Episode 179: Subconscious Capacity Building with Nadia Gabrielle
When undertaking any new project or endeavor, whether personal or business-related, it’s always important to have a plan or strategy in place. However, while strategies can be executed, there’s always non-tangible things that hold us back from fully realizing what’s possible & those things are often limiting beliefs that lie in our subconscious.
Joining me in this episode is Nadia Gabrielle, a guide and mentor for business owners and non-business owners.
Merging her business background in Brand Building, Design Thinking & Service Design with her 12+ years of experience working in the creative, wellness & self-development space, Nadia uses conscious strategic tools and subconscious capacity building, to help her clients set themselves up for success in their lives and businesses by providing support at the points where strategy and capacity meet.
I recently had the opportunity to take Nadia’s fantastic Service Design School to help me apply Design Thinking principles to structure my coaching services. What I didn’t expect and I’m utterly grateful for was learning about subconscious capacity building and exploring what areas of my subconscious can be expanded.
In this episode you’ll hear Nadia share:
What are strategy and capacity and what are the things that hold us back
What is subconscious capacity building and how do we do this?
How she uses Human Design and Astrology in her client work
What is Design Thinking and Service Design School
Client transformations she’s witnesses
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“The subconscious is naturally feared adverse. It doesn’t want you to take risks. It doesn’t want you to step outside that because it doesn’t know what’s on the other side. Your current situation might be not great, but it could be much better on the other side.”
Read the Transcript:
Naomi Nakamura: Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Live FAB Life podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Nakamura.
Now, whenever we take on a new project or a new endeavor, whether it is personal or business related, it is always important to have some type of plan or a strategy in place, right? However, we can have all the strategies in the world and we can execute against them, but there are always going to be other non-tangible things that can hold us back from fully realizing what's possible, from fully reaching our potential. And often, those things are limiting beliefs that lie in our subconscious.
So, joining me in this episode is Nadia Gabrielle. And Nadia is a guide and mentor for business owners and non-business owners. Merging her business background in brand building, design thinking, and service design with her 12 plus years of working in the creative wellness and self-development space, Nadia uses conscious strategic tools and subconscious capacity building to help her clients set themselves up for success, both in their lives and in their businesses, by providing support at the points where strategy and capacity meet.
Now, I recently had the opportunity to take Nadia's Service Design School, which is absolutely fantastic. And I took that program to help me apply design thinking principles into how I structure my coaching services. What I didn't expect from the experience, and what I'm utterly grateful for, was learning about subconscious capacity building and having the opportunity and the space to explore what areas of my subconscious, perhaps, are being limited and can be expanded.
So, in this episode, you are going to hear Nadia share what is strategy and capacity. And what are the things that commonly hold us back. What is subconscious capacity building and how do we do that. How she uses human design and astrology in her client work, and what is design thinking, and what is Service Design School. And she also shares with us powerful client transformations that she's witnessed through her work with her clients.
This is such a great conversation. I'm so grateful for Nadia for giving off her time to come and have a chat with me. She is based in Europe. So, she gave up some of her evening and into her weekend so that we can chat. And I'm really grateful for the experience, and I so enjoyed our conversation and I hope you do too. So, with that, let's get to the show.
Hi, Nadia. Welcome to the show.
Nadia Gabrielle: Hi, Naomi. Thank you so much for having me.
Naomi Nakamura: I am so excited to chat today. We've had this scheduled for a while. I [crosstalk 00:03:17] your program a couple of months ago and I got way more out of it than I ever expected. Specifically, about what we're going to be talking about today. So, I'm really excited to have you on to share the work that you do and what you help people with. So, for those who don't know you, can you introduce yourself to us?
Nadia Gabrielle: Of course. I'm Nadia and as you said, we met through Service Design School, which is one of the programs I offer. So, what I do is, I work with mostly business owners, but also with individuals, on their strategy and their capacity. I do lots of teaching. I'm also the creator of Projectors Invited, which is a platform for human design projectors.
Naomi Nakamura: We'll get into all of those in a little bit. But I first found you, I guess, somehow you ended up in my people you may know, or discover section on Instagram.
Nadia Gabrielle: Oh, I love that.
