Redefining Success: A Journey of Empowerment and Resilience with Lata Hamilton

In this inspiring episode,  Kristina delves into a powerful conversation with Lata Hamilton, a change management expert, NLP practitioner, and advocate for women's empowerment. Lata shares her remarkable journey of becoming a successful entrepreneur while caring for her partner during his health struggles. Through her experiences, she emphasizes the importance of self-worth, confidence, and flexibility in navigating career and life challenges. Join Kristina and Lata as they discuss the transformative power of neuro-linguistic programming, the role of recruiters in career advancement, and the significance of prioritizing self-care while pursuing professional success.

About Lata:
Lata is a pocket rocket burst of energy with a big heart... and big hair! She is a Change Leadership and Confidence expert, and the creator of the “Leading Successful Change” program. Lata has worked with some of Australia’s biggest companies, and tripled her salary in just 3 years to almost $200,000 by switching careers from Marketing to Organisational Change Management. With her own style of inspirational change leadership, she’s worked on changes that have impacted over 100,000 people, global cultural transformations, operating model changes, and digital transformation that is literally changing the way that we work. Her mission is to help millennial women carve their own paths in their career, leadership and life, with confidence and authenticity to truly earn their worth. Lata’s own 2022 diagnosis of endometriosis further solidified her belief that women need to have the flexibility and freedom in their work to support their health and lifestyle. Lata is a cardio junkie, an absolute foodie, and an avid thrift shopper. Lata was adopted from India by an Australian family and believes it doesn’t matter where you started – it’s where you’re going and the lives you change along the way that counts. Yours included!

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Transcript

 Hey, everyone. It's Kristina with the She's Brave podcast.  Are you looking to get a raise or are you looking to get a better job, but you're afraid to negotiate for a higher salary during a job offer?  Are you afraid to negotiate even in your current job?  Did you know that 36 percent of men have asked for a raise recently compared to only 26 percent of women and 64 percent of men negotiate their further salary during a job offer versus only 47 percent of women. 

One last question for you guys. Are you thinking about leaving the safety of your nine to five job to start your own business? Well, you guys, today's guest is all about all of these topics I just mentioned and so much more. She's an amazing woman. Her name is Lata Hamilton. She is a bundle of energy. She's such a gem. We've been chatting before hitting record. She's a change leadership and confidence expert, the creator of the leading successful change program. She's also a neuro linguistic, programming practitioner and a confidence coach. Welcome. Welcome Lata. 

Thank you so much, Kristina. I'm so excited to be here.

I'm so excited to have you and you are such a beautiful, beautiful inspiration to women all around the world because you're only 35, and you have already done so much. So, let me tell you a little bit more about Lata. Her mission is to help women carve their own paths in their career, leadership in life with confidence and authenticity to earn their worth.

Lata's own 2022 diagnosis with endometriosis further solidified her belief that women need to have the flexibility and freedom in their work to support their health and lifestyle. Okay. And lastly, Lata has worked with some of Australia's Biggest companies and tripled her salary in just three years to almost 200,000 by switching careers from marketing to organizational change management with her own style of inspirational change leadership.

She's worked on changes that have impacted over a hundred thousand people, global cultural transformations, operating model changes, and digital transformation that is literally changing the way we work. Wow. Lata. And you're only 35 years old. What the heck girlfriend.  So tell us, tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am fascinated by you because you grew up in Australia. You live in Sydney and you were adopted from India. I love it.  

Yes, I was. I was adopted from India when I was two. So it was a period of time in Australia where there was, you know, quite an open adoption policy. So a lot of kids got adopted during that time period, from all different countries and I was adopted from India. So my parents already had three biological children of their own, and my mom wanted more kids. And so my dad was like, well, there's already enough children in the world, so why don't we adopt? So they adopted me, lucky them and I came to Australia. Yeah, I came to Australia but I was, I was two years old, but I was really, really malnourished and really sick, and really sleepy.

So I pretty much just slept for the first like year that I was in Australia. I was two, but I could walk under a table and like to sit on my mom's hand. Like I was just so small and underweight, and yeah, and so I kind of spent the first year kind of sleeping. So I don't really remember.

