0:00:00 - (Carla Middleton): So my husband had a sudden cardiac arrest. I could hear the ambulance coming and I was just screaming. They used the defibrillator. We lost him like three times. I watched life come and go.

0:00:13 - (Linda Habak): I don't even know what to say about that.

0:00:15 - (Carla Middleton): Trauma is quite an insidious thing that gets locked away in the brain that takes a long time to heal from. So 20 minutes of Vedic meditation is equivalent to three hours of sleep. I was very focused on the finances, and I think you really can't shy away from that. As a creative. What I have lear about social media and the connection between marketing and leads and the conversion process, particularly with architecture. It's a slow burn.

0:00:40 - (Linda Habak): Yep.

0:00:40 - (Carla Middleton): Long Runway. Long Runway. This is not happening in a week. This is like a bit like podcasting colour. It's a long Runway.

0:00:51 - (Linda Habak): I'm Linda Havack and this is Build Beautiful, where design meets depth. Welcome back to Build Beautiful. Today's episode is different, and because it's different, I'm not going to open with my usual scripted introduction. Sometimes there are stories so raw, so human, so powerful that words feel too small to hold them. This is one of those stories. Carla Middleton, founder and director of Carla Middleton Architecture, is someone I deeply admire.

0:01:25 - (Linda Habak): Her courage, her honesty and the life she's cultivated, not just as an architect, but as a mother, a wife and a woman. Her story deserves space to unfold in its own time, with her own words. So today I'm simply holding space. I hope you'll listen closely with softness and with presence. This episode may move you, it may even change you. Here's my conversation with Carla. Carla.

0:01:51 - (Carla Middleton): Oh, Linda. You're welcome. Are you gonna make me cry already?

0:01:55 - (Linda Habak): No tears yet. Thank you so much for joining me. I feel so honoured, really, that you would trust me, trust this platform that I'm trying to and the community that is slowly building around Build Beautiful. I was so moved when we spoke last week and honestly, I wrote about five different scripts, like my intros, which I normally do, and then I just had a light bulb moment. I thought, no, there are no words actually that I could put to this story that you're about to share.

0:02:29 - (Linda Habak): And I thought, no, my job is really just to create the space for you to tell your beautiful, heart wrenching, but super inspiring story and then all of the value and the lessons that have come from that experience from you. So let's set the scene. Let's set the scene. Can you take me back to that moment five years ago? What do you most remember from that moment? I know this is not Going to be easy, but I think it's an important part of the story.

0:03:03 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, absolutely. And like I touched on earlier is I'm really open about this story, and I want to share and be vulnerable in not to have a pity party and to have people feel sorry or kind of talk about it in that framework, but to also just help others. And hopefully by sharing this, other people can take little snippets of my story, how I've overcome it, and hopefully also work on their business and themselves.

0:03:35 - (Carla Middleton): So five years ago, my husband was. It was in the middle of COVID We were all kind of at home. I had two little babies. Anna was, I think maybe three and a half, and Toby was only one. I can't quite remember whether it was full lockdown or not, but my husband was like, oh, I'm just gonna do a workout. He'd got up a few times, you know, with the baby in the night, I'm not feeling great. Got a few cold and flu symptoms. I'm just gonna do a workout on the back deck.

0:04:03 - (Carla Middleton): And I was like, okay, cool. So went and put the baby down for a sleep, Came downstairs and made myself a coffee and kind of plonked myself on the couch and looked out on the back deck, and I could see Chris. He'd had the app set up and all these weights, but he was laying down and he was doing what I kind of thought was a hip stretch, a hip flexor. His face turned away from me, and I was just looking out, and I was like, oh, he's been kind of quite stationary there for a while. I'll just go out and have a check on him. And I rolled him over. And, yeah, he wasn't in a very good way at all.

0:04:33 - (Carla Middleton): He was blue and white. He was kind of, like, gasping for air. So I thought maybe he was having a seizure. Kind of picked him up. I was like, oh, no, he's really not breathing right now. So I quickly laid him down. My daughter at the time, she kind of ran out and was screaming and also didn't know what to do. So I kind of looked to her and I said, quick, go get mummy's phone. And she was three, right? She couldn't. She didn't know. So I quite strategically and methodically laid him down and ran to get my phone and came back outside.

0:05:09 - (Carla Middleton): And I was shaking so much and screaming at that point. And I called triple zero and happened to hang up on them because I was shaking so much, but got onto them and then just immediately went into action of just Doing cpr. So my husband had a sudden cardiac arrest. The difference between a sudden cardiac arrest and a heart attack is it's sudden. You know, it's not with the plumbing of the heart, it's the electricity of the heart. So it usually happens to elite athletes, as my husband likes to recall.

0:05:41 - (Carla Middleton): And so, yeah, it's just sudden and the heart just stops. And so, yeah, I went straight into action. I had no training whatsoever in cpi. Done like a little kids CPR course, you know, when your kids are born. I'd watched a bit of Bondi Rescue cause my girlfriend was on it. And I just saw them just get right in there and just start on compressions. Yeah, I had triple zero on the line, counting with me.

0:06:07 - (Carla Middleton): And I just hammered him. I just went in so deep and so hard with compressions. And you know, his body was like flipping up and down. That's how hard I went. And I've never done this before, Linda. Like, I don't know where this came from. Strength and fight or flight. Absolute fight or flight. Like, I really. If someone had asked me days before, would you fight or flight? I thought I would have been in the flight category.

0:06:34 - (Carla Middleton): But, man, you know, you hear stories of people with their loved ones. They lift bridges and they do wild things.

0:06:40 - (Linda Habak): So I've got goosebumps from head to toe, by the way right now. I mean, I heard it over the phone last week, but. Holy. I'm. Yeah. Not going to swear, but just being in this space, I can feel the electricity of that situation just hearing you talk about it.

0:06:57 - (Carla Middleton): I had it. Luckily, I had a beautiful neighbor who I nicknamed Superman jump over the back fence. And I did compressions for about 10 minutes and he helped me. And probably towards the end, I think it was about the 12. We had analyzed the ambulance, what felt like three hours of my life, and I could hear the ambulance coming down. We lived in Tamarama at the time. I could hear it coming down like Birrell through Waverly. I could hear the ambulance coming and I was just screaming for help.

0:07:26 - (Carla Middleton): And they came through very calmly and took over like absolute professionals. And he had 10 people working on him and they used the defibrillator. We lost him like three times. I watched life come and go. Yeah. Yeah.

0:07:47 - (Linda Habak): I don't even know what to say about that because I can't even begin to imagine the fear that.

0:07:55 - (Carla Middleton): Oh, terrifying.

0:07:56 - (Linda Habak): Yeah.

0:07:56 - (Carla Middleton): You know, we'll talk about what happens afterwards. But to be like. People talk about spirits. And I watched the life come and go from him that day. And it was Whilst terrifying. Now in reflection, you know, I have learned so much. But anyway, so they, yeah, they used the defibrillator three times and we got him back and they stabilised him and quickly got him in to an ambulance in which, you know, it was really touch and go.

0:08:30 - (Carla Middleton): There's lots of trauma in around my daughter and not being able to tend to her and be there for her in that moment while she was terrified. But I was laser sharp, I could hear her crying in the background and terrified and she laid a blanket down on and kind of got her little Elsa chair and sat next to me watching me do all of this. Our neighbours wrapped her up and my whole family kind of removed her very quickly and made sure she was okay. But it was really touch and go for a long time there for that holder. So it happened about 9:30 in the morning and he, yeah, got into an ambulance. I checked on Anna and told her, basically lied to her and said, daddy's alive, it's going to be okay.

0:09:09 - (Carla Middleton): And ran off and just followed him in the ambulance. We got to the emergency room and they didn't know what it was at that time. Like we didn't know it was a cardiac arrest. It could have been a bleed, an aneurysm, you know, all sorts of things. So they put him in a coma and ran him in and out of tests and yeah, they couldn't find anything so they assumed it was a cardiac arrest. And everyone throughout that day kept grabbing my arm and just being in awe of what I had done and I still really struggled to take it in. Like doctors and nurses that we talk to, even in these days, they're just like the percentages of survival from a sudden cardiac arrest in hospital with a defibrillator with trained professionals is sometimes like around 1%.