Naomi Nakamura: It was the @ProjectorsInvited because I'm a Projector, I'm a 1/3 Splenic Projector.
Nadia Gabrielle: [inaudible 00:04:10] right?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. And you're a Self-Projected Projector, right?
Nadia Gabrielle: That's exactly right.
Naomi Nakamura: So, I'm so curious how did @ProjectorsInvited come about? Because for those of you who are listening, I've recently brought Human Design into the work that I do. And this is a fairly new topic that we talk about here on the show, but-
Nadia Gabrielle: I love that.
Naomi Nakamura: .... that it's such a fun account and [crosstalk 00:04:32] it makes me go all the times.
Nadia Gabrielle: I'm so glad. Let me just light a candle because what kind of a witch am I if I don't have a candle lit. Okay. Now we're good. "Projectors meme items", I'm so glad you like it. It really just started out as a meme page and me, its anonymous meme, Lord, which I loved. And then in the meantime, it really kind of has grown on its own. It expands as protect your specific newsletter and classes and something I've been working on that will be out soon.
Probably not quite yet at the time that this is released because I have no motors defined, I am-
Naomi Nakamura: I get it.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... it's taking a while for me to get this. I've been working on the idea I've had for a long time. And then each time I want to start, I don't have the mind space right now.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: I can only focus on one thing, but yeah, all sorts of fun things. It's totally taken on a life of its own. And the way it started was just really me being me and being a really playful person and always looking at things through a very humorous lens and seeing the comedy in any situation. And then of course also having a lot of insight into Projectors through my own experiments, but also from working with and teaching hundreds of protectors. And that gives me kind of this unique access. And I love us.
Naomi Nakamura: I love how you signed everything. Love us. It's a-
Nadia Gabrielle: Love us. [crosstalk 00:05:58]. I really do.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, it's so relatable. And it's so true.
Nadia Gabrielle: And we're quite different, right. or-
Naomi Nakamura: We are.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... a mechanics are different. So, I really want us to have a space to celebrate that and to learn more and to be understood and to have a lot of [inaudible 00:06:15] that for us and I'm really glad that people like it.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, thank you. Now you do much more than Projectors and-
Nadia Gabrielle: I could do a lot.
Naomi Nakamura: ... You do a lot of work with strategy and capacity-
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: ... and I do this as a side hustle and I've been doing it for five or six years now, and-
Nadia Gabrielle: Mm-hmm.
Naomi Nakamura: ... I've never actually thought about things in the context of capacity. Can you share your approach to that and how you help people with that?
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes. So of course, to me, there are two pillars to a thriving, sustainable business that actually brings you joy and that isn't just making you miserable maybe your corporate job or desktop did before. I think that-
Naomi Nakamura: I do want to say to me, that is a difference between a job and work-
Nadia Gabrielle: yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: ... is the joy.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. It's so important. And I see a lot of people lose that. And I just think it's so important because I mean ... let me speak for myself. I didn't get into this to be miserable.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: I want to be excited about the work that I do because I'm also the driving force of this business. So, I have to be excited.
Naomi Nakamura: Mm-hmm.
Nadia Gabrielle: Otherwise it's not going to work. So, for me, we need both conscious strategy and subconscious capacity. And what I mean by that, I mean, we can probably all agree on the strategy piece, right? It's a good idea to have some sort of a sound proven strategy to build upon in your business, which basically just means having a plan, right?
Naomi Nakamura: yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: Having a structure. Not getting up in the morning and building everything in you again, because you sat down, you made that plan, you built a structure. So, now you can move within that and build upon that. And then when it comes to these plannings structuring strategic activities, those always take place in the conscious part of our mind because it's the conscious mind that is capable of entertaining these possibilities and moving these pieces around, so to speak and comparing different possible outcomes, calculating, planning ahead. These are all very firmly in the conscious mind. The conscious mind is rational and logical. However, the conscious mind really only has about 5% impact on our actual everyday behavior, which is wild. So, the time we're being driven by our subconscious and what that means is that while the conscious mind may [crosstalk 00:08:34] it's really the subconscious that will get you there.
And so, in order to make sure that it does things such as calibration has to be aligned with that conscious goal. Does that makes sense so far?
