E75 | Rúna Bouius | When I Needed More Than My Business Success
Episode 7522nd September 2022 • My Fourth Act Podcast • Achim Nowak
00:00:00 00:48:12

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Runa Bouius is a serial entrepreneur and visionary thinker from Iceland. Her life of adventure and exploration has unfolded in wildly different settings – Reykjavik, Santa Fe, Los Angeles.

For 20 years, Runa was a trailblazer and the industry leader in Iceland’s beauty and wellness industry. After her husband’s death, at the height of her commercial success, Runa moved with her sons to Santa Fe and embarked on a no-holds-barred soul journey.

These days, Runa resides in LA where she co-founded the Conscious Leader Network, the Conscious Capitalism LA Chapter, the Together Network.and her own True Power Institute. She serves as a mentor to CEOs and other visionary professionals who are hungry for a more purpose-driven world. After 3 very distinct life acts, Runa is ready for her own FOURTH ACT.

How I went from studying dance to becoming Iceland’s top beauty industry entrepreneur. When I couldn’t ignore my inner emptiness anymore. What I learned about shamanism and soul wisdom. Why I am passionate about redefining the true meaning of personal power.

www.truepowerinstitute.com

Transcripts

Rúna Bouius:

My husband passed away. My identity shifted dramatically. I wasn't a wife anymore. I wasn't a business owner anymore. I wasn't as CEO anymore. Yes, I was a mother. I wanted to hold on to that.

Achim Nowak:

Hey, this is Achim Nowak, executive coach and host of the MY FOURTH ACT podcast. If life is a FIVE ACT play, how will you spend your FOURTH ACT? I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected FOURT ACTS, listen, and to be inspired. And please rate us and subscribe on whatever platform you are listening on. Let's get started. I am absolutely delighted to welcome Runa bouqs to the mind fourth act podcast. Runa is a serial entrepreneur, a visionary thinker and an adventurer from Iceland. Her life thus far is comprised of three distinct and uniquely different acts, and Runa is happily contemplating what her next act might look like for her. For 20 years. Runa was a trailblazer and industry leader in Iceland's beauty and wellness industry. She left this life behind after her husband's untimely passing to live in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her two sons, where she embarked on a no holds barred soul journey. After more than a decade in Santa Fe Runa relocated to Los Angeles, where she co founded the conscious leader network. Here she emerged as a mentor and guide to CEOs and other visionary professionals who are hungry for more purpose driven world, in our current business to power Institute, ruin up ends all of our traditional notions of what power is, and how we use power. Welcome, Rona. Thank you, Jim. I have to confess that I consider Runa, a cherished colleague, but most importantly, a good friend. We have known each other for a while. So this is not a conversation with somebody who I'm meeting for the first time. So hello, my friend.

Rúna Bouius:

Hello, Achim, thank you for having me.

Achim Nowak:

It's totally My pleasure. You are originally from Iceland, you were born there. And and many people these days are familiar with Iceland, we may have many romantic notions of what Iceland is like, and what it was like to grow up there. So I'm interested in anything you want to share with us, but also primarily when when you grow up in a relatively small place, like Iceland with lots of natural beauty. What were your thoughts about who you wanted to be when you grow up?

Rúna Bouius:

You know, it's so interesting, Achim that I wasn't spending my time on that. I think I was just too busy being in the moment. Being in my life. I apart from school, I was taking ballet lessons that took all my time, and energy, all my spare time. And I think that was a blessing because I see so many benefits from that practice that I have been able to utilize later on in my life. So I wasn't very occupied with thinking about what I wanted to be. But I realized looking back that I was kind of just following a traditional path. Even though none of my family members had gone to college. My parents had the ability to support me doing that. So that was a new path for someone in the family. So I did that just like all the other kids in my school. So I was more following, I would say the traditional path in the very beginning.

Achim Nowak:

I'm going to ask sort of, I think of this as an alpha male question, right? If you are an alpha dancer did you have dreams of oh, I want to dance for a big ballet company in London. I want to dance with for Balanchine in New York City Ballet in New York. I'm not saying you should have I'm just curious. Right? You have aspirations of that level of success yet not

Rúna Bouius:

in dancing. I remember when I was 17. I was in college at that time and I was participating in theater performance in the National Theatre where I was taking ballet lessons and they used us students for dance events in the I think it was the middle of the roof or something that I was in. I realized that it was it was starting to be time for me to decide whether to do the dancing and or to the education and I realized I just didn't have enough ambition to be in dance. So I choose to let go of that at 17 and put my full attention to college. But then I fell into into acting in college. Instead, she was still in the theater. So I was in to theater performance worth two performances in college. That gave me a dream because you're really trying to find out what I could think of being that I thought for a minute that I wanted to become an actress.

