Welcome back Pursuit with Purpose tribe. Now today’s guest has many different titles. She’s a conscious entrepreneur, a speaker, a philanthropist, and an author. Inc. Magazine has even labeled her as one of the top 10 female entrepreneurs changing the world. Now as a 20 something millionaire, her personal mission is to mobilize the next generation of conscious change makers. Pretty sweet, right? But it wasn’t too long ago that today’s guest, Peta Kelly, was working on her PhD in science, and despite the incredible level of academic success she had achieved, her sole wish is tugging her along to the next part of her journey, entrepreneurship. She made the scary decision to walk away from academia.

Now after creating a seven figure income for herself in her early 20s, Peta became fascinated with rewriting economic roles. Now her desire is to circulate wealth and give back in a meaningful way. Her new book, “Earth is Hiring”, is about the new way to live, lead, earn, and give consciously. In this interview, we talk about some of the concepts from her book, like the lessons Mother Nature can teach us, how to get into alignment with our soul’s mission, how to honor our spiritual path, as well as how Peta became a millionaire by the age of 25. If you listen to this episode and you just love this woman, then make sure to check out her book tour which is happening very soon. Peta will be in Los Angeles on May 19th, New York City on June 9th, and London on June 16th. But for now, let’s get this party started.

Melyssa Griffin: Hey, Peta. Welcome to the show.

Peta Kelly: Thank you so much for having me, Melyssa.

Melyssa Griffin: One of the things that really interests me at about you is that you were able to create this seven figure business by the age of 25. How did you make that happen?

Peta Kelly: It was funny because I was asked this question yesterday, and one of my first answers was work ethic. I think I can never discount that. I’ve always known how to work for something that I wanted, so I worked. I mean I just—I went to work for this vision I had, and part of it was I had a big goal to retire my mom. She was a single mom of four and high school teacher, 40 year career, really had a break, had to sell cars so that we could travel. The most generous woman I knew—and well still generous I know—and had to sleep on our couch because we had five people in a three bedroom house. Growing up, she just gave us everything, but gave herself very little. She gave to everyone. She’s so selfless, coaching all the soccer teams, everything like that. So I had that goal; I was going to retire my mom, and previously thought I was going to do that through doing my PhD and becoming a doctor by age 25. I was on that path and then I leapt and found a new path. So that was a driver for me. I had a fire and I talk to entrepreneurs all the time about it now, like what is your fire like, do you have one. Find it because when you find it, you don’t need a motivational Michael Jordan video. You’re just on. So that was me, I was just on. I didn’t have any trouble being motivated because I knew why I was working.

The second part of my vision which was the more invitational one, was in Australia, there was not really any conversations about young people doing things their own way. There was still very much like this is the path. Previous to my entrepreneurial journey, I did six years of study. I wrote thesis, two degrees. I was very much on that path, and that is perfect. I love that part of my life. I loved being at school. I love learning about science. I love it, love it, love it, but I didn’t ever know there was anything else possible for me. No one ever told me that I could retire my mom. Nobody ever told me that I could work and travel around the world. Nobody ever told me that stuff. Now it’s so commonplace like this laptop lifestyle, work from anywhere. Back then in my early 20s no one was talking about it. So when I started to build my business and I started to enjoy this freedom and this—I suppose this, just designing my life from the inside out, I felt like it was very much my responsibility to let my generation know. And so I would do a meeting every week and I would let these large—like 300 people every week go out and speak to, and I would say, “What does your ideal day look like?” Some of them would look at me like, “Are you off your head? Are you really that irresponsible to think that we are on earth to have fun?” And then there were some who would just be in tears like, “Oh my God, I really am missing the point in my life and I need to just start living differently and spending time with my families.” So I had that big vision too. It was like a calling given to me and I just—I went to work and I just did it.

Looking back, I recognize that often when we get into business, we think that we’re working for ourselves, and that’s what entrepreneurs say, “I work for myself. I love working for myself.” But very quickly in my entrepreneurial career, I realized that I was not working for myself. I was working for what I call now, chief entities, spiritual boss in the sky, a vision, and also the earth*. So we work for ourselves for a little bit until we get enough money, fulfillment, whatever, till we’re taken care of. That becomes stale very quickly. So that was a big part of it too, was very quickly recognizing that I am employed, not typically, my boss is invisible, lives in the sky, it’s this vision. That kept me, I suppose just—it was very easy for me to continue working despite all of the entrepreneurial challenges that we all know and love.

Melyssa Griffin: So what made you want to change direction? I know that you mentioned that you were in route to get your PhD, you loved science, and then you changed things completely and became an entrepreneur. What happened there?

