Checking the "Success" Boxes & Still Feeling Unfulfilled? Finding Yourself & Joy with Heather Hubbard

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In this episode, I’m talking with Heather Hubbard, a former Big Law partner who now leads transformational retreats to help women hear and reconnect with themselves. Heather works with women who’ve done all the “right” things—built successful careers, checked all the personal boxes—and yet still feel unfulfilled or surprised by how they’re feeling. If that resonates with you, I think you’re going to really enjoy this conversation.

Heather shares how a two-week unplugged vacation to Tanzania changed everything for her and why unplugging is so critical to hearing your own voice. We also dig into why many of us don’t realize how disconnected we’ve become from our real wants, how childhood versions of ourselves can serve as clues to the joy we’re missing, and why being bored can actually lead to good things.

You’ll also hear us talk about:

Why people-pleasing and fear are often what actually hold us back from doing what we want
Why saying yes to something always means saying no to something else (and how to be more intentional about it)
What comes up for high-achieving women when they finally create quiet and space for clarity—and how powerful that can be

We also walk through what Heather’s retreats actually look like—from the luxury setting to the no-phones-allowed policy to the types of transformations people experience (and they’re not always what people expect when they walk in the door). Even if attending a retreat isn’t on your radar right now, Heather shares bite-sized strategies you can start using today to begin reconnecting with yourself, including how to hear yourself again even in the midst of a busy, noisy life.

Resources mentioned:

Heather’s retreat info and free assessment: https://www.heatherjoyhubbard.com/brightmethod
Heather’s podcast: Hustle & Flow
Heather on Instagram: @heatherjoyhubbard

Below is a transcript of the episode. Enjoy!

Full transcript:

Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Hey there. I know I usually jump straight into the music, but I quickly wanted to make an announcement before the actual episode for this week. Now, if you have been here long, you know that last summer I dropped down to one episode every two weeks, so it came out every other week, and that was really nice during the summer months, I gotta say.

So I’m doing that again this summer. So for the rest of June, July, and most of August, there’s gonna be an episode every other week instead of every single week. And then around, I think it’s August 25th, we’ll jump back into regular programming. I really appreciate it. I hope you don’t miss me too much.

You’re probably fine ’cause you’re busy as well. It’s just a nice way to reduce the workload a bit over the summer months so that. Can spend more time enjoying the summer. I live in Minnesota, and that is why we live here. So I’m just gonna drop down to every other month. I will see you more regularly in August, but until then, I will see you just a little less frequently.

All right, let’s get to the episode. Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical [00:01:00] time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally.

Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.

Hey, hey, and welcome back. Alright, so many, I mean, a year ago now, I was talking to my attorney. I have an attorney who helps me with IP stuff and she had said, you know, I have a. Dear friend from law school, I’d love for you to meet. She works in the like kind of online business space as well and you would really get along with her.

And so we had a coffee chat. Her name is Heather Hubbard. We had a coffee chat and it was a really enjoyable just conversation and I really liked her and I found what she does really interesting and so I wanted to have her on the podcast so you could hear as well. What [00:02:00] Heather does is she works a lot with women who have essentially checked all the boxes or are far into their career into checking all the boxes, have done all the things that society says, make us a quote unquote success, both professionally, personally, all of that.

And have achieved so much of that and are still unhappy or unfulfilled in some way. And often it can be a place of confusion and frustration and loneliness, and she works with women to help them. Get to a place where they are feeling more joy and satisfaction in their life. And she does this mainly through retreats.

And so I wanted to have her on here today to talk about what she offers. ’cause I do think there is such value sometimes in really getting away and being able to deep dive into this stuff. But then we also talk strategies that you can start using just today if you would like to on a more small bite-size scale.[00:03:00]

So before we dig into the conversation a little bit more about Heather. Heather Hubbard is a former attorney turned entrepreneur who is best known for business strategy, luxury transformational retreats and mastermind experiences. A fierce advocate of helping women and those in historically marginalized groups rise within their respective industries.

Heather is known for her no-nonsense approach, real talk and practical solutions. She’s also the host of the award-winning podcast, hustle and Flow. She’s been featured by Forbes Business Insider Ladders, Grammy Magazine and NBC, as well as named one of Nashville’s 40 under 40 by the Nashville Business Journal.