Achim Nowak:

Now you describe yourself as an accidental entrepreneur. So we've just talked about your artistic ambitions. But you became a business woman, I believe when you were 23. And as you describe in your own narrative on your website is a time when maybe that was a little less common for women in Iceland, how did you become this accidental entrepreneur? Describe that to us?

Rúna Bouius:

Right? Well, going back to the acting idea, I did go to London, and I had booked three auditions for drama schools in London. I showed up for the first one. Maybe I showed up for the second one, I'm not sure. But as the third one, I escaped, because I realized, this is not me. And so I went back home to Iceland, and I took a summer job. That's what we do in Iceland, we take a summer job. And it was it was at a company wholesale company that just acquired the agency for Lancome cosmetics. And as I was in a summer person, I was made to go from department to department to fill in for those that went on, on holiday. So I got to know everyone. And so I was sent to the cosmetic department. And because I'm so curious, I started to just read up and learn about what we were handling and selling because I'd never used cosmetics like that. So that was just curiosity on my behalf. But the idea was that I would go to University in the fall like we do, and I did, I signed up for English. But in the fall soon after I came into the English department, this company I worked for during the summer called me and said, you know, our new salesperson she just left she had something coming up in her family and she left Can you fill in? And I thought fill in I know nothing about this. But again, my curiosity was greater than my fear. So I said yes, sure. So I took on a part time job alongside being in university until very quickly, I found out it was much more fun selling cosmetics than writing papers on endless authors of poetry. I've found a passion that I couldn't deny. And I kind of just followed the energy because I was having too much fun and there was so much to learn. And this This resulted in that because I wanted to learn more after a year with this company. I went to England again, this time to attend esthetician school, which I did complete, took one year and became a beautician or esthetician came back home to Iceland. I did my six months internship that you had to do afterwards in a beauty salon. But always felt I always saw it like a link in a much bigger chain of something I wanted to do. But this was just a link that I needed to complete like a piece in a puzzle that I needed to complete. What happened also was that I fell in love so I I had a boyfriend whose father was also an importer, and they had acquired a friend's cosmetic brand that they wanted to bring to the Icelandic market and they thought I would be a perfect person to help them with that. So they tricked me into starting a business around this particular cosmetic brand. And so that's how I started really putting my own work out there through this brand. The relationship with a partner didn't last so I wanted to give back what I felt was theirs because they had the connection. And they said no, no, no. This was always for you. This is yours. So I had to choose. And by this time I had gotten this particular brand into all the major cosmetic stores perfumeries and stores in Iceland because of my connection with from Lancome my Lancome days now I had all these relationships and they all the stores had bought this new brand because of me. So I had to make a choice whether to say to these people who had literally put money into investing in this brand. Well, you know it was a nice and fun game, but I'm gone, I'm not doing this anymore? Or do I take this seriously and keep on the work the vision that I could see this could do. And I choose the latter because I couldn't let go of the responsibility I felt I had towards these people who trusted me. I have

Achim Nowak:

so many thoughts on listening to you. And I just want to throw a couple out. I think so many of us, I think if we go and check, talk ourselves out of things before even trying them. So when you were talking about that, I did go to London, and they auditioned for drama school. And through the process of auditioning, you realize that you probably didn't want this. And there's something very powerful about, you know, putting the foot into the pond and taking those steps. And I just want to relate this to our listeners, because we all have Inklings like that, that. And we squelched the idea before we pursue it, the other thought I immediately had is, and I like for you to speak to it, I think of selling is, yes, it's about the product, but it's really about relationships, how do you speak about relationships? And I, what I heard, as I listened to you is that I discovered, I Runa discovered that I am good at it, and I like it, and it energizes me. Would you speak about relationships and the connection and how that relates to business?

