Being The Self Belief Agent w/ Elle Steele – She Leads She Thrives Podcast Ep 33

Shannon Dunn  01:05

A great big hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of She Leads She Thrives podcast. I’m Shannon Dunn long term business and leadership coach and your host here for the pod. And I’ve got another really cool guest to talk to you today. As I’ve been doing, I’ve been telling you a little bit kind of how I know the guests and why I’ve got them to come. I put the invitation out and hopefully they say yes, no one said no to me. 

Shannon Dunn  01:44

Elle Steele is my guest today I’m going to share her bio in a moment. But Elle and I have kind of be following each other online for a little bit and got some awareness of our work. And I feel like in the kind of probably the last year or so I’ve become more aware of what you’re doing. And just kind of seeing you kind of shine and blossom in a different way. And I was like I want to know more about this chick. Let’s find out more about your story and get you on the podcast. And having inspiring conversations for the kind of ambitious souls of the world is really what we’re all about and looking at leadership and, and thriving. So you know, you’re definitely well and truly a part of this completely. 

Shannon Dunn  02:20

So let me introduce you from a bio perspective, the official introduction and then we’ll get into some juicy conversation. So Elle Steele is a five time Australian swimming representative, paralympian and gold medalist   – all the big things right at the front there – she now works in personal development space as a self believe agent which I love that so much. When I saw you launch your club Oh, perfect,  energy healer and motivational speaker. Born with a congenital disability called anthrogryposis.  I think I got it Elle,  did I? Elle’s life has been been full of moments of great joy and sadness due to the continual  changes in her physical capabilities. 

Shannon Dunn  02:59

Living on thesurf coast in Victoria, Elle’s life mission is to show others that despite all the heartache we may face, if we can begin or if we can be brave to heal our hearts, the ripple effect of this will help to heal the world. I love that and when I see you sharing pics of you going like going to the beach and challenging all the crap that could stop other people from even considering going, I’m like yes, go girl.

Elle Steele  03:20

Yeah, it’s always been just a thing in my family, I think you know, that it’s different when I’m born with my disability. And it was never an option not to just do all the things that I could do. There’s been definite discussions over the years and you know, my body has changed about what I can and can’t do and also  how many how much I can do of certain things. But yeah, like it’s my family has always been just about like getting in and having a go and we’ll work it out. You know, like we’ve got a holiday house in East Gippsland which you can only get in by boat and me trying to get in and out of the boat over the last 10 years has progressively got more awkward, but you know, it’s always I try and do the most graceful downward dog as I can on the jetty.

Shannon Dunn  04:14

Sounds like you know, that despite everything you’ve experienced, you’ve got a can do attitude. And it sounds like your family were a great support in that, which we don’t always have that, you know, no matter what our circumstances are, we don’t always have an environment where we’re encouraged to give it a go and see what happens. So has that been a part of why kind of you’ve settled on this, not settled, but maybe  come to this whole genius space of self belief as your kind of mission in the world.

Elle Steele  04:42

It’s really funny because a lot of people talk about how 2022 was a really crappy year. I don’t think that it was a bad year, but there were lots of dark nights of the soul for me and I so much of it was just peeling and peeling and peeling the layers and layers and layers of the onion. And asking myself, What is the thing that I actually talk about the most? What am I trying to instill in my clients? What am I kind of relentless at? And oh, you know, what’s this relentlessness to always find every little angle towards my goal. Okay, that doesn’t work, right. So like, let’s move around this way and try a little tweaking, I tweak everything. 

Elle Steele  05:28

And I just kind of discovered that it was actually self belief. And then talking to a really good friend of mine, we were like, Oh, this self belief agent. Oh, that’s so cool. But the self belief club had been my five or six years ago, had been my first ever internet, like, collaborative thing that I did. And I brought it back. So I had an influencer campaign where I was basically trying to get to know different people on Instagram, because I didn’t know many people. And so I invited all these people to be part of the Self Belief Club, I interviewed them. And on my website, were all these amazing interviews from people who had self belief and inspiring business women. 