Naomi Nakamura: It totally does. When I've heard you speak about this, it really makes-
Nadia Gabrielle: yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: [inaudible 00:08:50]. Because like I said, I never thought about it that way and then it made me start thinking, gosh, what's in my subconscious?
Nadia Gabrielle: What is my capacity [crosstalk 00:08:59]
Naomi Nakamura: Exactly. What is my capacity here?
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: So, in the work that you've done with all the clients you've worked with, what do you find our commonalities back? What holds us back?
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. I mean, I find that really, you can say that whenever find-
Naomi Nakamura: yeah.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... between what you consciously want, right? What your plan is, what we're saying and what you have the subconscious capacity for. So, generally you can say that what you have in your life and your [inaudible 00:09:26] right now, that's what you have the capacity for.
Because you already have it. But then a lot of us tend to get stuck on a capacity plateau. The truth is that whenever, once you get to the next level, but that's earning more, what's having more impacts whether that's having more ease, having more visibility, right? Having more eyes on you. Anything that requires you to level up in some way requires a capacity level up. And so, while we might be fine at our current capacity level, when you have bigger goals for yourself, for your business, your current capacity level won't really support those. Let me think of a good example. There's one projector client that I've been working with and these are pretty universal, but this is a real situation. She has unearthed some pretty significant financial capacity gap. So, on one hand she had her conscious revenue goals. Like we were just saying, write a really sound plan to achieve those.
But she had never built her capacity to be the kind of person who makes that amount of money. So, there's the gap, right? Her subconscious had its own narrative about the amount that she was allowed to make. And that was for her going back to some childhood experiences, also cultural norms and so on. And her subconscious, which is keep her within those confines of that income bracket. What happened was that she actually made quite a lot of money through a new offer. And then in German we say it flowed through her hands, right? she had it, but it's almost her bank account rejected it or couldn't take it. So, all of a sudden there were all of these reasons that the money was going out again before she found herself right back at that same sum that she was used to seeing in her bank account, because that's what she had the capacity for. Right? That's what her subconscious felt safe with.
And then behind there's this whole narrative that, who do you think you are? People think this and this for her specifically, you will no longer be part of a specific community if you outearn certain people for other people that might be out earning your spouse out, out earning your parents. These narratives are so unique to each person. So, it depends on their own subconscious blueprints. It's kind of reminds me of lottery winners who never got to build capacity to hold that amount and then it's just basically gone as quickly as they came in.
Naomi Nakamura: I relate to that so much. Like I said-
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: ... I do this work as a side hustle because-
Nadia Gabrielle: yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: I have really good full-time job that I actually really enjoy. I'm a Projector on my job as a Project Manager where I'm actually just-
Nadia Gabrielle: I love that.
Naomi Nakamura: You know. And-
Nadia Gabrielle: You are managing energy.
Naomi Nakamura: I am managing energy and so, I don't hate my full-time job.
Nadia Gabrielle: I am so glad.
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:12:04] But at the same time this whole conversation and learning from you has me thinking, do I say I don't have a desire to leave my full-time job because I don't believe I have the capacity to [crosstalk 00:12:16] either equate or go beyond the earnings that I currently make in my full-time job?
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly. I mean, I don't know for you, but yeah, exactly. And right, because unlike the conscious mind, like we were saying, the subconscious isn't governed by reason and logic and rational thinking.
Naomi Nakamura: Mm-hmm.
Nadia Gabrielle: So, all of the subconscious really holds the experiences that we've had in our formative years and I know we talked about this in Service Design School and in many cases, really strong programming develops.
We say from any year old to age seven. So, we carry these experiences with us. And it's not just the experience of this, but the conclusions that we've drawn based on those. So, in terms of to what you were saying, what is safe for me?
What is possible for me? What am I allowed to do? What will bring me the most love? What will guarantee me the least amount of conflict?.
These are very primal patterns that were installed at a very early age when we also were lacking the ability to think in a more sophisticated, layered manner, right? So it was very much black and white thinking.
And the thing that's the operating system that we're still running onto the state and that is in life that is in business, right? So, we said 5% conscious mind. That means 95%, we're not conscious. We're not making conscious decisions. And instead are enacting patterns, making decisions that stem from these early years.
