Make Your Own Rules with Heather Whelpley
We tend to live by a set of unconscious rules that we’ve inherited—from our families, our culture, the media and more. But when they keep you tethered to a way of life that isn’t serving your highest good? Award-winning author, speaker and podcast host Heather Whelpley says it’s time to make your own rules.
Together, we unpack:
The four types of rules we have “inherited” from outside forces and how they play out in our lives.
How to become conscious of the rules you’ve internalized and adopted—and start testing whether they are actually true.
The relationship between culturally expected perfection and imposter syndrome.
The role of “breaks”—big and small—in creating opportunities to understand, challenge and change the rules you’ve been living by.
How to start—and stick with—making your own rules to expand your business and your life.
LINKS
Heather Whelpley Website | Email List | Grounded Wildness | LinkedIn
Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram
BIO
Heather Whelpley is a speaker, award-winning author of Grounded Wildness: Break Free From Performing Your Life and Start Living It and An Overachiever’s Guide To Breaking The Rules, and host of the Grounded Wildness podcast. She works with women to break free from perfect and create their own rules for life.
Heather has spoken to thousands of people across the US and internationally on topics like discovering your authentic voice, creating your own rules for success, and imposter syndrome. Prior to starting her business, she spent over a decade in human resources and managing leadership development programs for high-achieving women at Fortune 500 companies in the US, Australia, and Latin America.
Her first book, An Overachiever’s Guide To Breaking The Rules, has won multiple awards, including gold medals from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and Living Now Book Awards as well as being named a finalist for the First Horizon Book Award for first-time authors. Her second book, Grounded Wildness, was published in October 2023 and was an instant Amazon bestseller. Heather lives in Colorado where she spends as much time hiking and exploring as possible.
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00 – 00:20
Heather Whelpley: I needed to overdo and achieve with everything, even in non-traditional career ways. And I finally stopped and asked myself why. And that was my first break was like, oh, wait, look at all these rules were handed in our culture as a whole that we always need to be doing more. We’re not allowed to slow down. We’re not allowed to take a break and really connecting our worth to success and to achievement.
00:25 – 00:49
Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to Soloist Women, where we’re all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I’m Rochelle Moulton and today I’m here with Heather Welpley who works with women to break free from perfect and create their own rules for life. She’s a speaker, award-winning author of 2 books and the host of the grounded wildness podcast, Heather. Welcome.
00:49 – 00:52
Heather Whelpley: Thank you, Rochelle. I’m so thrilled to be here chatting with you today.
00:53 – 01:09
Rochelle Moulton: Well, I’m delighted to have you on the show. And I want to give a shout out to Chris Jennings for suggesting that we connect Because this idea that women have to follow certain rules to be a good, successful, likeable female makes me insane.
01:10 – 01:12
Heather Whelpley: Yep, me too.
01:12 – 01:28
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. So I’m excited to dig into this and talk about those rules, how they create imposter syndrome, and how we can make our own rules. But first, I do love to begin with a bit of background about how you got started in your business. I mean, you were in corporate HR, right?
01:28 – 01:31
Heather Whelpley: I was, yeah, for 10 years before I started my business.
01:31 – 01:33
Rochelle Moulton: So what made you decide to hang your shingle?
01:34 – 02:04
Heather Whelpley: Well, so I’d never thought about being a business owner. You know, I wasn’t 1 of those people who was like, you know, 1 day I’ll be my own boss. I know this is my destiny. I never thought about that. I was enjoying most of my work in corporate. I worked in HR and leadership development and change management. I had great colleagues, great managers, like things were good. And then 1 day my job changed. I had been doing mostly women’s leadership development and my job changed to something outside of my control that I immediately knew I was
02:04 – 02:33
Heather Whelpley: going to hate. And it was my birthday, which is just, I think, a message from the universe. You know, we talk about like full body yeses. This was a full body no. Everything in my body, heart, mind and soul was like, absolutely not. Something’s gonna have to change quickly because this job is not going to work. And I really took a step back for the first time in a long time and thought really deeply about, what do I want? What do I want my career to look like? What’s the impact I wanna have? And for the
02:33 – 03:04
Heather Whelpley: first time, I decided to include entrepreneurship as a possibility in that it wasn’t a sure thing. It wasn’t, oh yes, immediately, this is what I’m going to do. But as I started talking to people, as I started reflecting, I did the Design Your Life book, which was a great activity reflection book, and gave myself some space to really consider. Then some excitement started building up, some excitement for these possibilities of what I could do if I was on my own. I could write, I could train, I could coach, I could speak, I could do what I
03:04 – 03:34
Heather Whelpley: wanted to do. And although there was a ton of fear there as well, particularly this fear of failure and having to go back to corporate, you know, with my tail tucked between my legs because I couldn’t hack it on my own, Like that was all very real also, but this excitement was something that even though I enjoyed my corporate work, I hadn’t felt that in a really long time. And it felt like this knowing of I need to try this out. What’s really funny though, so that was 6 years ago, 7 years ago. And I found
03:34 – 04:05
Heather Whelpley: a business plan a few months ago for what I thought this business was going to look like. And really only 1 line of the 5 pages is accurate today, which was, I wanna work mostly with women. And that’s still true, but everything else has changed in that time period. And so, yeah, but it really was a job change that initially initiated that reflection and that decision, but then it was the excitement and the possibilities and deciding it was worth the risk to try and figure it out and to try and run a business on my own.