Elle Steele  06:13

And then last year, I went away to Uluru, and I deleted my quite large mailing list on the Lionsgate, because I was like, No, I’m done with all these people. And that, and then I kept on getting all these weird messages from people. And at the top of the message on the Instagram, I hadn’t heard from these people were so long were my self belief messages that I’d sent to them randomly. Not randomly, I picked them. Yeah, I was like, Oh my God, this. This is actually answering what I’m asking source. You know, I’m pushing around all through and having these kinds of beautiful moments of silentness-ness. And that was what was dropping in. And so I came home and started to build the Self Belief Club.

Shannon Dunn  06:58

Yeah, very great. And so that’s been kind of alive now in the world for a little while. How’s it all going? And tell us about the self belief club? And who a lot of what, you know, who’s in there, like, is it people that have some self belief or those that are really just don’t feel like they’ve got any? To me, it feels like it’s probably a space that is inclusive of everybody, but yeah, tell me about the incredible souls that are in there.

Elle Steele  07:24

So it’s lots of different people, types of people, there’s business owners, healers, people, muggles, you know, that don’t have business owners or don’t kind of, everyone kind of has a bit of an definite interest in intuition and spirituality in some sort. Or wanting to connect more to magic and that kind of stuff. Because that’s very me. 

Elle Steele  07:46

But it’s people who know that they’re meant for more,. Like, you know, when your meant for more in the world. And, you know, I remember thinking to myself years ago, sitting in the backseat of the car driving with my parents driving to our holiday house, with my earphones in, I’ve always got my earphones in, and listening to music and thinking, I don’t want to have a nine to five. I want to be… It’s not that I want to be someone in the world. But I want to be able to show the world or people that if they make a choice, and they decide something that lots of things are possible for them. 

Elle Steele  08:23

And so that’s really the conversations. We have weekly calls, I’m also dropping monthly my healing, my own healing modality in there. So we have an hour of power, my healing modality that I downloaded about eight years ago, it’s called Power Shapes. And we have a healing hour of magic together. And then just recently dropped Beams, which was another downloaded things called Babes Educating and Mentoring Self Belief. And there, there are people in the Self Belief Club and people outside the Self Belief Club that gonna work with me for the next seven months, applications are open at the moment, to come back into the self belief club, and be mentors in there. So they’re learning all this stuff on how they can build their own self belief, but then they’ll actually get to implement it into then helping other people. So it becomes, you know, like a whole beautiful big community. Yeah, yeah. So it’s just feels really magical.

Shannon Dunn  09:24

And like, you’ve used the word magic a lot, right? And I remember reading about this and it wasn’t kind of surprise to me to say the word magic. But tell me or tell us more about how you came to understand magic in your own world. And then we can get into some questions about where that’s led to for you. But like when did this whole I guess understanding of magic come. How far back we going?

Elle Steele  09:52

We’re going back to like seven years old. I had a spiritual experience with Archangel Michael. He came to me and had a conversation with me. And I told my parents that that had happened and they were like that couldn’t possibly have happened. You know, I grew up in a kind of semi not a Catholic family. But my, my Mum was Catholic. My Dad was Anglican. So we had like church and stuff in our family early on. Yeah, and I mean, I can see unicorns I used to see unicorns like in the schoolyard, I would see spirit and I could see auras, I could feel people’s energy, I would know what Mum and Dad were gonna say in an argument, so I could manipulate the conversation. 

Elle Steele  10:37

And it just became like when I was swimming, if that kind of became a second secondary to wanting to be the paralympian and then when I became injured, and I couldn’t swim as much as I wanted to anymore, I went to all these Western medicine doctors, and they told me that the pain that was in my shoulder was in my head. So as a last resort kind of, I went to a spiritual healer, and she helped me to open my intuition up and, and learn more about energy healing, and all of that kind of part of me. And you know, realizing that the unicorns that I could see were source coming to me in a way that like a little kid can understand. And I’m, like, obsessed with Harry Potter and fantasy, and I had the Harry Potter YouTube ambience videos on today. Gryffindor common room. I’m a very immersive person. 

Shannon Dunn  11:26

Why not? Like, if you’ve got a fabulous imagination, why not throw yourself all in. I think it just brings such a, you know, when we live in a very creative way, it can be so beneficial on so many levels. . Yeah. Very, very cool. So yeah, so it really has been most of your life.

Elle Steele  11:45

Yeah, absolutely.