0:09:57 - (Carla Middleton): So I was an untrained professional out of hospital and we had a lot of just magic that day. You know, I think I got to him really quickly. We had an amazing paramedic team that got to him really quickly. He had amazing care at Prince of Wales. And yeah, he was in a coma until that evening. And he came out of. We're just, yeah, so lucky he's alive. We're just.

0:10:20 - (Linda Habak): How did your life change in that moment? Because I imagine everything changed in that moment.

0:10:27 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, it's funny, I remember everyone working on him on the back deck and just looking around the house. My instant thought was, oh my God, I'm a single mum with two kids. How am I going to do all of this? How am I going to Take care of this life. I was terrified and kind of went into. What I would like to talk about a bit more is this kind of what felt like I had to zip up this suit and be this warrior, right? And I had to hold everything together.

0:10:59 - (Carla Middleton): And that is a strength that I'm proud of, but not something that I need to still have. Right. It's letting that go sometimes is really important. In the evening at the icu, the cardiologist came up to me in kind of that same conversation, just in awe of what had happened and how lucky we are. And one of the issues is my husband's a pilot. So with this and the cardiac arrest, and then later, now he has a defibrillator permanently fitted. He can't fly anymore. So the cardiologist said in a terrible bedside manner, you know, I'm sorry, but your husband will never fly again.

0:11:43 - (Carla Middleton): Which I knew was going to be probably the hardest conversation I would have to have with him. But he also said, this is going to be the greatest gift. And I wanted to pick him up and throw him across the room. And I was like, this is not a gift. This is by far the worst thing that's ever happened to me. How can you say that to somebody that is just in this moment?

0:12:02 - (Linda Habak): But what do you think he meant by that?

0:12:06 - (Carla Middleton): We have something in such an early stage of our life. I talk about my husband, my kids, all of our extended family and friends that have hurt this story. Such an appreciation for life, such a respect for the fragility that is life, and that everything can change in a moment. We don't have it under control. Well, you know, what's that famous story, you know, you think you've got it under control and God laughs at you, but you got a plan God loves. Yeah, Yeah.

0:12:34 - (Carla Middleton): I truly believe that. And so all we've got is the now. We don't have yesterday, and we certainly don't have tomorrow.

0:12:40 - (Linda Habak): Tomorrow is not promised.

0:12:42 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, tomorrow is not promised. And in that moment, I learned that in an hour is not promised. And I just. There were so many days where I played over in my head what I would have done if he didn't. You know, there was such a moment where, if he didn't make it, what that would have meant. And no amount of money, no amount of brute force, nothing in life can ever bring someone back. That's done, and they're gone, and there's nothing you can do about it.

0:13:10 - (Carla Middleton): And I often look at Steve Jobs like, what a prolific man that achieved so much, the poor man. Got cancer. No amount of, like he was one of the wealthiest. No amount of money could ever bring his life back. So I have so much respect for life and what is capable in it and what you can do with it. And so that's my greatest lesson that I've Learned from this.

0:13:35 - (Linda Habak): 24 hours in, he survives. What does the next few months look like? How do you navigate almost losing your husband? The trauma that comes from that moment of saving his life, your children's trauma. Can you describe what that next couple of months looks like for you?

0:13:57 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, they were really tricky. I had at the time, the practice was quite small, so I was a sole practitioner. So I put all work on a pause and Chris had a lot of recovery to go through. He was in hospital for over a month. There was, you know, lots of discussions. He had to have surgery to have the defibrillator. So there was lots of care and recovery. We were just surrounded by love and care. My parents moved in, took care of the kids. I was at the hospital every day.

0:14:26 - (Carla Middleton): Something that I would like to touch on, you know, I was at the hospital with my laptop, working. Looking back now, I know that that was just a strategy to consume the time. Right. I don't think I was actually doing any good work, but coping mechanism. It was a coping mechanism, without a doubt. And very quickly after the cardiac arrest, I went into a place of, I'm the primary carer, I'm the primary provider. My husband had always been, you know, we've talked about it before, the financial provider.

0:15:00 - (Carla Middleton): There was never a conversation in our marriage that, you know, one of us was going to be the main person that did their job. We both respected each other's careers greatly, but just when you have small kids and the logistics and what kind of lays out in front of you, you just kind of go, well, that makes sense that you work full time and I try and do part time while juggling the kids.

0:15:21 - (Linda Habak): Hard to be part time pilot if you're.

0:15:24 - (Carla Middleton): Yes.

0:15:24 - (Linda Habak): You know, that's the trajectory of your career. So I get.

0:15:27 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, there was a logistical element there. Yeah. So in that moment, I don't know if it was a trauma response or an aspirational side to me, but I definitely went into, I have to take care of my family. I want chr recover, I want him to rest and figure out what his life looks like. And that meant that my work and my revenue stream was highly important. And I put my head down for the next probably, well, three to four years and worked my little butt off to make sure that I could support Chris and the family financially.

0:16:11 - (Carla Middleton): So yeah, the first few months were like anything and you surrounded by all the love and support and then it kind of tapers off and all the hard work really does start to kick in within yourself when you are surviving and going through something. And I was pretty quick to put in action all the things that you have to do for yourself. I think you can go two ways in surviving with trauma or health issues is you can kind of sit there and wallow in self pity and not do anything about it. But we quickly moved into action. I went and sought the best trauma therapist.

0:16:44 - (Carla Middleton): I had a clinical psychologist work on my trauma. My husband was in therapy. The kids, we were monitoring them closely and we just, you know, had gps. Everyone around us just getting the best advice we could to move through it.

0:16:59 - (Linda Habak): Did you at any point feel like you wanted to give up in that. Did the trauma ever feel so great that you just thought, I'm gonna live in a dark hole and I can't get out of it?

0:17:14 - (Carla Middleton): Probably a few years after when I.

0:17:17 - (Linda Habak): So not immediately after.

0:17:19 - (Carla Middleton): Not immediately. I just sprang straight into action. I think I was in Fight or Flight for a good two years, really. Trauma is quite an insidious thing that gets locked away in the brain that takes a long time to heal from. Specifically in relation to trauma therapy. They go back and relive. So it's filed into a section in your brain and you have to go and relive it and rewrite it so that all the triggers that come up aren't triggering you constantly to go back into Fight or Flight. That, you know, I had to do quite a lot of work around holding my daughter and reliving that moment that I could go and grab her and tell her, it's okay, daddy's gonna be okay. Because that was really traumatic for me.

0:17:55 - (Carla Middleton): You know, you wanna protect your kids by all. They should never see that. Never. And as a mother, I felt so guilty that I couldn't tend to her. And so I've had to do a lot of work out of the fact that I couldn't tend to her that day. But I gave her a father for the rest of her life.

0:18:11 - (Linda Habak): You know, there's a lot of forgiveness you need to give yourself here. Yeah. But I guess it's easy to say that theoretically. Right. But the brain is a very powerful, very powerful thing. And so I imagine that it plays tricks on you.

0:18:27 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely.

0:18:28 - (Linda Habak): And so you focus on the thing that you didn't do in that moment instead of focusing on the thing that you did do, which is save, you know, save a life.

0:18:35 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, yeah, totally.

0:18:37 - (Linda Habak): Wow.

0:18:38 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

0:18:39 - (Linda Habak): That's extraordinary. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's heart achingly beautiful, almost. Let's talk about burnout, because you said the first two years you were in full fight or flight around the business because you became the primary breadwinner for the family. Can you take me through what that looks like? What did that look like for you in that two years?

0:19:03 - (Carla Middleton): Well, as everyone in the industry will recall, during COVID everyone was so busy.

0:19:08 - (Linda Habak): Right. Everyone was flooded and stressful time.

0:19:12 - (Carla Middleton): So I was a sole. I don't know if I was a sole practitioner. Oh, yes, I was. But I was just getting flooded with inquiries, which was so confidence boosting and lovely. And so before I knew it, I had more work than I could do on my own. So I started to grow the team and I started to hire graduates and I got a studio quite quickly and started to get out of the house and build the business. What that looked like was taking on every project that came through the door, hiring staff.

