Latest / #BeMoreLobster / Escaping Ordinary - Ayla's Castle Adventure & Simply Living
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_00: French Chateaus, Ripples of Happiness, and Doing What You Love.
- 0:04SPEAKER_00: Just three amazing parts of today's conversation with Isla, who, yes, does live in a castle in France.
- 0:11SPEAKER_00: We had a conversation about how seeking simplicity has been a concept that she's been aligned with for a very long time.
- 0:19SPEAKER_00: How that was part of the reason or the or the way that she got herself from living in Holland to living in a castle in France, how that's informed the decisions around her business and how she wants to be a role model of what's possible for her children and for others.
- 0:35SPEAKER_00: So if you're ready for a magical conversation, you know what to do.
- 0:38SPEAKER_00: Grab your brew.
- 0:40SPEAKER_00: Let's dive right in.
- 0:44SPEAKER_00: Ayla, thank you for joining me on the Seeking Simplicity podcast.
- 0:48SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
- 0:50SPEAKER_00: I'm very excited to dive in, and we've just kind of been talking about some of the things that excite me the most, but I'm gonna just keep that quiet just for a little while and save some of that till towards the end.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: And as with every conversation I have, I always start with the question what seeking simplicity means to you as a concept.
- 1:09SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 1:10SPEAKER_01: Seeking simplicity for me is doing what you love.
- 1:16SPEAKER_01: And it sounds it sounds really simple, like, but that's I think that's the concept of something that's you know, seeking simplicity, doing what you love, whether that's like with a hobby or where you live or in your business, it doesn't matter.
- 1:32SPEAKER_01: Just do what you love and not what you think that society or your family or your friends are dictating to you, you know.
- 1:39SPEAKER_01: I love that.
- 1:40SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, that's the base for me.
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: It's and actually it it mirrors something.
- 1:45SPEAKER_00: I just saw a reel with um Gary V, and he was talking about, he said, you know, I truly believe he said that most people know what their passion is or have a passion, but invariably they're too scared to admit it, or they don't think it's enough.
- 2:00SPEAKER_00: So he's like, okay, so you know, if you want to sing, go sing and earn your$50,000 a year, live beneath your means and just be happy.
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have your private jet.
- 2:09SPEAKER_00: You don't have and I thought, you know, and I love that thing, but I do think it also takes a lot of courage for us to say this is what I love, and I'm gonna do that no matter what.
- 2:20SPEAKER_00: Because I think naturally our brain wants to put barriers in the way of that for for whatever reason.
- 2:26SPEAKER_00: So talk to me a little bit about the thing that I'm most excited about, which is your move from where you were, and I'm not even gonna say where you were, you're gonna say where you were to where you are now.
- 2:37SPEAKER_00: How does that wrap up into your seeking simplicity?
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me more about that?
- 2:42SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we were in Holland, we're from Holland, and um I've lived there nearly my entire life.
- 2:50SPEAKER_01: A life I've done some um what do you call those internships in uh one in Vancouver and one in Paris.
- 3:00SPEAKER_01: And I've always always said that I was gonna live abroad.
- 3:04SPEAKER_01: Like even when I was a little girl, I would tell my mom that I would marry an English lord and move to a castle.
- 3:12SPEAKER_01: And um I didn't marry an English lord, I married a Dutch guy.
- 3:17SPEAKER_01: And my husband and I lived in Holland, and of course, this was in 2020 when everyone was stuck at home having COVID and having to wear like mouth masks and stuff like that.
- 3:30SPEAKER_01: And we were saying to each other, you know, the house that we live in, we might want to make a next move, but where are we gonna go?
- 3:39SPEAKER_01: Because you know, the housing market is in Holland is so crazy.
- 3:42SPEAKER_01: We were looking at his hometown, which is basically out of the most popular area, but still so expensive.
- 3:50SPEAKER_01: And then one day a friend of ours was over and we were looking at houses, and basically he said, You know, for that money you could buy a castle in France.
- 3:58SPEAKER_01: And we were like, Well, we were like, and then we went to Google it and we were like, Wait, we can we can buy a castle in France, and so um we bought a castle in France.
- 4:11SPEAKER_01: Wow, I love that.
- 4:14SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so I ended up living in a castle, not in England, not married to a lord, but I actually did move to a castle.
- 4:21SPEAKER_01: And um, my mom was very happy because she always said, you know, she she knew I was gonna live abroad, and she was just like, I'm very glad you're still in the same time zone that I am.
- 4:31SPEAKER_00: That's cool, that's so cool.
- 4:34SPEAKER_00: And and and I'm just so curious.
