#178 What it really means to Flourish in business, with Kate Addamo
Adrenal fatigue, poor health, burnout - three struggles that many female business owners, including myself, are all too familiar with.
If you’re a woman in business, it’s likely you’ll have experienced one - or all - of these symptoms of hustle culture. The question is, why do we accept the pressure of working ourselves into the ground as the norm?
It’s been a long time coming, but I was finally able to sit down with Kate Addamo, a dear friend and exceptionally talented business mentor, for a chat on the podcast.
Simply put, Kate is a woman looking out for other women. Her dedication to helping women flourish is underpinned by a focus on health and wellbeing, driven by her own experience with both physical and mental health struggles.
Kate shares with us her refreshingly holistic approach to business growth, as well as insights on how to move from barely hanging on to thriving as our authentic, unique selves.
One-on-One Transformation
What sets Kate apart is her dedication to one-on-one mentoring. In an era where group coaching and masterminds are all the rage, Kate has chosen to focus on individual transformation. She believes that magic happens in personalised interactions, a commitment she’s seen yield remarkable results time and again. This approach, though counterintuitive to the common narrative of scaling and mass-marketing, earns Kate the trust and admiration of her clients, who seek authentic and personalised guidance.
Meeting Women Where They Are: The Flourish Package
Kate’s work is incredibly multifaceted, and nowhere is this more evident than in her “Flourish” package. This programme is not a one-size-fits-all solution; it’s a bespoke journey tailored to each woman’s unique situation and aspirations.
Starting with a deep understanding of the current season of a woman’s life—whether she's navigating motherhood, moving, or any other major life transition—Kate works to build up the individual behind the business. She dives into the nitty-gritty of weekly structures, support systems, and health, aiming to ground her clients in their own version of success rather than someone else’s.
Every element of the business is scrutinised, from client journeys and brand legals to finances and expense forecasts. This holistic approach ensures that every aspect of the business is aligned with her clients’ personal goals and overall well-being.
Challenging the Hustle Narrative
We all know how pervasive hustle culture is on social media. It’s all too common to feel pressured into scaling up businesses to achieve massive turnovers. But Kate offers a different perspective—one that values slowing down, reassessing and focusing on what truly matters. She encourages women to define their own success, even if it means downsizing or restructuring their business models. The outcome? More aligned clients, more personal peace and a more fulfilling business journey.
A Holistic Approach to Business and Life
From dealing with severe adrenal fatigue to making significant lifestyle changes, Kate understands the importance of balance and strives to help other women achieve it in their own lives. We talk about the detrimental effect of operating solely in our masculine energy, and how learning to be nurtured is crucial if we want to create longevity in our businesses.
If you’ve found yourself on the hustle hamster wheel struggling to keep up, please know that it does not have to be that way.
By reassessing what success means to you and taking your own path to get there, sustainable success in business can be yours - and all without the burnout.
Full Transcript:
-
Kate: [00:00:00] Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business podcast. I'm really excited to share today's episode with you. This one's been a long time coming. I've wanted to get today's guest on the podcast for quite a while, and we finally were able to coordinate it.
It was the right time. I'm joined today by guest Kate Addamo. Kate is somebody who I have known for three or four years now, and we have become friends. I have attended a retreat that Kate held at the end of last year. It was my very first retreat, actually. I've been adverse to retreats for a very long time, but for several reasons, and we do touch on it a little bit in the [00:01:00] podcast, I was drawn to attend hers and it was hand on heart transformational for me in the context of being a woman in business and my business journey and how I integrated that with my day to day life. I've wanted to have Kate on the podcast to talk about her journey, what drives her, how it is that she's landed being such a popular mentor for creatives in business. And she talks holistically about her purpose and what drives her and why she does what she does. But one of the big takeaways from this conversation with Kate is that she is one of the mentors around that is committed to the one on one work with clients. Kate doesn't do group coaching.
She doesn't do masterminds. She does. One on one work, notwithstanding all of the commerce and all of the noise on social media about how you can scale and you make more money if you do one to many, Kate's shunned all of that. And she stayed [00:02:00] focused on the one to one work because according to Kate, for her, that's where the magic happens because she's committed to the transformation with women that she has seen time and time again.