0:19:45 - (Carla Middleton): That required a lot from me. You know, I was mentoring a lot. I was coming home and being a mother for really small children. Up during the night sickness, I was taking care of my husband, who was really wobbly and unclear about his purpose and his life and his future. The confidence within his body to know that he was healthy and that he could go for a walk around the block. So I was coaching and helping and supporting him, and I was also healing my own trauma. You know, we had two very different things that happened that day in his world. He went to sleep and then woke up and couldn't do what he loves to do and got something ripped from him.

0:20:30 - (Carla Middleton): And I had a very scary experience, but also experience where I learned about the fragility of life. Like I learned about life. So for years now, we have. On the day of the anniversary, we get a candle and we celebrate his birthday from the. So 1, 2, 3. And we celebrate life. And that's really exciting for Chris. But then I kind of revert back into my trauma and really struggle with that day.

0:20:55 - (Linda Habak): Do you. I'm gonna ask an odd question maybe, but is there any resentment that you got the fear end of the stick because he went to sleep and he. I mean, he just didn't know what was happening.

0:21:10 - (Carla Middleton): Right.

0:21:10 - (Linda Habak): He was in a coma for most of that day.

0:21:12 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

0:21:13 - (Linda Habak): But is there a part of you?

0:21:15 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, no. It's a great question. And it's something that we have had to talk about. I wouldn't say there's resentment, but there's a conflict. There's a conflict of what we're processing. Cause we have two separate stories. Either one of us haven't won from it.

0:21:33 - (Linda Habak): No, of course not.

0:21:34 - (Carla Middleton): But two of us have had to respect each other's situation and give it the time and the space to talk about and not try and compete with it. Right. And not be like, on that day this happened to me. Will that happen up this day that this happened to me?

0:21:48 - (Linda Habak): Yes. And it's not a one upsmanship. My experience was worse than yours.

0:21:52 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, I almost lost my life. But I saved your life.

0:21:55 - (Linda Habak): I can imagine that conversation.

0:21:58 - (Carla Middleton): No, I mean totally, Totally. So, no, I wouldn't say there's resentment. There's just so much respect. There has been, I would say, a processing of around the life piece that we've had to do, quite a lot of conversations about because I have experienced witnessing, you know, my greatest love leave. And then, you know, that's what I processed. Right. And then to make sure the gratefulness and the gratitude is still there for him is really hard because he lost a lot. And so he, without a doubt, 90% of the time, you know, has moments where we just got back from Greece and he just sits there, you know, swimming in the Mediterranean. And he just turns to me and goes, says, thank you.

0:22:46 - (Carla Middleton): You know, he understands I'm here because of you.

0:22:49 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:22:50 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. I'm watching these kids have this life because of you.

0:22:54 - (Linda Habak): I'm just in awe of you, honestly, like how amazing I think you are. And this story. Okay, let's go back.

0:23:03 - (Carla Middleton): Let's wipe the tears.

0:23:05 - (Linda Habak): Let's wipe the tears. Let's have a moment. I want to go back to those early years and the business. So you're building it, you're growing it. It's been five years. At what point do you stop and go? Life has to look different, the business has to look different. Was there like a specific moment or was it a build up of moments?

0:23:27 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, it's a really good question. I think I do remember vividly, probably about the third year mark, where we were on a holiday and I had made a very conscious effort to switch off. And I was talking to someone by the pool and I said, do you know what? This is the first holiday I've had in three years that I've actually switched off. Cause I, you know, when you got kids in school holidays, we would go away, but I would be there on the laptop. I would be working late till night. I was always doing. I was always going 1,000 miles an hour.

0:24:01 - (Carla Middleton): My mum, she would always say, you know, health is wealth, Carla. Health is wealth. She would always kind of gently try and give me a nudge and say, I think you're working too hard and this is too much on you. Chris would kind of mention it because I would find that I would be going 1,010% during the week from Monday to Friday, and then I would sleep all weekend. I was sleeping a lot. I was trying to recover and recoup.

0:24:24 - (Carla Middleton): And I wouldn't say that I had an alcohol problem, but on Friday nights, I was looking, I was really looking for a glass of wine, you know, with a girlfriend and to just let it. Like, I was overstimulated, my nervous system was shot. I was just on go, go, go. I was just do, do, do. And then I would just crash and burn on the weekend and then pick it back up again. And I just felt like I was leaving.

0:24:50 - (Carla Middleton): I would then go for a glass of wine on a Friday night and try and come down off it. It just didn't feel like I could do this for a long period of time. And the problem is, I bloody love architecture. I'm obsessed with it. I know you are. I love it. So, like, it wasn't like I was doing work that was painful or that I didn't like it, and that was really hard. Like, there's hard things to doing business and having clients that aren't aligned to you and having difficult conversations and resolving difficult things on site, but I was watching something grow and do amazingly and build momentum. That was really satisfying and confidence boosting.

0:25:29 - (Linda Habak): That's a gift.

0:25:30 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, that was a really amazing experience. But at the same time, I could say, oh, this is not sustainable for a long period of time. How am I going to break this? Or what am I going to do? Like, there was all these things that I was doing, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. But within me, I was burnt out and I was really worried because I had that layer of life is fragile and that value that I had, and I wasn't living up to that. I was destroying myself in the process.

0:25:57 - (Carla Middleton): You know, how long can I do this before I'm gonna actually just get cancer or get sick or something? So I had to change and I had to do something about it. Which, upon reflection and seeing what I did that day for Chris, it is very much a thing that I do when I'm facing a problem. I just move straight into action. I don't sit very long in kind of Wallowing in a problem I'm quite quick to like, oh, I just truly believe. Same with architecture and design.

0:26:28 - (Carla Middleton): Every problem has a solution, but you just have to action it and find that right solution. So at that point, you know, I'd always prioritise movement and health and eating well. I put on a lot of weight. I felt really puffy. My nervous system was shot. I was carrying a lot of fluid. I felt like my whole body was inflamed. And I just. In a few instances, I don't know, I kind of feel like I get hit up with three threads and maybe I saw it on Instagram. I heard a podcast, and meditation just came to me. It came in three really solid messages.

0:27:05 - (Carla Middleton): A meditation teacher called Tim Brown, who we lost a few years ago, he taught me to meditate in Paddington. It is a Vedic meditation practice where you get given a mantra and you sit for 20 minutes twice a day, and you. You have to pay money to the teacher to give you this particular mantra that is part of your kind of physiological makeup.

0:27:28 - (Linda Habak): So it's very specific to you.

0:27:30 - (Carla Middleton): Very specific to you. I was quite dogmatic in that I needed to do this, and I just burst into tears. I just was like, this is what I've needed. Like, just that first meditation, I could feel my nervous system feel like I got more in touch with myself. I got deep rest. So 20 minutes of Vedic meditation is equivalent to three hours of sleep. So you go into such a deep place of rest that. Yeah, I basically. That's been two years of practice, in which case I've had beautiful guiding hands from Juliet Hudson. She's in Paddington. And Nico Plowman, some really amazing leaders in their field.

0:28:10 - (Carla Middleton): I meditate twice a day, and I also go on what we call rounding retreats. So we go for a few nights away, and you basically meditate and do some really basic yoga asanas for two or three, and you really just knock away that nervous system, that fight or flight. You get really deep. You just like. I just finished a rounding retreat a few months ago, and I joked because I was just laying on a concrete floor, like, you think you need pillows and doonas and all of this, and I would just pass out. I was so deeply exhausted.

0:28:46 - (Carla Middleton): And you just go into all this rest and you remove yourself from caffeine and. And toxins and stimulation.

0:28:53 - (Linda Habak): So it's quite different. Vedic meditation or Transcendental meditation is quite different to other types of meditation.

0:29:00 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, yeah. Also, trauma like that came up during my meditation, and the intense rounding retreats, your trauma really Comes up to the surface and you have to face a lot of these stuff and process it and let it get released from the body so it feels a bit woo woo. I'm not entirely all woo woo. But meditation is one tool in my toolkit that I found had a great impact on my processing and continue to every day.

0:29:27 - (Carla Middleton): Helps me really regulate my emotions, my stress, my ability. Like Tim used to talk about it. It's called the conscious cinema. So when you meditate, well, before you meditate, it's like you're going to that Top Gun cinema and you're right in the front row and the life is happening right in front of you and it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you start to meditate and you are sitting in the back row so you can see life. You're not discharging, disengaged from life, but you don't take it on. It's not affecting your nervous system anymore.

