A: Today’s guest is Danielle Collins.

Danielle Collins is a name and face that you might recognise if you are into holistic skincare. She is also known as the face yoga expert. Danielle is known the world over teaching millions of people through her online business, both people at home, and those who want to become a certified face yoga expert.

She’s appeared on many TV shows including This Morning. We first connected a few years ago on social media and have remained in touch since.

So Danielle, welcome to the show.

D: Thank you for having me, Abigail. I’m so excited for your podcast. I know you’ve been wanting to do this for a while, so it’s amazing that you are, you are doing this, and I know it’s going to be so successful.

A: Thank you. What I love about Danielle is that as much as she’s this holistic wellbeing person, she’s just a badass businesswoman and multifaceted across her business model. So we will dive in a little bit about that.

What I love to ask my guests first is in your own words a little bit about your own career and journey. I’d love to hear about that.

D: So my journey started about 19 years ago. I was 21. I had just left university and I knew I always wanted to teach. I did my degree in education, but I became really unwell.

First, I got glandular fever and then it led to ME, and I was pretty much housebound and bedridden. Prior to that, I wasn’t into anything holistic, anything yoga, anything to do with looking after my health. I was very much a stress person, burning the candle at both ends, and this left me with this illness, which was overwhelming fatigue, and a lot of pain throughout my body.

There wasn’t a solution that the doctors could give me for it. So I took matters into my own hands, and someone suggested I try a bit of yoga. I’d never even heard of yoga before, and I remember getting an old VHS videotape of yoga, and I would just do what I could, because it was really only very gentle breathing and gentle stretches that I could do.

I started my journey to healing myself from the inside out, and I would draw on lots of different modalities, meditations, visualisations, and affirmations. I started to make changes in my diet, and I started to make changes in my lifestyle overall. Then, I started to draw on the expertise of other experts, acupuncturists, life coaches and massage therapists, and I started to become healthier and stronger than ever before.

Within 18 months, I was really the strongest, healthiest version of myself, and I knew that there must be so many other people out there who want to either overcome a similar illness to what I had been through. Or they just wanted to feel healthy and happier using these quite simple, but really effective techniques, which I had.

So the first training I did was in relaxation therapy. I went on then and did my training as a yoga teacher. I did some training in nutrition, life coaching, face massage, and lots of different modalities. Originally, I started teaching a lot of yoga, meditation, and relaxation classes.

Now, if we go back sort of 17 years ago, the skincare and wellness industries were very different from what they are now. I remember teaching my yoga classes in particular, and so many women were coming up to me and saying, ‘Danielle, I’m coming to your yoga twice a week and my body’s toning up. I feel so much calmer in my mind. I feel so much better. I wish you could give me similar exercises for my face.’ I remember when I trained as a yoga teacher and thinking about how crazy it is that we learn everything about the body. As a yoga teacher, we learn how to lift and tone muscles, and how to relax tension in muscles. We learn all about the systems of the body, but nothing about the face area. I was always interested in the face, and that’s why I did additional training in facial massage.

Occasionally I would do hands-on facial massages for my clients in extra sessions. As lovely as it was to be hands-on, what I wanted to do was combine all of this and give it to people in a package that they could do on themselves every day. We all know the benefits of doing yoga and having facial massages, but often this is once a week, or once a month, maybe even once every 3 months, and I wanted it to be so accessible for everybody.

So I started to draw on my trainings, of course, but I did a lot of research. I looked particularly into techniques which have been used for thousands of years in yoga, in Ayurveda, in traditional Chinese medicine, in Shiatsu, and started to put together the Danielle Collins Face Yoga Method. I think one of the most important parts of really honing my method and putting it together was actually trialling it on my clients.

So I was teaching yoga classes and I’d do some face yoga at the end, and I’d do little focus groups and I’d make my yoga clients CDs of exercises, and they’d go away, and they’d do the face yoga, and they’d do before and after pictures. All of this was so important, because it gave me an idea of what techniques really worked, what people really liked, any issues or problems that people were having in terms of how they fitted it into their time, how they fitted it into their day.

