Success Club with Dr. Rana Sabra
Success Club is a podcast dedicated to the ambitious entrepreneur. Here, we decode the secrets of marketing brilliance with real stories, real strategies and real success. Each episode peels back the layers of entrepreneurship, it's your guide to turning passion into prosperity.
Success Club with Dr. Rana Sabra
From Hustle to Harmony: Redefining Entrepreneurial Mindsets
Trailblazing entrepreneur and TEDx organizer Michaela Reaney joins me to share her incredible journey of scaling multiple businesses while staying true to her values. From building and motivating a supportive team to mastering the art of delegation, Michaela reveals how creating systems and fostering strong communication have been key to her success.
We also explore the mindset shift away from hustle culture, focusing instead on freedom and intentionality—especially for women entrepreneurs. Michaela shares how aligning business goals with personal values has transformed her journey, the power of saying no, and how to make choices that honor your time and energy. This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration to help you lead with confidence and clarity. Don’t miss it!
Michaela's audio gift to our audience:
Step Audio Series: Creating & Leading Your Dynamic Team: https://opportunityglobal.mykajabi.com/creatingyourteamaudioseries
Connect with Michaela!
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelareaney/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mjreaney/
🌟 Welcome to the Women's Success Club Podcast! 🌟
Hosted by Dr. Rana Sabra!
Dive into inspiring stories from top female entrepreneurs and gain actionable strategies for your business. Whether you’re starting up or scaling up, join us to empower your journey and celebrate success. Tune in, grow, and sparkle with us!🎧 This version keeps the essence and excitement of your podcast while staying within the character limit. If you need further tweaks, feel free to let me know!
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We are back. This time I have a super special guest joining us my amazing friend and inspiring businesswoman, mikaela Rini. She's the entrepreneur, speaker, tedx organizer, championing equity and raising aspirations. With a decade of entrepreneurial experience, she has successfully scaled three businesses not one, but three navigating the challenges of scaling, selling and even closing a business. She worked with diverse organizations in the UK and globally and she is so awesome that she has won multiple awards for her skills. But Michaela's current focus is Opportunity Group, a learning and development company, and she's back in startup mode with a tech venture in the US, so we're so excited to learn all about that. She even launched a UK top 10 business podcast in 2022. And I'm so nervous because this is my first episode interviewing somebody and she's like at the top of her game. And, on top of all of this, she's also a TEDx organizer for TEDx Teesside Women. Mikaela, thank you so much for joining us and let's get straight into it. How did all this start?
Michaela:Gosh. Yeah, it's scary, isn't it? 10 years has flown really fast. So I always always wanted to have my own business. I even was doing things like as a child and at university I always had like little business schemes that I was working on. So it was always in me, but I never quite knew, like, what it meant to run a business. So I worked in corporate, I worked in a startup. I've been lucky enough to work in 10 different countries, so I got to travel the world as well, and it was through all of that experience I really thought, okay, now's the time for me to go it alone, be brave, make it happen.
Michaela:So my first ever business was still in learning and development, but I focused on early careers, so working with young people that were first into their you know career, their corporate life, and we worked with corporates to design and deliver their learning programs. So that was kind of my first foray properly into business, which was really exciting. Grew that business, we sold it, which was an amazing experience. I had a business partner, but I bought them out. So I know a little bit about navigating all of the dramas that can go with that as well. And then I've always been passionate really about the power of learning and of ideas, because I really believe that the more that we have knowledge and access to information and learning, that, particularly for women, is hugely powerful because it allows us to really grow into lots of different roles and experiences in our lives and it also allows us to really, you know, start to scale and make money as well.
Rana:Right, that's amazing to know, but most women are so scared of scaling. However, you were able to do it with three different businesses. So what was the biggest challenge? And if there is one advice, or even more, you would like to give our audience, if they are in the phase of scaling their business, what would it be?
Michaela:I think one of the things that I've really learned through each of the experience yes, there's things around it like you know how you finance that, managing cash flow, all of those things and I think there's a lot of information out there about that the one thing I don't often see talked about is taking your team on that journey with you. So as you go through those growing pains you're going through expansion, you've got all these big goals and things that you're trying to achieve I think sometimes you can get so focused on your strategy and your goal you can forget to bring the rest of your team on that journey with you. So one of the things I really found challenging in each time I've done it, so I've definitely learned my lesson, but you see, little parts of it coming through is where the team are not as cohesive anymore. So, because the business has grown to such a stage you physically can't have your eyes on every single thing anymore, you can't control everything. There are things happening in the business that you do not know about straight away.
