Cover Interview: Anne Perry and Amanda Aitken Brew Imagination, Bubble Inspiration, and Ignite Action in the Business Magic Laboratory

Anne Perry and Amanda Aitken are the incurable entrepreneurs behind the Business Magic Laboratory – the talk show where imagination brews, inspiration bubbles, and action ignites!

Anne is founder and CEO of our very own Business Heroine Magazine. After spending years burdened by debt and suffocating jobs, Anne was determined to escape the hamster wheel life and leave a trail for others like her. She pioneered her own path to freedom and has since built Business Heroine as a platform to broadcast the voices of women who, despite obstacles, decide to break free of the mold and create life according to her own design.

Amanda is a psychic medium and passionate ambassador of the Unseen World, who believes we each have the ability to access ecstasy through the power of creativity, inner knowing, and intergalactic fairy dust. She is also creator of the esteemed “Girl’s Guide” courses (The Girl’s Guide to Web Design, The Girl’s Guide to Graphic Design, and The Girl’s Guide to Creative Bloom).

Having met at a magical business retreat, it’s only natural that Anne and Amanda became fast friends and co-creators of this one-of-a-kind talk show where they ponder out loud, banter, and muse in the name of embodying magic in all areas of life and business. Enjoy their exclusive Business Heroine interview…

BH: What inspired you to start this talk show, Business Magic Laboratory?

Anne & Amanda: It happened very organically, actually. We became instant friends when we met at a business retreat last year and ended up staying in touch with a walkie-talkie app we’re both obsessed with called Voxer. We became what we call modern-day pen pals. We Voxed each other on walks, while running errands, and while putting our makeup on in the morning.

Actually, we still do! Throughout the week we brainstorm business ideas, share our insights, and talk about books and articles that blow our minds. Basically we support each other in staying on the beam and in the magic.

One day it occurred to us that perhaps we shouldn’t hoard our chats. If we each gain so much from our conversations, perhaps other entrepreneurs could benefit from eavesdropping. So, we decided to take it public and the rest is history!

BH: What do business and magic have to do with each other?

Anne & Amanda: In the old-school conventional way of thinking about business, perhaps not much. Yet, there is a new paradigm of entrepreneurship available to us now.

In this new paradigm, business is no longer separate from your “real life,” where work is something to put up with during the day while the real you comes out on evenings and weekends. Business is an extension of the entrepreneur’s heart and purpose. It is a tool to contribute your gifts to the world to make a difference in the way only you can. It’s play and art, that also happens to support your abundant livelihood.

And in this sense, business has everything to do with magic. In fact, it’s not just a fun idea or bonus sprinkled on top – infusing your business with magic is actually essential if you want your business to thrive and fill you up on all levels.

What that looks like is honoring (and following) intuition, making business decisions that support your truest desires (instead of “shoulds”) even when it’s scary, and partnering with the unseen world to create results you simply can’t force through brute effort.

BH: What kinds of things do you talk about in the lab?

Anne & Amanda: Oh my gosh, what don’t we talk about in the lab?!?! Here are just some of the conversations we’ve stirred up:

Business Midwifery – Are you addicted to idea orgasms, or are you pushing that baby out?

Spacious oasis or the wild west? Design your business model around your own nature

How to reconcile your business persona with your real life identity (coming out of the entrepreneurial closet)

Sleep magic! How to retrieve messages from your dreams to accelerate your ability to create

How to drop the guru model and use your natural curiosity as a prosperous business asset

What ‘Man Verses Wild’ teaches us about business decisions & mistakes (and yes, we agree Bear Grylls is hot)

BH: What kind of magic has emerged in your lives since you have known each other?

Anne & Amanda: It’s been pretty magical experiencing the lines between business and pleasure eroding. Business Magic Laboratory is actually a perfect example of that. We would do this for fun on our own, regardless of whether or not we have an audience. It just so happens it’s been a really fun way to grow our tribes and connect with other magical entrepreneurs. We get to just show up and be ourselves, and we get to call that business? That’s pretty awesome.

Another magical experience has been travel. We met at a business retreat, which was a powerful soul immersion experience with a small group of women who have become sisters for life. We later attended another business retreat in Arizona, to which we tacked on a weekend in Sedona to explore vortexes and hike the beautiful red rocks. And now we’re scheduled to go on another business retreat in the Dominican Republic next month!

It’s almost funny to call these adventures “business trips” yet there is an undeniable correlation to saying yes to experiences like this and witnessing unexpected (dare we say magical) results emerge in our businesses.

BH: In the first episode of Business Magic Laboratory you give some pointers on how to best use this talk show as a resource. Can you share a bit about that with us?

Anne & Amanda: One of our favorite ways you can use the show is to use it as an impetus for your own business magic laboratory.

Part of staying on the beam and in the magic is taking responsibility for your own inspiration by finding ways to generate it at will. Unexpected lightning strikes of inspiration are awesome, yet building a business is slow going if we put the onus on inspiration to find us.

The two of us found that when we talked through our curiosities, brainstormed solutions, and shared our ‘ahas’ in our Vox conversations (by the way if you don’t have Voxer yet, get it!), it created an energy that we could ride to make things happen in each of our businesses, faster than we could on our own.

As the listener, you can use it in the same way. In fact, consider scheduling ‘creative time’ in your calendar every week or so where you join us in the lab and, right afterwards, dive into your own business and create from that place.

This concept is actually how our tagline emerged – imagination brews, inspiration bubbles, and action ignites.