Welcome to Unleashing Your Great Work, a podcast about doing the work that matters the most to you. I’m your host, Dr. Amanda Kroll, a cognitive psychologist coach, author of the book, great Work, and the creator of the Great Work Journals. Every week on this podcast, we are here asking the big. Questions, what is your great work?

How do you find it? And why does it matter whether we do it? What does it actually take to do more of your great work without sacrificing everything else? And how does the world change when more people are doing more of the work that matters the most to them? Stay tuned for answers to these questions and so much more.

Way back in 2015, I stumbled across a 30 day list building challenge. I was really interested in this challenge, not just because I was trying to build a list, but because of the way it was structured. It had, uh, 30 days of daily emails that were attached to um, videos. But if you paid $27, you could get access to all 30 of them at once.

I never personally paid the $30 to get access to all of them at once, but I was fascinated by this at the time, completely innovative way to take a free product and turn it into a paid product. I was so interested that I went to go figure out who the person was that was sharing this information, who had this brilliant idea, and that was Natalie.

Lucy, she’s the founder of Access Ally, which is a WordPress plugin that basically is all of your course needs in one affiliates, learning management systems, membership, plugins, payments, everything all in one. And I wasn’t doing anything like that at the time, so I wasn’t a good potential client for her business, but I stumbled across a secret email list that she had where she shared.

Her more personal opinions about her life and the world and what was happening in it. And I loved those emails. I kept those. Um, I have gone through many unsubscribe campaigns and her email lasted through a ton of them. They were so fascinating. So, But then I, you know, she got caught in one of those unsubscribes and I stopped thinking about it until one day I saw her on LinkedIn.

She had become connected to connections of mine, so I started following her posts on LinkedIn. Was delighted to discover. She’s just as insightful and interesting now as she was back then. In this conversation, you will hear me telling her about how I was knee deep in building a duct tape and bubble gum.

Learning management system out of WooCommerce and um, uh, a learning management system that comes with my, uh, WordPress theme. And I was just, I. Freaking out because I had so many plug-ins and my website was starting to like corrupt itself. It was a whole thing. And since then I have actually become an AccessAlly customer, and I have to say it is exactly as good as she says it is.

So now that you know how this whole conversation began, you might be asking yourself, okay, but who is Natalie Lucier? Well, Natalie Lucier is an award-winning entrepreneur who has been making websites since she was 12 years old, like Clarissa explains it all. She graduated with a degree in software engineering and got a job offer from Wall Street, which she turned down to start her own business right out of college as the founder of Access Ally.

The powerful digital course and membership solution for industry leaders like me. She believes that access to education can help defy stereotypes and make the world a better place while providing a sustainable livelihood for enterprising teachers. Let’s welcome Natalie to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast, Natalie.

Yay. Thank you for having me. I am so excited to have you on the podcast. In fact, I’m not even recording guest interviews right now, but when you were like, yeah, sure, I’ll be out. I was like, okay, well, we’re just gonna make it happen. But I really admired your work for a really long time. So why don’t we start where we always do, which is just to hear a little bit.

How would you define your great work? Yeah, so this was such a big question. I was like, what is my great work? I had sort of like, you don’t let me really think about it. And I thought back to when I was a young, you know, teenager and kind of what I cared about the most then. And um, you know, definitely I was a techie.

I loved making websites and. Being creative with the web and writing and all of these things. But when I started, you know, interviewing for jobs, I realized like I was always talking about people’s health and I was always talking about, um, you know, how can I impact other people’s health? How can I impact the planet’s health?

You know, I wanted to like use technology to cure cancer. Those were kind of ideas I had. Right. Wow. And yeah, it was so weird. Were you in medical school at the time or thinking about doing that? No, I was, I was studying software engineering, so I knew, you know, the tech side was very natural to me. But what I wanted to apply it to was like people’s health and wellbeing.