So she knows that it works. So she knows what can be achieved from working one on one and that's why she does it. And you'll take away from the episodes just how passionate and committed Kate is to this work and just the magic that she brings and the nuggets of gold that she shares.
And I just know there'll be so many listeners listening along, nodding. Yes, that's me. Oh my gosh. I resonate with that. I relate to that. That's me. Because that was me too. So enjoy the episode. I'll be back with you at the end. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have loved this conversation with Kate. Hello, Kate. Welcome to the podcast. This has been a long time coming.
It sure has. Thank you so much Tracey for having me here. I'm very grateful and very much looking forward to our chat.
Tracey: This is going to be so great. I know you and I have talked about this for quite a while, [00:03:00] having you on, and we've been talking about all the things we want to share. And honestly, I think we could talk for a week with the messages and the value that I know that you have to share with listeners. For today, though, we're going to talk about, first of all, a bit about you and your journey, because I would just love for my audience to understand a little about you and context and how you ended up here.
And then I want to talk about the business journey and what we're seeing at the moment and what we're seeing go wrong so often, but it's not all negative because I think there's a solution to that, but let's start with you, Kate, tell us a bit about you and your journey and how did you get here in living your purpose to support women in business?
Kate: Yeah, that's, it's sort of a big one, Tracey, and I'll try and keep it as brief as possible, but you know, back from the beginning, I'm a, I'm a country girl, I grew up on a dairy farm and thoroughbred horse studs. So I'm a country girl through and through, and I think those values are what has got me where I am today and it's such an important part of my business.
For a long time, I worked in male dominated industries, [00:04:00] so I was very familiar with burnout, adrenal fatigue, being one of the boys, being in my masculine, and just living a life that wasn't working for me at all, and it took many knocks and many, uh, hits to my health for me to actually wake up to that.
I realised in 2017 that working for other people wasn't for me. And I left a full time job and didn't know what I was going to do. And even at the time, my husband said to me, are you going to get a resume? Like make a resume. And I just said, no, I don't need to. I just so deeply trusted. And it was a crazy time, six months before our wedding. Could not, or should not have done that financially, but I trusted, I went to help someone, um, in their business and I just went, Oh, I actually really enjoy this.
And I have, I have a gift here that I want to share. I love the entrepreneur life. I have a lot of ideas. I'm a creative through and through and it happened very organically from that day. And I remember coming home and saying to my husband, I'm going to start a business. I need to support women.
And that was initially in property [00:05:00] styling. And then it ventured into obviously interior designers and stylists and creatives, and now it's sort of across creative and service based business because it is so much deeper and incredibly holistic. And on the other side of that, part of that business journey has been my health journey, which I'm sure we might touch on more today, but I've had severe adrenal fatigue.
I suffer a lot of migraines. My hormones are an absolute mess. I have been on a healing journey, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of the things for some time. It's come a long way. There's still a way to go, but it's so incredibly important to me because of my mum's journey, her cancer, we lost her last year to breast cancer, which was estrogen dominant.
I lost another beautiful friend very suddenly last year at 41. And I've now got another special woman in my life who's very unwell. So everything that I do is underpinned by health and really supporting women very holistically because it just matters so deeply to me.
Tracey: Oh Kate, you know, there's so much to unpack from that, but I am absolutely certain that there are listeners nodding along to this [00:06:00] thinking, Oh my gosh, that's me. Adrenal fatigue. I'm tired. I'm living 97 percent of my life in masculine energy. It's male dominated or how do I do all the things? Or, Oh my gosh, I know people that are unwell too.
And it's everywhere. And I hear it and I see it and I've been it. And for listeners, Kate and I connected about three or four years ago on the good old Instagram. And how about that? And I just love the magic of social media these days when used for good. And it was such an organic connection and followed along and connected.
And we've spent time in person. We work together. I look after your clients. You look after mine. I support you. It's just been such a beautiful, holistic, organic journey connecting with you. And I've learned so much from you along that journey in relation to prioritising myself and my health. And oh my gosh, what happens when we don't?
