Award winning entrepreneur and bestselling author, Lorraine Murphy founded her first business, The Remarkables Group, in 2012 and grew it to a seven-figure business and BRW Fast Starter. In December 2017, she exited The Remarkables Group in order to pursue her soul-on-fire work – namely speaking, mentoring and running trainings for organisations. She is the bestselling author of two books: Remarkability (2016) and Get Remarkably Organised (2018). With her second business, Remarkability, she takes a GSD (Get Shit Done) approach to life and is on a mission to help those who are ambitious, driven and wanting multi-dimensional success.

Lorraine, in a nutshell, please share with us your story, including business and personal achievements:

My background is PR and comms, and I started my first business – The Remarkables Group – in my spare bedroom in May 2012.  It was like pushing sh*t uphill for the first six months, then we started to gain momentum.  We went on to win a number of awards, including Emerging Agency of the Year and were a BRW Fast Starter.  I published my first book in 2016 and my second in 2018, and in December 2017 I exited TRG to focus full-time on writing, speaking and mentoring.

Tell us about your two books – Remarkability & Get Remarkably Organised – and why you decided to write them?

Remarkability was written for early-stage entrepreneurs and shared my own hard-won lessons from the front line of entrepreneurship.  The intent behind the book was to share my learnings to save others having to figure all that stuff out themselves.  The most popular chapter in that book was the Get Seriously F*cking Organised chapter, and so Book 2 quite organically became Get Remarkably Organised.  It’s essentially an infrastructure for success, and is packed with tips, hacks and habits that I and those I look up to practise every day.

What made you want to move away from The Remarkables Group and pursue working with women in business and mentoring? 

I started The Remarkables Group when the influencer space was in its absolute infancy, and it was a thrilling ride to take it to where it is now.  My gameplan with TRG was to take it global, sell it to a multi-national corporation, work through my earn-out then be able to focus full-time on my “soul-on-fire stuff” – that’s writing, speaking and mentoring.  When our daughter Lexi arrived in June 2017, it made me patently aware of how quickly time goes – and the prospect of driving that gameplan for the next 5-8 years just didn’t excite me anymore.  So I decided to sell the business to my partner, and instead do that soul-on-fire stuff now.  If anyone would like to read more about that journey, I wrote a blog post here about it.

You went to Bali for a few months to take time out  earlier this year – this would have been an amazing experience. What made you head in this direction?

After 6 years of hard-hustling, I needed to stop when the business was sold.  I was already maxing out my capacity in my second business (Remarkability) and I intuitively knew that what was needed was to hit the brakes and regroup for a couple of months.  I also didn’t really take maternity leave as I wrote my second book while on leave from TRG when Lexi was born – so Bali was like my second chance at uninterrupted time with Lexi as well.

Do you miss the high-flying, corporate world?

I’ve never really been part of corporate culture myself as I’ve always sat agency side, however I obviously worked a lot with corporates during my time at The Remarkables Group.  I still get to be part of it with the training and speaking I do with corporates, and it’s fun to dip in and out.

How do you juggle being a busy career woman and being a Mum – how do you fit it all in? 

My first rule is that I don’t juggle – the word juggle stresses me out no-end, as it’s impossible to do successfully, unless we’ve had a past stint as a circus performer.  It also drives me nuts that my husband has never, ever been asked how he manages “the juggle” between Lexi and his business.  Instead I choose to “blend” my business and our family, and it feels like a much more achievable and tangible practise.  We have no family support around us, however we’ve been so lucky to have incredible nannies who have taken wonderful care of Lexi.  To fit it all in, I need to be organised – otherwise life very quickly descends into a shitfight.  I also prioritise the people, projects and business ventures I engage with ruthlessly, as time is my biggest resource that can get drained terrifyingly quickly if I don’t guard it carefully.

And what’s next for Lorraine Murphy. You’ve achieved so much over the past few years – what’s next on the agenda? 

I’m building out my second business, Remarkability – which houses all of my speaking, writing, mentoring and training.  Part of that is Remarkability Clann, which is the model I’ve designed especially to support and educate ambitious entrepreneurs.  I’m also running my first Bali retreat in November, and will be running another in early 2019.  And Book 3 needs to be written as well!

What do you do in your spare time?

Hang with Lexi, eat, yoga, read.

Coast or City?

I thought Coast, however our Gold Coast move didn’t quite pan out so we’re headed back for Sydney – so apparently I’m City!

First car?

Mazda 121

• The value of routine and habits
• Easy decluttering
• Tips for planning your week and managing your day
• Conquering distractions
• Overcoming procrastination