Lori Vajda and Nola Boea discuss the concept of "Saying Yes to the Mess" and share their personal experiences with starting side businesses and embracing the challenges that come with it. They also talk about the importance of taking small steps, being okay with imperfections, and providing support for each other and their listeners. The conversation includes anecdotes, reflections, interviews, and even a guided meditation.
But first! They explain what led them to consider rebranding the podcast.

​00:00 Introduction: The Concept of 'Someday'
00:28 The Reality of 'Someday' and Its Impact on Dreams
02:04 Rethinking Our Podcast and Embracing Change
03:08 The Domino Effect of Change and Embracing the Mess
03:35 Overcoming Challenges and Saying Yes to the Mess
05:07 The Journey of Becoming an Entrepreneur
07:24 Our Personal Side Hustle Stories
10:34 The Challenges and Regrets of Having a Side Business
14:08 The Turning Point: Saying Yes to the Mess
21:32 Challenges and Triumphs of Having a Side Business
33:53 The Importance of Support and Encouragement in Entrepreneurship
35:11 Conclusion: Small Steps, Big Effects

Resources

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​The Sticky Brand Lab podcast is undergoing a rebranding overhaul. Co-hosts Lori and Nola explain the reasons behind the rebrand and share hints of what's to come in future episodes. Find out the difference between a rebrand and a refresh, and learn five indicators that suggest it may be time to change or update a brand. Hear examples of successful rebrands from various companies. You’ll learn the importance of a cohesive brand identity and the need to stand out from competitors. 

​00:00 Podcast Update
00:24 Our Rebranding Journey
01:10 Upcoming Interviews and Content
01:32 The Need for a Business Makeover
02:07 Greatest Hits Replay: 5 Signs Your Business Needs a Rebrand
02:37 Understanding Brand Identity
03:18 The Importance of a Sticky Brand
03:48 The Elements of a Complete Brand Identity
04:51 The Difference Between Rebranding and Refreshing
07:22 Five Indicators Your Brand Needs a Makeover
07:36 Examples of Successful Rebrands and Refreshes
18:53 The Risks of Rebranding Too Quickly
21:26 The Financial Implications of Rebranding vs Refreshing
22:19 Conclusion and Call to Action
 
Resources

Sign up for “News You Can Use” at StickyBrandLab.com- you'll get hot tips, fresh resources and new podcast episodes delivered directly to your inbox. 

Subscribe to Lori and Nola's show  on Apple Podcasts,  Audible, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
​
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In December 2020, we launched the Sticky Brand Lab podcast with a mission to encourage more women over 40 to become entrepreneurs. The goal is to empower women personally and professionally, leveraging their knowledge and experience into a source of income.  But what does the path to starting your own business really look like? For Tara McKinney, it meant having the courage to be an Ask Muse guest on our show in 2021 so she could get help identifying and articulating her business niche. Then, ready to turn her idea into action, Tara joined our 8-module DIY course, Create, Design and Launch Your Business Website. 

In this episode, Tara returns to the show as Founder of Soul in Service, to fill us in on her entrepreneurial journey and share her struggles, successes, and the valuable lessons she learned along the way. Tara's story is a testament to the courage and resilience required to turn a passion into a successful business.

Thanks for listening! Let’s stay connected!
If you haven’t already, please connect with us on Facebook! 
Would you like to be a featured guest or have your question, comment, or review mentioned? Ask Muse!

Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!
In This Episode You’ll Learn 

• The power of integrating  rather than compartmentalizing all aspects of ourselves and our varied interests.
• How external challenges can reveal what needs inner healing so you can be an even better entrepreneur.
• How to match your ideal client niche to your unique attributes.
• Email tips for nurturing your existing contacts and growing your customer base.

​Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:

03:39  Tara reveals the value of her Ask Muse sessions
14:01  When you're building your business and then life happens
19:53  How Tara packaged her unique offerings
22:40  Email Marketing for Targeted Audience Reach
30:43  Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
32:34  An amazing definition of a vibrant life

Resources

Tara's websites:

• Soulinservice.co
• Soulinserviceconsulting.com

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You can subscribe to Lori and Nola's show (we love you and want to make it easy) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audible, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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[00:00:00] Lori: When we launched our podcast in December of 2020, it was because we had one goal: to encourage more women over 40 to become entrepreneurs. Why? Primarily for three reasons. First and foremost, entrepreneurship empowers women personally as well as professionally. Second, and this is huge, in addition to providing career flexibility, launching a side business later in life is an excellent way to leverage your knowledge and experience into a source of income you can use and enjoy for the remainder of your life. And finally, females make up less than 20 percent of entrepreneurs in the U.S. We believe the world needs and benefits from women-owned business leaders. But what does the path to starting your own business really look like? For Tara McKinney, it meant having the courage to be an Ask Muse guest on our podcast so she could get help identifying and articulating her business niche. Then, ready to turn her idea into action, Tara joined our eight-module DIY course, Create, Design, and Launch Your Business Website. So what has happened since that inaugural 2021 podcast episode? Stay tuned friend, because Tara is here to share the successes, setbacks, and the surprises she has encountered on her entrepreneurial adventure.
[00:01:24] Nola: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Nola Boea, and this is my co-host, Lori Vajda. Hey, Lori.
[00:01:42] Lori: Hi, Nola. Hey, before we get going, Nola. Happy podcast anniversary.
[00:01:48] Nola: Thank you. Happy anniversary. Three years. Oh, my goodness.
[00:01:53] Lori: I know, you know, from that spark of an idea all the way to today, so much has changed in our lives and much of it as the results of the courage we found both in ourselves and in each other by launching our podcast.
[00:02:10] Nola: Yes, I can say that by looking back, we have grown. In so many ways, and it's actually taking that nostalgic look back that also makes me excited about our guest here today, who's going to share her relatable journey with us and our listeners. Meet entrepreneur and founder of Soul in Service. Tara McKinney is a warm, open hearted spiritual director steeped in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. She focuses on whole person health and living as a means to access Innate inner wisdom and connect with the divine inside and out. A certified Ayurvedic health coach and yoga instructor, Tara specializes in trauma informed accessible yoga for all ages. Plus, she is a licensed Zumba instructor. Welcome back, Tara.
[00:02:57] Tara: Thank you, Nola and Lori. My pleasure to be here.
[00:03:00] Lori: Tara, one of the common struggles, I think for many people who have a strong interest or a passion in something is how to turn that into a business model, particularly when they themselves are still learning. They're not yet experts. And I think you were in that situation to some degree when you came to us. So would you share your Ask Muse experience for listeners who might be aspiring entrepreneurs so that they have some context as to how you were struggling or what you were struggling with and what you were contemplating with your own business idea.
[00:03:38] Tara: When I came to the sessions, there was this part of me inside that knew I was more than the professional role I was showing up in for my full-time job. And of course, we all know that there's more to us than the literal roles we play out in the world. And at the same time when you've invested so much time and energy and years in the formation of that identity, it feels very comfortable, even when there's that part of you that's like, there's more, and I wouldn't have labeled it as clearly at that point, but there was a rub. And when I spoke with you all, what it really helped me lean into was that voice that said, don't limit yourself, you are so much more, and your interest, your skills, your way of showing up in the world doesn't have to look like this. And y'all helped me put language around that on the level of identity. What am I identifying with? It's outer focus, but it's really more tied to an inner focus. So there is that identity piece that was really huge.
In addition to that, you helped me think in terms of my target audience. I mean, I knew in general that women would be the direction I would want to go. Particularly women in their forties and above. And what you all gave me was ways of thinking of them in terms of, I think the image with concentric circles, right? Those closest to you. You have some connection, but it's a little further removed to all the way out. to, hi, I don't know you, but we would be great together.