Peta Kelly: I had just evolved on from it, I suppose. I went to school—my goal was always to be a doctor by the time I’m 25, then I’ll be able to do X, Y, Z, because I just didn’t know any other path. For me, it was sports, science, school. Those were my things. When I went to university, I just stuck to my goal. It was like get my undergrad degree, I need to get over 80% in that whole thing so I could get my honors degree, I could write a thesis. Then I will get a PhD scholarship. So I was just on my path, on my path, on my path. About six months into my PhD and I was on scholarship, super grateful for that, but about six months in, I was like dreading going to the lab. I was struggling to get out of bed. I was like this is just—and my head was saying this is just normal, Peta, you’ve got to obviously not enjoy what you’re doing sometimes, and I had those noises in my head, but my soul looking back was like no, no, no you’re done here. You’re done here, and just because it was your plan, there’s something else for you now. So my body started communicating that message to me because I—back then, I didn’t really have this relationship with my soul, so to speak, like I do now. So back then, my body started speaking. I just started feeling incredibly anxious, incredibly tired, and lackluster. I just knew it wasn’t normal for someone who was like 22 or early 20s.

And so I remember one morning, I just had like this super clear message. It was like just defer your PhD, Peta. It’s not the end of the world. You’ve got two degrees. You’re not failing at life, just go and explore. I had no idea about business. I had a little personal training business on the side, but I had no—I didn’t come from this long lineage of entrepreneurs. I had no idea about any of it. I just trusted that my excitement and my feelings of wellbeing were always going to lead me to what was my next path. So it took a lot of trust. I was very—that was my identity; science nerd. I was like who am I and what am I if I’m not doing science, I’m not at school, and I’m not going to have this PhD, like who am I? So I took the leap and I went travelling. That was when I was introduced to my first business. It was just fate, divine intervention, whatever you want to call it, was just—I found my next path and on we went.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah. So you talked about like you felt your soul telling that this was not right for you anymore. You really trusted that and you did something different. For anybody listening, who’s maybe doing something where it’s the secure route or the thing that they kind of thought their whole life they’d be doing and now they’re thinking like I don’t know if this is the right thing, what would you say that might help those people in that position?

Peta Kelly: I think two things. Firstly, excitement is all the evidence you need. So if you are genuinely excited about something and it’s not leaving you alone and it’s really there for you, it’s—excitement is all the evidence you need. The plan and the strategy, that’s secondary, but the excitement you feel, the goosebumps you feel, the fact that you haven’t stopped thinking about it for three months, six months, two years, three years, whatever, that’s all the evidence you need. That is our guidance system. That’s our GPS. So listen to that, pay attention to it. It’s not there to just entertain you. It’s there to give you a very solid clue and it is a very practical clue. If we can’t be guided by our feelings and our excitement, then what can we be guided by? Firstly, pay attention. Secondly, I say romance the ideas and the downloads you might have. So you might be like oh this is not for me and I have ideas and downloads, romance them, entertain them, spend time journaling with them, exploring them, researching them. Start to romance them and see how—and just explore them, like have fun discovering what else could be out there. You might be super clear like I know what it is but I’m scared. I think we’ve all been there. It is hard to tell people just leave your job and go for it because some people have a mortgage and a family. It’s not that simple, but sometimes it is that simple. So people have just got to trust their own life, like when is it going to be the point when you’re going to be willing to leap, or perhaps you are just at the point where you want to make a plan that feels good to you, like okay well you know what, I’m not ready to leave my, perhaps it’s a job, but I know I want to in the near future. This business is important to me, whatever it is, so I’m going to elegantly and gracefully map out a way that I can transition. It might be like that.

Some people are more leap. I’m very much a leap person. I’m just like I know what I want to do, do it. Some people are more like no I need to have this strategy and apply it, and totally get it. So people just have to, I suppose—it’s not something—I don’t feel you can really take advice on this. It’s something you have to honor your own garden* system and honor yourself, honor your abilities and your capacities, and honor the fact that you are here to live in that alignment, and allow yourself to explore that. I suppose—so it’s just—what I would say is that, like honor yourself, give yourself credit for the awareness you have and for admitting to yourself these feelings, and remember that you are here to thrive, sure with challenges, but you are here to follow that alignment. Your greatest gift to this world is living in that alignment. So if people can remember those things and then that might help them feel less guilt or less fear. It’s like the world is never going to drop you if you’re in your alignment. That’s what I know for sure. You’re never going to be dropped on your ass. You’re never going to be left without if you’re in alignment, because when you’re in alignment, you’re in this vibration where you have access to everything. I just want people to trust that and know that it’s scary and it takes courage for everyone. But it’s like what’s more scary? Is it pursuing alignment or is it not having the courage to pursue alignment? For me, it’s like f*ck, it’s more scary to not pursue that, that I know I am able to claim.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. I love what you said that your greatest gift to the world is you living in alignment. I think that’s so true, that when we’re in alignment with our mission, our purpose, why we feel like we’re actually here on this planet, and we are just able to give and open ourselves, and expand it in such different ways than when we do the secure thing that’s not really our path. So I love that. I love too what you said about how you can give all the tactical advice you want, but unless somebody is open to receiving it and it’s like something that they discover within themselves, it’s not going to be anything that somebody does something with. So when you were creating your business and really starting to earn a lot with it, did you run up against any money mindset blocks that were kind of keeping you from hitting that full potential?