That really helped me to build this method. Now, 17 years later, I’ve been very lucky to be teaching this all around the world. I’ve written two bestselling books. As you said earlier, I train people to be face yoga teachers, so we have thousands of teachers of my method all around the world. But most of all, I just love helping people to feel empowered and to have the power in their own hands to look and feel the best version of themselves. As you probably know from what I do, I’m never about saying, ‘Let’s look younger,’ or ‘let’s be 21 again,’ or ‘let’s take 20 years off our face.’ Actually, what I want to do is I want to allow people to look and feel the best version of themselves for their age. I’m 40 and I just want to look the healthiest, the most glowing I can for 40. I’m not trying to look 20, and that’s something which I feel really, really passionate about.

I’ve been really blessed this year because I’ve been able to take what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years, of training people to be face yoga teachers, to the next level. I’ve set up my lovely new venture, which is called ‘Soul Purpose Business Coaching’. So I’m doing a lot of business coaching for women in wellness. Many yoga and face yoga teachers and holistic therapists want to learn how to market themselves, and grow their brand and business in a soulful, conscious way, in this new paradigm that I believe that we are living in, where we can do business so differently.

A: Wow. There’s so much that I could dive into, so firstly, all that sounds incredible, and you are obviously on your own healing journey from which this all developed. I know from running a business, it can be 24/7. How do you manage your health and healing now with this immense business and platform that you’ve created?

D: One thing I’ve really realised is, for me, it’s very much about work-life integration rather than work-life balance. As soon as I threw that idea out the window and started to think, ‘How can I do things a little bit differently?’ Because what I do and teach comes from so deep within me, from my heart and soul, that it’s actually very difficult for me to separate from my work and not think about work at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really strict actually about turning my phone off at seven o’clock every night, and it doesn’t go back on until the kids have gone to school about eight o’clock in the morning the next day. I will often take Fridays off, and I will look at nothing to do my business all day on a Friday.

So there are many things I do where I physically take time off. However, what I try and do is I try and think how I can make my work as fun as possible and integrate my life into my work. For example, yesterday I had to prepare for this podcast. It was such a beautiful morning. I made a smoothie, and I did a lovely walk in nature on my own, in the countryside, and I was thinking, ‘Okay, what do I want to do on this podcast?’ ‘What do I want to say?’ and ‘How am I going to do it?’ and I was making notes on my phone as I went. Then I came back, sat in the garden, and wrote the notes out. So these are just little examples of how I try to make my work as fun as possible, rather than thinking, ‘I’m going to have to sit at a desk all day now, it’s a beautiful, sunny day outside, and then at six o’clock I’m going to turn everything off and I’m not going to think about work.’

I often find that my best ideas come when I’m off and I’m relaxed. So, like I say, I will very often take a Friday off completely. Although I’m not physically working on my business, I’m finding that my mind is producing the best ideas.

I’ve got that creative space, so that’s really important for me as well. But it is a constant juggling act, let’s be real about it. I’ve got two children; one’s just turned 6 last week and one is 9. So they’re little, and actually a huge part of my business success has been while they’re little, but they are also my first priority.

I don’t have family close by, I don’t have a nanny, so I do all of these things myself, and that’s what I want to do. I want to be there for my children. I want to put them as first priority. So again, it’s work life integration, it’s, ‘How can I integrate my, my work around my life and my life around my work?’

I wish I had a formula, but really, it’s just thinking, ‘How can I make my life feel as relaxed as possible today?’ ‘How can I make as big of an impact as possible on people, within my workspace?’ and ‘How can I be there for my children as much as I can?’ Then I always try and integrate as much self-care as I can throughout my day as well.

That’s really important, and that’s something which I learned. Having that chronic illness at 21, and all these years later, I still know that I have to always look after myself. I overcame the illness, and I’ve been very lucky that I haven’t had it again, and I haven’t had symptoms of it again. But I also know that I am a highly sensitive person.

I’ve been reading a lot about highly sensitive people over the last couple of years, and I definitely am one. So my body gives me signs and signals very quickly when things are out of balance. So I’m also really aware that I can’t burn the candle at both ends, like I did pre 21. Now I really have to look after myself, each day, in the best way that I can.

A: So I think a key thing from what you’ve just shared is, whether it’s just your aura or how you come across, it seems that there’s a calmness to how you approach things, and you don’t seem to be that person who has too many tabs open in their brain.

Even if you do, you’ve managed to create these boundaries to help you cope with those kinds of things. I can imagine that even just that calmness and togetherness help, because if I were on a walk in the morning thinking, right, I’m going to prep for a podcast, I’d been thinking of all the things I have to do, and, ‘Oh God, I haven’t done that.’