All right. Let’s get to the good stuff. Awesome. Well, Heather, thank you so much for being here. And do you wanna just introduce yourself and explain how you got into doing what you’re doing now?

Heather Hubbard: Sure. I’m Heather Hubbard and I was a partner, a practice group leader, a lawyer for. I guess over [00:04:00] a decade, like you, I was a former lawyer.

I was in big law doing intellectual property law, and I left in 2014 to start my own personal and professional development company. So since then, for the last decade, I have been helping companies, law firms, and a lot of individuals, a lot of women. Build their businesses, even if that’s within a law firm.

So building a book of business, but also just dealing with the career trajectory as well as happiness overall. How do you reach those big goals, those big dreams, without burning out?

Kelly Nolan: Awesome, awesome. And I know that. One of the things that you work on with women, which I think will be really fascinating to the women who listen to this podcast, is helping women who’ve done all the things, like checked all the boxes, all the things that we grew up being told were success, you [00:05:00] know, professional and or personal, and are still unhappy or unfulfilled or just not as happy as they’d like to be.

Maybe they’re generally okay, but. Just feel like they’re a little surprised at how they’re feeling, given all that they’ve accomplished and that you help them figure out how to bring more joy and satisfaction into their lives. Do you mind, you know, sharing more about that with us?

Heather Hubbard: Yes, I do that through transformational retreats, and I have been leading these since, oh my gosh, 2015 or 2016.

They’ve been a part of the company for a really long time, partly because when I was a lawyer working all the time, having checked all the boxes with the awards and the achievements and the money. And the titles and still was like, what am I doing with my life? Why am I not happy? And it took me going on my very first unplugged [00:06:00] vacation to Tanzania for two weeks where I was finally able to hear my own voice and connect to something.

Bigger in many ways. Some people may recall, may refer to that as faith. Others may call it spirituality, but it was through that experiential transformational moment that I suddenly had insight and wisdom and courage to actually make some major changes in my life, including leaving my job to start my own company and.

I’m a lifelong learner. I love to learn things. I have been to so many different. Therapists and coaches and workshops and tried all the things and have read all the books and enjoy the podcasts, but none of that was as helpful for me as truly being able to have this transformational moment. [00:07:00] ’cause it’s really hard to unplug.

It’s really hard to connect and be able to hear that divine wisdom where. Things that we didn’t even realize were a problem. Like it, it’s just right in front of us. It’s so obvious we can’t look away. Mm-hmm. And you’re able to actually start making the tweaks that you need to. So for me, it’s all about clarity, about who you are and what you want.

And so many of us have been on autopilot for so long, achieving that dream that we set out to achieve, that we are disconnected with who we are. And what we want. And so it’s really in those retreat experiences where we go really, really deep and women have those life changing moments that really changes everything for them.

Kelly Nolan: Do you mind explaining like, what are some of the. Transformations that can come out of that. ’cause we’ve [00:08:00] spoken previously and it and it, they really can run the gamut. So I just think it’s helpful to bring it to life for people listening of the types of transformation that come out of this retreat for people.

Even just the decision but then, you know, the moving forward and all of that as well.

Heather Hubbard: Yeah, personal, professional. It’s so interesting because. I don’t actually build my retreats where I have a singular focus and a goal for each person. Right. So, so it’s not like, and at the end you’re gonna have more courage, or at the end you’re gonna, my only goal is for you to be able to get clarity.

And so I never make assumptions about what that is. Mm-hmm. And I never let the people who show up make assumptions either, because oftentimes we don’t know what it’s gonna be. Exactly. It’s always the most interesting things that come out of it, and sometimes it happens there and then sometimes it continues to unfold.

But I had one woman come. And she thought her intention, her goal was [00:09:00] related to building her business and finding more success and satisfaction with that. And what she ended up doing was realizing that she had this deep wound with her biological father that she had not a relationship with in many, many, many years, had not even contacted.

She actually did wanna have contact with him and they now have a relationship and there were apologies made and they dealt with things in the past that had never been dealt with and she will often share now, like that was, it’s one of the greatest gifts that she has on her life, was that she was able to mend and heal that relationship that was nowhere on her radar when she walked in.

Like that was not even something that she was looking to do. Other people have come in just wanting clarity around what do I do with my job? Do I stay, do I go somewhere [00:10:00] else? Do I retire? Do I go on a sabbatical? And in all of those instances, they generally, they know while we’re there and they make decisions and, but what’s really interesting about that is they then go take action.