And then when we sit down, we take a business strategy course, or we sit down and we map out our Q3 Q4 goals, or someone else sits down and makes a plan about possibly going into business for themselves full-time for sure we're present and conscious in that moment, but that's not the part of us that will then actually be getting us to that goal.
So, in order to be able to achieve that, we need, we need the subconscious on board. So [crosstalk 00:14:02]
Naomi Nakamura: And I'm nodding my head.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... capacity. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: Because you don't hear people talk about this in business.
Nadia Gabrielle: No.
Naomi Nakamura: You don't [crosstalk 00:14:09] hear business coaches, teaching entrepreneurs this ... I've worked in a corporate world and the tech industry for over 20 years. You don't hear these things here and yet it's the [crosstalk 00:14:19] reality.
Nadia Gabrielle: It really is. And you see it play out once you start. I'm sure this has been the case for you now that you've been learning more about this and experimenting. Once you see things through that lens, you're like, oh, I see.
Naomi Nakamura: Exactly.
Nadia Gabrielle: And this is a really classic example with a client who has found kind of the dream right, major success, basically overnight.
Essentially she was discovered by someone influential and that person recommended she's the person to book in with in her industry. And because that happened very quickly, no part of her business had yet developed the capacity to deal with that influx of interest, that influx of eyes on her, that influx of bookings.
So, that's the capacity in her processes and in her structure, right? There was no automation. She did everything manually by herself. She had no help, no system set up. But then of course, more than just the systems, it was her own capacity that had no time to expand and adjust to this new level. So, basically what happened was her system eventually went into total overdrive. She went into overwhelm, made her Instagram private, right? [crosstalk 00:15:30]
Naomi Nakamura: Oh, No.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. She didn't [crosstalk 00:15:31] want that [crosstalk 00:15:31] eyes on her.
Naomi Nakamura: I was just [crosstalk 00:15:33] going to say, because you can have the business processes and the operations [crosstalk 00:15:36] not set up. You can have your energy love and your capacity, but then there's also the can I handle the eyes on me part.
Nadia Gabrielle: Can I handle that? And I see this all the time. And of course, even with myself, I'm a double Scorpio. I'm not innately naturally made sort of outwardly visible. But yeah, I mean with her, she felt really uncomfortable posting. There were differently layers to that and more interest also means the possibility of more criticism, which goes back to that primal system that we all carry of. What if someone calls me out, then there was some of what we generally refer to as imposter syndrome although, I don't love that term. So, fears of, am I even good at this?
Do we even deserve this? Do we even belong in this space? There were so many people have done this for years. There's so much more experience and so on. And then add to that, the lack of capacity to set boundaries because she never had to right? She wasn't necessarily bad at it, but she [crosstalk 00:16:33] had only been practicing.
Yeah, exactly. That's another thing. Don't get me started on that. I mean, yeah, I'm a prime example of myself. I had to take a crash course and my twenties. Yeah. I never learned that. And it played out to my detriment until I had to. And so these are all the different layers of capacity that we need to build. So, that gives you a little bit of insight and these are quite extreme examples, but it happens in micro ways as well. It doesn't take this kind of big overnight success [crosstalk 00:17:05] to really show that someone might come up against the capacity wall when they decide to do live events. But they never built the capacity to show up live.
That looks super easy, but is it? No.
Naomi Nakamura: It's Totally true. And for me, it's, when I think back to where I started five or six years ago, even [crosstalk 00:17:22] just having my face on camera was so frightening to me. And so over the years I felt like, gosh, I really grown a lot. I've expanded my capacity, which I have. But there's not really a place where you can say I'm there.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah, no, it's really levels.
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:17:41] It's levels and there's [crosstalk 00:17:42] always going to be more you can do. And that's really what made me pause and pay attention to you were saying, because I kind of thought I did a lot of this work, but I'm realizing that there's probably a lot more that would help me to kind of explore here. So, how do we go about building capacity?
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. Great question. And I just want to say to what you were saying.
I think what's also really important. I kind of have ... this was very much instilled to me by my mom and my [inaudible 00:18:12] which aunts, [inaudible 00:00:18:13] ... I guess they would be kind of like the joy of the eternal learning.