D: It’s funny that you say that, last week I said the exact sentence to my husband. ‘I feel like I have hundreds of tabs open in my head.’ It is so funny!

A: So you are like us, absolutely. Brilliant.

D: Absolutely. That’s the thing, I am a multitasker and have to be. There are lots of tabs open, for sure, but I try my best to stay as present as possible and have space. For me, one of the key things is alone time, that’s where I really thrive.

For example, we’re going down to Devon for 10 days from Thursday, which is so lovely. But I also know for me sometimes that can feel a little bit of a challenge, because we are all together as a family all the time and not having alone time for me is often difficult, because I find that everything builds up and I start to feel my stress levels rising. So I’ll try and make sure whilst we’re there that I go on a long walk by myself or do some yoga. I’ll take something each day, and that’s how I decompress. That’s really key for me, and I think, as an individual, you’ve got to work out what you need.

For me, it’s alone time. For someone else, it might be something else. It might be that they need to connect with somebody, talk to someone, and decompress that way. The more we can understand ourselves as individuals, I think, the happier and healthier we can be.

A: I think you possibly speak for every mother on the planet when you say, ‘When we’re on holiday. I need some fucking alone time, okay?’

D: I call it making memories now, not a holiday. Because it’s funny, we come back from a holiday, and people say, ‘Are you lovely and refreshed from your holiday?’ and ‘Are you really relaxed from your holiday?’ But also, my business doesn’t stop running. It’s not like I’m racing around with my laptop on the beach, by any means. Over those 10 days, I’ll probably sit down and have to do maybe two or three hours of work every other day.

That’s what I’ve decided is best for me. I could take the whole 10 days off completely, but actually the build-up at the end is not so good for me. Because I’m not an all or nothing person, I never have been. I prefer to do a little bit throughout my holiday, and then have time and space when I come back to have some time to do yoga or go for my walk each day. Rather than do no work for 10 days, then come back and just be run off my feet for the 10 days when I’m back.

A: Because actually the stress that you can feel, if you do totally switch off, it’s, ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so relaxed. ‘Then as soon as you’ve opened the laptop, it’s as if you haven’t been away at all. That extreme probably isn’t healthy for us. I think that’s a really lovely way of looking at a holidaying in a more balanced way.

Thank you for sharing that. One of the questions I am asked a lot is because of what I do with face massage, and I would love to hear your explanation of this, what are the similarities and differences between face yoga and face massage.

D: The Danielle Collin’s face yoga method, which I created 17 years ago, is a combination of facial exercises. With some muscles, we want to tone them and lift them through the exercises, facial massage, acupressure; applying pressure to certain points in the face, relaxation; we need to learn to consciously relax certain areas of the face, particularly areas we tend to overuse or hold all the tension in. Then wellbeing and wellness too. So my method is very holistic.

The word yoga means yoking together or union, and that’s exactly what my method is. It’s really a union of a whole combination of modalities bought together. Also, I come from a yoga background, so for me, face yoga just felt right in terms of what I call my method.

It is taking everything that I’ve learned in my training and my many years of teaching yoga and taking all of those philosophies and applying them to the face.

A: Do you come across any other common questions about face yoga?

D: Questions I personally get asked the most are my age, which is 40, and whether I’ve ever had any Botox or fillers, which I haven’t. I’ve never had any at all.

I always get questions about toning up a double chin. That seems to be a huge question that I get really, very regularly. I’m always very realistic when it comes to that, because I always say, and it’s exactly the same when it’s yoga for the body. We can’t just pick an area of the face and burn fat from that one area of the face. That’s just impossible to do. If we want to reduce fat, then it’s about reducing fat in the face and the body overall, through sensible weight loss, through healthy eating and through healthy exercise. What we can do when it comes to this area underneath the chin, the double chin area, is we can tone and lift some muscles, absolutely.

We can do some lovely facial massage for that area, which is going to help reduce fluid retention in that area. It’s going to help with the lymphatic drainage there. We’re going to help boost the circulation there. There are certainly techniques we can do, but that’s something which I say with all of my techniques, you need to be doing it regularly.

Also, you need to be doing a combination of the massage and also the wellness too. Often, we need to look at our lifestyle. You can do all the face yoga and facial massages in the world, and you can do it every day. If you’re not actually looking at what’s going on in the inside, you’re never going to get the results you want.