And I think part of that came from my family. You know, some of my family members died of heart attacks very young. Um, so I kind of had this like background idea. And then when I started, you know, I went through university, I did internships in Tech, wall Street, Silicon Valley, so obviously not like, you know, health focused.

Um, but when I graduated I was like, you know, I don’t feel like that’s the path for me. So I decided to start my own business and I decided to. Put it in the health and wellness space. Mm-hmm. And, um, I call it my training business because, you know, I learned everything about marketing and all of that stuff, but it really used all of my skills.

It used the tech side. It, you know, I did writing and creative design and all, all kinds of stuff. There, but the kind of underlying piece was the health. Mm-hmm. Um, and then what I realized was that all the people I was giving advice to on how to be healthier, they couldn’t really afford, you know, healthy food and they couldn’t afford the things that I was recommending.

So I was like, okay, take a step back. You know, how, where do we start? Right? And so I kind of realized. Maybe what we start with is not like, here are the healthy tips that you need, but more about how do we help people be resourced so that they can make those changes. And so that’s kind of where the tech that I build today, you know, kind of comes back into helping people have those types of businesses and those types of income sources that then they can reinvest in their health.

So it’s sort of a roundabout way. Mm, mm-hmm. Uh, of getting to like what I really cared about in the beginning, if that makes sense. That does make sense. Um, one of the things I’ve done in my life is, um, improvement work with schools largely, and one, and it’s very difficult because when you approach any complex system, whether it’s a human’s life or a school of kids and teachers and administrators and policies and stuff, these are all such interconnected systems.

A human is, is a single person, and we always say in the improvement world, what I do anyway is that health in the system begets more health in the system. You don’t have to fix every single problem directly, but if you infuse health into it, then you will create health in other unexpected places. Yeah, and you’re, I love that whole big picture view, cuz that was something I went in not thinking about at all.

Right. And then you kind of realize these things when you start pulling on the threads, you’re like, oh yes. Like I can’t just solve this one tiny problem. Right. Yeah. Yeah, when you, you can make great strides and, you know, and create health in that little part. And, you know, I suspect if you feel better as, as somebody who has like a chronic sort of, it’s mostly under control.

So there’s, you know, it’s fine, but like an autoimmune situation, like if I eat the wrong things or if I get too stressed out, it’s like my body is instantly like, puts me in jail and I can’t move and stuff. So like, no, when I feel good. I can create more resources in my life. So it’s definitely reciprocal, but you know, maybe the people listening don’t know what you do.

Not everyone has followed you obsessively for like eight years, so what do you do? Yeah, so today I’m the founder of a company called Access Ally, and it’s a WordPress plugin for people who wanna create courses, memberships, communities, and do it in a flexible way and kind of, you know, create content, create community, do coaching, all the things that a lot of people who have big ideas, you know, and wanna.

Um, get them out there. I tend to do, and a lot of it comes down, so obviously we, we have software development in our company. I tend to be more on the kind of communication and marketing side and, um, and also mentoring, you know, the people on our team and things like that. Yeah. So how did this become the thing that you built your company around?

Like what was the impetus, what inciting incident was there? Yes. So it was, you know, we just had to scratch our own itch, you know, we had a problem ourselves, so I was doing online courses and I decided to launch, uh, a challenge. It was the 30 day list building challenge. Yeah. And I think that is how. Oh, that’s awesome.

Yes, so it was very successful. You know, tons of people were joining and we had all these people coming to our website, and the way that the plugin that we were using at the time worked is that it would ping our email server every single time somebody came to any page on our website. And we had like, you know, 15,000 people.

So it was a little intense. So our website host kept shutting down our website and telling us like, you’re being attacked, like, we’re gonna shut it down. You know, there’s a malicious. Something happening. So my husband, who’s also a software guy, uh, and I were like, okay, let’s just like fix this, like build something super quick that doesn’t have that problem.