Peta Kelly: Yeah. And again, I was asked this yesterday, like did I always have a rewarding* money story. I shared that with my growing up with a single mom of four, we weren’t drowning in money, that’s for sure, but we had everything we needed. We had a house full of love and we had a very generous mom. No matter how tight things were for us, she was always giving. She would always put money in a homeless person’s hat. She would always give money to the person rattling the tin outside of the supermarket. She would always go to Salvation Army at Christmas and take a big hamper full of toys and tin food, no matter what. So we saw—although, yeah we weren’t—like my mom worked very hard for every dollar. What we didn’t—her generosity factored into my money story. So although, yeah like I needed to create a lot of my good money story that my family did not already have, my mom did gift me still, the generosity aspect which helped a lot. When I started to grow into my wealth or grow into the person who was able to hold the wealth, I came up against a lot of people around me who were not willing to grow their money story. And so, therefore, projected on to me how bad I was and how guilty I was that I had this calling to earn more money than most people. They are not living in my body and in my soul, so they couldn’t understand my callings, they couldn’t understand my desire to retire my mom, they couldn’t understand the fact that I loved surprising people who were in need with money and gifts and whatever they needed. That was just—that’s how I like to live. I like to live in the capacity where I can give whenever I feel called to give in whatever capacity or amount. And so that’s in alignment for me.

And so I had to grow into that and become sure about my alignment, and feel good about in my heart what I suppose, desires I had around my relationship with money. And so yeah, there was a lot of people who didn’t get it. For them, it was like greedy and no one should have more than anyone else. Just that whole thing which everybody just has every—money is not a problem, it’s people’s story about money that’s a problem. So I had to just stay very clear and true to myself and honor the fact that I was being led into this role I very much feel like growing wealth so young, so that I could redefine the money story for myself and help other people do it. It was part of my journey and part of my calling, but I very much had to own it and be very clear about what it meant in my heart and regardless of the fact that others didn’t understand because they weren’t meant to understand. They weren’t given me, you know what I mean? Everybody’s got to take responsibility for changing their story for themselves.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. Yeah. Absolutely. So you recently came out with your book, “Earth is Hiring”, this year. What is this book about?

Peta Kelly: It’s about the new way to live, lead, earn, and give for millennials and anyone who gives a shit. That’s the summary, but it’s a beast of a book. It was very fun to write and was—I think because I just felt like Earth was tapping me on the shoulder saying “write this!”. It was this fun. But the beginning of the book I talk about millennials, and I very much help the world understand millennials. I am a millennial. I work with millennials. I’ve grown to have such a love for what’s at the heart of this generation, and I’ve got a very deep understanding for what’s at the heart of this generation, where all the world and all the other generations, they’re trying to study us, analyze us. Why do they want beanbag chairs? Why do they want work from home policies? Why do they think it’s so important to have a social cause? Why are they so into sustainability? And so it’s people trying to understand and study. At the beginning of the book, the first 20 or so pages, I sort of just help the world do that. I’m like let me just lay it out flat for you. It’s evolution. It’s like God source* divine*. The population is growing at a rapid pace. Every generation takes their turn to change the world and we are taking our turn to change ours, it’s just in a very different way than the world is used to, which is normal, right? It would be pretty sad if we were a carbon copy of our parents, because how are we meant to evolve as a world?

I explain that. I explain why we care so much for the planet, because we have to. Why do we care so much about thriving in our work and creativity? Because we have to. We are here to create and be a more thriving collective for our planet and our children. So we have to do things differently. That doesn’t mean to dishonor what’s happened before us, it just means we’re taking our turn and doing things our way now. Although the world might not understand us, they’ve got to trust us because we know what we’re doing. Although it doesn’t seem like it to many people, it’s just foreign. Our ways are just foreign. So that’s my message at the beginning. It’s like it’s a nostalgic trip for millennials. It’s just getting the world to just understand. Just chill, we’ve got this. We’re taking our turn. You took your turn, let us take out turn. My child’s generation, they’re going to take—she’s going to take her turn. We’ve got to trust the equipment we’re each given. I feel like our generation is equipped differently because we’re required to be. It’s not better or worse, it’s evolved. I talk a lot in the beginning about this divine intolerance. We’re gifted this divine intolerance. It’s part of like our equipment that we need, I feel like. In the beginning of the book, there’s like an illustration of God sort of emptying divine intolerance into millennials. That’s like my word for attitude. It’s that attitude that we are required to have so that we can upgrade systems, policies, rules, ways of living, standards that aren’t working for us anymore, for the purpose of again, being a more thriving collective for our planet and our children.

And then I dive into the new way to live later on and give, which is the beef of the book. When I say the new way, I’m not like hey I created this new way, it’s like the ancient tribal ways made sort of fresh and relevant again. And so I talk about living which is all about raising our vibration. What the Earth is requiring us to do mostly is raise our vibration to be in more harmony with her, which is key. The earth is not hiring us to save her. She’s hiring us to raise our vibration so we can be in harmony with her and in harmony with each other. Everything in the world will change effortlessly when we collectively give enough of a shit and are vibrating more like her. So that’s like the underpinning message of the book. In the living element, I talk about living in alignment and kinking* our hose, playing, circulating energy. It’s all that energetic aspect of raising a vibration. The leading part, it’s a lot about being human, like being human as f**k I say. You’re not meant to be like a Dalai Lama or a Tony Robbins, like don’t have to speak like Shakespeare online. Who are you? You can be human.