04:06 – 04:25
Rochelle Moulton: I love that you actually had a business plan. I mean, I did the same thing, but a lot of people when they’re, you know, first hanging out a shingle, there is no business plan. It’s like, okay, how can I just make enough to pay my rent or my mortgage and put food on the table and I’ll figure it all out later? So I love it. And it’s not surprising that it changed over the course
04:25 – 04:25
Heather Whelpley: of, right,
04:25 – 04:26
Rochelle Moulton: you know, 6 or 7 years.
04:27 – 04:54
Heather Whelpley: Yes, I think almost everyone’s would change. And it’s funny when you said, you know, people just figure it out along the way. I think that’s really what I did anyway. I just happened to write some things down first that ended up changing. It was everything I did not know at all how to run a business. You know, I had the leadership development background, which is, you know, still in the realm of what I do, roughly speaking, in my business. But it’s, yeah, I had no clue how to actually run a business that was all learning on
04:54 – 04:55
Heather Whelpley: the job.
04:55 – 05:02
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, it’s a whole new skill set. You know, like consulting is a skill set. So do you consider yourself a soloist?
05:02 – 05:34
Heather Whelpley: Absolutely. Yes. I currently have no interest in growing a team. I reserve the right to change my mind about that at any time. But yeah, I’m a solopreneur. My overall theme in my business and really for my life as a whole is big impact, simple joy. So I want to create the biggest impact I can with the greatest simplicity out there. So I absolutely work with an accountant and a bookkeeper. And then I have an amazing marketing specialist that I work with like 1 to 2 hours a week who does some of the stuff on my
05:34 – 06:04
Heather Whelpley: podcast, the background things on my podcast and anything that I’ve ever designed that looks pretty. She probably had a role in, she’s amazing. And then I work with someone else. I’m a speaker. So a few years ago I invested in having someone design my slides for me so that they look significantly more professional than when I was doing them on my own. But I don’t have any employees and I don’t have any interest in having any employees. Well, you’re talking to the right crowd. Yes. That’s why I was so excited when you when when Chris decided
06:04 – 06:05
Heather Whelpley: to introduce us.
06:06 – 06:10
Rochelle Moulton: Well, so how long did it take you to earn your first 100, 000? Do you remember?
06:11 – 06:21
Heather Whelpley: Oh, that’s a great question. I think about year 3. I’m almost positive it was year 3, if we’re talking about revenue that it would have been a hundred thousand. Yeah, yeah.
06:21 – 06:35
Rochelle Moulton: We talked top line because the bottom line in these kinds of businesses is all over the lot. But the beauty is that we do tend to keep a lot of what we earn versus businesses that have lots of employees or lots of overhead like rent?
06:35 – 07:09
Heather Whelpley: Very much so. Yes. I’m a completely service-based business. The only quote-unquote products that I have are my 2 books and an accompanying journal. That is it. And so I don’t have any other tangible products. It’s just me and the speaking services, coaching services that I provide, which does make it easy and flexible and yeah, low cost, low overhead, which makes it easier, I think, to also not having employees to take risks and try new things. Because in actuality, the risk is pretty low. It doesn’t always feel low like the emotional component is still there but when
07:09 – 07:20
Heather Whelpley: I stop and take a step back and say like okay if this actually failed what am I gonna lose? Honestly the answer frequently is not that much. So it makes it easier to be more flexible, I think.
07:21 – 07:42
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I love that point. When we had Emily O’Meara on the show, she was talking about how a lot of times what we think is risky isn’t really risky at all. It’s like what you said about, because I felt it too, is going back to corporate with my tail between my legs. I mean, so what? Like, nobody’s going to remember that for more than a nanosecond other than us. If we feel shame around it, which like, why bother?
07:42 – 07:43
Heather Whelpley: Exactly.
07:43 – 08:01
Rochelle Moulton: There’s no shame in any of this. At least we tried, right? That’s kind of how I look at it. Yes. Well, thank you for that. But so I really want to dive into this idea that we we and I say women, but I’m sure
08:01 – 08:02
Speaker 3: it’s true for all genders is that We all have
08:02 – 08:18
Rochelle Moulton: inherited some form of rules. And I like how you define them in your new book, Grounded Wildness. You had family rules, school rules, media rules, work rules. What kinds of messages do we internalize and make our own?
08:18 – 08:47
Heather Whelpley: Oh my gosh, so many. And what you just said is the exact right way to say it of these messages that we internalize and then make our own. And that’s absolving any guilt or shame around that because we all do this. And those rules that we follow don’t come from inside of us. They come from our, like you said, our families, media, general cultural expectations, our work experiences, our school experiences, what you’ve been praised for, what you’ve been punished for, what’s been talked about, what’s not been talked about. All of these different things is how we
08:47 – 09:17
Heather Whelpley: get our rules. And absolutely, totally right. Every person gets a set of rules regardless of gender. Both my books do tend to, particularly Grounded Wildness, do tend to focus on the rules that are handed to women that cause us to prove, please perfect, and sometimes rebel and push against them. But when it comes to women, a lot of the rules that were handed, if we think about kind of how we’re showing up in work and relationships, it’s like, I can’t disappoint anyone. I have to be responsible for everyone and everything. I have to keep everyone happy.