0:29:57 - (Carla Middleton): And so it is really a profound practice that really helps me obviously process all the trauma. But in practice of architecture, you know, like, yeah, it's just one of the greatest tools to be able to take on the highs and lows of business, give great respect and perspective and space between clients. How we get so close to our clients and. But oftentimes this is a really stressful process for them and it's a lot of money and it's an enormous responsibility.

0:30:29 - (Linda Habak): On us as well. And then you're guiding them through it. So you have to be in a good place. Your cup has to be full.

0:30:38 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely.

0:30:39 - (Linda Habak): To be able to guide them on that process.

0:30:41 - (Carla Middleton): And you have to be really responsible and really professional and give them incredible guidance. So a client jokes to me that I've been pushing her up Mount Everest. Good analogy. So, yeah, you have to be the one that leads the train. You're the conductor of the orchestra and you really need to be well composed within yourself to be able to give really solid, good advice for our clients. So, yeah, that's meditation.

0:31:10 - (Linda Habak): Love that. Wow. I mean, I've tried to meditate over the years. I'm terrible. I can't quiet my brain. So you might have to give me some pointers, I think.

0:31:18 - (Carla Middleton): No, it's a, it's a common thing that lots of people say. I don't think I'd be very good at that. And the great thing about a practice is it's practicing every day. No one's got it sorted. It's a bit like the practice of architecture. No one has a rule book and knows how to do it. It's that you show up, you're committed to it, you do your best. And. Yeah, oftentimes I might wiggle. I can't sit still. But something's coming up, something I need to think about.

0:31:44 - (Carla Middleton): And you'd be amazed, you know, how, like a working mother, you have a thousand things to do, tabs open. Yeah. And I'd be surprised if I sit there. The one thing that I've either forgotten about will pop up at the end of my meditation and I'll be like, great, I need to do that. There's like this deep knowing and intuition that I think meditation gives to everyone, but particularly to women. Like our intuition is our superpower.

0:32:12 - (Linda Habak): I was gonna jump onto the business stuff, but. But let's talk about intuition for a moment because, you know, I know you're woo woo, but not woo woo. And a lot of us are like that because I think we. We don't want to admit that. Actually, I've come to realize later in my life that my intuition is my number one barometer on where to travel in this life. And it's taken years to accept that that actually is my strongest superpower.

0:32:43 - (Linda Habak): So talk to me about intuition because I imagine before the cardiac arrest, you probably had it but didn't even tap into it. So.

0:32:53 - (Carla Middleton): Well, I think it was there because to think that I saw Chris, right. And I was quick to action and I, like, I was in the vicinity. Like so many people were like, you could have been out. You could have popped out. You could have been in the shower. Like, there was a knowing that I needed to be around that day. I believe. I believe it's there. But I think this world distracts us and tricks women into believing that they need to be doing so many other things rather than just really sitting and listening and trusting. Trusting, yeah. There's a deep, deep knowing.

0:33:25 - (Carla Middleton): It's part of the Vedic practice, is that sometimes before you meditate, you look down at your fingernails and you say, okay, well, they're growing. But I haven't instructed my fingernails to grow. I haven't done anything to tell it to grow. You know, we birthed children. We didn't tell our body to grow a. Or that section of the baby's brain. There's a deep, natural knowing within the female body. And I just.

0:33:51 - (Carla Middleton): Meditation and there's some, you know, ocean swimming and some other sections of my life that drop away all the overstimulation and allow me to really deeply connect in that knowing and listen to that. You need to carve out time to check in with it. And especially with creatives, like, so important, like, intuition comes from the hand. It's, you know, our brain can think, okay, well, that space needs to go there, that needs to move here. I need to do this.

0:34:18 - (Carla Middleton): But there's so much to the hand and the mind that's quite intuitive. And then you need to let that flow. And then if you're, like busying yourself and distracting, that connection gets broken.

0:34:28 - (Linda Habak): The hand and the heart.

0:34:29 - (Carla Middleton): The hand and the heart.

0:34:30 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, they're connected. We're going to move into the business of architecture. Well, the architecture of business. Either way, because you have so much value and knowledge, honestly, we could do a whole segment just on the business of architecture, so. Cause when you were in uni, you told me a story. When you were at uni, you were told by a lecturer, don't ever open your own practice. You'll never make any money.

0:34:56 - (Linda Habak): Let's debunk that. I want to go through and debunk that whole myth, that whole story, because you have been built a very successful practice. So take me through. Where does it all start for you?

0:35:11 - (Carla Middleton): Well, I've learned so much and I'm so happy to share. I think the situation that we went through, and me being the primary earner, I was very focused on the finances. And I think you really can't shy away from that as a creative. Like, we are naturally creative. That comes as a really strong, intuitive skill of ours. And so I leant into the aspects that may bore you, may not be fun, may not be the creative side, and you really need to knock that out and really tend to that.

0:35:39 - (Carla Middleton): And so I got very early on a forecasting document that I kind of created myself in Excel. And I just had it broken down into each month. I looked at which projects I had, what I could achieve in that month, how much revenue that would bring in, and I just planned it out. So every time a new project came in, being a sole practitioner, I could be like, I'm only starting it on this. And I would plan it out. I would know that there's certain months where I'd have to go really hard to keep that job. Because some people call you, they want to start tomorrow, otherwise you're going to miss out on the job and you have to work long hours. You have to do that really hard work to begin with to build it up. I think that's also one of the most important things.

0:36:19 - (Carla Middleton): I have grit, I have hard work, and I have ethics. Right. And you have to want it. And that didn't come hard for me because I'm so passionate about architecture and I respect that. A lot of people might not have that. That's okay. Like, you can go and have a great career in architecture and earn really good money and do really well without creating a practice. But I've had that determination from the day I studied architecture. I wanted to start my own practice.

0:36:47 - (Linda Habak): So you always knew you wanted to have your own practice. Do you think your husband's cardiac arrest, do you think it changed the way you looked at building a practice? Would you have built this type of practice if it weren't for that moment?

0:37:04 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely, without a doubt. I was already on that trajectory of going there, but I think it would have been a lot slower because I would have had to juggle it part.

0:37:14 - (Linda Habak): Time with kids around your husband's care.

0:37:17 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. So with Chris's cardiac arrest, he didn't work for five years and he was the primary carer of the kids, which allowed me to be full force at work. He went and studied and did some things which I highly respect whilst juggling 2k and so small. So it wasn't easy on his side. But I would have built it because I have that passion for architecture and business. But it would have been a lot slower of a trajectory.

0:37:44 - (Carla Middleton): And I wonder as well, because I went in full time and had the flexibility of, you know, not having to rush home to my babies that were with their dad. I could stay late. I could, as a mother, peel away that sense of responsibility that so many women have to carry. Right. Is that juggle and doing two things at once, it's just too hard.

0:38:06 - (Linda Habak): So hard.

0:38:06 - (Carla Middleton): It's so hard. So I don't think I would have had. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that, but I know I definitely would have had a business. But whether or not I would have been able to give it that five years of my full attention without.

0:38:21 - (Linda Habak): To grow it and to build it.

0:38:22 - (Carla Middleton): To having to feel like I could have to do two jobs at the same time, like so many women have to do.

0:38:28 - (Linda Habak): It's impossible. It's impossible. Well, I mean, it's possible, but something's got to give. Right?

0:38:33 - (Carla Middleton): Right.

0:38:33 - (Linda Habak): And so, you know, either that's your health or joy, like something you just cut. You can have everything, just not all at once, I think is what the saying is.

0:38:42 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

0:38:43 - (Linda Habak): Okay, so you talked about finances. Can we just stay there for a moment? Because you also. One of your notes is get a good accountant. So you've created this Forecasting, spreadsheet. I have the same thing. Love it.

0:38:57 - (Carla Middleton): I'm obsessed with it. I look at it all every day, every day, and I think, yeah, so just going back to that, I started that as a sort practitioner and then I had enough, knew I had enough work coming in. So I knew that I could get a graduate. I started to know that I could see enough cash flow in the business, I could get a studio, pay rent. And you just slowly build on that as you go and you watch the numbers.