I speak a lot about living integrity with our soul and commitment to our soul, rather than prioritizing obligations and integrity out there at the mercy of integrity in here. Uncompassionate leadership, I mean uncompassionate, unconditionally compassionate. Yeah, I talk about uncompassionate leadership, like how to go backwards in compassion. I talk about unconditionally compassionate leadership and how we’re not meant to agree, but we are—there’s so much that we’re invited to just accept and acknowledge that we are all evolving differently. It’s not our job to evolve other people at our speed, at our pace. We are being asked to evolve at our own pace and accept and appreciate the contrast in the world, and not try and be the consciousness police and label people as like oh you’re woke and you’re not woke. It’s like how can we just stay in our own lane and accept. The earning element of the book is—I love to talk about conscious money. I talk a lot about specific tools and exercises for healing your relationship with money, upgrading the money story. I talk about conscious enterprise in there, a lot about what conscious enterprise is. I didn’t make it a whole business book because I feel like so many people are doing that so well. But working with our chief entity, our spiritual bosses in the sky, having the planet and the children on our board of directors.

And then the giving part of the book, we dive into Team Earth, being a member of Team Earth, a player on Team Earth; the most important jersey we wear, and giving props to humanity, remembering that all is well and we need to give our collective credit for how fast we’re healing and evolving. I mean I’ve never been more proud of humanity than I am now. I talk about hard* science and how changing the world is not rocket science. We have everything we need. It’s no secret on how to move to sustainable energy and eradicate homelessness. It’s just—the world is just waiting for us to collectively care enough. And then I wrap it up with Mother Earth, which was the funnest*, most easy part of the book to write. It’s just what is she really asking us to do. The answer is be more like her. Be more like her and upgrade our action for her, but also our vibration and to never miss that part of the equation. Yeah, you can protest all you want, but where’s your vibration? Are you moving closer to her or further away? So that’s a summary of the book. It’s obviously a lot longer than that, but that’s…

Melyssa Griffin: There’s so many things to unpack in there. So the first one you kind of—you touched on this kind concept. I feel like because right now it seems like there’s a lot of divisiveness and judgment, but I want to come back to this point. So on your Instagram, you said, “One of the biggest hallelujahs my soul ever saying was when I stopped spending my precious life force on wishing people would be more woke. There a million ways to get to Rome, stop trying to get everyone to take your route.” Can you tell us a little bit more about where that idea came from? What that means to you of staying in your lane?

Peta Kelly: Yeah. So I think when we begin our consciousness journey, whatever we want to call—path to enlightenment, I don’t know, just on our journey when we’re starting to see things clearer, feel things deeper, become more aware. It’s like oftentimes you go through a phase where we’re like well I know the way now. This is the way because it’s your way. When vegans become vegan—and I’m guilty too, when I became vegan, I was like—I couldn’t stop talking about it. I thought everyone needed to be vegan because I knew the facts about being vegan. And then it didn’t take me long to figure out that hey, not everyone’s meant to be vegan right now, but for me, it’s part of my journey to Rome. Rome is love. That’s the one sureness we have in this world, but there’s a million, billion ways to get there. Once we become super sure and super clear on our own way, we have this tendency to think it’s the way, and it’s just not—like some people are—everybody has their own way into alignment, to their truth or whatever. It’s not up to us to push our gender on other people and to become righteous just because we’re becoming more clear and aware. That’s what causes separation. Specifically, now in this—people, it’s so easy for us to project these expectations and I suppose judgments on to others with this spiritual cloak of like—it’s like a spiritual high horse and like this fake spiritual hierarchy. It’s just really the antithesis to spirituality in the first place, because spirituality—I heard Matt Kahn say spiritual maturity is how often your words and actions are aligned with love, but we feel so much, like it’s our job to become like the preacher and get everyone on my page. It’s just the world is evolving as it’s meant to evolve and our job is our own evolution, awakening, unfolding. Just our own progression, our own focus, and to not take that job of the universe or of God and to try and evolve people at our pace, our way, on our road, the way we’re taking because it’s just wasted energy because we can’t do it. Why would we want to spend our precious life force? We don’t have infinite life force, I don’t feel like. We need to sleep. We don’t have—I mean some people would disagree, but I’m a mom so I definitely know that we don’t have infinite life force. I need to have some time—I don’t have energy to do everything. Why would we spend it on so much energy on other people’s evolution? Even when we are a leader, teacher, mental coach, whatever, we’re still always inspiring, leading and teaching from our own evolution. We’re not meant to alter other people’s against their will, according to our own journey. It’s just like be your example and then see who is inspired by it. Yeah, maybe you will play a part in other people’s evolution, that’s amazing, but don’t try so hard to.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. It seems like come at it with love versus judgement, where wanting people to be like you. You talked about how Earth is calling us to upgrade our vibration or how that is going to be the new way to live, lead, earn, give. What does that mean? How can we do that? What does that look like for our lives, to upgrade our vibration?