What you all really gave me also was very much like spot on with the pitch. While I use slightly different language now, it's the same exact essence, which I find super exciting. It's more the fact of seeing the continuity within my own life, seeing that there always has been movement in this other direction to this fuller expression of me and how beautiful that y'all picked up on that from the get go.
And then you take the DIY course for the business website. And Oh my goodness gracious. Like three years later, what I learned, I'm like, I totally know how to do whatever I need to do on my website, even down to, Oh, if I'm getting photos taken, I need to wear my brand colors. There's just these layers that I'm like, this is totally Sticky Brand Lab. And gosh, what a gift that is because it's this foundational tool and lens that has carried me through as my journey has evolved. And it's still continuing to Influence me, nourish me.
[00:06:30] Nola: That is so affirming.
[00:06:32] Lori: Yeah, it is. Thank you for sharing that because that really means a lot, as Nola said. But I want to go back and revisit something that you just said just a moment ago, which was how much our primary job that we're doing or career that we're in, how much that is our identity. And we align with that. And even though there's a heartfelt pull coming from within, I think for many people who have never been an entrepreneur before, that decision to become an entrepreneur is surrounded in fear. So my question is, how did you make the decision for yourself from being employed by someone else to saying, I want to start something of my own?
[00:07:18] Tara: I'm not sure I made the decision I maybe I think initially because of the fear, it felt a little forced and threatening, and then it reached a point where, I mean, we all know that what you ignore is going to get louder. It's just the way things work. And yet there is that intentionality of it needs to happen. And honestly, I think that, while I had very much formed my identity in a certain direction, even that was quite diverse from having a Master of Divinity, that same degree as a Catholic priest, that could go in a direction of a very quote unquote traditional format of, I go work at a parish, I go work at a Catholic institution or a Catholic nonprofit, but it's very much pastoral theology.
Yet for me, that was never the reason why I got that degree. I loved the fact that it asked me to get very practical with faith. And it said I could use it in whatever arena I wanted to because I knew the teachings,
so that was my reasoning for that, but it was never on this one trajectory, right? So I already knew that I can use one set of tools, skills, expertise, and use that to pivot. Use it to make it my own.
I complemented it with a Master of Science in International Development, to very much social sciences. So it's like a lot of problem solving, creative thinking, understanding the politics, and when I Notice that I kept hitting up against a dissatisfaction. There's still a rub. I still don't have the support I need to be able to show up in the world
and so that's when these Vedic sciences started to come in. And I relegated them to my personal life. Well, this is what I do in order to go do something else. And I think that those boxes had to be broken down. And when I started to allow particularly Ayurveda, one of the sister science of yoga, which is focused on lifestyle. Like, how do you design your life in a way that allows you greater access to God? Because the goal of yoga is to unite with God. I initially pushed it away. Oh, that's great. That ancient science, that's like perennial wisdom. And initially I was like, that's super cool. And I'm going to keep you over here. And yeah, when I let that line go, life got so much better. And that allowed me to lean into, Oh, okay. I can sit down with Sticky Brand and talk about this.
[00:09:52] Lori: What I heard you say is we often have something that excites us and then outside is something that we do in the outside world. And we keep them separate. And when you have this drive within, it requires you to find a way to combine them. And when you do figure out how to integrate them, life does seem to flow in ways that you never imagined. But it does feel like you're moving in a more cohesive or some people would use the word authentic way. And by authentic, I mean, you're no longer compartmentalizing.
[00:10:31] Nola: I also came up with the word authentic as well, because you have very traditional boundaries that are taught to us, either through our families or our culture, or through academia if you go through a program. And so that box is very well articulated and defined. Then you have a private life that says, you know what, I'm actually, I'm experiencing a box like this, but it doesn't really jive with that box over there. So I'm just going to keep it here. What was interesting about you when you came to ask us about this is really me. How do I totally define a different box? And that's what was so unique. And that was so authentic and a lot of people don't have the courage to be bold enough to say, you know what, I love you, but the box is fungible and this is how it is for me. And I really admired that in you.
[00:11:26] Tara: We are taught that there is a box. We're trained within the box. And then you go look for a job that looks like that box. And you fit yourself in the box. It's very much, I'm going to meet your needs. I can fit into your box to meet those needs. And what life keeps talking to me, telling me is that, Oh, it's actually not about me fitting that box. It's about I have needs and I need to bring in what is going to fit into my box. Because then I can be the most helpful, clear of service. Because that's my lens, right? I want to be of service. Not because somebody told me. It's a part of me. Everything that's come together, how can I use that to meet others where they're at and help them get where they're wanting to go?
[00:12:21] Nola: I want to really articulate a big takeaway that I'd like to emphasize for our listeners that you, while you were through with this process, you kept asking yourself, if not this, then what? Just asking that is opening yourself to noticing signs and getting answers. I just think that's really important. But the fact that you have started to really hear this and act on that wisdom, that knowing, I guess, has really shown. It's like, you've really up leveled you've dived into developing your business. I get these regular emails that are well thought through. I do know you. And if, and if I didn't, I would get these emails and think, wow, this person must be highly in demand. I wonder if there's even room on her calendar. I mean, it looks so professional. It's obvious, you know what you're doing. And so, watching that evolution has been so rewarding because I happen to know that you accomplished all this while your life seemed to be turning upside down.
If you're comfortable sharing, would you mind telling our listeners some of those major events and challenges that were happening during this time and since we last had you on the show.
[00:13:38] Tara: First of all, I'm like, aw, I'm so touched. My eyes are a little wet right now and I'm like, oh, and my heart is just like, I love you both.  You are reflecting back to me in a sense, what I already know. I also am cognizant that you have an expertise around this that I don't. Not to the same level.
In terms of, wow, life, being a caregiver. So going from nearby. to going directly in the house with my mom, who is ill. And, honestly, I had all of this training, and I did not know how to stay with my emotions. I did not know how to let them pass through me. There was a lot of victim mindset going on, and what does victim mindset sound like? Why does this happen to me? Why am I isolated in rural Oklahoma with very little help? I'm an only child. There's, like, two people near me who could help out, but they couldn't help me with the inner world to navigate, like, what the hell is happening? So I would have, like, these crying days to the anger. My mom, God bless her, like, literally, she was, like, You do what you need to do. She did not take it personally. She knew it was just, I did not have the coping skills. I had these limiting stories around all of that. And it just, hoo, the way I was looking at myself in the situation was so not helpful.
 One of my current reflections, it's not super recent yet, in a sense, it is on a different level of like, wow, thank you, mom. You gave me the perfect setup to really become my own person. And to address my emotional codependency, having been an only child raised by a single mom, Oh, you had to die physically, in order for me to own this. I had to have, here comes the emotion, which is beautiful and real. Like, the rug, in a sense, had to be pulled out from under me for me to say, okay. And the struggle to process my emotions and holding my job, with all the challenges of being remote with an organization that is so on the front lines because it was a homeless shelter for youth, and navigating the actual caregiving of meals was easy. It was the emotional piece of this is killing me. And as I continue to really lean into investing in myself. I had always been scared. You want me to pay how much for that training? I just saw it as victim, victim story of, well, that's for other people. That's for people who have other conditions set up. In one sense, I don't know how I'm going to pay for all this. And I have to put myself in these spaces to heal. And particularly when I decided to go to Ayurveda school, a yearlong program, I gave myself permission to expand and to take seriously what I needed to do to heal.
[00:16:44] Nola: So you're saying that your internal work is a major component of what seems like tactical skills. And you're saying a lot of that is actually a result of the internal work you were doing.
[00:16:58] Tara: Exactly. The internal work is the ongoing integration.
[00:17:02] Nola: So technically, what did you do to make your business and your copy and your website and your verbiage and your branding so well refined?
[00:17:13] Tara: I already labeled that the foundation that you all gave me. From the ask Muse and then even more so with the DIY website building course. I chose an Ayurvedic school that was also very practical. So I did have modules within that that were oriented towards business. And when I started working with my mentor, Dr. Siva Mohan, she helped me really go from the next stage to more fine tuning so really like what about it specifically a Catholic audience for wellness your background is so much within the Catholic world. So then what would that look like? And so, I'm like okay I sat with that for a while. I needed the question to come, what about Catholic women and what would that look like for them? How can that set me apart? And because she's not Catholic, she's actually not Christian. Because she's not embedded within the Catholic Christian world, which is super helpful because she could challenge me to expand how I understand working within the Catholic Christian world with women.
And I did sign up for a coaching program prior to starting with her and I technically am in the second year of that. And I had to reframe for myself because this is a major financial investment.
[00:18:35] Nola: What exactly would you say is unique about Soul in Service?
[00:18:41] Tara: Sure.
So, with Soul in Service, it is that faith is so much more than you need to believe x. Or faith is what I do when I go to church or when I say a prayer before I have a call like this. It's all the prayer. It's all the faith. And with Soul in Service, it's empowering women to say, Oh, I can work on my mind and cleaning up my mind to reframe how I'm looking at myself in the world. And by doing that, I'm going to be a clearer channel to access God, to open to wisdom, to intuition. And that is ultimately the goal of Soul in Service is I don't want women to model their life after mine per se. Let's look at every single area of your life as always talking to the other areas. Where your needs being met, where are they not being met, to get to that point of having a tool kit that helps you do that. As an expression of this is who I am as a Catholic Christian woman.
[00:19:47] Nola: Now, my question is, how have you packaged the offerings to be able to help them like that?
[00:19:53] Tara: So with Soul in Service, there are group offerings, the programs offered in groups of women. Then there are the one-on-one offerings and the one-on-one offerings are in three categories, Spiritual Direction. Spiritual Direction is very particularly a Catholic language, and it really is saying, let's look at your life from the lens of faith, but really focusing on, how do you understand God communicating to you now?
There is some breathwork, contemplative prayer in the Catholic language. In the crossover language, that would be called feminine form meditation or a guided meditation. It could also be called energy medicine.
The other is wellness lifestyle coaching. Faith is the common theme, and yet we're looking at how are you managing your stress. So, stress reduction, let's look at your diet. to see where that could be increasing the stress on your mind and your body. So, looking very specifically at lifestyle, looking at how are you managing your emotional needs, your psycho spiritual part of yourself, your relationship, what's happening in your finances, they're all interrelated.
And then the third one-on-one piece is with what I call mindful movement. I really just need to slow down.
And the final method for working with Catholic Christian women is with retreats. So, it's still group, but I tend to think of that because the retreats are not as regular. I tend to think of it not as under the typical group fashion.
And how all of this differentiates with Soul in Service Consulting is that the consulting is really organizationally focused. This is my nonprofit side of me in particular that's saying, okay, let's increase your sustainability and impact. And there are two main ways to do that. The first way is working on sustainability as how you care for staff during the day. Let's do some of that mindful movement with what you got going on with your work clothes and your cubicle. And then it changes how you approach that deadline you got going on.
And then on the impact side of creating outer impact, how do we use data in a way that is not solely focused on making upper management happy? And really, the reason for the two different ones was very much started out as Well, let's just see which takes off first. And then to go back to my mentor, let's do a little experiment. Because earlier in the year, I had already started doing some business consulting work in the ways that I've mentioned.
[00:22:40] Lori: So that kind of brings me to my next question. Starting and running a business, it takes two firm needs, if you will. Investment of time and money. In order to make your business successful, you have to get clients. Thinking from that perspective, what are some of the strategies that you've used to market your two businesses in order to bring in not just ideal customers or clients, but also income.
[00:23:11] Tara: Well, on the Soul in Service side, I had already compiled my email listserv based on you all, right? In terms of that initial feedback and what I did was I divided the women, and I created two subsets of women. I created what I call my Catholic women, which is self-explanatory. I then created the other subset of women who I know, and I call them the women of faith and love. They come from a variety of backgrounds, and yet they don't explicitly identify as Catholic. So within that, I target my emails to those women. And that keeps it clear for me that I can then monitor who's clicked, who's opening the emails to read them.
 What I'm learning, and my mentor is helping me see that. She was like, okay, they haven't met somebody like you before. And so it's taking time for them to get comfortable on the buying because there's a huge education piece to get the money coming in.
And I've done some church talks. I reached out to a local parish. And with the church talks of having that be a funnel to grow the email list. to grow my presence. Those have been the two main ways that I've done it.
[00:24:30] Lori: So my question now is, do you have any other marketing or promotion strategies that you've been considering, but maybe they take an investment and you're thinking that once you have more funds available, or maybe that you'll do some other ideas for marketing?
[00:24:47] Tara: In a sense, it's not different than what we've already discussed, it's just another iteration. I created a landing page that was not public that lays out, okay, we could do a free talk. We could do a one-hour workshop that's going to be a little bit more in depth. And then the third offering being a four-week live integrated program. It's just going to really dive so much deeper. It's an internal facing page, so a landing page specific for them. This is where my brainstorming with my mentor, I'm not sure yet what is the way to keep following up.
And honestly, I don't know how necessarily that's going to look like marketing, But I’m starting to think differently, I'm starting to get a little, a new type of clarity.
Most of my people are not on social media. At least right now. So I haven't invested heavily in that route because it's just not where they're at.
[00:25:42] Lori: So, I do want to clarify a couple of things though, because I think that it might be a little confusing for listeners as well. So the tool that you've used is email, but the methods that you've used it for marketing, I'm hearing are distinctly different.
In one, you're using email for your newsletter and you're reaching and talking to the people who have already signed up or joined your email list. So that is a way to build the necessary touch points in order for somebody to develop trust with you and say, okay. I've been following you for a while. It's been very helpful.
Now I want to reach out and connect with you and maybe see how I can work with you. So that's one way. The second way that you have used that is in email marketing, and that is often using a sequence or cadence of emails. So, there's emails that you send to people who may be familiar with you personally, may be familiar with your work and who may be familiar with your company.
But now you're moving into more cold leads, which are agencies or programs that don't know you, but you recognize they could benefit from your service. And what you're trying to figure out is what's the sequence going to look like? What's the number of outreach that I send in just email? What's the number of times that I call to follow up? And you're exploring that piece.
One thing that I'm trying to point out here that I think is a benefit for both you, Tara, and for listeners is the tool can be replicated, but the path is slightly different. The target is slightly different. And that's what marketing and PR is all about. How do you segment and talk to the audience that you want and what's the best way to reach them? And what I heard you say is your target audience is likely not to be using social media in the way that your products and services and coaching could provide to them. So I have to, meaning you, find a different way to connect with them. And email has been the most successful. And that's something that Nola and I talk about all the time. Be where your audience is. Don't try to be all things to all people everywhere because it'll lead to burnout. Be where they are. Talk to them the way they want to be talked to. So that you can build trust with them. And it sounds like you're on the path to doing that.
[00:28:19] Tara: Isn't it helpful when somebody you'll keep summarizing back to me and I'm like, Oh, great. They're like, well, because this is your skillset. This is one of the gifts you all have, right? Is you can tease out that is not specific per se to me. That it is this larger picture of like, Oh yeah, let's bring it back to the, a certain framework. For example, if a woman listening is like, I don't do this whole faith wellness that they can also walk away like, Oh yeah, once again, there are these themes that crossover that are not specific, yet they do get customized and yeah, helpful for them. Helpful for me.
[00:29:03] Lori: Well, and you picked up on something that was what Nola and I had talked about, which is the specific business that somebody might start could resonate with some listeners who wanted to start something similar in their community or in their network, but more often than not, the learning or the overlap is the process that it took. The transformation that you've gone through as from where you started with an idea to where you are with, I'm ready to expand out to my audience and let them know how this could benefit. All of that is a journey. And understanding that journey and knowing that for a listener who's been thinking about this, your struggles, your successes, your reframes, stepping back, you're working with professionals, all are helpful information that worked for you and can definitely work for somebody who is listening who might be wondering what happens next or, I had that process, but it stopped me in my tracks. Oh, here's Tara sharing her experience and here's what her workaround was. I can learn from that. And that's what we saw as a benefit for having you come back on and sharing your story, which I know I personally am very grateful for because it really has shown such great growth. It's amazing.
[00:30:33] Nola: Yes, it is. Tara, it has been so great catching up with you and learning about all you've been up to since you were first on our show. What advice would you give to someone who is considering becoming an entrepreneur?
[00:30:49] Tara: It may sound trite. And yet, gosh, like it's true. Don't give up on yourself. Whether we're talking about being an entrepreneur or just being an integrated human being, don't give up on yourself. Keep coming back to what lights you up, what creates that spark in you. Because for me, that's not giving up. If I keep stoking that part of me, that for me makes me ridiculously happy in certain ways, or makes me feel regulated, all of the above. I think particularly as being an entrepreneur, you have to keep feeding your larger self. And if it's going slower than your mind says it should go, or you think society's telling you it should go, you're once again outsourcing your power. You're creating a fixed identity that is saying I am worthy of care, of wellbeing, of love, of sleep, of a great home cooked meal that lights me up - I’m only worthy of that if I get these external things done. If I work on my business in this way. And that's a way of saying that you don't matter. And I really had to come to this, right? On the rocky road. Because my default mechanism is, Oh, I do the things and then I reward myself. Okay, to a certain extent, yes. And anybody embarking on the entrepreneur journey, because it is a vulnerable journey, in so many different ways, right? You're really having to own your power and ride the waves.
[00:32:34] Nola: How do you define a vibrant life?
[00:32:40] Tara: Vibrant by very definition mean that there's movement, that there's not rigidity. That there's not static, it doesn't stay there. So vibrant is constantly evolving. It's being able to say, Hey, this works for me now, and it didn't work for me in the past. Or, you know, there is that, when I feel vibrant or turned on, it's because I gave myself what I needed, you're going to evolve, you're meant to pulse. And in Sanskrit, this word is spanda. And for me, I need to give myself permission to do what I really want to do. Drop the shoulds. A vibrant life doesn't have shoulds in it. And when it does for too long, we get stuck. Vibrancy is that. Like, what do I need right now? And let me give it to myself if possible. And that doesn't have to be something big. That's vibrant.
[00:33:36] Lori: I love your personal definition for what your vibrant life means to you. But I do want to thank you again for being our guest, your journey and your experience have been so inspiring. Before you go, can you tell listeners how they can get in touch with you, where they can go to learn more about you, your retreats and your services?
[00:34:00] Tara: It is soulinservice.co, all one word dot co, or soulinserviceconsulting.com. You also could drop me an email at Tara at soulinservice.co. On the website, there are contact forms that will also appear in my inbox. So that's a very easy way. And if you are the social media person, it's still Soul in Service. You can reach me on Instagram with that. Those are the, I think, the best ways. And if you go to soulinservice.com and you sign up, you do the freebie, which is a guided meditation. That's super short. And it'll also put you on my email list serve automatically.
[00:34:53] Lori: That's great. Thank you so much for sharing all of those. Listeners, we'll be sure to put the links that Tara mentioned in our show notes to make it easy for you to connect with her. Well, friend, we hope the ideas and thoughts shared here today have sparked your interest and motivated you to take the leap faith based on your interests or passion. So you can become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. Be sure to stick around to the very end of the podcast for a fun little surprise.
[00:35:24] Nola: Hey, one more thing. With the holidays approaching, Lori and I will be stepping away from our mics just for the next few weeks, but we'll come back strong in January with a refreshed show and an exciting lineup of empowering episodes. With that said… If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for News You Can Use over on our website, stickybrandlab.com. And remember: small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]
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Nola: (Clear throat.) Tara McKinney is a warm, open hearted spiritual director steeped in Eastern and Western spiritual... retake! I rehearsed this so many times… 

[00:00:00] Lori: Many people believe that if they find their true purpose in life, they will be able to live up to that famous saying, "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life." I guess the general premise is that if you have a purpose or a passion in life, your work will be meaningful and you will enjoy what you do. But what if you have difficulty pinpointing your purpose or you can't find your passion? Or maybe you can't decide on a single career path. Does that mean your life is void of meaning or that your work will leave you feeling unfulfilled? Of course not. Stay tuned friend, because in this episode, we're debating the notion that having a career passion or purpose is necessary. In fact, we wonder if life and career are better when you take a dessert buffet approach.

[00:00:50] Nola: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful info, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Nola Boea. This is my co-host, Lori Vajda. Hey, Lori.

[00:01:06] Lori: Hi, Nola.

[00:01:07] Nola: You know, Lori, I can remember being a kid and having grownups ask me, what do you want to be when you grow up? And initially, of course, it was a very easy answer because the world was my oyster, right? But by the time I was in junior high, I really had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I just felt like it was not fair to have to even think about it. I just felt way too young to even know what was possible. And that pressure to have to make a major in college was Unreasonable. And I have to say that when my daughter, she was in eighth grade, by the time she had to figure out what she wanted to do so that when she got into this high school, that they could put her on a course. I just thought that was so unrealistic. What was your experience?

[00:01:51] Lori: I also had a similar experience. I grew up in a, I'd like to think a middle-class family, at least everybody in my neighborhood was the same, but there weren't people in my neighborhood that had college degrees. So college or thinking of a career was, I was the first one in my immediate family to do that. So the idea of knowing, I didn't have any idea. And then when I worked with the Division of Youth Corrections, one of the key answers that kids had to give in order to get parole, so to speak, is that they had to define what they were going to do for work or for education. And granted, the majority of our kids were high school age, the challenge there was that we were telling 13, 14, 15, 16-year-olds, you have to decide your career. And they had no idea. They had been in a committed area. So of course, they had no idea.

And I think there's a common and pretty much accepted belief that we need our passion or purpose and that if we don't, we'll somehow live this unfulfilled life. And I think that kind of rationale is based on the idea that having a purpose gives you your why. Why do you want to do this career or why is this important to your life journey? And I think the assumption here is that it would drive you to help you stay focused, to help you stay organized, especially when things get rough. So you've got one job, or one career path, you know your passion, you know your purpose, and everything else will work out.

The idea here, though, really with your passion, is that it's supposed to come from within. And that it motivates you and gives you kind of these aspirational goals. And if you have a passion, you genuinely will love what you're doing. And if you don't, then you will feel less than.

And I actually can relate to this because it conjures up this idea when I was working at a mental health facility, there was a woman who was definitely passionate about working with young children. She had written books about it, she gave talks about it, and I admired her. And when I felt restless, and I don't think I want to work with this age group anymore, I want to work with older kids. I also felt less than because I didn't have a passion I was following. What about you, Nola?

[00:04:31] Nola: I guess I do kind of agree with you in some respects. When you see people like that, you know they're passionate. And I think people can be passionate about certain things or types of things, but it's not like they have to find a passion. And I don't even think people have to necessarily go searching for it. People fall into it and people will naturally gravitate toward things that they enjoy that they get in the flow with.

And I also think that everybody has a purpose. And that purpose may not have anything to do with their career, and they may not even have to go looking for it. And it may not even be something that you can define to some grand cause. I've met people who have a career that may be nondescript, may be very functional, but I feel that their life purpose is the way they are there for people, the way people are able to just naturally spill their heart and have a shoulder to cry on, they're good listeners or other people who light up a room and they just bring joy to wherever they are. And it may not be something they're paid to do, but it may be the reason that they're here on the planet at this place at this time. So I do think that when you are passionate about something and you are able to put that into our career, that's great. It doesn't always happen that way.

I will say that there was a study that said that graduates that felt that they had a lot of high purpose in their work we're 10 times more likely to say that they had , an overall wellbeing. But I also have found that when you're first starting out, not everybody will step immediately into a career. They might have a general idea. They might think they know their career, but we both have had stories that we started here, and then for different reasons, we shifted there. And then we found out we like this and we shifted there. And next thing we're somewhere else. That happens, that's part of life's journey. I will say that though, when you do find a job, whether it's a career path or it's a paycheck, it does need to at least line with your values. Otherwise, you will be super miserable.

[00:06:45] Lori: So one of the reasons I thought this topic was so important to do is because I do think that there's a fair number of the population that thinks just like you do. And there are tons of articles out there on research, finding your passion, or having a purpose and feeling that you know what that is and how that leads to overall wellbeing. I think if you ask my grandmother, who's passed away, but she was born in the early 1900s, if you had asked her what her purpose is, for her, I think it was family. It was raising kids. It was being a good citizen. But today, with so much out there, it almost feels like you have to have a purpose that's higher, meaning fame or fortune, and social media adds to that. So now you have influencers, something you would have never had before. And the idea being that your purpose would be something greater than yourself. And I get that. How many people today would say, like my grandmother, your purpose is to raise your family. It's to be a good citizen. We wouldn't say that.

And I think when you don't feel you know your passion or you don't feel your purpose, you somehow feel less than. And what I want to say to people is, You don't have to. You can look at that dessert buffet that I spoke about and you can say, all right, right in this moment, right at this stage in my life or this season in my life, what is driving me? What feels right?

And I think if you come at it from that standpoint, then the whole idea is that Your passion and your purpose will change, and it may change throughout your lifetime. And I want to be able to say, that's okay.

[00:08:40] Nola: I hope that what you said is not true in that people feel that their purpose is to find fame or find accolades for their success because success can be defined in many ways, right? But that external, I want to be recognized. I want everybody to see I'm successful. I want my creativity to be recognized, may earn me a lot of money. Somehow, I think that, for most people, misses the mark.

And you're absolutely right. Some people may say, well, my cause is to, you know, I want to end poverty. I want to save the whales and I'm committed to the environment. Those are very worthwhile purposes or causes. I should say for very few, will it be an absolute life purpose. And not everybody's life purpose has to do with their career, necessarily. And I think you are correct in that it can change from different phases of your life.

