Offline, With Alison Rice

Latest Episodes:

2 things to know before asking for more money. Feb 24, 2024

Show notes

Dearest you.

Whether or not your boss approves your pay rise request can feel so personal, but is it? In this episode, I offer a reframe and also some advice that will put you in a strong position to get paid what your contribution is worth.

I hope my advice helps you or someone you love that deserves more than they're currently getting.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Checking in with Jasmine Dowling. Jan 27, 2024

Show notes

Dearest you.

This episode was recorded live at Sundays Offline, Brisbane on November 11, 2023. Jasmine and I catch up on what we've both moved through in the four years between honest conversations. We explore the lessons life has offered us and Jasmine shares some very good news. We hope you adore our chat and that you feel like you are right there in the room with us.

I’d love to send my sincerest thanks to:

Cass and Newstead Studios for hosting Offline once again in your beautiful creative space
My cherished co-creator Kymberly Louise for your effortless and calm event management style. You are literally the reason I could just roll in and do my thing
Lunae Sparkling for our crystal-infused refreshments, so very Offline
The stunning and interesting Miss Midgely’s for hosting me the night before the event. Miss Midgley’s is a 160 year-old heritage home that has had many lives. The house was recently reimagined as a heritage guesthouse by mother and daughter Lisa and Izzie. It’s perfectly positioned on James Street in New Farm so if you’re looking for somewhere just that little bit more special to stay, you’ll adore Miss Midgley’s
Zoey from Senncha Studio for the incredible event images — you can see these on the @getoffline.co Instagram account
Another cherished co-creator Jess from Hanako Studio for creating such a perfectly abstract floral arrangement

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Checking in with Nadia Fairfax-Wayne. Aug 19, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

This episode is part of my long-running Self Care Sundays mini-series in partnership with Estée Lauder. For the past four years, I’ve sat down with some of the brand’s local ambassadors and friends to have an honest conversation about self care, skincare and success.

In keeping with this season’s theme of checking-in with past guests, today I am curled up on the lounge with Nadia Fairfax-Wayne — a leading Australian creative, fashion influencer and the editor of Fairfax Journal.

A lot has happened in the four years between honest conversations. She got engaged, married, converted to her husband’s religion, bought a home, renovated and decorated it, broke up with a close friend (a life event that led her to therapy) and so much more. I wanted to talk about it all.

We hope you love it and that it feels like you’re in the room with us.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Where is “there” & how will you know you’ve arrived? Jul 01, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

Imagine a professional reality that is entirely unsubscribed from hustle culture, comparison and the relentless pursuit of a definition of success that no longer feels true for you. Imagine waking up every single day feeling like you’re living a life you’ve chosen, and that the shape of your day is weighted evenly between meeting your own needs, the needs of the people you love and the needs of the business you work for or the one you own. And that on some days, there’s no need at all. There’s just rest. Play. Pleasure.

This can be real and I know this to be true because I am living this professional reality. I’ve gone from hustling and grinding to a level of grounded that makes me walk and talk slow. From pushing my career in a particular direction to simply letting it unfold. From over-analysing my next move to trusting that what's meant for me won't miss me. From feeling like I was compromising my values to now leading a thriving business that is built on my values.

The moment I realised what I was doing for a living was no longer a fit with how I wanted to be living and what I wanted my life to represent, I knew I had to be an agent of change. I knew I had to define my own highest vision and move in the direction of it despite what other people might think.

What is your Highest Vision and will you let me help you realise it?

Alison xo

Make a copy of my Highest Vision Worksheet here

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pitching to investors, securing funding, building & launching a haircare brand. Jun 03, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

An honest conversation with Maeva Heim. When Maeva Heim and I first sat down for an honest conversation in 2019, her texture-inclusive haircare brand, Bread, was still an idea yet to be realised. She was halfway through Seophora’s Accelerate program and four years later, we’re having a very different conversation.

Maeva went on to secure investment and launch Bread (during the pandemic no less) and is now stocked exclusively in Sephora in Australia and multiple beauty retailers in the US including Ulta and Cult Beauty.

She shares so many rich insights and learnings from her journey in this episode. Some highlights include:

Why she believes it is actually about who you know not what you know
What she did to build her network from knowing no-one in the industry to meeting the haircare buyer at Sephora in the States
What investors are looking for in pre-launch businesses
Her take on the role our work should play in our lives
Why not everyone is built to work in a start-up
Stepping up as a leader and CEO
Why operating in 2022 was harder than operating in the pandemic
Her observations on the VC space right now

We had a lot of fun the second time around. Hope we offer you a lot of insight and also some giggles.

Alison xo

The site I referenced is www.brandingstyleguides.com

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lessons from 31 years in conscious & ethical business. May 06, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

If you’re an entrepreneur or business leader, you’ll know how many business mentors, coaches and courses are out there selling you success. It’s noisy and a lot of the advice is conflicting.