And so we did build something super quick that, yeah, super quick weekend job. Yeah. Weekend. It does not, you know, it’s obviously evolved a ton since then. Mm-hmm. But yeah, so that was our first like just solve that problem. And then after that we kind of said, Hey, like you know, now that we’re developing our own tool, what else will we want it to do?

So we added like check, you know, progress checklists and we added all kinds of other things. And then people were saying, Hey, what are you using to run your courses and your, your challenge? And so we knew there was demand for it, so we decided to like pivot towards the software side. Um, and also since then, we don’t just come up with ideas ourselves anymore, but we definitely co-create with our customers a lot more.

So now the whole tool, like it takes payments or you know, recurring payments, it Oh wow. Delivers. So you don’t have to use this and WooCommerce and a membership plugin. Okay. Exactly. It basically handles pretty much everything from end to end, you know, affiliate tracking, uh, basically everything. Oh, affiliate tracking, you say?

Yes. I was just the other, I was like, oh god, another plugin. Yeah. So that was sort of our, you know, how do we solve this problem so that we can. You know, eliminate all the Duct tape solutions. Um, and yeah, and it’s been really amazing. You know, our team has grown since then and we’ve, you know, we’ve really been able to help customers scale their businesses because it’s like their tech is simplified and they can actually, you know, go out there and focus on their students and focus on their marketing and they’re not just, you know, pulling their hair out with all the tech stuff, hopefully.

Yeah. Oh wow. That’s so great. And does your company have multiple products? Does it have a few things with Ally on the end? Yeah, so we have our, what, uh, it’s called Pop-Up Ally. So that’s another tool Yeah. That we, uh, created and it was our kind of testing product. So I seem to do this like testing thing in my, in my businesses a lot.

But, um, it was a smaller product to build and so we thought, okay, let’s just. Put a plugin out there and see if we can actually support it. Cuz we had never supported software before and we didn’t know if it would be like so much work and we would be really bad at it. Right? So we didn’t wanna like, promise something and then not be able to deliver.

So that was our first product. Um, still doing really well. People are still using it. Um, but we’re, our main focus tends to be more on Access Ally these days cuz it’s such a bigger product at this point. Um, but yeah, that was sort of like our. Let’s put it out there. And then the demand, the response was really great.

So we were like, okay, yeah, I think we can handle doing a software business. Let’s do this. Wow, that’s great. So what has happened since then? Like what have been, let me ask it the question this way, like what have been a few challenges that you’ve come up against over the duration of your business?

Because you’ve been in business now for what, like a decade. Yeah, Al like 14 years or something. 14 years, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think some of the challenges were, uh, my personality style does tend to like new and fresh things a lot. So I have about like a 18 month cycle where I wanna like burn everything down and start over, which is not ideal when you’re trying to grow a business.

Right. Um, so I’ve basically experimented with like all the business models, so I’ve. You know, I’ve done more kind of freelancing type stuff. I’ve done more coaching or consulting. Um, I’ve done v i P days and live events and just like such a range of things. And now, you know, obviously our software is kind of our primary thing and I feel like it’s given me a lot of.

Balance and stability. Yeah. Because I do feel like, okay, like let’s just like throw everything out and then just change everything. And with software, you know, it’s more of an iterative process of just continuing to improve it, continuing to hone it in, make sure that we’re speaking about it the right way with our customers and building the right things for them.

Uh, so I feel like that has helped. Balance me out a little bit from the like, sort of entrepreneurial Yeah. Trial and error that, uh, I think a lot of us might have sometimes. Um, but, but then I would also say, um, Other challenges are more around like, growing our team and like figuring out, you know, how to be more of that leader, um, and more of that mentor to kind of younger people on the team.

And then also letting, you know, establish people on our team do their great work and, you know, feel like they’re kicking butt in, in the ways that they can. So yeah, it’s been a lot of interesting, you know, Kind of not trying to work against myself, but trying to like step into new shoes if it makes sense.