So I’m a great believer in that we need to be drinking lots of water. Often it is the simple things, like drinking lots of water. We need to be looking at healthy eating. We need to be sleeping well. We need to be reducing our stress. You know, all those boring things, which you think, ‘Do they really make a difference?’ They absolutely do.

I am often asked; how do I get quicker results from face yoga? But really, it isn’t a quick fix. You just have to do it regularly, it’s absolutely key. But look at what you are doing in the other 23 and a half hours of the day, even if you are doing 30 minutes of face yoga every day.

A: What about the science behind face yoga? I was on your website this morning, and you’ll know if you’re into skincare and aging well, that now people want scientific proof or research. I know I get comments on social media if I’m sharing a face massage, and they will purposely go, ‘Yes, but where’s the research?’

There’s this slightly underlying attitude of, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and ‘Where’s the science?’ I’d love to know your thoughts.

D: Well, there are a few things. Firstly, unfortunately, there’s not as much research as we would like done on face yoga and facial massage. Often when it comes to studies, there needs to be a reason to put the financial backing behind it, and at the moment there’s not as many as I would like there to be. I’m hugely confident if whoever they are puts a lot of money into research when it comes to the benefits of face yoga and facial massage, the results would be fantastic.

There was a really great study by the Northwestern University in the US, who did a study of a group of participants of women, 45 to 65, I believe. They did face yoga every day for 30 minutes a day, over 20 weeks. It was actually shown that they look 3 years younger as a result. High-tech skin machines assessed them, by dermatologists, by doctors, and gave their own feedback as well. That was a really key study, and that was wonderful.

I was also part of a study on a BBC show called ‘Twinstitute’. There were two twin doctors, and one of them got a, what they call a vampire facial, and one of them did my face yoga every day for a month. They were then both assessed before and after by a dermatologist and one of these amazing high-tech skin machines, which can check everything, like your collagen, elastin, how your skin’s looking, how it’s aged, and all the rest of it.

At the end of the study, and by the way, I didn’t know the result of the study until it aired on the BBC, so I was thinking, ‘Okay, face yoga is going up against something which costs £1000. It’s quite a high-tech treatment, involving needles.’ Obviously, face yoga can be done for free. I’m pretty confident in face yoga, but I was anxious about it anyway.

When the twins were assessed at the end, it was shown that the twin that got the vampire facial looked 2 years older, and the twin that did the face yoga look 1 year younger, in a month. So that was amazing. I was lying in bed with my husband watching this TV show, not knowing what the result was going to be, and I literally jumped out of bed like, ‘Yes!’ So that study was really great as well, and to be aired on the BBC and done by two doctors was fantastic.

There’s been lots of other, mini studies, as well, in my Face Yoga Teacher Training Course. When you do that, you learn about all the little studies. There are certain studies on the benefits of acupressure, which is, of course, a key part of my method. There are certain benefits of facial massage, and how this can help alleviate certain pain and boost certain circulation. So there’s lots of little studies.

Of course, things like breath work and relaxation are key in my work too. There are many, many more studies about the benefits of deep breathing, and a lot of the wellness and meditation techniques that I teach.

There is science out there, absolutely. I would like there to be a lot more, but something that I’ve learned over the years is that we don’t need to prove everything to everybody. What I do now is I very much speak to what I call my ‘soulmate clients’. So actually, if there’s people who just feel intuitively that face yoga is right for them, they want to learn more about it, they do it, they see the benefits, they feel good from doing it, then they’re the right people to do it.

I’m not in a place where I’m trying to convince everyone in the whole population to do face yoga, and that this is the thing for them. Because for 95% of people, it’s probably not the right thing, because perhaps they won’t take the time each day to do it, or it doesn’t feel good for them, or they don’t believe in it enough. I’ve left trying to convince people behind.

Yes, I love when scientific studies are done, and I definitely use those as part of training courses that I do. I’ll put them on my website, because we all like to see a little bit of proof and before and after pictures. I have a few of those on my website, but I always feel funny about before and after pictures. They are great for seeing the benefits, but I never want anybody to look at a before picture, recognise themselves in that before picture, and wondering if there is something wrong with the way they looked there. For example, ‘That lady had lines or wrinkles on her forehead beforehand, now they’re gone. Is there something bad about having lines or wrinkles on your forehead?’ And no, there absolutely isn’t.