Rúna Bouius:

Yes, I have been asked at conferences on panels, you know, how did you build your business in Iceland, and I always say, I built it on relationships. Yes, I found I was good. I was very young. But these women in these stores, these were mostly women, buyers, women owners, they took me in because they felt I was sincere, I was never trying to sell them something that they didn't need, I collaborated with them. I wasn't selling them, I was always looking at what they were doing in alignment with what I was doing. And what we were doing together was to serve the customers, to help the customers buy the right products for solving whatever issues they had. So we had that vision in common. And we were just helping each other doing that. So relationships were very important to me. And then not only relationship with the customers, but also as my company grew. And I had to hire people. Soon, all of a sudden, now I became a leader, I felt it was very, very important to create relationships with the people working with me. And again, I did that well, and people stayed with me for a long time. And they seem to be happy. They were productive. We had fun, that was really, really important for us, we had fun. So we we got a reputation in Iceland for being a company that was not only trustworthy, but also people wanted to do business with and people wanted to work for.

Achim Nowak:

There was so much wisdom in what you said. And I chuckled because like you I'm, I'm a successful serial entrepreneur, I'm the classic accidental entrepreneur. And like you and I'm saying this, not just for us, but for our listeners is the moment that I understood that, you know, I want to have great people work for me, I want to treat them really well. I want to have fun with it, that will help their business grow? And of course it does, it's a no brainer, you know that it is so but you articulated that so beautifully. Let me how did success as a business woman? How could it change you Runa? Or did it change you?

Rúna Bouius:

I don't think it changed me what of course was different was now Now it wasn't just the responsibility wasn't just about me. Now I had responsibility for the livelihood of a number of people that were working with me and for me, and I took that very seriously. Because you know, it means you have at the end of the month, you have to have the money in the bank to to pay the wages to pay your suppliers. So it deepened my sense of responsibility. And also I would say the responsibility of being of service, being of service to my customers, in this case the stores in Iceland but also to my suppliers because I also had to pay them and then to my people. So I would say it's been deepened that sense of responsibility and me but I felt I was always the same. I didn't take it very seriously to be a business owner or to be a CEO. You know, I would make coffee if no one else was around to do that, when we had visitors and stuff like that. So I would say, thankfully, I was very grounded.

Achim Nowak:

When I look at your life from the outside, and I'm gonna use a, I'm gonna use the analogy of a James Bond movie like, now, when you go to James Bond movie, you know, everything things take place in very distinct settings, and then you're suddenly in a very different setting, like, you're in the middle of Mexico City, and something cool happens, and then you're down in Istanbul at the Bosporus. And then you're in Paris. After this very successful run that you had, creating a successful business. I would imagine it's not easy to say, Okay, I'm gonna leave Iceland and I want to go to a completely different part of the world, Santa Fe, New Mexico, I know there was a marriage and children in between there. But I'm asking you to tell the story. But also for our listeners, I'm using you as an example of a guest who has made very radical life changes, right? That's a radical change, like, how did you go through that radical life change where you left Iceland? And ended up in Saudi?

Rúna Bouius:

Well, the first thing I want to tell you is, it wasn't difficult.

Achim Nowak:

It wasn't no,

Rúna Bouius:

well, I have to tell a little bit of a backstory, because in the last few years of my business, I started to, and now by this time, I have a team of people working with me working for me, I have brand managers that have taken over the different brands. So I had been able to, how could I say free myself a little bit of some of the responsibilities that were always laying on me. And so things were working really, really well. And I think the thrill for me had been really to build something out of nothing. But then when it had become something, and I had other people helping me, it was nearly like, the spark was fading away. Like it wasn't enough. You know, to me, it was not about building the business and let it grow endlessly. To me, it was more about creating a manageable business where everyone could be at ease and happy and healthy, yes, and growing. But it was not about growth, per se. I think what was missing for me was maybe at the end was a new challenge. Because Iceland is a very small country, 350,000 people and how many perfume bottles can you sell how many cream jars can you sell and be excited about it, and I just lost excitement. So that was going on inside of me even though I didn't share it. And on top of that my husband who was older than me, he was facing illness, he had Alzheimer's disease. So that was coloring our home life. And I decided to sell the businesses because both I saw a life where I would have to take care of him 24/7 as well as I felt that maybe my time was up for this particular adventure. So I sold the businesses, I had a retail store also that I had co founded at that time in Reykjavik. And then soon after that, after I sold the businesses, my husband passed away, my identity shifted dramatically. I wasn't a wife anymore. I wasn't the business owner anymore. I wasn't that CEO anymore. Yes, I was a mother, I wanted to hold on to that. But I was married to a foreigner to a Dutchman who was very, very international. And I had been now dealing with international businesses for 20 years, meaning I had to spend a lot of time abroad, particularly in France. So to me, being away from Iceland wasn't anything new. And I had made a promise to my husband before he died, that I would bring our two young sons up as international young men. And when I started to think about how can I do that in Iceland? I felt like you know, it's more of the same everyone is right everyone is Christian. How can I fulfill this promise. So when an opportunity came to me to visit Santa Fe, and later to move there I was just ready. There was nothing holding me back and people in Iceland with asked me aren't you fearful? I said no. I'm more fearful of staying than I am of leaving.

