Success Interview with Louise Goss

Hello and welcome to success interviews. These are where I chat with fellow female business owners and find out more about why they started their businesses and how they measure success. In this post, I talk to my latest guest, Louise Goss and you can either watch or read the interview below. 

Interview Transcript

Today, I’m joined by Louise Goss, founder of The Homeworker, a magazine and platform to support those who work from home, or remotely. It provides expert insights, tips, and resources to help people achieve a happier, healthier, more productive work-from-home lifestyle. I met Louise two or three years ago when I was featured in the magazine and since then I’ve been an avid reader of both the online and the printed versions of the magazine.

Having launched it in 2019, The Homeworker has been shortlisted for top industry awards and been named as one of the UK’s most inspiring small businesses in 2021.

Louise is an award-winning journalist and mum of two. She previously worked in radio, TV and digital media for national newsrooms. Having worked from home for over a decade, she is passionate about helping people make positive changes for a healthy mind, body and business. 

Why did you start your business? 

I had this idea germinating for a little while. It was a bit of a nebulous idea. I wanted to talk generally to people who work from home and dig into it a bit more. How did they make it work? My background is in journalism so that was where the idea came from. I’ve had a varied and quite interesting career and I just realised how many people were working from home but doing such a huge variety of things this was pre-COVID so in 2019. 

When it all started, there was a much smaller percentage of people working from home. Primarily self-employed people, small business owners, freelancers, that sort of thing but they were all doing such a huge variety of things and it wasn’t just people. Crafting things on Etsy, loads of people do that well but I wanted to dispel the myth that you can also do so many different things from home successfully.  

There were people offering VA services like yourself or coaching people who were negotiating billion-dollar deals from their kitchen table. It was this huge spectrum of people. The mission behind it initially started out as wanting to support those who do it for whatever reason, whether it was because they were running their business from home or they were forced because of situations like lockdowns and things. 

I wanted to help people, not just with tips around doing it but how to thrive and do it well and do it successfully. To develop healthy habits and perform well when you’re working from home and again, that’s evolved as well because working from home has become a bit more like working from anywhere.  We can be anywhere even travelling around the world working. 

I came up with five key pillars that are foundational to successful remote working and a lot of the content hinges on those and I take it in many different directions. The well-being side of it is huge and productivity, business and career management and development, as well as the mindset required and your work environment, the workspace that you create for yourself all these things are very linked and fundamental. Ultimately to like working from home.  

The more I’ve written about this and the more people I’ve interviewed about it, I’ve developed my own models for how to do it successfully and sustainably without burning out and maintaining motivation to help people lead fulfilling balanced, productive and healthy working lives. 

How do you measure success? 

I suppose given the mission that I’ve just outlined, part of success for me would be that I was helping people achieve that. It can be hard to measure that really. I mean the feedback that I get from readers is always overwhelmingly positive, which has been fantastic. It’s interesting for me, I guess a lot of people equate success with money, with wealth. 

For me, going into journalism, I was never going to be successful with the measure I define success for me as happiness, we want to be happy. We have good days. We have bad days. We don’t always feel happy. Does that mean that if you’re having a bad day, you’re not successful? I feel like I’m making a difference to people and that’s success for me. It’s how I regard myself as being successful.  

So, it’s quite general I suppose but if all of those are in place then that will lead to me feeling generally happy, even if it’s not every single day and ultimately it will also probably lead to, you getting some money in the bank. That’s not the measure for me, as long as the foundational stuff’s there, then the rest follows hopefully. 

On a more personal side, I’m a mum, I have two young children who are growing up fast, keeping me very busy and keeping me very active. So, it’s about balance for me as well. Am I fulfilled? Mentally, with my job, socially with my friendships, spiritually and with my family, with my children and spending time with them. It’s a delicate balance. It doesn’t always happen perfectly every day but generally, I can step back and go right, am I apportioning my time in a good way? Am I getting the balance? I know because it feels good and I think when that feels good then that’s success for me. 

What one tip would you give to your younger self? 

 When I look back and I think about what I was like growing up, the first thing that came to mind when I thought about what I would say to my younger self is don’t be afraid to fail. It’s okay to make mistakes. 

The bar for me, was always set so high. I still do have a high bar for standards but I think back then there was a bit of fear there about getting it wrong or being judged for getting it wrong and I think I’d be saying don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be too proud to ask for help was another one as well. Again, it can be seen as a sign of weakness and I’ve learnt, as you grow up actually it’s a real sign of intelligence and a good use of resources and of not burning yourself out. 

So don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be too proud to ask for help. Trust your gut more because you’re often right and also, you’re better than you think. I doubted myself a lot and I still have moments of self-doubt. We all do.  

I would have told myself, you got this! A funny one I thought of which I just had to add in was keep up your time blocking. Honestly, when I look back, when I was doing my exam revision, I was so good. I had my days mapped out. I had blocks of time for different subjects and what I was going to be revising and I had time blocked out for lunch and breaks. That habit just weaned off a little bit and I’ve come back to it a bit more now. It stood me in good stead. So that’s another thing I’d be saying.  

You know what they say, you go through your failings and some people don’t even want to call it a failing. They say it’s a learning. It’s exactly that you’ve made a mistake, we all make mistakes and as long as they’re always made with good intentions. Learning to be just a bit more vulnerable and open about it and saying, hands up, I messed up or I made a mistake but we’re all human. 

Watch the Interview