- 4:36SPEAKER_00: So, like, what we have, I don't know if you ever seen the show over here.
- 4:40SPEAKER_00: It's I think it's called Escape to the Chateau.
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you think about that, when you've seen their TV shows and you and you kind of like sort.
- 4:50SPEAKER_00: I mean, they they're obviously their their chateau was like derelict and it was it needed a lot of work doing on it.
- 4:55SPEAKER_00: Like, do you when you look at yourself now and you like you arrive at your chateau and you come home from the shops or you pick your kids up from the school or whatever it is, like do you still have that, oh my god, I live in a castle?
- 5:07SPEAKER_01: Daily, really literally daily, and it comes in different forms because sometimes I'll be out on a balcony in front looking.
- 5:16SPEAKER_01: We have this gorgeous view over the valley with a with a view uh of a few French villages.
- 5:24SPEAKER_01: So, and at night, like all the lights get all twinkly, and I just stand there.
- 5:27SPEAKER_01: I mean, Holland is flat, we don't have views in Holland, so I'm just the fact that I have a view over a valley is like mind-boggling.
- 5:35SPEAKER_01: So sometimes it's that, and sometimes I'll be in my daughter's room and open this one door in the corner.
- 5:41SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you have a you have a tower attached to your room.
- 5:44SPEAKER_01: That's so weird.
- 5:46SPEAKER_01: And sometimes the roof leaks when it rains, and we just go, Ugh, we live in a castle, you know.
- 5:51SPEAKER_01: But it's it's every day, some aspect of being here amazes us.
- 5:57SPEAKER_00: I love that, and and and living in that energy frequently, I mean, that in itself is life-changing, isn't it?
- 6:03SPEAKER_00: Because you're it's I think Bruce Lipton calls it the honeymoon effect, and we see we literally see things through different eyes when we're in that different energy, that different frequency.
- 6:14SPEAKER_00: So um, I I absolutely love that, and I do love a good French castle, I'm not gonna lie.
- 6:19SPEAKER_00: Um, along with the cheese and the wine, obviously, because they kind of all go hand in hand.
- 6:23SPEAKER_00: So um, we were talking before as well, then, about how one of the things that that brought you to here was that you and your husband wanted to kind of um for yourselves and for your children, kind of break that mould of you know, doing what society says versus doing what lights you up.
- 6:41SPEAKER_00: You've used the word curious a few times before we got on this call, like being curious about things and being showing your children what's possible when you make decisions and you just follow through.
- 6:49SPEAKER_00: So you you shared with me that you know how your part of your seeking simplicity has been gone from doing a certain type of work to now becoming your own, owning your own business.
- 7:00SPEAKER_00: So do you want to just share a little bit about how that that sort of journey happened?
- 7:05SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
- 7:07SPEAKER_01: Um I've recently pivoted my business to go from one-to-one to more of a group setting, reaching the masses, if you will.
- 7:16SPEAKER_01: Um, but before that, like the move I made from being in corporate to starting my own business was basically also just following my sense of wanting to do what I loved.
- 7:29SPEAKER_01: And I got a massive, massive burnout for my corporate job in 2015.
- 7:36SPEAKER_01: And I reintegrated into another company, like a small company.
- 7:43SPEAKER_01: It was literally in someone's garage.
- 7:46SPEAKER_01: So we were like eight people or something, so a really small company.
- 7:49SPEAKER_01: And one day I was just sitting there and working.
- 7:52SPEAKER_01: I got into the zone.
- 7:53SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, really focused on my work.
- 7:56SPEAKER_01: And then my colleague just sat down next to me and just she went just blah blah blah blah blah into my ear.
- 8:02SPEAKER_01: Something about her kid.
- 8:04SPEAKER_01: I didn't have kids at that point, and and I was just sitting there going, you know, what are you doing?
- 8:08SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm working here, you know, I'm really focused, I'm really in a zone.
- 8:12SPEAKER_01: You shut up about your kid.
- 8:14SPEAKER_01: And that was the moment I realized I just want to work in an environment where I can work by myself and choose the moments of contact that I have.
- 8:26SPEAKER_01: Sounds very, very unsociable if you hear it like I'm all over that.
- 8:30SPEAKER_00: I'm all over that statement.
- 8:31SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 8:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 8:33SPEAKER_01: I I was just going, nope, this is not, and and it's something that had had always bothered me, also in my corporate job, where you would just want to quickly grab a cup of coffee and get back to your work, and then you would meet like 15 colleagues on the way who all want to chat.
- 8:49SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm here to work, I'm not here to chat, just let me work.