Now, I did come across another statistic. I'm not sure how to feel about it because McKinsey did a study that said 70 percent of people say that they define their purpose through work. It's so easy for us to do because we spend all of our waking hours through work. And the study showed that actually millennials are even more so they're likely to see their work as their life calling. So very well may be that some people, especially maybe that generation, is seeking work that is associated with the cause. And I know that there are a lot of companies that Are trying to align themselves with causes. And then you'll see a rise in social entrepreneurship and social enterprises because they want their companies to really address certain world issues. And that's great. And if you can do that and love what you do, all the better. If you do that, because you think you have to, because that's supposed to be a life purpose, and you find that you really suck at the particular role that you're playing in that. Then maybe there's some adjustments to be made and maybe it's the stage of your life that is going to be your purpose and at some point, that's going to lead to something else.

[00:10:51] Lori: Well, I am going to borrow my thought on this from the difference between finding your one true soulmate or your Mr. or Ms. Right and finding Mr. Right Now. I think that what happens in life is that when you start off in young adulthood, you are looking for something meaningful to do because it does take up a lot of time in your life. But if your circumstances, even at that time in your career, are different. And you have other obligations or you have other desires, your job may not be the thing that excites you. It may be the thing that you're pursuing, like your art or your music, your invention for that matter. So I think that the important thing here is to understand that your purpose can evolve. And your passions can change and they can change on the different stage or time in your life. They can change after a particular event. And when it changes, the questions that you should be asking yourself at that point isn't Am I just lost or am I unmoored?

But before I get to those questions or we get on to that, I really want to talk about one other idea. And that is, depending on the stage that you're in, you could ask yourself a simple question like: Right at this moment, what's important to me? So let's say, for example, that you had a strong desire to contribute to the greater good. I've often heard people who have been in for-profit work want to move into nonprofit work, but you don't necessarily have to make that kind of change in order to do something for the greater good.

For example, you might pursue a career change or a career direction or a side business, for example, in health and wellness or mental health. And maybe you are doing some part time work for a nonprofit, or maybe you want to start a side business doing e commerce so that you could sell items that have been created by underserved or underrepresented communities and individuals.

I'll give you another example. Maybe you have a lot of energy and you love making people feel emotions like laughing or crying or frustration. And so you seek work in the entertainment industry.

And although that may be a great outlet or you might be really talented, you might say, you know what? That's not the idea that I want to pursue.
So what else is available to me? Well, it might be that you get on a path for creative writing, or graphic design, or art, or print on demand. So maybe you combine things and you're doing posters or cards.

When you're thinking about the stage of life that you're in. You might look at your family needs, or the fact that you want to travel, or health, or there might be some other reason that you need more flexibility in your life.

So you now choose work that excites you, but allows you to build skills, or maybe even challenges you in new ways, and so you're looking to piece together A variety of maybe part time or side businesses rather than a traditional primary job because it opens up other opportunities for you because your main motivation or what you're feeling called to right at that moment needs flexibility.

And I think the rationale that I have is when you think about. The fact that a passion or even your purpose can change over time, then you see it from the perspective of a dynamic journey rather than a static destination. And this was particularly important to me because I went on to grad school and at graduation realized that the thing I had spent years To get to the thing that I had invested dollars in order to achieve was now not the thing that I thought it was going to be. And I didn't know if I wanted to do it for my career for a lifetime. And as it turned out. I haven't, but that's a whole ‘nother story. So what do you think about my ideas there?

[00:15:26] Nola: I liked that the examples you pulled out were not the obvious choices if somebody says, I need to pursue my purpose and my passion and get paid for it.

Now, I've already said you don't necessarily have to get paid for it. But if we're looking at wanting to align a career or a business with that, I like that you said, for example, somebody may have some creative flair or they may have some humor and can turn that into print on demand. Now, somebody might not necessarily think, Hey, print on demand, I'm going to make t shirts is going to be saving the world. But you know what? There may be certain things that you have to share. I like that you put a twist on that. I also like that you said that the purpose for that phase of life may not be the career itself but needing that business to help you shape a lifestyle that will allow you to be with your family or do something you really are passionate about and maybe do not get paid for.

I was reminded that when I made a shift in career, I decided to pursue writing because I was good at it. And I actually enjoyed writing for causes. So I decided to go into nonprofit writing. And it's something that I didn't initially pursue, even though when I was younger, that was one of the first things that popped in my head. But I did not think I could get paid for it. It was like a writer is like a starving artist. They're always starving. So why even go down that road? Or the only paid at the time when high school, I thought the only paid writers were journalists. And I was too shy to just go up and ask really bold-faced questions.

However, I will say that after many years of cause-related marketing and writing, turning that passion by getting paid for it after many years, it was not fun anymore. So it was no longer a passion. That's my example for saying sometimes that shifts and I don't think that's a bad thing. My purpose, I ended up doing something else that I felt still had meaning.

[00:17:35] Lori: I can relate to what you're saying because I had worked for 10 plus years post grad and years building up to that in the nonprofit. I was in community mental health and wellness. When I changed career directions and went into for profit or worked for major companies, one of the things that I could not bring myself to do, I couldn't even do volunteer work in nonprofit, because I had been so burnt out and so frustrated by the systems that for me, giving back was helping other people succeed who wanted to succeed. For me was in business. My journey has been evolving. And I think for people who feel like I do and you come up against societal norms that say you need to have a passion or even research, you need to have a purpose. You feel like you're the odd person out. And the whole reason that we wanted to do this wasn't just to put this out there and say, no, maybe not. Maybe you don't have a single passion or a single purpose. Maybe it changes with life, but also to help people figure out what it is in the moment that they're questioning it.

[00:18:54] Nola: Well, that's a good point. And so we have some considerations for you, listener. So when you reach an obstacle and you're wondering, what am I meant to do next? How does that align with a passion or a purpose or my values? We just have a few things for you to consider and some questions to ask yourself.

[00:19:16] Lori: Here listener, take a moment and consider this. What jelly bean? is your least favorite. Now you may be wondering what does that have to do with finding your purpose or your passion? And I'm going to tell you, if you're not familiar with Jelly Belly, are you familiar with Jelly Belly, Nola?

[00:19:33] Nola: I am not.

[00:19:34] Lori: These little jelly beans and they have a variety of different flavors. Matter of fact, that's one of the things that they're known for. They have amazing, delicious flavors, but they also have this game that has horrific tasting jelly beans like vomit or rotten egg. And so you pour your foul tasting in with the good tasting and in the game when it's your time to take the bean, you don't know if you're getting your favorite or you're getting an awful tasting and you can't tell by looking at it.

And the point here is, when you ask yourself what jelly bean is your least favorite, it helps you think about the fact that no job, no business, no even life plan is perfect all the time. There are going to be moments when you have to eat the foul-tasting jelly bean. And here's the thing. What determines our ability to stick with something we care about is having the ability to tolerate and push through those rough patches that are inevitable and like the foul-tasting jelly bean, short lived.

So when you can think about it from that perspective, here's a couple of questions to ask yourself. What obstacles are you willing to put up with in order to achieve your life, business, or career goals? Are you willing to go to a company that's values are not perfectly aligned with yours? Are you willing to start a business that's going to be rough in the beginning? Ask yourself the obstacles that you're willing to tolerate.

The second question is, what skills do you possess that set you apart from others? When you tie the obstacle with your skill set, you might find that yours is tolerance. Yours is motivation. Yours is aspirational. There are natural talents or skill sets that you have. And when you align them with the obstacles that you might face, that's the thing that will keep you moving forward.

[00:21:42] Nola: You're able to say, well, you know what, I have these skills and I can pursue it. And I know that these are going to be obstacles. And now that I've actually named those obstacles, I think I can push through and my desire is worth it. Okay. That makes sense.

Here is something else to consider. What impossible dream did your five-year-old self have and would make her cry if she met you today? Even thinking about that makes me sad. As far as a five-year-old's concerned, there's no reason they couldn't be exactly what they are dreaming to be.

[00:22:15] Lori: And what was that five-year-old self Nola wanted to be?

[00:22:19] Nola: You're going to make me go there, aren't you? I wanted to be a ballerina. I knew I wanted to be a ballerina.

[00:22:26] Lori: And I bet you would have been phenomenal because you're tall and lanky.

[00:22:30] Nola: I mastered the twirl jumping off of the couch and I had a little tutu and I had a little sparkly star wand. And, at the preschool building in the other wing, there really was a ballerina dance troupe.

[00:22:48] Lori: Oh really?

[00:22:49] Nola: Whenever I could, I would sneak out of the preschool and go down the hallway and I'd sit on this, it's almost like a gym. And I would just sit there in the middle and all of these ballerinas were getting in and out of their little slippers and putting on their tutus and bunning up their hair. And they were oblivious about this little three-year-old kid sitting there watching them. And some of them would go, Oh, Oh, hi. And I'd just sit there and I was just mesmerized. And I knew one day I would be just like them because I was already practicing in my living room. And then the teacher would come back and get me and give me a swat on the butt and make me go back to, yeah, this was the sixties.

[00:23:31] Lori: Yeah.

[00:23:31] Nola: They did that.

[00:23:31] Lori: That's a sad story.

[00:23:33] Nola: Yeah. But I love dancing. Okay. So as I was saying, five-year-olds did not see the obstacles, what to be and how to be there. They saw the possibilities based on what they love to do, how they love to play, and what they are curious about. But somewhere along the line, they get their butt swapped and then they grow up. And we adults have a way of just taking the fun out of playing and dreaming big dreams. Or, turning those dreams into goals that require hard work and just takes the fun out of it.

So if you met your five year old self today, Would she say, Hey, why don't you do ballerina dancing off your living room couch anymore? Or why don't you even dance anymore? I'm not going to say what I would reply, but you listener could consider how would you reply? How would your answer make your five-year-old self respond? Would she be sad? Would she be disappointed? Because somewhere along the way you stopped believing in yourself. I mean, that's a tough question. A very tough question.

So with that said, here are a couple of questions to ask yourself. What childhood passion did you leave behind in adulthood? And what activities did you used to do, or do now, just for the fun of it?

[00:25:02] Lori: Okay, listener, think about this for a moment.

 What makes you forget to eat or delays you going to the bathroom? And I will tell you both of those. are things that I experience. So what's something that you get so wrapped up in that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into, Oh my gosh, I forgot to have lunch?

I actually did this the other day. I was eating a little snack bar at four o'clock because I completely forgot about it. But the story that I want to tell you is, there was one Christmas, my husband and I, our gift for each other was Guitar Hero. And we would play, we would get into it. I wanted to get all the stars. I was motivated so much so that I actually had to see a physical therapist because I ran into troubles with my hands. Because we would finish work, we would finish eating and we would come home and we would try to get all those points. And although I loved playing the game and getting the levels, I can't say that that was my passion or that I was into gaming. What I figured out was, I wanted to improve my skills. For me, I was in competition with myself or with those stars that were lining up.

And that may be the same thing for you listener, but it could be something totally different. Maybe you're into organization like Marie Kondo where everything has a place and if it doesn't bring you joy, you're like, get rid of it. I don't need that here. Or maybe you love teaching people. Or maybe you love solving problems. Whatever it is, don't just look at the activity that keeps you up at night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that captivate you, that get you so engrossed, those hours turn into missed meals.

Now, here's a couple questions to ask yourself. What are the things you do and lose yourself in, in the enjoyment of just doing it? This is going to sound so geeky, but when I want to learn about something, I do a deep dive into research. I am on Google. I am looking up information. I am watching videos. I know what that feels like and I lose myself in it.

The second question you want to ask yourself is what are some activities that you're interested in but you haven't checked out to see if you might also enjoy them? For example, maybe you're interested in the creative process and art is your thing, but you don't pursue it because you consider yourself not to be a good artist. But if you did... And if you found some technique that worked for you or you found a technology or a platform that you enjoyed, would you lose yourself in it?

So Nola, would you lose yourself in it? Cause you tell me about your stuff all the time that you lose yourself in. So I'm thinking this sounds very familiar to you.

[00:28:10] Nola: Well, you know, that's interesting and I think it may actually, I hadn't thought about this before, but it may actually apply to the next consideration.

 But you know, when I think about something that I have often lost myself in, it was when I developed websites. Whether it was for a client or for myself, I would lose myself in the design.

[00:28:29] Lori: I think that is so cool. I mean, I know you love the work that you're doing currently, but there might come a time in your future later in life in which you're looking for something more flexible or something on the side and you pursue what sounds to be like your natural talent.

[00:28:47] Nola: Well, you would think so, however, actually ties into the next consideration, which is, what is something you're willing to do poorly? And I say that because even though I do produce professional looking websites, I personally know I am not a professional graphic designer. I mean, there are people who get degrees and user experience and things like that. Mine is more innate. And the result looks great. Professional. But I would always feel that I'm not as good as somebody who went to design school or web development school. So would I go pursue that as a living? I'm not sure because before you're really good at something and that thing is very important to you, you have to first be willing to be terrible at it and be willing to not be just as good as maybe somebody who's already advanced in that skill set or in that career.

So, in other words, what is something you're willing to do poorly? And are you willing to do it poorly until you get better? Because most people will tell you that they're lifelong learners or that they love to learn new things and they will learn it, but then they won't practice it because they're afraid to look bad. , But you have to practice it. You have to get over that and through that phase, because if you want to do something you've never done before, you have to be willing to suck at it for a little while. In order to get better. You're going to need to step out of your comfort zone and just do that thing that scares you. And if the thing that scares you especially is being embarrassed. And our advice here is to be willing to tolerate that embarrassment. Or that imposter syndrome, because frankly, you're the one that feels more embarrassed than anybody else who might be judging your work. I feel people judge themselves more harshly than most, you know, everybody else out there. That's my experience anyway.

[00:30:41] Lori: No, I would agree with you.

[00:30:42] Nola: Yeah. And feeling foolish, that's just part of the journey. That's something everybody goes through. And if your dream is that meaningful to you, , then you're going to go through it. And actually, the scarier that prospect seems, the more you really need to put yourself through it. And you know, once you do it, you'll feel so much better about yourself. Yep.

Here are questions to ask yourself. What idea, innovation, path or career choice, what scares the crap out of you and scares you for a good reason?
The other question is, what have you been putting off doing, or have you been making excuses about not doing, that you probably should start doing now?

[00:31:29] Lori: Your consideration and your questions really made me think of when we started the podcast. One of the big things is organizing it and then you have to record it, so you have to listen to your voice and your script. We sucked at a lot of it to begin with. And we're what, three years in and now we're helping other people learn how to be guests on podcasts. So we're teaching how to use audio to its max and how to be good at it. So I think it takes a little bit of courage, but your questions help prompt that.

And this is our final consideration. How do you want to be remembered? Most of us don't like thinking about our death, let alone how we want to be remembered. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. And one of those advantages is that it forces you to zero in on what's important to you.

When I was in college, I took a class called Death and Dying.

[00:32:32] Nola: Interesting.

[00:32:33] Lori: It might also, for some people listening, might sound morbid, but I have to tell you it was an amazing class. It was in my psychology program, and I had heard from other students how amazing this one instructor was, and I signed up for it. And the class really teaches you a lot of different things. But one of the exercises that we had to do was we had to write our own obituary. And of course, that exercise really gives you pause because at that time, I think I was I was in my late 20s when I went back to school and took that class and at that time, life was in front of me. I had kids, so I wasn't thinking about dying. It was a hard assignment to do, but it opened my brain up to prioritizing what was important to me. Where did I want to see myself? And it really gave me the opportunity to ask myself that question throughout life. Is this really meaningful for me? Is this the direction that I want to be? Am I contributing in a way that I'm proud of? It has a whole lot of meaning to me.

But for you listener, you don't have to take that class and you don't have to do the assignment of writing your obituary, but you can ask yourself these two questions. What is important to you? And, what values should guide your actions?

[00:33:57] Nola: That's very interesting that you had said that one of your assignments was to write your own obituary. I had an assignment once where we had to write an essay based on, we have six months to live. What are we going to do, six months, one month. What are we going to do one week? What are we going to do one day? And I noticed that when I went through that exercise, my answers went from, I've got to experience this. And the closer I got to that zero date was, I'm going to relish my relationships, I'm going to pet my cat, I'm going to call my sister. And it was really about the relationships. So I think both of those exercises, like you said, really make you think about what is it that is really valuable to you. It's a good exercise.

[00:34:52] Lori: When you think about it from that standpoint, it helps you think about a passion or a purpose And I think it gives you the freedom and flexibility to say, this is going to evolve as I evolve. And if I revisit these questions that we've shared or others, listener, that you might explore, you will realize that a life well lived or a life worth living is one in which you're doing the things that bring the most happiness to you. And perhaps even those around you. At least that's my view.

[00:35:34] Nola: Cool. Well, friend, we hope this discussion and the tips and questions we've shared here today help you find your at-this-time, passion or purpose and inspire you on your journey to become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. Be sure to stick around to the very end of the podcast for a little fun.