Shannon Dunn  11:47

So one of the things you said you were you’d love to talk about was, you know, how your psychic abilities have helped you to believe in yourself. So I’d love you to share more of your story about that connection. And then how you’re supporting those in the Self Belief Club and just in your community broadly, in general, who might not be in the club yet, but following you to really understand that, you know, all the abilities we’ve got, and how we can use that to really support ourselves to believe in ourselves. So we’ve got this hopefully unwavering, expansive, beautiful self belief.

Elle Steele  12:21

Yeah, it’s really it’s so interesting. So when we’re creating our adult brain, there are different chunks in periods of time when you learn to process things differently. So that age from like, 7 to 14, or 14 to 21, it’s really interesting age and a sense of, when you’re seven to 14, you’re kind of trying to find your gang like the gang that understands you. For me, it was like the, the opshot wearing grandpa pants, bands t-shirt girls who all love Daniel Jones, from Silverchair. And that was like the acceptance of self. 

Elle Steele  13:00

And then as I moved into, like that older 14 to 21,  later it was a spiritual part of me. But it was still finding that self acceptance, I believe that self belief is radical self acceptance. And when we are fully allowing ourselves to feel full self belief for ourselves,  it’s that we’ve made a choice that we don’t, it’s all about not caring what anyone else thinks, because I think that’s narcissistic, but it’s about understanding that we are safe and that we trust ourselves enough to express who we truly are in the world and we’ll be okay anyway.  Like, the towers aren’t gonna burn down. 

Elle Steele  13:41

 And I learned that probably multiple ways. And I think that source or the universe continue to give me that lesson throughout my whole life. But I didn’t understand the magic behind it, or I didn’t understand the repetitiveness of messages or lessons coming through. You know, my swimming career, it was amazing, but it was pretty up and down, you know, I would have things happen at the last minute that would stop me from being able to achieve the big dream. So when I was 14, a couple of days before the trials, they reclassified me into a different disability block. So I dropped from three in the world to 20 in the world. And there was no way I was going to make the world team and when I missed out on Athens, my togs or my bathers, they split. And so I missed out on the team by 0.03 of a second. 

Shannon Dunn  14:31

Random kind of things, but yeah. 

Elle Steele  14:33

Random things, but like really catalystic moments in my life where I could, like I could make a choice. And I just believe that all of it has led me to this moment of, Do you radically accept yourself? I’ve come into the world in a body that’s really controversial. I’ve been told my whole life that my body is wrong and the way that I live my life is wrong. You know, this medical model of this disability, which is it puts the person with a disability as the wrong thing, not the social model of disability where it’s the world is not accessible to us. And so that’s actually the problem. 

Elle Steele  15:12

 And so when I tapped into my intuition, it gave me this sense that I wasn’t alone, and I could lean on something that was bigger than me. So first, it was Archangel Michael, then when I tapped more deeply into the star seed part of me and that Palladian part of me, there was my beautiful spirit guide, Onyx. And this spirit guide, Onyx has led me to tap into parts of the universe that my brain couldn’t conceptualize. But I could see it in my mind, and I could feel it in my body. And some of the stuff we do in the Self Belief Club, and I’ve been doing for a long time, is activations. Which is healing, it’s energy healing. But I can see blockages and Onyx, it has a beautiful way of doing these group activations where she brings us into a particular space and you can see her. The girls, or the women or people identified mostly as females in there. But they can see her in the way that she shows herself to them. So sometimes it might be how I see her, which is kind of Maleficent, but without the crown, so she has a shaved head. In quite drapey clothes, and sometimes it’s just a light for other people. But you know, it’s trusting what’s coming through and not trying to block it straightaway. That’s the difference of opening up to it. 

Shannon Dunn  16:52

Totally. It’s such an interesting thing when you work with a group of people and everybody, it does get to that space of trusting that whatever comes in for them is their reality. And it’s exactly what it’s meant to be, even though it might be like a color or shape or a light, and someone else has got to find detail figure or whatever it is. But they’re both right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s and seeing then the beautiful connection that comes from that group, when they can celebrate the differences in what they have seen, understood, what they’re taking from that experience, rather than going Oh, mine’s not like hers. So I’m doing it wrong.