09:17 – 09:47
Heather Whelpley: I’m not allowed to say no. I have to say yes to everything. Things have to be perfect. I’m not allowed to make a mistake. And then that can translate into, or I should always be doing more and working harder. And that can translate into our businesses as well. So those rules apply regardless of your type of position or career or job. But as a business, I think we also get additional entrepreneurship rules of around hustling and like rise and grind and you know you always have to be doing more. It’s all on you so you can
09:47 – 09:50
Heather Whelpley: never take a break. If you don’t post on social media, you’re gonna
09:50 – 09:51
Speaker 3: lose your followers. You always have to be doing more. It’s all on you. So you can never take a break. If you don’t post
09:51 – 10:23
Heather Whelpley: on social media, you’re gonna lose your followers. You always have to be doing more like just in this and growing more and constantly getting bigger and not taking time off and just this hustle grind hamster wheel. And that part I will say applies to all genders. That is not women specific, the hustle culture at all, but I’ve seen that women can often take on, because of these rules handed to us, greater responsibility and guilt around some of these rules as well. So even though they might be handed down to all genders, they don’t always impact all
10:23 – 10:24
Heather Whelpley: genders in the same
10:25 – 10:57
Rochelle Moulton: way. You know, 1 of the things that struck me as you were talking about this is that what we’re praised for, the way you said that. And it’s kind of like, I’m developing this theory that what we’re praised for tends to be what gets us stuck in our zone of excellence versus our genius zone right and we just we get praised for things especially in an organization and it’s great to be praised, you know, we can get promotions, we can win things and encourages us to work harder at the things we’re good at or even excellent
10:57 – 11:02
Rochelle Moulton: at, but somehow it leaves us short of our genius zone.
11:02 – 11:28
Heather Whelpley: I completely agree. And I just listened to your podcast episode on that and I’ve read the big leap as well. And I really liked that concept of zone of genius versus zone of excellence. And I will also say in addition to everything you just said, I think sometimes those rules can also cause us to hold our voices back because part of the rules that women are handed about being a quote-unquote good girl or good woman is to like not make people angry and to be polite. And of course not everyone gets handed all of these rules
11:28 – 11:58
Heather Whelpley: in the exact same way, But I’ve definitely felt them and I’ve talked to a lot of other women who felt them that makes it can make it harder to disagree to put yourself out there to raise your prices to take a stand to share something that might be controversial where you might get Criticism, you know all of these things that can make it harder, which I think also makes it harder to leap into your zone of genius because I think in my experience personally, not always, that zone of genius might be a little bit more, might
11:58 – 12:27
Heather Whelpley: be a little more controversial. Like not everyone is going to love what you’re doing and saying in your zone of genius. And women are so programmed to be liked. Like this is part of our value is in being likable. And oftentimes working in your zone of genius, not everyone is going to like what you do. Fewer people are going to like it more and benefit from it more, but it’s not going to be likely not going to be across the board, which is a challenge if you’ve been told directly and indirectly throughout your life that part
12:27 – 12:30
Heather Whelpley: of your value lies in being liked by other people.
12:31 – 12:33
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I feel so seen right now.
12:34 – 12:40
Heather Whelpley: We all feel this way. Almost all of us feel this way at some point or another or every single day.
12:41 – 13:07
Rochelle Moulton: Well, so how can we become more conscious of the rules that we’ve created for ourselves and start to test them to see if they’re even true. I mean, I feel like so many of us, myself included, have chosen rules that just don’t serve us, like that we have to hide who we are, or we have to work harder than everyone else to be worthy? How do we get to really understanding what rules we’ve ingested?
