Spotlight Series

Guest Name: Sarah Asay

Experienced in: Filmmaker, Web Designer, Event Coordinator, Hospitality Manager, Florist, Marketer, and Interior Designer

All right, welcome Sarah. Thank you so much for being on our Best in Utah Pelvic Health series here, spotlight series that we’re doing, and I’m excited to introduce you to our audience here, read your bio, and then we’ll jump into the questions to get to really know you. Awesome, thanks.

Yes. Okay, so Sarah has been a successful entrepreneur since her teens. She is an experienced filmmaker, web designer, event coordinator, hospitality manager, florist, marketer, and interior designer.

She is passionate about women’s rights and choices in childbirth and hosts Utah’s largest and longest running pregnancy and birth conference and expo. She is also passionate about helping heart-based entrepreneurs build the business of their dreams. Together with her team, she founded Soul Seed Academy, an exclusive individualized and revolutionary business accelerator, incubator, and community designed to guide women with heart-based businesses to focus their insights and resources to build a business that fulfills them, creates financial stability, and establishes a legacy.

Beautiful. Awesome. Thank you, Sarah, so much for being on here today.

Thank you. Yeah. First question off the bat, what made you decide to do this? How did you get in this role? I mean, honestly, I used to be embarrassed about all the things I did because when I tell people, yeah, I’m interested in flowers and I have a wedding business and I do this, people would be like, well, why don’t you just focus on one thing or why don’t you just, you know, oh, that seems like a lot.

And sometimes I hear that in my youngers because I’m super ancient at this point, right? Like I really do have these experiences. I’ve been, you know, an adult for longer than I wasn’t an adult. So it’s, I can really say that I’ve done all these things and done them well, but I hear young people say, oh, I do this and this and this, and the people around them go, oh, okay.

And my first thing is I wish I could go back and tell myself, no, like really do follow your dreams, follow like what’s new and exciting. I guess I tell my, I don’t really tell myself anything. I, I just kind of go with something until I figured it out and it becomes boring.

And then I go to the next thing. So. Amazing.

Serial entrepreneur there for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

I love business. I love opportunity. I love when somebody can create something out of nothing.

That’s really the spirit of entrepreneurship that I love is creating something out of nothing. Love it. Love it.

Awesome. Yeah. What, um, what do you feel like makes you different in what you’re doing? Um, well, in my industry, I’m a woman.

So I learned very interestingly. Uh, I don’t know. I guess I, I do tell, I just told my daughter yesterday, I was born with the gift of being too stupid to know.
I couldn’t. So my daughter’s like, I don’t have that problem, mom. And I’m like, yeah, sorry for that problem.

But no, I was born with just this, um, this love of life and just, it’s not that nobody ever told me I couldn’t do things. It’s just, it just didn’t hear them or it didn’t stick. The ADHD is really helpful, helpful in a lot of ways.

And so I would just do things. And, um, I learned really the difference in how women do business. When I started a tech company about eight years ago, and I was going to pitch at pitch events, I was trying to raise money for, um, for a series of funding to do some, you know, techie things.

And I would go to these pitched events and would not be able to get any traction. And I would go to these network events and I would talk to these mentors and they would just, as soon as like this snot face, you know, kid comes up with a widget idea, they would turn their focus to that, that, that 23 year old kid. Um, usually a BYU, a male BYU student.

I found that trend to be big, but, um, and I would just be like, Hey, wait a minute, here I am, you know, late thirties, really, really solid in what I’m doing and financially secure. And I can’t get the help and attention from mentors or resources. And so I started, um, I was like, well, if I can’t do it, then what, what are my sisters supposed to do? What are, what are women supposed to do? And so I started Soul Seed Academy as an innovative business, innovative business incubator, just for women and women do business differently.

So it’s like, how am I different? Well, I guess I’m actually not that different other than I’m different in the world that I’m in, that I’m a woman, but different in believing that women do business differently natively, and we need to learn how our brain works and how we can, and it’s not a, you know, damn the patriarchy type of thing. It’s no, what do we do best as women? How does, how do our brains process business? How can we best serve our community? Amazing. Amazing.

So cool. So cool. Okay.

Um, who would you say is an ideal fit for you? Obviously women, but like, is there a certain like category birth worker, like elaborate more on that? I love birth workers. My solution to world hunger and world peace is to fix birth and to fix birth. We have to keep birth workers in business.

