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Your mind only cares about keeping you safe. It doesn't care whether you're rich. So if you want a big life, you're going to have to work against your own wiring.

Alyce Swarts is an entrepreneur, speaker and mentor who works with ambitious women and female founders on the internal side of business, the subconscious, nervous system, beliefs and identity behind the person executing the strategy.

She studied interior design architecture, landed her dream job at a prestige Perth building company, and quit a month later to start her own female wellness events brand.

This conversation is about why strategy alone isn't enough, why you procrastinate, and what it actually takes to become the version of you who already has the business you want.

WE GET INTO:

→ Why Alyce believes procrastination and self-sabotage are really you going against your identity

→ Her "two lists" method for big goals, so your brain sees proof it's working

→ Why your current reality is the result of who you were three months ago

→ The hourly alarm exercise that shows you what your mind is really thinking

→ How Sammy asked "how would a multi-seven-figure owner show up?" when relaunching the bowling alley

→ Why Alyce's first retreat sold out when she was told it was too risky

→ Emotional discipline: feel it, then come back to the business

→ Why she calls social media "service media"

If you've done all the strategy and still feel stuck, this one is for you. Alyce is blunt, and that's exactly why it lands.

CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Cold open and welcome

00:01:00 Who Alyce is and the work she does

00:03:00 Quitting her dream job after a month

00:04:00 Starting Aligned Wellness

00:07:00 Why procrastination is an identity problem

00:10:00 Getting specific about the life you want

00:16:00 Give more than you take

00:19:00 Pay yourself and stack your wins

00:29:00 Two lists for big goals

00:31:00 The crumble before the quantum leap

00:34:00 Acting as the person who's already there

00:36:00 The hourly identity check

00:41:00 Emotional discipline in business

00:44:00 Slow mornings and gratitude

00:55:00 Your reality is your identity from three months ago

00:56:00 Selling out the first retreat

01:21:00 Assume it will land with the right people

01:23:00 Social media is service media

Got a question about your own business right now? Drop it in the comments, I read every single one.

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:

→ https://www.instagram.com/delusionalwithsammykennedy/
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedyofficial

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Brand strategists slid into Cass Emmerson’s DMs to tell her it was impossible to build six brands in one room, in one day. She's now done it around eight times.

Cass left a high-powered corporate career in her 40s to build a brand consultancy - and refused to wait three years to start travelling. I've known her for about six years and watched her build her business her own way, often against the advice of the coaches around her.

This conversation is about what brand actually is (hint: it isn't your logo), why it should come before your offers, and how getting clear on what you value makes every business decision easier.

WE GET INTO:
→ How Cass signed contracts before resigning so she started with 10K months already locked in
→ Her year-by-year plan: brand management, then consultancy, then one-to-many
→ Why she capped her business at 30 people — and how that gets her to 50K months
→ Her four pillars of brand: purpose, positioning, personality and picture
→ The client who discovered her $6,000 offer meant she only needed four clients a month — and closed everything else
→ Why your offers will change, but your brand shouldn't
→ The real difference between a refresh and a rebrand
→ Why she paid $1,200 for a venue when she was told to book a $500 one

If you've ever felt like your business looks like everyone else's, or you're chasing a number that doesn't match the life you want, this one will make you rethink both.

CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Cold open
00:02:00 Welcome Cass, and building the parachute on the way down
00:04:00 Locking in 10K months before leaving corporate
00:07:00 The five-year plan: management, consultancy, one-to-many
00:08:00 Six brands in one day
00:12:00 Saying no to advice that doesn't fit your life
00:15:00 How much do you actually need to earn?
00:19:00 30 clients and 50K months
00:22:00 What most founders miss about brand
00:24:00 The four pillars of brand
00:27:00 Finding your point of difference
00:39:00 Start with your why
00:42:00 Brand or product first?
01:03:00 Refresh vs rebrand
01:06:00 Build for where you're going
01:15:00 Community and the offline trend
01:17:00 Permission to do it your way

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:

→ https://www.instagram.com/delusionalwithsammykennedy/
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedyofficial

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What would make you sell your house and put the money into a business you weren’t even sure would work?

For Craig Joel, part of the answer was being naive enough not to fully understand how hard it was going to be.

Craig is the founder and CEO of Now Book It, but his story started long before software.

He bought his first restaurant at 24, learned some brutal lessons about tax, numbers and running a business, then spent years inside hospitality before spotting a problem restaurant owners kept complaining about.

We talk about what happened when he put everything behind Now Book It, the moment COVID shut down virtually his entire customer base just as the company had finally become profitable, and how they went from signing roughly 150–160 restaurants a month pre-COVID to as many as 400–500 in some months afterwards.

Then we get into the part most founders barely think about until it’s happening: selling the business.

We get into:

→ Why Craig believes hospitality, financial and marketing acumen are the three skills that can make or break a hospitality business

→ How listening to restaurant owners complaining about booking fees and losing control of their customer data became the opportunity behind Now Book It

→ The roughly $600,000 initial software build, why Craig sold his house to protect his equity, and why he says knowing what he knows now might have stopped him doing it

→ Going from finally reaching profitability to watching COVID shut down the restaurant industry, then building a takeaway solution in four days

→ How Now Book It jumped from around 150–160 new restaurants a month pre-COVID to 400–500 in some of its biggest months

→ Why AI makes software dramatically easier to build, but relationships, integrations, distribution and customer understanding create the real moat

→ What Craig learned selling Now Book It, including EBITDA, revenue multiples, earnouts and why you need to know your numbers before talking to a buyer

→ Why the highest offer isn’t necessarily the right exit when your team, your role and what happens to the business afterwards actually matter

You can spend years obsessing over how to start and grow a business without ever thinking seriously about how you’ll eventually leave it. Craig has lived both sides, including what happens when the founder sells but isn’t actually ready to walk away.

Chapters:

0:00 Meet Craig Joel, founder of Now Book It
1:00 Selling the house and going all in
3:00 Starting in hospitality at 16
6:00 Buying a restaurant at 24
10:00 The three types of acumen business owners need
14:00 Finding the problem that became Now Book It
17:00 Finally profitable… then COVID hit
22:00 Why human customer service still matters
23:00 The $600,000 build and bootstrapping Now Book It
28:00 AI has changed the cost of building software
33:00 The booking fee problem Craig wanted to fix
38:00 Pricing Now Book It and investing in AI
45:00 What breaks when a business scales
49:00 Selling the business without planning to sell
57:00 Valuations, EBITDA, multiples and preparing to exit
1:00:00 Why Craig stayed after selling
1:16:00 Craig’s advice for founders considering an exit

If you have any questions about the episode, have a burning question you would like me to answer on the show, connect with me and the rest of our incredible community on Instagram:

→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedycoach/
→ https://www.instagram.com/sammykennedyofficial