Michaela:So it's really important that you need to get communication really, really strong across the whole team, because they need to be aligned not only to the vision and the mission that you're on, but also to what their role is in it. So people really need to buy into. Okay, we're going on this growth journey, we're scaling the business. What does that mean for me as an individual? You know, I know the vision of the entrepreneur, but what's in it for me? So, I think, really making sure that you are clear with every single person in your business about what this new growth journey means and actually what opportunities there are for them, so that they can really get excited about it and they can get behind it.
Michaela:Um, and then I think the the simple thing is just keep communicating with people. Like, even when you think you have said it a hundred times, you're kind of sick of yourself and you you think you're on repeat it a few more times, because it's never as clear to your team as it is to yourself what the journey is, that you're going on, because this is your baby, right? This is your idea. You've been thinking about it every waking moment for so long that it's so obvious to you what you will do next. Sometimes it's that stage of forgetting to bring people with you. So I think, as an entrepreneur, you really have to not only know your why, but be able to share that with the rest of the team so that they can get behind it as well, and they need to understand what's in it for them. I just love this.
Rana:This is amazing, but the thing is, a lot of the people are not able to scale because they don't have the team to support that scaling. So, and from a personal experience, I'm finding it harder and harder every year to actually hire team members who have the same values, because there is this huge gap between the two generations of how things are being done. So how are you managing this? Like how are you able to hire a team that is supporting the scaling? Of your businesses.
Michaela:Yeah, I think one of the things is getting super, super clear on the type of person that you do need in each role. So not just the roles that you have right now in your team, but the roles that you're going to need in like a year, in three years time. So get that kind of planning ahead really clear in your mind and really start to work through like what are the core, absolute values that someone needs to have to for them to be successful in your team? I think there's so much less now about what skills they have, because there's so much you can do to to support people, to train them, to coach them. But unless people have those same shared core values, then you're always going to be kind of in a point of conflict or things not quite gelling as you want them to.
Michaela:So once you are really clear on what you, what you're looking for, I think it's much easier than to go very clearly and intentionally out to the market and say this is exactly the person we're looking for like, and be really bold with the language that you use. So you know, be a talent and say things like. You know, if you're like this, this isn't the company for you. You know, if you don't like place, if you don't like change, if you're not comfortable with some ambiguity, then we're not the place for you.
Michaela:Because you know, we all know as growing and scaling businesses you don't have all the answers right. You are not a big corporate machine with all of the benefit package, with all of the. You know every single system process. You know some of it you're building as you go, and so you need to get really clear with the people that you're talking to and just really open and honest and say look, we're not perfect. This is not a well-oiled machine that you might be used to. However, what we can give you is more flexibility, more creative freedom. You know we can give you coaching and learning opportunities. We will, you know, get you involved in lots of exciting, different, varied projects, and then it's about making sure that those behaviors and that value match is really clear between the two.
Rana:I love that Like it's such a practical advice that you're sharing, because I think we will hear even benefit from it a lot, because we're now in the stage of scaling and just hiring the team members is the scariest thing for me, much more than putting the strategy and getting the clients and so on.
Michaela:So thank you for sharing that.
Rana:Thank you for sharing that, um mckayla. A lot has shifted um in the past year for you, um. You moved to a different country and you're working remotely. You even launched the tedx t-side. So what have you learned about yourself in the last year in business and in life?
Michaela:I think it's probably intertwined, because I don't know about you, but once you are an entrepreneur, your business and personal life is completely combined Exactly. There is no one or other you know. So I think for me it's been a lot about acceptance, so accepting the things that I can't control and the things that I can't change. So, whether that is a client being slow to to get things moving, or you know, a project perhaps not working out quite how as I wanted it to, or you know all these different things, it's accepting it for what it is and understanding that actually it's not a reflection on my ability or the ability of my team or whether we'll be successful or not. It's just sometimes the circumstances that things don't work out quite as we originally planned, and accepting that that's okay, you know, and learning to deal with things like failure and you know, know, understanding how you respond to those situations as well.
Michaela:I feel like I've learned a lot about myself.
