768 Kim Woods:

What can astrology tell us about our fortunes in business? Turns out JP Morgan may have been right when he said millionaires don’t have astrologers -billionaires do.  So today we look at what the stars can tell us about 2023, how to recession-proof your business, and much more with my guest today, the business coach and leading astrologer Kim Woods. We explore the 2023 theme of power – and how to align yourself to your own unique power to manifest success, love and money.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock, and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game-changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring and intuitive entrepreneur who is an oracle, healer, and business strategist. Kim Woods combines her 25+ years of C-suite executive experience and track record building several 7-figure brick and mortar businesses with her intuitive abilities and accolades as an astrologer.

As you plan your 2023 for your business and life, Kim will share what astrological trends you should be aware of – whatever your sign – plus important insights on best and worst timing to make decisions and launch products in 2023.

As entrepreneurs we can always use all the help we can get, right? So, what if the ever-changing alignment of the planets and stars in the sky gave you the edge – when to launch products, sign contracts, who to hire, when to lay low and when to shine bright?

Turns out there is much astrology can tell us to optimize and supercharge our success, and today we look in depth at what is in store for us in 2023 – and how best to align yourself, whatever your sign, for success.

Kim Woods weaves business strategy with intuitive knowing and modalities such as astrology to help her clients earn more money, and claim their brilliance. She’s advised more than 150 corporate executives and helped her clients to more than 65 million in sales, pairing her MBA and countless master-level intuitive certifications with 25+ years of C- suite business experience and entrepreneurial success building multiple 7-figure brick & mortar businesses.  Kim grew up in a family that kept astrology books on the coffee table, and she says if it involves cards, crystals or flower essences, she’s certified in it.

So today Kim is our guide to what the stars say about 2023 – hint it’s the year of power, so we’ll talk about how to step into your true unique powers. We deep dive into what months are best to push your business forward, and what months to lay low, plus how to prosper in a recession.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Kim Woods and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Kim, welcome back to Wings.

Kim Woods:

Melinda, it’s so good to be back.

Melinda Wittstock:

I am excited to talk to you because the stars, astrology can have a big impact on how we’re doing in our businesses. What are some of the trends you’re seeing as we all as founders, as business owners plan for 2023? What are some of the big trends you’re seeing that we should all be aware of, no matter our signs? No matter our particular charts. What should we be looking at?

Kim Woods:

Well, the theme for 2023 is power. And so what you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to align with your particular strengths. And we could say that that’s a typical, of course that’s what we want to do every year. But this year is going to be particularly important, because we know that there are ups and downs with finance and the economy right now. Right? There’s ups and downs with investments. There’s media. I wish the media would stop talking about recession, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. They make it real. The more we talk about it, the more it just becomes a reality. Yeah?

Kim Woods:

Exactly right? And so if you’re wanting to get the most out of this year, you’re going to want to be recession proof. And the stars can help you do that. And there’s particular timing this year that is super helpful for you to realize that you do not need to waiver. You do not need to change your pricing. You do not need to give deep discounts. Because when you are standing in your value, people will recognize the stability. And they’ll recognize your fortitude, and they’ll start to flock to you.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s so important. Because a lot of people go into panic. When you go into fear and scarcity, it shuts you down. It makes you uncertain. Nobody really wants to do business with an uncertain business.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. And even if you’re not talking about it, people can sense it. And so the word would be unwaveringly standing in your power. I guess it’s more than a word. It’s a whole sentence, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And so knowing your power, this is everything from what’s your purpose, but also what’s your unique genius.

Kim Woods:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Doubling down on that. And like we talk about on this podcast a lot, hiring or delegating the rest. So getting clarity on that, if you don’t have it.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. And the stars help you do that. So the stars can help you with strategy. We just talked about the theme being power. But the intentions of 2023 are success, love, and money. Right? Aren’t those delicious? I mean haven’t been able to say something like that for years. So I’m really excited about that.

And the stars can help you in decision-making. Knowing who to work with and how to work with them. Knowing who to sell to and how to sell to them. Knowing when to and how to delegate. Helps with planning. Knowing all the timing, when’s a good time to launch? When’s not a good time to launch? And they actually help with two other things that most people don’t think about. The stars can help you to ease difficulties. Maybe you need to let somebody go, or maybe you need to have a difficult conversation with a client. There are good times and good ways to do that, that can really help you.