Also, I believe that before and after pictures, in this day and age, we know that people could go on an app, and do it in seconds. So actually, there’s a lot of scepticism when you put before and after pictures out, even though they are really good. Of course, I would never edit anything on an app. So from my point of view, I don’t do a huge amount of before and after pictures, and I think the thing that a photo never shows is how it’s made somebody feel.

A: How do you personally feel about the aging process? You said you are 40, obviously, a woman’s physique, energy levels, and all those things change throughout our lives. I’d love if you could share about your personal feelings on your body, looks, and going through all those changes.

D: Definitely, at a deep soul level, I believe that it’s such a privilege to age. We’re so lucky. I mean, there’s many people that haven’t got to 40, and let’s hope I get to 80. I’d love to live to 100, if I can, and I believe if I’m able to do that, that is absolutely a privilege.

As a woman, there are so many pressures when it comes to how we look, particularly as we get older. If you add onto that, that I am a woman in the public eye, talking about skin and showing their body often through what they do, there’s another pressure to that. Then if you add on that, I am a woman who does all of that, but doesn’t go down the route of having any Botox or fillers or anything like that, that’s another huge pressure. So I’ve probably got about the maximum amount of pressure when it comes to how I look.

Do I always look in the mirror and say, ‘Danny, you look fabulous today. You look amazing. ‘I don’t. There’s plenty of mornings I wake up and I think, ‘You look so tired.’ Or ‘Oh, look at these bags under your eyes,’ or, ‘Oh, look at that stress line that’s come between your eyebrows.’ Of course I do. That’s completely normal, but I am lucky that I know these face yoga techniques and I know how to use these lovely facial tools and everything else.

So I do feel like there’s something I can do to empower myself to look good. But I also know that I am going to be aging in front of the camera. I started doing things in front of the camera at 25 years old. Now, 15 years later, people will be able to look back to things that I did when I was 25, and you will see how I’m aging.

If I continue to do this now for another 20 years, people will see my face aging. Like I say, particularly because I haven’t gone down that route of the more invasive procedures, I will age that is inevitable, but I hope that I can just look healthy and glowing. Hopefully, I can teach people that isn’t all about what we look like. I think it’s easy to look at something that I, and you do as well, and think that we are just constantly saying that aging, lines, and wrinkles are bad. Or that we want people to look younger, and that’s what’s important.

But for me, face yoga is like a gateway to something much more important and much, much deeper. So yes, it’s great to do a facial exercise to tone up a double chin, but there’s something deeper underneath that. It’s about taking time for yourself, learning how to breathe properly, being in the present moment, looking after yourself, and having that as a high priority, and knowing that the most important thing inside is feeling good. When we feel good, we look good.

A: There’s so much wrapped up in what you’ve just said. One of my questions to you was, ‘What does beauty mean to you?’ But I think in everything that you’ve just said, it is that confidence and that happiness and that, that self-care and all of those things together.

So let’s move onto skincare. We’ve talked about physical massage and yoga techniques and things, but are there any desert island skincare products or beauty products that you just need in your life?

D: Yes. First of all, I have to be a little bit biased, because I’ve got an amazing range. I say a range, we’ve got two products in it so far. It’s called Fusion by Danielle Collins. We have our moisturising serum, which we’ve had for 6 years now. I’m lucky to say that it’s amazing how well it sells. What’s so great about it is you can use it as a one-stop product. Some people use a couple of drops underneath the moisturiser, but most people will use it instead of a moisturiser often instead of a serum.

It’s organic, and it is also accredited by the Soil Association. It was made for us by an amazing skincare company and specialists here in the UK. What I wanted is a product that you could use with face yoga. So actually it gave you that glide, it wasn’t like a cream that just sunk into the skin quickly, and it wasn’t like a serum that often goes into the skin quite quickly or gets quite sticky.

I wanted to have an oil-like consistency, but not be so heavy that you couldn’t wear it throughout the day, and your skin would look greasy, or you’d have to wash it off afterwards. So it’s an amazing fusion between an oil and moisturiser and serum, hence the name. Also, fusion to me means bringing together the skin care, the face yoga, the wellness, and the lifestyle as well.

I use that twice a day. I go all the way down to sort of the bottom part of my chest with that, and sometimes I use it on the back of my hands. It smells absolutely beautiful. Other products that I like, I’ve always been a fan of Liz Earle. I really do love the Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish. I’ve used that for years. I love her Instant Boost™ Skin Tonic. That’s gorgeous as well.