Anything about the orphanage or anything about my adoption or anything like that. But I guess, you know, growing up like that just meant that was all that I had ever known, like to be in this family. My parents are white. My older siblings are all white and I grew up in Australian country towns.

And so that was just. The life that I knew and just, it was just a fact of life that I was adopted.  

Wow. So incredible. So tell us more about just all the empowering things that you're doing. Because you know, when I started researching statistics about  things that I just mentioned, like, what Women not asking for a raise in their current job.

Women not negotiating for their salary when they are interviewing. What is that all about? And what can we do about it?  

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's funny because, you know, as women, we often are, , you know, really high performers and we probably hold ourselves at a more, , you know, hold, hold our standards higher than maybe other people might.

And, ,, for a lot of women, it's just that confidence in their own career skills, ability, self worth to actually ask for what they want in life. , and go after it. And, you know, often , we'll kind of see research that says that when a man , sees a job ad and it's like the job skills criteria and things like that,  but if the guy only has like 50 to 60 percent of those criteria, he'll still apply for the job, whereas for women, it's often like they're trying to hit that 80 to a hundred percent.

Of all of the criteria and feel like then if they don't hit all of it, then they shouldn't even throw their hat in the ring.  And so a big part of what I love to do, I think, especially because, , you know, I love really focusing on how we can empower women to step up in their own career, leadership, and life to really, , , create the kind of life and lifestyle that they want for themselves and to be leaders and to lead in a really different way.

, you know, because the way that I started in life was in an orphanage that was predominantly filled with girls in India, , at that time. And even today, like, there is still, uh. , a real gender imbalance in terms of equality and valuing of women and girls in that country. And so the orphanage that I was in was like 80 percent girls, because that's what, like, you know, families didn't want, want girls.

So they would like to give girls away instead.  And so. That's sort of been something that, , for me, I think the, secret to, you know, wealth in the world,  , sustainability in the world, progression in the world, and actually like a really sustainable and successful future is to start to tap women into the power and the potential that they have inside them.

And so that's one of the things I love to do. I love to help women around their career, , where it's like actually having them. Think about building up their own sense of confidence, which I always love to say is sort of four things. It's like knowing who you are, what you want, the value you bring and what you're worth.

So who you are, what you want, the value you bring and what you're worth. And like, if you are really clear on that, it means that you're more likely to then. Not just put yourself into opportunities, but also have opportunities come your way, your blinkers, you know, have been removed and you're going to see more opportunities, but then also you're going to throw your hat in the ring more.

You're going to, , you know, put your hand up for that promotion or maybe even change companies, , in order to get that pay raise or to get that next step up in your career or completely shift the way that you work. And that's what I've done. It's, it's one of the reasons that I've been so successful In my career, , you know, as you mentioned, like I tripled my salary in the space of three years to earning almost 200, 000.

And I thought that would take me 20 years to do that. And it took me just three years. And it was simply because I changed the way that I thought about myself. And I changed the way that I thought about my career. And I think to myself, if I can do it, any woman can, you know, I can be that example to others.

Yep. Yep. I love this conversation so much. You have said that the number one rule of salary negotiation is know your worth and articulate it confidently. Now I'm just going to be able to get a little funny here, like in ha ha. So as I was researching you, I was super inspired, but the song that I love kept playing in my head and the lyrics are, you don't know your worth, like literally.

And I realized that for a lot of my life, I didn't know my worth. I didn't!  You know, so how do we get to that place of knowing our worth? 

Yeah, it's a big thing. And it's, you know, I think as women, as we are raised as girls, you know, I grew up with three sisters and one brother, , and we're, we're raised to be more accommodating to others, to share more, to put ourselves and our needs second behind, you know, the You know, the men in our lives or other people, and to actually put ourselves on the back foot and on the back burner.

And that amplifies, I think, when we, you know, have children and become mothers. , not that I am one, but , I watched the people in my life and the women in my life, you know, really follow that same pattern of putting themselves and their needs on the back burner for everybody else. And, , You know, as well, it's only recently that women have even been allowed to have wealth like my, my mom is only one generation above me.