[00:35:54] Lori: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tips, tools, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for News You Can Use over on our website. That's stickybrandlab.com. And remember, small steps, big effects.

[00:36:13] Nola: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between not, not blah, blah, insert.

[00:36:22] Lori: Yeah, that's what we do. The blah, blah, blah, blah. .
​
[00:36:25] Nola: Oh my goodness. Okay.

[00:00:00] Nola: We want to express our thanks to you for tuning into our show. You, listener, are the reason we come back every week. And we're so grateful you take the time to connect with us to learn the many facets of becoming a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of a vibrant life.
Speaking of a vibrant life, here at Sticky Brand Lab, we strongly believe in the value of taking time during the holidays, not only for our family and friends, but especially for ourselves. Yet, we know how stress filled the holiday season can be, and finding a little time for self-care can be challenging.

[00:00:32] Lori: That's why we're gifting you, our listeners, with a relaxing mindful meditation. It comes to us courtesy of our dear friend and past podcast guest, Michele Molitor, CEO and founder of Nectar Consulting. Michele is an executive coach for entrepreneurs and business leaders, as well as hypnotherapist, speaker, and author. Her 15 minute guided gratitude meditation is sure to bring you all of the de-stressing vibes and self-care needed for a peaceful path to a winning holiday celebration. We hope you enjoy it so much that you'll want to bookmark the link, which you'll be able to find in our show notes, so that you can come back and listen to it again and again.

[00:01:15] Nola: Be sure you're sitting in a quiet, relaxing spot. Get comfortable. Now, ride the vibes of her soothing voice.

[00:01:26] Michele Molitor: Welcome to this Gratitude Meditation. This meditation is designed to create massive shifts in your reality and make you a magnet for miracles. Take a deep breath in.
Exhaling slowly. And on the next deep breath in, feel your body release all the tension it's holding, allowing yourself to surrender into the place that you are. Breathe in, and out. Surrendering with each breath. Allow your body to become more completely relaxed. As you surrender more and more with every breath that you take.
Just letting go of any tension you're holding onto in your body right now. You are fully supported. You are safe. Free to release your fears. Your worries, anything else that is weighing you down, any worries or stress, they're just temporary. So let's live in this present moment. What sensations Are you feeling in your body in this moment?
What does the surface beneath you feel like?
What is the temperature of the room?
Bring your awareness to the sensations going on all around you. This present moment, everything is happening here in this now moment.
Now allow yourself to experience and enjoy the feeling of surrendering to this moment. Being present with your full self, all of your senses. Mind, heart, and spirit.
I'm going to lead you through a series of affirmations now, and you can repeat them either out loud or in your mind to help you experience a deep sense of gratitude and raise your vibrations. Expanding your energy out in all directions, making you a magnet for miracles, small and large.
I am grateful for this moment.
I am grateful for this moment. I am grateful for this moment. Take a deep breath in and exhale.
I'm grateful for my friends and family. I'm grateful for my friends and family. I'm grateful for my friends and family. Take a deep breath in, and exhale.
I'm grateful for my mind and body. I'm grateful for my mind and body. I'm grateful for my mind and body.
Take a deep breath in. And exhale.
I'm grateful for the experience of life. I am grateful for the experience of life. I'm grateful for the experience of life. Take a deep breath in and exhale.
I'm grateful for the water I drink.
I'm grateful for the water I drink. I'm grateful for the water I drink.
Take a deep breath in. Exhale.
I'm grateful for the food that nourishes me.
I'm grateful for the food that nourishes me.
I'm grateful for the food that nourishes me.
Take a deep breath in. And exhale,
I'm grateful for all the opportunities in my life. I'm grateful for all the opportunities in my life. I'm grateful for all the opportunities in my life. Take a deep breath in, and exhale.
I am grateful for the money I receive.
I'm grateful for the money I receive.
I'm grateful for the money I receive.
Take a deep breath in and exhale.
I'm grateful for all that I receive.
I'm grateful for all that I receive. I'm grateful for all that I receive.
Take a deep breath in and exhale.
I surrender all my fears and choose joy. I surrender all my fears and choose joy. I surrender all my fears and choose joy. Take a deep breath in and exhale.
I am worthy of abundance. I am worthy of abundance. I am worthy of abundance. Take a deep breath in. And exhale.
I am a magnet for miracles. I am a magnet for miracles. I am a magnet for miracles. Take a deep breath in, and exhale.
I am so lucky for all that I have. I am so lucky for all that I have. I am so lucky for all that I have. Take a deep breath in
and exhale.
I expect and accept miracles. I expect and accept miracles. I expect and accept miracles. Take a deep breath in and exhale.
The universe always provides. The universe always provides. The universe always provides. Take a deep breath in and exhale.
Now allow yourself to feel the joy. The excitement, the gratitude for everything you have in this current moment.
Now feel the joy, excitement, and gratitude for everything you will manifest into your life. Gratitude is a magnet.
And as you slowly begin to come back to the present moment, reflect upon what you are grateful for in your life right now.
You are so lucky for the life that you are experiencing.
So as you begin to feel your fingers and toes, as you start to go about the rest of your day, continue to be grateful. Grateful for every experience you encounter, both big and small, good and bad, it's all there for a reason. All things are unfolding in divine right timing, in your favor. So release the fear, and replace it with gratitude.
Life is a miracle. You are a miracle.
Thank you for being on this journey.
So slowly open your eyes, allowing yourself to come back to the room
and notice how you feel, how that felt in your whole body. And as you continue to move through your day, allow yourself to receive all the goodness that is available to you as you let go of the fear, the self doubt. And the worries and replace them with love, with self care, with self trust.

Thanks for listening! Let’s stay connected!
We love hearing your feedback! Leave or speak your message here.
If you haven’t already, please connect with us on Facebook!
Pick out a fun gift for a budding entrepreneur over on our merch page.

Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!

By the end of this episode, you'll learn: 

• How perseverance can pay off... big time. 
• We don't always know the struggles that came before someone's success.
• Why you shouldn't immediately judge an unexpected outcome as a failure.
• Lessons learned from painful comebacks so you don't make the same mistakes.

Just a few of the many key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:

11:02  The story of the struggling girl who got fired and came out on top.
17:49  This entertainer said the wrong thing at the wrong time and shares her refreshing perspective about that big snafu.
27:35 What Nola and Lori have learned from failures.
35:45 Lessons Tim Ferris learned about failure and success.
... and more fascinating stories of setbacks turned comebacks. 

Resources

Sign up  for “News You Can Use” at Sticky Brand Lab

Subscribe to Lori and Nola's show  on Apple Podcasts,  Audible, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform   (This is an affiliate link)

[00:00:00] Nola: "There is no failure except in no longer trying," said American philosopher, artist, and publisher, Albert Hubbard. We do love a good rags-to-riches story, don't we? And that got us to wondering: what is the difference between entrepreneurs who face setbacks and give up and those who won't let go until they succeed. For many aspiring entrepreneurs, the road to success is filled with, potholes, roadblocks, and road closures, and that in and of itself is enough to stop them from even trying. But for some, those obstacles are nothing more than detours on the road to success. And those inspiring stories are what today's episode is all about.

Stay tuned friend, because we're sharing lessons learned from founders who failed before they made it. And one of those stories might just be the inspiration you've been needing.

[00:00:47] Lori: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vajda, and this is my co-host, Nola Boea. Hi, Nola. Hey, Lori.

[00:01:08] Nola: Lori, there's a lot of famous entrepreneur stories about failing and then ultimately becoming a huge success. And I think a lot of us are familiar with the stories of Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Oprah, JK Rowling, things like that.

[00:01:23] Lori: Oh yeah, I would agree. And I think there are many people who fear failing. And for some, like the ones that you've mentioned, it's a stepping stone to their success. And let me give you a little bit of a few examples directly related to those names that you mentioned.

So imagine. You're in dire financial straits. You're a single parent. You have a passion for writing and you're counting on this book because some of your friends have enjoyed it and they're giving you positive accolades, so you send it out to publishers and one after another you get rejection letter and you're desperate. After 12 rejection letters, what would you do? Yeah, exactly. But for Rawlings, that wasn't an obstacle. She believed enough in her story so that when she did get a yes, she ran with it. And ultimately it turned out to be a huge success.

And let's take Thomas Edison. If you were inventing something, just knowing yourself, because I was calculating this for my own mindset. How many times would you keep working at something to try and perfect it before finally saying screw it, this isn't going to work?

[00:02:39] Nola: I have no idea. I would have to really have some understanding that this has got to work. This has got to work.

[00:02:45] Lori: Would you go a hundred times? 500 times for Edison because he did a thousand before he made it successful. And here's something I didn't know initially about Henry Ford, but it inspired me a lot, which was he had two financial failures from the same backer before. He had a third attempt and a second investor that he found success. So, he started with the car in the late 1800s and 1904, they finally at the third attempt made it. Now imagine you're the investor. You're counting on this, or you're the inventor and you're counting on it, and it's costly to do. Not a lot of people, I think, and myself included, would go on, which is why we wanted to share these stories. Yeah.

When you think about what makes a life worth living, if you've ever even thought about that, and I do occasionally because it helps me make some really important decisions, if I'm going to take a risk, I have to think to myself, is that a risk that I will look back on no matter how the outcome turns out and be glad that I did it, that I said, I tried and I didn't make it or I tried and it succeeded, but that try is the big one. So I believe that for anyone who's trying to make their life in particular worth living, at some point you're going to experience failure. I agree. Um, in thinking about like a single setback is often enough for most people.

And I believe primarily in the research shows this for women in particular to give up on their idea or their dream, something that they're passionate about, because maybe they Lack the experience, the familiarity of knowing how to do something new and novel, or even the knowledge to see it through. And because women tend to be more risk averse than men, that can set them back.

But I just want to throw out every once in a while, some interesting success stories came out of failures. One of the ones that comes to mind, it was a dietitian that was actually working on this recipe for gruel. Something you would eat in the morning. I think it's like along the lines of porridge or oatmeal. And it tasted terrible. And the dietitian spilled it on the stove. It turned out to taste much better because the stovetop crisped it up. Any idea what this is?

[00:05:24] Nola: Was it those crunchy caramelly things? No, I have no idea.

[00:05:30] Lori: It was Wheaties. Oh my goodness. I know. Isn't that an incredible story? The dietician spilled it. And I actually don't know if it was a man or woman, but when I said the women are more risk averse. The thing that I was thinking about in that moment was the dietitian. And then I was thinking about Wheaties. And so you're working on this terrible tasting gruel that you're trying to market. It turned out that it tasted better and it took another 36 tries before they were able to develop the tasty flake that wouldn't crumble in the box. And that is probably known today as well. So isn't that interesting?

[00:06:09] Nola: That is fascinating. 36 tries and yet it often takes somebody just one failure and they just scrap the whole thing. And it's true. Women are typically more risk averse than men, but I'm hoping that more of us are like this dietitian that will at least give it 36 tries to perfect it, especially if they discover you're onto something. 

[00:06:30] Lori: Yeah. So it's one of those happy accidents kind of thing. Yes. And that's a lot of what happened in some of the stories that we're sharing today and some of the businesses that we've grown to love their experiences as well.

[00:06:43] Nola: I think you're right. This is a preview of actually the benefits and the results of some failures. Is taking the risk part of a life worth living? I think that ties into the fact that sometimes you don't really realize your full potential until you take that risk. Especially when you take that risk and experience failure, because so often those failures serve as a catalyst for success, which is really what this episode is about.

We're going to talk, listener, about five entrepreneurial people, maybe more if we think about them, five entrepreneurial people who failed and some in excruciatingly public ways before finding their own version of success. And we're going to be talking about people. That maybe you haven't heard, we're not going to be talking about Edisons or Oprahs, but take our word for it. These are women that are hugely successful in their own industries and the lessons they learned are still very important for any woman with the desire to build her own dream business.

[00:07:44] Lori: Now, having said that the very first name I'm going to throw out here is probably far well known, but imagine being early in your career.
And you take a big risk that you don't know where that is going to take you in the future. You just know that you're new in your career. You're passionate about what you do. So Nola, you're familiar with Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post, right?

[00:08:11] Nola: Yes. Why do you ask?

[00:08:13] Lori: She's known for the Huffington Post, her passion as a journalist, and she's written 15 plus books. Early in her career, I believe it was her second book, she faced 37 rejections before finally securing a publishing contract. At the start we talked about JK Rowling's, but here's Ariana and 37 rejections. Would you stick around for that?

[00:08:42] Nola: I might put it on a dust pile and come back to it in 10 years or so.

[00:08:47] Lori: This is what she said. She said, by rejection 25, I would have said, Hey, there's something wrong here. Maybe I should be looking at a different career. But instead, she hung on, she persevered. And as a result, not only did she become a highly respected journalist and author and is known for publishing.

[00:09:09] Nola: That's an amazing story.

[00:09:10] Lori: So now I'm going to introduce a little story of a business that's the product was a failure. And part of the reason that we didn't include the businesses directly into what we're sharing is because many of the products that I'll be sharing with you are often started by men in general, and these in particular. And we really wanted to highlight some women who had overcome those obstacles, but I do love these product stories. So you're familiar with bubble wrap, right? It's essential for people packing and shipping things or getting products received. It's really big. The two engineers that developed it, actually developed bubble wrap in the 1960s in an attempt to create a trendy new textured wallpaper.

[00:10:03] Nola: Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? Not if you have kids, but I can totally see it with the 60s. 60s. Yeah. I guess that would be a soundproofing

[00:10:14] Lori: Until you popped it and then it's flat. So the wallpaper didn't work. Then they thought, Hey, maybe this would work for housing insulation. That didn't work either. It wasn't until IBM used it to wrap packages for their newly launched computer and they tried it out. It really became an overnight success because it protected the delicate computer that they had inside.

[00:10:43] Nola: They knew they had an awesome product. They just didn't know what it was for.

[00:10:47] Lori: Exactly. So you're going from the sixties to much later and all these attempts and it's everything that you're doing is like a failure idea, failure idea. And then somebody uses it in a way that you never intended and it's an overnight success.

Speaking of overnight successes, here's another story. Are you familiar with the name Janelle Monae Robinson?

[00:11:10] Nola: No, I'm not.

[00:11:11] Lori: She's a singer, songwriter, rapper, and actress. And she's been nominated for a Grammy something like eight times. And she's won a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Children and Family Emmy award. She tells this story about being fired before she made a name for herself. And I'm just going to read her little quote here because I found it fascinating.
This is what she says. I was working at Office Depot, pushing ink, and I was living in a boarding house with six other girls. I couldn't afford my own apartment. I was selling my CDs independently. I didn't have a computer. I couldn't afford it. So Office Depot, you guys have 200 computers on display and I used one to respond back to a fan who had seen me perform on the library steps. And then as I'm working at the computer, there's this voice of God that just came. Of course, it was Office Depot. Janelle Robinson to the back and I go to the back and my boss said, listen, we're going to make this easy for you. You're fired. Go do what you love. You don't want to be here.
The reason I loved her story is because she was doing a job to make ends meet so that she could pursue her passion. So she was building something around what she loved to do, what she wanted to do. In the course of doing that, sometimes it takes someone outside of our bubble to see that we're holding ourselves back. And most of us would think firing was taboo. It's something to be ashamed of. And here it really probably was not easy. I don't want to say that it was easy to get fired. You don't have a steady income coming in, but it probably made her pursue what she really loved that much harder because she had no choice.

[00:13:07] Nola: That's the impression I got when you read that quote, because it sounds like he was really doing her a favor, even though she may not realize it at the time.

[00:13:16] Lori: I totally agree with you. Here's another one. I'm going to share another product that was intended for one thing and became a huge success in something else. So this product is a medicine. It was intended to be used to reduce blood pressure. Any ideas what it was? No, I don't. It never made notoriety for the medication of reducing blood pressure, but it does make notoriety in another area. And instead of reducing, it increases. Still no guess? Coca Cola? No, it's Rogaine. Rogaine is for hair. Exactly!

[00:13:56] Nola: Wow! That's fascinating.

[00:14:00] Lori: Yeah. Okay. So back to our successful ladies. Are you familiar with Kara Carlton? She's known as Carly Fiorina.

[00:14:10] Nola: I recognize the name as having some bad publicity and I think she was in the political arena.

[00:14:18] Lori: Okay. So she was a former CEO of Hewlett Packard from 1999 to 2005. And at the time she was the first woman to lead a fortune top 20 company. She was also fired. So that's where her story comes from.

[00:14:38] Nola: Is this a theme or something?

