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Welcome to So, Here’s the Thing! Are you struggling to scale your business by growing a team? Whether you believe it comes down to the employees or your lack of leadership skills, listen into this episode!

Hanneke Antonelli joins us to discuss how you can scale your business with drama-free leadership—even if you don’t think you’re meant to be a leader!

Born in South Africa, Hanneke Antonelli is an author and award-winning certified life coach with 16 years of experience growing businesses in various industries. Now based in Boston, Mass., Hanneke draws on her business degree, Wall Street sales experience, and her decade as an entrepreneur to help business owners upgrade their leadership skills. With her help, they are able to focus on the path to sustainable growth that will reap higher profits and more freedom.

Meet Hanneke (1:43)

Feeling Personally Attached to Your Business (6:12)

Why It’s Important to Let Go to Grow Your Team (6:12)

Assistant vs. Consultant/Business Manager (10:06)

Where Most People Get Stuck on Leadership (14:41)

• Imposter Syndrome
• Letting Go of Control

Start Working on Your Mindset (19:33)

Upleveling Your Business (22:38)

• Commit to It 
• Allow Yourself Grace

Unpopular Opinion (24:00)

Links
hannekeantonelli.com
Instagram.com/hannekeantonelli
Daily Practice: hannekeantonelli.com/dailypractice
Uplevel Project Book Launch Team

REVIEW THE TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS EPISODE BELOW!

Laylee Emadi 0:05
Welcome to so here’s the thing where we share candid conversations that lift the veil on what it takes to find success, even if that means sharing a few unpopular opinions. I’m your host Laylee Emadi, grab some coffee or cocktail, and let’s get real. Hey Friends Welcome back to the podcast. I am thrilled to have Hanneke Antonelli here with me. She is an amazing award winning life and business coach. She’s got over 16 years of business experience. And she’s amazing. We already had such a great chat before we hit record that had nothing to do with business. But I just love chatting with her already. So Hanneke is from South Africa. But she’s lived and worked in London, New York. She was a money broker before settling in Boston. And now she is at the point where she’s built two award winning businesses in under five years. And she helps multiple six to seven figure business owners uplevel the leadership skills to lead and grow impactful teams while focusing on the path to sustainable growth without sacrificing their freedom. That sounds like the dream. So I am pumped to talk about this. We’re gonna be talking all about leadership that helps eliminate team drama and scaling your business with drama free leadership, you guys know that leadership is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. And I am excited to learn as well alongside you. So stop rambling and kick it over to you let you introduce yourselves to us Hanneke and tell us all about your journey. And like why you’re so passionate about drama free leadership, we’re just gonna dive in and have an awesome chat.

Hanneke Antonelli 1:43
I love it. Thank you so much for having me Laylee. I’m so excited to be here. And for the audience listening. Thank you guys for tuning in. So yes, I’m originally from South Africa, I worked as a money broker and bonden in New York, I have had multiple careers, and accidentally became an entrepreneur. Like it wasn’t an intentional thing at the beginning, which was actually the problem with that first business because I burnt myself out in viewing my business as my baby, and never really stepping out of that mindset. And so that is when I first started realizing that I wasn’t seeing myself as a leader. If I now look back, I’m like, Oh, it’s because you didn’t see yourself as a leader or a thought leader or a business owner, or an entrepreneur, nothing like it was just like, I didn’t want to do my nine to five anymore. So let me just take my hobby and make some money out of it. And I was the Pilates instructor at the time. So then I burnt myself out Surprise, surprise. And then I you know, in looking for what would I be doing next, I had gotten a lot of benefit from working with my life coach, way back before life coaching was a thing. And it was just, you know, such a rich experience I did I want to add on my life. I think that for overcoming depression, I that’s the reason why I’m married to a wonderful man. It’s just everything that coaching did for me. It’s also the thing that helped me to find a career that I was truly passionate about. And then unfortunately, I burned myself out. But so in that they looking for you know what would be next, I realized that I wanted to pay this thing forward this coaching thing for it. And up until that point, I didn’t know that, that I could become a coach because my coach in London was also a psychologist. So somehow I just thought that you need it to be a psychologist. But long story short, I then found out that now you can get certified. And so I emailed my coach and I was like do you think I could do this? And she was like, absolutely, you are the proof that coaching works. So go and do it. And yeah, that’s how I then started working with people. And so first people came to me like how did you do this 180 from corporate to starting a business. And then the more I worked with people, the more they wanted to talk about growing their business. And so I started a mastermind group, etc. And then before long, I was working with these multiple six and seven figure business owners, and it was all they all experienced this thing and so if you are experiencing this problem in your business, that you’re finding leadership really hard, you’re feeling like an imposter. Or there’s a lot of drama happening around it internally or externally. You are not alone. Everyone struggles with this specifically if you’re a solopreneur that started off doing everything in your business, the chief everything officer that we all we all know that roll like Lady knows that I know it like we all know it, you know. And so moving into becoming the leader and seeing yourself as the leader in your business is so Important, and it’s so difficult because you’re bumping up against a whole bunch of mindset stuff. That isn’t necessarily true. But it is running you a little bit.