Just humor me for one moment. I’ll talk about a client. She’s pivoting from a very successful real estate firm. And she’s relocating geographically, but she’s also changing industries. And so she needed to tell her team. She needed to disclose to her broker that she was working with. And so we looked at ways and when to do that. And when she had those discussions, not only did she find placement for her team members, which she didn’t need to do obviously. But she did anyway. She found a partner that she had worked with 10 years ago. They had had a whole different, they’re actually competitors. But because we timed it appropriately and we did in the right way, they’re now going to partner, and she’s going to be able to have a referral business just as a passive income. Ours helped with that.

Melinda Wittstock:

That is so interesting. When we think about though, just going back to this theme of recession, I’ve always believed, and it’s born out through history, that a lot of the best businesses really sees market share in a recession. I tend to see it as an opportunity.

Kim Woods:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

So when I think of say an element of my own business, Podopolo, which is advertising where we’re able to completely revolutionize the way advertising is placed on podcasts in the context of making sure that the ads are hyper relevant and helpful for audiences, but also done in a really beautiful creative way. But also for the advertising, knowing with predictability that they’re able to reach exactly the type of audiences that they wish to reach.

Now in a recession where you see all these people, Snapchat’s ads are down, Facebook’s ads are down, or whatever, you could easily get freaked out in that. But I regard that as an incredible opportunity because people want something better in that context. They want a better return on their investment.

So I just use that as an example. Many, many businesses, when you look at the sort of things in that kind of scenario. It’s doubling down like you said, on your strengths not only as an individual, but what is the unique differentiation of your business. That’s better that you can use that kind of recessionary thing to get better results for your clients at a time when they’re more conscious of how they’re spending.

Kim Woods:

Absolutely. I mean, every single recession historically, I’ve doubled and tripled my income and the results from my clients.

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting.

Kim Woods:

Just because of what you’re saying, Melinda. You stay in your lane. You don’t get swept up in the chaos. You don’t get swept up in, “The best thing or the trends.” I mean, knowing what trends are doing, and happening, and where they’re going is obviously important. But not to be swept up on them. To be in your own unique, I love how you say your own unique value.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Because people are looking for value in a recession. So that’s your time to really shine in that case, and in your full differentiation. So getting back to the stars, love, money, and success is what you said are the themes around this whole concept of power and being in your power. A lot of women are afraid of the word power. Men are not afraid of that. Men, it’s okay. It’s not a bad thing to want it. But I rarely hear a woman talking about power.

Kim Woods:

I know. We’re doing so much to help remove the stigma maybe. I don’t know if it’s stigma is the right word, but that’s the way we’re addressing it. We’re addressing the fear of it. The fear of success, the fear of money, the fear of power. And of course if somebody were sitting here listening, they would say, “I’m not afraid.” And then you could point out ways that, guess what? If you’re not speaking up in meetings. If you’re not delegating, which I love you talk about delegating. If you’re not enabling your people to be as big and as powerful as they can be, and as confident as they can be. If you’re making yourself small in any ways, if you’re putting other people’s needs in front of your own, all these ways are things that are examples of you giving your power away. And when I start talking about these details, people start nodding. They say, “Oh yes. Yeah, that’s me. I haven’t really stepped up. I walk into a room of collaborators and I question why I’m there.”

Melinda Wittstock:

So it’s always a time to get rid of all those things, whether they’re subconscious limiting beliefs. Often they are subconscious limiting beliefs that dictate how we actually show up in the world. I want to pick up on the theme of love though. And how love, it’s not just romantic love. But how businesses can be infused with love. How we treat people, how we treat ourselves, the relationships with our clients. Talk a little bit about that, seeing if that’s a theme of the year.

Kim Woods:

Yes. There’s so many people that I, clients and prospective clients or followers that I mention about client appreciation, or generosity in the marketplace. When there are so much conversation about lack, about the recession, about things that are happening out in the economy, this is when it gets illuminated and amplified, unfortunately.