Mm-hmm. Right. And well, and allow multiple parts of yourself to drive your behavior, right? Because part of you likes having that stability, it sounds like, and allowing that to exist alongside the need for interesting new things. Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. And then when you grew your company and it was stable and successful, did you find that like you suddenly were in a different role and had to like, Shift into that space.

What was that like? Cause I hear that story a fair amount and I think we all kind of struggle with that. Like we lose the things sometimes that we loved in the first place. Does that happen to you? Yeah, I’ve definitely kind of struggled with finding exactly where my sweet spot is in the company, and I think, uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve gone through, you know, I used to be very present on YouTube videos and I had a podcast and then I kind of stepped back from some of that and now I’m kind of stepping back into some of that.

And it was just based on the phase of the business and kind of what was required, and also having children and, you know, growing our family. And, uh, so those are all kind of things to navigate and figure out, uh, as well to just kind of, you know, make sure I’m not burning out and mm-hmm. Everybody has everything they need as well.

Yeah. So, yeah, I think those are definitely things. And then also, you know, you mentioned that stability of the business. I feel like it’s given me, um, kind of the space to explore other things. So, you know, we moved to a small farm and now we have, you know, sheep and ducks. And chickens. Yeah. You really, so.

We do. And wait, you moved from, where’d you move from to, you moved from We were living in Texas for a while. Yes, that’s right. Okay. I, I think I watched that happen back Yes. In the day. And then you moved to a small farm with chickens and sheep and you say on your LinkedIn title or whatever, that you’re a permaculture farmer.

I was like, I don’t know what that is. I’m gonna let her tell me what’s a permaculture farmer. Yeah, so it’s essentially, it’s a system of designing a farm for, uh, permanence, if that makes sense. So like, like agriculture is very, um, you know, each year you plant new crops and then you kind of start over and it’s a lot of intense work.

And the concept of permaculture is that you would set up systems that will stay long-term and are very like, future focused. So for example, um, there’s this concept called, Um, a tree, a food forest. So instead of planting, you know, crops that you’re, like small crops that you’re planting each year that you harvest each year, you would plant a couple of trees that maybe grow nuts and fruits.

Mm-hmm. And then those will kind of continue to produce for years as long as, you know, they’re still healthy. So, um, I really like that kind of regenerative, uh, kind of long-term look because they feel like we’re, again, kind of my health focus, right? Yeah. We’re so focused on, um, you know, extracting from the soil and from our environment and you know, the resources we have, but this is sort of like rebuilding the soil and rebuilding, uh, long-term systems so that, you know, in maybe 50 years or a hundred years or 200 years, you know, we are our grandkids and other people’s grandkids will basically have.

Everything that they need to kind of, you know, be healthy and, and all of that. So those are kind of in the back of my mind, some of the things. Yeah. And, um, permaculture is basically a design system, so kind of how things work together, you know, water flows and, um, you know, basically what resources can be used to improve other resources.

So, for example, you know, the chicken poop and the, you know, the, the sheep poop can be reused to improve soil. Uh, and just like kind of how you make everything work together so that it’s not, um, it’s not a machine, right? It’s more of an ecosystem, if that makes sense. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s great. And do you find yourself sort of involved in the community of permaculture?

Like are you, I. Going to conferences and talking to people about it and helping them create courses for their permaculture ideas, sort of. Yeah. So I, I have a little, uh, YouTube channel for our farm. Nice. And kind of talking about, you know, what’s working for us and you know, what we’re testing. Cuz I feel like we’re still very much in the beginning and just learning.

Yeah. Um, so that’s, that’s fun. And yeah, just connecting with other people in the space too. And I’ve actually reconnected with really old childhood friends who are kind of coming into this. Movement too. And I’m like, wow, like we have so much in common and I forgot, you know, like that we have this. So yeah, it’s, oh, that’s great fun.