Elle Steele  17:33

Yeah, totally.  And it was so powerful. When I started to look online and the things that I was seeing, when I was going to the Palladian Boardroom, or the Galactic Federation of Light, I was going there. And then I could see people were drawing pictures online. And I was like, that’s what I’m seeing. Yeah. So that was really, that was really freaky, that kind of stuff happened.

Shannon Dunn  17:53

But you when you start to see like, we so grew up in a world where there’s so much logic, and we’re kind of encouraged to find proof and evidence of things being real. I mean, that’s it. Right. But I imagine, I know, from my own experience is that in the interim, when before you see that or seek that, it can be like, you know, the self questioning comes in? This is some weird thing. Like what, you know, did I not have enough sleep yesterday? Or why is my blood sugar low? Is there something else going on? That is making me kind of feel or sense or see or whatever, something that’s not real. Yeah, yeah. When people are in that space, how do you support them to build that trust, so that they can take what is for them? Rather than questioning or needing proof or evidence or all the different other things that can get in the way?

Elle Steele  18:50

Yeah, yeah. It’s more like I probably coach them, I guess, into building trust. And we just do it again and again, and again and again. And questions like, How do you know it’s not true? Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s that question that when you’re a teenager, oh, my God, I really don’t know if he has a crush on me, if he likes me, and you’re like, but what but how do you know he doesn’t. So I those I remember girlfriend saying that to me as a teenager? I’m like, oh, yeah, true. Actually, how do we not know like, humans automatically go to the less than or the missed out version? Like how do you not know that you’re being given this incredible gift from source?

Shannon Dunn  19:32

I know, it really is that simple, isn’t it? I know, I say often to clients in the context of coaching, it feels like I must have repeated this a billion times. You know, like, it’s not going to work or this isn’t gonna happen. Or they’re not going to say yes, I was like, well have you asked? Yeah. It’s like blank look of like, What do you mean if I asked? and I was like, Well, if you don’t ask it’s always no. But if you ask do it could be a yes. Or a maybe or not right now or some other time. Whatever that context is, whether it’s good guidance for something or working with someone or whatever, that if you don’t ask it’s always no.

Elle Steele  20:06

Exactly, yeah. We humans are hilarious.

Shannon Dunn  20:10

We are very, very interesting souls indeed. So let’s come to talk about some business stuff, right? How much of an influence, in your view and experience is having this radical, as you said, self acceptance and self belief in its relationship to business owners actually getting to experience what they say they want to experience? Like, what’s the connection? Yep,

Elle Steele  20:35

Like everything.

Shannon Dunn  20:36

I know what my view of it is, but, I’d love to hear your kind of few little bits of wisdom from you about this.

Elle Steele  20:46

It’s so funny. What I’ve been talking about with my coach  has been, we’re here to teach the thing that we need the most in our lives. And I know that my thing is that I am a Libran, and I’m a bit airy in my mind, and I overanalyze things. And because I love learning, and I want to just get to that I want to get to the pinpoint the bottom of something. 

Shannon Dunn  21:15

Mentor Teacher archetype was I need to know everything about all the things.

Elle Steele  21:19

Well, a whole family of teachers. And so I think it’s really interesting in the sense of how self belief has kind of come back to be the thing that I’m working through and helping people through and how much that is healing my radical self acceptance. Yeah, and how much it’s pushing me into those uncomfortable positions, where I’m gaining such deep self awareness, where I know that I’m basically blocking myself from my next evolution. And so then those beautiful things that can be taught, like you’re learning all the things that can can be taught.

Elle Steele  21:59

 So, you know, it’s been, I’ve got a business degree, and I worked a lot in sports marketing, and project management and all that kind of stuff. So all of those skills are like, I know how to do, I can just put it over into this and, and it’s about  the esoterical things that really like that kind of build your business. I truly believe that building a business is like the the most incredible act of feminism, because you’re like really choosing your power as a woman and to be successful and, and to bring cash in and to be your own hero of your life.