But this is when you want to then go even further with that. You want to be even more appreciative and express it. You want to be even more generous, and also overtly do something about that. We’re actually in our annual forecast for the first time this year. We’re going to charge $7 for this 35 page ebook for an hour long live. It’s probably going to go to an hour and a half because I’ll do it to Q&A, for a ritual to help you to align with the power of the year. And we’re charging $7 for that. But we’re giving the net proceeds to Women for Women International because they help war torn countries after the crisis. They do a crisis impact. But then a lot of times when the crisis is over, people move on. But they actually help the women and children after that. And so we are going to give the proceeds because this is what you want to do when times are quote unquote “tight.”

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s beautiful. I think the more we get into a spirit of abundance rather than scarcity, the better we do. The more we give. Ideally not from an empty place, but from a truly abundant place. The better everybody does. Everybody wins. But that can seem counterintuitive in going back to this theme of a recession, where people kind of close down. It’s the exact opposite is the right thing to do.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. And think about that word love. You’re expressing love for yourself first. Of course, fill yourself up. We could have chosen any charity, or we could have chosen any sort of thing. This is my favorite thing to do all year.

So this was something that will fill me up probably tenfold from any impact that we’re going to be able to do, which will be significant because we’ll have thousands and thousands of people there. But also too, we are actually generously doing something. My team convinced me to do this, Melinda. I’m really excited about it. We’re going to do an annual star pass. It’s a one-time fee of $77 for the entire year. Now you know that I’m a five figure girl. Working with me is usually a significant investment. But we said, “Nope, you know what?”

We’re going to be super generous and we’re going to do four live events throughout the year. One of them is to going to help people build their success map based on the 2023 stars. Another one is going to be retrograde survival kit. The third one’s going to be becoming recession-proof. And the fourth one is going to be manifesting. And I like to say manifesting like a mofo, but manifesting what you want in your intentions. And we’re going to be giving bonuses away and doing points, and we’re going to have chances to win star peaks with me. And I cannot tell you how excited I am for this.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s amazing. I mean I think about business in the same way. Because just even in the a business model, if your business model has it baked in just even to what you do to make the world a better place, that giving or social impact is part of your business say. Or that in our case, our really core mission is to allow podcasters to actually make money from podcasting when 85% don’t. So one of our metrics is how much money are our podcasters making? How can we make them more? And that’s not about how we can make… we do well by doing that, but they do well and that’s the driving principle.

Kim Woods:

I love that.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I mean so many businesses don’t think that way. It’s kind of like, “Oh no, no. How much can I, me, me, me, me, me?” Right? But if you flip that and it’s like what abundance are you spreading, that comes back anyway. And apart from anything else, it feels good.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. And we started this part of the conversation around love. And I’ll tell you energetically love, money, and success. It’s the same energy, honestly. So when you’re working on one, it’s really easy to then just fold in the other two.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true. So a lot of people listening to this podcast right now may have very different ideas about astrology. So in simple terms, there’s the thing that shows up in your FlipBoard, or the horoscopes in the newspaper or whatever. It’s like okay, and it’s all based on your sun sign, and it’s pretty simplistic. Right? So that doesn’t really tell you all that much. So take me through, and everybody through what you actually need to understand about your own chart. And all the difference. It’s very complex.

Kim Woods:

It is. What I say, when you get to the chart level for your own, that’s when you want to follow astrology. You want somebody to interpret it for you, because I tell people it takes five years and 5,000 hours to be able to really walk through something at that level.

So what do we do? We actually do a weekend tip on Insta. We do a one-minute weekly forecast on LinkedIn. We do a three minute going a little bit deeper on Facebook. We do this every single week. We write a monthly blog which gives you weekly tips of what to access, what energies you want to bring in, what you want to avoid. And then we give tips. And it takes me hundreds of hours to do the annual forecast. But each month, I open up the month and it probably takes me a handful of hours to do that. And then each week, it takes me at least a half an hour to reopen the weekly energies.