13:08 – 13:36
Heather Whelpley: I think part of it is just asking yourself the question and then starting to notice. So when you feel, even just that list that I listed off, or if you read grounded wildness, there are lists and greater explanation of some of these rules that will trigger in a positive way, trigger things in you where you say, oh yeah, that’s what I’m doing or I feel I know exactly what she’s talking about or this is how those rules show up for me or gosh my boss that I had 15 years ago when I was in my corporate
13:36 – 14:07
Heather Whelpley: career used to always say x to me and I’m still operating that way even though I’m a business owner now and don’t even have a boss you know so you start to recognize and then just question with compassion and curiosity. And that part to me is so critical, this compassion and curiosity, because I know for me for years, I mean, decades of my life, I primarily questioned with self judgment of like, why do I feel this way? Why can’t I set boundaries? Why can’t I just do less? Why is this so hard? Why can’t I lose
14:07 – 14:36
Heather Whelpley: weight? Why am I getting this feedback that I’m too direct? How do I just show up and share my voice, but not get that feedback? And how do I do it all right all of the time and not make a mistake. And that was not a healthy way to go about things, nor honestly an effective way to go about things. So when you start to question with curiosity and compassion, you can start to see for yourself, What part are you accountable for? Because we are all adults and we are accountable for the beliefs that we are
14:36 – 15:06
Heather Whelpley: holding and what we’re choosing to let go and how we’re showing up in the world. And also, what isn’t on you? What do you not need to carry? Because that was a rule that never originated inside of you, never was yours to carry, and you can let it go. I do want to point out there are reasons for these rules. Some of them might have made you successful in the past, like you had that boss where everything had to be perfect or you got criticized really harshly. We do a lot to avoid really harsh criticism, you
15:06 – 15:36
Heather Whelpley: know, shame and humiliation. So you might have had past experiences. Some of these are also based in bias and discrimination, which impacts different groups differently. And I want to be clear that not all women are treated in the same way when it comes to bias and discrimination. So women of color are going to be experiencing more and different discrimination than me as a white woman, for example. But some of that is based in bias and discrimination. I’ve had to go through a big revelation around using my voice because I got feedback in my corporate career that
15:36 – 16:05
Heather Whelpley: I could be too direct. And because I was also the perfectionist and overachiever, I took that feedback on really a lot And it really caused me to question myself. I still shared my voice, but especially as a business owner I’ve had to learn how to let go of that rule realize that Maybe 20% of that feedback was helpful and the other 80% of it never would have been given to me if I’d been a man I can’t carry that with me I just can’t I need to let it go and know that it’s still going to
16:05 – 16:12
Heather Whelpley: be a challenge because the bias and discrimination is still there. The rule still exists and it’s something that I want to challenge every single day of my life.
16:13 – 16:18
Rochelle Moulton: Well, and I just love the fact that you’re too direct is such a plus when you’re in business.
16:19 – 16:46
Heather Whelpley: It’s so true. I had to learn that I had a coaching, I was coaching an entire team, which is not something I do anymore. So it’s kind of coaching slash consulting. And he literally told me this was in my first year of business. He was like, Heather, I am paying you for your advice and to tell me what to do. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. And I haven’t done that. It’s been, it was hard for me to just directly say this is what I think you should do, or this is my advice, take
16:46 – 17:02
Heather Whelpley: it or leave it. But here is my expertise and opinion that I’m sharing with you. Even though I am a speaker now on stage, so I have had to really get used to that and really own it to own my own expertise and value. It took me a while. It took me a while to get there.
17:02 – 17:42
Rochelle Moulton: Well, yeah, it’s like opposite things. Like in corporate, in theory, and in general, you’re not supposed to stand out too much, like just enough. Whereas in business, when you own your own business, they expect you to be direct and clear. I remember being told more than once that I was too much. Just dial it back. And I’m like, but that’s who I am. Some people like that. So yeah, it’s part of getting that kind of feedback is I always try to separate what is constructive and candid feedback from what is their own bias. And the bias
17:42 – 17:49
Rochelle Moulton: doesn’t have to be about gender. The bias could just be that they think that everybody should think the way that they do and you don’t. Exactly.
17:50 – 18:21
Heather Whelpley: Yeah, 1 of the biggest realizations I had was after reading or during reading Playing Big by Tara Moore, and she talks in there about how all criticism and praise, so like any type of feedback you’re getting, is always coming from that person’s perspective. Always, always. So even the really great things people are saying, it’s coming from their perspective. And that doesn’t make it right or wrong. That doesn’t mean we should negate all of it or listen to every single part of it. It’s just about recognizing that. And then like you said, parsing out what is actually
18:21 – 18:39
Heather Whelpley: helpful in this and what is not. What’s not mine to carry? What might be based in that person’s perspective that isn’t actually helpful to me in any way, shape, or form? So it was really helpful for me to realize that and to start to be conscious about that when I look for or receive feedback.
18:39 – 19:08
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, we had Seth Godin on my other podcast and we asked him about how he deals with book reviews and he said he doesn’t look at anything that’s a 1 or a 2. Yeah. Because, and his rationale was not what I thought he was gonna say. He said, it’s because the book isn’t for them. It’s true. And so, you know, he didn’t say, I don’t care, but that was kind of the upshot of his comment about it. And you’ll hear this with celebrities too, because it’s like, if you read the great reviews, then you have to
19:08 – 19:27
Rochelle Moulton: read the bad reviews too. And I like this idea of sometimes just compartmentalizing it out of your existence, because those are not your people. And they’re gonna think what they wanna think. In fact, I’m convinced that’s the only way politicians can run for office these days because everybody’s got something they don’t like about them.
