If you run your own business, your day probably doesn't have a neat start and finish. It's school run, inbox, client call, invoices, social media, school run again, often all before lunch.

The tasks aren't always the hardest part. Switching between them is. Every time you change hats, your brain has to catch up. Do that twenty times a day and it's no wonder we feel frazzled by 3pm.

If you run a business, chances are you're near the bottom of your own priority list. The business comes first, then the family, the kids, the dog, the admin, and somewhere at the very bottom, you.

I feel strongly that as business owners we need to look after ourselves to succeed and thrive in our businesses. So I invited health coach Rebecca Wiggans onto the WIN podcast to talk about it, and what I loved most was how doable her advice was. No massive life overhaul, no expensive programmes. Just small steps that fit into a real, busy life.

If you'd asked me a few days ago what hypnotherapy actually involves, I'd have described someone falling asleep on a stage and clucking like a chicken every time someone said a keyword. That's stage hypnosis — pure entertainment, and nothing like the work therapeutic hypnotherapists like Emma Norris of Coaching with Emma actually do.

I sat down with Emma on the podcast this week to talk about mindset, and honestly, I came away with more than I expected. Here are the tips that stuck with me — and that I think every woman running a business needs to hear.

Sometimes a business doesn’t go where you planned. It goes somewhere better.

Cherry Hills started out making funky t-shirts. She needed a creative outlet alongside home educating her daughter and it gave her exactly that. But the t-shirt market was saturated and something else was quietly forming in the background — a realisation that her real gift wasn’t in printed fabric. It was in helping children and parents navigate the messy, overwhelming, often invisible world of children’s mental health

Let me tell you something that might go against everything you think you know about business.

Your biggest competitor might actually be your biggest opportunity.

Can I tell you about Wendy?

Wendy runs Alchemy Bejewelled, a fine jewellery business where every single piece is handmade using traditional goldsmithing techniques with precious metals and precious stones. Her work is extraordinary. She also teaches workshops from her studio, makes bespoke commissions, and this year has had a phenomenal summer creating wedding rings for couples.

I’ll be honest with you. When I launched The Success Circle back in April, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

I had a vision for what I wanted it to be. A room of brilliant women. One per industry. Meeting every month at Hintlesham Hall. Getting to know each other deeply, helping each other grow, and becoming each other’s go-to people. But whether it would actually work the way I imagined — that I didn’t know

If you’re in your fifties or sixties and you’ve been quietly wondering whether it’s too late to do something different — this one is for you.

There is a really common and really damaging myth that starting a business is something you do when you’re young. That if you haven’t launched something by the time you’re forty, the window has closed. That the energy, the ideas, the appetite for risk — all of that belongs to a younger version of you that has already been and gone.

If you meet Ruth Leigh now, you’d never guess.

She walks into rooms with presence. She’s funny, warm, sparkly and magnetic. She has eight books published and a devoted band of superfans.

But Ruth was not always this person.

Are you sitting at home right now with a hobby that makes you a little bit of money and wondering whether it could ever be something more?

This blog is for you.

The Success Circle is our premium networking membership — the next level up from our pay-as-you-go WIN events. It’s an intimate, exclusive group of women in business who meet once a month at Hintlesham Hall for an afternoon of real conversation, expert talks, and the kind of deep, genuine connection that only comes from seeing the same faces month after month.

Nikki Reeve runs Insignia Limited, a promotional merchandise company that has been going since 1981. She took over the business in 2023 and is brilliant at what she does. But for a long time, nobody outside her immediate circle knew that.

If the thought of walking into a room full of strangers and talking about yourself makes you want to cancel and go home, this one is for you.

Gemma Gooch is a virtual assistant, a WIN leader in Felixstowe, and one of my most trusted sounding boards in business. She is also living proof that networking, done consistently and authentically, directly leads to clients.

Leah Scott is the founder of Bravely Together, a health coach, supporting medical mums — mums who have children with complex care needs. She is warm, wise, and one of the most quietly resilient people I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to on the podcast.

You’ve got the idea. You’ve got the passion. You’ve been thinking about it for weeks, maybe months. And yet every time you sit down to actually start, you feel completely overwhelmed and have no idea where to begin.

What would you do if someone told you that you’d never be successful at anything in life?

I want to let you in on a little secret. When people see Women Inspired Network from the outside, they see the events. The smiling faces. The reviews talking about incredible connections and leaving feeling inspired.

Can I tell you about the worst event I’ve ever run? Actually, scratch that. It wasn’t the worst event. It just felt like it at the time.