Michaela:So one of the big things for me has been doing a lot of kind of internal um reflection a little bit on.
Michaela:I think sometimes, when we're so caught up in the kind of the busy and the hustle and we're moving forward with all these goals. Sometimes I've really forgotten to just pause and reflect. So I've been really encouraging myself to do that more and reminding myself, like literally writing it on post-it notes around my desk I remember to pause, take that time to reflect on situations before I move on, and one of the things that I really recognize by doing this reflection has been understanding and accepting the parts of me that I perhaps don't like too much and the things that you know it's really uncomfortable, really awkward, rihanna, but things that I just need to, you know, do something about right. So recognizing those things that I don't like about myself, but actually taking action about them. So, rather than me kind of you know, moping around feeling sorry for myself or anything like that, really accepting that actually for that situation to change, it's only me who can do something about it, and starting to think about what those actions might be.
Michaela:So a big one for me in the past year has been people pleasing, you know and the amount of energy and time I've spent doing things to please other people um like if I totaled that up. Gosh like scary. If I had to put that time and energy into moving things forward positively instead, either in my business or in my community, I couldn't imagine the ripple effects that I would have had from it. So it's really understanding that about myself so that I can, if I do feel that my boundaries are bending or I am moving back into my kind of people mode, recognizing that in myself and doing something about it.
Rana:I love this. So, michaela, I'm gonna ask you, I follow you on Instagram. I mean, we're friends yeah but I see you a lot recently posting about your walks, you're with your dog, you're with your partner and you're just like spending more time talking about things that you enjoy doing, rather than just what you do for a living with the business.
Rana:So how did you get to make that shift? Like, how do you? Because I know, as I learned, a lot of the women especially we face this feeling guilty if we're away from our computer and we're not building the business, we're not in the hustle, we're not busy. So how were you able to create that shift in mindset?
Michaela:I think there's a couple of things. I think one is getting really intentional about the type of life that I want. You know, what business do I want? What does that look like? How, you know, why did I even start a business in the first place? You know, like really getting back to those kind of core values and beliefs so that I can get really clear on what I want to build next. And that's partly business, but that's also partly the lifestyle that I want as well.
Michaela:So a big thing that I really found was I kept coming back to the word freedom. So you know the freedom from that constraints of, you know, corporate work, the nine to five, the hustle, the grind, whatever it might be. That's the really where I originally kind of came into being an entrepreneur, to have that creative freedom, to have that freedom of time and money and financial freedom. And I think sometimes along the way, particularly as female entrepreneurs, we can often get sucked into this way of working where it's literally non-stop that that word guilt comes up a lot for people, I think, the feeling that you know, unless you're constantly doing something, then you're not, you're never doing enough, there's always something else to do. So I realized that that just wasn't serving me anymore. It wasn't serving me both in terms of my health, my well-being, my just general kind of feeling of enjoying my work, right. So I really took a step back and said you know, why am I doing this? Like what? What is the purpose of this? Is there not a better way?
Michaela:So in this kind of season of my life now, my next kind of this business I'm working on at the moment, the big thing for me is coming back to freedom. So how do I set up the systems, the processes, the ways of working so that they are? I'm not trading my time for money. Instead, I'm creating something that is much more automated. It's much more reliant on my team, not on me, and I'm putting the systems and processes and also some of the coaching with the team in place so that I am more freed up to.
Michaela:You know, be outside more. You know I love ideas. Most of my creativity comes from when I'm outside. You know, not when I'm sat in front of a laptop or a computer. It's the same for all of us, right? So the more that I can be outside and feeling good, you know in myself, I think I'm there, I'm able to show up more for my community and also show up more and serve and do the stuff that brings me to life. Right, that's, but it's. It's taken me a long time to get to that point, like it has been 10 years in the making, not an overnight thing.
Rana:I'm gonna share a little story. Usually, when I go to events, especially work events, like I'm done with the event for the day, I go back to the hotel and I'm back on my computer, I'm talking to my kids and so on. Last year I met Mikaela and we were in Atlanta and she inspired me so much because every single moment of like non-conference time she would be exploring part of this. She walked a lot, she went to every. She had a list of all of the places she wanted to visit and that just inspired me so much. And so, yeah, I love how you're sharing all of those tips that actually our audience can implement. So my next question is what type of business are you creating and scaling the season of your life? And we want all of the details and behind the scenes.