Achim Nowak:

Now Santa Fe is an almost mythical place of spirituality. That ancient knowledge shamanism, out of the ordinary, really out of the ordinary spiritual explorations. And I know you explored that world that a little bit. So I'm curious, did you go there to explore that? Or did the exploration happen because you ended up living in Santa Fe and you went, Wow, I can go on a journey here.

Rúna Bouius:

And no, I went there because of it. I had met while still living in Iceland, I had met a teacher or teachers, who were teaching about philosophy around personality, typology, and in, in a way philosophy of living life fully. And my husband and I had attended some of their trainings, and I attended everything that they did in Iceland, and I later became their sponsor, sponsoring some of their visits and, and lectures and personal work with people so and then I even started teaching this particular material, a body of knowledge in Iceland before leaving, but these were the people who invited me to come to Santa Fe. And they were doing training in this case, they this was the summer after my husband passed away. And I had decided to spend the summer in Europe with the boys but they said come to Santa Fe, we have a retreat on our land outside Santa Fe, we want you to, to participate in plus we have an intensive in this particular body of work that I've been training in. And so and there's a bring the boys, we have two kids, and they we had already become friends, the kids had met before. So I went there with the kids, I did the training. And during one of the session in this training, there was just a knowing that came over me that actually, this is where I wanted to be, like no words. And one of these two teachers, she came over to me she got the message immediately. She said, Okay, we have to find you a house, we have to find you a car, we have to help you to come here. And they literally also, were hoping that I could help them bring this body of knowledge to the business world because that's where I came from. And that's where they wanted to go with this. And they wanted me to become maybe the European manager for this body of knowledge. So that's how I ended up in Santa Fe. And they were also training themselves at that time in shamanism and are now fully fledged shamanic teachers.

Achim Nowak:

A word from your sponsor, that's me. I invite you to go to the website associated with this podcast www.my Fourth active.com, you will find other equally inspiring conversation with great humans. And you will also learn more about the my fourth act mastermind groups where cool people figure out how to chart their own fourth acts. Please check it out. And now back to the conversation. The word that comes to me is I'm listening to use the word bridges between things in who you have people who were your bridge to Santa Fe. And ironically, they saw you as a bridge to another world as well. And and I can totally understand why that didn't make it almost inevitable that you would end up in Santa Fe. Now, we could spend hours just talking about your explorations in Santa Fe, but if you give us a glimpse when we when we work with teachers, spiritual teachers, or do conscious explorations, it tends to open doors to a different knowledge and different awareness and consciousness that we didn't have before. And sometimes it's hard to put that into words, but that I'd love for you to try what are some doors that were open for you in Santa Fe in your, in your understanding of yourself and the world?

Rúna Bouius:

I think what I realized in Santa Fe that what had been missing and backing me in these last few years in my business in Iceland was that I didn't feel that what I was doing was based on deep enough purpose. I understood that I was helping people but it felt still too superficial to glamorous cosmetics lipsticks perfume. Can we live without it? Yes, we can. Maybe not creams but a lot of it we can. So it didn't it felt like I was helping people from the outside in and I realized that they were was another way of doing it from the inside out. But I was very, very aware of that. I had to start with myself first. And obviously I had to do a lot of healing after losing my husband and We could say healing from leaving leaving your comfort zone leaving your nest family friends safety of your country, and being a mother and father now in a way to the boys because they had lost so much not only their father but their home country and, and family and friends. So I was very, very open and grateful and excited for what opened up to me and they say when the student is ready, the teachers or teacher appear, and they truly did in the in the form of this couple, Jose Lena Stevens but also in the form of a Native American teacher, okey forest, who I was introduced to. And just soon after I arrived in Santa Fe, I found myself sitting in a teepee, taking in some teachings about I think it was about power animals. And I was mesmerised, you know, I'd never been in a teepee, I'd never seen a Native American, but I've always had an affinity for, for Native Americans. And I started studying with this Native American and she, she would give me assignments, she would tell me, you know, you have to go out into nature and do this or do that. And I'm a good student. So I would always do what she told me. And whether it made sense or not, whether it was scary or not. And one thing that opened up for me because you're talking about what opened up, what opened up for me that has been absolutely instrumental in where I am today is that she, she is a mohawk. She is a mohawk Canadian, but was married to a man who lives in Chiapas, Mexico. And I went many times to Mexico to train with her and go on retreat there. But she also wrote the book about in a way her take on compilation of her understanding of the various shamanic traditions she had been trained in, she talked about the paradigm shift we are moving through that we have been in the face of that she calls or her people have called the air of men for the last 5400 years, that we can call patriarchy or model of domination, a command and control everything coming from a pyramidal structure. And that now, the reason why the times are so turbulent is that now we are moving away from that era of man to the era of woman that we will be in for the next 5400 years. And we are just in the beginning phase of it. And how important that is to support what that requires meaning, looking at what is it in our human nature that we have kind of been squishing down and devaluing and not allowing you to flourish, which is all the feminine qualities we have as human beings. So

Achim Nowak:

as part of your journey, and Santa Fe been a reconnection and rediscovery of your divine feminine energy,

Rúna Bouius:

I think it has I can when, you know, when I look back, I feel that even though I was in a very, very feminine business in Iceland, and use my innate feminine intuition, to build that business and make decisions. Because I didn't have any business training or any role models or any advisors. I just had to come up with it myself. But I think the period is Santa Fe was about being introduced to the feminine, and start practicing the feminine principles. And, and what I'm doing now, where I'm now is integrating the boat.

Achim Nowak:

Now, part of what's so compelling about you is these very distinct transitions from place to place. And part of I think, if we use the constructed are different acts, which I use in this podcast, of course, and because I'm a former theater director, part of it is knowing so when one act is over, and it's time as time is calling us to another act, and many of us fight those transitions. Some of us longed for them, some of us embrace them. How did you know that it was time to leave Santa Fe? Feeling? How do you feel it?

Rúna Bouius:

I would say it was a knowing. And it was the same as it was when I left Iceland there was there wasn't much debate. There was a knowing and trust and in Santa Fe during my I'm in Santa Fe, I had been in a personal relationship with with a wonderful man. And he had lived in Santa Fe when we first met but had moved back to to California and Northern California where he had been before and his he was divorced his kids were. And he tried for. He tried for about 1012 years to get me out of Santa Fe. And I couldn't I did not want to live anywhere else I need to be there. And then just like what happened in Iceland, there was this knowing Okay, I'm coming to a completion here. I'm wrapping things up. But it took a long, long, long time for me to know where to go next. So I probably always state my, my visit and sign of it because I didn't have the next place to go to, I would say, I had not been shown the next place.

Achim Nowak:

Some people love Los Angeles and some people just can't stand it. I live in South Florida, but I'm one of those who loves Los Angeles. I get to stay in the Beach City cities, whichever is sexy, but I love all aspects of Los Angeles into the unknown you're you lived in different parts of Los Angeles. So before we get go into your your purpose for being there, and the work you do, just living in Los Angeles, do you like living there? Is it sometimes challenging and frustrating? What's it like to actually physically live in Los Angeles after you've been in Iceland and Santa Fe, which are very different? Right?

Rúna Bouius:

I want to take you to the beginning. When I first came to live in Los Angeles, I would say I was like a school car fell in love. I just fell in love with Los Angeles and my first girlfriend here. She said, I have never known anyone who has taken to Los Angeles like you have just 123 And just like you said, the diversity here when I was looking for a place to live my first home here. I went to all these different places Santa Monica, Venice invest la Brentwood. Westwood ended up in Beverly Hills, can you believe it and which I had judged as superficial and glamorous and didn't want to have anything to do with but ended up living there for the first two years. I loved the diversity. I loved the climate. I love the palm trees. I love the energy. Because Santa Fe had been more diverse than Iceland. So at least we had three different countries there. We had the Native Americans, the unclose and the Hispanics. But I wanted more. Yeah, where can you get more you can get more in Los Angeles. And I just was soaking in the energies. And I just couldn't get enough of it. Where I am now I'm in the northern part of Los Angeles in the valley. I'm not as much in love with my surroundings here. But when I go into West LA, I just get this loving feeling again, and I am in heaven, who are traveling down to see you when you come and visit some of these spirits. Yeah, this is why I'm here. This is why I'm here. Yes, I love it. I love it. I love it.

