How to Find Your Zone of Genius: The Work That Makes You Come Alive with Abbi Miller
EP 60

How to Find Your Zone of Genius: The Work That Makes You Come Alive with Abbi Miller

Show Notes: 

In this expansive and energizing conversation, Tonya and holistic business strategist Abbi Miller dive deeply into the concept of the Zone of Genius or as Abbi calls it, the Zone of Aliveness. Together, they explore the embodied, intuitive, and often nonlinear journey of discovering the work that makes us feel most alive, the traps that lead to burnout, and the practices that sustain creativity over the long term. Abbi shares her personal evolution from actress to yoga teacher to business strategist, breaks down the realities of wearing every hat as an entrepreneur, and offers grounded, practical tools for staying connected to your body, time, intuition, and boundaries.

This episode is equal parts inspiring and actionable, filled with rituals, audits, cycle-syncing, and reflective questions to help listeners reconnect to their aliveness and create in a way that is sustainable, true, and distinctly their own.

Topics Covered:

  • Zone of Genius vs. the Zone of Aliveness and why “feeling alive” is often easier to recognize than feeling like a “genius.”
  • The real relationship between burnout, creativity, and staying in the game long enough for your work to flourish.
  • A four-step scope audit to prevent overwhelm and reclaim your time.
  • How cycle syncing, somatic awareness, “body before biz,” and weekly audits help entrepreneurs stay aligned and energized.
  • Why innovation often makes you feel like a “freak” and why being first, different, or unconventional is actually a sign you're on the right track.

Connect with Abbi Miller:

Connect with Tonya:

 

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Show Transcript:

Tonya Papanikolov [00:00:00]: Okay. I feel like this is kind of like a fun workshop y podcast. I'm really excited for us to introduce our topic today, which is the precarious, the beautiful, the wonderful place of being in our zone of genius and what that is and what that really means, and all of the intricacies of what it takes to do that. So let's start here with how do you define the space? And also, at any point in this, if you want to weave in any stories that you feel comfortable with sharing about moments with clients. I realize that that may be sensitive, but just any examples I feel like are always so helpful for listeners. What's your experience with this? How do you define it? Let's start there.

Abbi Miller [00:00:45]: So I use the term zone of genius and zone of aliveness interchangeably. For some reason, aliveness, I relate to feeling alive. I don't relate to feeling like a genius.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:00:56]: Okay. I love that.

Abbi Miller [00:00:57]: Like, just my own personal experience of it. I mean, of course I'm brilliant. You know, I'm not walking around like, oh, yes, I'm in my genius, but I can walk around and actually check a box and say, wow, I feel alive right now. So that's my preferred term. But nobody else uses that term. But your question is, what is it? So I, you know, I'm a biz strategist. I spend all day with artists and creatives. So so much of what I'm going to share today is going to be through the lens of biz.

Abbi Miller [00:01:24]: And I think I'll just say the point of running your own biz, in my opinion, is to be expressed to make an impact, to solve problems and bring people into their dreams. And that, of course, we're doing all of this while making a living. And the only way that our business can be successful is if we sustain, if we don't burn out. It's kind of like the only way you make money in the stock market is if you don't jump out and sell before you've made money. It's like you have to stay in it. And so I think that to be in our zone of genius or zone of aliveness, it's like, first of all, we have to stay in the game. So it's like the not giving up.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:02:01]: I love that so much. Two things I want to just interject here are that I first learned about this through burnout is first and foremost. And the second thing is I love this quote so much that I saw on social media a while ago something along the lines of, like, I didn't succeed because I was lucky. I just tried more times than you did. And there's so much truth in that.

Abbi Miller [00:02:25]: Yeah, yeah. Isn't that like a famous Thomas Edison quote or this is like a similar quote. He doesn't believe in failure, he says because he had something like, I don't even know, 10,000 patents that failed before the light bulb or something like this. And he said, I didn't fail 10,000 times. I just had 10,000 iterations that weren't the one. And that for him it was like, oh, I'm just going to keep. I'm just going to make one more. Yeah, just make one more.

Abbi Miller [00:02:49]: And I've referenced this a lot on my pod, but I love Dolly Parton. I just think she's a fat, fascinating creature artist, entrepreneur. And she has the same thing. I heard her in an interview and they were talking about, I don't even know how many Grammys she has, but they're like, what is it like to be, you know, a 12 time Grammy Award, whatever. And they're kind of like talking about like, what are the chances that you have that many Grammy Award winning songs? And she kind of laughed and I think she's very famous for being humble, but she laughed and she said, I write a song a day. I've written a song a day. Like she's had this practice for a super long time. It's just her non negotiable.

Abbi Miller [00:03:25]: She's like, If I have 365 songs in a year and one of them is platinum, that's not actually that great. Like 1 in 365 songs is a hit, you know. But I love that because it really does show what's going on behind the scenes. Because it's so easy to look at someone that has a Grammy or that has what we view as a success that maybe we perhaps want for ourself and think that it's luck but to not realize how much effort and intention and ritual is going into it. Yeah, I love that totally. But okay, but to answer your question, so I think it's like staying in the game, right? It's not giving up. And there's a quote. I love Howard Thurman.

Abbi Miller [00:04:04]: He was a spiritual advisor to Martin Luther King Jr. This is the quote that I want to get tattooed on my forehead. It's don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. And that to me, is it that. Is it because like I said, zone of genius, zone of aliveness. We know when we feel alive.

Abbi Miller [00:04:30]: Like, for me, I could give you 8 million examples of when you arrive at a beach you've never been on before and the sun is shining, you're just like, oh, my God, I feel alive. Like, anything's possible, that kind of feeling. But I think there. I mean, you know, we can Dictionary.com Zone of Genius, but in general, it's something. It's a flow state. I think we're in our zone of genius. We're in our zone of aliveness. I would say they're not mutually exclusive.

Abbi Miller [00:04:55]: I think you are always in some version or flavor of your zone of genius in a flow state. Not that you can't be in it and not be in a flow state, but I also think it often is when we are. If there's some kind of inborn proclivity that's being honored and for us to be in our zone of genius. And I think that we would probably do some version of it anyway, even if it weren't our career. Like, it's often the thing that we just feel drawn to, whether it's. And I think there's a hundred iterations of this. It could be a tendency, it could be a skill, like singing. It could be a little bit more abstract.