Peta Kelly: Yeah. So firstly, I think play is like so important. I posted a video on my Instagram this morning, just like doing a mom dance in my backyard because I’m like you know what, we take ourselves so seriously whether we are. I get it, but often we take ourselves so seriously in whatever role. I’m a mom, it’s so serious. I’m a teacher, it’s a serious. I’m a milkman, it’s so serious. I’m a light worker, I’m a leader, it’s so serious. I’m a coach, it’s so serious. We take this role of changing the world so seriously. There’s this vibration of play, that for me, is so rewarding to the world when we can be in it. Not all the time, like I mean I sort of saying all of the time, but we can be lacing play through everything we do, like the emails we send. Play is not a distraction from our work. It’s so much a part of our work because when we are in a playful vibration, a play is a vibration. We are accessing creativity, solutions, insights, but not only that, we are at a vibration that is more rewarding for everyone around us. And so play is the first one.

Circulating energy, so moving things around in our lives to welcome some new energy and then clear stagnant energy. It raises our vibration. It’s just what do we do that’s continuously the same, that is stagnant for us. How can we shake it up? Go to a new city. Change where we work. Change our routine. Change what we wear. There’s so many ways to circulate energy in our life which raises our vibration. Living in our tap* for me is, our life force is our tap. Our tap is where we have access to creativity, insights, downloads, ideas, solutions, everything, but we are kinking our hose through obligations, over commitments, living out of alignment, X, Y, Z, staying in relationships that we’ve evolved on. From all these things that feel like an uh to us, they kink our tap and they block this life force. So one way to raise our vibration and have access to this life force and all of this amazing magic is to just unkink our hose. For me, having that little life force and the tap on is natural, but then we go to work to kink it for guilt, obligation, all those things that we’ve very prevalent stories in our world. How can we unkink our hose so that we can access everything that is trying to make its way to us? So there are a few ways that I share in the book about some experiences I’ve had about with how learned play, because I used to be so serious. I mean so serious. I just laugh at myself now. I’m so serious. It’s funny because I scribbled today some ways I raise my vibration daily, is listening to Abraham Hicks—love Abraham Hicks. Just like four minutes and you’re just up, cacao. I have a cacao ceremony every day. My husband and I have…

Melyssa Griffin: What’s a cacao ceremony?

Peta Kelly: So cacao is just…

Melyssa Griffin: I know what cacao is. Yeah, tell me what it is.

Peta Kelly: Yeah, just a beautiful sacred plant which is basically like Mother Earth in chocolate form. It’s the highest, greatest, most rewarding superfood on planet Earth. One of my best friends, she’s like my soul twin, McKenzie. She runs a non-profit called KAKAO Drinking Chocolate, where she sources it directly from Peru and Guatemala. I’m obsessed with the way McKenzie does business firstly. She’s coming on my book tour, which is amazing, and so is cacao because everyone has to have it to be on the book tour. It’s like why would we not have it.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. Do you do anything special with the ceremony?

Peta Kelly: So I mean I just do—people do cacao sometimes in groups all the time. I just do a small one. And again, I have a seven month old now so it’s different every day. It starts just getting quiet, sitting at attention, inviting cacao into my heart to show me, reveal to me. For me, cacao, most of the time, sometimes is about revealing and just bringing me home to a vibration that’s like Mother Nature’s. A lot of the time to be honest, it’s like creating. I have cacao and I’m just creating rockstar*. I’m like give me my pen, give me my paper. I have just like down—I’m like in my tap. Cacao puts me in my tap. So yeah, it’s just—that’s why McKenzie and cacao is coming on my tour because I’m like we want to—both “Earth is Hiring” and cacao are like best friends.

Melyssa Griffin: Wow. Do you mix it with anything? Like water or…?

Peta Kelly: Yeah. So it’s such a vibrational—cacao, McKenzie’s cacao is such a—and Michael, her partner, they do it together. It’s such a vibrational food, so I don’t mix it with anything that is not of the same vibration. So water, pure water and a teaspoon of coconut oil. Some people add cayenne pepper. Some people add cinnamon. Again, it’s whatever feels good, but I try and keep it as pure as possible with coconut oil in it some. I always knew chocolate was—chocolate would heal the world. It’s such a sacred plant medicine, that’s what it is, and it’s chocolate. So it’s like how on earth does it get any better than that? I mean I don’t know. Find me a better combination than that.

Melyssa Griffin: I love it. Was there ever a time before the way that you’re living now, with this new paradigm of what success looks like, where maybe you were living more in comparison or competition or kind of valuing those traditional models of success—was ever a time where you were living in that way before?