Laylee Emadi 5:11
Yeah, I love that. Thank you so much for like kicking us off with this because I think you hit on so many things that I want to dive deeper into, for sure. I’m like, wait, keep talking, because it’s so good. Okay, so let’s start off by talking about the first thing you mentioned, which is like treating your business as your baby, because I know, that’s something that I have done for so long. And you know, growing my team, I call them my small but mighty team, I’ve got four people, and myself. And, you know, I have started to really learn to delegate. But that was so difficult for me, because I was the chief everything officer, I was very much like, this business that I’ve built, or these multiple businesses that I’ve built, because I’m similarly to you. I’m like, kind of multi passionate, I’ve had multiple careers, and I just like, feel like I have to have my hand and a lot of things. I don’t know. Anyway, so I have a hard time letting go. And I think that’s such a common theme. So I’d love to hear from you. Like, how do you stop doing that? Or like, why is it important to stop doing that in the first place?

Hanneke Antonelli 6:12
Yeah, so I think let’s start with like, why it’s important, and you’ve touched on it. Now, if when you continue to view your baby or your business as your baby, then that business, you’re always going to be very personally attached to that business. So your emotions are going to be running a lot of your decision making, because your ego will be very intertwined with your business. And then as soon as you start hiring people, and your team grows a little bit bigger, and it’s, then it becomes very difficult for you to lead those people or to give away a certain piece of your business. Because what solopreneurs often do is that they hire assistants, but you you don’t want assistance, you want people who can own the role that you’re assigning to them so that you can create some bandwidth in your in your brain. Because you are extraordinary, you have a visionary strat, like growth strategist mindset. And so the more you can stay in that, the less you’re gonna burn yourself out. And so to do that, you have to free up this brain space. And so hiring assistants and telling them what to do, versus hiring a marketing manager, or creative brand strategist or whomever the thing the person is that you’re gonna have on your team. And letting them own that role is two very different things. And so you have to start thinking about it in that way, too. And so when you’re able to make that shift of like, oh, okay, I am here to be the visionary, I’m here to be the growth strategist, I’m here to own whatever it is, that makes me magic in my business, and then let go of everything else, because then the people around me are actually going to support me to bring my vision into life. So the way I normally explain it to people is having like a triangle, and it’s thinking about what your business needs. And then on the other like, underneath that, like the tip of the triangle is then you on the one side, being the visionary, and then your employees on the other side. And so that helps you to think about, like how to even be in a relationship with your employees, because that gets sticky as well, like you want to be liked. And so you show up in that energy versus like, Oh, no, actually, this is what we want to do. And me saying or telling you or giving you direction, or even not agreeing with you has nothing to do with being liked. It’s what the business needs right now. It’s not my ego, and what it needs.

Laylee Emadi 9:02
Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think that makes total sense. And it’s something that I think, you know, you don’t think about until you get into some situations where you start hiring on and you start finding yourself doing all those things like wanting to be liked and starting off your relationship, but maybe in not the healthiest way. So yeah, so how would you advise somebody who’s listening to this? And maybe they think like, Okay, so that’s where I’m at my business is my baby, I maybe have a virtual assistant is not actually freeing up my time. And that’s such an interesting, I never think about it that way. But because we’ve had episodes about hiring our first assistant, we’ve had virtual assistants on the podcast talking through like, you know how to how to navigate that relationship. But I have spoken to many people who hire on a virtual assistant or, or an in person assistant, and they’re like, I mean, it’s helpful, like it’s giving me some time back, but I thought it would be more helpful. Now that you’re giving this perspective, I’m thinking, could this be Why? And how do we overcome that?