Abbi Miller [00:05:32]: I think this is where it gets super nuanced. But that's kind of how I see it. And it's taken me a long time to even answer, like, what is my zone of genius or aliveness? Because I've had many iterations. As a teen, I was an actress. As a kid and teenager, I was a professional actress, singer, dancer. So I signed an agent at 14 and worked for about 11 years and had a whole career in theater and performing arts. And then I left and went to school for yoga and nutrition and ran a nutrition biz for 12 years before I started having so many people asking me, how are you traveling the world? How are you making a good living? How are you doing this business thing as a wellness babe and start mentoring entrepreneurs and wellpreneurs? And so on paper, I'm like, wow, those could not be more dissimilar. Performing artist, a yogi, nutritionist, and a biz coach, biz strategist.

Abbi Miller [00:06:25]: But when I actually unpack them all, I think, okay, what do these all have in common? There's like, this hype, girl energy. As an actress, you get to show up, or as a singer, you get to show up and make people feel something. And I think that yoga nutrition was much more somatic. It was like, really getting People in their bodies, empowering them to help themselves feel good. But for me, and this is again, a little bit abstract, but I think that my zone of genius is like the hype girl. It is the making things feel easy. Whether it's, oh, you're giving up gluten, I can make that feel easy. Oh, you're starting a product based biz, I can make that feel easy.

Abbi Miller [00:07:04]: I think there's something in there, but it's taken me a long ass time to like, really even like, name the through line.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:07:12]: That's really cool. I love that. That's really helpful. One thing I remember somebody telling me is like, I don't know the level of truth or whatever in this. I think it's all kind of like subjective to some extent too. But she was saying she was somebody else who I had on the podcast list, Tran, and she was saying somebody's zone of genius could be like watching a movie. And I was like, that really, totally blew the whole concept, even in a different direction for me because I was like, oh, right. So what I love about this concept is that it's something that really fuels us and gets us into a state of that specific thing doesn't even need to be the thing we make money doing, but it needs to be something that we are filling our cup with.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:08:06]: And that was a really beautiful realization for me and maybe for other people too, just depending on where they are in life. I remember when I was in my early 20s, working for other people and needing to go through that process of learning and having jobs and all of that kind of thing where I was like, well, I'm not in my zone of genius and I'm not ready to do X, Y, Z yet. I need whatever. But you can still feed it, Feed that aliveness in so many ways.

Abbi Miller [00:08:31]: Oh, I love that. And it kind of makes me think of Liz Gilbert and Big Magic and this idea of monetizing your passion because it's a fucking fine line. I mean, it's a dance. I'm sure. You know, as a yoga teacher, there was a while where I was teaching and leading like four luxury international retreats a year, which doesn't sound like that much, but that's a lot every quarter. Like prepping a big thing and then having private clients. And it would be like there would be days that I would be prepping people's flows and not doing any Austin on myself and starting to have that tension of like, I want to be on that mat. And Liz Tran, did she write the book about intuition? I Feel like I've read her book.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:09:09]: Yeah, it's called the Karma of Success. Yes.

Abbi Miller [00:09:12]: Oh, I love that book. I read that last year. I really liked it.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:09:15]: I love her. Okay, so do you see zone of genius or aliveness? Do you see that as being different from skills, talent and passion?

Abbi Miller [00:09:25]: I think those three things can be included in it.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:09:30]: Okay.

Abbi Miller [00:09:31]: I think that if we're someone that was gifted, the upbringing, the privilege, the support to inhabit our zone of genius and aliveness at a young age. Maybe we were fortunate. Like I'm thinking of, I was privileged to start dance class really young. I loved movement, and I've always been a very embodied. And my parents said yes to that. So it became a skill that by 18, I was in a professional company because it was a skill that I was able to hone because I think it was always in me. So, yeah, I think that it totally can be.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:10:05]: Yeah. Beautiful.

Abbi Miller [00:10:07]: But I want to know yours. You know, what your zone of genius is or your zone of aliveness. And I don't think there has to be one, by the way. I don't think it has to be like one and done. But do you have an answer?

Tonya Papanikolov [00:10:19]: Oh, my gosh. I should have come prepared. I think for me, at least, where I'm at with this, because to some extent, it feels iterative. For me, it's really actually landing even deeper. The aliveness piece. So where I feel this comes through for me in this current moment is being in groups. And I think about the ethereal reset that I facilitated and getting to hold space, getting to be in feminine energy, curation, and creation. That's where I feel very, very alive.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:10:59]: And that can be alive for lots of different projects. It's alive and Rainbo in certain aspects. When there's an idea coming through, it can be like, creation can be alive. I think also poetry and writing, words and communication feel so natural and a very big part of who I am. And since I've been little, I've been writing stories. I've been like the ability to express emotion or to express, like, truth or observation or to witness and then describe that. So I think it's still this thing that I think I'm working through and working with and figuring out, like, where does this come in? There's, like, the teaching aspect of sharing. Maybe it's not teaching per se, but it's anything that's, like, expansive and mind opening that can be experienced as a community.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:11:51]: I just love. I feel so much aliveness in that. And then things that are totally unrelated to anything Are alone time walking, walking alone in a new place and just feeling like silence to feel the breeze and to let that just really like animate me and slowness and these kinds of things. That's where I'll find inspiration and ideas and I'll just feel this level of connection that can just bring me to my knees and make me want to cry.

Abbi Miller [00:12:27]: That's so beautiful. I have a practice called body before biz, which is super simple. It almost doesn't even need a description. But it's like having some touch base or touchstone with our physical body before we put on our CEO founder hat. And in different seasons of my life, it's been different things. Like pre motherhood, it was a 90 minute vinyasa and like a card poll and journaling and maybe even a walk with a friend and a matcha day like before I start work. And now it's like if it's 11 minutes of. I've actually brought chocolate in, which has been really fun.

Abbi Miller [00:13:03]: Like having cacao on my tongue when I meditate is like this new thing I'm doing. It's so fun. I started doing it last Christmas because I got my daughter Divine Chocolate makes like an organic dark chocolate advent calendar. And I took the calendar. So I have like a little meditation nook that's tucked away in my office and I had hid it because she kept eating it. And so I tucked it away. And then one day I sat down to meditate and it was right there. I was like, oh, I'll have some chocolate.

Abbi Miller [00:13:33]: I realized this is the best thing that's ever happened.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:13:35]: Sounds amazing. That's right up my alley.

Abbi Miller [00:13:38]: So good.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:13:39]: I'm on such a wild, like cacao intense affair. It's so good.