Of course there's always more so as we set, every new level requires a new level of capacity. But it's also really wonderful to just think of about this is the capacity that I've built. Like you said for you, right? You have both the capacity to show up with your face and to show yourself. And that's amazing.
So, I don't ever want us to fall into that trap of okay, but there's more to do, right? There's more to fix. Let's also enjoy what we have built.
And then to your question, how do we do that? I really truly believe in having a teacher or a guide whenever we do anything in the realm of the subconscious, someone who knows what they're talking about, someone you trust, someone you feel comfortable with.
I find that paramount because your system needs to be at ease to be receptive, to change. Right?
Naomi Nakamura: Mm-hmm.
Nadia Gabrielle: Also someone who has quite a bit of experience and has seen all sorts of ways that these narratives can play out. And who's confident in guiding you because when it comes to the subconscious, these things tend to be in our own blind spots. So, it's sometimes difficult to even see, even though we might have an idea of what it is to really pinpoint what is really going on here can be really difficult. And then also going back to that principle of your system needing to feel safe and held, which is a main principle of subconscious work, because otherwise it will be really unlikely that you can allow yourself to go deep enough-
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... to rewrite those narratives and experience to shifts. And really what we want to do is as we said, identify the gaps to where are you not currently equipped to sustain your goals.
If you were to achieve your goals right now, would your system be able to handle them or would it do everything in its power to get you right back to where you started because that's, what's perceived as safe, [crosstalk 00:20:02] right?
Naomi Nakamura: Mm-hmm.
Nadia Gabrielle: And then from there we need to address the subconscious level, the two minds, right?
The conscious and the subconscious work quite differently. So, the things that work for the conscious mind, which is usually what was felt, I mean included feel very comfortable with any sorts of analytical pursuits, any sorts of intellectual pursuits that works really well for the conscious mind, but it doesn't work for the subconscious, it doesn't land. There isn't that communication.
And then after that, it takes practice so that you can gradually upward adjust and expand that capacity through action, through exercising, these narrow-pathways and through making that new way of showing up more robust.
Because each time you engage in action in line with that, it strengthens the new way of being or the capacity to expand that and it kind of moves you away from the old pattern.
Naomi Nakamura: The whole thing feels and sounds, and probably is because we both experienced it - quite scary.
Nadia Gabrielle: But is it scarier than-
Naomi Nakamura: Than
Nadia Gabrielle: ... just doing the thing?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes, exactly. Right. What's on the [crosstalk 00:21:07] other side of fear, you know.
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly. That's exactly it, right?
The subconscious is naturally feared adverse. Is it adverse or adverts? adverse I think. This is not my first language. I have to say this in every podcast. People are like, what?
It doesn't want you to take risks. It doesn't want you to step outside that because it doesn't know what's on the other side. But your current situation might be not great. And then it could be much better on the other side. So, it's really up to each individual. But usually when people find me, they're like, yeah, I'm ready.
[crosstalk 00:21:40] I don't want to do this anymore. I've done this for 20 years. And it's not working.
Naomi Nakamura: Yeah, exactly. I'm sure you have witnessed some amazing transformation.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: I would love to hear some of that.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes. One that happened very recently that really touched me was with a Projector client whom I've been working with for about eight months. And we worked mainly on really stepping into her brilliance, being allowed to have fun at work. [crosstalk 00:22:05] Wow, what a noble concept. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: That joy piece of it.
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly. And then also to have things be easy.
And then we worked on building financial capacity and she messaged me saying that she felt like her system was completely overhauled because she'd had this narrative, right. This identity, almost that point on who works in a profession where there isn't any money or any wealth.
So, very early on, she has taken on that identity and over time again, but it's strengthened. And then she had that belief that she wouldn't be financially successful, but she'd always be happy.
So, then we have that linkage. There's so much in terms of layers, but of course, really, she won't vote. And she messaged me to say that she made more in one or two months this year than ever before.
Naomi Nakamura: Wow.
Nadia Gabrielle: And that this would be the amount that usually she would have to stretch over half a year or a couple of months to survive and hearing stories like that is what drives me.
There's another one who's a Projector. She did a video for me that's on my website, which I just think is so wonderful. She completely overhauled her personal life and the year and a half that we've been working together to the degree where she to meet as a fully new person.