So when you’re following somebody who does this level of detail, you can get, an example would be this week you want to take some extra time to communicate because communication will be a little bit difficult. Or this week is an excellent week to sell and-

Melinda Wittstock:

These are things you can derive from just a simple sunshine, not the ascendant, or your moon, or where you have Jupiter going on. That kind of thing.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. I mean of course if you want to get to that level, of course you can come closer into our container. But this is for anybody. I do this so that everybody can benefit. And I take so much time and I look at things across centuries, because the stars speak to themselves over a big expanse of time. And I make sure that it is as accurate as it possibly can be.

And so in the past, in 2020, that timing that we had, I said, “We’re going to remember our lives before 2020. We’re going to remember our lives after 2020.” And about March, I had said, “You’re not going to be able to breathe. It’s going to be so tight for so many months”

Melinda Wittstock:

So there’s the astrology of the world I guess, and all that energy. And then it’s you in relation to it, I guess.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. Exactly. And we do offer both. I like to help people access it as readily as they can and as easily as they can. And I love it when I can give a tip that fits in a back pocket. We have something called these intuitive types that go into the stars a little bit more. And we’ve identified things at that level too, so that people can take away a little bit more of that uniqueness without having to have their particular chart read and interpreted.

Melinda Wittstock:

So for somebody, a business owner, an entrepreneur that really wants to deep dive into this. So there’s your own chart, astrology and all the things. And then there’s that of your team. Maybe it’s of your business as well like I don’t know, the date you were incorporated or something. Yeah. So when you’re doing your five figure stuff, talk to me about that. That level of sophistication and all the different things that you’ve got to factor in there.

Kim Woods:

Oh yeah. So our work together starts with me walking into your stars, and I channel the voice of your soul. Because we go back to the purity of you. What is your full potential, and where are you living it, and where are you not living it? What are your money signatures? What is your leadership style? What is your communication amplification? How to go to the market space? What is your sales savvy? I mean, all these things are written in the stars. We start there, and then we build the strategy based on that.

So with our ongoing clients in the 101 container, right now, the top of the year, I’m doing the major star events that will impact the world. And then helping people pivot their businesses and their lives with that. And then I go into their unique, how it’s hitting their Jupiter, and their Saturn, and their moon for the year. So it does get very layered.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, we’re hiring a lot of people right now, and it’s really vital that they are the right people in the right place, team of A players, but that they can all really collaborate really well together. So how does astrology help with something like hiring? Do people do this? Because I know just even in hiring practices, you’re not really supposed to even by law ask someone their birth date.

Kim Woods:

Right, exactly. So I’ll be honest with you. So my clients, they’ll come to me with somebody’s name or maybe their LinkedIn profile. If it’s working with somebody, or a client, or a collaborator, or should I hire a PR specialist? I go into their energies. So I’ve been doing this for decades. So without even looking at your stars, I can tell you exactly what the person’s strengths are, and what their relative weaknesses are. And then the business owner can determine whether that’s a fit or not.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s interesting. So that’s a skill or a talent you have beyond astrology?

Kim Woods:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So you’re combining a few different modalities here.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. I mean, first of all, I have 25 years of C-suite experience in the business arena. So I have all that strategic, all that business expertise. And then I have the astrology, which is very oracle-like. It’s very predictive, as well as it is analytical and people can really open to that. But then I am an intuitive, so I just know

Melinda Wittstock:

So let’s back it up a little bit and look at the breakout 2023. Are there any kind of patterns through the year to be aware of from January through to December next year, that we should be looking out for? Peaks, valleys trends. Just on that world dimension of things.

Kim Woods:

So I come up with a movie theme of the year. And this year, it’s Jerry Maguire, right? Isn’t that super fun? Show me the money. I think that’s really great. So that’s an overarching thematic.

And it goes back to what we talked to before is when you think about the texture of that movie, he chose himself and he chose what was right for him. So we already spoke to that.

But underneath that umbrella, we have excellent months. January, February. January does have a mercury retrograde. But as long as you’re clear with communication, excellent, excellent month. I’m telling all of my clients that third and fourth week of January, go for the gold. Literally launch, do all the things that you’d like to come to fruition. And then other really great months, another really great month excuse me is June. The months to tread softly. March is the biggest impact month this year. And then May and July, you do want to take things cautiously. Let’s just say that.

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay. And what’s happening in March?