Abbi Miller [00:13:45]: But now I can't remember why I was telling you that story. Oh, the body before. Bizarre. That sometimes the body before biz is sitting down, having one square of chocolate, taking five deep breaths and then jumping onto calls for the day. I think that especially for those of us that like a large part of our work is online, I think it's so easy to be like and head. And we're just like, oh, this is what I consult. And I know you and I have other rituals and habits, but I think it's really easy to default to like live in our head. So I think just the simplicity of checking in with our body every morning, not separate from, but as a part of the activation and beginning of our kind of biz day, I think can be massive in helping us drop in, you know?

Tonya Papanikolov [00:14:32]: Absolutely. And I mean, even just breath, even the awareness to be like, where is my diaphragm right now? Where is my breath right now? When I'm in the car, when I'm driving, Like the ways that the body just holds some tenseness and getting to release that and just like coming back to the body, just having so many infinite signals for us is such an important, like never ending practice and reminder. Let's tune into some of the nuance around this subject because there's of course like so many different stages of entrepreneurship or of running your business and the requirement for many of us to just wear multiple hats and to not let anything become a trap. Because I think the flexibility, whether that's in like parenthood or in your business or in any aspect of life in any relationship is like having the agility to recognize when you're being stubborn to say like, oh, I'm above doing this at this stage, or like, I shouldn't have to do this, or this is not in my zone of genius. You have to also be willing to put all of these preconceived notions aside and be like, can I be so present with what is required in this moment and take responsibility for it and not delegate it? And there's the moments for that. But there's also just the total reality that oftentimes things change and shift and it requires us to come back in in different ways. And it's not always the way we want, but sometimes it's just required. And there's level, there's responsibility and so there's like that reality, but then also finding this place.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:16:12]: So how do you balance that? How do you recommend people balance that? How do we recognize this before it's too late, before we do get burnt out?

Abbi Miller [00:16:21]: Well, I think that the nature of running a biz, even if someone listening is a painter that's selling their paintings, that maybe they don't identify as someone who's running a biz. It's like you are, you are. Even if you're a solopreneur, you do, you have your own biz. And I think that everything about running a biz is going to ask us to widen our scope every day it's like an ever expanding universe where just every fucking day it's going to get bigger. And there's a little bit of a cosmic joke in this because I think that so many of us as founders start off wearing every hat where we're like, I'm the market, like, I'm the cmo, I'm the cfo, I'M the CEO.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:17:01]: I'm the C CEO and the bookkeeper and the janitor.

Abbi Miller [00:17:04]: Oh my. Literally everything. I'm everything. I'm the project manager, I'm the assistant. We're doing all the things and we're like, oh, I actually am the SEO. I don't know shit about it, but now I do because I just googled it for a month. And it's like, I think that being scrappy and being, like you said, being agile, leaving the ego at the door and being willing to move quickly and educate ourselves is important. It's so important.

Abbi Miller [00:17:32]: And I think that running anything, there's some kind of inborn curiosity and drive that entrepreneurs have. It's why they're like my favorite people. There's something about the artists and the healers and the creatives where it's like we're just willing to figure stuff out. But there's a little, at least for me, there's a little bit of, like I said, tension. Because for so many of us, unless you're a trust fund kid or you have like a very wealthy uncle that just is like, here, I love your business, here's some money.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:17:58]: We love that.

Abbi Miller [00:17:59]: We love you. We love those uncles. We love them. Don't currently have one, but I'm open to it. I'm very self funded.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:18:05]: Yeah.

Abbi Miller [00:18:05]: And even if you are someone who is like funding for it, you are beholden to like, whether it's an individual or a board or a whole VA firm, whatever, like, that's a whole other route. But for those of us that are self funded, I think we tend to be scrappy and do all the things and then it's like once we kind of have this like mvp, right? The minimum viable product or we have the offer that's like, wow. So many of my clients, myself included, had a business before they wanted to start a business. Like, I was running a nutrition and yoga biz and I had more and more people asking me about, how do you run a biz? That I just had my lunch calendar booked out. Like every day I was meeting a new person for lunch and then suddenly I was like, wait, this is like a thing that people need. And I actually want to meet within more than 35 minutes. And there's so much more that I want to actually really make an impact in these people's lives. But I think for so many people, it's like you're suddenly up and running.

Abbi Miller [00:19:02]: You're doing all the things. You're the web designer, you're the graphic designer, you're the bookkeeper. And then it starts to kind of work, you start to make a bit of money, you get some yeses, you get some support and then you're like, oh, I'm stressed the F out. And I think what you named is like what most people feel, which is you reach this growing pain, which is almost always expressed as burnout and fatigue because we are literally doing too much. It's just too many hats to wear. And if that burnout happens at a time where we are also getting yeses in the form of sales, the natural next thing would be to hire and to take something off our plate. And so again, I just feel like it's a bit of a cosmic joke because we start off doing everything and then once we're like quote unquote, reaching a place of success, then suddenly we're able to put things down. But we've like earned and self educated ourselves to this point of being able to do the thing.

Abbi Miller [00:19:53]: So it's very confusing because you're like, wait, I can do it. And that's actually my favorite place to meet a client. I would say my favorite, favorite clients are the babes that come to me and they're like, okay, I've got the thing, it's working. I'm about to black out. And I'm like, awesome. This is going to be fun. This is going to be fun. So protecting that I think is huge.

Abbi Miller [00:20:13]: I think also just like releasing any shame because it's just a pattern I see especially in women that tend to be self funded. What is it like 10% of VC goes to women right now? I mean it's.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:20:23]: I don't even know that much. Maybe now. Maybe now, I hope.

Abbi Miller [00:20:26]: Yeah. And so something that kind of back to what I was saying is that the scope is going to constantly widen. I think that we get to, as our business grows, as our work evolves, we get to start to be more discerning about what becomes delegated. So there's a four step audit that I recommend everyone do. Anytime you are teetering on burnout or, or you do realize, gosh, I'm wearing too many hats or like supports an option for me. And when you're looking at, I call it your scope audit. So it's like what's on your to do list? And the first thing is going through the list and saying, what can I delete? Literally what am I to do list can I delete? Whether it's an action or a project, of course there's nuance there. But when you look at Your list, your project management software, your notebook, whatever.