- 8:52SPEAKER_01: So it's I've always been like the the unsociable introvert in corporate settings.
- 8:57SPEAKER_01: So that's the first time that I actually made the decision to start working for myself.
- 9:04SPEAKER_01: And um, it's also one of the reasons that we're here in France right now, because my husband is an entrepreneur as well.
- 9:10SPEAKER_01: He basically made the same decision, but for him it was more money-driven.
- 9:14SPEAKER_01: And he was like, Why would I be earning money for a boss if I could just earn it for myself?
- 9:20SPEAKER_01: Um, and since we were both working from home um since well, me 2016, he 2017.
- 9:28SPEAKER_01: So the move to Friends was easy because of that as well.
- 9:31SPEAKER_01: Because we already said, you know, if we wanna, we can work from anywhere.
- 9:35SPEAKER_01: So where do we want to work from?
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: I like that spin as well of like asking that that question, you know.
- 9:42SPEAKER_00: I and it reminds me a lot, there's a lot of reflection here or mirroring from a conversation I had with a lady, uh, she calls herself the wandering bird, and she worked um for uh air traffic control here in the UK, and something very similar.
- 9:59SPEAKER_00: So you said about have someone in your ear just chat, chat, chatting at you.
- 10:03SPEAKER_00: She said she was in like the staff room in the what do they call it a staff room?
- 10:06SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
- 10:07SPEAKER_00: They're in like the tea dinner room or whatever, and she said we were having the same conversation that we had every year for the last 10 years around like who's having Christmas off or who's to, and she's like, I just can't do that anymore.
- 10:18SPEAKER_00: And she just left and she now travels um in her motorhome and she helped other people to do the same, and her business took off because she loved it and she was curious and she didn't put all those expectations on it, and she just followed that that kind of that that passion.
- 10:34SPEAKER_00: Um, and so hearing you sort of talking about having that conversation, and then and she and the question that she asked, so where you said, like, you know, where do we want to be?
- 10:43SPEAKER_00: And opening up your mind to what's possible.
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: Her question was, how do we something along the lines of how do we um rearrange our life to create more time for this for more and those those questions are insanely valuable when it comes to us being able to follow our dreams rather than I think being cauged in by our limitations or our fears.
- 11:06SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, isn't it?
- 11:07SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: Um, so one of the things that you share with me as well, so we'll come back to your business in a second, because I think this will this will um lead nicely to that.
- 11:18SPEAKER_00: You talked to me about how you've always had this uh desire or this feeling that you wanted to create a ripple of happiness in the world.
- 11:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 11:26SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about that.
- 11:28SPEAKER_01: It's uh honestly, it's a bit hard to talk about it because it feels so pretentious.
- 11:36SPEAKER_01: Is I don't know if pretentious is the right word.
- 11:39SPEAKER_01: Like in Holland, we have a saying, and that's basically the rule our entire people live by, and it goes just act normal, that's crazy enough as it is.
- 11:50SPEAKER_01: That's that's literally do more normal, don't do ya gek genoeg.
- 11:55SPEAKER_01: That's that's what everyone always says.
- 11:58SPEAKER_01: So when you have a big dream like I have of creating a ripple of happiness in the world that sounds so big that people just go, just act normal, that's crazy enough, you know.
- 12:10SPEAKER_01: And so it feels a bit pretentious to sort of say it out loud, like that's what I want to do, but it's always been a thing that I wanted to do.
- 12:18SPEAKER_01: After I had my my burnout for my corporate job, I started the blog, which was called I Love Life with AY at the beginning instead of I because I'm Isla.
- 12:27SPEAKER_01: And I was so clever, yeah.
- 12:31SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I loved it.
- 12:32SPEAKER_01: And I just set out, you know, if I'm gonna be researching stuff about recovering from a burnout, I might as well put it online.
- 12:39SPEAKER_01: And if I help just one other person, I can start to create that ripple of happiness.
- 12:44SPEAKER_01: And so when I look back, I've always done stuff that led me to create that ripple of happiness.
- 12:51SPEAKER_01: I just want to make the world a better place.
- 12:54SPEAKER_01: I've studied at Hotel School The Hague, so I started in the hospitality industry, and this has always been my drive in there as well, to just make sure that whoever comes into your hotel, whoever comes into your restaurant, just make the experience as as best as you can so they have the best experience of their life and carry that with them into their lives, but it felt too small, like giving one person one you know really good experience for a meal, that's nice, but will they carry it with them a month from now?