0:39:20 - (Carla Middleton): Look, by all means, I've had dips and highs and lows in business. That is scary and not fun, but it only gives you more grit and determination to fill those holes. Catch it earlier, learn from it. With business and with practising architecture, you need to be at least three to four months in advance of enough work. We have the privilege now of having over 12 months worth of work that I've worked really hard to give us that stability as a practice.

0:39:50 - (Carla Middleton): But by all means, like, things drop, projects go on pause, they move around. So you have to be very flexible and dynamic, but you also need to be hustling all the time.

0:40:03 - (Linda Habak): What does that look like? Can you define that for me? Cause a lot of people go, oh, you know, they sit around going, I've got no work or no calls, no one's calling. But you gotta create that. You've gotta plant the seeds. You have to be having the conversation. So what does that look like for you?

0:40:18 - (Carla Middleton): For me, this is also touched on, you know, your reference to an accountant. So I learnt from the very first stage is you surround yourself with the best people in their field of profession. Right. I'm expecting clients to come to me for architecture and engage in me as the top professional. I need to do the same when it comes to accounting, marketing, hr, business coaching, you name it. To begin with, I couldn't afford it. All I can run through what I've got now. That is my kind of core team.

0:40:49 - (Carla Middleton): I'd love to hear, but accounting was the first one that I invested in. I invested in processing so a really good forecasting document and invoicing and all of that kind of financial side. You need to get set up in terms of going back to your question about the hustle and making sure that workflow. I think marketing is so important. Marketing and communicating, being able to communicate your value in the industry.

0:41:15 - (Carla Middleton): What do we do and how do we bring value to our clients? And also how do we communicate to clients that are considering using an architect and what that looks like and how that looks like. And what value in the end does that bring them? You know, we're very much in exchange society, so the dream clients are typically well educated in architecture, arts, the creative side. They understand it, they get it, they are the dream client.

0:41:43 - (Carla Middleton): But a lot of people are trying to understand it, and they really want to understand, okay, will I pay you this amount of money in exchange? What do I get as a service for that? And trying to debunk that in our social media. Instagram is very much a communication tool. I learned very early on on that there's two kind of Instagram accounts. There's the architects, the Instagram for other architects, and that's all those really beautiful little construction details, the pretty images, this detail, that detail.

0:42:13 - (Carla Middleton): Yes. Some clients are interested in that, but the majority aren't. So our Instagram, I hired very early on a marketing team that specialize in all of that and crafting our tone of voice, crafting our messaging, and trying to really tap into our market and try and communicate our value and what we bring to a project.

0:42:33 - (Linda Habak): I love that, love marketing. It's my background. My question to you, in terms of the marketing strategy or employing the marketing agency, did you see a direct shift or a direct response from that action and that investment into your business, did that result directly into increased turnover?

0:42:55 - (Carla Middleton): Yes, but it has been a journey because we've had different messages. Marketing and social media is very complex, far more complex than I understand. We had a post recently, last weekend, that just went viral. It was a before and after post the team put together. And I would never have thought that that would be something that just took off. And apparently the algorithm that the marketing team tried to explain it to me kind of got in that square and then just everyone was following it and it just went viral.

0:43:26 - (Linda Habak): This is on Instagram.

0:43:27 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. And so some posts that I thought were really well crafted and that would lead to leads instantly didn't. Didn't. And some, like I said, last weekend, went viral. But what I have learned about social media and the connection between marketing and leads and the conversion process, because I've done a lot of training in that too, is that particularly with architecture, it's a slow burn.

0:43:54 - (Linda Habak): Long Runway.

0:43:55 - (Carla Middleton): Long Runway. This is not happening in a week. This, this is like.

0:43:59 - (Linda Habak): Bit like podcasting, Darla.

0:44:01 - (Carla Middleton): It's a long Runway. People are following us for years and they are watching what we do. They're watching our consistency, they're watching how I've built the practice. We show up, we've got a presence, quality, repeated work, brand equity.

0:44:20 - (Linda Habak): You're building brand equity and it's very hard to put a dollar figure on that, actually. It's hard. So unless what you're putting out has a direct call to action, it is actually. It's very hard to measure. It's a metric that's impossible. Almost impossible.

0:44:36 - (Carla Middleton): It really is. It really is. And sometimes.

0:44:39 - (Linda Habak): But necessary.

0:44:40 - (Carla Middleton): Yes, absolutely. And it's so flattering to hear with new inquiries. I've been watching you for years. We've been trying to buy a property. We finally found a property and we've been watching you and we've known you've been our architect for a long period of time. We want to work with you. So that's like, oh, all that hard work is marketing is paid off.

0:45:01 - (Linda Habak): But I mean that's the thing with architecture and design. You can be in a relationship with a potential client that you don't even know for a long time, but their timing has to be right. So you're almost, you're waiting for a lot of things, a lot of pieces of the puzzle to come together. So marketing is one part. Is there anything else you do as far as business development? Are you having like, do you build relationships with a real estate agents or builders?

0:45:29 - (Linda Habak): Does work come through those avenues or is it really mostly marketing in this traditional sense? So these days it's digital marketing.

0:45:38 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, it's typically digital marketing, but I don't know. You've got more understanding of marketing than I do. But I get the sense that it usually happens in three ways. For a client, they'll have a presence on social media. They might talk to a real estate agent. They've got, your name's been mentioned. They might be down the beach talking to a friend. Your name gets mentioned. They walk past the site, they see your sight sign, it kind of builds and then usually they'll reach out.

0:46:05 - (Carla Middleton): So there's no. It's. It's also we have a leads document. So we're tracking leads, we're trying to understand where they all come through and get research. We're trying to map out our marketing and where there is a peak in leads, what's happened around that time. And, and it's often really hard to understand and analyze. We do our best in the marketing team and you sometimes are just like, it's a little unicorn and it's good. Then my meditation kicks in and I'm like, well, what will be will be. I have to sit back and have a knowing that this will all plan out.

0:46:37 - (Carla Middleton): And you know, are we sitting there and maybe there's a hole in the forecasting. And then in a few days, you know, an email will slip in and there's that dream client and then there they are. So I'm currently working on with my meditation teacher. Is that hustle? Is that my fight or flight response of like trying to drive everything and being really forceful in it? Or do I need to sit back and get connected more to my feminine side, which is that intuition, letting things fall into place, trust know that, you know, the universe has kind of got it planned out for me. So I'm really, I'm battling with that at the moment because I just want to kick in there and hustle and make those connections and force some things.

0:47:16 - (Carla Middleton): And then you see that email slip in and you're like, I didn't actually have to do it. Anything for that. That just all happened. Yeah, it's written the woo woo and the. And the structure and the practical side.

0:47:27 - (Linda Habak): Linda, can I just say, honestly, I'm processing because I'm listening to this story and I see this tussle as well because I think so many things about that moment of your husband's. Cardiac arrest, sudden cardiac arrest to be specific. What was planned like the you. It sounds like crazy and woo.

0:47:50 - (Carla Middleton): But it's so true.

0:47:51 - (Linda Habak): It was totally planned. Right. And here you are trying to. You said something, you gave the analogy of off camera that you put on a suit of armor and you've been in that mode and maybe now what you're trying to do in this meditation is actually take the suit off. Yes, but actually. Cause it's a mindset shift, isn't it? And so the question is, are you working through that mindset shift to know that you don't have to control every single piece of the puzzle and trust that it's all happening for your greatest good and your greatest purpose?

0:48:28 - (Linda Habak): I believe that I have to believe that in life. Cause otherwise just dig the hole now and I'll see you later. I have to believe that everything is happening for our greatest purpose.

0:48:40 - (Carla Middleton): That's just absolutely. I think you really do. I do believe that. But I do have a tussle with it. I do tussle with it. An action driven woman. And so I have to really lean into that side. But I think what's really helped me from a very early stage in business is values. Going back to your business values and your personal values. So Dr. Jody Lelwanjar, she's written a great book about the mindset. She was the one that helped me with my trauma. She's also Helped me with the business is really articulating your personal values and your business values.