So they put into motion the plan to actually make the exit. One woman, she actually called and put in notice to her employer while she was there. I was like, oh my gosh. Okay. We’re really going for it. I know. And then there’s just so many different things. Like some people, it may not be like this huge moment where they’re reconnecting with a parent.

Or they’re changing jobs. It can be as simple as, I’m gonna have boundaries, I’m gonna start doing things I enjoy. Mm-hmm. I’m gonna tap back into my childlike wonder. And so they just [00:11:00] experience more joy and happiness and change those small day-to-day things. And it’s not always as big, but the number of people who reach out even years later to say.

That completely changed The trajectory of my life is always awe inspiring because a lot of times, because I don’t offer ongoing support in that, I may not ever see them again. Mm-hmm. Or work with them again. I’ll just get this random message. So it’s always affirming to hear. How much of a difference it made.

And again, it’s really never about me or what I’m teaching, it’s simply about facilitating the ability for people to hear that wisdom from within.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah. And I can really see why that almost needs to be a retreat versus ongoing because, I mean, I’m sure there’s ways that people can make it work, but we’re so busy in the day to day, or even if we’re in one place, our brain can be [00:12:00] consumed by another.

Mm-hmm. I think you’re right. It’s, it can be very hard to hear ourselves. It can be very hard to understand the feelings we’re having and what they’re attri attributable to. Hard word. And I can see that value of getting away and just being able to hear yourself a bit. You know, you need that.

Heather Hubbard: And I have always hosted them at a place called Val, and it is a mindfulness property.

It is a digital free property, so you cannot have your phone and computer out the way you normally would. Yeah. They actually have a sleeping bag in a bed in your room, so you can have your phone in your room and you can have it in certain designated areas, but you cannot, I don’t allow it in the retreat room.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah.

Heather Hubbard: You can’t have it in other places. And most of us, even when we go on vacation, we’re tethered to our phone. And so oftentimes this is like the first time people have really had to step away from the phone, like they truly [00:13:00] have to check out. Mm-hmm. And I really do. You know, it’s very intentionally curated so that it takes you on a journey that generally will allow you to see.

What it is that is kind of in the way. Yeah. And also show you the way forward, not me showing you the way forward, but you showing yourself the way forward. Oh, that’s

Kelly Nolan: great. And so if someone is resonating with this. In whatever way that they are. Do you have any like sitting here today, not at Mival.

Mm-hmm. More in the day-to-day life? Are there some kind of more bite-sized starting point strategies that you would share to the person who’s listening who does resonate with everything we’re talking about?

Heather Hubbard: Yeah. One thing that you can start doing is trying to tap into those. Old hopes and dreams and just [00:14:00] personality traits of when you were a child.

So if you used to be carefree, if you used to be creative, if you used to wear colorful clothes or you enjoyed rollerskating and now you. Dress very, you know, stuffy in corporate, mostly in black and navy blue, and you’re pretty sure you would break a leg if you went roller skating. And you don’t do any more creative writing or painting or anything really other than doing it with your kids because you’re trying to just spend time with them if you just don’t have that same adventurous personality.

That is a great opportunity for you to, one, just start to witness that you’re not doing that. Just start to witness [00:15:00] why. Just start to witness that you have become a version of yourself that is probably not true to you. And when you start to witness that as opposing to getting upset or judging it, you can get curious and say, I wonder why.

I wonder why, was it because someone told me that this is what looks professional? Did someone tell me or make me believe that at a certain age I had to be more serious? Is it that I’ve got bills to pay? And so who has time to do these creative things? So that’s the first one because the vast majority of people tend to feel as though they have lost touch with the person they used to be.

And so if you can try to go back and just look at. How did I used to be versus how am I acting now and what happened, and can I start to tap into some of those old things? Go to the roller rink and maybe do it without your children. [00:16:00] Maybe you wanna start painting again. We make things so much bigger than they used to be.

So it’s like if you were a kid, you probably didn’t have anxiety around that or feel as though you needed to do it. Well, you just did it for fun. So really starting to do that again. And then the other thing that I would mention is just creating more space. So if you wanna start to hear the voice within, if you wanna start to figure out what is it that I’m really wanting, you have to create the space to hear your own thoughts.