So ultimately keeping birth workers in business. I love working with birth workers because birth workers tend to think, well, anybody with a belly, I can serve. And that’s actually not true.

And the more widespread you are and the more bleeding heart you are, the actually the less effective you are. You could, you know, so, well, the bleeding heart is, it’s great. You got to have a passion, but you can only wake up at 3am so many times to be bled on, you know, for a hundred dollars before you fizzle out.

So if we can keep birth workers in business, then we can change the world. And it’s not just doulas and midwives. I work a lot with those, but it’s also massage therapists, pelvic floor specialists.

It’s also working with partners and helping them understand the birth journey. So I love, um, but I love working with any woman who has a purpose driven business and not just like, I want to go make a million dollars. And actually a lot of women are not very monetarily driven when you get really to the core of it.

They are driven by the need to want to remove pain from those they love. So even me, I want to remove pain from birth workers so they can stay sustainable so that they can thrive. So love that.

That’s so great. Okay. Um, what does the process look like to work with you and your company? Like how does someone stumble into this and be like, Oh, this is exactly what I need.

And how do I do this? Dumble is a good word. Cause we don’t do any paid advertising. I believe in something called relationship marketing and we teach it really, really strongly in our, in our Academy, in our retreats, in our coaching, how to do relationship marketing.

So, um, we have a retreat. A lot of people love to just come to the first retreat. We call it a business breakthrough retreat because we rattle your mind.

It’s all, it’s a weekend in the round with other women that are passionate and driven. And, um, we help you relanguage your thoughts around who you are and your strengths and how you show up, um, for the world. And once the retreats, I mean, the retreat is our, basically our gift to the world.

You can, you know, we don’t say you have to have a business or you have to, Nope. If you feel, um, drawn to it, then come. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, you don’t have to have any qualifications.

And then in the, the Academy, we have two levels. We have the first level, which is women who just starting out. And I love women who just have something on their heart.

They just, they have never started a business or, um, they have a job, but they’re like wanting to do something on the side. They just, their heart is yearning to do something. And so we take them from idea to traction and traction means that you’re proving that people want what you want, what you’re trying to sell.

So, um, we take them through a program. We build their website for them. We do social media, we do video, all their branding, and we help them with a main project to prove traction.

So that’s level one. Level two is women who have been going, um, but they’ve hit kind of their own glass ceiling. Either they’ve run out of time.

Um, their family needs more from them or they get pregnant or like just the ebb and flow of, you know, our lives and they have hit a max and they can’t have any more impact, but their business it’s either grow or shrink at that point. Right. And so we help them systemize and amplify the good they’re doing through, um, building standard operating procedures and helping them on the back end systemize some things so that they can continue to grow.

Cause that’s the biggest lie we tell ourselves as women is the bigger our, the bigger our boat, the harder we have to row. And it’s not that, it’s not that true. Totally.

I can, I can. Yeah. I vouch for that.

We don’t just, we don’t just educate. We don’t just coach. This isn’t just to come, listen to us, talk at you.

This isn’t an online recording. This is, this is actually a done with you program. All of our classes are live.

You come and we actually work. We teach you how to do it. Cause we want you to teach your, your, um, your community and your children to build this legacy.

Right. So we teach you how to do things and then we do them with you. Amazing.

Love that. That’s amazing. Okay.

Um, next question that I have for you, um, is what is something that most people don’t know that you, um, that you think that they should know about your services? I don’t know. I think, um, I think people get wrapped up in, well, I’ve got to have a fancy website or I got to have this logo. Otherwise I’m not legit.

There’s like a lot of imposter syndrome. And I think that, um, most people don’t realize the importance of community in business. Like we know we should have a community of postpartum around us.

We know we, you know, we need to have our mom friends. We need to have our church friends or whatever it is, but we forget, or we don’t think that we need them in business. And we really do like, you can’t do this alone.

You have to do this in a community. So yeah, 100%. Okay.

Um, is there anything special that you want to promote to the audience watching here? No special promotion. What does that mean? Any upcoming event that you have? Oh, yes. Okay.

Yes. I can, I can, oh, this is where I can promote. This is fun.

Um, so I love relationship marketing, meaning word of mouth. So I guess you’re hearing it straight from my mouth. This is your, this is your invitation, but we’re having a retreat on January 24th and 25th.