0:49:14 - (Carla Middleton): And so when I'm in that tussle between the knowing and the hustle hustle, I'll lean into my values. So what are my values in this moment? Is that I trust, I have integrity. I believe in creativity. I'm responsible. If all of those things are there in the practice and what I'm doing every day, it will come. It will all flow. And integrity is the biggest one because I have the greatest sense of doing the right thing and being highly responsible and honest with my clients and deep sense of justice.

0:49:48 - (Carla Middleton): Deep sense of justice.

0:49:50 - (Linda Habak): Are your business values and personal values one in the same?

0:49:54 - (Carla Middleton): No, no, they're different because, well, they have an overlap. But my personal ones are, you know. Yeah, they're adventure, and they're obviously creativity, which matches with the business. There is love and family. So they can toss, like, go between the two. But there's definitely some personal ones that are not related to the business. And that also helps me because I'm a deeply caring person. So every project we take on, I treat it like my baby. It's like my own house. I have a really deep care for it.

0:50:29 - (Carla Middleton): And my husband also jokes most nights. He's like, it's not your house. Drop it. It's not your house. I care so deeply. So then the values help me in that. Typically when I'm pushing into caring so deeply about things, okay, well, am I pushing into my personal. Have I had enough adventure? Have I had enough nature? Have I done enough for myself? Because then I'll have the separation between myself and the business.

0:50:56 - (Carla Middleton): Because it's really important that you don't become the business. The business and the practice is separate and you are your own person.

0:51:04 - (Linda Habak): I've learned over the years it's taken me a long time, and I think I have to credit my husband because I've watched him over the years grow in his career. And what I've learned watching him is there does have to be an element of decompartmentalization. So you have to learn. Maybe it's armor, but you can't take everything on. You can't take everything personally. There has to be a sense of separation. Otherwise you can't sustain it long term.

0:51:33 - (Carla Middleton): It's just.

0:51:34 - (Linda Habak): It'll disintegrate. You will disintegrate. So I think that's a really important thing to raise. Definitely.

0:51:41 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. So if anyone out there is having that moment in their practice and their growth is, maybe try and use some values, because My business coach, Pru Chapman's been helping me, and she's like, I worked with her before. Oh, she loves you, by the way. I love her, too. She said as soon as one of those boundaries is getting pushed up, like, your boundaries and your values are like, kind of sitting around you like a bubble. So they're flexible, they can move.

0:52:08 - (Carla Middleton): Right. And soon as one of them is getting really big nudged. So I had an instance with a client recently where the trust had been destroyed. They did not trust me. Right. And so I was like, this needs to just. We just need to part ways. This is one of my greatest values, is that all of my clients trust me. And if we don't have a trusting relationship, that's one of my core values. We can't work together.

0:52:30 - (Carla Middleton): So.

0:52:31 - (Linda Habak): And you took that conversation to the.

0:52:32 - (Carla Middleton): Client in so much of a words, but I have to then as soon as one of those boundaries or things is being crossed, I then go back to my values. I go, okay. That's what's pushing me right now. And so we're not aligned on that. And so some sort of action needs to. It has to happen. Yeah. So it's definitely a guiding barometer for me in business is values. And so if someone's struggling with that flow of themselves and feeling like they are the business and they're having a great impact on them is try and set those values and then have them up on, like, I've had them up on a post it note at the bottom of my screen and being like, is this pushing one of my values? Yes. Okay, well, then that is why, rather than being reactive and being emotional about it.

0:53:18 - (Linda Habak): Okay, I have a question again. I'm going to come back to the moment in 2020, the incident. Do you think you would have been so clear on these values if that incident didn't happen in your life?

0:53:33 - (Carla Middleton): No. Yeah.

0:53:35 - (Linda Habak): What I'm trying to do with my questions is actually see that that was the gift.

0:53:40 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely.

0:53:41 - (Linda Habak): Like, it was such a gift. Because from what I can see and what I'm hearing is that moment, as horrible and as shit as that experience was for you, it has actually transformed you. And it has been this gift that has built you as a human and as this incredible business owner. And so I just. This is why I believe everything happens to us for our highest purpose.

0:54:10 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more.

0:54:13 - (Linda Habak): Okay, we're gonna talk. We're gonna get a little bit into the weeds now. Business systems.

0:54:18 - (Carla Middleton): Yes. Let's do it.

0:54:19 - (Linda Habak): Talk to me about Your process and structure in terms of how you run a job. What are the tools that you use in your toolkit? Cause there's some real efficiencies there and I'd love to kind of unpack that for someone who's listening going because like, you know what, it's like you're building a business, you're building the car as you drive it half the time.

0:54:40 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

0:54:40 - (Linda Habak): So your car's built.

0:54:42 - (Carla Middleton): I hope so. But I don't think it will ever be fully built is because we have a, you know, a whip every week with the team and we have a whoopsies list. And so we all talk about what's happened and what mistakes they've had or, and how we can all learn from it. But it's not only just talking about what we've all learned from it because it's then going, okay, well which checklist does that move into? So I'll talk to you about our systems and processes which I think is the actual foundation and bedrock of the success of cma.

0:55:10 - (Carla Middleton): And I started to pull it all together whilst I was doing projects. I don't, I look back and I just don't even know how I did it all. So with every stage, whether it be when we go to a site and we do an existing measure up, we DO concept design, DAs, CDCs, construction documentation, going to tender, CCS, you name it, whatever package that is, we have a system, a checklist that all of the team can look at.

0:55:38 - (Carla Middleton): And like I said, when everything comes up as a whoopsie or something that we learnt, we're always going back and.

0:55:43 - (Linda Habak): It'S really important adding it to that.

0:55:45 - (Carla Middleton): Adding it, refining your checklist. And that's something that I have learned from my husband being a pilot, is that the human brain is very quick. If there's an easier way to do something, they'll even move through the checklist even though they're not doing something and then go find their go around solution rather than actually deleting that item and saying, hey, in this session I do this instead of that and that's more efficient. Right.

0:56:12 - (Carla Middleton): So we're always working on our checklists and that allows for everything that we do within the team. And as I grow the team and get more and more staff that they know how we do things, there's a set of documents that they can refer to saying this is what we do. For a DA set, this is what it looks like. I need to include red lines, I need to do this, I need to do that.

0:56:33 - (Linda Habak): And this checklist where does it live? Does it live on Google Drive? Or is it something that is it part of? Like you open up a new project, you set it up in the system. I have checklists, I've got a standard operating procedure that, you know, I loosely started to create that. But you start it and then you never go back. So tell me, how do you really implement it? Like how is it being used on the daily basis?

0:56:57 - (Carla Middleton): Okay, so we analyze basically every single program that was available like this. So there's Monday, there's Forecasting, there's Trello. And we just really couldn't find anything that we needed. So we use a program called Microsoft Project. And I kind of came up with it that I kind of wanted this Gantt chart. I wanted to see where all the projects were at, what they were working on, how much time it took a team member, whether it's a graduate project architect or an associate, how long it took them to do that.

0:57:26 - (Carla Middleton): And then the checklists are quite systematic in how they've done that. So it's in project. Everyone in the team gets assigned the studio manager goes through at the beginning of the month. The studio manager is doing any collaboration what I think we need to get done for that month. Then we'll plan it out into project and it's got a certain amount of hours and you'll be assigned to the da and then the dropdown within, that's got the checklist. So they tick up it, you can see a percentage of how much of the checklist has been done so that at the end of the month we can bill for that amount and we can check in.

0:57:57 - (Carla Middleton): But another thing that's really important because in practice and in all service based industries is our time, right?

0:58:05 - (Linda Habak): We're constantly exchanging time for money, time for money. And so how do we shift from a time for money to a value based.

0:58:13 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, also I'm really precious about my team burning out. So one thing I hated as a graduate and working in, I dabbled in some bigger practices which I hated. I was always into residential and smaller practice. But you know that slogging of long hours till 10 o' clock at night, like no, there's an inefficiency there that's not okay. Surely from 9 till 6pm in a day is enough to get some really good quality work done.

0:58:39 - (Carla Middleton): If you're working beyond that, there's a bit of a problem. And so that's what I always say to my team. I don't want you staying late. If you're staying late, there's a problem in an our efficiency, and we need to knit that and deal with that. So we'll plan out the whole month and look at the whole team and how many hours they have for that month. We work on an 80% efficiency marker. And so we can say, okay, well, Rosie's over on her hours, Somebody's low on their hours. Let's shift that and get resourcing and make sure everyone's hours are within the bracket that they're comfortable with.