Now, I know we hear our own thoughts constantly, but. Those are not the thoughts I’m talking about, right? Like that constant chatter of all the things you gotta do, not what I’m talking about. So that can show up in many, many different ways. It can show up through meditation or mindfulness or taking a walk, just doing maybe some morning coffee time, starting to carve out time in the day [00:17:00] or on the weekend where you are just by yourself.

That and not with your phone. You’re just gonna scroll and numb out and there’s really no purpose or point to it, which is gonna make you feel uncomfortable, which is fine. This is, we gotta get through the discomfort to actually get to the other side. Just giving your yourself that space to have those deeper thoughts.

Kelly Nolan: Mm-hmm.

Heather Hubbard: That’s also gonna give you some insight and clarity.

Kelly Nolan: I love that and I, I’ll share from my personal experience, this is an ongoing thing. I feel like we can all like get into good places with this and then fall off and you realize like you haven’t heard yourself in a while. Yeah. And for me that is something, I mean, I love podcasts, I love audio books.

I love all of that. But I’ve been really trying lately. It’s been an ongoing thing for a long time to, you know, I take my dog on walks every day and like not listen to anything and just be by myself. [00:18:00] I will say I do and feel, Heather, you can totally disagree with me. I, um, I do like having my phone mainly because when those to do things do come up.

I really like, I use Siri. I don’t open my phone and potentially fall into that rabbit hole, but I just use Siri to capture the idea. ’cause if I can capture it, then I can let it go. ’cause I think there’s a little bit of like. I’m gonna remember, so I need to like just ruminate on this for a while. Yeah.

Remember to do it, but if I can get it out, then I, and put my phone away again. It is amazing what comes up. And I think that for me, I really have a clear signal. When I need to do that, when I feel more frantic in the day to day. And then also when I’m laying in bed at night or in the shower and those thoughts come at me like the to-do list stuff and that kind of stuff is realizing, oh, I haven’t heard myself all day to day.

So first of all, here come the to-dos. ’cause that’s like top of mind. And then if I can put those in a safe place and get back to just thinking, that’s when like the more me stuff comes up. So I, I completely agree with you on. [00:19:00] It is so easy to default into the busy mode of American culture. Yes. And we do.

Don’t feel silly if you have to make an intentional, concerted effort to turn all that off. I mean, it’s all designed to be appealing and addictive and all of that, and so I think that is a great, great place to start just to be able to start hearing ourselves again.

Heather Hubbard: Well and being alone and things being silent and us not thinking or looking at something can feel boring, right?

Mm-hmm. Because we’re addicted to so much stimulation, it’s like, well, I’m bored. It’s like, great. Be bored for a little bit. Let’s just see what happens.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah, I love that. And in your experience, shifting gears a bit, is there anything with the people you have worked with that who. Struggle and might attribute that struggle to time management, that when you actually kind of dig in a little bit more, you realize it’s not a time management thing, it’s [00:20:00] something else all the time.

Heather Hubbard: All the time. So I used to host for many years. What was called the Get it Done challenge, and people would sign up because they were like, I’ve got, so it was a bit of, you know, a Trojan horse. It was like, I’ve got so much to do. Yes, I wanna get more done. And then they would show up to the challenge, and every day I would tell them like the things that we were doing.

They were like, I’m not getting anything done. But a lot of things were coming off their plate. When people tell me, oh, I really want to write a book. Or I really wish I could golf again, or I would love to start a business, but I don’t have time. This is the common refrain. I don’t have time. I’ve just got too much on my plate.

I don’t have time to do the things that I want. Or I would love to dance. I would love Kelly and Heather to have five minutes to think, but. Very, very [00:21:00] rarely is it about the time. Generally it relates to, as I’m sure you’re aware, priorities, we have to make choices about where we spend our time. But a whole lot of it just relates to people pleasing.

Mm-hmm. And procrastination and fear. And so it’s really easy to use time as an excuse whether we realize we’re doing it or not, to avoid things that we absolutely could be doing if we wanted to. And so that’s where it’s like, okay, well if you don’t have time to write the book, what are you spending your time on?

And there are always things in someone’s day that, that they don’t actually have to be doing those things. But again, they’re doing them generally because of people pleasing or fear or [00:22:00] procrastination or, you know, no one can do it better than me. Yeah, I have to do it. It’s like, well actually you don’t, but if you prefer to do those things.