Shannon Dunn  22:51

And, you know, I don’t know about you, I know that I had a very unusual Introduction to business because both sets of grandparents were small business owners and my grandmother’s both had pivotal roles in the businesses that they were in. One of them was actively working in her serial entrepreneurial kind of endeavors when I was a child, and I got to kind of see her firsthand at work in her retail shops and things. The other one was kind of retired  would tell me stories about all the things she and my Nana and Pop done with their shop and things in marketing. And I did no doubt in my mind, she was the boss with all that. And then my Dad was in and out of small business, but having that, to me even some time after starting my own business, to recognize the gift that that had been of seeing women in a time where women were not in business, because I didn’t question whether I could be on it. Of course. I know. I know. Like, my grandmother’s were in business.

Elle Steele  23:44

Yeah. Wow. That’s amazing. 

Shannon Dunn  23:47

Yeah, so when you just said that. It’s like they’re, you know, they’re real act of feminism. Oh, goodness, yes. Yeah. And that going, yes, I’ve got something to contribute, and I’m going to do incredible things in the world, I can make a difference. And you know, be my own boss, earn my own money,  different things like that. So, it’s such an incredible opportunity for us as women now and I love seeing younger women coming through where there’s kind of no question in their mind about whether business is a possibility for them. Yeah. as role models for them. Yes, of course, you don’t have to go down a traditional job path if that does not feel right for you.

Elle Steele  24:23

Yeah, and you know,  I was not a very good student. I don’t even really know whether I’m very good employee because I want to know why. I asked the questions. Bureaucracy doesn’t sit well with me, maybe because I was a swimmer I was always pushing the boundaries. It was always about wanting to break the world records or be the best and pushing and pushing and pushing and that’s just part of who I am. And so when I’ve worked in like, I’ve worked in local government and stuff it was just never, it was never gonna work. My family laugh because I was watching the office, the Ricky Gervais office with him once I just walked into the lounge, when it first came out, they were watching it. And I was like, this isn’t very good PR for this business. And they’re like, it’s not real Elle. And I was like, what?!  my work is like that. I’m just not built for that kind of..

Shannon Dunn  25:16

And it’s so good, isn’t it when you can come to the realization of what doesn’t wait for you, and know that you have a choice to go, there were other pathways here. And I’m going to try something different until I kind of land in my sweet spot, if you like or my  happy place, my zones of genius and all that. And yeah, I know now 18 plus years in business, I would be the worst employee about. You’re trying to tell me what to do, to fit to a time schedule, I have to go to work between this hour and this hour, putting a leave form to take time off. I would rebel against every single part of that, which is why I think I always knew I was going to end up in business at some point.  And no matter what that ended up, you know, for a lot of us, it’s been a huge evolutionary journey of business. It doesn’t always flow like we hope it might. But going back and being an employee just immediately makes me feel stuck and trapped.

Shannon Dunn  26:08

One of my Archetypes immediately shuts down and goes, No, we don’t do that. We’re not doing that. Yeah, so interesting, which kind of leads me to the next question I want to ask you, and you sort of said you were keen to talk about why business owners aren’t hitting their targets. So what’s your kind of thoughts on that, because I’m sure that everyone listening would be very curious to know. There’s so many different viewpoints on this. And I think every one of them is valid and valuable to listen to. So I’d love your take on that.

Elle Steele  26:17

You know, I really feel like there’s so much noise out there that we are listening to how everyone else is doing it. And you know, I often think when I say these type of things, am I cutting my nose off to spite my face. Because I’m sending people away from working with me. you can do it yourself. You know, it is amazing. Like it’s, you want to have support, and you want to have your biz besties. And I’ve got these two beautiful groups of beautiful women I’ve been in masterminds in the US who are just like, I love them so much. And I’ve got my old co-working babes that I can lean on whenever I want to. 

Elle Steele  27:16

And all of the advice that we essentially say to each other is, well what do you want to do? And so much what I see out there is these new biz owners becoming replicate,  like they’re repeating what they think that they need to do in order to be successful. It makes me want to vomit.  I don’t care that you can, you can make a lot of money really quickly telling me how to write reels like thats great if you want to niche yourself down that small, but you’ll burn out really quickly because your soul, maybe it’s a souls purpose, but my intuition is telling me that it’s not probably your souls purpose. 