Hanneke Antonelli 10:07
Yeah, so this is where you really have to put your again, put your ego aside, ladies and gentlemen, you really want to. So what is more important being REITs, and being the smartest person in the room, or executing your vision and letting your baby graduate from Harvard and start paying you dividends, that’s, that’s what you want to start thinking, the more you hang on and cling on and control, the more you are prohibiting your vision from coming true faster, and the more you’re getting sucked into the day to day. And so when you are then thinking of hiring assistants are wonderful, I love them. I love assistance and assistance, need, they need structure, and they need a sapis. And they need step by steps. So when you’re hiring, if you’re all looking for someone to think outside the box, or to come on and give you new ideas and a fresh breath of fresh air or a different way to think about things, then you’re no longer looking for an assistant that is not an assistance job, they are literally here to do step by step by step by step work. Some of them will have some ideas and new ways to do it. And hopefully, you’re hiring an assistant who can build the process for you, please make sure that your assistant can do that. Specifically, if you’re a creative systems, I’m going to gaze is not your strongest suit. So get a technical VA, someone who really knows her stuff where you can rattle a bunch of stuff off, and they’ll go and create a process for you. That’s efficient. But now, when you go to the point where you want to have this other person in the room with you that comes in, not necessarily as your subordinate, but more as your equal and the person that you’re going to support to execute your vision, then you want to start thinking about the skill set that that person would have like think outside the box, creative strategy, or whatever they’re going to bring to the table for you be very specific on what you want from them. And then really be very verbal on what you want from that person as you’re communicating with them. And so this is where I like to always refer to the Four Agreements, be impeccable with your speech. So when you start hiring people, you have to get so clear with your communication. And that’s going to help you a lot as a leader in your business.

Laylee Emadi 12:45
Oh, yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, I think even in thinking through my last hire, how much better it went, having her on boarded and having her on the team now, because I’ve experienced what tremendous difficulty comes from vague communication. Oh, yes.

It was like night and day. And so I appreciate you bringing that up. Because I think that is something that we’re like, oh, well, we’ll just figure it out as we go. And it’s like, No, you need to figure it out before you bring somebody in. Otherwise, it’s very difficult.

Hanneke Antonelli 13:16
Mm hmm. Exactly. Because your your role, when you step out of Chief everything officer and into the growth strategist visionary person becomes more a role of supporting the person in your business to execute your vision. So it becomes like, how can I make this easier for you? What’s going to help you? What systems do you need? What assistance do you need? That’s more what your job becomes. So it’s way different from the doing work that we all do. When we start our businesses and get very comfortable, it sort of becomes like this. But is this my comfort zone and so now I need to be here and then I need to be go helicopter parent over there as well. Because I don’t want to let go of the doing. Working and growing your business beyond a certain level requires you to start working completely differently. And that means no more doing. And it’s a lot more strategy thinking, research work and supporting of your of your team.

Laylee Emadi 14:20
Yeah, that’s super helpful. Where do you find that people get the most stuck in this process of switching over their mindset from doing it all to trying to scale their business through leadership? like where do you find that people get really caught up and can’t necessarily get past that hurdle?