Abbi Miller [00:21:14]: Is there anything that I can literally cross off and nobody's going to die, nothing's going to break, because that ability is fucking huge. And then if you can't delete it, then to say, okay, is there a way to automate it? Is there a system or service in which this could be completely out of my hands and fully automated and I never have to touch it again, or I, like check in with it annually or something, and then if, okay, I can't delete it, shoot, I can't automate it, then we get to ask, can I delegate it? Is there a human that I trust that I can onboard or that's already in my world that I can outsources to? Which, of course, you can only automate if you have tech and systems, and you can only delegate if you have, I call it your biz, family tree. But it's like the team, the team that you trust who are also in their zone of genius and their zone of aliveness. So it's like also giving them a gift. But then, and only then, once we've asked, can I delete, automate or delegate? We have to ask those three questions before we are even coming close to saying, can I get this done today?

Tonya Papanikolov [00:22:13]: Yeah, I love that I want to add something else that's really been beneficial for me in this whole process. I think a lot about impact and time and where I can feel the most impactful, which helps me feel that my skills and gifts are being used in their best way. And so something that I started to do was a time audit. And maybe I'll link like a little template in this podcast because it's really simple, it's a little bit time consuming, but there's two ways, one of which is every 30 minutes and you do it for two weeks. And you just get so much information because so, so much of the time too, like, especially as remote workers and like the melding of doing some life stuff and other stuff. And so it's just so helpful to really, really get an understanding of how long does something take me and what is the idea of how long it takes me in my head. And those are often really different. And so you're just going to learn stuff.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:23:17]: And I also just recently learned that Google Cal has an amazing function. I think it's like $80 a month, but for me it feels really worth it. And you can basically have all of these blocks and so you can like, you know, you don't need to do it forever, but Again, when you're in this phase of really evaluation and audit, it's really helpful, but you kind of like chunk off like, okay, this is like the three hours I spent doing marketing today or on external calls or doing errands or doing whatever. You kind of have all these buckets of where your time goes and then you can start to adjust and be like, okay, well actually I do have a good amount of time that I spend on my self care rituals. That feels good and balanced and I'm just gonna commit to that. And actually I don't think I need to be on 15 hours of external calls a week. This feels like a lot of things that I can start to say no to. So I think that has really helped me as somebody who's really struggled with boundaries of myself and in my business, just really getting an idea of where does time go and how can I be a lot more intentional with the focus of that?

Abbi Miller [00:24:20]: Yeah, I love that. I think it's like anything. We have to have the awareness to create any kind of change. ClickUp does that too. ClickUp. You can plug in tasks and it'll integrate with Google Cal and it'll say like, oh, there's a 30 minute window. You could write that email here or whatever. It'll kind of play boss a little bit and tell you what to do.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:24:38]: Honestly, also sometimes like, oof, it's great to have a boss. Oh my God, like how many entrepreneurs are like, wow, that'd be so nice. I mean often I'm just like, yep, I need an accountability partner for this. Yeah. Oh.

Abbi Miller [00:24:52]: I mean, sometimes I call myself a rent a boss, but because I work with leaders and founders and they're the top of the pyramid and I'm the person that gets to come in and say, okay, when is this project due? Okay, what are your tasks? Okay, how do you feel about that? What is the next step? I think we all, I mean, therapists need therapy, massage therapists need massages. We all benefit from that support. Oh, but when you were talking, there was something I wanted to share. So my friend Katie Dale Bout, she has a podcast I was on recently, recently and we were talking about a concept that I coined called time pessimism. And this is totally what I think you were speaking about a little bit. And so I come from a line of time optimists and so that is the. Oh, I need to pick my daughter up from preschool in an hour. So I'm just going to finish this book.

Abbi Miller [00:25:40]: I think I'll send an email. I might throw those Cookies in the oven and I'll wrap that birthday present and then I might just take a quick shower before I do 10 minutes of core work. Yeah. Oh my God. Just very, very, very optimistic about time. Some people call it time blindness. There's conversations and like neurodivergent spaces around if this is like a part of a. I'm not diagnosed, but I have curiosity around it.

Abbi Miller [00:26:03]: Me too. And I think again with entrepreneurship, it's like a lot of us live in a world where, especially for service providers, where the more we work, the more we make. So this idea of like kind of cramming it all in can be a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy because the more we cram in, the more we sometimes do make. And so it feels like that's the only way to run our biz. And so I know for me, I feel like it's a big act of resistance to, like you said, actually notice where you spend your time. How do you feel about that? Is it a surprise? Are you actually moving the needle on the things you want to? But then also I time batch and I could link too. I have a whole time batch training. I can link you guys for free.

Abbi Miller [00:26:43]: Happy to share that. So with time batching to actually practice time pessimism. And so what I do with this is if I have a task that's like, let's say if I had to email someone a headshot that's literally going to take 60 seconds, it's going to take me longer to write it down than to do it. But anything bigger than that actually needs one hour on my calendar. And that feels like psychotic to me because as a time optimist I'm like, wait, I could do 11. So I use notion in the way that I used to to I call it self boss is I would just have a to do list and I would put as many things as I could on a day and I would just sprint and get as many of them done. And then when the day is over, I roll over what I don't do. And that is how I self bossed for so long.

Abbi Miller [00:27:26]: And there's always, in my opinion, in my body, an experience of being very cortisol and adrenaline led and never feeling enough. And those two feelings are not very fucking fun. No. And so with time pessimism, you actually got to kind of flip that on its head and say, okay, if I have calls and let's say I have a three hour window in between calls, okay, I have three hours of admin a day. What are the Three tasks that are most urgent, important, life giving in my zone of genius and aliveness. And then to actually have that kind of micro audit in that moment of like, if I only did three things today, what's actually going to move the needle the most? And then plugging those in and then everything else is extra credit. I can still have my rollover list, I can still have my back burner list, but I really only do it if I've done those three things that are slotted in. And what it changed for me is all of a sudden I got to have this exhale because most things actually don't take an hour.

Abbi Miller [00:28:23]: Like, I'd get the thing done and it's like, oh, it actually took me 35 minutes. And instead of me trying to cram it with 80 other things, it took me 35 minutes. I'm like, really excited. I got a little dopamine hit because I got it done. And then I'm like going to get up and go refill my water and have a stretch because I suddenly have given myself this sense of spaciousness, which I think is a thing that so many of us as founders and creatives never feel. And then in that time, if I decide, oh, I do want to do that one quick thing that I have, I can. But it starts to feel like extra credit instead of this mad sprint.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:28:55]: I love that so much.

Abbi Miller [00:28:57]: That's been super helpful for me.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:28:59]: It's very important feeling, I think, to end your day feeling like, proud of how you spent your time versus, wow, I didn't do all these things.