19:28 – 19:58
Heather Whelpley: It’s very true. I completely agree with that. And having said that, my so Grounded Wildness came out in October and on Amazon at the very end of October. And I have been reading the reviews partly because I’m trying to actively gain more reviews because it’s helpful for lots of different reasons, even though I’m not playing any Amazon games. But I decided to opt out of that game of trying to figure that out. But it has been because grounded wildness was really vulnerable, it was really vulnerable to share what was in there. It has been so beneficial
19:58 – 20:29
Heather Whelpley: for me to read the reviews and be like, that’s why I wrote this book. That is why. So even if maybe someone doesn’t like it, and to be fair, right now, everyone who’s bought the book pretty much knew me already. And they were already going to like the book most likely, but I just got to read the details of what they took away. And it has been so impactful and heartwarming and reassuring for me to say, oh yeah, what that person just said, like that touched my heart, that touched my soul, and it has gotten me
20:29 – 20:56
Heather Whelpley: through some of the more vulnerable and anxiety-ridden moments about sharing what I chose to share in that book. Like, when I read those, I knew it was worth it, and reading those is so helpful. Just like getting an email, kind of in the same way of getting an email of someone saying, hey, this is what I took away from your book and I just wanted to let you know how much it meant to me very same theory. So I think there are there are reasons to do it and I think there are reasons to ignore
20:56 – 21:05
Rochelle Moulton: the reviews. Well and 1 of the reasons to do it is I love the lightness in your voice as you were describing that versus when you were first describing all the self criticisms
21:05 – 21:06
Heather Whelpley: yes
21:06 – 21:11
Rochelle Moulton: about the rules and and you know you I could really hear the difference in your voice with those 2
21:11 – 21:12
Heather Whelpley: yeah yeah
21:13 – 21:36
Rochelle Moulton: well let’s talk some more about imposter syndrome so absolutely it’s so interesting to me I mean I work with both men and women and anecdotally, I mean, it comes up with both, but it comes up more often with women. I mean, do you see a relationship between women culturally expected to be perfect or almost perfect and imposter syndrome?
21:36 – 22:10
Heather Whelpley: So that’s an interesting thing. So there is definitely a Venn diagram between perfectionism and imposter syndrome. And when you read the research, and I wanna say that I’m like 90% correct on this. So It’s not like I’ve done all the research on perfectionism or anything. When you read the research on perfectionism, it is pretty gender neutral. Like, men can absolutely experience imposter syndrome and perfectionism. But The interesting thing is when you flip it over to imposter syndrome, there is currently conflicting research out there. So some research will say that not just women, but all people from
22:10 – 22:50
Heather Whelpley: underrepresented groups are more likely to experience imposter syndrome. Other research says that, no, really anyone, like we’re all equally likely to experience imposter syndrome, but the effects of it, the impacts of it are not the same on everyone because the way the historical way that our culture has essentially buoyed back up more quickly, white straight cisgender men. And so those moments of imposter syndrome have less of an impact because of the way that our culture buoys back up and has historically sent white straight cisgender men to greater power and confidence and all of those things. So
22:50 – 23:07
Heather Whelpley: absolutely anyone can experience it. I’ve also had many men tell me that they are plagued by imposter syndrome. So we never know what’s going on inside people’s heads. And there are very strong reasons that anyone from an underrepresented group is more likely to be impacted by imposter syndrome.
23:07 – 23:09
Rochelle Moulton: That intuitively makes sense
23:09 – 23:37
Heather Whelpley: to me. Right, doesn’t it? Yeah, it completely makes sense. Yeah. And I’ll say from my own perspective, I really didn’t experience imposter syndrome as a corporate employee. It’s not like I never doubted myself. Like I was just saying, I questioned my voice in trying to speak up but not be too direct. And I absolutely had overthinking going on, but I never really experienced that feeling of being an imposter or a fraud, or like I don’t know enough to be here, or I’m not enough of an expert. And that completely changed when I became a business owner.
23:37 – 24:10
Heather Whelpley: I had, I experienced a ton of imposter syndrome, particularly around calling myself a speaker or an expert. I felt much more comfortable saying that I was a facilitator and that relying on like, I’m not an expert in imposter syndrome, but I’m a really good facilitator. And that is true. I think I am an expert, quote unquote expert speaker facilitator. That’s a very strong skill and gift that I have. And I can also own my knowledge in these other spaces. And that was really uncomfortable for me. Asking for money or raising my prices was really uncomfortable for
24:10 – 24:20
Heather Whelpley: me. I worried that people were not going to get the value out of what they were paying when I was initially starting my business. So yeah, it came out of nowhere when I started my business.
24:21 – 24:31
Rochelle Moulton: But, you know, usually it goes away pretty fast or someone doesn’t stay in business because it would just be too painful to keep putting yourself out there if you
24:31 – 24:36
Heather Whelpley: feel like you’re a fraud, right? That’s an interesting, is that your experience personally?
24:36 – 24:54
Rochelle Moulton: Well, I wanna be careful about assuming my experience is indicative of anybody else’s, but I don’t know. I don’t feel like I experienced the classic imposter syndrome. In fact, I think I did the opposite. I got feedback in my second job that I always acted like I knew more than I did.
24:54 – 24:56
Heather Whelpley: Oh, funny. Which would be kind of like the opposite.
24:56 – 25:29
Rochelle Moulton: But it doesn’t mean that I haven’t been reluctant to put my voice out there from time to time. I mean, so there’s certainly that, but I don’t feel like my actions ever rose to what I think of as imposter syndrome. It’s 1 of those things where I think it’s really helpful if you’re Experiencing this is to get some help and get through it because whether you have your own business or you’re in you know You’re working for somebody else It’s really helpful to be clear on your own worth and be willing to take risks so you
25:29 – 25:31
Rochelle Moulton: don’t live too small a life
25:31 – 25:35
Heather Whelpley: Absolutely. Yes, a hundred percent. I agree with every word you just said.