So that’s a part of your great work too. It is, yeah. I kind of feel like it’s a thread, but it wasn’t always obvious. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well definitely connects to that original thread of like, uh, health and, you know, if you can’t afford to buy healthy food, but you can find a way to create it in your own environment.

Yes. And you know, it’s interesting cuz like, I think in, um, like I read this somewhere where back in the day when they were building the suburbs, each lot would have like a few fruit trees by defaults. Hmm. And it kind of went by the wayside. But like that was sort of designed originally so that everyone would have access to different fruits and just like Right.

It would just. Made sense, right? Mm-hmm. And I feel like we kinda lost some of those connections to be like, oh yeah, like I don’t need to go to the store for everything. Right. There shouldn’t be other options. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And I think there’s some, you know, not necessarily where I live, but I remember during I.

Covid when people were worried about food insecurity, that there were, there was legislation somewhere in this country, maybe a few places where it was like you weren’t allowed to farm on your land. Ooh, interesting. That there was like a, you know, unless you have this much space or this whatever, like this much irrigation or something.

So that was a lot of people sort of. I, I think rightly sort of rose up to say like, this is my land. It’s my right to grow food. And it’s like, you don’t think about your right to grow food because you, we all just buy it at the grocery store. But when that becomes insecure, it really is like a basic human right to be able to grow food.

So it’s, I think it’s a really interesting and possibly unfortunately, gonna be a growing concern as food insecurity globally becomes a bigger problem. Yeah, I think about that a lot too. And I don’t think about it just for like my family. I think that it’s something like, that’s part of why I want more people to be aware of it and mm-hmm.

Even if it’s just like a small pot with herbs in your window sill, you know, it doesn’t have to be this really crazy system that you’re designing, but I think that connection that we have to our food and mm-hmm. You know, where it comes from and all of that is, is such a cool thing that we kind of lose sometimes.

So, especially cuz we’re so busy. Right. So I guess, yeah. Yes. Yes, definitely. You know, one of the interesting things about you from my perspective is what I recall is that you started a sub newsletter to your Access Ally newsletter, and I don’t remember what it was called, but it was like Natalie’s Rams was basically what it’s, do you know what I’m talking about?

Yes. Still remember? Yes. Yeah. Um, I loved those emails. Like I was not building courses, so I never did use Access Ally, although I’m really thinking about it since you, since I feel like it would replace like 16 plugins currently. Like battling it out on my website. But either way, I still stayed on your list because you sent these emails that were like really interesting point of view emails.

And I really liked that about you, that you were, you know, you were like, if you don’t want these emails, then you can opt out and stay on the Access Ally email. Tell me about the impetus for those, cuz they seemed like, I recall them starting like it was a something you were responding to something. So tell us the story about those emails.

I. Yeah, I think there’s been a few points in my life where, you know, I’m just like, I just, I’m super opinionated. I really wanna get it out there. I also don’t feel like social media is necessarily the best place for some of these things. And you know, you have algorithms and all kinds of things that kind of skew what people see and.

And also I feel like email is a little bit more intimate, so if people want to have a conversation, it’s a one-on-one as opposed to, you know, this is in public and everyone’s going to like pile on or whatnot. Yes, exactly right. That that was part of the idea of making it an email and then also, yeah, I just felt like it would be a really cool thing to express.

What was on my mind and also, um, build more relationships with people on my email list cuz I feel like, you know, sharing tech tips and sharing, you know, ideas on like how to make your courses better and stuff. It’s great and it’s still definitely something that I do. Mm-hmm. But at the same time, like we’re human and we have like much bigger things, um, sometimes, you know, on our minds and I feel like.

That, um, just felt like a, an important thing to do and I still, I kind of don’t do it every, you know, every day or anything like that, but I do it like kind of in little spurts, if you will, where I, it’s like something has just been on my mind for so long that it makes sense to just get it out there.