[00:14:40] Lori: You know, firing gets a bad rap. I have been fired twice in my life, once as a teenager in one of my very first jobs. So I was like 15 years old and very immature and rightfully deserved to be fired. The second was much later in life after I had switched careers and it took me by surprise and I felt some shame around it. So I think the idea is that sometimes a firing or a letting go opens you up to pursue something that you might not have otherwise done because you were secure where you were, even if you weren't happy.

In Carly's story, it's slightly different here. I want to read this quote from Matthew Boyles of Fortune magazine because I think it makes her story that much more powerful. He said of Fiorina's hiring at HP and being the first woman CEO, he said, "Carly Fiorina didn't just break the glass ceiling, she obliterated it as the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company."

[00:15:47] Nola: Was a gain on behalf of women everywhere, right? That was facing the glass ceiling at that time?

[00:15:52] Lori: And because of her role and she was pretty well known. So that meant that her firing was very public. But here's what she said about it. She said, "I was fired in a. Boardroom brawl. And you know why? It was because I challenged the status quo. And that's what a leader must do. And when you challenge the status quo, when you lead, you make enemies. And that's why few people lead."

Now, some people might hear her story and disagree with that and others who know her might feel differently, but she's got a point. When you're out there as that role model, there are a lot of people who are going to not be happy at your success and, and even try to undermine that. And for a lot of people, and women in particular, having that happen. Can turn us away from the thing that we have natural talent for. In this case, leadership roles. So a failure can be a setback or a stepping stone, or it could also be the thing that does us in and stops us from continuing to move forward.

So that gives me another story for you. This story is about the 40 attempts it took to make it a success. Any idea?

[00:17:20] Nola: All you've said is it take 40 attempts, so.

[00:17:23] Lori: All right, I'll give you a second hint. The name is in the attempts to make it successful.

[00:17:30] Nola: I have no idea.

[00:17:31] Lori: WD 40.

[00:17:33] Nola: Oh. Whoa.

[00:17:35] Lori: They were trying to come up with a formula for a degreaser and a rust protection and it took 40 attempts. And so the 40th was WD 40. 

[00:17:47] Nola: Oh my goodness. That's so cool. So I have a story for you, but first I want to preface it with the question as well. Have you ever said the wrong thing at the wrong time? Is that a stupid question?

[00:17:59] Lori: Yeah. You know what? Not only that, instead of shutting up, you continue to talk more

[00:18:06] Nola: to backtrack. Yeah, and we've all put our foot in our mouth, so to speak, and tried that horribly embarrassing backtracking. But few of us have done that in such a public way as Jenny Slate. I don't know if you've heard that name. Jenny was a cast member on SNL.

[00:18:24] Lori: Yeah. I'm a huge fan of SNL.

[00:18:26] Nola: I used to be, it's been a long time since I watched it, but I'm going to read a quote. And I think in this quote, she says a really important reminder for anybody who's made a really regrettable mistake. So here's what Jenny said:

"I had dreamed of being on Saturday night live. So when I got cast in 2009, I was so happy, but it felt like an explosion when I accidentally The F word on live TV during my very first sketch, Lauren Michaels and I never talked when I was fired at the end of the season. I got the news online. I've still never watched the clip of my F-up. That'll be like watching yourself fall down the aisle at your own wedding. It's important to let yourself go through all the emotions. But if you start seeing yourself as a victim rather than as all of the other amazing things you could be, it's time to snap out of it."

[00:19:21] Lori: I love that quote. That last part, too, because one of the things that is hard to admit if you haven't been fired, like there's certain jobs and certain industries where firing is pretty common and nobody gives it a second thought. And the one that comes to mind is sales. But this is comedy. So this is her passion or this is copywriting. And that was something that was very important to me that I took a lot of pride in delivering the best work that I could do. And when I was faced with that first time firing as a professional, it made me question my ability. So I totally get where she's coming from about giving yourself permission to feel all of the emotions, but don't stay there.

[00:20:07] Nola: Nope. That's good advice.

[00:20:09] Lori: So I've got another story for you.

[00:20:11] Nola: Okay.

[00:20:12] Lori: All right. You're pretty familiar with YouTube, right?

[00:20:15] Nola: Of course.

[00:20:16] Lori: Initially, YouTube as we know it today is not what it was intended to be at the start by thevery talented developers. You know what it was intended to be?

[00:20:27] Nola: I have no idea.

[00:20:28] Lori: A video dating app. They just couldn't get women to go on and talk about themselves.

[00:20:36] Nola: Oh my.

[00:20:36] Lori: And they even tried paying women to come on and talk about what they were looking for in a man. And what happened is when they expanded out and gave other people an opportunity to do videos, thinking that it would get more people for the dating app, instead, people used it in other ways and that's how it took off. And that led it to the YouTube that we know today.

[00:21:02] Nola: Oh, that's fascinating. It's a good lesson about following the trail and being open about where it may end.

[00:21:10] Lori: And if you have an idea that you believe in, I think what I'm hoping is coming out of these stories is that just because you think it will work this way, and it doesn't, doesn’t mean it's a failure. Perhaps you just haven't found the marketplace for where it'll thrive. And that's what you should be looking for.

[00:21:31] Nola: That's a good point. And I'm going to tell you the story about Catherine Minshew. In 2010, Catherine quit her corporate job and along with three other co-founders, founded Pretty Young Professionals, which is an online community and a resource for young professional women. The four leaders clashed over a management issue. And so Catherine and another founder, Alex Cavoulakos, left the startup. And here's her quote. She said, "it felt like Overnight, we'd lost almost everything we'd worked tirelessly to build." That's not the end of the story though, because while that was a devastating loss at the time, Catherine didn't let it deter her and she leveraged the knowledge and experience that she'd gained developing PYP, Pretty Young Professionals, to launch another platform. So Catherine and Alex joined forces. And they started the Muse, which is an online platform that helps people with career development. And it paid off. It was really successful. She said, "we reached 20, 000 active monthly users in our first month, which was something it took PYP a whole year to achieve."

[00:22:40] Lori: Wow.

[00:22:41] Nola: Yeah. We were talking about lessons learned. And when it comes to lessons learned, one thing we hear is how failure builds knowledge and experience. And that certainly happened in this case. In a Wall Street Journal interview, here's what Catherine Minshew said as far as what she learned through that whole ordeal of pretty young professionals. I think it gives us some good advice. Number one, she said, discuss everything up front and out in the open. Number two, get everything in writing. She said, when it comes to business, you should never compromise on proper legal documentation. And number three, make sure everyone is on the same page before you make big decisions.

[00:23:22] Lori: It is really good advice. Failure is a classroom of itself and what you learn from it can really make a big difference. So I'm going to share with you my final product story as well, before we go on. You're familiar with Nintendo, right?

[00:23:39] Nola: Yes.

[00:23:40] Lori: Okay. In the early 80s, 1980s, Atari, I think was one of the first games out there. And there was very little success happening for Nintendo, at least in the beginning when you think of gaming or what we think of today and just how popular gaming is. Your husband's a gamer, right? Oh yeah. Here they launch what they believe is going to be a gaming company and it's crickets until 96. So it's a few years of crickets and wondering if they've made the right decision. And guess what it was that propelled them to the huge success that we know Nintendo to be today. It was a game with two little characters by the name of Mario and Luigi.

[00:24:31] Nola: Of course.

[00:24:33] Lori: Yeah, crazy, isn't it? That you develop a product. It doesn't go anywhere. You've got this idea for a game. You're ahead of the curve. And sometimes when you're first to market and you're introducing something, the rest of the world doesn't quite know how to use it yet. And so those early adopters are a smaller pool, but it takes a little bit to seed that. And it wasn't until the success of Mario Brothers that Nintendo really became the huge success that it is.

[00:25:04] Nola: Interesting. I love this quote from Oprah Winfrey, because I can so relate. She says, "there is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction."

[00:25:16] Lori: I agree. I will also admit that in the moment of facing failure. That is not the thought that comes to my head. And I will be honest to say that I have thought in my head how some of my ideas would play out, and what I realized is that it took me many attempts at not trying things out to realize that the intention you have in your head is not how things play out in real life. If you think to yourself, Oh, that's not going to be successful or that path is not going to work or you face an obstacle to getting it going and think that's a sign it must not be successful or it won't be successful, I should quit right here. You can often be wrong. It's only in the moment of taking action. And I think that's what our stories have said. We put something out there with one intention and we saw something else manifest as a result of having it out there.

[00:26:22] Nola: That's a very astute observation. Thank you. There is a growing amount of research pointing to the idea that failure can make you better off in the long run. You don't even begin to understand how much potential you have until you acknowledge how much your failures have contributed toward your success. And now it seems that science agrees. Because according to researchers, learning from past mistakes is the key to success. For example, rather than throwing out a rejected cover letter and resume, those with a success mindset, instead of saying, okay, forget it. I obviously am not qualified for anything. They'll say, okay, which parts of this application should I rework? And which ones are the keepers? And the same thing holds true for a business ideas. If those with a success mindset will focus on, okay, what is it here that didn't work? So the person who was baking the Wheaties said, okay, I'm onto something that tastes really good. Let's figure out number one, this worked, this didn't work. Number 35, this worked, didn't work. And so it's like improving the part of the product or invention rather than scrapping the whole idea altogether at the first failure.

[00:27:34] Lori: Let me ask you, Nola. From either your own failure or any of the experiences that we shared here today, what has failure taught you about life, success, or your own strengths and abilities?

[00:27:47] Nola: We've been planning this episode for a while. And I have to say it has caused me to reflect on failures and cringe worthy experiences, basically, and to see them in a new light. I have about four things that I would say I've learned from. One is, it really can push you into a direction that you may never have considered or gone toward otherwise. and I guess it probably aligns with Oprah's quote I know that, especially in career wise, I tried a few things that just, it's like, it seemed like a good idea, but it obviously wasn't. So let me try this. And eventually, out of desperation, I moved into an area that I really had not considered and I ended up thriving. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't been pushed in that direction.

Number two, failure can be a way of sparing you from an oncoming calamity that you don't know is coming. That's why I say "never curse your inconvenience." One example was back in 2019, I was having a really hard time getting people to sign up and register for a destination retreat event. My goal for having people signed up had long passed and it was just really difficult. In retrospect, I know how I could have improved marketing, et cetera, but that failure spared me from having all of the convoluted ramifications of having to cancel something when COVID hit. So that failure was doing me a favor because travel was about to be suspended everywhere.

Another thing I've learned is that your tenacity can be a thermometer of your passion for your cause, or if that cause is your business, it can really be a gauge for how much do you really want it?

There have been times where I've started a side business more as an escape from some job that I'm like really needing to get out of, and I needed to have some kind of a transition plan, rather than for my love and passion for what I'm doing. I would build it because there was a demand and I was good at it. Not that I was super passionate about it, but when it became really difficult, it wasn't enough, always for me to keep pushing through. Had I been more passionate and more really committed and really wanted to do that, then it probably would have been a big hit. But I guess I just didn't really want it that bad.

The final thing I can think of that. I've learned is that it can give you, I want to say a thick skin, but in a way that it puts things into perspective. You learn that you can dust yourself off. And while it's not pleasant, it's not the end of the world. After a while, failing isn't such a dramatic event. You learn that you can recuperate and having done that once and being able to look back and say, Oh, I lived to tell about it. I got through it. That means the fear of failure is diminished. And you're able to really dust yourself off. You don't have to beat yourself up and you can face risk with a little less fear and a little bit more perspective.

So that's what I've thought. What about you?

[00:31:01] Lori: One, I think that's really important is that we spend a lot of time trying to avoid failure rather than learning how to accept it. And by accept it, normalize it. Failure is normal, it's not fatal. But we put such a negative connotation around it. And part of the reason we wanted to introduce not only the people. But the products that started off in one direction and could be considered a failure before finding the success in a totally different way is to show that there is good that can come out of failure. But if you don't get into that pond and embrace it as a part of being a life worth living, Oh, I gave it a try. It didn't succeed this way. But man, it worked that way. Or it didn't succeed this way, but it taught me how to do something this way.

And I'll give you an example for myself. I went to graduate school to get a master's degree in social work and not because of the traditional social work title that people think of, but social work is at a master's level is a terminal degree, meaning I had many of the same privileges if you're licensed that a psychologist can have. If you want to get in the mental health field, it opens up a lot of doors and for some agencies or health care providers or even private practice, it can be a less expensive way than a psychology degree. It was my last class in which I discovered that I got into the field with one intention and that intention wasn't the best intention. So I stuck with it for 10 years. And I was good at it. I just didn't love it. I loved what I learned and I loved what it taught me. And I apply all of that every day in almost every area of my life. But I had to accept the fact that it wasn't something that I enjoyed doing. In that sense, I think of it as a failure because of how much money it took to go to school and how much intention it took to graduate and how important that was. And that's not the thing that I want to do for the rest of my life. That was one lesson.

Another lesson, perseverance can turn failure into success. I have a story, Tim Ferriss from the four-hour work week, he talks about trying to get his book published and he had 25 rejections. And when he got the offer that came in, after he had signed the contract, he asked them, why, what was different? I had 25 failures. What did you see different in the manuscript that nobody else did? And the publishing house said nothing. We can understand why the publishers rejected your work. But we aren't betting on the book. We're betting on you. We believe you will do anything and everything it takes to make this book a success. And I think that's a pivotal piece of turning failure into success is your customer, your partners, your investors, some are investing in the idea. But more often than not, they're investing in you to bring that idea to success. I think that is huge.

A third lesson that I've learned is, stay true to your vision. Steve Jobs said, you have to trust in something, whether that's your gut, your destiny, life, karma. And I think he's right. If you have an idea that you believe in, you have to really feel that and you have to see that vision. And then it's part of your job to get other people on board, to see the vision. As you see it, not everyone's going to approve of what you do. And we hear that a lot in social media. People put their idea out there and they're just bombarded by all of this negative stuff. But there's also people who might not be combative that are reading the same thing and feeling like, You get me. You understand my pain. Thank you so much for bringing this vision and keeping it going so that I could discover you.

[00:35:39] Nola: Yep. You never really know how far the ripple effect goes from what you're doing.

[00:35:45] Lori: So, a good example comes back to Tim Ferriss, again, he has a book out, I think the name is Tribe of Mentors, and now he's got all of these books, he's made a name for himself, he's very successful. And he says, I still had hundreds of rejections when I was trying to interview mentors. And yet he still felt very passionate. He said one of the things that he learned in trying to get the interviews with, successful industry leaders, is he said he learned a lot about failure and how failure can teach you something. So he talks about trying to reach out to somebody to get an interview and the response back, he got a no. And what the person said was that they were "on a no meeting diet." So, they were sticking to their diet for a while. And he said, he thought that was such a creative way to say no, that he used it by saying that he had a no conference call diet going on. And he said people just rolled with it. He said it was incredible. He got no pushback, no negative comments. And he said that was something that he learned that you can learn from other people's failures and how to turn that around and apply it because there's something to be said for that.

I could go on and on because there's a lot of lessons learned, but I think and I hope that listener, we together, Nola and I, have inspired you and better prepared you to handle any failures you might experience on your journey to success as well as your journey to becoming a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. And be sure to stick around to the end of our podcast for a fun little surprise.

[00:37:36] Nola: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for News You Can Use, over on our website, stickybrandlab.com and remember small steps, big effects.

[OUT-TAKE]

Nola: Okay. Retake.
[00:37:57] Lori: Jump Street.

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Business success strategies are in the works. Come have a listen!
By the end of this episode, you'll learn: 

• How big and fast the mountain of information at our fingertips has grown. 
• How technology has changed the way our brains prefer to take in information.
• The one digital invention that keeps us scrolling and scrolling and scrolling....
• How predictive technology can anticipate your next move.
• The affect technology is having on digitally native children.
• Ways to climb out of the rabbit hole and take control of your tech-induced habits.