Even my mom, she was like when, when she was in her early twenties. , she could not go and rent an apartment without a man going guarantor on that. What? On that lease. Yeah, she couldn't go and rent an apartment. And she's only one generation older than me, so I think the ability for women to To own wealth, the ability for women to be able to step up into their economic power, to step up into their career.

You know, like we know that there's still the gender pay gap where women doing the same job as men will earn sort of like, I think it sits around sort of generally, I mean, it changes every year or a few years, but it sits around the 79 cents mark. So the same, same role women will earn 79 cents to the dollar of a man. 

Globally, this is the case. There's only a few handful of countries where the gender pay gap is small.  And so it's really about helping women to. identify the fact that like, , what are they truly worth? What are other people earning? But then also why is that the cap on what they could earn?

They can actually go beyond that if they want to. So a big thing is really starting to remove the stigma about talking about money, about talking about salary, because if you don't know what other people are earning, then you don't know that you are being , discriminated against or that you are being undervalued until you have that visibility around salaries, and it's getting better, but it's actually about us talking to our friends, talking to our colleagues, talking to our families. 

Yes. Industry benchmarks and industry research around salaries is important, but we also need to be having those conversations in our own personal life because it's often been the times when, you know, a colleague has said, Oh, like, I had a colleague once I was in my early 20s, mid 20s. And she told me that in her early 20s, she had been earning 120, 000 a year.

And that was mind blowing to me. And , I was surprised. I was like, what? I was also so inspired. Like, I wasn't jealous. I was like, if you could do that. I can do that. And that's one of the reasons why I share my salary so openly. I want to give women that opportunity to see that it's possible for them to love it.

That is so incredibly beautifully said. What would you say to that? Listener out there who is saying, OMG, I have an interview next week. How should I handle it?  What advice would you give her? 

I would say, do not give your salary expectations unless you are super confident that your salary expectations are at the very top of your band and the top of your industry.

So often how it works, especially in jobs and interviews and things like that, is that the company will say, what is your salary? Salary expectation and because of the way that our  companies and our performance review cycles and things like that work in our minds, we think that we are only eligible for like a 1 to 3 percent pay rise, maybe 5 percent if you're lucky, we don't think in our mind that we're eligible of, you know, doubling or tripling our salary, but I've made massive leaps, in pay.

By changing careers frequently, sorry, not by changing careers. I have changed careers a lot, but by changing companies frequently, I should have said.  So when you go to change companies,  you are recalibrating your value and your worth against the open market. You are not calibrating against that internal organization.

So instead of going, Oh, I'd love to just make the same, or maybe a little bit more as what I had, what you really need to do is look at your entire cumulative experience, your entire cumulative experience, skills, education, training,  everything you've ever done, all the projects you've ever worked on, all the achievements you've ever made, all of the, you know, really great successes that you've had, and you've got to actually value yourself of that cumulative experience, Experience  and skills, not what you last did.

It's the s of your entire career leadership and life, not what you've just been paid. When you do that, you realize actually just how valuable you are, just how much you are actually worth. You can go and do industry research around what those salary bands and stuff are and instead when a company says. 

Can you tell me what your salary expectations are? Instead, say, I'd like to hear a little bit more about the role, , uh, before I share. Or you might say something along the lines of, , you know, you've seen my skills and experience. I would love you to tell me where you think that I sit. Because then you're not pitching yourself already at a lower rate than what probably they even had in mind for the role, which is what a lot of women do.

Okay. Okay. Wow. Great information. Absolutely fantastic information. Now, what about the woman who's listening and saying, okay. Okay, I'll try it, but I'm not feeling very confident.  What advice do you have?  

I would just say, do whatever you can to build that confidence up before your interview. So this could mean, look, putting on really high vibe music and dancing around.

This could mean, , you know for me, one of the things that I do to prime, I've got curly hair. And so one of the things that I do to prime before any, you know, job interview before, you know, seeing a new consulting client before presenting or anything like that is I wash and blow dry my hair. So it's as big as possible and it's as light and bouncy and airy as possible.