Abbi Miller [00:29:13]: Yeah. Which is so easy to feel. And I would be lying if I said I never felt that way. It's not like I've cracked the code. And every day I'm like, oh, I'm so amazing. I've done everything I've ever. No, because also I think the nature of being a creative is that we're generative and that we're going to constantly have new ideas. So it's like this lol where we're like doing something on the front end and on the back end we're having like 50 new ideas.

Abbi Miller [00:29:36]: And again, I'll share my training, but I talk about this in the training. I think a huge part of any kind of productivity and especially in it with a ritual of time pessimism. It's what we're saying no to. It's like, how are we organizing the back burner ideas? Because the fire hose is going to keep going. And I think I tend to work with creatives that are like, oh, there's something wrong with me because the fire hose is spraying. I'm like, no, you're a creative genius, let that spray. And then have some kind of ritual or system for collecting what you want to carry with you.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:30:07]: That kind of leads into the next question to some extent too, which is just around what role boundaries, saying no, these types of things, how that really supports one staying in this zone or just really even staying focused.

Abbi Miller [00:30:25]: Well, like I said my scope audit, the first question is what can I delete? And I have like with my team, I have a rejection email template that's like a very kind just Abby's not available for this email. And in our shared, we use CloudHQ and I have shared labels and anytime I get an inquiry, I mean if it's spam, I'm deleting it. But if it's anything that feels like a real outreach that just isn't aligned, I drag and drop it in the nope folder and my assistant goes in and customizes the template that we've co written and sends the rejection right. So it's like having that so smooth so that I think in my early days of biz I would like personally answer every one of those emails and be like, oh my gosh, this is so sweet. But I can't because of this and this and just like systematizing some of making it easier to say no. That is super duper helped me. I also think becoming a mom, that's really helped me because I literally don't have time anymore. It's like there's something comical about how discerning I've become.

Abbi Miller [00:31:24]: Now I'm just like, I have a full body. Yes. Or a full body, no, most of the time. And I think that there's a Steve Jobs quote. Not that I'm like a massive Steve Jobs fan, but I really like this quote. And he says something along the lines of like, people think focus and productivity means knowing what you're going to focus on. And he says, but that's not it at all. It's actually everything you say no to every day.

Abbi Miller [00:31:47]: And I love that you asked this question because I think it is a really, really big part. Completing any vision or project or day is that discernment? And I think that, I mean this could go on a lot of tangents around how do we goal set or how do we connect to our intuition to know if it's a yes or no. But I think that if you again, if you're a creative artist, founder, listening, you know that Most of your day is decision making. And I think the more that we can shorten the timeline between the question and like that quiet whisper impulse that we have within where it's like, you know, when you get an opportunity and you're like, oh, yeah, I could do that maybe if I. And you like, kind of self convince a little bit. And you know the thing where people ask you and it's like, you can't hit yes quick enough. And not everything is like that. If my accountant wants to talk about a tax thing, like, is my whole body alive with a yes? I mean, also part of me is like, yeah, let's just get it over with.

Abbi Miller [00:32:43]: Let's just get it done. But I mean, I think we kind of can't talk about boundaries without talking about intuition, is my opinion. Because I think that the more that we hone that and the more that we honor it and like I said, shorten the timeline between the question and the answer honestly, it's like it's just going to feel better as a business owner trusting it, you know?

Tonya Papanikolov [00:33:00]: Well, and I love so many of these little tools that I just also want to say I knew none of this stuff. I'd say the whole process to even doing an audit of some sort is so counterintuitive to my nature because I'm very, very unstructured. And that's like totally a part of me. But it was through pain that I've come to learn these things.

Abbi Miller [00:33:27]: Same, same.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:33:28]: And what I think about what you just said about implementing some of these tools, for me, these processes are very much learned and there was resistance, but. But on the other side of it, there's just so much amazing information and levels of discernment that I think come through more naturally in those full body yeses and nos. And it's really just that a lot of what we're talking about is not like innate and was a push to even like get around to doing, but it actually has helped facilitate the ability to have greater discernment around, like, what to say yes to, what to say no to. And I'm excited for motherhood for that too, because honestly, some of the most inspiring women in my life are mothers and are creatives and business owners. And I'm just like, I see the level of fierceness they have with their time and it's a pure. It's just a requirement of the new role that you go into where you're just like, oh, like, I just, I know what this takes when you do things like what you mentioned with like Giving yourself an hour for something and something comes in, you can more appropriately be like, cool, I can get this to you in three weeks. Because I think when some of these things come in that are non urgent and we do them and we're like, well, why did I do that today? That could have been like two weeks out. So I think there's so many levels and layers and levels of prioritization that come with so much self knowledge.

Abbi Miller [00:34:54]: Oh, for sure. And I do this because I was an actress in yogi. Like, I'm very feminine, I'm very float. I work with the wild animal creatives because I'm a wild animal creative. I do think I straddle a bit. I have, like I said, a proclivity for. I love a spreadsheet. I have some of that in me.

Abbi Miller [00:35:12]: You know, my mom's an artist and my dad's an engineer.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:35:15]: Oh, great.

Abbi Miller [00:35:16]: I have these kind of dualities within me, but I think that creativity is messy. I always use the metaphor of like, when you make a beautiful dish and you're just in it and you're not using a recipe, it's like you gotta get the spices out. It's like you're tasting and stirring. You're not like, oh, yes, I'm gonna measure it and then wipe the canister and put it away. No, I'm like, my husband sasses me because when I've cooked because everything's out and then we have an amazing meal and then I clean everything up. It's like I clean up after. But I need to make the mess to feel that creative space. And that's why I do the work I do.

Abbi Miller [00:35:50]: It's like I get to work with the creative animals. And I think for me, the kind of back to, maybe even one of the first questions you asked, we get to really identify what feels good in our creative practice in our biz, and we get to stay there by getting support. And our manifesto at my business work womb is that we know we can do it all, but we weren't meant to do it alone. And that this is a together kind of thing. And I think the quicker that we're able to identify what brings us joy in our bizarre, the more quickly we're able to set up a system or team around that. And it's different for everyone. And so I know, like, there are certain things that are a little bit of a slippery slope for me. I'm someone who sometimes I think if I were to start over, I could totally see myself becoming a graphic designer.