Key points Lori and Nola are sharing in this episode:

 4:48 Surprising revelations that made Lori's jaw drop.
14:22 The Multi-Tasking Myth
22:48 The addictive side effect of this one tech improvement
28:03 Pavlovian psychology applies to social media
30:17 How tech affects children
35:13 Solutions to Managing Technology Addiction and Improving Focus
44:44 "Stolen Focus" Recommendation 

Resources

Sign up  for “News You Can Use” at Sticky Brand Lab

Subscribe to Lori and Nola's show  on Apple Podcasts,  Audible, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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ConvertKit: Our #1 Favorite Email Marketing Platform   (This is an affiliate link)

​[00:00:00] Lori: Technology is like having the biggest candy store in the world at your disposal. It's great for connecting with people, doing research and writing, learning, having fun, and organizing your time, tasks, and life. Like all great candy stores, though, there's also a downside. In the case of technology, that adverse effect manifests in the form of our ability, or rather our inability, to focus.
Noticing my own concentration shrinking and at the same time recognizing an increase in my constant switching from device to device and tab to tab, I wondered if other people were having a similar experience. What I discovered blew my mind. Stay tuned friend, because as you're about to hear in this episode, the topic as well as solutions are far more multifaceted and complex than simply implementing tech-free days.
Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts, so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vida, and this is my co-host, Nola Boye.
Hi, Nola.
[00:01:15] Nola: Hey, Lori. Today, listener, Lori and I are introducing a new segment we're calling Beyond the Cover. Books for personal and professional growth to kick off this piece. We're discussing our first book stolen focus by author Johan Hari. As it turns out, Hari spent about three years researching and writing it. He traveled across the globe interviewing top researchers and scientists in their field, all in an attempt to help himself and the reader discover why as a society we're having just such a difficult time focusing or paying any kind of attention these days. To illustrate this, Hari reports that in the U. S., teenagers can focus on one task for only 65 seconds at a time. And for office workers, that average is approximately 3 minutes. Now, I have not read this book, so today I'm going to be interviewing Lori to find out why she wanted to read it, what she discovered, and whether or not she would actually recommend it.
 Before we talk about the book, Lori, what in the world was going on with your life for you to check out a book about stolen focus?
[00:02:27] Lori: That's an interesting question because two things happened at the same time. I was seeing reviews for the book and the book had come out, I think last year. And I also was noticing some peculiar behaviors that I was doing.
For example, I was trying to post about our interviews and things that we were doing on social media. And even though I had streamlined it, I would find that I was getting lost in looking for material, uploading it. Then I was looking through Facebook and I was looking for other material to share. And all of a sudden, something that I thought would take me less than 10 minutes, I was losing chunks of time, like 20 minutes at a time or 30 minutes at a time. I couldn't believe how fast it was happening and recognizing that I was becoming more disorganized. So the other thing that was happening was I was switching all the time and not feeling like I was accomplishing stuff.
[00:03:32] Nola: I can so relate because I will go to post our Sticky Brand Lab audiogram. It should just take a minute to upload, but you know what? There's that little red bell. And oh, I got that dopamine hit. And who said what? And then next thing, 30 minutes has passed and I haven't even posted it yet. Oh yeah, that's not what I'm here for.
[00:03:51] Lori: So the book actually came up in Goodreads for me, because of Kindle and then I went to the library app and I listened to it as we were driving from Texas to Colorado through a good majority of this book. My mouth was hanging open. I was like, Oh my God. He's like talking to me.
[00:04:14] Nola: Oh my goodness.
[00:04:15] Lori: I thought this was a personal problem and what the book opened up to me was maybe not so much. So I thought it was my lack of control and I just had poor time management skills. So while I was reading how to get focused, I was also looking at applications. That I could use to help me get my projects organized that I was trying to organize and focus on tasks and use the apps that are out there to help with that. And that's a whole ‘nother story, but yeah.
[00:04:48] Nola: Okay. So you said that you were reading this and your jaw just fell open. What were some of those things that were surprising you so much that you felt your chin on your knees?
[00:04:58] Lori: One of the things that I think was pretty fascinating was if you looked at how much information is out there, let's say that you had a newspaper or a news magazine that had roughly 85 pages to it. In 1986, if you added up all the amount of resources that you could gather information, and at that time it would primarily be TV and radio and actual reading, it would amount to 84 of those newspapers. So it gives you a sense of how much time you might spend or what amount of resources are there. By 2011, that number had risen to 174 newspapers per day, or the equivalent of reading 15.5 hours.
[00:05:58] Nola: Wow. Meaning that's how much was available at your fingertips.
[00:06:02] Lori: Correct.
[00:06:03] Nola: Wow.
[00:06:04] Lori: I think one of the examples he gives in the book is imagine being at a fire hose of information. You can't swallow all the water that's coming at you, but in our mind, we think this is fantastic. I can research around the world. I can stay connected, give me more, and we don't have the capacity. To deal with that, our brain doesn't allow for us to consume all of that information. So that was one of the things.
Another thing that I wondered is, okay, so we've got all this vast amount of information. I totally understand that you've got social platforms, you've got apps, you've got online magazines. He gives an example of one of the scientists who sees a... picture of Mark Zuckerberg in a room full of people wearing virtual reality headsets. But Mark isn't. And what comes to mind for the scientist is what the future is going to look like. And in his mind, what's going to happen is we're going to have, right now we talk about the 1 percent and the 99%. We're going to have people who understand. The risk that they have to this attention overload, and they're going to find ways to filter or limit that information, whether that's hiring people to disseminate it slowly or give them the cliff notes, but there's going to be a whole other group of people with fewer resources to resist the manipulation, and they're going to be constantly tuned into their computers more and more. And we see that in those futuristic movies.
[00:07:58] Nola: Yeah. I have started to be very selective about the emails I get, especially the news or even news articles. I have one or two that I go to specifically because it'll give me the cliff notes. Just unbiased. Give me the facts. Give it to me in one line. I'll click if I want to read more, period. I don't want to get sucked into anything now. Will I sometimes still get sucked in? Yeah. But so I try, I'd like to say I'm applying a filter, but not sure how effective it is.
[00:08:27] Lori: So let me talk to you about that filter. So researchers that looked at speed reading, and I remember my brother taking a class on speed reading and he'll talk to you about speed reading and he's for it and he talked about the need to read faster. So the researchers looked at speed reading and what they found. was when the people who were able to do it, this is people like my brother who aren't professional at it. And then people who are professional, the results were the same. The faster they can read, the less they understand.
[00:08:59] Nola: That's comprehension. Yeah.
[00:09:01] Lori: Exactly. Now take that information and apply it to the way we get our information.
[00:09:07] Nola: We're scanning, scanning.
[00:09:09] Lori: Exactly. That's exactly right. And so what we're automatically doing without realizing it is that we don't want the time to read an article that's complex or challenging, or that has challenging material. Instead, we're preferring to simplify information, to scan it, or think of it as reading the headlines. We want it in this bite of chunks of information, so we don't understand the depths of some of the challenges that are currently faced, and we Instead, and I'm as guilty of this, I attributed the scanning and reading the headlines to there's so much information out there, you have to pick and choose where you want to focus your attention. And that's true. But again, go back to that fire hose of information coming at you. And now we're teaching our brains to really only prefer the things that are easy so that we can get more information quicker. So it goes back to that image of sitting in front of a computer. You're doing more and more in front of a screen, whether that screen is in your pocket or at your desk, it doesn't matter. It's how often you go to it. And for that reason, the challenge now is we can't get away from it. And what do we do?
[00:10:36] Nola: Now? Wasn't there studies that have showed that a lot of these platforms have made it so you can't breakaway?
[00:10:45] Lori: Yes. And I think the intention in the developer was to make things easier. And of course, when you make things easier, there's another effect that you don't account for until it's already there. So in the book, Hari really. He breaks things down into 11 causes that the research is showing from talking to the scientists or the web developers that really are negatively impacting our focus and our attention.
This is the part, for me, the first half of the book was the most interesting because it focused a lot on things like multitasking and technology apps, and we don't think about the impact that sleep has or light and technology have. So there's all of these things that for me, the first part of the book addresses.
In the second half or what I think of as the second half, he then organizes it into other areas that are also affected.
So if you think about these areas, you could think about. Allergies, diet, environmental pollutants. He even talks about the fact that kids don't have free play anymore, at least not alone and outside, and the rise of the diagnosis of ADHD in both children and adults. So one of the things, if you think back to when Google first started, you would do your Google search or any of those search engines, you would put it in. And remember, everybody wanted to get on the first page. So SEO was all and paid ads were all about helping you get on that first page and you'd have to scroll down to the bottom and you'd open up the second page and you'd get a list and you'd open up the third. So it was very time limited.
Same with social media platforms. You could scroll only so far. And then you'd have to wait for the next page or the next series of posts to come up. So one of the inventions that was done was in the book, he interviews Aza Raskin. That name Raskin might sound familiar, and that's because Jeff Raskin was one of the designers for the first Apple computer. So his son is a computer programmer who revolutionized the way that we can interact with websites and social media. He invented a piece of code called infinite scroll. And so you can scroll through large chunks of information. You never get to the bottom. So from an SEO standpoint, everybody now is on the first page, but from a social media platform, you are losing track of time because you're just scrolling to the next post in the next post.
[00:13:41] Nola: That is addicting. This is actually what I'm getting to. It's addicting.
[00:13:44] Lori: It is. And so Hari identified really three areas that are really affected or having our focus stolen. And social media is one of those. The culture on productivity. We talk about how much work we have to do, and now there's all of this technology to help us project manage it. And then there's technology to help us stay in contact with people online as we're managing it. And all of these things, it's like you have to be able to multitask and do more all at the same time. But the research shows that multitasking actually makes us less productive. And this is where this whole idea of switching tabs or something not coming to me quick enough, and so I'll go work on something else.
And what he found in the research here is we actually can't multifocus. We do not have that brain capacity. Now that's been talked about for a long time, but here's the things that caught my attention that again. Made my mouth drop open.
First of all, when we try to multitask, the results are we're less creative. We can't retain the information that we've got and it takes us longer than before to switch back our focus. So let's say that you're working on something. You get stuck and you think, I'm just going to go work on the next thing. I'll come back to this. It'll be a little bit easier. For me, being in writing, being in the creative, I thought of it as taking a break, resting my mind and moving on to something else and being a little more productive. What he shows is we don't just shut off one and go to the other. There's a lingering effect. So we have to take a deep dive in the next thing. If we go back to the first thing, because we've hit another roadblock, we have to gear up. So basically, think of you running a race, being really far ahead, or my favorite example is, I used to move in and out of traffic to try and get ahead of slow drivers. And then somebody was
[00:16:13] Nola: Somehow, they'd always ended up catching up with you.
[00:16:15] Lori: Exactly. And that's the point. That's what he is saying is that you think you're moving ahead, but you actually become the slow driver. And eventually you, it takes you that long to get back up to the same place that I was working so hard to get ahead of. Yeah. So you're losing time.
[00:16:35] Nola: I can so relate to that because I wear many hats. I remember there's a particular day where I realized I do not desire to multitask because when I am interrupted, it takes me so long to then get my brain wrapped around it and I just had to focus. So I turned off my email. I put my phone on do not disturb. I thought I turned off everything. And still somebody was able to get through to me on zoom. And so the phone on zoom was ringing and I actually answered it and answered their question. They're like, oh, I hope I didn't bother you. And again, it just takes so much time to get focused. And there was so much technology to have to switch off to even try to get there. It was insane. And I still feel that way.
[00:17:20] Lori: And that's the point. We can't switch it all off. There are things that we have to be able to have access to. The solutions aren't no tech or having tech free days because that's not a real solution. You have to find out some other things.
But let me give you another example that came up because I think it's along the same kind of lines of putting things away, we often hear that how blue light affects us and how the light of our phone, if we get it before bed and you need to put your tech away. This was an interesting piece of research.
So according to a scientist and Harvard professor, and I don't know if I'm going to be saying his name correctly, but his name is Charles, I'm going to say Czeisler, it's spelled C Z E I S L E R. And he studies sleep. And what he discovered, of course, that this makes sense, that the lack of sleep impacts our ability to pay attention, to concentrate, to achieve more.
So I think I was talking with a friend recently, she teaches at a university and we were talking about pulling all-nighters or you and I talking and you talking about working into the wee hours of the morning in order to get some work done. When you combine that with the lack of sleep, it means that the next day, the things that you were working on or the assignments that the students were working on, they're less able to focus and articulate what they discovered because they have lack of sleep.
So we are all pretty aware of that, but this part I wasn't aware of, and that is that any kind of light whatsoever that comes on so it can be a room light or the morning sun, our brains are geared to be energized.
[00:19:10] Nola: Okay, that makes complete sense because we have so many little night lights and little red lights and little green lights in our bedroom. That I for a long time could not sleep because we've had to accommodate some medical technology in the room that runs during the night and it has this bright screen. but the screen stays on until you wake up and go through this whole shutdown process. I finally got a night mask. And you know what, if I move in the night and it gets off center and a little bit of that light, the glow of whatever, gets in there, I'm start to wake up.
I last night woke up in the middle of the night, because I just couldn't sleep with all this light, I got up and I grabbed this thick scarf out of my closet and went over and just draped it over that and I turned the other gizmos around that had green blinking stuff. And it was dark, it was dark and I went so sound asleep. But you're absolutely right. See, and I thought it was just me. I'd heard about the blue light thing. And putting the phone away. But with me, I feel like my eyelids are made out of crepe.
[00:20:25] Lori: But my husband is the same way. So a little bit of light. So first thing in the morning he wakes up, but here's why everyone, whether they wake up from a little light or they need more light to have it happen. Think about the fact that the sun is setting and you go into a room. and you turn on the light or in our case, we're about to do daylight savings time. So it already is getting lighter later and now we're going to set it to try and get earlier.
But here's why our brains are wired this way and why it's not going to go away. At the end of the day, when we were living more farm When even more primitive than that, we needed the burst of energy in order to fix meals, get ready for bed, do our last things that we would attend to. And you needed to do it while it was still light enough so that danger wasn't knocking at the door. So that burst of energy happens regardless of the light. So when you go to bed, you walk into a room, you have a little nightlight on. It doesn't matter how dim that light is. It's enough to get your brain active. And I think the longevity of how active your brain is probably varies, but it's a minimum because that's how we're wired.
[00:21:50] Nola: So I have this thing on my phone after a certain point in time, it turns my screen gray. Supposedly keeping that blue light out of my face, but I still find myself watching videos and every now and then I actually turn off the thing because I got to see the colors in that video. I'm really ashamed to say this. Are we actually going to publish this podcast?
[00:22:09] Lori: I know I'm like, here's my deficits. I'm just going to spew them all out here.
[00:22:15] Nola: But there is something about the scrolling.
[00:22:17] Lori: There is. And we talked about the infinite scroll, and then I talked about the blue light and technology and the thinking behind that and how our brains are wired.
One of the things that came up that was also fascinating, and this is particular, I think, when it comes to technology and all technology regardless, is that they keep improving it. But while they're improving it. It's also having a side effect or unintentional consequence. So you've got something that's working for you, it makes it easier, the infinite scrolling makes it easier, but the unintentional consequence of that is that you now continue to scroll because it's so natural, it's so easy, and it becomes a habit. So much so, that not only do you reach for your phone at every moment that you might have just been what I refer to as bored because it's no longer downtime. It's like, Oh, I have to wait in traffic. Let me grab my phone. Oh, an idea didn't come to me. Let me grab my phone. Oh, I'm awake. Let me grab my phone. And we get sucked into thinking that if we put on this dimmer light, that's going to be the solution. When in fact, science says not so much.
One of the other things that happened in here was really the discovery of just how addictive technology has become. So I mentioned earlier that I thought it was me and my lack of self-control, but he goes into talking to all sorts of scientists, all sorts of developers, all sorts of company people who've been like whistleblowers at companies. And one of them that he talked to was a guy whose name is Tristan Harris and Tristan Harris used to work for Google. Now he has started something that he works on as part of the attention economy. So these are things that steal or grab your attention, right? How do you go viral? And what he did is he sent a deck to Google that went viral within the company saying that the technology and the way that it's been developed is very addictive. And that we need to really think about this because now it's an arms race, so to speak, to capture human attention. And we have a moral responsibility as a company to find ways to think about that, to restructure things so that's not the case.
And I pointed out that this is Google, but you have to think about this from the fact that now we have cookies. You have websites that tell you the cookies are here and you either, if you're in Europe, you can easily reject them all. In the United States, you can select out of, but even still those technologies are there and their purpose. is to show up on another app.
So I'll give you an example. Recently, my husband was looking for new shoes and he's online doing search for a good pair of tennis shoes. And I see ads for tennis shoes, or in my case, DSW coming up more in ads that are showing up in no matter where I'm scrolling, that is retriggering for your ad, that's what those cookies are designed. They're designed to find out in the household what technology is connected, how it interacts, and then feed it to the other people. Because as a female, I may be going shopping with my husband.
The other thing that this technology or cookies are able to do is they work predictive method. They're designed to monitor our individual behavior and our group behavior, group meaning your family, behavior, and get so good at it, they can predict what you're likely to search for next. Now, I'm going to give you an example of this. Let's say that you buy a new house. The predictive ability is to anticipate the things that you're more likely to need or purchase as a result of buying a new house. Now you might not think a new car would be in there, but it is. So different things are designed to anticipate that, which is why we often feel like our technology is listening in. And while that capability is there, it's really about getting better at using
[00:27:06] Nola: Predictive technology.
[00:27:08] Lori: Exactly. Predictive technology in order to get you to purchase. And here's the thing. Why do they want our data? They want our data to keep us buying and scrolling has that kind of a behavior in which you're likely to buy. You're also likely to buy if you are cooped up in your house or if you are bored or it might be the time of day, it might be a weekend and what your style for searching is, but it's become individualized to that point.
When Harris brought the awareness, technology said, Oh, you're right. This is terrible. We really should look into it. But how has technology paid for? Those ads and people who want to Buy data. And so it's businesses that want to buy data. And it's big businesses that want data.
So when you think about it from that standpoint, what they found was, and this goes back to the Skinner model. His early psychology research was on the Pavlovian, hit the green button, get a reward, hit the red button, get buzzed. And so it was used to manipulate animals later applied to children. the belief being that these were just blank slates. So if we want to manage behavior of any kind, mind you, we just have to put in these reward and punishment situations.
That's what we were seeing happening, or that's what the researchers were seeing happening with technology. They were designing ways for you to get more hits, more dopamine. So you're getting this hit. So if you think of social, you think of people liking your page, leaving comments, sharing, that makes sense. If you think of other technology, it is about getting your business or your name up higher in Google searches, getting recognized. If you're an influencer, it's reaching more people. They're all of these mile markers that help you get rewarded for getting more people involved.
But now technology actually reaches out to you to let you know, I get updates on LinkedIn. I get updates that somebody has posted something of interest that I'm connected to, I get updates about it on other social platforms. It's designed to use your excitement and need for validation and reward you for participating.
[00:29:49] Nola: That statement right there, that it's designed to make you seek that validation, does that tie to the early statement about teenagers, how it affects kids, especially teens, and their self-esteem and you hear about online bullying and stuff like that. And I know we're talking about focus, but is there a tie in here?
[00:30:13] Lori: There absolutely is a tie in and the tie in. They've actually seen in young children, like toddler age, an increase in screen time. And what they've noticed in the increase in screen time is, and you may have noticed this yourself, is that when you're watching something, the amount of the story, the length of the story, or the length of that focus of attention, he's going to rob something or they're falling in love. It keeps getting shorter and shorter. So we get a lot of information, we're captivated, but the length of time is shorter and shorter. So you apply that in YouTube or any of the other apps. It's short bursts of information.
What happens for children is they mimic that behavior. So, their brains are similar capacity, but they don't have experience in focus yet. So, the things that we're noticing for ourselves, the behaviors that are happening in ourselves, we had to reach a point in time to get this way. For kids, this is all learned behavior. They're learning it right from the start.
And so, one of the big areas that has come up in research, again, Hari talks about is the increase in both child diagnosis and that when they begin to look at it in more depth and you have to get into the history, you have to sit down and talk to somebody. You can't just look at the behaviors like somebody saying, Oh, I can't focus and I get overwhelmed and my concentration. You have to look at the behaviors that they're doing. You have to monitor their screen time. You have to ask a variety of questions that most people don't do. They ask, how is it impacted? I can't focus. I find myself getting distracted easily. I go down these rabbit holes. I can't get my assignments done. It's impacting my ability to sleep at night. When you start to put the full picture together, you get to see its impact. But that doesn't usually happen because There's not enough time to do those kinds of in-depth research or questions. And so we're looking for the shortcut. A teacher, a parent. They're looking for, how do I get my kid to focus? But I'm also having a hard time focus. So just give me a pill because we're wanting quick fixes. And those don't exist anymore.
[00:32:37] Nola: It's scary. But the thing is, you mentioned how we have this almost addiction to technology because of these dopamine hits or whatever it is that's addicting. So when we started this discussion, you admitted that you were having trouble focusing. So have you figured out that you have any particular challenge or distraction that hinders your particular ability to concentrate in your daily work?
[00:33:06] Lori: I think part of my personality. So I believe in lifelong learning. I love learning more. And for me, the getting lost down the research rabbit hole really showed up. So I understood that from technology, the wanting to I let people know about our business and doing social posts. I was watching that happened first thing in the morning, not that I opened my eyes and reached for the phone and did it, but relatively quickly and often before I was getting out of bed. So I was looking at the weather. I was looking at my schedule and then I would quickly say, okay, let me get a post in and then that post would take me down this rabbit hole. So.
[00:33:50] Nola: Before you even put your feet on the floor.
[00:33:52] Lori: Yeah, because I work remotely. So it was easier to do that. Whereas other people might do exactly where other people might do that during a meeting. I'm doing it first thing in the morning because I wanted to get it off my plate. I thought, Oh, I'll just get our posts out there. I'll do these things. And I was losing time and I couldn't believe how much time I was losing. I'm almost embarrassed to say this. I thought I'm just developing the post. I'm putting it on Instagram. I'm sharing on Facebook. Not even a problem. Just getting it together. I would lose 30 minutes like a snap. It was incredible. Yeah. While I wouldn't say that it was an addiction, what I would say is that I became aware of its impact on my life and I was losing time so I wasn't getting my work done like I wanted to. And that was stirring up some other issues because now I'm feeling anxious or pressured by time. And when that happens, I get irritable. And so one thing begets another. And so for me, I was looking for a solution and the solution that I initially thought of was what is happening? And then the other is what other technology can I use to help me organize my life?
[00:35:09] Nola: So it's funny you should mention solution because I wasn't going to ask you, does this book offer any solutions? Or is it basically, Oh my goodness, this is everything you need to know about technology.
[00:35:20] Lori: He offers a variety of solutions, but I'm going to give you some top ones that I think are pretty important.
One of the things that he did that started this whole book is he has a whole story of trying to get a flip phone, one that can't connect to the internet because he's going to go to this remote place so that he can basically have no technology. And he talks about the difficulty just being able to do that and how successful or unsuccessful it was for him.
But he discovered that we need to slow down. So even though we have access to all of this technology and we can read and we're trying to skim to determine what we should read and focus our attention on, we also need to take a break. And by taking a break, it would be like reading a real book. You could do it on your technology, but it's different than listening to it and speeding it up so you can get the information quicker. Not, I do. I'll raise my hand. I know I do that. I'm in a book club, but when I am doing business books or specific books that I'm reading for professional development or even for personal growth. I do slow that down. I also highlight or take notes, handwritten notes.
The point here that he's getting at is practice doing one thing at a time. Practice eating your meal, not in front of a TV or in front of a computer. Practice going to bed without looking at your technology before. So decide that maybe at the end of the day. Uh, your workday, you've looked at your calendar, you know what time you've set your alarm and now you're free to focus on the other things. You don't have to do it every day, but the point that he's making is give yourself breaks.
Now for me. And for others, he talks about writing things out, not typing them because we actually use a different part of our brain when we handwrite notes versus when we type them out. And science has shown that we're far more likely to remember when we write and not so much when we type.
And the other thing that he talks about is practicing meditation. And you can do meditation, walking meditation, you can do it quieting, you can do mindful meditation. There's a variety of things or yoga or exercise in general. The point is that you're moving yourself physically away from multitasking. And physically sometimes from technology.
Now I use my phone to do mindful meditation, but that's the only thing I'm using it at that moment for. And so I am practicing that on a daily basis. So that became the first thing. I did two things here personally that came out of that suggestion. And one of those was I stopped doing social media. Until I can figure out how to manage it better for myself, I decided that focus and attention and concentration and creativity were far more important to me. And so I was going to figure out a different way, or at least work my way back into it with some parameters.
Caveat here. So one of the things that I did do is I perused news items to look for things that I thought would be part of my lifelong learning, something I would be interested in. So I wanted to read a full article. I prioritized that in the morning. This has worked, but what I've since done is flipped and I actually do the meditation first. So, while my brain is still in the quiet place, I allow it to continue that so that I'm practicing focusing by doing mindful meditation.
[00:39:15] Nola: Okay. So, you start the morning with the meditation while you're still quiet and able to focus a little bit better. You focus on a full article, as opposed to pulling out your phone and spending 30 minutes posting and stuff initially. That sounds so healthy.
[00:39:33] Lori: The take a break is one thing. The things that I'm talking about here are the habit building. In order to improve our concentration and our focus and grab our attention back. It's not so much, don't do this. It's what will I do instead? How will I learn to use this in a way that is more beneficial to me than being absorbed by it, if you will. So that was one thing.
In his book, another thing that he talks about is creating distraction-free environments. And the way that I did this is. I actually leave my phone in a different room first thing in the morning. So I can't get the notifications and I turned off the notification sound on the different methods that people could reach me. So they can still come in, but I'm not seeing them. And I started by just lengthening the time. So in the beginning it might've been an hour and then it might've been two hours. And what has happened is that I use that time now to focus and get something accomplished. And then I reward myself by checking my phone or doing something else.
[00:40:50] Nola: I'm really inspired and impressed or impressed and inspired.
[00:40:55] Lori: So the last tip, and I think this is really important here, is we need to grant ourself grace. There's no one right method. And I think he comes up with some ideas and there's others out there. You have to figure out what works for you as an individual, what works for you as a family. The most important thing, though, is first you have to recognize there's a problem. Part of granting yourself grace is recognizing that it's not your lack of willpower. It's designed this way. And the answer to me isn't blaming technology, but it is holding technology far more accountable than we are. Which means we have to educate people. And you had talked about a lawsuit?
[00:41:37] Nola: Yes. A day ago. Prior to this recording, 33 states were filing together a lawsuit against META for promoting an algorithm. knowing that it was harmful for kids.
[00:41:48] Lori: First of all, that’s part of what Hari said. He said, we need communities to come together and say, this is not okay in the same way that we set it about other things like the water in Michigan or the pollutants that are out there or lead or anything else. There has to be a level of education that people need to be aware of. So that's part of it.
The answer isn't in suing all of these companies because we have to learn to coexist with technology. But in my mind, there's a difference between really looking at not only ourselves, but future generations. How do we learn to properly use technology rather than being used by technology? And that's where we're at. We don't realize that every time we open up something on the internet, there's a little cookie there grabbing some data and data, every time you think you're using something for free, you're really just feeding this monster. And as you evolve and you age, you're sharing your behavior and how you interact, individually and collectively with all of those things that are out there that are collecting that information about you. And then that feeds into fake news and the whole history of stuff.
[00:43:15] Nola: This has been fascinating. And I have two questions. Brief ones. First of all, you mentioned all the things that you have started to apply that were recommended in the book. Have you noticed a difference?
[00:43:27] Lori: Absolutely. I have noticed a difference. Probably the biggest difference was knowing that, okay, there's an impact here. I did not realize I was totally oblivious to just how distracted I was. I could see it. I'm aware. You can be anywhere and people looking at their phone and you're making fun of them. Oh, look, we're all in a bus. Well, we used to be on a bus or train or whatever, reading newspapers. So something having our attention isn't the issue. The issue is not being able to put it down and feeling antsy about it. And so the thing that I'm working on is actually living with not filling up every second with technology. And putting it away and not being tempted when I hear the notification. I started listening to this book a few months ago and putting some of these practices in place. So I've had a little bit, it's not a total new habit, but I've had some awareness happen. So I know that there's a lot more progress that has to happen and I have to figure out how to co-exist. We can't shut off social media as a business forever. I've got to figure that part out, but I also have more understanding than I did previously.
[00:44:44] Nola: Second question, Stolen Focus by author Johan Hari. Recommend it or not?
[00:44:50] Lori: I absolutely recommend it. It's true that he paints a picture from his perspective and some of the stuff that he talked about later, I wasn't a hundred percent in agreement with it, but keeping that in mind for anybody who is interested in this, it is a very thought-provoking researched book on technology. And its effect on our lives and how it's disrupting our ability to concentrate. And even if you think that's not going to happen to me or that doesn't apply to me, it's applying to your children, your grandchildren, your nieces, your nephews, the next generation of providers, medical professionals, scientists are in those young minds. And so we need to educate ourselves, in order to help set parameters, whether we're in business or in family, or just our individual lifestyle.
[00:45:48] Nola: Very good. Listener, in our effort to help you become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life, we hope our discussion of the book Stolen Focus by Johan Hari has prompted you to rethink technology's impact on your life, as well as encouraged you to read or listen to it yourself. Be sure to stick around to the very end of the podcast for a little fun.
[00:46:10] Lori: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tips, tools, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for News You Can Use over on our website at sticky brand lab. com and remember small steps, big effects.
[OUT-TAKE]
[00:46:29] Nola: as well as encourage you to read or listen to.
Listen it to.
[00:46:35] Lori: You're almost done. No, I was
[00:46:36] Nola: almost done.. Retake.
[00:46:42] Lori: What that was. Yes. Listener. That was a burp. Thank God. It wasn't
[00:46:46] Nola: even a burp. It was a weird thing in my throat.
[00:46:49] Lori: Okay.
[00:46:50] Nola: I'm just going to retake the whole thing. Okay.

