Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

Our episode today is a full-on conversation about the energetics of you and of being a founder that’s constantly growing, but it simultaneously points to tangible noticings you can have in your own life as you re-evaluate and refine your life and business portfolio. 

These are a mix of the conversations I’ve had with our clients that range from pre-revenue startups to million-dollar brands with a speckle of research from long scrolls across all of the platforms you don’t have time to scroll through to my own personal experience of now reaching almost every goal I’ve ever set for myself while working on the new ones. 

Here are the ten noticings that our clients, ourselves, and the wonderful world of the web have noticed. We ended up down many rabbit holes ranging from energetics to very logical, pragmatic views of what happens when a human is evolving.

1. You get bored with old cycles and old stories of pain. 

2. You outgrow experiences, mindsets, relationships, and habits.

3. You get unafraid to speak up AND unafraid to choose to stay in your own sanctuary. There’s this thought that you’re only powerful if you’re speaking up, but a conversation I have often with my inner circle is that preferred silence is also an answer. 

4. You rub up against old wounds and feel a new perspective instead of the same story. 

5. Masculine structures are challenged for their feminine counterparts.

6. Your thoughts around dreams, goals, opportunties, and money are upleveling again.

7. You might be having insane dreams, experiencing funny little synchronicities, and all of the angel numbers might be surrounding you.

8. You’re feeling every sensation more deeply than usual and choosing to turn in instead of turn away. 

9. You’re invited into new spaces and places that you’ve wanted to be in.

10. You’re no longer attracted to what you used to be attracted to.

How to Experience These Energetic Shifts as a Founder and CEO 

Experience them.

Don’t analyze them, don’t criticize them, don’t do what wounded masculine founders and CEOs suggest to you to do – i.e. “stop feeling sorry for yourself and get back up.”

We serve female and female-identifying founders at The Cheetah Company; we’ve worked with male founders and CEOs around the world, too, but our sweet spot is supporting women and whether you identify as male, female, or non-binary you have a harmonious amount of feminine and masculine living inside of your body.

The masculine is the do-er, the go energy you feel, the get things done and keep on moving to the next goal and task energy.

The feminine is the creative, fluid, restful, playful, leisurely energy inside of you. The energy of being and creating space for times that do not require productivity or achievement in the masculine sense.

I see so many unhealed guides – on their own healing journey, of course, so this is said with discernment and without judgment – suggest to founders to not feel sorry for themselves, to get back up and keep going, and I see such heavy wounds in this language.

Feeling your feelings is the only way through an experience because they’re going to come back up in some way.

Something I’ve noticed about the hundreds of clients we’ve served around the globe is that many successful, ambitious, high-achieving founders were struggling with some or many of the below points:

• Chronic illness
• Chronic issues
• Loneliness 
• Lack of energy
• Lack of peace
• Lack of libido 
• Lack of relationships
• Lack of trust
• Fear and anxiety 

It’s the whole reason I started sharing about lifestyle design.

This wasn’t a cutesy addition to our offerings to differentiate or based on trends of lifestyle shifts in a post-pandemic world; it was a foundational practice before we could begin planning a business portfolio from the ground up or re-evaluation, repositioning, and renegotiating their true value in the marketplace. 

I began The Cheetah Company this way after experiencing years of burnout from running a few businesses at the same time that I was leading a retail team of 30+ or a marketing team of 13+ at an agency or, or, or… 

I recognized that I was carrying shame, blame, anxiety, and burnout from a life that lacked the authenticity I needed. Authenticity in the sense of success being molded and crafted by me alone, letting go of people-pleasing, “yes, I can do that” ways, releasing friendships, relationships, and partnerships that no longer made sense for the energetic life I wanted to experience and have.

Lifestyle Design for a CEO isn’t Just Trendy, but Imperative 

Back to our clients around the globe, I was literally confused by the data that showed how similar their experiences were to mine.

High-achieving women with families they loved, hobbies they didn’t make time for, bodies being run ragged for accolades outside of themselves to validate their self-worth and internal sense of self. Women that were top in their field, but feared to put out case studies and words from their clients that declared them as an authority because they didn’t want their clients to feel like their success was being taken from them.

I originally started designing my life with a few books in hand:

• The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte
• The Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte
• The Universe Has Your Back by Gabby Bernstein 

And my own inner knowing. I asked little Ashleigh what kind of life she wanted. 