Then just never write your book. Yeah, yeah. But it’s not about time. It’s about a decision that’s a choice.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah. And that, that’s why all of that, you know, I, there’s so much that I love about what I get to do now because of those points is like, you know, we talk a lot of calendars with, in my programs, like we talk a lot about how to set the calendar up and what we put in there and all this kind of stuff.

And at the end of the day, like I actually don’t look at a lot of clients’ calendars. It’s more about what comes up and how people feel around that stuff. And it’s like when you get visual and see it or when you start seeing strategies you could use, other things come up. And I was just listening to, I’m in the process of revamping my program, so I’m listening to a lot of the past calls right now.

The one I was listening to right before this, someone was saying, you know, [00:23:00] there’s a bit of a almost aversion to doing this because in the past, if I did things last minute and it didn’t go well, then I could just blame that I did it last minute and that’s why it didn’t go well and it, my perfectionism start, part of me was still safe because if I’d only had the time, I would’ve done it better.

And it’s such an honest, vulnerable thing. Yeah. To admit and to realize is like there are sometimes protective things we do about how we manage our time to protect those scary things. And, and to your point, it’s, there’s a fear of, it’s if you know, a fear of realizing, and I, I highly doubt that a lot of the people would actually be bad at it, but that’s the narrative in their head is like, right, if I planned it out and it didn’t go well, it’s ’cause I’m actually, I have to realize that I’m not good at this versus I’ll just blame it on the last minute nature.

I don’t really have even an end point to that. It’s more just, it’s fascinating to me how often [00:24:00] we think it’s a time management challenge and, and to me they kind of are. ’cause it’s like how you manage the, everything we’re talking about relates to the how we’re making decisions around our time. So it is really, I just think everything comes back to time.

So that’s where my brain goes. But, but I love these points of, you might think it’s one thing, but then when we, you dig into it. There’s a lot more that can come up and so I appreciate you sharing that. ’cause I just, I could, I mean, I’m gonna cut myself off ’cause I could talk about the layers of this for so long.

’cause it’s fascinating.

Heather Hubbard: Well, and the best time management systems like yours, right? Like when we talk about scheduling. Is being able to take the priorities that you do have, take the things that do have to get done because you have chosen mm-hmm. That those are the things that have to get done. And then using the scheduling and the systems to support it so that you can be more efficient and actually.

Reach your goals and make it work with your lifestyle. [00:25:00] That’s where it gets really, really, really good. Yeah. When you are scheduling and managing all of these things, that, one, you don’t have to, or two, you don’t want to, I mean, you’re managing it. You’re scheduling it, but you’re still not gonna be happy.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Nolan: At the end of the day. Yes. That was another thing that we were talking about on this call is like a lot of the women I work with, it’s not like they’re like, I need to know how to. Do things like they’re already doing. Things like the women I work with and I’m sure you work with are very impressive.

Getting things done is not the challenge. It’s how you feel that in the inside while you’re doing it. Right. And that’s just such the fascinating part. Well, thank you for sharing all that because I, man, I feel like I really could talk to you forever about this.

I’ve also heard you talk about, and I, I guess it relates to what we’re talking about now and people pleasing, but around the idea that, and I think people intellectually know this, but I think you’re [00:26:00] good at speaking to it from the, like, I. Really absorbing it at a different level of when you say yes to one thing, that it does mean no to something else.

And I obviously very much agree with that from a concept. Um, but I also really understand that again, we can know these things intellectually and yet it is still hard to implement in our day-to-day life and like fully absorb it. So do you mind sharing more about that and how you approach things like that?

Heather Hubbard: A lot of people who come to me. We’ll say I’m a yes person, right? Like, I love to help. I have fomo. I say I am a people pleaser. I say yes, because I don’t want to disappoint people or lose out on an opportunity. And one of the things that I always try to help people with is to reframe that you’re not actually a guest person.

You’re not actually people pleasing. You’re not actually capturing every opportunity because there is. [00:27:00] Also an equal and opposite. So every time you say yes to one opportunity, you’re actually closing the door and saying no to another one. You may not know what that opportunity is, but it’s not even going to present itself ’cause you’ve already said yes to this.