It might mean before the interview, going into the bathroom and doing a power pose. So there's an amazing time. Ted talk by Amy Cuddy. It's one of the top 20 Ted talks of all time. It's on power poses and the science and psychology behind power posing.  And, , you know, if you make your body expansive for just two minutes,  expansive and open and beak for just two minutes, it literally shifts the chemicals running through your body to give you more confidence.

That's such an incredible hack. 

I mean, it's two minutes. Freaking easy, just get that empowerment in your body and then it just transfers into your brain and you can walk into that interview and just, yeah, Oh, that is, that's such an easy hack. 

Wow. And all of these are just, they're little things. Like think about what it is that you can do that you, that really helps you feel confident and tap into all those little tips and tools.

If you've got a great friend or a coach or a supportive community. Go to them and say, Hey, I'm going to be having this interview. Can I get some love? Sometimes when I've been launching, for example, in my business, I'll go to my business community and be like, Hey, I'm launching. Can I get some kudos?

Can I get some love? Like using the support and the energy of others to boost you up and go in really knowing who you are, knowing what you want, knowing the value that you bring and knowing what you're worth.  Oh,  so, 

so good. And what I like about it, Lata, is that it is simple. This is not rocket science. Like we all can do it.

And guess what? We can do it in our everyday life too. Like this doesn't just have to be for job interviews. This can be just going in and doing a presentation at work or, you know, , , I don't know, like, like having coffee with somebody who , maybe you perceive them as being better than you, but you want to be friends with them, you know, just checking yourself and getting your confidence, your energy up and saying, I want to get to know this person better.

I perceive them as better. They're not better than me, but I'm going to go into this coffee date with confidence. You know, we can use it in different areas of our life. I love it. I also want to ask you, I know that you're a fan of recruiters and you call recruiters your secret weapon. Tell 

us more about that.

Yeah. So I guess when I was in my early career, I didn't know anything about recruiters and I thought that they were sort of, you know, more like headhunters where you had to be really seasoned or really experienced or really senior. Yeah. For recruiters to work with you and, you know, I assed you had to pay them, but when I moved into organizational change management, so I started my career in marketing.

And I changed jobs and I got a 20, 000 pay rise, so I changed companies and got a 20, 000 pay rise, but I stayed in marketing.  Then I made the change because a friend of mine who was at work, she had worked on projects before. And she was like, Oh, with your background in marketing and you know, your skills and things like that, I think you'd be really great in organizational change management.

And if you don't know what organizational change management is, I love to define things really simply. It's just moving people from doing things in one way to doing things in a new way in a workplace or in an organization. And we do that through communications, training, and business readiness, making sure that everybody has everything that they need to feel informed, confident, inspired, and empowered.

And ready to do the change and to keep doing it in the future. So it could be a new system or technology. It could be a new group like structure, team structure, operating model. It could be the move to remote work, move back to the office and your product or a new service, whatever is changing in a company.

You can support it with organizational change management.  So she told me about organizational change management, but at the time, I didn't know  what that meant from a career perspective. I just thought, okay, cool. You just apply for jobs like, like normal, but actually in the project space, recruiters are a really, really big part of that industry.

So about 50 percent of roles will be hired directly and about 50 percent will be hired through recruiters.  Because it's contingent work, you know, it's short, sharp pieces of work. So they need to find talent really quickly. They need to place them really quickly. And then , you might be working there for only six months, for example, on a contract. 

So recruiters are, especially in the area of organizational change management, like, yes, there are. Like horror stories of terrible recruiters out there. I've been so blessed and lucky, and our industry is so blessed and lucky to have incredible recruiters who really care about people and really care about the candidate experience, but they know the industry inside out.

It is in their best interest to place you. It is in their best interest to find you a job and you don't pay them, the company pays them.  Like, they get a commission from the company when you land your role. You don't pay them. 

And that's an important point because I think a lot of people say, oh, I have to hire a recruiter.

Yes.  

But you don't. Like, they, like, literally, like, if you have a great sort of portfolio of recruiters behind you, you know, they will, you can say to them, great, I'm actively looking now. And then they'll think about you, when clients are briefing them on new roles.  Conversely, I've had some great opportunities come to me when I wasn't actively looking because a recruiter knew my skills, experience, personality. 