This episode is an opportunity for us to lean out of all of that noise and learn from an elder in conscious and ethical business. Jeannie Bourke has been running her beauty and body lab Venustus through the lens of her ethics, her morals and her values for over 30 years. It has been a heart-first business with a deep and intentional why long before people were writing entire books about it and calling it a strategy.

There’s so much goodness in this one:

How to attract, train and retain a 10-year team
How she’s taken the wisdom, tools and techniques she’s learnt over 40 years and literally infused them into the walls and floors of her new space (which opens this month!)
How she uses her body as a compass in business
The benefits of conscious business owners getting comfortable with money and earning it
Why not everything needs to scale and how this can actually become a barrier to our long-term impact
Unpacking the concept of failure when our ideas are channeled — did we fail or were we early?

Thank you for being here.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Life after losing your life partner. Apr 01, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

The first time I sat down with doctor, rocket scientist, author and zero waste life advocate, Dr. Anita Vandyke, she was looking ahead to a bright and exciting future with her husband James and daughter Vivian. She was close to graduating from medical school and had just written her second book, The Zero Waste Family.

But just two years on, things look quite different. Today, Anita’s list of titles includes widow. Devastatingly, she lost her husband James to cancer in late 2022. He was just 40 years old.

If you’re a regular listener of this sweet and stable podcast, you’ll know that some of my most connected episodes are the ones birthed during or after a significant life experience. At the time of recording and releasing this episode, that life experience is the passing of my beautiful mum and the grief that has followed.

This honest conversation is dedicated to James and to my mum. It’s also dedicated to every person who can no longer smell, touch and hear someone they love. It’s for anyone who wants to learn how to be someone to the person left behind. What to say. What to do. How to be there and catch them in the oceanic swell that is loss.

Thank you Anita for allowing the deep well of grief you hold for James to spill over so we can hear it and feel it and hopefully, help you carry it.

P.S. I am sorry about the interference… we recorded in person at Anita’s home and I think our pesky mobile phones tried to get involved.

Thank you for being here.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lady Brains & Alison on the parts most founders don’t talk about. Mar 04, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

This episode is a bit of a full circle moment for me. Caitlin and Anna interviewed me back in 2018 for what was then a soon-to-launch podcast but is now the very well established Lady Brains. I was still working in publishing and I had begun recording for Offline but it was still my little secret so to be sitting here five years later having an honest conversation about the texture and terrain we’ve all moved through as podcasters and founders is a real honour.

Like, we did it! We're still here!

We had what I think is a really uncommon and kind of complex conversation about being a founder while also helping other founders. While we serve very differently, we share many of the same challenges and experiences.

I am proud of this conversation because it feels like the antidote to polish and shine of typical founder interviews. We don’t talk in grabs and we take time to think about what we want to say. There’s lot of purposeful pauses.

Maybe it is just me, but this feels very compelling and encouraging as we come out of the era that hurt more of us than it helped — Girl Boss and the grind culture that came with it.

We hope you love out very honest conversation and that it allows you a moment to lean out and make contact with something real and unscripted.

Thank you for being here.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Checking in with Leigh Campbell. Feb 04, 2023

Show notes

Dearest you.

A gentle warning upfront. This episode covers difficult topics like pregnancy loss, infertility and navigating the death of a parent while becoming a parent.

I never expect the stories and experiences my guests hold closest to their hearts but I am always grateful when they gift them to us. This episode is no exception — Leigh and I really go there on some pieces and while an emotional listen at times, I know we both believe so necessary to bring the context and complexity to lives that otherwise look perfect and pain-free from the outside.

We hope you love our chat and know you’ll hold us in our shares. Some are sweet, some are silly, some are brave, some act as an example of our privilege and some are so raw they make us want to take it back.

Thank you for being here.

Alison xo

go deeper.

Subscribe to Substack

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our favourite astrologer had her Saturn Return. Dec 31, 2022

Show notes

Dearest you.

If you follow Nadine Jane Astrology on Instagram, you’ll know that she went away for a little while. Her absence was very felt on my feed and I thought about her often. I wondered if she was ok, and I hoped she’d be back creating her signature style of intuitive, soft and highly emotive astrology content.

So you can imagine the smile on my face when I was presented with the opportunity to sit down with Nadine once again — three years after our first honest conversation. She’s such a joy to interview but I was also just so curious to ask her about the last couple of years. Where has she been? Why did she take a break? What did she do and how did it all feel?

As you’ll soon learn, our favourite New York City astrologer (currently residing in country Maine) experienced the very thing she’s guided many of us through — her Saturn Return. For Nadine, this significant astrological event brought with it something unexpected. It turned the lights out on her love affair with astrology and as someone who channels, what that meant was she lost her signal.

Nadine and I explore what that was like, the other areas of growth her Saturn Return brought on, how it impacted the book she’d signed on to write and has since been published (Magic Days, her 800-page masterpiece), her evolved relationship with astrology and her body, and her cosmic weather report for this year.

If you’ve been thinking about making a brave decision, you’re going to like what she has to say.

Thank you for being here.

Alison xo