Elle Steele  28:02

So we don’t realize that we’ve often come here for so much more than we can even conceptualize. And so, you know, I feel like the simplest way to say it is if you could only give yourself permission to be who you truly are in the world without apology, and be okay with that. And so you’ll sometimes see on my social media when there’s a reel going around at the moment, and it’s suddenly like, this is how I recharge or this is my happy place, its them getting out of an amazing tent or looking at a waterfall. And I did it yesterday and it was…

Shannon Dunn  28:45

That a minute number of people are ever going to ever experience

Elle Steele  28:48

And mine was lying on my couch in my trackie shorts, and you can see scars and my tattoos and I’m like, this is how I recharge. Because you know I could – I live by the beach so I probably could get my car and go to the beach  – but also that’s not always possible. So what is the thing that is possible for you in the quickest amount of time and also with the least amount of stress and trying to be someone else? How can you just take baby steps to be in your most authentic well loving way. You know it comes back to that radical self acceptance. If I radically accept my life, where I am and who I be, then who is that person and what can they bring to the world?

Shannon Dunn  29:36

Yeah, yeah, such a beautiful way to look at it. Elle and something that I feel is so important for us to talk more about. Because you’re right, there are little replicas of different things that I see it as coaching is predominantly my space and I also have a coaching certification. So I see it kind of from a different view there as well. But the number of often younger in terms of younger in their tenure in business. not age. Newbie business owners just starting out, they kind of come and they jump on the social media scene and what seems to be the trend, what seems to be the thing where people are making money, and they become a replica. As best as you know, I guess they can reiterate and try to be someone they’re not. 

Shannon Dunn  30:16

Tends to fail quite epically often. Yeah, you can, I can often work out pretty quickly who someone’s coaching with? Yes. Yeah, you should use their language, the names of things, I might Oh, yeah, I know where that’s come from. And it might not be the kind of the source coach, it might be someone down the line. But that also is a point that I’m talking about more and more of my content, the importance of us firstly, there being some kind of a qualification with coaching methodology, yet another conversation entirely, but also that, you know, coaching, or coming to some space like coaching, mentoring, guide work, whatever you want to what language you want to use, is not you just learning that from somebody else and regurgitating that. Like, it’s like the coach, what you learned from your coach and what you know, who’s teaching you or showing you demonstrating what they learned from their coach all the way up the chain wherever they ended up originating from. So we’ve got this vanilla experience. Yeah, it all looks and sounds the same. And that’s ..again, there’s a big rebel in me, I can’t do it. 

Elle Steele  31:20

Yeah, it’s really interesting, because when I first went did my coaching in NLP, I went in to, because I wanted to, I wanted to learn how to articulate my message. That was the basis of why I did a coaching, because of linguistics, and I didn’t know how to really tell my story. And it’s so funny, because as I’ve progressed, in my business, and as I’ve progressed in growing up and being nearly 40, and all that kind of stuff, just like self belief, and self love, that all of that kind of I mean, I’ve got all the meta models, I’ve got all the metaphors, I can do all of the questions, but so much of the coaching is actually just saying, I love you. 

Elle Steele  32:03

And if you can feel my love, and you can lean into that love, what would be possible for you, you know. I found an old blog the other day, and it was, and I remember the conversation that I had with another coach, who told me that I hated my disability, because I made jokes about it. And I remember saying to him, it was right before I was meant to facilitate a session, it was the worst possible time for him to try and leave nitpick, coach me at that time. And I remember writing this piece afterwards saying, why don’t we just stop coaching people and love them instead?

Shannon Dunn  32:41

Oh, that’s beautiful. Yes, yes. 

Elle Steele  32:43

Because coaching comes from this analytical, I need to fix you, I’m going to coach you because there’s something wrong with you.

Shannon Dunn  32:49

It can do, because I had a different experience of that. But I think also that’s influenced by the fact I’ve got qualifications in counseling and art therapy. So viewpoint, a different lived experience of the coaching model. And I see it as yes, there certainly are coaches like that. And I just drives me mental and breaks my heart at the same time seeing the judgment, the shame, the criticism, and the number of people I’ve had conversations with as potential and then clients over the years, of like, I was told, with all the crap that goes after it was like, Are you kidding me? It still shocks me because it’s disappointing in such a huge way. 