And they were like this person, when they heard about the role from their client, they're like, I've got the right person for you. They've reached out proactively to me.  Would you be interested in hearing about this role? I always take calls from recruiters, always happy to hear about the roles.  And then, I've landed some really great roles because the job came to me.

And this is where I say we're starting to shift the energy instead of you feeling like you've always got a ballgown. Push yourself out there and you've always got to be selling yourself and you've always got to be hunting and you just got to be out, out, out. Instead, you're switching it up, right?

Instead, you're going, I'm going to be me. I'm going to be authentic. I'm going to be confident. I'm going to resonate in my worth.  And then I'm going to attract opportunities into me and. One of my business coaches, Jacqueline Atkins, she's an intuitive business coach. She talks a lot about business energy and she talks a lot , about this kind of like receiving and this yin energy drawing it in instead of the yang active masculine energy, which is always pushing it out.

And I love that because, you know, recruiters are a fantastic tool. It's their job to know the market, to know the roles and to know the talent and the candidates. And it's literally their job. Uh, I love it so, so much. So speaking of such, let's talk a little bit about neuro linguistic programming. You are a practitioner.

What the heck is that? Tell us more. I'm deeply curious. It is a bit of a mouthful, Kristina, so neuro linguistic programming, it's much easier to say NLP, NLP for short. So yes, I am an accredited neuro linguistic programming practitioner and coach, and what NLP is, it's the study of excellence in behavior, communications, and psychology, or our emotions.

And basically, you know, With NLP, where I actually first found out about it, I was at this personal development weekend and it was the second day and I was like, where's my breakthrough? Like, do you know what I mean? I'm like,  I thought I'd be getting a breakthrough at some point this weekend. I'm like, where's my breakthrough?

So when the trainer was like, you know, does anybody want to share? And so I put up my hand to share and I experienced the most incredible thing in that moment because he actually did a NLP intervention with me and he actually took me back to the orphanage.  Wow.  I cannot consciously remember. I cannot consciously remember my time in the orphanage coming to Australia or anything like that.

And he took me back there and, you know, I can remember it now, even today, like I was like, a little baby sitting in his cot in this orphanage. And I felt like I didn't have anybody around me and I felt like there was nobody caring for me. And I was all alone and like, you know, like feeling really weak and small and alone.

And he was able to, uh, transform  the way that I felt about myself, about that memory or that event or that situation. Beautiful. And so I transformed and was like, actually, of course, I'm being taken care of. I wouldn't even be here if I wasn't. There are carers around me. They're just in another room right now.

And here I am this beautifully shining baby with all of the power and potential of the world inside me. I'm so strong. I'm so brave. Do you know what I mean? Like that was the, the, , mindset shift in the belief system shifts that he took me through with that intervention. And when I came out of that intervention, I was like, I need to learn this stuff.

Like, I need to learn how to tap into my unconscious and other people's unconscious to be able to shift things at a deep root level, because often it's not about that. The conscious mind and all of the, you know, rational, logical thinking, what's really driving us in our day to day is our unconscious programs and patterns.

And so I learned neuro linguistic  programming more for myself. I wanted to become more effective in the workplace and I wanted to become more effective in my leadership and my style. And when friends and family came and asked me for help, I was like, you know, I'll learn coaching cause then, you know, I can get better follow through with them. But what ended up happening when I actually learned NLP and coaching was I learned this whole suite of tools. And then I was able to bring all of that into my change management and my change leadership, because change management is all about shifting the way that people think and feel about the change about themselves, about their future. 

So what I've done is I've actually taken all of that NLP and coaching tools and techniques, and I've developed my own tools and techniques. Tools, templates and techniques and brought that into organizational change management to get more effective to be able to engage hearts and minds and bring stakeholders on board.

And, you know, I was a career coach for many years and I loved working one on one with clients, but I really started to see myself and go, there's only one of me.  Whereas if I can teach other people how to do what I do, how to go and lead change the way that I lead it with this style, and if I can actually, you know, support people as a group, I can have ripple effects throughout organizations, throughout communities.