[00:00:00] Nola: If you search side business or side hustle on Google, you'll receive at least 1 billion results in 64 seconds. The vast majority will advise you to start a business or do freelance work. If you want to turn your hobby or interest into a business, or if you just need some extra money beyond simply monetizing your skills, however, a side business can help you advance your current career or change careers completely. That's right, friend. Stay tuned because we're sharing five powerful ways starting a side business can benefit your primary job.

[00:00:30] Lori: Welcome to Sticky Brand Lab, where we bridge the gap between knowledge and action by providing you with helpful information, tips, and tools from entrepreneurs and other experts so you can quickly and easily jumpstart your side business. We're your hosts. I'm Lori Vajda, and this is my co-host, Nola Boea. Hi, Nola.

Nola: Hey, Lori.

Lori: You know, Nola. Starting a side business is a definitely a great way to test and refine a business idea. It's a great way to earn extra income. And that is especially true if your ultimate goal is to go all in and one day work for yourself. But you and I both started side businesses with really no intention of making them our full-time job, or at least that was the case for myself. Was that always the case for you?

[00:01:21] Nola: Well, full confession, often I did start a side business as an exit plan from a less than desirable job. Really? But, yeah, more often than not, though, I was able to make internal moves to just roles I absolutely loved, and then reframed my side business as an addition to instead of a replacement for my job, and so... When I did that, I just limited my workload, canceled my transition plan. But I've always loved to keep a side business going just as a way to exercise creativity and really to help people literally, especially people who needed help with their business.

[00:01:57] Lori: Are you talking about a specific side business in general that you had? Cause you've had several. When you said help people with their business, are you speaking on something in particular?

[00:02:06] Nola: Well, actually, most businesses I have started as a way to help people, and that's really what businesses are. So yes, my most recent businesses have frequently been in communications, marketing, not all of them. But all of them have been a way to help people because frankly, if you have a service that people are willing to pay for, they are finding value in that and you're helping them. So, and I enjoyed that. And it's so often said that if you have expertise that'll help you grow that expertise in your side business.

Examples of how side businesses helped advance our primary careers

But we've actually also found the reverse that having a side business, they have actually helped us gain promotions, switch careers, and overall enhance our day job.

For example, when I was freelancing, I had clients and was helping them build websites. I had a partner that was the tech person. I was developing the web content, but I was the one working with the clients, kind of casting the overall vision and design. And that was on my side job. But in the end, I ended up growing this expertise to a point that it led to a promotion in managing web content and electronic marketing in my day job. It really helped me be able to talk tech and talk marketing.

Another example is I had a freelance client that had me writing a quarterly newsletter in a very specialized niche there was a lot of numbers and it's a niche I was comfortable with because of my education, but it wasn't something I normally dealt with in my day job. However, I got really well versed in it and writing this quarterly newsletter. Well, eventually it came in really handy because my primary job employer decided to really delve into that niche. And I was the only one that actually knew a lot of detail about it and could turn it into marketing materials that really enhanced my day job.
What about you?

[00:03:59] Lori: Starting a side business. This allowed me to switch industries and change jobs completely on more than one occasion. And if I hadn't had that side business, that opportunity would have never opened up for me. Because one of the things you often hear when you want to switch industries or go into a different area within a department, the comeback is often you don't have experience here and you need experience in order to switch jobs. So the side business helped in a variety of ways, which is part of what prompted us to want to talk about this.

Statistics that bust myths about running a side business

But before we get into that, I do want to share just some interesting statistics on side businesses as well, because I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, particularly when it comes to the amount of time.
And what I found was in research, the average person spends between 11 and 16 hours a week on their side business, which when you think about it really isn't that much to begin with, but it's enough to develop new skillsets. And the average person working in that 11 to 16 hours can make roughly about 1, 000 or more a month.

So, it doesn't take a lot of time once you establish your business to see some results coming in. Now, the other interesting thing that I found is When people are thinking, what kind of side business do I need, or what are the top areas for making income, there are actually three top areas. One of them is online businesses, and that can be anything from an Etsy or Amazon, or even digital courses, things that you sell online. Freelance work, which can include consulting. It can include coaching, copywriting services, photography that you do on the sign, any of that and investing, particularly real estate investing, which I found to be fascinating.

