspire, what was the last name?

Karen Kissane (37:23.33)
Yeah.

Inspire Ecstatic.

Em (37:27.494)
ecstatic so we'll put that in the show notes as well. Honestly everybody, I need to do this meditation. I record meditations and breath work but only when it comes to somatic practice and resilience and so everyone is like always looking to expand and not everyone's woo. Some people want like the biological stuff and this stuff focused on the body and energy. Yeah.

Karen Kissane (37:31.298)
Yeah.

Karen Kissane (37:47.704)
Yeah.

It's interesting. I think the science behind it really fascinates me. Obviously being a scientist, it's like when you... So there's two sides. I mean, if we just take breath work, it's the, this is making me feel really good. I can feel it in my body. Like when I go into the cold pool and it's freezing and I do the breath work, I can feel how my body is coping with that cold.

But it's actually from on a scientific level, from a scientific perspective, like what's actually happening in the body as well. think that's really fascinating too. It's very easy to think that it's not linked to science or I mean, breast work obviously is, but there's a lot of biohacking, which I think people would be like, but there's no scientific basis to that. And I'm like, no, that's the point. There is a scientific basis to it.

Em (38:36.031)
There is. There's so many. Like I even get my clients to buy biofeedback tools like Auraring or the Weep. Do you use one of them? Yeah. Auraring. It's amazing.

Karen Kissane (38:44.931)
yeah, or a ring as well of course. gets measured gets improved.

Em (38:50.033)
Exactly. when it comes to stress, like HRV, you'll know is like a huge marker of stress. And when you can see that increase in like one of my clients texted me yesterday and said she was on vacation for like three weeks. And she said, isn't it weird? Like my HRV is so much higher. And I was like, it's not weird. It's this is what I would expect and learn. Like put a pin in this and remember what was happening. What have you experienced when it comes to like, now you've introduced all this stuff and I know you've been doing it a while, but do you track it and do you try and

compete with yourself with your HIV and your recovery for example.

Karen Kissane (39:25.442)
Do I try and compete? No, I don't try and compete. But I look at my stats every day and I think, hmm, this is something I need to shift today or something I need to do differently today. So I look at it just with a curious mind as opposed to a competitive mind. I could gamify it, couldn't I?

Em (39:43.626)
Me and my husband do this, that's why I said compete. He's like, what's your recovery today? We need to sleep more tonight.

Karen Kissane (39:49.58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if I was doing it with someone else, if my husband was doing the same, then maybe there would be some competition there. I think it's really cool.

Em (40:00.319)
Yeah.

Karen Kissane (40:06.062)
I was away in Bordeaux last week and I had a lot of walking last week, way more walking than I would usually do. And I did over 100 kilometers between Monday and Friday last week in Bordeaux. I felt that in my body in a really good positive way. I could feel the benefit of that exercise.

Em (40:19.048)
Wow.

Karen Kissane (40:26.998)
I felt it before I knew it. So my, my, my aura app told me because I checked, cause I thought, I wonder what I've walked this week. Cause I really feel, you'll know what I mean. I supple and slick and flowy when, when I've done it, when I've done a really good level of exercise. So I use it for that really more of a, right, okay, this is good. What's not so good. I'll shift this. I'll keep this going.

Em (40:44.262)
Mm -hmm.

Em (40:56.412)
Love it. Yeah. Putting pins in things. Like I always say to people like, just pin that. Just remember, make a note. You mentioned flow there and that just gave me an idea. What is happening in your life to help you feel like you are flowing, like that you're creative in your best self? What does that look like for you?

Karen Kissane (41:16.334)
Yeah, okay. Firstly, it involves sleep. I don't need loads of sleep, but I need a good amount of sleep. And I'm okay if I don't have a good night's sleep one night, but if that continues for two nights or three nights, then that impacts my creativity. I know that I work best in the mornings. So this

Again, knowing yourself. I had a conversation with a client about this earlier today. When do you have to do your, when can you do your best work? What do you know about yourself? Do you do your best work in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings? When you can leverage that, then that's really, beneficial in business or whatever we do. I need to be around people. So people inspire me. People give me energy.

I don't know if that means therefore by default I'm an extrovert because I don't know if I... I know people give me energy but at the same time I like my downtime and my quiet time as well.

So sometimes people say to me, gosh, you've just done a retreat, you must be exhausted. And I'm like, it's the opposite of that. I'm high as a kite. I bounce off people's energy and it feeds me, it fills me up to a point. And then of course, you know, enough's enough.

I find that fasting helps me find my creative edge. I'm in flow when I'm not overloaded with a really full belly, feeling like I've overeaten or...