Peta Kelly: So I suppose—every part of our life is so perfect. I look back, I’m like yep. I wouldn’t do it that way now, but perfect and loved that I did it that way. So I suppose when I was striving for my PhD, it was like I want a doctor in front of my name. That managed* me. And then my soul and my alignment was like it doesn’t matter to me. And so I was like okay listen. So my first business, when I was working a lot—so I was single and I was on fire. So I was working like 16 hours a day. I can’t do that right now. I wouldn’t do that right now. That was so important for my journey, for my success. That was my natural rhythm, like that’s just me. Everyone who knows me—people were like, “Do you have time to do coffee?” I was like, “What would make you think I had time to do coffee? Why aren’t you working? Why do you time? You’re young. Go to work. We have so much to create.” I have a lot more balance now. That was my early 20s. It’s just crazy how much you change between early 20s and late 20s. So I suppose looking back, I was a time macho. I was like so proud of the hours I was putting in and how hard I worked. My work ethic* was just—and wondering why other people—why are you at the beach? Like come on. Now I’m like no, no you need to go to beach. We need to thrive. It’s completely changed, but I still look back and I’m like I so adore how hard I was willing to work and how much I gave to everything that I did, always. So yeah, I suppose I didn’t—although I always took great care of myself, I always ate really well—when I did go throw myself on the beach because I lived right on the beach when I was in Perth, I drank great water. I took care of myself in those ways. Looking back, I’m like—and I slept, I suppose. I look back and I’m like I would have way more prioritized just play and fun. But again, that was perfect for my journey. So yeah, I understand success differently now, but I only understand it now because of all the ways I, supposed valued leading up to now. So it’s just all perfect.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah I love that. I love seeing your past as just this perfect story and timeline, and not trying to change any piece of it. Was there a moment when you kind of woke up to this new way of living your life, or where you decided to start changing things?

Peta Kelly: So in my first business, I felt like—which is network marketing—I felt like my—and I love it. I love—when done correctly, just interesting, and with integrity, it’s beautiful. It’s not always done that way, but when it is, it’s beautiful. So I very much felt like my mission there was to mobilize my generation in living their ideal day. You don’t have to do what you don’t want to be doing. There are other ways to earn money and give and live in alignment, and be of service as well, to free ourselves up so we could be of service. And then as I started to work with all these millennials around the world who were being attracted to my business, phenomenal, like all different creators, entrepreneurs, authors—then I started to dig deeper and be like okay, now let’s evolve on from just that living an ideal day. What is the new way to live, lead, earn, and give? What’s this new paradigm we’re trying to usher in? That’s when I sort of evolved onto doing work outside of network marketing and building other businesses, was because I was being called to define this new way and serve people outside, go on and create other things, because it was more—it just became bigger and deeper and let’s get more specific. What is this new paradigm we are trying to define and that our generation is yearning for? How can we explain it and talk about it, have this conversation about it? So that then became my next sort of evolution and my next calling. For me, I had to learn the new way to live, lead, earn, and give through a bunch of different things; burning out a couple of times, just redefining my money story and having to be very bold in that so that I could teach about it, my philanthropic endeavors and building and forming a tribe. I suppose my whole journey from network marketing which taught me about leadership, money, people, vision, motivation, self-discipline, all of that amazing stuff, to then building traditional businesses. It was just all—I suppose I was learning it all in my life. So I was just—I was learning. I was learning…

Melyssa Griffin: Teaching and learning.

Peta Kelly: Yeah, exactly. I was teaching and I was interacting with it and we were having these conversations. So I was experiencing all these—experiencing this new paradigm in my own life; what felt right, what didn’t feel right. But then I was having these conversations with people and then I was just defining, defining, defining. Again, I felt like that was what I was here to do for my generation and for the world, was just to help put into words what is it that we want to do differently, what doesn’t feel right for us anymore, what can we learn. Again, yeah I was doing it completely through just learning, feeling this line*, to having going through the bullying because people don’t understand my path—all of those challenges and also all the wins, is what equipped me to move on to this next phase.

Melyssa Griffin: I love that. I went through a similar process too, of like kind of just having—I had an experience where I grew my business a lot and then felt like I was really living in this idea of success means money, success means followers. And then losing that sense of identity, kind of I mean similar to you and pursuing this different way of wanting to live and lead, and kind of just teaching people about it as I go along, each time I learn something new. I love that. I feel like that’s such a millennial way of doing business too, of like I’m learning all this good stuff, I’m going to bring you along with me.

Peta Kelly: That’s so true. That’s so true, what I feel about millennials. That’s what a lot of—what I tell lot of big corporate companies and stuff. I’m like you know what, millennials want to do everything together. They’re not interested in winning on their own, not interested in holding information. It very much is about like, “Guys! Did you hear about this? Guys, I’m learning this. Oh my God, guys, did you hear about the algorithm*?” It’s very much like “let’s go together”. That’s again, like I love that about—some people would view the fact that millennials want to work in a café as lazy. I see it as no, no, no, they want to collaborate and gift and work as a team and build tribe. I love that you brought that up because it’s so important to us to do things together and support each other. Even launching my book, I self-published it because I wanted to do it all my own way and fast. I had some help with the distributions. I have these, a couple of these book experts who are sort of like on my team helping me navigate Amazon and all that stuff. A conversation the other day, he’s like, “I’m completely learning a lot from how you do it because I keep just—you keep referring to your tribe and how…” I’m always telling them, “Can you just tell me when the Kindle version—like what do I tell my tribe about the Kindle version? Because I need to let them know.” I’m very clear with everybody that the strength of—like it’s such an organic process, the book, everything. It’s such an organic process because it’s all about tribe. Your tribe wants to support you when you launch something like a book. You’re working together as a team. It’s not like a person at the top and people at the bottom. It’s like this ecosystem that we value so much. So when we have something like a book to launch, all my friends who have amazing podcasts, they’re like, “Peta, jump on my podcast. Let’s talk about the book. Hey, I’m going to buy 10 books and give it away to my audience.” That’s how it is. And so my book friends in the book world are like this is so new and awesome to us because it’s like there’s no fakeness or—it’s just very much like, “Oh my God, my friend did a book. How much can we all help you?” That’s what I’m like when my friends launch books too. I’m like okay well, I don’t have a podcast currently, but I’m like try and do a Facebook live. How can I post about it? Send me your graphics? It’s like let’s just support each other. I feel like I love that about us.