Hanneke Antonelli 14:40
Okay, so there’s quite a few places actually. So it’s imposter syndrome like thinking, Oh, I didn’t go to business school. I never took a leadership course so how could I possibly lead other people but leadership is an inside job. So if you know yourself and you know your strengths and how you are Right and your values of your business and you show up as that, then you’re going to do an okay job. Also, there is no perfect version of a leader, you are going to mess up on it take responsibility for it. So when you do that, that set really is going to help you. Okay, so then the other reason why they get very tripped up is this whole letting go of control. And that is a trust issue that you have or don’t have with your business. And normally, when we bring that back, that’s going to be an underlying belief of not being enough. Or something that happened in your past that’s causing you to act in a certain way now, like, and that’s usually a belief, right? Like something happened in our past. Now we take that as like, this is the norm. This is how we’re going to see these things in future and how things happen in future. So I have to act XYZ. So you really want to dive into that and go and see like, what are my beliefs here, and I call it the up level formula, which is this little thing that I use with my clients, that basically goes like, okay, the result that I want is x. So if you want to release, and you want to trust your team, and you want to empower them, then what do you have to believe? What do you have to say? What do you have to think? And what do you have to feel? And how do you have to show up and act to get that result. So that big for me is a lot like, it’s an interesting because I run this program called the uplevel program, where I work with this foundational piece of the business that needs to happen for you to show up and really lead. And I had someone do this program in October, and they came back with me or to me yesterday, and they were like, Oh my word. I’ve had all these all hos and one of them was like I all of a sudden realized that when I was little I was taught this way. And so I showed up in my business like this. And that frustrated my team. And now that I know, I want to correct this. And so now they have the uplevel formula to help them to do that. So you do need to go there. If you’re going to leave people, you have to go deep within yourself, because that’s how you grow and how you expand.

Laylee Emadi 17:23
Yeah, and I think that’s so hard. Like, I think that’s such a difficult thing for so many people to do, I can totally understand why that would be a really big hurdle that you would encounter. Because people generally don’t want to have to relive things that were difficult or that, you know, foundationally shifted the way that they think or view things.

Hanneke Antonelli 17:43
No, and I think also, you know, my like the talk of mindset. And the way people talk about mindset online, has become very dumbed down and like, been this rah rah, Think positive bs that like drives me up a wall, because that’s not what it is like, I am plenty full of crap and in a bad mood. But like I still show up and do the thing because of my mindset. Like it’s got nothing to do with being positive having a can do attitude. Sure. But that’s because I’m working on my mindset. So I think that there’s a big disconnect in this deeper self development, personal development work that needs to happen, that people have slapped a very cheap, shallow label of this is mindset work on and so instead everybody gravitates towards, I need the silver bullet strategy. Give me the strategy, strategy, strategy strategy. The thing is, the strategy is only going to work when you adapt the strategy to work with your personal development work that you’ve done. Otherwise, the strategies, it’s not going to make you act, it’s not going to, you know, help you to do the thing. It’s just it’s your comfort zone.

Laylee Emadi 19:00
Yeah, absolutely. So where would you advise somebody to, like start looking to get started working on their mindset? Because I do agree, I think that you hear mindset, it’s almost become like this buzzword in the entrepreneurial space where it you don’t it’s like lost its meaning to where when I hear it now I’m almost like, Okay, well, what does that mean to you? Do I need to, like hold a crystal? Like, is this like some kind of, like, woowoo thing? Or is it actual, like development that I have to put work into, and so I’m excited to hear like, where people can can get started in that journey? Or like, you know, just what advice you would have for them.

Hanneke Antonelli 19:33
So actually, yeah, so there’s a couple of things you can buy my book when it comes out in May? Yes.

Laylee Emadi 19:39
Definitely! Please tell us more.

Hanneke Antonelli 19:41
Yeah, so it’s gonna be called the Uplevel project. If you you know, want to know more, you can just visit my website, but I think the first thing is just becoming aware of the thoughts. So yes, so definitely, this is where you would start, become aware of the thoughts that you’re continually thinking About this certain thing, like, for instance, we all have heard the, you know, takes blood, sweat and tears to be successful in. So now if that is your belief or society’s like, this is the way we run things, then your thoughts around, it’s gonna be like oh my god, it’s gonna be so much work to achieve that goal. And so if you’re there thinking that, then you’re probably saying stuff like, oh so hard, it’s so much work. And then from there, you’re gonna go well, now I don’t particularly feel very motivated. So now you’re going to show up with like, Oh, I don’t want to do this thing today. And then you’re going to get your results, right, so the uplevel format. So if you want more on the optical format, I just go to my website, force, Ford slash daily practice. And I give like a really good, how to connect to your vision, how to really inspire you to achieve your goal. And then I also go through this uplevel formula thing, so you can go there. But if you if you’re like, come on, I don’t want to go there. I just want like the GG start to just question where your thoughts coming from. And not all thoughts are true. Like, they really are not their bullshit. They’re not true. They’re just a thought that you have, because of the way that you were raised because of things that you believe. And so the more you can get onto yourself, were like, well, that’s not true. I don’t have to believe that I don’t have to attach meaning to that, right, because that’s where meditation comes from. Sitting with your thoughts and not attaching yourself to them, just letting it go. Because it’s just the thought. But you decide whether you make it a big deal, or a thing and what you might get me in. So that would be the first place where I start, just start to notice, like, What are you thinking,