Kim Woods:

If you want to get astrological, March, we have two major planets that are changing signs. One of them being Pluto. And he hasn’t changed signs since 2008. And on the world stage, he is impacting everything that’s going on right now. And he’s literally saying, “We need to transform institutions, power structures. We need to overcome greed.” Think about all the things that are happening. “Oh Pluto. Hello, here you are.” And the good news is once we get over this rumble of the change, then the trends are going to be much more humanitarian based, much more inclusive, much more innovative, much more problem-solving and coming up with solutions, versus just bemoaning the problems.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well that sounds good.

Kim Woods:

It sounds good. Pluto is not kind as he moves through the Zodiac though, so we’re going to want to strap in a little bit.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well it’s interesting because right now in a business environment, you see these Goliaths struggling, all of a sudden. You see command controlled management systems faltering. I watch Elon Musk with Twitter. What?

Kim Woods:

I know. I know.

Melinda Wittstock:

And you see these big companies. I think there’s tremendous, and I felt this for a long time, that was coming for a long, long time. That just before a very big change, the people who are threatened by that change are at their loudest in opposition to it. And I feel like we’re in this kind of weird sort of Titanic struggle, if you will.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. The good news, and I can get a little bit into sun signs here. The good news for any Capricorns or any earthly signs that would be Taurus and Virgo, and Capricorn. We’ve been struggling to make things happen. It’s almost been like we’ve been managing a mountain if you will, for the last decade or so. And that aquarium energy is going to be so welcome, because it’s going to make things so much easier.

So you can think about that for business too, because it has that same kind of solid foundation in the pillars of what you put in place. So businesses that are nimble, businesses that are flexible, businesses that are at the basis, I’m going to say this word is going to seem ridiculous. Good for the betterment of others.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Kim Woods:

Make bank. Absolutely make bank.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s good news. I’ve felt that in a long time. And I’ve also thought that women entrepreneurs are supremely placed, because we tend to come up with business models, businesses that are more about that. And with more inclusive and relational and empathetic management styles. And just really more focused on that. And I think that I guess archetypal feminine energy is coming into prominence. Do you see that as well?

Kim Woods:

Absolutely. This is what our whole leadership style and our success methodology is based on. And I can go back to the stars. As of the solstice in December of 2020, we will never go back to the male autocratic model. And you just talked about, “Well, it seems to be really loud out there right now.” Let’s talk about the dying breath of that actually, Melinda. Because the future is that feminine energy. And it doesn’t just mean that women. It’s the feminine energy of following our instincts. It’s the feminine energies of collaborating. It’s the recognition of that infinite, limitless abundance versus that lack. It’s the beautiful creation cycle versus just expand, expand, expand. So this energy is here, and it’s going to get stronger and stronger.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh. It’s so funny because just in the hiring process that I’m in the midst of right now, one of the things I did about a year ago was write the vivid vision for Podopolo, imagining where we were. It was done in Thanksgiving 2025. And it’s just like what the company, who we’re being, what the company is, what we’ve accomplished, who we are, the impact that we’ve made on the world. And this just flew from me. also really digging deep in the early stages of the company in terms of really defining what our core values are as a company, and then how do we operationalize those values.

So it’s not just sticking them up on a website. But it’s like, “Okay, so how are these core to everything we do. How we make decisions, how we show up in the world, how we communicate.” Just that layer, operational layer of the company. And it’s been amazing how many people that have just been attracted to the company as a result of that. And a lot of men. Like what you said, men who are desperate for that more collegial, collaborative kind of abundance, ability to just lift each other up, not be in an egoic place. These sorts of things. It’s like, “Yeah, I want to work for that company.”

Kim Woods:

When we say feminine, we don’t say female. Because it is for everyone. And some people have it more naturally. Like you have it more naturally. And other peoples are going to have to stretch a little bit. But I will tell you, you want to know about a trend? This is the one.

Melinda Wittstock:

So interesting. So you mentioned June being a particularly fortuitous month. What’s going on in June?