I’ve always been a fan of Neil’s Yard products, particularly for the body. I really enjoy those. I get sent lots of different products, and actually sometimes it’s the ones that are super expensive, which I use and am less keen on. Sometimes it can be something really simple, maybe a really small skincare company maybe made it. Or just a really natural product, maybe not many people know about it, and I think, ‘Oh, actually this is really lovely.’

I got sent an exfoliator for the face by a company called Ermana. For example, it wasn’t a company I’d ever heard of before, and I tried it and I thought, ‘Actually, this is a beautiful product.’ You know, it smells gorgeous, feels gorgeous on the skin, and exfoliates really nicely. It’s not always about the companies and brands that have got all the biggest advertising behind them.

I got sent a serum by Lancôme, I can’t remember which one it was, but I believe it retails for over £150. It’s expensive, and I wasn’t keen on it. I used it once. It felt a little sticky. My skin is really prone to break out, so if I use anything which plugs my pores, that’s no good for me. I really need to be using products that are non-comedogenic.

I love skincare, but something which I’ve learned from my skin is to not overload it with too many products. I don’t just keep going, ‘Today I’m going to use this today or tomorrow, I’m going to use that.’ I just have a considered number of products. I use those products, and then occasionally switch up to see the skin’s response to that. Just throwing on loads of stuff, for me, just doesn’t work.

I love FOREO, I love their little UFO sheet masks, I really love their LUNAs for exfoliating and washing the face.

A: I must admit, I really like Neil’s yard body products. I think their body products are beautiful. It doesn’t surprise me that you personally didn’t get on with Lancôme. I think there are too many synthetics in it.

Can you tell us a little bit about your Soul Purpose business? I know this about you, Danielle. You don’t just know about what you are talking about, you have so many business areas. I know building up the online presence and online business was a shift, you consciously made from a physical in-person business. That’s a big thing to do. It was a new business model for you at the time, and you’ve gone through that process. I’m pretty sure you will have made some mistakes and learnt along the way. You are now sharing your learnings, to simplify it for other experts, therapists, and yoga teachers. Could you tell us about that?

D: Yes, so it was my intuition that just told me that it is the time to make this transition to sharing everything. I know from a business perspective; I was naturally starting to do that more and more. I train people to be face yoga teachers, and now we have lots of what we call ‘Super Trainers’, who do the trainings for me. I do still train some people, which usually now for me, involves doing their practical exam at the end of their training.

But when I did that practical exam, I got more questions from our face yoga teachers when it came to marketing themselves and growing their business. They asked how I’d done it, so I had that in my mind all the time. But then intuitively at the end of last year, I thought, ‘I need to be putting this in a course. I need to teach this in a more structured way.’

I went into the beginning of this year, not even thinking I was going to start this now. I thought this would be way in the future. Then suddenly, at the end of January, I thought, ‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to set it up as a whole new business.’ Because my face yoga business is very established, and I’m lucky it’s grown to where it is, but actually the people interested in my face yoga are not always going to be interested in my business coaching.

So I decided this was going to involve a whole new website, a whole new social media handles, and new marketing. But I decided I was going to do this in a way that feels so deeply intuitive and so aligned from the beginning. I wasn’t going to do it the way that people think I should do it.

I wasn’t going to do it in, what I call the ‘old paradigm of business,’ which is about the hustle and the hard work. I decided I’m going to do this in a way which lights me up, and I’m going to connect with my soulmate clients, the people that really feel connected to me, and I really feel connected to them.

My first course, which I’m actually teaching at the moment, is called ‘Be Your Own Brand.’ In essence, I want to teach people in 10 sessions what I’ve learned in 17 years of business. My journey, and a lot of it, is about marketing yourself through social media and other means. But also, we dive really deep into a lot of stuff when it comes to money, mindset, money blocks that we have. This is the first time I’ve taught about money, but I think it’s so important, particularly as women. When I say taught about money, I’m not talking about spreadsheets or finances in that way. I’m talking about our beliefs about money and what we believe we deserve, and how to manifest the success that we want.

I want people to come on my course to finish it, believing they can be healthy and wealthy. In essence, that’s what I want for people, because I absolutely believe as women, we can empower ourselves to be the healthiest version of ourselves, but we deserve wealth as well.