Mm-hmm. So, I don’t wanna say it’s like therapeutic, but in some ways it was definitely, you know, um, processing like my emotions and ideas and, you know, different scenarios or things that have happened to me on paper or like digital ink, if you will. And yeah, that, that’s also, you know, I’ve always loved writing and, you know, it doesn’t make sense to put those kinds of things in a book either.

So it’s more about making sure that, yeah, like if people wanna read them, then. That’s great. Was there one in particular you remember that got a big response or got a big pushback? Like what’s a, what’s a story from that experience? One of the ones I got the most responses from was, um, the birth of my daughter.

So I kind of, you know, we had a home birth. It was, you know, in our bathtub at home and, you know. Wow. Kinda described a little bit about that. It wasn’t like graphic or anything like that, but just kinda sharing pictures. Play by play. No, no, no video, no pictures. Yes. Um, but yeah, just kind of sharing, you know, the, the emotions and kind of what comes up when you’re giving birth.

And, um, you know, like the first time like my first child and then, um, I described this like sort of sinking feeling that I realized it was a girl and not because I was disappointed that it was a girl, but because I kind of know what it’s like being a woman in this world and wow. It. Hit me that like, she’s gonna have to go through that too.

Hmm. Um, and I had this conversation with my husband, you know, like he kind of had a similar like vibe and obviously we love our daughter and we’re like, you know, super excited and happy to have her in the world, but we had this moment of like, oh, it’s not gonna be the smoothest, you know? Hmm. You know, entry into the, not entry into the world hurt her.

She, she was already here, but yeah. You know, um, rest of her life essentially. So that was kind of, uh, a very, like, people responded very, very much to that one. Some people were like, how dare you? And I was like, no, it’s not that I’m not happy that she’s a girl, but. It’s more that, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve been, you know, in, on this path essentially, especially being a woman in tech.

Like, I’ve definitely experienced things there. Um, but even outside of that, so, Hmm. I, I really just wanna underscore like how great this example is because I feel like one thing that bothers me, that I feel like I try really hard on this podcast to, and in all, like, actually all the stuff that I do in the book that I wrote and like the.

Blogs that I write and whatever the community that I have, everything, it’s like things are not as simple ever as we make them out to be in order to try to sell you something. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And like whatever it is you’re selling, it can just be a point of view. Like all, you know, if your point of view is all love life is precious and should be welcomed with open arms is like Yes.

And we have feelings about things. Mm-hmm. And I really think that a big part of the reason people are so. I don’t wanna, like the mental health issues are on the rise and so much division is that we’ve somehow bought into this belief that these simple expressions are the truth. I don’t think that they are.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think it’s like you’re so right that everything is not truth and you know, set in stone or anything. It’s definitely, you know, we are nuanced, complicated people, right. With a lot of emotions and a lot of things. And like you said, so many things impact that, you know, if you’re. Reading something after you just got cut off in traffic or you know, I don’t know, like that might give you a different reaction.

Yeah. Than if you’re like, you just took a bubble bath and you’re all chill. Right? Yeah. So I have experienced both of those things. What was happening just before I got this news has a huge impact on the reaction to the news for sure. Well, and I think that when you have, in your own mind, in your own life, a complex reaction to something like maybe you are like, oh man, it would’ve been easier to have a boy.

Then you are like piling it on yourself. I can’t, hopefully no one ever sees that I, you really gave I think, a voice to something that, you know, people might have been, you know, whether they said so or not, like, you know, kind of vindicated isn’t the word, but like validated. That’s the word that I’m, so I really like those emails.

I’m gonna figure out how to resubscribe to those cuz they were, they were really great. So I wanna, um, talk a little bit about, Being a woman, as you said. Um, what, what would you say, how would you describe that challenge? Like when you think about your daughter and other women in tech? Cuz I assume you want more women in tech.