Karen Kissane (42:54.542)
feeling full, I don't like that feeling full feeling. There's lots of things, but it's a mindset. It's a mindset for sure. It's actually not, it's your external environment affects your internal environment. For me, it's like, how do I actually feel? How can I create an environment where I feel like I'm in flow? And that's all about how I think and feel about myself and what I'm doing.

Em (42:55.749)
Mm -hmm.

Em (43:14.169)
Mm

Yeah, what is it that you're thinking when you're like that? Like what is the belief around you?

Karen Kissane (43:21.974)
Yeah, it's a great question. I can feel some of those feelings now, even while we're talking about it, I can kind of almost tap into those feelings. It's a feeling of excitement. It's a feeling of, feel alive, my heart is racing. I like I wanna go and do the thing that I'm moving towards. I feel a pull.

It's interesting, isn't it? When you think something, changes your physiology and that's exactly what's happening with this conversation.

Em (43:50.627)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

And you can jar that. Like many people don't realize, you probably already know this, but you can literally put that into a jar, put the lid on and you can anchor it into the body. And that's the coolest thing, right? The fact that you explained to me in body sensations is huge. So many people would be like, well, I think that I feel like this. And so that shows that you're very in tune to your body. And I would say that that comes across. Like you're in tune, you use your intuition, you use your body awareness and your energy

Karen Kissane (44:09.672)
Hahaha

Em (44:23.397)
interact with the world around you. And I feel like that is part of your origin. And I feel like that's probably why a lot of people, a lot of intuitive people are attracted to you as well. It's a different kind of energy. Yeah, it's lovely.

Karen Kissane (44:38.85)
Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. It's important. And actually, what I have really done is moved from being completely in my head to being more in my body as well. And I think that wasn't a conscious thing. It was probably a subconscious thing.

you reach a point in your life where maybe that becomes necessary or that becomes the right time to do that. Lots of scientists are logical, practical thinkers and sometimes find it hard to connect with themselves and their intuition and how they actually feel. Whereas I think I've made quite a big shift in doing that and I think that's what's coming across in what we've just talked about.

Em (45:21.226)
Definitely. And do you think, and we might go away, so tell me if you don't want answer these questions. okay, amazing. Do you feel like you can utilize, like you're very logical and very scientific and analytical. Do you feel like you can push that aside and listen to your intuition to make decisions?

Karen Kissane (45:27.118)
I'm good with it.

Karen Kissane (45:40.289)
100%. This is next level leadership for me. So what got me here won't get me there. And there's been so many shifts in how I run my business, how I think about my business, how I approach my business. And this is totally, this is the movement from just being head into heart, into body, into feeling as well.

I know that the things that feel right, that feel good, are the things that I need to do. And I know that if something is hard or it doesn't feel good, then it's probably a sign that I should let it go.

This is a really important element of conscious leadership. And this is what I really want to do with the work that I do with Biohacking Business as well. It's like, how can I help my clients to find that within themselves or to confidently use it within themselves?

Em (46:38.643)
Yeah and it's interesting because

Me and you can talk about this all day and the intuition and how we tap in, how we feel in our bodies. People listening will be like, I don't even know what you're talking about, Emily. I don't know that my body feels like anything. And intuition, what is this? Like, is this some woo stuff? But really what we're talking about here is being able to know what is a yes and what is a no intuitively. That feeling like Karen just said here is like when it feels like it probably isn't the right thing, it probably isn't the right thing. And we call it the gut feeling, right?

And the problem is, with leadership and people making big decisions, is that the emotions get in the way of the intuition. And so it's very difficult to make sense of, is this my actual gut feeling or is this my emotions? And so that's where the emotional resilience and the grit, I would say, comes in. Being able to be like, okay, right, that fear, that limiting belief is not serving me right now, what's really coming through? And that is the sweet spot, I would say. And that's what we should all be working towards.

Karen Kissane (47:42.902)
I fully agree. I think we need it all. There's not one single thing that's going to create the success for people in their lives. It's a combination of factors and it's knowing which buttons to press at what time. Trusting your instinct. I mean, it's self -trust as well. People override their own self -trust because they look for fact or data. I think that trusting your intuition, trusting your gut is about trusting yourself.

and it's more accurate than anything else.

Em (48:16.06)
Yes, I agree as well. Amazing. So you've mentioned Biohoc your business a few times. I love that this is the title and I love all the branding, by the way. You use your own thumb for the branding, right? So cool. I love this. Do you want to tell the audience a bit about this? Can they join when this goes live? Will they be able to sign up?

Karen Kissane (48:28.674)
Yep.

Karen Kissane (48:37.462)
It depends. It depends who they are and what they do. yeah, okay. So this is primarily for entrepreneurs who understand that there is more to business than just following a strategy. What I discovered is that I could give people the best strategy in the world and it wouldn't necessarily mean they'd get the results. Why is it that I can give the same strategy or the same...