I think, for lots of reasons, we’re taught that there’s something wrong with that. I want to break through that barrier. The course I’m teaching at the moment, I’m teaching it with a wonderful group of women, live, but it’s relaunching again September 13th, 2022.

It’s a self-study course. So it’s a 10 session course, which you can do in your own time, at your own pace. You can learn everything about growing and scaling your business. So it is really for women who love wellness, who want to grow their business, and so they don’t necessarily have to be in the wellness industry.

We do have some people which are not in the wellness industry, but they want to grow their business really consciously, and really soulfully. They want to put their wellness as a high priority and want to put their clients’ and customers’ wellness as a high priority. They want to put their employees’ wellness at a high priority.

I’m really teaching people that you don’t need to go through the hard grind, the hard hustle, and feel burnt out, in order to get success. There is a different way to do it. It’s wonderful to see that already people on the course have already started to shift their thinking. They’ve started to shift the ways they’re marketing themselves. They’re starting to do things which light them up, to say no to things that don’t light them up, and open doors and make spaces. They are doing things which are going to take them to their next level and grow them to their next goal.

I’m loving it. It really feels so, so wonderful for me. It was lovely at the beginning to just feel a little bit scared again, because I think you can plateau a little bit with what you do and just get really used to doing what you’re doing and feel really comfortable.

I started to feel nervous before I got going with it. Now that I’m in the flow of it, it feels like I’ve always done it. But that bit of nerve and excitement, I think, is good for us. Just to feel uncomfortable and to get out of your comfort zone, which is so easy to stay in for life really, isn’t it?

A: Yes. Growth never comes out of stillness; growth comes out of the uncomfortable. I’ve made a note to sign up for your next course. Just chatting with you, Danielle, I love some of the wording that you use in your conversations, such as things that light you up, connection, soul, purpose, empowering mindset, and how you talk.

There are these positive words that naturally flow out of you, and I think that sums up, Danielle Collins in a nutshell. I just love your can-do attitude, but without burning yourself out, which I think is quite refreshing. I know that there’s a lot of people out there, whether it’s the life coaches or things that you see on social media that say you should be hustling, and you are hustling, but in a mindful way.

What’s next for Danielle Collins?

D: I think to be more and more guided by what feels aligned. Since I turned 40 in February, something has really shifted to thinking. If it feels completely aligned, that’s where I’m going to be my healthiest and wealthiest. When it doesn’t feel completely aligned, and if I’m questioning whether I want to do something,

Cause someone else wants me to do that. Then it’s probably not going to be the right thing for me. So that’s what I’m stepping into now. I do believe that my direction is going to continue to change. I feel like I’m going to be stepping lots more into my sole purpose business coaching and those offerings.

As I’m sharing my face yoga now, I’m starting to bring in more and more other modalities into what I do. I’ve always brought in my yoga, my relaxation, and my meditation. I’ve recently done my training as a crystal bowl sound therapist, so I’m bringing in the crystal bowls, which I’m absolutely loving.

Last year I did my Reiki 1 and 2 training, so I’m bringing a lot of Reiki and energy work into what I do as well. So I’m seeing that I’m going down a more holistic, spiritual route, although that’s really where I started. The very first session I ever taught when I started my business was called ‘Relaxation Class,’ and it was meditation and breathing. So in many ways it is full circle, and face yoga will always be a huge part and the key part of what I do. But I’m bringing lots of other modalities into it. For me, it’s about what lights me up, what feels good, and I want to step more and more personally into a sense of freedom and flexibility.

These are really high values within my life and my business, so the more freedom and flexibility I have personally, the more I am lit up. But also having the freedom and flexibility within my business to pivot and to change direction when it feels good for me, and that is scary. I feel called to pivot again, at the moment.

I’ve done lots of pivots throughout my career where I haven’t changed direction in other people’s eyes. But in what I’m doing and feeling, I’ve pivoted, and I feel like I’m in the middle of a pivot at the moment. So, watch this space. Who knows what’s going to happen?

A: I’m really excited to watch this space. I’m going to be watching with wide eyes and looking forward to your future. There are big things to come. So Danielle, thank you so much for being a guest and so open and honest with this chat. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

D: Thank you, Abigail. It’s such a pleasure chatting to you.

I’m always in awe of what you do. You’ve just got such an amazing presence and aura about you, and I am blessed to know you and call you a friend.

A: That’s very kind. Thank you. I need to be taking more of your positive words into my life and stop flapping so much.