Kim Woods:

Well, Jupiter is the good luck charm star. And he comes to the fore, and he does some really awesome things in June. So June is a good month. If you’re looking at timing and you’re saying, “Well, I’m not really positioned to take advantage of that January, February timeframe.” Then I would look at June. It’s an excellent month to connect, excellent month to sell, excellent month to launch. I will say that you will get more benefit doing it in June or even the beginning of July, than you will as you go further on in the year. Further on in the year, it just becomes a little bit constrained. We have some planets that are going retrograde, which means that they seem to me moving backwards. Which means that they hold the energies a little bit more tightly. You’re not going to get the ease of expansion that you will.

So if you’re thinking about timing and you’re thinking, “Well, I could either do something at the beginning of that summertime,” if we’re in the northern hemisphere. Or I could do it towards the end, but I’m not really sure. Load it into June.

Melinda Wittstock:

So say in the realm of sun signs, say when you were talking about Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, these being earth signs. So there is earth signs, fire signs, water signs, air signs. So why don’t we group them like that? And are there particular trends around those energies? What should air signs? Let’s start with air.

Kim Woods:

Yeah. So the air signs are Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. So this year is going to be a boon for you because you’re going to find it to be more fluid, and you like that. You’re going to find it to be easier to connect. You’re going to like that. But, your challenge is going to be not getting swept up in the chaos. You want to make sure that you create quiet time for yourself, that you are more intentional that you tend to be. You do that, and you’ll be powerhouses.

Now for the water signs, we have cancer, we have Scorpio, and we have Pisces. The water signs are going to feel a little bit of a push and pull that’s more than the air signs, but less than you felt over the last few years. So you are going to feel the lift, because it does feel like there’s more breadth this year. However, if you look too much externally and don’t take time to get your validation internally, then you could follow something or someone that may not be to your benefit.

Now for fire signs, fire signs, it’s really interesting about fire signs because we talk about power as the theme. And we talk about love, success, and money. And those fire signs of Aries, of Leo, and of Sagittarius just adore this conversation. They just think it’s the best thing ever. And I will say authenticity is the key, and integrity too.

So what can happen sometimes, I adore that Arians, the Leos, and the Sagis, they get swept up. And they’ll tend to maybe over-promise because they’ll say, “It will all work out. No worries.” There may not be [inaudible 00:31:17] underneath them. Well in 2023, they’re going to want to make sure that they take calculated risks. They don’t over-promise.

And then for those earthly energies, I did talk about the Plutonian effect for those Taurians, those Virgos, and those Capricorns. But there are other effects too. The earthly energies love things to be known, to be practical, to be predictable. And so the earthly signs, you’re going to want to adopt some of the characteristics of the air signs and go with the flow a little bit more. Because when you go with the flow, that’s when you’re stepping into your future.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so good. So what about people who are really cuspy? I’m thinking, I’m right on the cusp between say Cancer and Leo.

Kim Woods:

Interesting.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I have a really complicated chart. I mean, I know that about myself. Just even numerologically, there are apparent contradictions in it.

Kim Woods:

I love that. I love that. So you know what? You wanted to have a very robust experience in this time. So you were like, “Okay, you know what? I’m going to experience all the things.” And so you made yourself super cuspy.

So this is where when you know only your sun sign. You want to be reading what anybody’s talking about. A really qualified astrologer is talking about each one of those signs. But then after that, you’d want to get a little bit deeper. Because again, for your type, you want to have that layered and that textured experience. So, if you’re super cuspy and complicated Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think I am actually. Not least of which. Everyone thinks I’m an extrovert. I’m actually a really deep introvert. And there are aspects of me that are so Leo, and there’s other aspects of me that are so Cancer. I love gardening, and calm, quiet time.

Kim Woods:

Yeah. I love that. I love that. Well, this is where if someone out there or you yourself want to get more detailed on this, that’s when you’d want to say, “Okay, you know what?” Maybe I do need an astrologer that works-

Melinda Wittstock:

I probably do.

Kim Woods:

Right?

Melinda Wittstock:

But then there’s other things too. When you look at your whole chart. Like in my case, I’m all water, air, fire. There’s just no earth. And having come to understand that sometime back, it’s like okay. So that means that it’s really important for me to find things that help me be grounded, or other people on the team that balance that energy. Right? My EA is all earth all the time, for instance. The exact opposite of me.