[00:06:02] Nola: And it is fascinating as well as the finding that on a few hours a week, people are earning about a thousand dollars or more a month, which is nothing to sneeze at. It's maybe not a full-time business, but it's certainly a second stream of income for sure.

[00:06:17] Lori: Another misnomer out there is who is actually working in a side business. And we hear that a lot of young people today to pay off education, debt, or to have travel money, or doing side gigs. But interestingly enough, I found that about half of Millennials, and that's roughly ages 25 to 34, have a side business or a side gig. 40 percent of Gen Xers, which is the ages 43 to 58. have some kind of side income as well, and about a quarter of baby boomers have side businesses. So, it cuts across. There are many reasons people do start a side business, even though it can have a variety of benefits, as we were sharing today, beyond just the extra income. It's a way of having income for sure. But it's also an opportunity to have a more flexible lifestyle, kind of like build a business around the lifestyle that you want rather than having a lifestyle and then including business in there. So, I like that kind of idea.

But here's probably the most interesting information that isn't discussed a lot. And that is that researchers out of the University of Iowa found that a side business or even freelance work actually boosts performance in your full-time job. You know what the reason was for that? Tell me. People reported feeling more empowered by their side work and that carried over into their day job.

And I know for me, that was actually the very first thing that I told people when I suggested that they start a side business is that you will have more energy for your primary job by developing the skill sets.

[00:08:18] Nola: Absolutely. I can so relate to that. I would not have guessed it at the time, but looking back, I agree. And that's how we came up with five ways that having a side business has directly impacted our current careers. So, listener, I'll just dive right in.

How a side business strengthens your sales skills

Number one, having a side business will strengthen your sales skills. Two, it'll increase your marketing and PR savvy. Three, it'll refine your communication skills. Four, it'll bolster your network and networking skills. And five, it'll enhance your leadership.

[00:08:55] Lori: I think the reason that that works so well in those areas is because often when you're hired into a role in a primary job. It's very narrow focused, right? You don't have as much exposure directly to doing, for example, if you're in communications or you're in sales, you're working sure with departments, but you don't have a deep dive understanding of their role. You're only comparing that role to how it impacts what you do during your day job. But when you have a side business, you have to wear many hats and those hats actually build off of one another and inform each other. And I think you get to take that information back to your day job, if that makes sense.

[00:09:44] Nola: Well, absolutely. Our entire life, our experience is not divided into little pieces of pie. We are holistic. And so you get this halo effect. Let me just dive right into talking about sales. The first benefit, strengthening your sales skills. So, let me start with the first example, the first benefit. Our guest on our podcast a while back talked about sales and she reiterated that if you have a business, you are in the sales business. You cannot have a business without being in the business of sales, right? And it's true. I think we found out that having a side business, you have to sell what you're doing, right? And the truth is for me personally, I had in the past received training and sales techniques, but I am inherently shy. And when I went out on my own, it took a lot of courage and I really warmed up to the idea. But eventually when I decided to offer my marketing and freelancing services, it was actually with a nail salon owner. I really got to know her and She was really quite a savvy woman. The nail salon was only one of many businesses she had and she desperately needed a website. I had up to this point run freelancing inside businesses before, but I had been away from it for so long. I actually almost forgot how to sell. And when I finally pitched the idea of building her website and she took notice and made an appointment with me to come back and we'll talk about it, I had such a bolster of courage. For me personally, being so shy, just building the courage to make the pitch was a big leap in my sales muscle.

Now, that's one lesson, but also in my experience in just in sales, I had what was probably what I initially felt was a negative experience only because it was a first-time thing. And that is, I went into an office thinking I was hired and just ready to discuss the project at hand. And, and what I didn't realize is. He and the group that he had assembled was waiting to hear my pitch, and I had no idea that was the forum. It was a complete misunderstanding. I was not prepared. So, because of that, I was a little embarrassed and very frustrated, and so that was why it was a negative experience. But the lesson? Always be prepped to speak about the benefits of what you offer.

[00:12:13] Lori: Often when we think of sales, we think of selling a product or selling a service. But sometimes we're selling just an idea or we're selling ourselves in getting to know somebody. Sales is a lot different. Sometimes, it's about selling yourself. It's about how do you enter a conversation? How do you let other people know about an idea that you have? How do you get their interest? And so now we're talking about the difference between the features and the benefits and really understanding where a person's pain point is. So for me, part of good sales is being a good listener because you're looking for that moment. In their story, in which you understand that you have something of value to offer. Sometimes what you're offering is directly related to the product or service that you are selling, but sometimes it's just related to your experience. And so in that way you become a trusted resource. So you're selling yourself as well as your viewpoint or you're being persuasive. I think from my standpoint. I recognized that first of all, sales was a lot different than I thought it was. Second, it required me to learn how to enter conversations. So when you start a side business and you're trying to let other people know about your products and services, it feels like you're pushing, but really sales is about pulling people in. Getting them aligned with where you're at and then introducing your ideas, your products.

[00:13:58] Nola: Absolutely. A lot of sales is relationship and it's just being willing to be of service. And I think that's also what our prior guest, Barbara Fonte, really emphasized was you're there of service, you're providing information, you're making yourself available. So in general, there is a halo effect. When you build the courage to create the relationship, offer the service and ask for the sale, that builds confidence to assert yourself appropriately in other situations. And even those situations where you face potential rejection and having experience in sales helps you to not take rejection personally, because you're again, you're just making yourself available to be of service. If the timing is not right or whatever, don't take it personally. Sales experience in your side business also helps you to better articulate the benefits of what you have to offer and the ability to sell your own ideas

[00:14:52] Lori: Something that I think is really important is sales is about being concise. I didn't realize that because you are watching people's expression, you're listening for the sigh. Do they get what you're saying? And the way for me that translated was getting to not just to the point, because I think you can dive and get very narrow, but lose the person that you're talking to. So when you're selling your idea or your recommendation, that's very similar to selling a product or service. You have to be a good listener. You have to be an active listener. You have to be concise and make sure that they're on the same page as you are.

[00:15:36] Nola: Absolutely. And that can help you in your day job when you have to articulate your ideas and really sell your ideas or your initiatives to stakeholders in your organization. All of that can help. So with that said, so once you become skilled at sales, I would say that you can practically write your own ticket at any organization because sales skills are super transferable.

How a side business increases your PR & Marketing skills.

[00:15:59] Lori: Another skill set or area is PR and marketing, and we've put those together, but I think there's definitely some distinction between them, but there's also some overlap. So when I talk about this in my experience. I'm going to talk about how they both came together. I was thinking of marketing and PR as kind of a creative that was out there. That you develop materials for getting publicity for collateral. And that all is definitely true. But the way that it really helped me in my side business, I actually got very creative. So I had to get the word out. My first side business was as a dating coach and I built up these packages, actually manually I put them together. So, they were little containers. It was close to Valentine's Day. I got hearts, I got candies, I got little mementos, just a lot of different things. Put them together in a basket, sent them out to radio stations, to television stations, to specific people, letting them know that I was a dating coach, letting them know about my business. And letting them know that I was available to talk more about it. I got invited on TV shows and on some radio shows as well, and got invited as a recurring guest. But the point here is I would have never stepped out and learned how to do marketing and how to take risks with PR if I hadn't had a side business. 

And the way that it benefited me is I was working my primary job. And I was working for the state, Colorado I was in the division of youth corrections, my boss wanted to start a new program. So I had to develop a collateral material around this new program, went to present. I didn't have the collateral ahead. I brought it with me. We were trying to sell the idea of this new program. And as a leave behind, I put down the sheet of paper that really very eloquently talked about what this program was about, the benefits of the program, the audience it would serve, where the funding would come from, in basically a one-page format.

In the conversation, we were turned down for this new program. However, my leaf behind generated interest and it was in the leaf behind that they accepted our proposal for this new program. Had I never developed that content. That information, that idea would have never sailed and my ability to do so and do it in a way that was creative came from having to get the word out on my own business.

[00:19:05] Nola: Isn't that amazing? Once you begin to think in a certain way and get those creative juices going, it just spills over into other areas.

How a side business improves your corporate communications skills

[00:19:14] Lori: Absolutely. And I think that's a really important piece because now you're thinking marketing and communications. Well, in order to do that. I actually was developing my copywriting skills.

I didn't know that at the time. I was just thinking that I was learning how to get the word out about the business and I was coming up with these creative ideas, but really what was happening is I was developing copywriting skills that later also impacted communications. So now here, this is where there's kind of this overlap, but I'm separating them out.

So one of them is the creative, that's the marketing and PR, but the communications aspect, which was the third area that we wanted to talk about is how do you succinctly get information out there? You have to build a website when you have a side business. You have to do social media marketing, blogging. You could write articles that ended up on LinkedIn. You could pitch ideas to magazines. All of those things were things that I was doing in my side business that had a direct impact because I was developing those muscles that I had no idea about and I was applying them in my primary job.

So when, for example, that program got funded and we were able to move forward with it, I had to develop material around it. I had to send it out to key stakeholders. I had to come up with a name for the program, all sorts of things that happened around communication. And because it was a research component to it, I had to be able to put that information together succinctly. So here I was developing skills that were helping me get the word out about my side business.

And I was taking those and applying them directly in my day job. And not only was I doing it there, I was teaching my colleagues how to do it as well. So that they could communicate effectively about what the new program was going to be. I had to share that information with them so that they could sell the idea, market it to other people to generate interest.

We had to get employees to work in that program. So we needed all of those skill sets that we really weren't thinking about, and it was a totally different approach. Then the state had been used to doing when it came to getting funding for a new idea.

[00:21:53] Nola: That's a great success story. That's awesome. Yeah. I can say that when I was running side businesses and had to do all of that marketing and PR and communications and collateral and development. All of that personally, it got me out of the silo for my day job, I was usually doing one thing. I was focusing on one type of assignment in general, but it allowed me to expand my horizons.  In the end, in future positions in my day job, I was able to have intelligent conversations with marketing folks. I may not have been in the marketing department, but I completely got what they were talking about. I would have liked to say that I understood it as a concept anyway. But there's no replacement for just having been there, done that.

[00:22:36] Lori: That's I think very important because initially I was proposing the idea of this new project within the government agency that I was working for. Later, I was applying to implement and run the program. Um, because I had developed some skills from the side business as in leadership, because I was the CEO and founder in marketing, in communications, in selling the idea, it opened up the door for a promotion within the job that I currently have. But later when I wanted to leave that field and do something completely different, it wasn't the day job and the education that I had gotten in my master's degree that helped open a new door and a new opportunity for me. It was all the skills combined that I had learned from my side business. And so, when an opportunity with a Fortune 100 company opened up, they were looking to pilot their social media department, but they wanted it to expand beyond just social media. They wanted all forms of internal communication, which was an internal newsletter and external communication in this case also was a newsletter to their clients. But it was also blogging, articles, and it was social media. And all of that fell under my side business. So I was able to draw on the psychology and working in departments and working with teams and hiring from my primary job. But I was also able to apply these new skill sets that were in a very new field going forward. It is actually what got me the job. And then that ability to work for a fortune 100 company in the area of marketing and communications that opened me up to getting agency work.
[00:24:45] Nola: That's great how it all came together.

How a side business enhances your network and networking skills

So the fourth benefit of running a side business is how it enhances your network and your networking skills. The truth is that having a diverse network and being active in that network is always a good idea, regardless if it's a network that's associated with your day job or your side business. I had joined a mission that I was passionate about. And I felt was aligned with the side business and the image that I wanted to create on the side business. So I met likeminded people and people with a certain level of expertise. They were all business owners. I really learned from them. And the benefit that I was able to take back with regard to that network is I was inspired based on that expertise to go back to my day job and recommend new approaches and innovations based on what I'd learned in that environment that I never would have possibly thought about if I hadn't been involved in this other organization. 

You and I have also met a lot of interesting people. We've built a network of guests and other people in having our podcast. And I will say that, on my day job, I have recommended those guests as either speakers or trainers or consultants. In the day job, these are people that I would never have met had we not had this side business.

[00:26:06] Lori: That's a really good point. When we think of networking, we tend to think of it more related to our area of expertise. So whatever your job is, you're networking there. But when you have a side business, networking is a way to help not only cultivate likeminded people like you were talking about, but it's also a way to help you get the word out.

I was attending a networking event, specifically the Women's Chamber of Commerce. And I happened to sit next to a person who was starting a print magazine. Well, I was there for, as a dating coach, her focus of her print magazine was to help people go through the transition of divorce with some positive skill sets. And dating was going to be one of those. So as we got to know each other and talk, she asked me if I would be interested in writing for her magazine. So I had a byline under there that then opened up opportunities for me to pitch ideas to other magazines. So, I was developing not only an area as a subject matter expert and developing a new skill set.

My network was expanding from a side business in the way that it would in a traditional business, meaning that when it came time to finding a new job, it was my network that I turned to, both networks. The one for my primary job and the one that was evolving from my side business. And as it turned out, it was my side business that actually opened up channels and opportunities for future jobs.

So, one of those benefits to me in networking is not only are you developing it as a participant when you're an employee, when you're a business owner, you bring in all the other reasons networking is so important. And as a business owner, you want to meet other business owners. Well, now you're developing a new network of professionals that you can rely on.

And then within your side business, you look for opportunities or niches in which your product or service can be sold to that opens up a networking opportunity. So you end up using networking from your profession in the same way that you do in your business. But it's greater and wider, which to me has been extremely beneficial.

[00:28:41] Nola: Absolutely. I would say that the key is to see your network as an opportunity to give rather than see how you can extract your own benefits from it. Be involved, keep your commitments when you make them as far as being active. be a resource to people. And when you're just a natural participant in whatever that network organization is doing, then your network will be a resource for you when you need it.

How a side business increases your leadership skills

That is so true. That networking experience where I joined a community organization, I really did believe in the cause. I will say that experience led me to enhance the next skill that we're talking about number five, and that is leadership. Because as I became more motivated to advance that cause in my community, I was actually invited to become the regional chapter leader.

And that gave me the creds basically to approach local business leaders, those in my community, and to build professional relationships. It's just really exciting. Now, running my side business also had me interacting with company leaders who wanted to change their branding and their messaging. And I learned how to overcome that intimidation factor because I was very often encountering and interacting with very self-assured.

We're talking business company owners, president. It built up my confidence and leadership muscles that I have directly applied and has, I believe, has led to advancement in my day job.

Putting it all together

[00:30:09] Lori: When we think about the areas that you and I have been discussing, like sales, marketing, PR, communications, leadership, we tend to think of these very narrowly, especially if it's not in our primary job, um, we think about them as ideas or departments, or we have a specific person. When you have a side business, you have to develop those skill sets. You get an understanding of how they're interconnected. So when you're pushing your agenda, but you have the wherewithal in the big picture, because now you understand how sales and marketing comes together. How PR and marketing comes together, how marketing and branding and internal and external communications, client services, and in leadership, you have thought leadership. You have asserting yourself. You have being able to ask key questions or stand up for something that you really believe in. You have to apply networking to that. You have to really put yourself out there. And the more you practice those, And the more you feel comfortable wearing all of those different roles, the more integrated they become so that a new you, really steps forward. And to me, that's where thought leadership really takes things to the next level because you're able to understand what your unique point of view is and share that with others.

And in order to do that, you have to practice active listening skills. You have to practice not taking things personally. You have to assert yourself in a way that you might not be used to or might not be typical depending on the primary job role that you're in. But when you have a side business. That entrepreneurial muscle and developing that, to me, what I have gotten from having a side business has far outweighed what I have gained simply by going to school or taking a job in one very narrow field.

[00:32:33] Nola: I totally agree. And once you have experienced and applied all those skills, then they'll help you in any career.

[00:32:42] Lori: You refer to it as a halo effect. Where I come from, we refer to it as generalization, that you're able to take a skill and generalize it to the larger world at hand. And I think that's what we're really talking about in these areas.

​So what we hope friend is now that we've shared five career advantages of running a side business. We hope you feel better prepared and more motivated to get started so you can become a first-time entrepreneur in the second half of your vibrant life. And be sure to stick around to the very end of this podcast for our fun little chuckle.

[00:33:20] Nola: If you found the information we've shared helpful and want more tools, tips, and inspiration delivered to your inbox, sign up for news. You can use over on our website, sticky brand lab. com and remember small steps, big effects.

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I had to make a save here.
[00:33:45] Lori: I know. I told you it went off script and you're like, that's not in there. Spot me, Enola.
[00:33:52] Nola: No, no,