With her I feel like I have witnessed or rebirth. When I speak to her now I can hear her strong defined G-Center where she has cleared away all of that debris that was keeping her non-speaking up, feeling guilty about her desires.
And I can just see now how she's really firmly standing in her [inaudible 00:23:40] no trajectory, which was one of the things she previously felt guilty about, even admitting. And she's truly a woman of capacity. It's always really a pleasure to meet with her and see how far she's come.
Another one is a Generator client that I worked with for a couple months. This also makes me so happy with her. We weren't working on business at all, but on her personal life. And in the end, I have to say in my experience, the more we go towards the core, the subconscious doesn't really in term in with, we would say have different drawers. Like the [crosstalk 00:24:14] subconscious. Yeah Exactly.
Naomi Nakamura: This is business.
Nadia Gabrielle: This is a business.
Naomi Nakamura: First of all. [crosstalk 00:24:19] We're human. It's all-
Nadia Gabrielle: It all comes down. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: ... Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: Am I safe? Am I loved? Is this right? .And with her, we worked on body image and the self-love and what made me so happy with her is that just through focusing on her building that love and acceptance for herself, the other topics just completely fell into place, right? She felt better in her body. She didn't have those same struggles with restrictive eating or having to force herself to exercise. We wrote that and she reprogrammed that in her subconscious.
And she now comes from a place of love and appreciation towards herself and not punishment. So, as a result, her skin has gotten better because she no longer picks it. She feels more comfortable in her body. She loves to spend time being active just because it feels good. She naturally drinks less. Those are all the things that she told me that were resolved. But we never actually focused on any of these just because-
Naomi Nakamura: I had accepted.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... exactly [crosstalk 00:25:17] when you go deep all of those symptoms, you just cover that area. If you go to the core, those more surface level topics, just take care of themselves. And then I have another one. Last one. I just also [crosstalk 00:25:30] love my clients [crosstalk 00:25:32].
Naomi Nakamura: I love the stories because these are real people that these happened to you.
Nadia Gabrielle: They are.
Naomi Nakamura: They are not get rich quick. These only [crosstalk 00:25:40]
Nadia Gabrielle: No. [crosstalk 00:25:41]
Naomi Nakamura: Exactly.
These are people who are doing the deep inner work and then finding that it brings all these other parts of their life...
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes. And it's so beautiful to see. And with this person, she's a New York clients. She's also Projector. She was also in Service Design School. And after our first session in which we worked on expanding her capacity for ease in business and really just letting go of that hustle mode, only feeling worthy when she's on the brink of exhaustion, right?
Naomi Nakamura: That's so important for a projector like you.
Nadia Gabrielle: That's so deep in so many of us. And after this first session, she reported that she has never felt this level of ease in her work and things just flowing in her business and that she set to beat her own record revenue and make more that month than she ever had before. But she was just feeling good, doing that and feeling at ease and not having things be so hard all the time.
And so hearing that, and then from a projector, right, it makes me so happy for her and for all them because I mean, I say this all the time, but it's true. I really work with the best people.
Naomi Nakamura: You bring it up a lot of Astrology and Human Design into your work, which I love.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: And so how does that play into all of this?
Nadia Gabrielle: Good question? You're a Projector Splenic, we said. What's your Sun, Moon and Rising?
Naomi Nakamura: My Sun is Sagittarius. My moon is Scorpio and my Rising is Aries.
Nadia Gabrielle: Nice. Quite a bit of fire in there.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. Bit of fire.
Nadia Gabrielle: It plays a big role for me, especially Human Design. I'm definitely not an astrologer. I do dabble heavily and I incorporate it mainly in two ways.
So, firstly, with my clients, this as well through the study of these fields, it becomes so apparent to you that one size doesn't fit all and everyone has different needs and different fractals, as we would say in human design, different, energetic makeup.