0:59:09 - (Carla Middleton): And then every week, so week one's a check in. Okay, this is your deadlines for the. By the second week, we do another check in with the team. Are you okay? Hands. Some hands go up. I give it to the team as though by week two, I need hands going up. Because by week three, we're middle of the month and if we've got problems, then I can't invoice at the end of the month. And so by the third week, that's really just a check in.

0:59:32 - (Carla Middleton): We're all good to go. And then the fourth week is. Okay, you have achieved all the deadlines that we've talked about. Tick, tick, tick. And I can invoice.

0:59:39 - (Linda Habak): Invoice. Do you do the invoicing or does the studio manager.

0:59:43 - (Carla Middleton): The studio manager does it, but I did it for a long time.

0:59:45 - (Linda Habak): Yeah, I built the system.

0:59:47 - (Carla Middleton): Right. I have all the hats. I think that's something as well. That's really key to a successful practice that a few of my team members have talked to me about. I can, I can even get into revit and I can model and I can document. So they have a great level of respect for me in when I'm saying, oh, you know that flashing. You've drawn that in 2D. I want that model in 3D. And they were like some resistance. No, no, no. That's all I'm like, you can do it here. Move over, let me sit down and I'll get in there and show them how it's done.

1:00:13 - (Carla Middleton): I think there's, you know, as you grow in a practice and you get bigger and there's lots of roles and different people coming in, I think you need to, as the director and the creative director, show your ability to get into your business and know how to do every section of it. I'm sure when I'm 70 and still practicing, I won't probably be as fast and as well equipped and equipped equipment.

1:00:33 - (Linda Habak): Oh, by then there'll be some AI that's taking over the world for us anyway and able to do some of.

1:00:38 - (Carla Middleton): These Technical things, I think. Yeah, you really, you can't lose too much connection from the business. You really need to stay quite close to it. Hiring too many external parties and they're not actually doing anything, I think can be problematic in business.

1:00:53 - (Linda Habak): How can we unpack the challenge of that juggle? Because you're straddling being the business person, but also still driving the creative. So in practice, in day to day, how do you do that? Cause that's hard. I know it's hard for me sometimes. So what does that look like?

1:01:13 - (Carla Middleton): I think A is what I've learned is hiring the very best. And if you know that person that you've delegated to is kind of dropping the ball. I think you need somebody else. Like, you really need the best people at their job. So I, I always look at Steve Jobs, who always said that he wanted to be the less smart person in the room. Like he wanted to be surrounded by.

1:01:36 - (Linda Habak): The best of the best, the best.

1:01:38 - (Carla Middleton): Of the best, and to really feel like he was the one. So that is something that I'm trying to get to. And it's. Yeah, declaring very early. If there's a consultant and marketing, HR coaching that's not quite working for you, you have to pivot very quickly and make sure you've got the best person in your team. And then being able to have more of an oversight of those items and having a second in charge has been a really important shift for me to take a lot of that actual heavy lifting of the doing and being able to just review and check and look up and out rather than down and into the business, into the detail.

1:02:17 - (Linda Habak): At what point in the business did you decide to bring on that to IC the second in charge?

1:02:24 - (Carla Middleton): I tried it very early on with like just a studio manager that had some administration experience, but it didn't really work because they weren't an architect. So they really needed to understand what a DA was. They need to be able to have done the job and almost sit and walk around with the team and really engage with them about what they're doing, how long that's taking, what are the problems, and really nut it out.

1:02:47 - (Carla Middleton): So it was only recently that I got Ophelia, who's been with me for a long time, she's an architect, she's just coming back from maternity leave. So it really works for her to kind of be part time and not have the pressure of a really big job to be on site and demanding. But she's still very much involved. So that's only been recently that I'VE tried to implement that, so it's still very much a work in progress. But I need to get out of the weeds.

1:03:13 - (Carla Middleton): You need to look up and out and be creative and have the space in the business.

1:03:17 - (Linda Habak): Otherwise the business owns you. Like you become an employee in the business instead of actually being the boss. And not in an egotistical way, but you can't be creative. You can't grow something if you're bogged down.

1:03:30 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So some other things. So we have obviously the project and the forecasting document and we're very strict on that and the whole team has all of that available to them. I'm very open with the team and I say this a lot, like, if you're not meeting deadlines or you've slipped up, please put your hand up earlier. It's really good communication with your team and making sure that they're in a safe environment, that there's never any hostility, there's care and we've got each other's back and supporting each other.

1:04:03 - (Carla Middleton): Other. We're a small team. So being able to deal with things that pop up as a practice earlier than later and not hiding things. And I've never had that in practice because I think I've always built a really good relationship with my team, that they feel safe enough to come to me when they've made a mistake or something slipped. But I think that's a really important culture piece that you need to work on too.

1:04:26 - (Carla Middleton): Culture is really important. Yeah, yeah.

1:04:29 - (Linda Habak): That's a daily practice, isn't it?

1:04:31 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, yeah. And so lots of other things. So I've also implemented in terms of documentation, like 30%, 60%, 90%. So not letting the team get too far in documentation and really checking in, mentoring, sketching, reviewing at more micro levels, because particularly if it goes to a younger graduate, they can get quite lost in the documentation and need more guidance. Equally as well with senior architects, sometimes they'll just want to sit down and chat and work through some of their thoughts and the details with myself or like an equal team member.

1:05:06 - (Carla Middleton): So you kind of need to have that breakdown of deadlines. Cause there's a lot of work and you need to get through it quite systematically. I've kind of written all the office manuals and stuff. But I agree you need to be really careful because you can write these things and do these things and then you don't use them.

1:05:20 - (Linda Habak): And then you don't use them.

1:05:21 - (Carla Middleton): Absolutely.

1:05:22 - (Linda Habak): So it's like, how do you weave them into the daily practice? And a few years Ago, when I was first setting up myself, I used to use Monday and I built this whole. Oh, no, it was Asana, actually. I looked at Monday and ended up using Asana. So I had all these workarounds and built the whole process through Asana. But then I moved to program and it didn't have that functionality. So I went to a manual process. And then you kind of go, oh, things just fall by the wayside. So I love that you've actually integrated it into the wip, into the practice of delivering each project, each stage.

1:05:59 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

1:06:00 - (Linda Habak): Think that's critical.

1:06:01 - (Carla Middleton): And checklists. So that checklists. I think some, some team members can get quite lost in the workload and they can keep going back to. It's essentially a list, a to do list, Akala's to do list at every stage. Right. It's like, don't forget about this. Check the sewer, do this, do that. So it's highly practical.

1:06:21 - (Linda Habak): I love that.

1:06:22 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

1:06:23 - (Linda Habak): Okay, we're going to move on to leadership and people. Cause you're growing a team now. How many team members do you have now?

1:06:30 - (Carla Middleton): We have seven.

1:06:31 - (Linda Habak): Seven. I mean, it's amazing. I remember speaking to an architect years ago and I remember him saying, the sweet spot is six people, six architects. That was his sweet spot. And I didn't know what that meant back there. It was like 10 years ago. But now I understand. Do you have a sweet spot in terms of where you think that perfect number of team members, number of projects to get? Good profitability, good turnover.

1:06:58 - (Carla Middleton): I've always had good profitability and good turnover. And I think that always comes down to me looking at the numbers and all the percentages in terms of what's going out, what's coming in, what your profit margin is. If you're not making a profit, then you've got some problems. And you need to either look at your fees, look at what you're paying everyone, like you need to address it very early on. So I haven't been bigger than seven, but every stage is the way we have been profitable. The one biggest learning, and it only comes as you're growing and as you can afford it, is I hired junior staff to begin with and I had to make that shift after a few years and just hire really professional, experienced senior people.

1:07:42 - (Carla Middleton): And that had a big shift in the practice. People kept kind of tap, tap, tap, tell, tell, like telling me that gotta get away from the graduates. But there was part of me that A, couldn't afford it and then B as well, hadn't ever experienced anything different. Right. Cause you're just learning. So I just thought that that was the way it was, that you had to do all the markups and then you experience.