Laylee Emadi 21:53
I think that’s so powerful, I’m going to definitely take you up on heading to your website, and we will link all of that information in our show notes, because I’m definitely gonna go find it. And I’m using Well, yeah, that’s really exciting. I love that and I appreciate you sharing, that, like first step that people can take. So okay, got kind of guiding us back as we’re wrapping up, you know, to the conversation about leadership and, and how to really, you know, step into becoming that powerful leader. If you have any additional things that you wanted to share about, you know, stepping into powerful leadership and drama free leadership, please, I would love to hear them. Because I’ve really enjoyed all the insightful things that you’ve shared so far.

Hanneke Antonelli 22:34
Yeah. So I think the first step is making the commitment to yourself that you’re going to do this right, like not, and you’re not going to accomplish anything without that commitment. That’s really the first step to achieving anything, is, how committed Am I to showing up and being a better person tomorrow? I think the other thing is just allowing yourself some grace, and taking off the pressure of being perfect. Because you know, and that’s another thing that people talk about all the all a lot, because Brenda Brown has also brought this up about the being vulnerable, right? And I was like, Oh my god, how do I be vulnerable? But vulnerability is just be honest. Just be radically honest with like, this is I am annoyed right now. And here’s why. Or acknowledging your team members frustration, like just you know, in coaching, we do the whole, like, acknowledge the person’s feeling, then get curious about why they’re feeling that way. And then awesome, a powerful question. So when you’re leading your team, or leading yourself starting with that acknowledgement, and you can only do that when you first just take responsibility for yourself and go, I am feeling say it. Here’s why can you please help me from your team member?

Laylee Emadi 23:51
I love that. That’s so helpful. Okay. And then of course, my signature question is, what’s your unpopular opinion on this topic?

Hanneke Antonelli 23:59
I think probably the thing is like that leadership is an inside job. It sounds so cheesy. But it’s so true. And it’s really something where you’re only going to grow and be able to lead as far or as high as you have gone in within yourself. And nobody, like we all like, I think we’re all out there trying to get all the leadership tips. But the leadership tips is again, not going to do anything for you if you are not doing the work consistently. So leadership development is just personal development. I’ve just slapped a cute name on it.

Laylee Emadi 24:39
I love that. I’m over here like, dang, that was good. I love that. Thank you so much. Okay, so tell everybody where they can find you. I mean, we’re obviously going to link you everywhere but i want i want anybody to be able to know where they can connect with you.

Hanneke Antonelli 24:53
Oh, thank you. Yeah, so you can find me I’m normally on Instagram the most like at Hanneke Antonelli. That’s a mouth full, so just head to the show notes to go and spell that for yourself. And then if you want that daily practice, as lady said, we are going to be linking to that as well. So it’s just my website force forward slash daily practice. And then yeah, you can poke around and you can get in touch. There are all sorts of forms. And yeah,

Laylee Emadi 25:21
I can’t I can’t wait to read your book when it comes out to that’s so exciting.

Hanneke Antonelli 25:26
Thank you. Yes, thank you for your excitement. It’s It’s definitely been quite the journey. writing it is it’s a bit of a different business book. And actually, it happened as a result of reading a business book. And I had this model, like this group that I was running that we had a book club in. And after the umpteenth like business book, I was like, Oh, my God, someone’s got to do something better here. So anyway, so I have written this book, it’s got a bit of a memoir flair in it. So you’re going to really learn how I’ve learned all these lessons. And it’s definitely going to help you to become a better leader in your business as it covers a lot of what we spoke about today. So yes, thank you for the excitement.

Laylee Emadi 26:10
Yes. I’m so excited for you. And I’m excited for everybody to be able to check that out, too.

Hanneke Antonelli 26:14
Yes, yeah. At the app level project coming May.

Thank you so much.

Laylee Emadi 26:21
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for being here for show notes and resources mentioned on today’s episode head to so here’s the thing podcast.com. And if you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to read your review on iTunes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.