It’s in Provo, Utah. It’s all the foods included because we want you to have to go out and find some weird lunch, come stay, eat our gourmet chefs cooking, um, and, and spend two days just listening and loving and everything. Um, if you’re listening right now, I can give you a scholarship because again, the retreat is our gift to the community to just help women just plant the seeds of what can be possible.

I have a record this week. I, somebody showed up in my Zoom room and I was like, hi. And she said, I came to the retreat a couple of years ago.

I was like, I think it’s longer. And I looked her up four and a half years, four and a half years ago, she came to the retreat and she’s now reaching out and saying, Hey, I would like to be involved. I’m ready.

Now I’m ready four and a half years later. And so the retreat is just like a place where you can plant the seeds. Even if you’re not ready right now to start a business, if you feel like you’re being called to do something like that, um, or, or you would just want to learn more about business, then come to the retreat.

How often do you do your retreats? Um, we do them about every quarter. So yeah. So January one, then we have some in, um, April.

Great. Awesome. Okay.

Um, next question is my favorite question to ask everyone is what is the main thing that you want to be known for? Ooh, this is a really good question because I tell my team, um, I don’t do these, these interviews very often. I’m doing it because I love Betty. Um, but I, this is not the Sarah show.

What I build is not all about Sarah. It’s not, I’m not like the next Tony Robbins. I don’t strive to be this big, well-known coach or anything.

It’s about like, for me, it’s about building a team. So there’s 17 people on this whole C team now. And, um, when we each hit, hit rough patches in our lives or, you know, even vacations or things come in, come and go, we, we stick together as a cohesive force to help people.

And, um, I, I don’t want to be known for like, Oh, Sarah built this huge business. I want to be, I want the business itself to be a catalyst for good. I want people to say, my life was changed for good because I was involved with social academy and the same with the birth events, but I used to host huge birth events.

I would try and stay pretty much under the radar because to me, it’s not about like me. I didn’t, I didn’t build this with my own. Look at this.

I am not muscular. Um, I built, I did this with my community. I did this with everybody coming together to collaborate.

Am I, my, I might have been the one with the vision starting out, but I don’t build this alone. I’m not a vacuum. You know, I go live in a, we are on the same wavelength there.

I feel like it’s the same thing for me too. I’m like, I don’t want it to be me. I want it to be reborn and what reborn is doing for the community.

So very similar, all the emotions right there. I’m like, yes, yes, yes, yes. Like when you read the bio, yes, I have done all those things and they’ve all been a really important part of my life, but they’ve all made it so I can be the person to be part of this movement we’re creating.

I say, I want to be the tugboat that, that pulls the cruise ship out to sea. Like, like you don’t know me, I’m nameless, but the movement that we create together as a team, as a community changes the ripple effect. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. Words to my soul for that. Okay.

Um, and then how and where can we find you? Social media, website, all the things like that. Yeah. So, um, social media, anything, Soul Seed Academy, I think we’re even on X. I’m, I’m really proud of my team.

They’re like, wait, are we on LinkedIn yet? I’m like, I don’t know. Are we? We’re on LinkedIn too. Um, uh, you can find me personally on Facebook, Sarah AC, but just, um, Soul Seed Academy everywhere.

There’s places where you can text us or email us and tell us your dreams and tell us like what you’ve got. No, nothing is dumb. In fact, when you come to the retreat on Friday morning, um, one of the warnings we give you is you get to introduce yourself to the group, of course, but we say, don’t, if you have something on your heart that you secretly want to do, we want to hear it now because I don’t want to get to Saturday afternoon realizing that we’ve been working on the wrong business all weekend.

And you have to come back to another retreat. And so I want to hear about your dreams. Like women will say, well, I just have this secret, like, what if, what if I could do this? And then they actually do it.

Yeah. So reach out and tell us. I mean, even if it’s like the secret thing, you’re like, well, but it would never work.

Really? Well, I’m sorry. I won’t mock you, but really you think it will never work. I I’ve gotten the honor to hear so many crazy, absurd dreams that actually come true.

It’s amazing. Love it. All the things.

Thank you so much, Sarah, for being on here. Thank you for what you’re doing in the community here. And it was a pleasure talking with you again.

Thank you so much.