Or if you’re worried you are going to disappoint someone. Therefore you say yes to being on a nonprofit board or being the homeroom parent. You are saying no to other things that you could be doing during that time, and those things might actually be more meaningful to you and your family. Those things might actually be more meaningful to your community and the things that you care about.

So knowing that for every, yes, there is a no. It then becomes, oh, well, I’m always gonna be disappointing someone. I’m always going to be saying no to something, [00:28:00] because there is always an equal and opposite. So for every, yes, there’s a no. And then that I think helps free people up to realize that everything is a decision and everything is a choice.

It’s simply what are you saying yes to and what are you saying no to? Yeah. And it just gives you, I think, a little bit more. Autonomy and the ability to decline opportunities and requests with more competence because you know what the exchange

Kelly Nolan: is and it’s really fun. I feel like for the, for someone listening who’s new to this, I’m always amazed that when I do say no to something.

I would say within the next couple weeks something comes up that I really wanna do that I would not have been able to do had I not said no. And I guess it’s kind of a muscle you learn, but once you see that benefit of that muscle Yeah. Of like saying no and then being like, whoa, I really get to do this other thing.

’cause I said no to that [00:29:00] thing three weeks ago. The more you just get exposed to that, the more not addictive, like the more appealing it becomes and doable. Mm-hmm. To do the no, because you’re like, I’m just always amazed at how quickly. It’s almost like the universe is like, let me just emphasize that, that no was the right decision am by giving you this other thing.

It’s

Heather Hubbard: fascinating to me. Absolutely. I mean, opportunity’s abound. Yes. And it’s simply which opportunity are you going to take? And you’re right, it can be a really fun game when you think of it like that. It’s like, okay, door one, door two, door three. Which 1:00 AM I gonna open? Yeah. And none of it has to be permanent.

You can always choose again. I do also think with my people pleasers that sometimes when you say yes, you feel like, well, now I have to uphold my yes until the end of time. And you [00:30:00] don’t have to. I mean, obviously if you’re flaky all the time, that is going to create issues. But if you accidentally said yes.

Or you purposefully said yes and then realize it was not a good fit, that you made a mistake. You can actually deal with that in a very responsible way that saves everyone involved, time and heartache so that you can actually be better aligned with something else. And the right person who is better aligned for that opportunity can step in.

Kelly Nolan: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Heather. Do you mind explaining a little bit more about your retreats as someone’s like, you know, I’ve been trying to figure this out on my own for three years now. I never have enough time in my day-to-day life. While it sounds maybe crazy where you’re sitting, really getting away for a number of days might be the way to actually be able to do what I’ve been trying to do for the last couple years.

Like, what do these retreats look like so people can start envisioning whether it’s for them. [00:31:00] Yes,

Heather Hubbard: well, it is in Tucson, Arizona, near the Catalina Mountains, and it is just this. Most gorgeous spiritual area. It’s also a protected area where there are no lights, including like the neighborhoods, they’re low lights.

So you can see the stars in a way that you never have before. Oh, I love that. It’s an exclusive, gated property. It’s not huge, so it’s not like there’s a ton of people there, but it is luxurious. I don’t really do the kind of like yogi retreats where it’s like we’re gonna be minimalists.

I get why some people do that, but that’s not what I do. So it is like five star. It’s luxury. It’s the best spa. Oftentimes when we go there, we do see celebrities there. Glennon Doyle, Abby Womack, Brene Brown. I’ve run into all of them there before, but it is really a great place to just like as soon as you arrive, it is just so gorgeous.

They pick you up from the airport. The concept is like, just leave [00:32:00] everything behind. Get on a plane, and when you arrive to the Tucson Airport, you are truly taken care of. You don’t have to think about anything, like you’re just open to the experience. So they pick you up and then you show up to the resort and you’ll get your room.

Everything’s included with this. It’s all inclusive, so no taxes, no tips, nothing, and you’re just taken care of. It’s quiet. Oftentimes people who are like, I can’t sleep at all. They sleep all through the night when they show up and we have an opening ceremony, which is really beautiful and magical and everyone has to bring a vision board, I.

A picture from their childhood and a memento, and we create this most beautiful, whether you wanna call it just an altar or a visual above the fireplace in the room that we’re in. It really just kind of sets the stage. And so [00:33:00] we do some shares, intentions, just really set that up. And then we have a gorgeous reception and dinner.