25:36 – 25:57
Rochelle Moulton: So in Grounded Wildness, your latest book, you mentioned this idea of breaks and you have big breaks and small breaks. And I’m really curious about whether you believe we have to have these breaks before we can start creating our own rules versus just accepting what we’ve internalized. I mean, maybe you could just talk a
25:57 – 26:26
Heather Whelpley: little bit about how you define and think about what you call breaks. That’s a really great question. So when I talk about in the book, so I talk about the ways that we perform in our lives, essentially these rules that tell us we need to prove, please perfect, and then sometimes rebel, which rebelling is pushing against the rules, even when it’s not actually authentic to you. So it doesn’t matter what other people see from the outside or whether they think you’re rebelling, it’s really how it feels on the inside. So all of these ways that we
26:26 – 27:04
Heather Whelpley: tend to perform in our lives. And the break to me is when we start to realize and notice the impact of these rules, that we are having these rules or we’re being impacted by them. And that’s the gateway into grounded wildness. And for me, grounded wildness is this grounded freedom that we experience when you are grounded in your worth separate from the rules that you have been handed and that allows you to be free but in a way that is tethered in a positive way. So it’s not wildness and chaoticness, it’s not rebellion, it is grounded
27:04 – 27:33
Heather Whelpley: wildness in you, which is freedom in your business, in relationships, in the way you walk through the world, how you choose to spend your time, whether you have a team or not a team, all these different things. And your question about, you know, do we have to have these breaks in order to create new rules for our life? I don’t know. I’m not really sure. I think there does need to be some sort of recognition of the way we have been living in order to create change, typically. Usually there is some sort of letting go in
27:33 – 28:06
Heather Whelpley: order to create a new phase of life, of work, of the way that we’re believing and what we go about in our day-to-day lives. For me, the breaks, the 2 big breaks that I describe in the book, They are both very deep. 1 was about recognizing why I finally stopped and asked myself after years and decades and decades of overachieving and just being the classic overachiever, not always a traditional person in my career and school path, but felt like I needed to overdo and achieve with everything, even in non-traditional career ways. And I finally stopped and
28:06 – 28:34
Heather Whelpley: asked myself why. And that was my first break, was like, oh wait, look at all these rules we’re handed and our culture as a whole that we always need to be doing more. We’re not allowed to slow down. We’re not allowed to take a break and really connecting our worth to success and to achievement. And that was a really deep dive, but it wasn’t overly emotional. It was just like, oh, wow. Yeah. Now that I see this, I can make some different decisions. And it took time. It took time to let go. It took time to
28:34 – 29:06
Heather Whelpley: encompass some new beliefs around I’m worthy for who I am, not what I do. It was just kind of a journey I paused, I went through on my own. And my second break was deeper than that, has nothing to do with business in any way, shape or form. But it was really about how I felt about my body and how I was showing up in romantic relationships and some shame and brokenness I felt in that arena of my life. And then again, coming to this really deep freeing and emotionally harrowing recognition and realization that, oh wait,
29:06 – 29:38
Heather Whelpley: that was never mine to carry. I never needed to have shame in my body because that was a rule, like that didn’t come from me. That came from all the messages that our culture gives to young women about how their bodies are supposed to look, what’s beautiful, what’s desirable, what’s worthy. And that was huge and deep and harrowing and took some therapy, you know, all of these things. And freedom was on the other side of that. And it was a freedom that spread out to all parts of my life because then it wasn’t just about overachieving.
29:38 – 30:04
Heather Whelpley: It was like, oh wait, what other rules, what other rules have I been handed about how I’m supposed to show up and use my voice about whether I’m too much or not enough or what a good woman is supposed to look like and be like, or whether I’m supposed to be a mother or not, or how I’m supposed to run my business, and where I’m supposed to be spending money in my business, and all of these different things that cause this really deep questioning that allowed for freedom on the other side of that. And for me,
30:04 – 30:34
Heather Whelpley: those breaks of, it is the break to greater freedom. And I think there always needs to be some sort of self-reflection in that, but I’m not gonna dictate that, you know, for some people that’s a lighter self-reflection, for some people that’s really deep and challenging. And I think it’s continual. Like I have experienced other breaks. Publishing this book, I would say has created another break in my life of, you know, everything that was in there. I was doing on my own, feeling good about it, you know, talking about it with friends and other people around me,
30:34 – 30:52
Heather Whelpley: I felt as ready as I could ever feel to publish what was in grounded wildness. And sharing it with everyone has been challenging and has caused some questioning and in a good way, questioning in a good way. And I have no doubt that I am moving through a break right now that will have greater freedom on the other side there too.
30:53 – 31:22
Rochelle Moulton: What’s intriguing about this is so the subliminal message is you don’t have to have a breakdown and I use that word very in a very particular way in order to rethink how you are in the world and what we want to take forward. It can just be the start of a question or maybe it’s that somebody says something to you in a certain way and it hits you in a way it’s never hit you before and you start this journey of exploration.