Melyssa Griffin: Yeah, I totally agree. It seems like that’s part of the core message of your book, and just your philosophy overall too. It’s like we win when we all win, when we lift each other up together. I love that. So I want to transition a little bit. I know you became a mother last year. I want to talk a little bit about that. What is that experience of motherhood taught you so far? I’m sure it’s a lot of stuff.

Peta Kelly: Yeah, so much stuff. It’s the best. It’s such a privilege to be a mom. I always, every day, think about all the people in the world who are moms. First, it made me feel so connected to women everywhere. As soon as I gave birth—had a beautiful home birth. I loved being pregnant. I loved giving birth, as crazy as it sounds. I loved, I mean so much of the gratitude, and what a privilege it is to be able to do it, because I know there are so many moms who are yearning for it and aren’t having it. I remember that every single day, I really do, every single day. When I’m up multiple times in the night, I come back to that—although sometimes I’m like just about to get into my REM sleep and got to feed. It sometimes is frustrating and challenging, but it’s just fun. Motherhood is so fun. I could have a big keynote to do one night and then it’s like I have no idea how I’m going to sleep the night before. That’s just motherhood. But even through those challenges, it’s like I always come back to what a privilege it is to be able to do it and to get to birth her, and get to be pregnant because there’s so many women who are yearning for it, who are not able to experience it. So I feel—firstly, I feel so much more connected to women and proud of women. I feel so in the privilege of it and in a gratitude of it. It’s so good at being the most instant filter of what matters and what doesn’t matter. So before I became a mom, I had so much free time insane. It’s insane. I thought I was pretty efficient and I look back and I was like not all efficient. There’s so many things we can worry about, think about, spend time on that doesn’t matter to us because we can. That’s fine and it’s great. It’s very luxurious. When we have a child, it’s like well every hour away from our child, it has to be very intentional and meaningful. It has to produce something for us, whether it’s fulfillment or service.
Just before I got on this podcast with you, I went to Sol and I gave her a kiss on the head and I said, “I’m just about to get on a podcast. I’m going to have conversations, going to help lots of people.” I tell her my time is going to be very intentional and meaningful for me now because I have—just time with her is so valuable and precious. It’s so true what they say, like they grow so fast. So I’m learning to very quickly, and with zero guilt, put boundaries around what matters and what doesn’t and be very honest about it, and acknowledge that I don’t have to care about everything that people are asking me to care about. I can care about what is mine to really care about, and what’s my work to really do, and who I’m here to really pour into, rather than before, someone would ask me care about this, care about this. I would just care about everything. So now, I sort of give myself permission to have tighter boundaries. It’s really teaching me as well to thrive because I don’t want Soul to grow up and say, “Well, growing up my mom was the hardest worker. She was always working all the time.” Yeah, I want her to admire my drive and the fact that I will always do whatever I have to for my vision, but I want her to say, “My mom was just so happy and healthy and vibrant and thriving. That’s my mom.” And so I’m very aware that—I turn my phone off at this time, well try to. I mean that takes a lot of discipline, let’s be honest. I messaged my husband this morning, I’m like, “Honey, I’m turning my phone off at 6PM tonight. I’m putting it in the drawer.” It takes so much work, but we’re working on it. That’s what I want to gift her. I want her, I want to gift her that. So motherhood is just the greatest, yeah challenging of course, but such a privilege and just so beautiful.

Melyssa Griffin: I love the way that you put it, that you want to gift her that. I think that’s such a beautiful way of thinking of the things that we give to our kids and how we show up for them by just being ourselves and who we want to give to our kids. I think that’s really beautiful. You talked about the home birth experience that you had and you mentioned it on your website as the most wonderful, intense and magical experience of your life, which I think is amazing because for most people, home birth sounds terrifying. So how were you able to see it in such a different light and experience it as this beautiful thing, rather than something to be afraid of?

