Boss Babe: Melissa & Danielle Baillie
Company: Soulful Escapes & Soulful Sisters
Social | Website: @oursoulfulescapes | @oursoulfulsisters
Tell me a bit about your businesses.
We have two businesses, one is a travel agency Soulful Escapes , this was born through our love for travel and after taking six months out to travel with our son around South East Asia and Australia, the agency has allowed us to support peoples travels needs and ensure the whole process is completely streamlined, during the pandemic travel has proved to of been slightly complexed with PCR testing etc so having a sole point of contact throughout the process has allowed us to build a strong client base.
Our other business is Soulful Sisters was born on the back of our studies, we are both full time students studying Mental Health nursing and Education Studies and realised the huge gap there is within support for any kind of mental health services, with the NHS at full capacity and waiting lists of four years we felt a huge urge to create something more, something more powerful to allow souls to connect and feel a sense of empowerment through our work. The services we offer through this business is life coaching, counselling services, mindfulness workshops, self-development courses and meditation guides.
What made you decide to start it?
We decided to start our travel business as travel fills us with fulfilment and freedom, we have travelled together as sisters through Australia and whenever we are able our souls wandering over as many parts of the world as possible, as a parent (Danielle) I believe teaching our children, Rocco and Byron the world is such a huge part of learning, learning life skills, culture, compassion and skills school curriculum cant. To learn is to feel and we feel like as sisters this is something we are hugely passionate about, so creating a travel agency has been something that felt so right for us.
Our coaching and mindfulness business was born on the back of our want, desire and huge passion to help others. We have both worked with young children and young adults providing services of support through coaching, counselling and workshops using mindfulness methods. After realising the need and the gap for these services within our community and wider we decided to take a leap of faith and follow our intuition and create something that feels authentic to us which has the potential to provide others with hope, clarity and love, which is exactly what we are doing.
What’s been the most difficult thing to get your head around when you started up?
The most difficult hurdle we have had to get over as sisters is the fear of being judged and the fear of it not working out but on reflection the urge to help and the positively impact people is a far greater reason than fear, and that is fundamentally our foundation of pushing through these thoughts and powering on, smashing our goals to reach our dreams.
What’s next for your business?
Our businesses are only getting started and we plan to touch as many souls as possible within our coaching and mindfulness work, as well as that we plan to support all our clients travel dreams with obtaining the best price point and service available within the travel industry.
Do you have any advice for other women looking to start their own business?
OUR ADVICE WOULD BE.. GO FOR IT, as cliche as it sounds we do only have one life, what are you waiting for, should you get judged then really is it your business anyway? and those that judge are they doing everything in their power to fulfil their dreams? Probably not. We are learning and our knowledge base will only grow and expand over time. Keep it authentic and keep it real and you will always touch the right kinda people, and that is the best advise we can give anyone.
What do you do to relax?
RELAX, to be honest we don't do much of that but when we do i spend time with my kids. Sas would tend to meditate during her free time, expand on our self development knowledge and use whatever free time we have to be grateful and TRY (not that we are always that great at it) to be in the now, and be proud of what we have achieved and achieving.
And lastly, what did you have for breakfast?
Breakfast..... well our favourite every time after our time in Oz is of course avo on toast :-)
Thanks so much ladies! What amazing women you are with such lovely souls. If you're interested in getting to know these 2 companies a little more, head over to the Instagram pages @oursoulfulsisters and @oursoulfulescapes for all the info you need. x