And then from there, I always tell people. I don’t give out detailed agendas, partly because you are not gonna actually hear the voice within, through a detailed agenda, knowing exactly what is coming next and when and why not gonna help you out. I will tell you there are no workshops. If you have your pen and journal, it’s gonna be because you’re journaling.

It’s not because you’re taking notes, you’re not learning from other people, you’re learning from yourself. But we do a lot of experiential activities. So you are constantly in motion. You are constantly learning from other people. You are reflecting on your past. We have some amazing practitioners that I will just say they’re, because I, I hate to always [00:34:00] give it away, but we have some clairvoyance.

We have spiritual drumming, we have talking circles, we have tarot, which for a lot of my really high achieving intellectuals. All of that’s new for them.

Kelly Nolan: Mm-hmm.

Heather Hubbard: But at the end, they’re always like, that was the coolest stuff ever. And we do an outdoor adventure challenge where you get to play and be childlike again, but you’re constantly moving through these progressions that’s very, very intentional.

So that by the end, on the last day, it’s four days, three nights, that by the end you’re just like. One I never wanna leave. And two, how did these people who were complete strangers just a few days ago, like how do they know me better than probably most of my friends?

Kelly Nolan: Yeah.

Heather Hubbard: And there’s just a lot of joy and magic in that as [00:35:00] well.

Two, see how much we’re all connected and how, regardless of where we live and. We all still have similar experiences, we just don’t talk about them.

Kelly Nolan: Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much. I think that man, like where do I sign up? I wanna go. The idea of like, you know, just as a mom of little kids and things like, I mean, the idea of getting on a plane and then having everything handled and I just kind of like follow along and hear myself.

I mean, it’s just what a concept, right.

Heather Hubbard: You just show up. You’re just present for four days. Yeah. And no one gets to rely on you because truly, I mean, if there’s an emergency, they can, like I always say, if there’s an emergency, they can contact me, they can contact the hotel. But yeah, a lot of times people aren’t used to that.

They’re like, well, what if something happens? I’m like, well. We’re gonna go old school. Yeah. [00:36:00] There won’t be a way to let you know, but people will take care of things that otherwise they would call an emergency. Yeah. Just because they know you’ll handle it.

Kelly Nolan: Yeah. No, it is different to like, instead of being able to like text your phone if they have to like call a hotel and get ahold of you, that’s a different bar.

I think I can just envi imagine it because. I just even think about how differently I sleep at home versus in a hotel somewhere else. Mm-hmm. And to me, I mean, I know some people struggle to sleep at a hotel that’s not their own bed, but for me it just, it’s a different level of sleep if I do not have to listen for a child, if like.

My brain, my even a asleep brain knows that difference that I just think about that across days of living is just gonna feel really different. So. Very cool. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing. If people want to learn more about these retreats or follow you, I mean, we haven’t even dug into that. You have this amazing big podcast.

Also, please share about your podcast. Please share about where they can find more about you, all that kind of stuff. [00:37:00]

Heather Hubbard: Sure. So Hustle and Flow is my podcast. It’s been around since 2017 and it’s got lots of tips just on achieving more. Doing so in a joyful, happy way. So you can check that out and you can always just go to my website, heather joy hubbard.com and the retreats are joy in the journey.

So you can just find those there. I hang out on Instagram and my handle there is Heather Joy Hubbard. And would love if, for those of you who are like, I wonder what is actually the problem area of my life the most where maybe I’m. Thinking it’s time or I’m not satisfied, but what’s actually causing it. I do have an assessment that you can take and with.

My hustle and flow blueprint, there’s seven steps in seven areas. And so if you take the assessment, it will let you see the areas where, oh, I’m actually struggling in these areas, and I had no idea that I was, and then [00:38:00] there’s actually some tips that you’ll get to go along with that to help you immediately start taking action to improve those areas.

And so that you can just grab a copy of that. It’s absolutely free at heather joy hubbard com Bright method.

Kelly Nolan: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Heather, for being here. I really, really enjoyed this. I occasionally forgot we were recording a podcast and I thought we were just talking. It’s always a sign of a good one, and thank you for being here and for you listening at home.

Thank you for being here as well, and I’ll catch you in the next episode. Thank you so much.

Links you might enjoy:

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Checking the “Success” Boxes & Still Feeling Unfulfilled? Finding Yourself & Joy with Heather Hubbard

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