Kim Woods:

100%. 100%. Yeah. So you gardening is perfect, right? So in the pleasurable way, it doesn’t always have to be, “Well gee, I need to buckle down and get earthly. No, I can find things that will actually bring me joy too.”

And yes, I love how you just said about your team members, because my team has been built energetically. I went out and I just intuitively gathered my team, and we fit together perfectly. Now, a lot of people can’t do that because they don’t have this much experience in doing things intuitively. But going back to, “Gee, you know what? I don’t like handling details.” Then you want to find somebody who handles details. I adore planning, but I don’t really like the fulfillment of the planning. Or I love creating, but I don’t like producing. So that’s how we built our team. So if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re just in that one to 10 person, in a micro company scenario, your hires are key. When you get into the 50th, 70th, 100th hire, it becomes not less important. It obviously depends on the position. But the overarching energy is not as, it doesn’t have as many gaps. So those first few hires, you want to be really attuned to you … and you don’t have to think about it energetically. You can think about it as skillset.

Melinda Wittstock:

So this has been a really interesting experience. As I’ve been interviewing all these candidates for a number of really big positions in Podopolo, and they’re really important hires, Kim. So part of my test is how do I feel energetically during that interview or after that interview. Did that person exhaust me? Or do I feel energized? Just even those body tests around it. It’s a weird thing that I become more and more conscious of.

Kim Woods:

Yeah. I tell everybody. I’ve been teaching, hiring, and interviewing, and what have you for more than two decades now. God, I’m dating myself right now, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m there with you. Don’t worry.

Kim Woods:

And I always say, “What is your initial reaction?” So a lot of people when they’re hiring, you’re busy. Especially when it’s with significant hire, you’ve got a lot of quote unquote “stake” in the game.

And even I could flip this to a sales call. So even when you’re looking for that next client, you want to be in your own space and connected to yourself enough that you take that one second and just gather, “Okay, how did I feel?” Just instinctively, initially, how did I feel? Because bar none, that will be so informative. Because your mind can talk you into, “The resume looks great. He or she said all the right things. You need the hire. You need the client.” You want to put all of that aside, and you want to go with your gut as one of the pieces that you factor in.

Melinda Wittstock:

Every single mistake that I’ve ever made in life or business has been allowing my analytical mind to talk myself out of my initial feeling.

Kim Woods:

Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

100% hands down, looking back with honesty. Seriously. And often you have the signs. Even if you’ve hired somebody and you’re kind of knowing, “I don’t know.” And it’s the hard work. It can be very difficult for a lot of people to say, “No, look. Not the right fit.” No. Because we get all worried about, “Oh God, am I going to find another person?” But really in business, everything’s the team.

Kim Woods:

Absolutely. Absolutely. A client was sitting in front of me two days ago and she said, “Kim, you are absolutely right. Here I am at the end of the year. And you had told me,” and there were two people that she had hired. But it’s okay. She did, and here we are. And I said to her, I said, “I don’t want to be right. I wish I wasn’t right. I wish it had worked out.” But we looked at the stars for her, and we looked at ways she can time it perfectly. And obviously we have what she should say and all the things, but then timing stars can actually help you. .If you have made a decision that’s not working out, the stars can help you figure out when to unravel and unwind that.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s interesting too. There’s so many different aspects of this. You sort of wonder hearing you speak Kim, why every company doesn’t have someone on their team who’s just specifically focused on this.

Kim Woods:

Exactly. So J.P. Morgan was the one that said, “Millionaires don’t have astrologers. Billionaires do.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting. Interesting. So talk to me about, I mean, are you aware of very successful companies, apart from J.P. Morgan of course, that leverage this?

Kim Woods:

There are so many companies that do. That’s something I can get now to make sure that I have from a company perspective. I know that there are very famous people that use astrology. When I say stars, I mean celebrity. Like Beyonce, and Angelina Jolie, and Madonna, and Lady Gaga. And if you look at their careers, their careers are textured, and layered, and go over an expansive time in ways that others may not. I do have a list of politicians that might be surprising to you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Just out of curiosity, I’m fascinated.