So, I look at every single one-on-one client's chart before I hop on a call with them for the first time. And I tailor my work to their needs. It's really important to me to be permission giving and to be affirming what they innately already carry rather than adding to their conditioning. Right. And giving them even more that they then feel the need to change or feel bad about. Which sadly has happened to me a few times with some of my own support team or coaches in the past, whom I loved dearly. But sadly, the lack of understanding, especially of my Projector aura, it was very detrimental. And I have to say now when someone doesn't understand that I get little to nothing out of business coaching or any other type of support because it changes everything and-
Naomi Nakamura: It does.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... I want to be. Right?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes, I mean, think about it.
The world that we live in is, [crosstalk 00:28:30] well, yeah, it is very much structured for the Manifesting Generator and the Generators to thrive.
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly.
Naomi Nakamura: So, where does that leave for those of us who are non-sacrals?
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly. And even for them, I mean, I love working with energy types and they have their own narratives and layers of conditioning, right. That they've been made to believe is bad about themselves.
So, we all have that, but really what's important to me is to be able to guide someone correctly and more than happy to put in these hours beforehand.
I did that this morning. I prepped for some sessions next week and it always makes me so happy because I want to have an understanding of someone's needs and areas for us to zoom in on, an area that may be a bit tender and so on.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, I think that's truly what it means to be a guide, as opposed to coming in and saying, this is my-
Nadia Gabrielle: structure.
Naomi Nakamura: ... my structure.
And we're going to make you fit in-
Nadia Gabrielle: five steps. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: ... Exactly. It's like square peg round hole. Right.
Nadia Gabrielle: Exactly. And it's not going to work. Right. [crosstalk 00:29:26] it's just going to make someone feels even worse because they're like, wait, why can't I hack this [crosstalk 00:29:32].
Naomi Nakamura: Exactly.
Nadia Gabrielle: And then the other way that I use this is for myself, it guides the way that I work. My whole thing right now is always not getting stuck in the realm of insights. That's what I see in a lot of frameworks. But for me it's very much okay, cool. This is what I have to work with. This is my definition. This is my profile. That, what does that mean for me on a Thursday when I'm sitting down to work to get this project started, right?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: How does that inform how I work? How does that inform how I price my services?
How does that inform my scheduling? How does it impact the kinds of people that I want to work with? And in what way, all of these things I have adjusted for myself by way of really practically applying my chart, which is also what I'm always most interested in doing with my client. What is the practical application? How do you make it easier on yourself with the design that you have because we're not changing your design [crosstalk 00:30:29] when we design for that?
Naomi Nakamura: And it helps manage expectations, which then leads to better communication, which then leads to better relationships and better output. And everybody feels better.
Nadia Gabrielle: I so agree. I mean, I've seen this in my own family. I see this. There's just a deep end level of understanding and also with my friends with myself.
Naomi Nakamura: So, I said your Service Design School and I don't think I shared this with you.
In my full-time job, I am not a Product Manager. I'm a Program Manager, but I work in a Product Management organization and we had an executive who was very much into Design Thinking.
Nadia Gabrielle: I love that.
Naomi Nakamura: And Yeah. He had ... Because we're all very much remote even before this past year. And so I remember having this Design Thinking books show up in my mailbox a few years ago and I'm like, I think I know what this is. And I think they threw it away or gave it to somebody.
I didn't know why. And I hear them talking about this, the Product Managers all the time and whenever we have an event, cause I helped plan a lot of events. It's always we want to take that "Design Thinking" approach. So, let's bring someone in from that because we have a Design Thinking team who-
Nadia Gabrielle: I loved that.
Naomi Nakamura: ... [crosstalk 00:31:42] and all of that. And so, I've kind of picked up things here and there, but I heard you on a podcast talking about it, but talking about it in terms of Services for people who are in Services and it really resonated with me cause I was like, oh wait, this is something that you talk about in my full-time job. But-
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. This something I can use as my side hustle.
Naomi Nakamura: ... Exactly. And so, I signed up for Service Design School and it was wonderful. And I will admit, I actually went through the whole experience live before I take any action. And then [crosstalk 00:32:12] I went through all of the modules before I took action and now I am finishing up, actually the last of my interviews tomorrow.
Nadia Gabrielle: I love that.
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:32:23] And it was the most useful in this such a great use of my time and we'll get into what it is.
But I just want to say, it's not only giving me insight into how to structure my Services, but it's really helping me see how I can go back and even further defined my "niche" I guess.