Abbi Miller [00:36:36]: I love Design and all of that. But I'm a business strategist. Me spending my time editing a graphic does not immediately make me money. And I have a designer, I can just message her and be like, yo, girl, can you make a thing? And she's going to make it gorgeous. It's going to be amazing. And I get spend time that makes me money right at the end of the day. And so I had her on retainer for a long time because I knew if I was just auto paying her that that was kind of a boundary where I'd feel like, oh, it's literally dumb for me to do this task because I've already paid for someone else to do it. So I kind of had to set up some of those kind of safety nets for myself because otherwise I think coming from a scrappy DIY background, it would be easy for me to be like, oh, I'll just make this, I have a canva subscription.

Abbi Miller [00:37:20]: So this is kind of what I mean about automation and team. It's like starting to really know and quite simply to drop all the jargon and all the systems and platforms, literally, it's like, what do you want to spend your time doing? Do you want to be the person physically making the product? Do you want to be the person on the podcast talking about the product? Do you want to be the person in the shop? I mean, there's just so many touchstones and there's no right answer. And I think that also we can also experience burnout on the other end. Where I've had seasons of my biz and I've definitely had clients who do have automations, they do have team, but they've suddenly cut out everything they love and they've just become a manager, where suddenly they're the head of the pyramid and they're managing all these amazing humans doing amazing work. But that's not their zone of aliveness, it's actually their zone of ick. Where suddenly they're like, ah, I actually want to be the person two jobs, I'm saying below me. And I don't mean that in any kind of like actual hierarchy, but someone in the fulcrum beneath me, I actually want to do their thing. So I have an audit every Friday and I'm using maybe people feel allergic to this word.

Abbi Miller [00:38:29]: It could be like a ritual or a review. I don't know why the word audit is what comes to me, but every Friday I just ask myself what happened? And I have a little notion template. I could link this to you guys too. But I Have a little what happened? It'll be like, oh, I was on Tonya's podcast or oh, I signed a new client or whatever. And then what needed support is the next question. How did you feel this week? It's a template. So I have a smiley face, neutral sad face. I can't do any nuance.

Abbi Miller [00:38:55]: It's happy, medium sad. And then there's places to track, other metrics. But that for me has been so freaking huge because just coming back every Friday and just saying, wow, I've had a Now I don't have sad faces unless, I mean, I don't even know the last time I did. But if I start to see neutral, which is yellow and I know we're veering towards red, it's like, okay, girl, what happened? And where do you need support? And I can act quickly. So I think because again, if we're top of the pyramid, if we don't have maybe a biz coach asking us these questions, I think it's easy to start to creep towards burnout or to creep towards a job description that we've made for ourself that isn't actually even a job you would ever apply for. So I think having some ritual to audit that, to reflect on that and refine that is huge.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:39:42]: Yeah, would love that. Linked. What would you say for people listening who feel stuck, that are maybe not in a moment of aliveness? What would you say to help them get unstuck, to help them uncover what it is that is kind of like beckoning them next or really just to get them in that state?

Abbi Miller [00:40:06]: Probably kind of like two opposites. I think one would be connecting with self. Whatever your spiritual, religious, somatic practices are, lean into them, preferably alone. I think that the body before bit like just getting in your body because you can tell when you get an email and your shoulders go up. You can tell when you get an email and your heart skips a beat. You notice those subtle cues more when you are in some kind of frequent relationship with some type of somatic or inquiry practice. So that's one thing is just go within and without even expecting an outcome. But just like, wow, I need to recommit to some breath work in the morning or a walk or whatever it is.

Abbi Miller [00:40:52]: And then I would actually say the opposite if you are in a place where you're maybe reconsidering your career or I work with babes that are birthing and scaling businesses. And so messaging is a huge conversation. How do I position myself? How do I speak? Speak about what I do Who I am, my mission, my vision, et cetera. And sometimes actually is really helpful to call in others. So I think get really, really strong and fortified with self so that you kind of have that spine, that anchor. And then finding the people you really trust. Not some random on the Internet, but like your BFFs. I mean, this is what I do for a living.

Abbi Miller [00:41:27]: You guys can hire me, but, you know, finding somebody that is able to reflect who you are and what you do. And I love that. Anytime I'm working on a bio, glow up. I'll email my five BFFs or kind of my biz, best friend, my biz, besties, and I'll say, like, what do you think my zone of genius is? Or like my favorite clients. I'll be like, hey, we've worked together for years. What do I do? What do you tell your best friend I do? Another question that I love to ask other people is what reliably arrives when I walk into a room.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:41:59]: I love that.

Abbi Miller [00:42:00]: And to get some of that reflected back because you might start to notice themes. I think something that's really funny, pun intended, is so. My husband is hilarious. He's a Brit. He just has that British sarcasm. He is so funny. He's so funny. He's so funny.

Abbi Miller [00:42:16]: So funny. And everybody's like, oh my God, Sam is hilarious. I post him on my social. Everybody freaks out. It's like I'm posting nudies. People like lose their minds when I post anything.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:42:26]: My husband, oh, I can't wait to see this.

Abbi Miller [00:42:28]: He's amazing. I actually have highlights on my IG called Sam Cam. And it's just like 10 years of me filming him. So if you ever want to laugh, he's amazing. But what's so funny is he doesn't say that. He would never ever say out loud I'm funny. Like, it just wouldn't even occur to him. And something that I notice in and it's funny.

Abbi Miller [00:42:49]: He's a psychotherapist. So he's in what could be perceived as a very serious business. And he's a healer. He's a jester. He is the clown. He is like the sacred clown. And I remember meeting him and within five minutes of meeting on our first date, I'm telling him about this kind of near death experience I had that I hadn't shared with a lot of people. And somehow I'm laughing about this insane thing that has led to ptsd.

Abbi Miller [00:43:11]: And I'm like, how am I laughing about what used to make me go fetal? He Just has this superpower. And I'm sharing that because never in any bio have I ever seen him address that. And I'm like, babe, you have to somehow mention that humor is a part of you, because the second people meet you, feel you, hire you, they're like, oh, this guy is different. This guy is, like, reverent, but also has this comedic irreverence that is so healing. Anyway, I share that because I think sometimes we take for granted or can't see the thing that is our greatest gift. And I just think my husband knows everybody's not as funny as him, but it wouldn't occur to him. So this is where I think also, the checking in with friends can really be powerful, because everybody, if you're like, who's Sam? They're like, well, he's hilarious. First of all, like, that's the first thing people say.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:44:01]: Wow, I love that. It's such a good thing. You get so much mirrored back that you don't see about yourself. And one of the beautiful things I think about some of these gifts of ours that are extremely innate is that we can't see them, and we don't know why we're good at them. They come from an unconscious place of something that we are not. We don't have to try to do. We're just like. It is a really natural part of ourselves.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:44:29]: So sometimes I think about the things that people reflect back to me where I'm like, really? And I think that those are really good indications of something that people really benefit from. In your presence.