Michaela:So I think the big thing to keep coming back to is this word freedom. Being really, really honest, I think in the last business I forgot that word freedom and I found myself in a situation where I had a very big team and a management team, leadership team in place but, in all honesty, on occasions I wasn't delegating effectively and I wasn't actually or I do things like delegate. I don't know if anyone's ever done this delegate and then take it back off the person. I was doing a lot of that at times and I think it was because, you know, partly control, partly because I was quite stressed and overwhelmed and lots of other things. So I really recognized it in myself and I decided to do something about it.
Michaela:So in this new season of my life, the plan is to have much more freedom and to really create the space to have time to think and time to learn. And I know that sounds so basic, but again, when you are, you know, getting up early, straight onto your computer, straight onto your emails, responding to people, you're straight away. You're giving away your day to that person. You don't have control anymore of your day and what you had planned and the goals that you set because you're straight into day and what you had planned and the goals that you set, because you're straight into typically other people's problems or other people's urges, not the things that you want to do yourself.
Michaela:So I'm creating a lot more space in my diary for that, so I don't do back-to-back meetings anymore. I'm really disciplined with that. I have space in between so that I can do my follow up. I'm not just running straight to the next thing and then having to work late on an evening to catch up. I'm doing things where I have, you know, several days if I can, a week, but certainly one as a minimum. That's completely meeting free. So that's for my deep work.
Michaela:That's for the stuff where I need real thinking space. I need time to work on the kind of impactful stuff that I really enjoy doing that. I actually find it's quite distracting if you're going from conversation to then do deep work, to then do something else. You never quite I personally never quite feel like I finished something when I'm working like that. So getting much more structured, much more ownership over my diary has been a big thing, and this kind of business that I'm creating now is much more intentional with my time, much more intentional about the stuff that I say yes to. So I'm doing a lot more of being clear, like you know, if it's not a definite yes, then why am I doing it? Is it actually, you know, making me money? If the answer is no, then getting much more ruthless in not doing it.
Michaela:Because, again, I think I believe it's a trait of female entrepreneurs we get asked to do a lot of things for free and it really, really frustrates me because in this world where we have so much inequality, the fact that we are, you know, often asked to do things and not paid for them just adds to it right.
Michaela:So I think don't get me wrong there are some times where it's you know the right thing to do because there's a bigger opportunity or there's something, but I think we do too many of those.
Michaela:So getting really clear about how I use my time has been the biggest thing. Um, and also really accepting that has been the biggest thing, and also really accepting that I am multi passionate and that's okay. Like I think, for a long time I was trying to put myself into certain boxes or you know, everyone talks about having a niche and you know absolutely. I agree, you need to be really clear on who you're talking to, but it's okay to have multiple different things that you're interested in. So this season of my life is about having multiple income streams, not just being reliant on one source of income, and getting really clear about the stuff that I enjoy doing. I accept that you know, as a white cisgendered woman, there's a lot of privilege that I have to be able to say no to things, to be able to voice my opinions on some of these things, but my hope is that the more that I do it and the more that I talk about it, then it helps all of us feel more comfortable doing these things as well.
Rana:You are definitely inspiring a lot of people around you and a lot of people who are able to feel the impact of the work that you are doing. So, finally, we are working on a book that will have advice for women from all over the world. So what advice you were given that has proven to be wrong or right, that you would like to share with our audience.
Michaela:Okay. So I think a bit of advice that was really good actually for me to hear is and this might resonate with people where there's business partners and clients and other relationships that they're navigating. So the advice was if someone shows you who they are, believe it, believe that behavior. Because the the sad thing is in life, we can't change other people right like that would be easy if we can do that. We can't change other people. But the bit that we do have some choice over is we can choose how to respond to different situations and different behaviors. And and I think what that advice really taught me I'd love to say that I've always listened to it, but that would be lying.
Michaela:But I think what it always reminds me is we always have a choice and the choices for how we respond to different situations and different behaviors.