And what does it mean to be nurtured? And we'll talk about that as [00:07:00] well. So you've said Kate, that you focus on supporting women in business in the creative space. So what sort of businesses and how do you support them? So what does that actually mean? Because I know the value you bring. I know some of your clients.
I know firsthand the value you bring from me. But people will be wondering the same thing. What does that actually look like?
Kate: Yeah. And as I mentioned, it's incredibly holistic for me. I've, you know, as we go on our journey, we really learn how to break things down and articulate them better. And I think for me, it's what's really landing lately is there's three core things. I work on supporting the women behind the brand, really building her up, looking at her weekly structure, who's supporting her.
How she's connecting to herself, her health, all of those things. Because I find when we build the woman up, she's looking to less of everyone else's business model and what's happening out there and what everyone else's version of success looks like. She's deeply rooted in what her version of success looks like.
And we start from that place and then I really like to dive in and work across the whole brand as well, across the whole business. So business set up, getting them in touch with you, good insurance [00:08:00] brokers, get the foundations right. Get everything just solid. I'm very big on having a solid platform and that's, you know, your client journey, your brands, legals, all across your finances, expense forecast, cashflow, and then really looking at who your client is, how we price things, their journey, everything. It's very holistic and I like to come at it from every part because without that, I just think we're missing so much. We're missing the goodness. And I see that there's a lot online at the moment in which we'll probably come back to at some point is just that push that everything's about the client and making money and scaling and build a course in 30 days and make 30 grand in five minutes or yesterday and all of the just rubbish that I'm sick of saying that's not realistic, that's giving women false hope and false expectations and making them feel like they're failing. I'm turning that on its head and going, right, who are you? What do you want? What does success look like? And let's build that version of this business and life that serves you.
Not someone else's dream or maybe not even reality that they're, uh, selling on Instagram.
Tracey: Let's talk about [00:09:00] that because there's so much noise on Instagram. So much noise and everything I'm seeing, it's all about the hustle culture and you've got to scale and you've got to grow and you need to work to a million dollars. And I talk about it on here, probably not enough, but we don't all have to scale and we don't all have to grow and we don't all aspire to run million dollar businesses.
There's no prize. And I love that you do away with the hustle culture, because I think that it's really easy to again, talk about it and go glide, not grind. And we, you know, who are you and what do you want, but it's not as easy to sit down on your own and say, Oh, okay, well, what do I actually want?
How do I start? Because how do you start? So when someone comes to you, a business owner comes to you, a woman comes to you and says, right, I need help with this because I need to grow my business.
And you realise, no, in fact, we need to slow it right down before we can speed it up. What are some of the things that you're seeing most common that's [00:10:00] blocking women from identifying that they matter and the value of prioritizing themselves and stripping it back to work out what's important for them?
Kate: Yeah, there's a few things there. I think one is society's conditioning and women just getting out there and hustling like men, like our hormones and bodies are the same as them, which they are definitely not, and the older we get, the more we find that out. That's a big part of it, I think everything that's been sold at them on social media. And I think it's just they don't feel like it matters enough or it's something they might do when they get to retirement and retirement's not guaranteed, like old age is a privilege. We are not guaranteed that, and we're not guaranteed good health and everything that we're doing right now can impact that. So I just want to do everything I can to make women realise that and just to see how important that is and to see how much they matter. And I know I've had a few clients lately that have, you know, the first session I've done with them, they've just been so deeply sad. So disconnected from themselves.
They've not had anyone really have this deeper conversation with them. Some people will do with their [00:11:00] mother's sisters, girlfriends, some don't, but some will only have it from a lens of where their confidence level is or their own insecurities. So I like to just come at it very holistically of what deeply matters and how do we just build that woman up so that she just blocks out the noise and she just feels so much more at peace in herself?
And the change I see is quite dramatic after a session or two in just the, wow, I often get a thank you, you've given me permission. I didn't know I could do that. I'm so used to doing it one way, but it's not until you hold the mirror up. They don't actually even realise that what they're doing is so detrimental to themselves, their health, their family, their relationship. And honestly, I see a lot like just barely hanging on.