Em (48:41.702)
Yeah, tell me a bit about that.

Karen Kissane (49:03.958)
Customized strategy to person A and person B, person A will run with it, create, you know, a ton of money, a ton of success, person B doesn't. And it's because strategy alone is not enough. So the buyer -hackier business mastermind is packed full of strategy. Of course, you need a strategy in your business. If you don't have a strategy, it's like running up and down the field and never scoring.

But it's all of the other things within that that sit alongside it. The things we've talked about from a biohacking perspective, knowing yourself, understanding yourself, optimizing yourself.

And it's really for those people who are self -aware, who wanna go faster, who know that this is part of the puzzle. It's not for people who are skeptical about this kind of stuff or, you know, maybe just wanna make fast cash. I'm all about sustainable, long -term grown -up businesses that are highly profitable, but make you feel amazing on the inside as well.

You know, I guess who doesn't want more motivation, inner peace, joy, contentment, money and time. But it's really for those people who are, yeah, this is my kind of thing. I'm building a tribe, I'm building a movement of like -minded people and it's really important that it's full of like -minded people.

Em (50:34.937)
Yeah, and I've no doubt that you'll attract these kind of people. If our listeners do want to join, where shall I send them?

Karen Kissane (50:43.798)
Yeah, so they could check out my website, they could fill out the contact form on my website, they could send me an email from the contact details on the website, could come and connect with me on Instagram. I love hanging out on Instagram, the Karen Cassay on Instagram. And to be honest, that's where I share a lot of this stuff. That's where people will be able to get a feel for whether they like the sound of it or not.

Em (50:57.196)
Yes.

Em (51:09.526)
Yes, come and watch all of your reels. I love your reels. I'm like saving them. I'm like, okay, I need to come back to this one later. Okay, so one last question. What makes you bubble with joy and purpose in your whole entire life, not just business?

Karen Kissane (51:12.834)
Thank you,

Karen Kissane (51:27.726)
There's a lot of things, as you can probably tell. It's hard to distill it down into one thing. It's a lot as a business coach, but not just as a business coach, as a mum as well. It's about seeing people do well, seeing people succeed, seeing

be excited, I get, sometimes I feel like I get more excited about my clients' success than they do. And I'm like, it's almost like that is bigger for me than my own. And I think that's normal as a coach. And we are really invested in the success of other people. That's why we do what we do. So there is no better feeling than a client sending me a message going, my God, Karen, guess what, guess what, this has happened.

Em (52:03.436)
Mm -hmm.

Karen Kissane (52:19.83)
I love that. I want to bottle that exchange, that feeling, because that makes me feel good about myself because often we've worked on something together and that gives me validation and confidence in that I'm on the right track with the work that I'm doing. But seeing how it changes their lives is just the best thing in the world. really is. I've worked with clients who've been able to retire their husbands, been able to buy farmhouses, be able to go on those

they want, buy stuff for their kids, change their lives, leave their corporate job. I mean that is priceless. That makes me bubble with joy.

Em (52:58.626)
Yay, that's a lovely answer. And I can very much resonate with that as well. Like coming off of client calls and you're like, I was having a bad day and now it's amazing. Yeah, definitely. Thank you so much for this entire chat. It's been wonderful. And is there anything else that you think that we should have shared today?

Karen Kissane (53:07.958)
Yeah, goes back to the people connection. Connections are everything to me.

Karen Kissane (53:16.758)
Thank you.

Karen Kissane (53:21.986)
We've talked full spectrum, haven't we? I we've talked about, I love the conversation about buy hacking. I just feel like this is next level, the next thing that people really need to be thinking about. I just appreciate the opportunity to be able to come and chat to you about all of these things. think it's really enlightening to be chatting to someone who is so interested in this as well. I love it. So yeah, I think we've done well.

Em (53:24.044)
Mm -hmm.

Em (53:37.378)
Yes.

Em (53:46.892)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we actually get on a few people who actually know we've had Isla who is my functional practitioner like long I've been seeing her for five years and she helped me cure not I wouldn't I'd never say cure but she helped me get out of Hashimoto's and lots of hormonal imbalances and stuff. Yeah through this kind of work and so we bring her on but she's very much focused on female hormones. So she talks about cycle thinking and stuff. So we touch on this and I want to bring on more more people who are like really honed in on this topic because it is everything like you said.

And it's so cool that you're building this into business and supporting business owners. So I hope we can send as many people as possible your way. So welcome. Thank you and thank you so much for your time. And maybe we'll have you on again in the future. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

Karen Kissane (54:24.354)
Thank you. That would be amazing. Thank you so much.

Karen Kissane (54:31.694)
Great. Thanks, Emily. I would love to. Bye.