1:08:06 - (Carla Middleton): I remember when that first amazing project architect started and I was like, wow, this is what life looks like. They can actually, actually do their job. And I don't need to hold him, hustle them and push them and manage them. Like, they got autonomy. It's just a big relief.

1:08:26 - (Linda Habak): What a lovely feeling.

1:08:27 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. And I love mentoring. Like, I'm just a very nurturing person. So I love seeing growth and the graduates learn. So by all means, it doesn't mean we don't hire graduates, but we got more structure now that the training of the graduates comes from a more senior architect and they have the time and capability to train them rather than actually coming directly from me, which is just an energy. Energy drain.

1:08:49 - (Linda Habak): Absolutely.

1:08:50 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah.

1:08:51 - (Linda Habak): Energy drain and time drain. When a new project comes in, how does it work? Are they. Does the client always get you or do they get you initially and then you build a team for that particular project and how many touch points do they have with you? Just curious about that.

1:09:08 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah. I think that's one of the main aspects of my practice that I am quite proud of, is that I'm present at all stages of the project. The degree in which I'm present really varies based on the client and the client needs. So we resource it in a way that if the client wants me to attend every site meeting, I am available. But they tend to build a relationship with my associates and know at certain touch points that I'm there and I'm in the background and I'll be at a meeting and I'll be like, yes, I know you've had that conversation about that fridge or that, that handle. I'm aware of it. And they know as a team, we're talking about it all.

1:09:49 - (Carla Middleton): As the practice grows, I do question how much of a thread I'll be able to give to every client, but with my meditation practice and all that I do, it's working brilliantly and I'm in touch with every client and I haven't had any sense that a client needs more. I think maybe I'm quite intuitive too, is that I'll pull back when I know that they're feeling. Feeling comfortable and everything's moving along, and then I'll show up, particularly on site, if they need just a little bit of some Carla magic and sprinkle over it, and then they just need that lift and just to know that I'm there. In the background. Across everything.

1:10:23 - (Linda Habak): You are across everything.

1:10:25 - (Carla Middleton): Yeah, yeah.

1:10:26 - (Linda Habak): So sometimes it's very easy to get drawn into growing something and then becoming quite disconnected. That's a fine balance. And it's. I mean, even I've found that challenging at times where I've thought, I've made it very clear, expectations are set. But then I've thought within myself, have I pulled away too much from that and should I sprinkle some Linda magic? And I'm not doing so, you know, it's just that tussle, isn't it, and.

1:10:54 - (Carla Middleton): Learning how to do that. And I think it's also. It goes back to my team. Like, my team will come on.

1:11:00 - (Linda Habak): Oh, yeah.

1:11:01 - (Carla Middleton): You know, they need to be reading that too. I think that that client needs you to come to this meeting or they'll be like, nope, everything's going smoothly, they're happy, they don't need your attention. So, yeah, it is a tussle that you need to be quite flexible with and make yourself available too. Like, that's as well. What I've learned is that because when I was graduates and I was in on every project, I didn't have the energy to be able to tend to something because as you get more senior and as being the creative director, when I do have to step in, I'm stepping into usually big problems or something that really needs.

1:11:35 - (Carla Middleton): Needs a higher level of expertise to solve a problem. So if you don't have capacity in your load and you're just too burnt out, you won't be able to tend to it. So you kind of got to give yourself space in your life to be ready for something to pop up so you can tend to it really well and really efficiently.

1:11:53 - (Linda Habak): Yeah. What are the three biggest takeaways? If you could give advice for someone listening to this around growing their business, their practice, practice, building it. If you could summarise your top three things.

1:12:08 - (Carla Middleton): So hire the most experienced team of experts that you can afford as you grow. The best accountant to begin with, the best business coach, the best HR specialist, the best marketing as you grow is invest in that, because you cannot do everything. And if clients are coming to us as experts in architecture, why don't we also engage other experts in their field for their expertise and to not try and do it all.

1:12:44 - (Carla Middleton): The second would be to look at your values, work on your values as a business and as a person and as a leader, really live by your values and every time a boundary's been crossed, kind of refresh on your values. The third one would be to stay really curious. I'm really curious. I don't feel like I've got it all sorted. I'm always listening to podcasts. I'm always reading books. I'm always siding up next to somebody that is amazing in their field and asking them how they do things. I think somebody said to me once, those that are really successful in business, that look at others that are successful either have two options. They can be really jealous and be really hostile around them, or they can look at them and go up to them and compliment them and see what they can learn. And I think I always opt for the second is I just admire everyone.

1:13:35 - (Carla Middleton): We're on the same page there.

1:13:37 - (Linda Habak): I love that.

1:13:37 - (Carla Middleton): Oh, there is just nothing more inspiring than meeting someone and getting to know someone's brain and being like, how did you do that? And people love it and they love to share.

1:13:47 - (Linda Habak): Everyone has a story. People want to talk. They want. In my experience, if you ask someone genuinely about how they create it or how they did something they actually want to share, they do. That's. Well, at least that's the people I've been speaking to. Yeah. They're so open.

1:14:02 - (Carla Middleton): So, yeah, yeah.

1:14:04 - (Linda Habak): All right, we're getting close to the end of our beautiful conversation. I want to ask you this. What would you tell someone right now who's going through their own dark season, trying to survive and still create something meaningful?

1:14:18 - (Carla Middleton): I think go slow, you know, slow down. Slowing down doesn't mean it's a weakness, doesn't mean you failed. It just means that you're giving yourself time and space to recover, process, understand, and then take action. It's a bit like, you know, with a bow and arrow when you play archery, when we're trying to catapult as fast and as hard forward, so we're going backwards to restore, get speed, and then catapult forwards. It's a bit like that. If you're going through something, pull back, slow down, restore, build yourself up, back up again, and by all means, you will shoot forward with a hundred times more energy and clarity and intention and integrity than you did. Trying to swim in it and trying to do it all.

1:15:06 - (Linda Habak): What's something you're proud of now that younger Carla wouldn't have believed was possible?

1:15:12 - (Carla Middleton): Being financially responsible for my family, I think women get a bit icky about talking about money and that we earn money and that we like to earn money and. And like you recalled that at university, architects don't make any money. And I have just smashed that, you know, like, it's not true. Women in architecture can make good money and you can look after your family and you can have a career that's really rewarding, that fulfils all the creativity, but you can run a business that's highly successful.

1:15:45 - (Carla Middleton): Legend.

1:15:47 - (Linda Habak): And our final.

1:15:48 - (Carla Middleton): Is that too crude, though?

1:15:49 - (Linda Habak): That sounds so good.

1:15:50 - (Carla Middleton): Good.

1:15:51 - (Linda Habak): It's so good. Our final signature question that we ask everyone for the podcast, what does Build Beautiful mean to you?

1:16:00 - (Carla Middleton): Build Beautiful means to me is starting from really strong foundations, the foundations for me to build beautifully. Obviously starting with integrity, leading my team and myself with values and really just protecting my own energy and my own self around those foundations so that something really beautiful can grow.

1:16:27 - (Linda Habak): That's just perfect. Carla, I can't thank you enough. This has.

1:16:32 - (Carla Middleton): Thank you, Linda.

1:16:33 - (Linda Habak): Like, I've had a lot of conversations now, but this one really special.

1:16:39 - (Carla Middleton): Like I said at the beginning, I don't, you know, our story is emotional. There's a lot there and there's nothing that I am more proud of is to share it and there's nothing that we need to be pity of or think of. And I would like to end on the fact that like, I've just turned 40 and I've achieved so much. I am really proud of myself. Signature birthdays, you can kind of reflect on it. But amongst in all of my achievements, you know, saving a life, let alone my husband's life, let alone my children's father, is my greatest achievement in life.

1:17:15 - (Linda Habak): You're magic. I hope that you feel this conversation has done justice for the beautiful story. The inspiring it's for me, it's moving, it's heartache, it's heart wrenching but beautiful all at the same time. And I'm just so honoured and grateful.

1:17:32 - (Carla Middleton): Thank you.

1:17:37 - (Linda Habak): Thank you for listening to Build Beautiful. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd follow the show, leave a review or share it with someone who's building something meaningful for it matters more than you know. Follow us on Instagram at Build Beautiful podcast. Until next time. Keep creating with intention and together we Build Beautiful.