Tracey: I'm glad you said it that way that the holding the mirror up. So for context, Kate, you just mentioned that you lost your mum last year. lost my mum last year too. As you know, it's not something that I talk about all that often, but old age, it's not guaranteed retirement. It's not guaranteed. So experiencing that is great for perspective as in it's a kick in the head in terms of [00:12:00] perspective, thanks universe, I'm seeing it. And we lost dad seven years ago, so my parents passed away at the age of 62 and 65. it's very front and center that this is lifestyle driven and health driven, and we don't know what we don't know. I thought, my journey, and you know, I've been through adrenal fatigue, I've been through chronic stress, I've been through all of that, and I've shared about my journey, and I thought I had it figured. But I didn't realise how much I didn't have it figured until I went to your retreat last year. And this is something that I'm so happy to share. remember walking into your reatreat and I remember sitting at the airport waiting for an Uber to get out there going, I've got no clue what I'm in for. Kate's talking about a retreat for three days of nurture.
I don't even know it actually means to nurture myself. I feel like this is going to be a bit touchy feely and let's hold hands and talk about feelings. That's not really me, but I have the greatest respect for Kate. I'm going, and I'm going to lean in full faith. [00:13:00] And I remember walking in thinking, I don't know if this is going to be for me, but I'm going to lean in anyway.
The women you attracted changed my life. The time with you opened my eyes and changed my life and I've said it and I've shared it so widely because for someone like me who's been on the journey too and I thought I had it figured, I realised after spending that time your unique way of seeing into someone and meeting them where they're at and being able to pull from them what they need so they can see, actually Tracey you don't have a clue what it's like to nurture yourself. That's what this looks like and that's what it looks like to take space for you.
And this is what it looks like to slow down. No, Tracey, that's actually not slowing down. is what slowing down is like. It was so transformative. And to the women that I speak to who are connected to you, many are clients of yours, that transformation continues, Kate, in all of the [00:14:00] work that you do.
So there's a really unique aspect to this. That's not just a, Hey, come and work with me because I'm going to help you. It's coming from the soul, I think, for you and the heart. And this really is your purpose. And I know that you've got your own journey to draw from. Can you just elaborate there for context? Because I think it really does make a difference to understand your health journey and what the hell.
Kate: Yeah. Thank you. Firstly, for the beautiful words, Tracey, and I'm so glad you came and I saw the apprehension on your face and I was like, Oh, this is interesting. This is going to go away and I'm glad it went the right way so much from it. And we were all just so much better from having you there. I think I want a lawyer at every retreat to tell the women, but it just saying that growth in you was beautiful and, um, saying that you have started to slow down and do these things.
I love witnessing that. And that's what I'm here to do. And that is part of what I call like the ripple and teaching you and then you might teach someone in your family or a friend and that's what I truly want it to be. But with my journey, Oh, gosh, honestly, it's been since I was a child. I've [00:15:00] always had bad headaches and kids don't usually get headaches. And I was always tired. There was always something going on. A lot of bloating, a lot of gut issues across my late teens, early twenties that went on for a number of years.
And then just at about 35, a few months after I got married, everything changed overnight, periods got incredibly heavy, more migraines, weight gain, just literally, it was August 2018 to the day. I can tell you like it just happened overnight and my body just changed dramatically and I went on a journey of trying to get to the bottom of that because I'd done so much research And I thought I'm pretty sure this is estrogen dominance and got turned away by the first doctor.
We don't test that, it's not worth the paper it's written. On second one said you're fine. I said, pretty sure I'm not. Third one, naturopath actually got it tested and went, oh you have all the symptoms of estrogen dominance, but it's coming back low. So that doesn't seem right, but we're going to boost your estrogen anyway.
So by the time I found my beautiful new naturopath here in Toowoomba, she had to send it to her mentor and say, what do I do here? This is the highest [00:16:00] case of estrogen dominance I've ever seen. It was basically knocking on cancer's door. So if I hadn't listened to my own body and if I had just listened to the GPs who said I was fine and it was normal.