- 13:27SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
- 13:28SPEAKER_01: So I've always sought out stuff to make it bigger, and that's why I now, as I just mentioned, pivoted my business as well from doing a one-to-one coaching, uh one-to-one done-for-you virtual assistant work, um, to putting all my experience and knowledge into a group program, into a framework that women can go through um to reclaim their time, to spend less time running their businesses.
- 13:59SPEAKER_01: Because when they spend less time running their businesses, they'll have more time to spend with their family, to ride around in a motorhome, to what do whatever they want.
- 14:10SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, and for some people, that's freedom means that they're able to work more, you know, help more clients.
- 14:16SPEAKER_01: That's also that same ripple of happiness.
- 14:19SPEAKER_01: Like, if you have more time, you have more to give, whether that's to yourself or to anyone.
- 14:28SPEAKER_01: And so, um, yeah, that's my ripple of happiness, basically.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: I I love that.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, we we talked before we got on the on the podcast about how um, you know, the the ripple effect on our own lives when we seek our when we have the courage to seek our own simplicity, when we follow our joy, when we do things because for no other reason than it brings us joy.
- 14:50SPEAKER_00: Like we don't need to justify those things because being happy is kind of quite important.
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: But that ripple effect, um, how that then shows up in like the way that we take care of ourselves in in our health, what our relationships look like.
- 15:03SPEAKER_00: You know, if we're miserable and burned out, there's a really good chance that our, you know, our intimate relationship probably isn't going to be that great, or our health isn't gonna be that great, or our energy isn't gonna be that great, but also that impact on our children, on on I think it's so easy to teach our children how to sacrifice or how to limit themselves or how to to survive or how to like I look I think back to when my kids were small and the relationship that I was in then, and like it was super destructive.
- 15:35SPEAKER_00: And you know, that whole thing, if only we knew then what we know now.
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: But I think that's always been a drive for me is what do I want my children to give meaning to when they see me doing these things and they see me showing up?
- 15:49SPEAKER_00: So I think it's lovely that you like not only have you lived it by moving to a castle with your children, I mean, do your kids love it?
- 15:57SPEAKER_00: Do they feel like they're lay living like a fairy tale?
- 16:00SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, which is you know not always great since they're two little girls who are six and two, nearly three.
- 16:07SPEAKER_01: Um, and so sometimes my oldest will want to wear like a princess dress to school, and she's like, But I live in a castle, I can wear a princess dress whenever I want.
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: She's setting the rules, yeah.
- 16:17SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, and no.
- 16:19SPEAKER_01: I love that, but yeah, they do love it, yeah.
- 16:21SPEAKER_00: I love that.
- 16:22SPEAKER_00: So you so you're you're you're living and breathing it, and now you're using your business to spread that out and give people the time, like you say, to, and I love the way that you phrased it around like you can take that time and use it as you wish, whether that's returning it to yourself in some capacity or doing more work if that's what lights you up or giving back to other people.
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: I love that you know, you kind of gave us that that perspective shift.
- 16:48SPEAKER_00: Um, and that you know, you can just have that that happiness all over, you know, like in every sort of single area of our life.
- 16:55SPEAKER_00: And I know I want to just talk a little bit about how you before you just said when you came on the call, you were super excited because you just launched something new.
- 17:03SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to share that with us because let's spread some happiness and some excitement for you.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: Yeah, of course.
- 17:08SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I basically I took my experience of like a decade uh as a VA, and before that as well, I've always been into the operation side of businesses.
- 17:20SPEAKER_01: Streamlining stuff is my thing.
- 17:22SPEAKER_01: I I literally recently wrote in an email like there's an 80% chance if I come to your house that I will alphabetize your bouquets.
- 17:31SPEAKER_01: That's just how my brain works.
- 17:33SPEAKER_01: I I need to organize stuff, and I hate wasting time.
- 17:37SPEAKER_01: So when I see people waste time on endless processes, and I just error in my brain.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that's why I made it my job, and that's also what I've now um uh I've done it in coaching as well, where I help women get really, really clear on where they want to go, how to translate that into goals, and then how to translate those goals into actionable to-dos, so that every single thing that they do is actually helping them move towards what they want to achieve in the end, instead of wasting their time on stuff that just is just stuff.
- 18:17SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 18:17SPEAKER_01: Um, there's there's we just talked about the 80-20 rule where you spend 80% of your time doing tasks that are not necessarily bringing home the bacon, it's just stuff to keep you busy.
- 18:31SPEAKER_01: And if we can diminish that part of their businesses, then they'll have more time.
- 18:37SPEAKER_01: So I've put all my experience and knowledge into a framework that I'm leading them through.