31:23 – 31:49
Heather Whelpley: Absolutely. I love that. So yeah, I think it is for a lot of people does tend to be some sort of breakdown, little or big, because those are the things that we pay attention to, you know, the heart. We don’t usually pay attention when things are good. We pay attention. It’s a practice to try and pay attention. Wait, when do I feel really good as opposed to the breakdowns? But I love what you said around, it can just be a question. It can be a way and you know I do in my speaking I have 1
31:49 – 32:18
Heather Whelpley: of my speaking engagements is called creating your own rules for success where I walk through a lot of these overachieving hustle culture perfectionism proving type rules and then take people through you know where they come from and then say What’s your definition of success separate from those rules? And people come up to me afterwards, and they’re like, I have never thought about any of this. My mind is blown right now. And I’m thinking about all the rules that my family gave me, and friends gave me, and culture gave me, and, you know, these messages that I’ve
32:18 – 32:30
Heather Whelpley: carried with me. And they’re not having a breakdown in the middle of the session. They’re just having realizations, realizations that can lead to change. Well, you just segue perfectly into something else I
32:30 – 32:57
Rochelle Moulton: wanted to talk about, which is making our own rules. And this is something that I suspect will be wildly appealing to the cell host women audience. We have quite a few women actually, who’ve been making their own rules pretty consistently, but I also hear from women who are frustrated, beating their heads against the wall, trying to, you know, use the word win a game with the rules stacked against them. So how do we start making our own rules if we haven’t been doing it already?
32:58 – 33:25
Heather Whelpley: Oh, I love that. And sometimes it does feel like the rules are stacked against you. And sometimes for me, I think it’s about saying what game am I actually playing? Like, some of these messages that I’m getting are telling me to play a game that I don’t want to actually participate in. Like, I don’t want to participate in it’s a consistent reminder that I don’t want to play in the bigger is always better game. I don’t want to play there, even though those messages are all around. So it is a consistent reminding myself of, oh, wait,
33:25 – 33:55
Heather Whelpley: no, it’s okay. I get to choose. I get to choose what I want to do. And so, yeah, I would say start really, I think it’s about reconnecting to yourself and being really clear, particularly think about businesses saying like, what feels true to you? How do you wanna show up? And I’ll just give you a few examples from early in my business. Because I think the content of what I did was always felt pretty aligned and pretty to my own rules for life. I never was talking about things that felt like a should or anything like
33:55 – 34:24
Heather Whelpley: that, but the how, the how I went about things was absolutely following a whole ton of rules. So few examples, all that crap marketing language that I hate around scarcity and fake deadlines, and this is gonna go away in 2 hours, but even though you’re sending that email out every single time someone signs up for your list, so really it’s there all the time. I mean, just all of that marketing language. If there’s real scarcity involved, like there’s only 10 spots in this program and they’re going to be done when they’re done, I’m fine with that.
34:24 – 34:52
Heather Whelpley: But you know, this idea that we have to open a wound and pour salt in it in order for someone to buy something from us is not something that I subscribe to. But yet, that’s definitely what I was taught and followed some of that. And it did not feel good. I think we can absolutely talk about pain and real things. And there’s a difference there. And I don’t know what the difference is for other people, but I know the difference for me and what feels like connection and empathy versus pouring salt into wounds. So like, that
34:52 – 35:14
Heather Whelpley: was 1 set of rules that I was like, Wait, no, I just want to connect. I want to connect on a human level. And that will lead to sales. And it did, It did lead to greater sales, I will say as well, from what I was taught, I was supposed to speak about. I had people tell me and I followed, like you have to have a Facebook group. If you’re a coach, if you’re gonna run online programs, you have to have a Facebook group. So I did, and I put a lot of time and effort into
35:14 – 35:45
Heather Whelpley: it. And then about a year or 2 into it, I realized that nothing was coming out of that and it was really busy. I mean, it was like just extra work and nothing was coming out of it. I did Facebook ads, which I hated. You know, all of these things because they were the things I was, quote unquote, supposed to do to run a successful business and 95% of them did not work for me. And it took me stepping back and saying, okay, how do I actually want to run my business? And if this way that
35:45 – 36:12
Heather Whelpley: I’ve been taught also isn’t working, let’s try the way I want to work, I want to show up and see what does work. And of course, there’s tweaking along the way and there’s making changes. But the way I was taught wasn’t working either. So let’s create my own rules and see that’s going to feel better and let’s see if it works. So yeah, those are some of the ways I think we can start thinking about knowing for ourselves what rules we do want to play, what games we even want to participate in, and what games we
36:12 – 36:15
Heather Whelpley: just want to say, that’s not my game, I’m going to let that to the sidelines.
36:16 – 36:28
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I was thinking authentic alignment. Like you’re telling your marketing, it’s because I’m sure part of the reason what worked for others didn’t work for you is because it didn’t feel authentic to you. It felt fake. Completely.