I would very likely have, or be very close to having breast cancer by now. And that's something I want everyone to look at because so many women don't understand the importance of hormone imbalance and they just think incredible PMS, migraines, heavy periods, really sore boobs, all of the things are just normal and they are not, and it is a journey to heal them, but it's a really important one because it leads to so many terrible diseases like cancer and all sorts of things. So I've been working quite hard at that. But a lot of it has been naturopaths, a lot of emotional clearing and a lot of emotional healing and letting go of stories and past. And being a daughter of a generational farmer, everything is hard.
It's all lack. It's a lack mindset that I grew up in. There's never enough water or money or rain or, you know what I mean? There was never enough time. [00:17:00] And so I had to deeply shed my parents' story, which I'm still working at it. It is hard, but a lot of that has caused a lot of my issues because my body, it wasn't supported.
It just wasn't supposed to function the way that my parents did in the way that they thought life should go. My mom's no longer with us and my dad also has cancer. So how well did that work out for them? And I don't want any part of that. So I'm doing what everything I can to shed that and to heal with everything that's in our home, completely low tox, our bedding is linen, our mattress protectors are pure natural cotton. Like I'm just trying to be as holistic as I can across every single thing that comes into our home now, just to give us the best chance of health and longevity.
Tracey: Thank you for sharing that. And I find that so valuable. And for long time listeners, you will have worked out by now, everyone knows I'm very spiritual, as is Kate, hence part of the beautiful connection, part of the many threads of the beautiful connection, but there's so much there and it all, it all adds to context around the holistic [00:18:00] approach and the treating the woman as the whole person. And it's not just business and sure, Kate's fabulous. If you want to talk cashflow, go over to the website and have a look at one of Kate's amazing tools that I've seen. And I know people that work through and use it as, it's like a Bible, the spreadsheet and the cashflow and getting, you can do all of that if you want those types of tools.
Absolutely. But there's so much more to it. And that's what I really wanted to shine a light on today to share with listeners that there's so much more to it. And here's a woman who has her own unique journey, and this is why people, this is the context and a lot of what Kate shares and the work she does with business owners, it is around, let's start with lifestyle because it has such a flow on effect and that's when we get to this part, but I want to talk about this, the slowing down before you speed up and the concept of flourishing. So there's so much talk about hustle culture. There's so much talk about the grind. Step back and pause.
It doesn't need to be. For me, it was step back and learn how to nurture. [00:19:00] Slow down and flourish from there and flourish is something you're passionate about, and it's a word that resonates so deeply with you. And then I want to, I want to talk about the work you do in your Flourish package with women, because I've seen, again, from clients that I work with just how valuable that is, but talk about Flourish.
Why does that resonate with you? What does that mean to you?
Kate: I don't know. It's just a word that I think I want to see women just evolve and grow. And I'm again, growing up with that farming and I love gardening and I have a lot of flowers in my garden and I love that. And I see, interesting going back to the spirituality for a moment. There's a card that I love in a deck of tarot cards that I pull often from Rebecca Campbell.
And I often get the ever unfolding rose and that will come into my business somewhere as well. Like that just, it just feels like who we are. As women, we're continuously growing and shedding and meeting new versions of ourself, or I heard an analogy the other day of thinking about repotting ourselves, like going to like, a bigger pot because we've grown and we're evolving.
And I think, I just love supporting women so holistically to just be who they can be. And this is part of my [00:20:00] human design as a generator five, one, and, you know, all the other components that make it up, I am here to teach and to lead women. And one of my things inside my human design is that I can see people's greatest potential and I really want them to live up to that.
And it's really hard for me when they don't, like, I just deeply want people to be open to change and be open to new things, even if it might feel a little scary or a little different or something they're not sure of, but to be open because gosh, what's on the other side is just pretty cool.
Tracey: I love that. And I love the focus on Flourish and that underpins so much of what you do. Can you just step through for a little bit of context, what that Flourish package looks like? You, you love it so much. One of your packages that's available for women to work with you is the Flourish package, and I know it all too well, but can you just step through and just give a bit of a framework of what that looks like?
Because I feel that that's going to be really important for listeners to know.
Kate: Yeah. Thanks Tracey. And it, look, it's different for every woman. Cause everyone's on a little bit of a different journey. So what we first got to do is define where you're at in your life. What's happening in the season of your life. Are you trying to get pregnant? Do you have a new baby? Are you moving state?