Achim Nowak:

You've been very involved with I'm gonna use a loose term, I'm going to call it the conscious leadership community. And this is where I'm torn about where I want to spend most of our time the conversation. And you have embraced your own language language around the work of true power. So with your permission, I'm going to focus on true power, which is your integration, as you already said, of lots of things that matter to you and that you have learned along the way. If you had to define true power for somebody who maybe doesn't know what Runa bouqs means about true power, what what does true power mean to you.

Rúna Bouius:

We could come up with many different definitions. But here is one it is being who you truly are. And then you need to find out who am I? And when we start drilling down to who am I and we start to go away from the external roles that we are given. I'm a female I'm a mother. I'm an Icelander. I'm a business owner, when we start to drill deeper down we at least I started to realize that I was more than that, that there was some kind of awareness within me that I had not been able to put into words but I he'll have always been guiding me through that. I called it intuition early on. In a way, this obsession of mine with power and true power comes really from this Native American teacher of mine, who kind of how can I say, shamanism is so much about power. And in shamanism, power itself is often defined as energy. But my Native American teacher, she talked about the four directions of the medicine wheel. And then you have the center of the medicine wheel, which we could call wholeness. When you have healed all the different parts of yourself, we could also call it power, that's your true power, when you have healed all the different aspects, and you have come home to who you truly are, which is this awareness or consciousness or big mind, or the Dow spark of the Dow. And I want to say the word that some people would be scared to say, and that's from their religion, I was brought into God, that if we are aspects of God, then to meet who power is, is our connection to that source energy or to that God energy flowing through us or in a way we be living and leading from that God energy. And true power is our ability to use that power in different ways, depending on what is needed each time.

Achim Nowak:

What I'm hearing you say which, which will use that there is no true power, without a journey into our wholeness. Is that correct? Yes. Because power has so many in for many people, negative masculine associations, and we've talked about the divine feminine. And you already talked about accessing intuition and the different kinds of wisdom and the god energies, are those more of the feminine aspects of power? Or are there any other aspects of power that you would say are not the traditional masculine attributes beyond what we just talked about?

Rúna Bouius:

I think the when we talk about the trueness of the power, we need both the masculine and the feminine, the divine feminine and the divine, masculine dancing together in a tantalizing tango. That's how I sometimes describe. It's a dance. And, you know, if we only talk about power, then we are talking about so many different things, external power, or positional power. I know, I know, you have the five power plugs, but the power charisma, power, expertise, power, and then we have social power. And we have even ancestral power, there are so many different types. So in a way, what I'm doing, I came, I'm playing with it for an individual, which then is more focusing on their personal power, taking that inner journey into self mastery and connection to their true power and wholeness, to be able to wield that in a positive way, with a positive impact for the collective. And that's where we come into the conscious leadership and then conscious business. Or we could say conscious business models and power structures for the bigger hole. So that brings me back to my Native American teacher and son appear, because I did have a defining moment when I was working with her, and she had been educating me on this paradigm shift that we were going through, that I could feel this was actually reading her book, I could feel a commitment coming over me on the inside, I committed to be a part of this paradigm shift to contribute enough in whatever way my gifts and talents will allow me to bring this paradigm shift into humanity and this planet at this moment. And that's literally what I've been trying to do since then.

Achim Nowak:

Just for our listeners that you know I want to summarize the what we just talked about the work around, let's say a whole a whole experience of power and a personal integration. You will ruin I help people and businesses to do that work. I want to relate the As to your life right now. And I was just in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, and you and I had coffee and Riviera village in Redondo Beach. And we went from a stroller on the Esplanade and I had a sense that there's that you're on the cusp of maybe moving into other things that are emerging for you. And that the there's a whole other act and all other ways of living and being that are showing up for you. And that you're still in the middle of discovering them. Can you talk to that a little bit like what's emerging for you, Runa. And I want to just pitch well give you permission in all of our listeners, it's powerful, just claim that this is emerging, even even if we don't know how it's gonna manifest. Just saying this is what's showing up. I don't know how it's gonna manifest. But this is what's there. So what's there for you?