You know, industries throughout the world. And I have,  students from all over the world and  it fills me with so much joy and so much, , pride to know that they're learning change in a really different way by bringing in these NLP and coaching techniques, they're learning change management and change delivery and change leadership in a really different way that they can go and have those sorts of ripple effects in there.

Organizations and with their stakeholders and their leaders and their teams. And yeah, that's really kind of where the NLP came from. Like it really started from a very personal place. And now I'm like,  because when you go to do NLP and coaching, it really is geared to having you work one on one with people, but in the work that we do in change management, it's more about working with groups than working with teams about working with projects and organizations. It's not the easiest job to kind of go from working 1 on 1 with a raw tool or technique to how to do that in a workplace setting. So I've sort of done the bridging of that and give like to create these business ready tools.

And I just think that , you know, I have students who are like, that's the icing on the cake for my course, because they're like, there was nothing else like this in the market. It's so powerful being able to really shift the way that people think about the change and really inspire and empower from the inside out. 

Wow. 

That is absolutely incredible. All that you're sharing. And I totally agree with you. I feel like, you know,  in America, and I think Australia, the culture is pretty similar. It's all about do, do, do, do like just, if I do more, if I try this, if I try that, like I will get it done. But ultimately we all know people in our lives where we see that they are literally stuck, right?

And it's, they're unconscious. And it could be like I have a girlfriend who's stuck. She's been dating for 10 years. She's stuck. It's an unconscious issue. Something like she has to dig deep and get to the root of that.  It's not going to change. It doesn't matter how many dates she goes on. It's not going to change until she gets to that root, that unconscious place.

This is absolutely fascinating.  I definitely need to learn more. so much.  Girlfriend, you and I need to have some more chats because I am like, just fascinated. And , we're just covering the tip of the iceberg today. That's it. I wanted to touch on one other topic, which is, you know, your partner, he had a liver transplant two years ago.

And I really wanted to bring that up. With my audience, because  my audience are all women of all walks of life, all ages. And, you know, most of us have careers, right? We have careers, we're busy and you were his caregiver. So tell us about that journey. And I mean, and yet you've crushed it. Like you,  Have already impacted over 100,000 people globally, and you're just in the beginning of it.

So, tell us more about that. How the heck did you do that?  

Yeah, uh, I guess my partner that I'm with today, he was my first ever, like long term partner. It was actually a lot of processing and programming. Like I worked with some coaches and things, because I'd never had like a long term boyfriend before.

I had sort of dated and things like that. But I'd never fallen in love with anybody. I'd never been with anybody longer than four months. And I had a big breakthrough session with a coach. And you know, after that, I, all I can say is like, my heart felt like it opened up. So this is like an NLP breakthrough session. 

And it felt like my heart opened up. And so I met this guy who I'd sort of been just casually seeing really casually, and I realized that within like a couple of weeks, like three weeks, I was like, Oh my goodness. I actually love this, this person. And within about a year of us dating, he actually got diagnosed with a liver condition. So it's an autoimmune disease. And.  Like because I had had a very, very blessed childhood where nobody that I knew was, you know, ever really sick and I'd never really spent any time in hospital and things like that, I sort of didn't probably gauge exactly what was going on. But, yeah, he went to hospital for the first time and it was all a bit crazy, but I kind of just rolled with it.

You know, we made the decision to not have children. I don't, I don't like children. And obviously I feel like there's enough children in the world and we've got a growing global population. So from a sustainability perspective, it's also the reason that I'm not having children. And so, We kind of connected a little bit around that. And we just really wanted to sort of be together, and spend our time together.  And so it was really interesting because then his condition progressively got worse. It was sort of one of those things that deteriorates over time.  And so we always knew that he was going to have to have a liver transplant, but it was really interesting.

It was when I started my course. So when I had piloted my course, I decided to leave my career. So I'd been working sort of, had a side hustle. So I'd been working full time and then I had a side hustle, which was my coaching and training business.  And I decided that, you know, this course, my leading successful change course, the pilot had been so successful.