We all do, right? Tech and science. Right? We need new perspectives to solve the real problems that we have. Like what would you describe as the, the trouble spot there, the, the tension that you felt? Yeah, so I feel like, um, so first of all, you know, I try to do my part. So we have, uh, we have this internship program where we hire developers and you know, there, it’s a paid internship, but we have like a 50 50 perc, you know, percentage wise of male and females Oh, nice.

Students who come in and we try to keep it that way. Um, but that doesn’t match the, the schooling. Right. Um, no. Yeah, so usually there’s way, so when I was doing software engineering, there was like, uh, 15% women Oh, okay. In my program. Mm-hmm. So yeah, we, I think we really do kind of, you know, try to do that, try to like live it and not just talk about it.

And I think that hopefully, you know, has a, an impact as well. It just kind of giving people more opportunities to, to grow their skills, um, and then hopefully go on to, you know, great things or joining us full-time, that kinda thing. Right? Yeah. Um, but yeah, so I would say. Some of the things, you know, that you experience, you don’t even realize, right?

So if you’re in a room, uh, people might be talking about something and they kind of assume you don’t know what they’re talking about or mm-hmm. Um, they don’t include you in the conversation or things like that. And at the same time, sometimes being a woman gives you advantages. And I, I like to kind of talk about that too, because you can say, Hey, can you explain this to me as if I know nothing?

Right. And they’re more than happy to, to go, yes, I was gonna do that anyways. Yes. Um, but it’s helpful if, you know, you don’t have to worry about looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. Um, and, and also you can get help, um, in ways that maybe men don’t feel as comfortable asking for help in certain situations.

So, mm-hmm. It’s sort of those soft skills can kind of come in handy. Um, a little bit more than, you know, in other situations, but yeah, I feel like there’s, um, there’s like biases. There’s, you know, other things that we don’t realize are working against us. Um, but at the same time, there are opportunities. So, you know, there’s like maybe more scholarships for women in tech mm-hmm.

Or science. So it’s kind of trying to, you know, make the most of what’s out there, if that makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense. I like that. So I think that, Yeah, I think that that’s a great perspective. Again, like it’s not all good or all bad. Yeah. It’s, you know, how can you make, cause I think all of life is truly like that.

How can you make the most with what you have? Cuz everybody’s got some assets and strengths and social capital and, and not other strengths and social capital. So that’s great. So what’s next for you, Natalie? Lucier. So you have, you have a great thriving company from what I can tell, and a farm and children.

So what do you feel like as you look down at the horizon, what do you feel like is sort of like your next growth place? Yeah, I feel like there, there’s so many things like that I’m like currently, like busy doing, if you will. Yeah. Um, and, and you know, I love each of those things, so, you know, mentoring the people on our team, um mm-hmm.

You know, growing it and working with our customers to like keep making it better. Um, so that’s like not going away anytime soon. And you know, I do, especially because we have a tech company. People are like, you should sell it, you should exit, you should, you know, that’s the whole like point of building a, so software company is to like, make all the money and like just get rid of it.

And I’m like, I don’t wanna do that. I really like How have you had offers to buy it? Do people reach out to you? We have, yeah, we’ve been reached out, uh, from both like merger and acquisition type companies and also like mm-hmm. More well known companies, um, that would be a little bit more legitimate in terms of how it would go Uhhuh.

Um, but yeah, like it just doesn’t really make sense to me. I feel like we’ve built this, um, I love our team and our customers and, you know, I get to do work that I enjoy, so definitely not going in that direction. Um, and then, but software as permaculture. Yeah, exactly. I feel like we’re, it’s a system. We’re just improving it and Yeah.

Like living it. And I think that’s, that’s a good thing. Um, so yeah. So that’s definitely not the path I wanna take. And then, yeah, we have, you know, our kids are farm and just, um, you know, something that we’re doing is we are, uh, planting about four acres and kind of reforesting part of our farm. Wow. Um, so yeah, there’s like, Tons of projects like that, that are kind of behind the scenes.