Rúna Bouius:

You know, I'm going to say, I don't know. I don't know. But I think you are right, that I'm starting to sense I'm starting to get that knowing that something else something more, is it still there that there is another chapter in the book. And I've always talked about, not only my life, but life in general as chapters in in a book. I feel like I've been here in Los Angeles for 10 years, for years. I'm starting to get more clarity on what my gifts and talents are and owning that. And what my message is. And I'm still sharpening that. And trying to make it simple, simplify it as much as possible, because there have been times I felt I was all over the place. So now I'm trying to bring things into into simplicity. And one thing I can share with you and I haven't shared that with many people is that one of my clients has shown up as a strong supporter of me. And of the message that I have, which he feels is important, and he is literally, he has been an Amelie want to say pestering me, but I have done surrendered to the process. And we have been together been creating our sponsorship offer for people to support me to bring my message out, because he wants me to be more out there doing interviews like this talk about these things. Because talking about consciousness, or power in business or power in society, power dynamics, which need to change is important. And so one of the things that that I see is knocking on my door is, is an outside support that I could never have imagined myself or asked for myself. And what that will mean where that can take me what that will, might help me to do, I don't know. But what I don't feel for myself, like I feel for all my clients and everyone I need is that I feel these times we are in are so exciting, and also so important. They're so important for my grandkids and all the generations to come. That I feel it is it is kind of our responsibility. It's each and every one of us to really examine what are my gifts and talents? And how can I have a big positive impact on my family, on my society, on my workplace, on the world at large? So I'm looking at how can I do not possibly do more of having a bigger impact out in the world?

Achim Nowak:

I'm gonna nudge you a little bit because you you just talked about what I call the big ideas. But also what I love about your story, it's it's connected to specific places and specific ways of living and being. So I'm curious if there is another chapter in your book. Would that be? Do you see it in another place? Would you leave Los Angeles? Would you live somewhere else? No, no, I'm not suggesting you need to know whether it is right. To place.

Rúna Bouius:

Well, I have started to ask myself, Am I done with LA? And the answer is no. But that just knowing my story or history, I can say there isn't another place. I do have one of my son's here and my daughter in law and two grandkids in LA and that has a really, really strong hold on me. I really do not want to give that up easily. But if an opportunity came or opening for something that was so extraordinary that I couldn't say no, I would entertain that. But otherwise I am looking for in a way I all They say, We can do whatever we want from wherever we are, we don't need to be in a specific place. So for me, it's more about my beingness than a location. It's more about how I'm showing up for myself and for for other people or for the world every day. And in a way, living my own true power. more consistently.

Achim Nowak:

Final question based on what you know, now. I'm not gonna say what kind of advice would you give younger Runa. But there might be listeners to think wow, Runa took some big chances in her life. She made some big changes in her life. She's moved around the world. And there are listeners who might go i i have similar yearnings. But I don't know that I'm as bold as Runa words of wisdom or guidance might you have for them.

Rúna Bouius:

Sometimes we need to step forward before the bridge arrives. And also what I have learned is that there are more resources to support us than we think. And when I talk about resources, it's not just financial resources, its resources and relationship resources, and in magic, you know, there are all kinds of things that come in to support us. And I believe that this power, this infinite power that created us and created the world, and we have within us, gives us the ability, this, it's our actually it's our birthright to be able to tap into that power to make our dreams come true, and to serve the world in our fullest potential.

Achim Nowak:

So if anybody's listening and I want to learn more about all the different things that Runa does, and that she's into, where would you like to direct them? Runa

Rúna Bouius:

yes, they can go to my website, which is www true power institute.com. And they can also find me on social media like LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram, and Facebook under Runa powers.

Achim Nowak:

Runa I cherish you as a friend and I also just am grateful to you for sharing part of your story in this conversation, and I know we will continue our conversation, but goodbye for now.

Rúna Bouius:

Goodbye Akima thank you so much for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Achim Nowak:

Thank you like what you heard, please go to my fourth act.com And subscribe to receive my updates on upcoming episodes. Please also subscribe to us on the platform of your choice. Rate us give us a review and let us all create some magical fourth acts together. Ciao

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