Shannon Dunn  33:25

But again, the way it’s been shared is not right. But I really see coaching as a very much an open expansive thing, where it’s, you know, true methodology is around, how do we have the right kind of curious,  open ended conversation and inquiry based experience, so we can guide people to their own resources and their own answers. Yeah, yes. There’s no judgment. There’s no telling you what to do. There’s no advice giving, because advice giving is not coaching. I know, you know that. Yeah. A lot. You know, it’s even often not education in there. Education has its place,  teaching has its place in coaching, but that’s not in its original format. But yes, I’ve also seen examples of the very analytical, judgmental, critical, there’s something wrong and broken with you. We need to fix it and I’m there. Yeah. All being power that can make sure that that fix gets, you know, bought to life.

Elle Steele  34:19

No, yeah, no, that’s not coaching. Anyone who’s listening, that’s not coaching. Get rid of that coach.

Shannon Dunn  34:26

Yes, exactly. If you’ve ever worked with a coach or someone who calls themselves, I’m finding the word mentor’s coming up a lot more with people that would have not that long ago, call themselves a coach. And you feel terrible about something that happened in the experience with them. That’s a huge sign to pay attention to.

Elle Steele  34:43

I’ve got so many Shannon, so many.

Shannon Dunn  34:48

But also, when you’ve got that beautiful self belief that you’re helping to bring to life in the world, you’re able to make a discerning decision and go you know what, no, and push back. I’m the client that pushes back and gets then told various things. And yet, that’s okay. Our relationship is no longer viable. That’s okay. We need to be in that space, don’t we? It’s that self leadership and that self responsibility of being able to make the decisions that work for us. 

Elle Steele  35:14

Absolutely, and to be unapologetic about it. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Dunn  35:21

Well, I feel like we can have a whole nother conversation, another time about this for sure. For sure. So I’ve got some questions I’ve been asking every one of the guests that come on the show, so I put you in a hot seat for these ones now Elle. To bring us all back to also the reality that She Lead She Lives is about leadership and thriving too. So bringing that all back in for everyone. So what role does leadership play in your life and your business? I’m loving all the answer. 

Elle Steele  35:48

So my beautiful coach Suzanne Goldstein, she has a program every year, well, she does a thing every year, instead of doing a New Year’s resolution, she has a theme for the year. So my theme for this year is actually leadership and being my own leader. I’ve done lots of leadership training and I love leadership training, because so many of the conversations are around, how can we lead people to, you know, follow us or to into a particular direction. 

Elle Steele  36:19

And I believe so much that leadership is about cultivating relationships with people so that they can actually lead themselves and take self responsibility. That it’s not actually about us, it’s about stepping out of the way and you know, so many of the things that I’ve learnt in my years as a business owner, not needing to be at the front of everything, not needing it to be about me that so much of that our successes are about us, but also how much impact we’re making as well, and how much change we’re making. And being, you know, I’m going through a bit of a self responsibility moment, at the moment where I, as I mentioned, before I can, I can feel that I am sitting on the cusp of something, and I am super aware that I’m being a bit of a cock blocks myself, hopefully, I’m allowed to say that. But you know, blocking myself a little bit because I’m scared but having to jump off, but having to lead myself to jump off the edge of the cliff. Like it’s gonna happen anyway. So I might as well do it. Yeah, you got to get yourself there. Yeah, you do.

Shannon Dunn  37:37

And like you I imagine, we grow up in certain examples. And leadership is shown to us as an external expression. And it’s about this in front. And one of my greatest learnings for this lifetime has certainly been about the role or the importance and significance of self-leadership. And that actually, the quality of that external leadership is kind of average, unless you have really built that relationship with self, know how to be self-led, self-responsible, and all the other beautiful things that can come with that. In your own kind of way, working out your own vibe for that. So yeah, I’ve said it a few times. But I think we’re really going to have to get all the answers to these questions and kind of do a mash up episode. Yeah. Because it’s so great hearing the similarities, but also the beautiful diversity in all the answers. So it is great. All right, next one I got for you, honey, how do you know you’re thriving?

Elle Steele  37:51

How do I know I’m thriving? When I’m laughing at myself. And I have little giggles at myself and when I’m just enjoying me and who I am as a person. You know, like I do laugh at myself quite a bit, I’m a bit of a giggler.   But that’s how I know that I’m thriving. 