Abbi Miller [00:44:39]: Yes. I love it. Thank you for saying this, because I agree it's like, we can't often see it. And also, when we're talking about business, I think often we don't value it because in a patriarchal society, we're taught, especially as women, it's like, work hard. If you work hard, it pays off. We live in this kind of meritocracy where we're, like, taught that there's this direct paycheck and that if things are easy, we somehow don't deserve it, and all of this. And I would actually. I don't necessarily want to say I argue the opposite, because I think it's a lie to say that running a biz is not hard work at times.

Abbi Miller [00:45:16]: But this is a huge part of the conversation I have with clients when we're talking about pricing, especially for a service. It can feel like, wait, I'm about to do the easiest thing. And again, once they've grown and their business has been around enough that they really understand they have to spend money to make money. And they have the team and their scope has narrowed, and all of a sudden they're only doing the fun shit. And it's like, sometimes that kind of up level can create a new growing pain because it's like, wait, I'm only doing the fun easy stuff, but I'm charging the most for it. It's like, ding, ding, ding. This is like, there you go. This is what people are paying you for your magic.

Abbi Miller [00:45:55]: You know? They really are. I'm having deja vu. I don't know if I said this to you on our part, but, like, there's the parable about Van Gogh. Like, that a guy went to a bar and Vincent Van Gogh is sitting there having a drink and. And he's like, oh, my God, you're Van Gogh. Holy crap. Da, da, da. And Van Gogh's like, yep, it's me.

Abbi Miller [00:46:09]: And he's like, oh, my God, can I have your autograph? And he, like, gives him a napkin. Van Gogh signs it, and the guy's like, man, I can't wait to tell my friends I met you. And he starts to take the napkin away. And Van Gogh's like, that'll be $25,000. And the guy's like, are you kidding me? This is a paper napkin. And he said, yeah, I spent my entire life making that paper napkin worth $25,000. And again, this is a parable. But that's so true.

Abbi Miller [00:46:31]: I think to really honor just like, again, we keep using these terms like inbo and innate. And I think that, gosh, for me, when I am in again, there are glimmers of those in many parts of my life. But it's like those are the things that they just feel fun and I just feel alive.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:46:52]: I love it. The interwoven energies of creativity and fertility and the womb space and how those all come together.

Abbi Miller [00:47:04]: Oh, my gosh. Well, so much to say here. I think that the second chakra, creative energy, creation energy is a huge part of running a biz. And sometimes I think about. So I personally cycle sync. I cycle sync my life. I cycle sync my biz. Like, we have it on the calendar.

Abbi Miller [00:47:25]: We have it on the team calendar. My team knows when I bleed. We do not have a launch. I do not have a public facing to do on day 28 or day one. That wouldn't be a great day for me to record a podcast. I can do it. I can do it. I can show up and rally, but it doesn't feel as fun.

Abbi Miller [00:47:43]: As any other day on my cycle. So I think just like cycle literacy is like life changing as a human, but as a business owner, to be able to weave that in has been massive. And I think it's like sometimes our ovulatory self will write a check that our menstrual self does not want to cash, but has to. And so anytime we're talking about zone of genius. So for example, if I'm saying that my zone of genius is being a hype girl and helping people, I think I get to really see people's possibility. That's another thing. I'll see someone, when it was nutrition, I could see someone that has crohn's and say that you can heal this. I believe in you.

Abbi Miller [00:48:16]: This is possible to heal. And seeing someone that wants to start a styling biz, and I'm like, this is possible. You can do this biz. Like, I get to see this. And I'm gonna tap into that optimism and that joy and that encouragement differently in certain types of my cycle. So I just know for me and everybody's body is different. I have clients that have really easy bleeds and really hard ovulation, actually. So, I mean, there's a general formula.

Abbi Miller [00:48:41]: We can google this. But I know for me, just having a little awareness around, okay, last couple days, my cycle pre bleed, those just aren't the days for me to be on camera if I don't have to be, or for me to be like, it's so funny. I actually just gave a keynote last month. I gave a keynote on day one of my bleed. And it's like, what are you gonna do? I signed up for it and it was so funny because it was fine. I had people coming, I had friends there, and they're like, that was amazing. And I'm like, I don't actually know what I just said. I feel like I disassociated.

Abbi Miller [00:49:13]: I was like, I'm not fully sure what just happened. And it's like, there's a reason I don't do things on day one of my bleeding. So I think when we're talking about zone of aliveness, my zone of aliveness is for those of us with menstrual cycle, Our zone of aliveness is different on day 15 that is on than it is on 28. So I think bringing that whole kind of additional layer and filter through our how we self boss can be like totally life changing. And I actually, you know, another thing I can link you guys to. So I have a method called Monday magic method. And it's my notion template of how I self boss and tracking my cycle is a huge part of it. And so even knowing like for me, getting really granular and saying, okay, I know I'm ovulating next week, I'm going to book all my guests recordings, I'm going to batch my podcast.

Abbi Miller [00:50:04]: That's going to be the time that I do all of this right. And then maybe the following or maybe two weeks out when I'm ludio. That'll be a really good time to have the call with my tax accountant because I'm going to notice the errors and the numbers. That's a really good time to edit a spreadsheet. That's a really good time to proofread. That's a time where I'm more critical. That's a really great time for me to do things that actually benefit from my critical eye.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:50:26]: I love that so much.

Abbi Miller [00:50:28]: Lots, lots to say there.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:50:29]: Yeah. And I also do this, I think there's always, yeah, improvements and like levels and layers to it. But I've been really kind of tuning into doing a lot more of it this year. And the other thing I want to say, I guess about having a business being a creative, birthing anything into the world is that it's a really similar fertile energy and it's a nurturing energy and it's a pouring into and a pretty next level ability to be present with whatever the needs are of this thing that you've really brought into the world, whether that's a child or an idea or a piece of artwork or your business or whatever. And so it's really, really similar in the energy and the output and where it comes from and how it comes to be in the world. So I think there's such, such beautiful similarities and I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with their business feeling like their baby in so many ways or that it grows into a toddler phase or when something new is being birthed. It has this very transformational feel to.