And then also tighten up copy and really everything it's really helped me focus on, okay, what exactly are people's problems and how can I help them to fill in the gaps, not just in how I help them, but also in the experience I can provide.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: So all of that [crosstalk 00:32:59].
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:33:02]
Nadia Gabrielle: Well, you said it perfectly. I'm so glad now [crosstalk 00:33:07].
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:33:07] What is Design Thinking to begin with.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. I mean that start ... because Service Design School, it kind of, marries these different disciplines, it's a group program I offer every year.
It was very natural for me to build that curriculum, and that container because Service Design Thinking is part of what I studied at university. And it's part of what I got my degree in.
So, as we said before, I do both Strategy and Capacity. I loved them both. And I think we need both. And that really very much reflects my own background.
So, I've been in the self-development sphere in some capacity for over 12 years now. I started studying the subconscious and subconscious work 11 years ago and I have a degree in Business Building and Design Thinking Service design, and have worked in that field prior to this iteration of my business.
So, Service Design School came to be because I work with a lot of service-based business owners, coaches, therapists, creative consultants, nutritionists, human design, readers, and so on.
And in my work, I could see that there's a lot of my clients were feeling stuck not having that strategy piece, not knowing how to set up their services, not knowing what's important and what the invisible steps are that need to happen in the backend of it really successful profitable service, right?
Because we can't gleen these things just from looking at someone else's website or Instagram.
Naomi Nakamura: Right and exactly what you had said in school, you also can't ask people what they need because they don't know what they need.
Nadia Gabrielle: They don't know what they need. This is a direct quote from one of my teachers. You can't ask people what they need because they don't know. And all of this, I call this the dark matter in the galaxy of the business.
And I love to help people with this and teach this. It's one of the things that I know I'm very good at and that I have a lot of experience and I got to, I have to credit, I got to study, with some of the world's greatest disciplines, which I'm so grateful for.
So, I built Service Design School. I do it once a year and it takes you through the entire step-by-step process of what needs to happen in the backend for a service to be a success in the front end and to be really delightful for your people to experience.
And then, because I'm me, there's also some other elements in there that aren't purely strategic.
So, we talk about entrepreneurial archetypes, we talk about financial capacity, we did a Human Design deep work session. People have really loved it to based on the feedback that I've received and gotten a lot of value from it. So, I'm already excited for the next cohort.
Naomi Nakamura: It was so great. I really enjoyed it. And actually in front of me, I have all of my ... I have printed out all of the worksheets and I've been working through them this week.
Nadia Gabrielle: yay.
Naomi Nakamura: [crosstalk 00:35:49] action.
Nadia Gabrielle: Yes.
Naomi Nakamura: I'm a 1/3 so I eat up all the information, but-
Nadia Gabrielle: You dive in.
Naomi Nakamura: ... Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: You go deep. Yeah. [inaudible 00:36:00] I love that. I loved having you. I remember when we did our deep work and wonderful having you in this cohort.
Naomi Nakamura: Well, I have so enjoyed our conversation today.
Nadia Gabrielle: Me too.
Naomi Nakamura: And I would love for you to share where can people learn more about what you do?
Nadia Gabrielle: Yeah. It's mainly my website www.NadiaGabrielle.com, or my Instagram @_Nadia Gabrielle or of course, if you're a Projector, come find us at @ProjectorsInvited
Naomi Nakamura: Or if you want to learn and understand about Projectors if there's a Projector in your life.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... Yes. If you love a Projector, then please learn about-
Naomi Nakamura: Yes.
Nadia Gabrielle: ... how those energetics work. And that's really it. I'm also actually going to be teaching a Human Design deep work session in July. So, that's going to be fun and that's pretty much it.
Naomi Nakamura: I will have links to all of those things in the show notes.
So, thank you so much. I should say Nadia is in Europe. So, it's very late in the day for her when we are recording this on a Friday. So, I'm encroaching her weekends. So, thank you so much-
Nadia Gabrielle: That was so wonderful.
Naomi Nakamura: ... giving of Your time and for joining me today and appreciate.
Nadia Gabrielle: Thank you so much for having me. And again, thank you for being in Service Design School. It was wonderful having this group and to chat today.
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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