I was like, let's give this a go. Let's actually, for the first time, give this a chance, , and see what it will be like  to do my business full time and see if I can make a go of it.  And so I moved to my business full time in July, 2021. And then I wanted to be a consultant. I wanted to have more freedom and flexibility with my time.

So I started my consultancy in October of 2021 and by May, the following year.  My partner had really deteriorated and he ended up having a liver transplant. And it was a very, very tough journey for him. He actually had a lot of relapses and things like that, and so he was actually in hospital for 10 weeks.

He was in and out of hospital for the next six months. , and it was like really full on, but what had happened was because I had set up my course and set up my consultancy. I had stopped trading time for money with my clients, and so I had all of this flexibility and freedom and I was able to keep serving my students and keep serving my community, and I was able to keep working with my clients on the schedule that suited me and that fitted with me and support my partner for that whole time that he was in hospital.

And afterwards, I was able to be his carer and be able to do it all and do both. And it was actually a blessing , because work and my students and my course gave me something else to focus on. It gave me that,  you know, that pressure valve to be able to have, , something outside of, you know, focusing on him and his health and his recovery.

And, that year was my first year in. Like my first calendar year in business, I actually made six figures in my first calendar year in business, even though I was caring for him pretty much that whole time. Wow. And so that's what I'm really passionate about. You know, that year was very stressful for me.

I found out that I had endometriosis and it flared up that year with all of the stress. I actually had a surgery later that year and sort of recovering and I'm still on the journey and everything like that. There's no cause or cure for endometriosis. , but it just really hit me. I was just like, you know, as women, we need to be supporting our health.

We need to be supporting the life and the lifestyle that we want to create for ourselves. And I don't think that having a business is the only way to do that. I think it's definitely a great way. But also it can just be in your career. You can choose to work flexibly. You can choose to work part time.

You can choose jobs or ways of working that support you in your health or jobs that switch you on and light you up and fulfill you. And when you have that confidence in yourself and your self worth, like when I was, I was working full time and earning a really great high salary because I simply chose a career, organizational change management, Is a highly paid female dominated career.

And there's not many careers you can say that about. I strategically chose a highly paid career  that meant that I could have that flexibility in my life. And that's what I really love being able to do for, for my women, , in my community and my, in my students is really showcasing to them, what it is.

That you can have that flexibility and that freedom and still earn your worth, still, you know, use your career as the launch pad to the rest of your life and live an abundant, wealthy life by simply changing the way you think about yourself and changing the way that you think about how you do things.

Ah, so beautiful, Lata, absolutely incredible. Any last words of advice for my listeners? What do you want them to know? What do you want them to know?  

Oh, look, you know, I've said it time and again, it just all starts with confidence. It just, it all, that's where it all begins. And, you know, if you can build that within yourself, build that real, real confidence, understanding of who you are, what you want, the value you bring, and what you're worth.

That's where it all starts. And, , yeah, if you want, there's a free guide up on my website. So latahamilton.com/worthit. And it's the underpaid and overlooked coaching action guide. And it really steps you through. It's got such simple steps, you know, really practical tools and tips as to how you can start to build that confidence for yourself and earn your worth, because it all starts from there, no matter what you want to do.

It all starts from that place. So, I really recommend that, you know, if you've been inspired or if you felt empowered from this conversation to take that away, to just really go, what do I need to do to build that confidence in myself? What do I need to do to be brave and to build that authenticity in who I am and what I can bring.

Beautiful. 

Beautiful. Lata. You are an incredible light for the world, and I am deeply honored to have you here with me today, sharing your light, sharing your love, sharing your wisdom. Please let us know how we can find you. 

Yes, absolutely. You can just find me on LinkedIn. I'm really active on LinkedIn, so it's under Lata Hamilton, L A T A and then Hamilton.

Yeah, and come check out what I have on my website, latahamilton.com.  Perfect. 

Thank you so much for such an inspiring conversation where I learned so much today, and a lot of it was really some quick hacks. And then a lot of it was stuff where we need to go deeper, but it's all been amazing.

Thank you. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thanks for having me, Kristina.