Peta Kelly: I was so lucky to have a mom who gifted me with very rewarding stories about birth and pregnancy. She always told me growing up, “I was the healthiest I’ve ever been in my life while pregnant with you four, and birth is a miracle.” So my mom had four hospital births, drug free, pretty quick. All she talked about was how miraculous and beautiful it was. That was not her trying to hide anything. It genuinely was her experience and what she felt was relevant to share. She wasn’t like this person who was like, “Oh, it’s so awful.” I completely honor that people do have traumatizing birth experiences. It’s very real and it does impact women for a lineage, like all throughout the lineage when that’s the story and when that’s the imprint, the DNA. I completely acknowledge that and respect. That just wasn’t my experience and I’m very lucky for that because I couldn’t wait to be in labor. I just could not wait to have that experience. I feel very connected to Mother Earth, and so to me, it felt like the greatest opportunity to really be Mother Earth for a day. You know what I mean? She’s like holding my hand, pretty much schooling me, like guiding me through this process. For me to just completely surrender to her and watch her and like be her, that’s what it felt like for me.

As we were warming up, me and my birth—we’re at home in Bondi Beach in Sydney. It was beautiful. It was very—we warmed up during the day, low labor cramps and stuff, and then I was watching Wimbledon and I would have a contraction, I’d get up and have a contraction. I wasn’t sure we were in labor. Thank God my midwife came over because then it progressed really quickly. It was a lot of preparation around it; chiropractic, very conscious intentions, writing love letters to Sol, doing energy clearings, just very intentional. I turned social media off just before—about three or four weeks before so that I could just focus and not like so that it was super serious, but just so that I could really be in the process and just be in it, to be so present in it because I knew that my—I fully trusted—I trust Mother Nature implicitly and I trust my body implicitly and I trust in my baby implicitly. So that was the work I went to do, is just being that, just completely surrendered to it. It sounds so funny but I always said to my husband, “I can’t wait to be in labor.” When I knew it was about to start, I said to him “Here we go. Here we go. I can’t wait to feel what it feels like.” Yeah, it is so intense. My midwife says that is why men love adrenaline sports because they’re never going to give birth. Women experience the most intense physical thing we can ever experience. So yeah, it was intense. I very much went within myself and it was quick. I gave birth to her in the water. Thank God we blew it up like eight minutes to go. And intense, Mother Nature definitely led me to my edge, but not further. I was asked to completely trust my body to do things that I’ve never felt her have to do before. And so it was just the greatest.

As soon as we gave birth, I looked to my husband and I was like, “That was intense, not doing it again for a while.” But then like three days later, I was like, “Can we do it again? I can’t wait.” It’s just the thrill. In saying that, like I’m a birth—I love talking about birth. I’m a birth junkie, but I completely honor the fact that there’s women who don’t have that experience, who don’t choose that experience, who don’t know that experience is possible, who don’t want that experience, who perhaps have stories that aren’t allowing that experience. I completely honor and respect that, but I’m never going to downplay the beauty of mine because I think it’s so important for women to know that it can be that beautiful.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. I agree. I think for me personally, I haven’t had any children, but I think I have a lot of fears about one day giving birth. So I love hearing this different perspective that you have on how it can be about trust, it can be about nature, about surrender and be something so beautiful, rather than something to be afraid of, even if it is intense and painful. It’s something really special that—where almost, I feel like giving birth, it’s kind of our most connected state to the universe and to earth. So I think that’s super cool.

Peta Kelly: Oh yeah. I mean it is so hard to describe, but you do—I wrote a post about it not long ago. It was like you’re borrowing Mother Nature’s cape. It’s so hard to explain, but it really is—I’m so passionate about just ensuring women know that they can explore outside of what they have been taught. Of course we are so grateful for hospitals and intervention when we need them, but a lot of the time, women are being taught that they need them rather than being taught to trust their bodies. So it’s like yeah, there is absolutely times that we need them and thank God that they are there, but where is the education about how magnificent our bodies are? Where is that education? You can trust your body. Where are the stories of most of the time birth goes really well? Why don’t we hear those stories? So it’s again, like everything else in the world, can we choose to look somewhere else other than a fear all of the time. It’s just the story. So we have to choose to just maybe look away from the collective story and explore others, and even choose like how do I want this to go.

Melyssa Griffin: Right. I love that. So I have one final question for you, Peta. That is, what is one thing that you feel like people should do to live a more meaningful and fulfilled life?

Peta Kelly: I think just ask themselves honestly, like how could I unkink my hose so I can access more of my life force, what can I admit to myself faster, and just appreciate that it does take courage to be in alignment 100%. It takes courage and bravery and balls. Where am I missing the point in my life? Where am I doing something that I’m completely missing the point? I talk about that in the book too. Where am I rushing through my day and not even tasting my food? Where am I missing the point? How can I get really honest with myself about how I can go up a notch in terms of alignment and thriving?

Melyssa Griffin: I love it. Thank you so much. Where can people go if they want to learn more about you?

Peta Kelly: Social media is probably where all the action happens. Instagram and Facebook is where I am. My website, petakelly.com, just got a little make over. Yeah, that’s where I am.

Melyssa Griffin: Awesome. We’ll link your book, “Earth is Hiring”, down below this episode.

Peta Kelly: Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Melyssa Griffin: Thank you, Peta. Have an amazing day.

Peta Kelly: Thank you.

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