She bubbled up points that I knew she would:

• Writing, please
• Speaking, please
• Traveling, please
• Working with girlfriends, please
• Dancing, please
• Singing, please
• Reading, please
• Researching, please

Yes, researching. LOLOL. I read dictionaries and encyclopedias as a kid for fun and my brain still kind of works in the dictionary-esque way of breaking down a word by syllables, meanings of the word, synonyms, grammar and the like.

I built off of the skills I had:

• Leadership
• Marketing
• Sales
• PR
• Speaking
• Writing
• Researching
• Guiding
• Community-building
• Event-running
• Hospitality

And created the life I wanted on paper in this reality. 

Those books mentioned were some of the first gifts I gave my clients when we started our social media and lead generation agency. I loved giving the gift of guidance for someone to build their life the way they wanted to.

Which leads us to our next point once you’ve defined what you want…

Refinement of Your Lifestyle as a CEO and Founder

Those original points we discussed:

1. You get bored with old cycles and old stories of pain. 

2. You outgrow experiences, mindsets, relationships, and habits.

3. You get unafraid to speak up AND unafraid to choose to stay in your own sanctuary. There’s this thought that you’re only powerful if you’re speaking up, but a conversation I have often with my inner circle is that preferred silence is also an answer. 

4. You rub up against old wounds and feel a new perspective instead of the same story. 

5. Masculine structures are challenged for their feminine counterparts.

6. Your thoughts around dreams, goals, opportunities, and money are upleveling again.

7. You might be having insane dreams, experiencing funny little synchronicities, and all of the angel numbers might be surrounding you.

8. You’re feeling every sensation more deeply than usual and choosing to turn in instead of turn away. 

9. You’re invited into new spaces and places that you’ve wanted to be in.

10. You’re no longer attracted to what you used to be attracted to.

You’ll notice these points come into your life and they’re little markers that you’re on the right track.

You’re being tested, forged by fire, and refined by the process of experiencing what you don’t want to continue pursuing what you do want.

It’s a trial by fire, truly, but when you’re in the flames of sensation and true experimentation… breathe in and feel every feeling.

My husband and I were in grief counseling for several months after losing my brother-in-law in spring 2023 and mid-way through I was listing out all of these things I was doing each week to our counselor with joy…

Like, “okay, I’m meditating, I’m spending time with friends and family and not isolating myself, I’m going for walks, I’m breathing, I’m doing body and energy work with a chiropractor and massage therapist, I’m in a life mentorship group, I’m journaling, I’m singing, I’m playing an instrument to reconnect with my brother-in-law, etc.”

And he nodded, without a hint of a smile, and said: “those are good coping mechanisms, but that’s not healing.”

I was pissed.

I mean red hot pissed. I sat back in my chair, looked at Chris, my husband, and was like “wtf” with my eyes, and it took me days of writing, praying, talking with girlfriends, and populating my thoughts in the life mentorship group to go… “ohhhhhhh.”

Healing is feeling.

Healing is not a list of mechanisms to stay steady and stable during the day when all I wanted to do was beg the universe for my brother-in-law to come back so we could go to our annual beach trip and have deviled eggs at Thanksgiving and ski and sled and snowboard on the slopes in the winter.

Healing is feeling. 

Lifestyle design becomes your compass to heal what you believe you don’t deserve, aren’t allowed to do, or aren’t allowed to receive in your life. You’re staring directly in the life-mirror and saying “why is my life like this and what do I need to feel and THEN do about it?”

That’s the truly healed feminine and masculine way of approaching lifestyle design: feel then do. 

If this is something you feel called to do in a group of female founders that are interested in re-evaluating their lives and business portfolios to be more harmonious than ever then we’d love to invite you to The Harmonious Business Mini-Mind where we’re guiding you to re-evaluate, reposition, and re-negotiate your true value and worth in the marketplace while harmonizing your pie of life beyond just work. 

You are actually meant to live the life that you desire; otherwise, you wouldn’t desire it.

Resources:

Listen to the full episode on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.

Bio:

Ashleigh Henry has been in marketing, sales, and leadership positions for the last decade and it was exhilarating for Ashleigh to climb the retail, corporate, higher education, and start-up ladder holding positions such as Marketing Strategist, Copywriter, Social Media Strategist, Manager, Editor, Co-Editor…until it wasn’t. Alongside her degree, Ashleigh decided to bring all of her experience into the freelancing world until it became clear that she didn’t just want to pay the bills – she wanted to create a company that was foundationally built on cheetah print, legacy-minded marketing, and sexy sales structures that could stand the test of trend and time. The Cheetah Company, founded by Ashleigh, does this for female entrepreneurs through their education, coaching, and consulting services. Learn more about Ashleigh here.