Is your husband [00:21:00] away all the time? Like what is actually happening in your world? And what does success look like to you? What, what do you want this to look and to feel like, and really support, build up the woman, go through a lot of things really holistically. And then we kind of hold a vision is like, right, this is where we want to land at June 30 next year.
And if it's a couple of months later, whatever, but you know what I mean? We've got this real vision of, I want to either grow the team to this, or what I'm seeing a lot now is to reduce the team, to really understand my, my clients, my brand, rework my offerings and have less clients for more money, like just strategically change the whole business model. And I've seen this so many times and, you know, a couple that come to mind straight away as a few designers, one was just burnt out, wasn't sure she wanted to do it anymore, was exhausted. And she had all these other things she wanted to do.
Now she is working with less clients, they're paying her more, they're more aligned, she's creating her dream home. She's done this Airbnb course. She's now got a beautiful Airbnb. [00:22:00] She's at home more. She's cooking more. Her daughters have less anxiety. She's picking them up from school. She has space for the first time in her life and she's more at peace because she kept saying on other, you know, coaches and people online, it was like, I've got to keep growing and I've got to have this many figure months and whatever.
But it just wasn't working for her. And so there's a lot of women that we might actually reduce the business size, and there's a lot of thoughts of, you know, failing. And it's like, well, why would I do that? Kate, I've worked hard. And then when they get to the other side, it's like, Oh, I would have thrown this business in the bin had we not have done this, like the amount of times I've heard this, if we hadn't worked together, I probably would have closed the business by now, because it just wasn't working for them anymore.
Tracey: Oh, I'm loving what you say here about meeting the woman where they're at, working out what they want and then working with them to support them to achieve that. And there's no two businesses that are the same. There's no two women that are the same. Everybody's different. And I love that you've got that flexible [00:23:00] framework that you're able to do that, to support different women, achieve different things. And what I'm really hearing, and I'm sure this is resonating with listeners, is the supportive nature.
There's no judgment here. I don't think I've ever spoken to one of your clients who have had anything other than the most glowing, beautiful things to say about their time with you. Speaking from myself, just those few days was transformational. I really am so grateful to have had the opportunity to have you on the podcast and to share that possibility with listeners, because it is possible.
And if you're in the grind and you're on the hamster wheel and you're doing the things that, Oh my gosh, I'm just so tired all the time, it doesn't have to be that way. And here's a woman ready to work with you to help you and show you that it doesn't have to be that way. Kate, Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. This has been so valuable and I appreciate your time so much. Tell us, if people want to find you, where can we find you?
Kate: Yeah. So my [00:24:00] website is kateaddamo.Com. So that's a double D AMO. Instagram, @lifeandbusinessinflow and the podcast as well. I have a podcast, Life and Business in Flow.
Tracey: We'll put all those details in the show notes as well. Kate, thank you so much. I'm
Kate: Thank you so much, Tracey. Great to chat with you today.
Kate: uh, there we have it, Kate Addamo. I really hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I clearly enjoyed recording that with Kate. There's so many nuggets of gold that I just know will resonate with so many of my beautiful listeners and we'll put Kate's contact details in the show notes, but it's definitely worth checking her out over on Instagram and follow along if you don't already.
She's so soul led and such a pure, goodhearted person that she's just somebody that I've thoroughly enjoyed sharing on the podcast, and I hope that you have enjoyed connecting with Kate and listening along as always, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. I will catch you next time.
[00:25:00]
LINKS:
Connect with Kate:
Website: https://kateaddamo.com/
Instagram: @lifeandbusinessinflow
Podcast:Life & Business In Flow
Check Your Legals with the Essential Legal Checklist here
Book a Free 20-minute Initial Consult with me here
Join Me on Social:
Rate, Review and Follow me on Apple Podcasts
If you are loved this episode, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This supports me in helping to empower more coaches, creatives and consultants - just like you - protect what they're building, and move forward with confidence in their business. It's quick and easy - click here, scroll down to the bottom, tap to rate with 5 stars and select 'write a review'. As always, I'd love to know what you think, and what you loved most about this episode. Also, don't forget to follow the podcast to stay up to date with the latest episodes.