- 18:43SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm launching it to a group right now.
- 18:47SPEAKER_01: I literally just before we went on air, I just pressed send on an email uh to announce to my list that the doors are open, that they have till till Friday to get in.
- 18:57SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, I'm so so excited to finally bring this to a group to have more women have this knowledge, have these processes.
- 19:08SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'm giving them plug-and-play templates so they have to they can stop thinking about running their business and just think about stuff that matters to them.
- 19:20SPEAKER_01: And well, as I said, it's whether that's clients, kids, themselves, house, doesn't matter, you know, have more time is is the outcome that I want for them.
- 19:28SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 19:29SPEAKER_00: I love it.
- 19:29SPEAKER_00: And I think we just touched on as well before we got on the call around um when it comes to running a business, I think if if we if we come at it with some of the thoughts that we've been conditioned to believe about how how we have to struggle, how things have to be hard, um, you know, how there's for me, there's very much this masculine-feminine divided.
- 19:52SPEAKER_00: We're either like all flowy and aligned or we're masculine whatever.
- 19:57SPEAKER_00: Like there's there's and I I don't I like to kind of create a spectrum or a palette where we can we get to choose like when we need each part to those of ourselves in into you know to be able to do that.
- 20:08SPEAKER_00: So I love what you're doing.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: Where can people um I know you've given me your Instagram to share, but where can people find out more about your launch that you've just done?
- 20:17SPEAKER_01: female-entrepreneurs.com.
- 20:21SPEAKER_02: Okay.
- 20:22SPEAKER_01: I will and then if they go slash power hours, then they'll get right to the uh the uh page about the program.
- 20:29SPEAKER_01: Um but female-entrepreneurs.com will do it as well.
- 20:33SPEAKER_01: And uh most most of my socials is happening on Instagram, uh, and that's just my full name, Ayla Denhartoch, which I would be very happy if you could link it because that's unpronounceable and unfindable.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: I will do definitely do that for you because you're you got such beautiful energy, and I don't think maybe it is a castle thing and you are like a little princess, I don't know, but um it's it's so lovely when you when you sort of talked about like I asked you how you felt about hitting the the you know the send button, and you said like I'm just excited and I'm curious, and I think that is such a beautiful energy to take through life because there are gonna be times that are gonna be hard, without a doubt, and not all of them, but a lot of them we can manage that through curiosity.
- 21:15SPEAKER_00: I think we can learn to sit with the difficult emotions rather than making them mean something about us, and you know, just that that power of making that decision around like I don't uh when I'm like four, I've decided I'm gonna live in a castle at some point, you know, and and it like you made you made it happen.
- 21:30SPEAKER_00: And I think you know, being that that vision of what's possible to as many people as we can, and being that ripple of happiness, I don't think it's pretentious at all.
- 21:39SPEAKER_00: I think we need more people like you in the world to to share your joy and your and your beautiful smile so that we can we can all be inspired by that.
- 21:47SPEAKER_00: So I will definitely be sure to share all of your um your socials on the on the show notes.
- 21:53SPEAKER_00: And is there anything else you want to share before we go, or are you all good?
- 21:58SPEAKER_01: What I would like to share.
- 22:00SPEAKER_01: Is just that I wish that more people would just do what they love.
- 22:05SPEAKER_01: And as you said before, you know, whether that's just seeing your heart out, or you go LARPing with your friends, you know, dress up in medieval stuff and have fun.
- 22:15SPEAKER_01: Or if it's working 70 hours a week, you go work 70 hours a week, you know.
- 22:20SPEAKER_01: Who cares if it's doing what you love?
- 22:21SPEAKER_01: That's that will make you happy.
- 22:23SPEAKER_01: And if you're happy, the people around you are happy.
- 22:25SPEAKER_01: And that's just I wish we wouldn't be so influenced by what we see others do, what we see online, and just turn inwards a bit and see what you love and you follow that.
- 22:37SPEAKER_00: I love that.
- 22:38SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to give.
- 22:39SPEAKER_00: It's a very, very important message, and thank you for sharing that with everybody.
- 22:42SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute joy to speak to you.
- 22:44SPEAKER_00: And um, you never know.
- 22:46SPEAKER_00: I might bring my my motor home, my campervan over, and see your castle for real.
- 22:50SPEAKER_00: That would be that would be amazing.
- 22:52SPEAKER_01: You're most welcome.
- 22:53SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, my love.
- 22:55SPEAKER_00: I'll speak to you soon.
- 22:56SPEAKER_00: Speak to you soon.
- 22:57SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
- 22:57SPEAKER_00: Bye bye.