36:29 – 36:58
Heather Whelpley: It did not feel authentic. And that’s why it didn’t work. I’m sure it did work for other people when it felt authentic to them. It did not feel authentic to me. And it took a while to coming out of corporate to rediscover what my authentic voice was. So there was a process there of just saying, how do I write, not in a corporate email? How do I speak to people from my heart and from a place of connection while still offering up, you know, this is how I can help you solve the problem that you’re facing,
36:58 – 37:08
Heather Whelpley: you know, this kind of combination of heart connection and logical connection at the same time. It took a while. It took a while for me to rediscover those.
37:08 – 37:37
Rochelle Moulton: Well, it is 1 of the joys and the challenges of owning your own business because we listen, like to podcasts or we read from various gurus, and somebody will say, this is the way you do it. Here are all the answers. And you’re like, okay, I’m going to try that. And sometimes people will do that over and over and over again, but they’re switching, right? Try this. I’m going to try this now because this is the hot thing. Okay, that didn’t work. All right, I’m going to try this 1. And I really love that you stepped
37:37 – 38:01
Rochelle Moulton: back and started to question, do I have to do this the same way everyone else has done? Or can I create new rules? I feel like that’s really the question. And sometimes I think the challenge is in understanding that you are following a rule because it’s so unconscious for some of us or some of the rules that we are living by.
38:01 – 38:30
Heather Whelpley: It’s So unconscious and because they’re just, we’re swimming in these rules and you know, not all rules are highly negative, but we are swimming in rules and guidelines and messages all day long. And especially now that we are also swimming in social media all the time and so much is around us. I mean, I find, you know, Instagram is real hit or miss for me because it can trigger comparison in me. It can trigger like, oh, maybe I should be doing that or wow, this person seems really successful. Maybe I should try that. And sometimes there
38:30 – 38:58
Heather Whelpley: are lessons, good positive lessons to be learned of, oh, I could try that. That actually feels like it might be authentic to me as well. Or that’s an inspiration. Wow, that person is doing some really cool things. What do I want to take away from that? So it’s not all negative, But I’ve seen particularly with social media, for me, it triggers some greater comparison, greater desire to follow the rules or a want, you know, an immediate want. And then I have to take a step back and say, okay, no, no, what is really going on here?
38:58 – 39:03
Heather Whelpley: And what do I really, What do I really want? How do I want to run my business and show up in the world?
39:03 – 39:06
Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I find Instagram makes me buy stuff that I would
39:06 – 39:21
Heather Whelpley: not have bought otherwise. Oh, that’s funny. It does not do that to me. Someone, they must have gotten the algorithm of she does not buy from this platform because I get like national park posts and lots of business owners and different people like that. Well
39:22 – 39:34
Rochelle Moulton: Heather, I’ve got 1 last question which I love to ask everyone, which is if you could go back to who you were when you first started your business, what’s the 1 thing you would advise her to do?
39:37 – 40:04
Heather Whelpley: Trust herself, I think is, I said that with a lot of questioning in my voice, I realized as it came out of my mouth. I think it’s just to learn. I mean, to a certain degree, I look back and I, you know, have these rules that I was following and I think from a business perspective, I needed to go through that journey to understand what was important to me and what were the rules I needed to, the new rules I wanted to follow about how I wanted to run my business. So I don’t really regret it.
40:04 – 40:34
Heather Whelpley: And I think just trusting myself and trusting the journey and I could have done that in a deeper way, I think earlier in my business. And just to know that you’re going to fail, You are going to fail. And that is not a reflection of your worth. It is not a reflection of the long-term success of your business to have a single or even a couple of failures. It’s okay. It’s part of the ride. And in fact, I recently reflected that I hadn’t failed in a while. And I thought, that probably means I’m not taking big
40:34 – 40:43
Heather Whelpley: enough risks because I haven’t failed in a while. So encompass or get used to even lean towards the possibility of failure.
40:45 – 41:10
Rochelle Moulton: Gotcha. That’s awesome. Well, Heather, I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show. And your latest book, Grounded Wildness, is really a very personal exploration of letting go of rules. And there is a lot of vulnerability in there. So I commend you on putting it out there and absolutely hope our readers give it a listen. So thank
41:10 – 41:36
Heather Whelpley: you. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on. And yeah, you can get signed copies on my website which is heatherwellpley.com or all the Amazon audible places that you would typically get it. It’s out there as well. So thank you. And what’s your website? Where can people find you? We’ll have this in the show notes, but. Perfect. It’s just heatherwellpley.com. And I think I’m the only Heather Wellpley in the world. So if you Google me anywhere, all my, the podcast, my books, my website, my LinkedIn profile, which is my main social media platform is
41:36 – 41:49
Heather Whelpley: LinkedIn. They should all show up right away in the search engine. 1 of a kind. Yes, that’s right. If you want to, you may not be able to spell or pronounce my last name, but if you get it anywhere close to it, you will find me.
41:49 – 42:09
Rochelle Moulton: Awesome. Okay, so before we say goodbye today, if you’re looking to connect with like minded women working in the B2B space, be sure to check out the link to my soloist women community in the show notes. It’s at RochelleMoulton.com slash soloist-women. So that’s it for this episode. I hope you’ll join us next time.