Yeah. But if I look very, very far into the future, I think, um, I would probably wanna write more. So I’ve written, you know, self-published books and things. Nice. Um, but I would love to do maybe a bigger book project or um, maybe even fiction. You know, I feel like there’s so many, so many ways that could go.

Oh, I love it. Well, that’s great. Well, I, you know, I just really appreciate your time. I know you’re extremely busy. So before we go, I’m sure people are like, wait. What’s a WordPress plugin? Because I think most of the people that listen to this podcast are, are more probably like me than they are Like you, like a word plus plugin was a totally new idea, and I was like in the Google free, like free falling through the Google rabbit hole, trying to figure out, like recently when I was putting all of this stuff together, most of my clients are like that.

So tell us exactly like who is the right person to use your product and if they don’t have a WordPress site, which I’m assuming is the answer to that. How can they follow you and get to know you and get on this secret? Natalie Luci Rans email list? Yes. Okay. So yeah. Uh, so basically a WordPress plugin is something that adds functionality to a WordPress website, and so not Squarespace.

Exactly. So WordPress is, uh, a website builder. And so yeah, other options are like Squarespace and Webflow, like there’s other options, but you would have to have WordPress for the plugin. Okay. Um, and so yeah, as functionality, and it’s designed really for people who are. Coaches. Um, a lot of people who come to us tend to be selling into corporations or into groups.

Hmm. Because we have that functionality. So let’s say if you do, um, you know, mental health training for, uh, employees at companies and you sell, you know, packages of 10 or you know, a hundred or whatever, that’s how, um, access can really help you scale as well. Licenses. You mean like 10 people at that company can access that course.

Okay, cool. Exactly. Um, and then beyond that, yeah. So if, you know, if, if you need to take payments, if you need to deliver a course mm-hmm. And also track students progress mm-hmm. Um, all of that stuff is really easy to deal with access. So those would be kind of the, the highlights. Um, and if you wanna find out more, just having listened to you as a total like tech.

Non-tech, whatever we’re called over here, like the fact that it is basically a membership plugin and an a learning management system, like it handles your course content and it handles affiliates and it processes your payments. Like I’m sitting over here being like, why didn’t I talk to Natalie Lu like six months ago when I started like piecing this crap together, bubblegum and duct tape, and then they don’t agree with each other and one’s corrupting the other and it’s like, there you are on tech support.

So anyone who’s actually, let me just say this. Anyone who’s actually thinking of starting from scratch with like a membership or course building, this sounds amazing. Like so much easier if you have a WordPress site where things are not easy. Anyways, so that’s my endorsement. But if they do not have a WordPress site, how can they get to know you?

Yeah, so natalie lucy.com. Um, I do have a sign up for my, just the newsletter. Okay. Um, so, so if that, if you’re not interested in Access Ally stuff, that’s totally fine. And then I’m also on LinkedIn and um mm-hmm. YouTube, you’re very active on LinkedIn. Yes. I’m, yeah. This is part of my like, okay, let’s like, yeah.

Get back out there and, and connect with people. So yeah, those would be the places. I love it. And you actually, I noticed in the links that you shared with us, you’re still, you are still sharing that 30 day less building challenge. That’s amazing. Yes. Yeah. So if you wanna grow your email list, uh, 30 day list building challenge.com, totally free.

It’s the thing that kind of kickstarted everything. So, yeah, I really do recommend it. It even kickstarted this conversation. Yes. Amazing. Well, that’s great. Well, I wanna just thank you so much for your perspective and putting your point of view out into the world. We need people who are positive and nuanced and passionate and thoughtful, and you are all of those things.

So thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening today to unleashing your great work. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe and leave a five star review and make sure you check out my book. Great work. Do what matters most without sacrificing everything else. It’s available everywhere you get books. See you next time on Unleashing Your Great Work.