Abbi Miller [00:51:36]: It and like an identity before and after. Like when you give birth, the maiden dies, there's a death, the maiden dies and the mother is born. There is a grief there. And even if you have a really dreamy, easy birth, there's a grief. And then of course there can be complexity. But yeah, I had. So I run a mastermind with artists and creatives and healers and one of my clients today is in her post launch and she was kind of talking about, she actually got a little cold and I said, girl, you're in your post launch postpartum. And I practiced the first 40 days of just kind of like stay well, we were in a pandemic too, so it made it very easy to stay home.

Abbi Miller [00:52:12]: But this idea of like snuggling in, kind of staying with immediate family, all of these things and most people have a desire to lay low. It's like they just want to snuggle and heal and like be very, very mellow and nurturing in their postpartum partum and actually be nurtured and be seen for this huge, monumental, life changing shift that just happened. And she and I were talking today about that. I was like, girl, you're in your biz postpartum, it doesn't make sense to plan your next launch. You just want to heal and bask in that. And I think my business is work womb. And it's the whole birth of that name is this idea that the womb is the sacred portal. It's this place where you just get to be nourished and become more of who you already are.

Abbi Miller [00:52:58]: It's just a place to receive and to be born. And that is so the space that I aspire, I could never claim to, but that I aspire to create for others is that they get to come in by choosing to work with me and be nourished and be seen and held, whether they're birthing a biz or scaling an existing biz. But yeah, I think there's so much with like all of the birth metaphors.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:53:20]: I love that it's such a beautiful business name too. I was just like, oh, it's so good. It's so good.

Abbi Miller [00:53:24]: Thank you.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:53:25]: Well, wow, there's been so much she's shared. What would you like to leave listeners with? You've mentioned so many. Because I was going to be like, is there any tools? But you've really mentioned so many for us and that's so helpful.

Abbi Miller [00:53:40]: Yeah, like I said, I'll send you guys links to. I took a couple notes about my time batching and my end of week notion audit and my Monday magic method. So I'll send you guys all of those. But what I was thinking about of like what to leave people with is that if you're listening and you're running a biz or have a desire to birth one or scale your side hustle or however you identify that, to not wait for permission. Because I think there's something that happens where the more aligned we are with our truth, our expression, our zone of aliveness, the more of a freak we're going to feel. Because it's like, that's the nature of innovation, is you're stepping into the white space, and the less crowded it is, it really means you're onto something. I remember when my buddy. I don't even know how long ago this was, before 2008, his car was in the shop and he came to my house and we were chatting.

Abbi Miller [00:54:36]: He's like, do you know how I got here? I was like, no. I was living in Kansas City. They have not great public transit. And he's like, I took this thing called an Uber. I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, there's this app that you get on your phone and the stranger picks you up. It's like a taxi, but it's not a taxi. And I was like, what? Do you even know who it is? And he's like, telling me about this. He was just like, early, early, early, early adopter of Uber way before it was in the news or anything.

Abbi Miller [00:54:58]: And I was just like, that's insane. Wait, what? And I was like, oh, well, you could do that because you're like a single dude. I would never do that. That's crazy. I just remember hearing that and thinking, that's insane. And I think the more innovative you are, that you're going to get flack and you're going to get pushback, because people are uncomfortable with change, even though the change is ultimately the name of the game for humanity. And I think I've been thinking about George Seurat, who's a painter that I love, love, love. He was the founder of pointillism.

Abbi Miller [00:55:26]: He was the first painter that literally did dots. You know, Monet and Van Gogh, they were his contemporaries, and they were painting strokes. And he literally would dip the paintbrush and just do dots. And he would go up close and dot, and then he would step back and he would paint a full painting. I don't know enough about painting terms, but you guys can Google George Seurat. But everybody thought he was like a madman, because they're like, that's not how you paint. What are you doing? Like, you're insane. And I guess my thought is, like, he couldn't have looked to his peers for validation because no one else was doing it.

Abbi Miller [00:55:58]: And if he did, he would have been like, I'm doing it wrong. And I know. I'm sure he got a lot of that. There's a really famous musical about his life that I was in when I was, like, 18. It's called Sunday in the park with George. It's a beautiful Sondheim musical. But you know, I was thinking about Just like him as an example of someone that was just like doing some weird and people were like, that's insane. And then he literally has a method now that is named after him because he was willing to follow.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:56:24]: What's his name again?

Abbi Miller [00:56:25]: George Seurat. I think it's S E R A U T. And he has a famous.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:56:29]: I think I know his paintings.

Abbi Miller [00:56:31]: I'm sure you do. Sunday in the Park. It's in Chicago.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:56:34]: Sunday in the park, yeah. So famous.

Abbi Miller [00:56:36]: This is one of the, you know this painting, right? You can see it. Yeah, yeah. And from far away it looks like you would not know. It's little dots. I don't even know what made me think about him recently but I just think that there can be this desire especially I work mostly exclusively with women and non binary folks and I think for those of us that have been conditioned female there's this belief that we need to like. It needs to fit with the tribe, it needs to fit with the pack. I need to get like a. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to do that too.

Abbi Miller [00:57:04]: And I just think entrepreneurship and any type of innovation or artistry or pioneering anything is actually the direct opposite of that. It's actually being willing to go first. And so I guess what I want to leave everyone with is that if you're waiting for it to feel comfortable or you're waiting to look left and right and see everyone doing what you're doing in order to know that it's going to work, it's never going to happen. It's never going to happen. Or you're going to look left and right, everybody's already doing it and you're going to be like, oh, why didn't I do that a year ago?

Tonya Papanikolov [00:57:35]: Yeah, and then you'll get kind of like stuck in that comparison state of like really doubting yourself and. Yeah. I love this conversation so much. That's beautiful.

Abbi Miller [00:57:44]: I know. It's been so fun chatting.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:57:46]: It's been so much fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Abbi Miller [00:57:51]: It's been so fun.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:57:52]: We're gonna link links to you and how to work with you. Do you want to tell us where to find you on socials?

Abbi Miller [00:58:01]: Yeah. So my website and my IG are my brand work womb. It's one word, W O R K W O M B. That's my handle, that's my website and yeah, it's me and DMs. I would love if anyone wants to reach out or chat about any of these topics would be so excited to connect.

Tonya Papanikolov [00:58:17]: Thank you so much for sharing all of your wisdom today. Abby.

Abbi Miller [00:58:20]: Thank you, Tonya. Such an honor.

 

Keywords:

zone of genius, zone of aliveness, creative entrepreneurship, burnout, time audit, cycle syncing business, somatic business tools, intuitive entrepreneurship, boundaries for creatives, sustainable creativity, creative flow, innovation

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