Shannon Dunn  38:58

It’s beautiful, isn’t it. It makes me think of a program a couple of years ago, which was called Unbothered, AF. So I won’t swear, but you know what that means. And I loved it. Because it was really being able to be in that space where you were unbothered. It’s not that you didn’t care. But you were like, You know what? So I am showing up unapologetically, in all ways and forms. And I am who I am. And it’s such a liberation to be able to be in that space. Right. So cool. So cool. All right. Couple more things to ask you. But firstly, how can people connect with you? Where do we go to connect with you in the online space as a starting point, and we’ll make sure that everything is very easy in the show notes for people to do that. But here’s your opportunity to share.

Elle Steele  39:40

Yes, so my, my Instagram is @iamellesteele. My Facebook is iamellesteeleaustralia. You can connect with me on Facebook. In my profile. It’s just ellesteele888. My website is iamellesteele.com. Everything is under i am elle steele and the Self Belief Club all the details under “work with me” they can connect through there. So that will send you to the links. And that’s why we’ve built our own beautiful home on Mighty Networks. So then people can come in, and it’s all beautifully branded and delicious.

Shannon Dunn  40:11

Yeah, very, very cool. So yeah, so if you’ve felt like a nudge – trust that intuition. Elle’s talked at lot of how important it is to trust that. Trust that and let you know, reach out and follow her for a starting point. As I said, I think my favorite place to follow most people’s Instagram, I’m very visual, that’s my favorite. And then I kind of go and find people on Facebook as well. But you know, the to get to understand someone’s life and stories, when we can share visuals and video and things now, so much easier. I love saying to people every now and again, when I’m in networking, it’s like, I started my business before there were social media and youngsters, what did you do? Like, well, it was old fashioned. We went and networked.

Elle Steele  40:51

I remember the day I wish that I’d started my Instagram a little bit earlier, because I reckon I’ll be hitting the 20,000 people. But I left a little bit too late.

Shannon Dunn  41:01

Okay, we’ll get there. We’ll definitely get there. All right, before we wrap up and kind of do a farewell. What’s the kind of final piece of wisdom you’d love to share with the ambitious wise souls that are listening to us today?

Elle Steele  41:15

You’re okay, you’ll always be okay. Even in those moments, when you don’t know what direction that you want to go in. If you can just give yourself some space going and make a cup of tea, go for a walk, ground your feet on, take your shoes off, and literally put your feet in the dirt or on the graph. And just breathe. And just remember to bring yourself back to that soul, the embodiment of breath and all that. And it will be a game changer for you. I just always say my mantra to myself is “I am safe, because I’m with me.”

Shannon Dunn  41:49

Oh, I love that Elle. How beautiful. Simple but profound. 

Elle Steele  41:55

That’s me. 

Shannon Dunn  41:58

I love it. Very, very cool. Thank you so much for joining me.

Elle Steele  42:03

It’s been a pleasure. 

Shannon Dunn  42:04

Yeah, it’s been so so fun. I love this hear the conversation we’ve got kind of some things to talk about. But I never know where they’re gonna go. And I always sit in that beautiful place of trust that exactly what’s meant to be shared is what’s going to be captured in the conversations we have for the podcast. And again, another example of that today. So thank you so much for saying yes to me when I reached out. 

Shannon Dunn  42:29

 And we can’t wait to share this with the world and see what that leads to. It’s been really great to see all of the guests getting so much joy out of again, sharing with their own communities, being in the spotlight on your own podcast eps. And also just where else in terms of new people coming in, hopefully. So thank you again, honey.

Shannon Dunn  42:48

 Thank you listeners for tuning in and listening to Elle and I today. As I said before, if you’re intrigued to go and follow her as a sort of bare minimum, find out what this intriguing woman is all about, and how she’s blending all of her life that lived in learned experience and her wisdom and intuition and everything into her business as well to support more of us to be women who  they have this beautiful radical self acceptance and overflowing with self belief, what a joy, the whole world would be if we all will go, right, let’s hold that space. Right. Let’s hold that vision for everybody. So thank you for listening. 

Shannon Dunn  43:24

Be sure you kind of follow the show, rate, share it with your friends. If you love an episode or you love the whole lot. Tell everyone about it so we can get more women out there remembering that they were born to thrive and there is an incredible opportunity for all of us everyday to do just that. Thanks again Elle. Thanks, everyone. I’ll see you soon.