Kim Woods:

Yeah. Winston Churchill. FDR. Most people know that President Reagan did, but there’s treasury secretaries. We can go back even further in history like Queen Elizabeth. Kings and Queens had astrologers. Popes had astrologers.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is so interesting. So when people dismiss it as some sort of woo woo, it’s not. It’s pretty scientific.

Kim Woods:

If we look at the results that my clients are getting, then all I have to do is go through four or five stories and people say, “Okay.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Well give me some examples of before and afters.

Kim Woods:

Yeah. So when you’re working with the stars, again, it’s like having your own [inaudible 00:40:44] sitting there. It’s like having a team of board members. You have different things that you can do. We talked about strategy, and decision-making, and planning, and easing difficulties, and manifesting. I mean, if that’s not enough, I don’t know what is.

But clients. I mean, we have one client that is pushing through seven figures for the first time. She’s super excited. I think we have three or four clients that are doing right that right now. And as you may remember Melinda, going from 500,000 to a million is just as difficult as going from a million to 10 million.

Melinda Wittstock:

Gosh. Well as a CEO, you’ve got to be not a different person, but your focus and your skill set is different. And also what you can imagine for yourself. I think most people have these set point limits. A really interesting challenge that our board chairman does for all our core team is, “So who are you being if you’re the CTO of a billion dollar business.”

So Melinda, who are you being? How is your life different? What’s your day to day as a CEO of a billion dollar business? You can find it in your body where there’s a little bit of discomfort. Because we all have our set point of what we think is possible for us. So how do we blow through those things? So that’s a big chunk of that is even imagining it possible. But also just in the day to day of who I’m being as the scrappy startup founder with an idea on a piece of paper, and bringing in my first volunteers as opposed to who I’m being now with a company that’s just about to go into rapid scaling with getting into tens of thousands of users on the app. You know what I mean. Who am I being when suddenly we’re eating into Spotify’s market share and they don’t particularly like that?

Kim Woods:

Exactly. And that’s that big visioning. And then a lot of times, I turn client’s businesses on their side and I say, “No, no, no. We’re going to do this to scale.” That’s my sweet spot. So I can tell you stories where people during the pandemic, brick and mortar companies, they grew by 50% versus most of their competitors were closing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Because that’s very counterintuitive. Where you have a lot of people out there, just my earlier example saying, “Advertising businesses aren’t going to”… No, people aren’t going to stop advertising. The global spend for advertising is actually growing. It might be growing slower. It’s still growing.

Kim Woods:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we talked about this at the top of this conversation where the media keeps talking about the recession, and then I read statistics about Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And I’m like, “Media, stop talking.”

Kim Woods:

What I like about the stars is that they can be future telling. And you can see these trends well before the marketplace even knows that they’re there. So you can get in front of it. You can put your mission, and your vision, and your values together based on what’s going to be anticipated three years from now. Where yes, other strategic people do that. However, doing it knowing and doing it not knowing are two different things.

Melinda Wittstock:

So Kim, I want to make sure that everybody knows how to best find you, get all your details for 2023. And for those people who want to take it into a more in depth specifically for them, the details of their chart, their team, just all the bells and whistles, what are all the different offers and what’s the best way to get in touch with you and work with you?

Kim Woods:

So if you’re dancing on the fringes, you’re going to want to go to my Insta channel, Kim Woods channel. And you’re going to want to hit the link in bio. And then you can see. You can see the get my 2023 forecast. That’s the forecast that we talked about. You can see how to book a connection call with me. You can check out my website. For those of you who want to come in and be tucked in as a one-on-one client, book a call. That’s the best way to do it. You can go to kimwoods.com. You can get our vibe and see if we connect with you. And I would love to have a conversation with you.

Melinda Wittstock:

It seems like it’s a mix of all your intuitive abilities, the astrology, but also your business expertise. And you kind of fuse these together. So in a lot of ways, you’re also a business coach. Is that fair?

Kim Woods:

100%. Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And for everybody listening, check the show notes too. Because Kim has been on this podcast before with her whole story. So if you like this episode, you’re going to want to check that one out. That’ll all be in the show notes, as well as all the different ways to get in touch with Kim. Thank you so much for putting on your Wings and flying with us today.

Kim Woods:

Thanks so much, Melinda. It’s so great to be here.