Michaela:So even if we do come across something challenging in business or really difficult or, you know, heartbreaking, you're able to choose how you respond to that. You can't change the situation, you can't physically have control over everything, but you can choose how you show up in that situation and choose how you respond, and I think that is very powerful, particularly when, in scaling a business, you're navigating so many different things. You know you might have business partners, you might have different stakeholders in the business. You've got clients to manage. You've then got your team to manage and you know, if someone shows you a behavior that doesn't feel right and you get that niggling feeling, believe it. Believe, you know, know, trust in that intuition and do something about it. Um, because I think too often I've let those things slide. You know, has it been a recovering people pleaser, trying to keep the peace, not wanting to rock the boat, all of those things, and eventually it always ends up the situation that you thought right, exactly Leave it and trust it.
Rana:Maybe all of that, but you're right. I've learned through the years that the first time like if I have a feeling that this doesn't sit right with me, then this is not the right match, whether a client or like a friend.
Michaela:So, yeah, it's so true, isn't it? And I think again, because this world that we live in, everything's so fast paced, everything's so urgent, yet we're all so on. We're never giving ourselves that time to pause, really think about and reflect on the situation to then make a more informed decision, because we're always kind of rushing on to the next thing. So sometimes it's not just that we're believing in and trusting people, it's also that we're not giving ourselves time to actually process what's happening or what's being said to us. So I think you're so right, rana, like it's something that we all need to encourage each other to give ourselves space to do these things because we don't and we're not really taught to Like.
Michaela:That's not the way the world's set up, is it? It's constantly on Online is amazing, but it's there 24-7 if you want it to be. Yeah.
Rana:And I love having this conversation because it's shifting us a little bit away from what we've been seeing for the past I want to say five to 10 years on social media where it's like hustle, hustle, hustle, don't stop, don't stop. So, yes, you have to work and a lot of the times, like when you have an event, you have a project launching something like that, yes, you might be working like 12, 13 hours that day or that week to launch that thing, but it shouldn't be the lifestyle. We need to take a step back and just like enjoy, relaxed. And it's hard because I've been doing that.
Rana:I've been in the race of hustle, hustle, hustle, like having two full-time jobs and the business and launching another business and just wanting, like you said, just wanting to catch up on the next big thing, next big thing. And then I got to a point where what's the point of all of this? Yeah, what? Like you're making money, great, but you're not even enjoying the money. So, taking that step back and finding the balance it doesn't mean that you need to go so slow, especially for people who are multi-passionate, people who are self-driven and so on. You cannot like just sit and do nothing, finding that balance and for me it has been the biggest thing is shutting down and honestly unfollowing on social media um unsubscribing from newsletters, from so many things, and just tuning inwards and listening to my own wisdom and knowledge, instead of like constantly being bombarded by information from the outside.
Michaela:Yeah, All that noise it's draining, isn't it?
Michaela:Exactly, we've been through it all and I think there's power in rest right. There's the people I really want to learn from in this season of my life are the people that are. You know are working less but achieving more. You know they're actually having a bigger impact but they're not burning themselves out like they're the people I'm really exactly. You know, that's the kind of lifestyle, the people I really want to learn their tools, their tricks, because that's like, surely that's what life's about, right? We want to live it and enjoy it while still having an impact and making money.
Michaela:Like it's okay to say that you want to make money in life exactly that's a really good yes, money is essential because I don't believe I can have any impact in the things that I love and the things I'm passionate about if I don't have the money to do that. So it's kind of the balance, isn't it, of how can we make as much money and as much impact, but without the stress, the burnout, the pressure and it's you know. I think if we can figure that out, the world would be a better place.
Rana:So, michaela, if our audience wants to connect with you, where can they find?
Michaela:you. So I'm on Instagram, so my handle is at MJ Reaney. I'm also on LinkedIn, so Michaela Reaney, if you search, search through that, and I guess in the show notes we can put links to those as well. Um, one other thing that might be helpful for your listeners is, um. I've put together an audio series. Um. It's completely free of charge for people. Um they only need to provide their email in exchange, but the audio series is basically my top 10 tips on how to navigate leading a team when you are growing and scaling.
Rana:So it's just an insight for people.
Michaela:But it's completely free and I've made it audio because I know we're all busy, we don't have time to sit and read lots of things, so you can be listening to it in the background. But it's just some advice and some things that I've learned along the years as well.
Rana:Oh, my gosh. I'm excited to download those as well. So thank you so much. All this will be linked in the show notes below. So so excited to listen to all of this, mikaela. This is a wrap for our episode today. Please, everybody, make sure that you follow Mikaela, and I will have her Instagram and her LinkedIn below as well. Thank you so much for listening.
