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In today's podcast episode we hear from several listeners of the show who are rocking and rolling and doing amazing things. Not least getting the brain juices going to create online success for themselves. We hear from several people bursting with ideas, and one listener who shares her own tip for success as she builds her own coaching business. Dear David loving the show big-time. You certainly have got me buzzing and I am going to make 2020 my big year. What would be the value bomb that you can give me as a xmas gift to make sure this occurs? Kind regards James Whittaker ps.....left a review on iTunes as I know you love getting them. Hi David....i have started a coaching business and have found clients very easy to get, so I thought i would let you know what I am doing. Everyday I go into A Starbucks or coffee house near me, and sit with my laptop. There are literally thousands of people that come in and sit down for a drink over eight hours. All I do is catch their eye and ask if I can sit with them and then start up a conversation. I'll be honest the idea frightened me, but I heard one of your guests talking about how they simply stood in a road and handed out business cards for an event they were running. So my mind thought out the process. Where are people always coming to? Where do people often sit and kill a bit of time? Where do people do this during work time? I hope that will help someone out there and thank you so much for starting your show as I wouldn't be where I am today without you....big love and kisses Jennifer Millward, Ohio, USA Hi David, quick question for you. Do you think that a business showing people how to clear their garages is a great idea? I keep on driving past open garages full of boxes and nobody can park their cars in them? This has been a light-bulb moment for me, and seems too simple that someone else hasn't done it already. Colin Baxter, Jacksonville, Florida. Mr Ralph, can I ask a question please. How do you know what to do each day in your business. You seem to have everything sorted, but i waste so much time just doing nothing worth while when I get a chance to work on my business. I guess you will say "write a list" or prioritise but I was interested if you do something differently. You are the best Becky, New York City USA

Todays guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a lady who has niched down and is working with a client base with a huge problem. While healthcare professionals may be excellent at helping people heal from injuries and sickness, help patients make choices that will lead to healthier lives, and provide the comfort and security we all need when health scares arise, they're (admittedly!) often not great at the day to day business of providing that healthcare. Luckily, that's where Sylvie McCracken steps in to help and enables health care professionals to heal their own businesses from the administrative gulag that hounds them. Since most healthcare providers' income is directly tied to the number of patients they see and a near endless stream of appointments, it's the personal freedom, family, and often their own health that pays the price for financial wellness. How The Dots Joined Up For Sylvie Through identifying passive income opportunities and helping entrepreneurs to execute and sustain those initiatives, Sylvie helps doctors, dentists, pathologists, nutritionists, and more take care of the bottom line so they can better take care of themselves, their families, and their patients. She loves passive income as believes its essential for every entrepreneur (going without it is like driving a car without insurance). Creating passive income with ebooks, outsourcing, delegating and managing your online dream team ('cause you didn't ditch the day job to have your business run you) and building her clients biz while working a full time "day job" (like I did!) So how did she juggle everything to get into the position to step out on her own And was her business like it is now from the very beginning or a very different version of what we now see? Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots, with the one and only Sylvie McCracken Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weight subjects with Sylvie McCracken such as: We share the hardship of entrepreneurship, and the manner of somehow being out of your control but still living it. Why Sylvie's personality can often repel clients from her life, but thats ok as the great clients stick around. Sylvie reveals that although she loves working in her business she truly loves being on her own and often needs that space to function. And lastly................. We talk about the moment when "The dream job" that everyone thought she was crazy to leave, left a whole in her happiness. How To Connect With Sylvie McCracken Website Facebook Twitter Linkedin Return To The Top Of Sylvie McCracken If you enjoyed this interview with Sylvie McCracken why not check out other inspiring interviews like Clint Arthur, Lunden DeLeon and Jack Canfield Or of course you can check out thousands of podcast interviews in our archives here Interview Transcription For Sylvie McCracken Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. BU Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:56 Yes, hello there, everybody. Hello there and welcome to Join Up Dots. I'll tell you why I love having an online business. You won't believe how many issues go on behind the scenes to make it seem like we are professionals and we know what we're doing. But I think we're there. I think we're there and we're going to bring a good show to you because today's guest joining us on the show is a lady who is niche down and he's working with a client base with a huge problem. While health care professionals may be excellent at helping people heal from injuries and sickness, help patients make choices that will lead to healthier lives and provide the comfort and security we all need. When health scares arise. They're often not that great at a day to day business of providing that health care. Luckily, that's where our guest comes in, and she enables healthcare professionals to heal their own businesses from the administrative gulag, but hands room now since most healthcare providers income is directly tied to the number of patients they see, and a near endless stream of appointments, it's the personal freedom, family and often their own health that pays the price for financial wellness through IN can't even say I'm so excited through identifying passive income opportunities and helping entrepreneurs to execute and sustain those initiatives. Our guest helps doctors, dentists, pathologist, nutritionist, and everyone else care for the bottom line so they can better take care of themselves, their families and their patients. Now she loves passive income and she believes it's essential for every entrepreneur going without it is like driving a car without insurance. She says creating passive income with ebooks outsourcing, delegating and managing your online Dream Team, because yet didn't ditch your day job to have your business run you she says and building her clients business while working a full time day job like she did can take its toll. So how did you juggle everything to get into the position to step out on their own and was her business like it is now from the very beginning? Or a very different version of what we now see. Well, that's why now as we bring on to the show to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Sylvie MacCracken. Good morning, Sylvie. How are you? Sylvie McCracken 3:01 Oh, my goodness. Good morning, David. Thank you for that great introduction. So happy to be here. I'm happy you're David Ralph 3:06 here as well, because we had a few issues, didn't we? But we, we just relaxed and I stress from this and did I sound like I was stressing? Sylvie McCracken 3:15 No, not at all. You kept your cool. So yeah, we figured out the technology. Sometimes the tech Gremlins are upon us that you figured it all out. Here we are. David Ralph 3:22 I think it is a metaphor for entrepreneurial life. Because I remember the very beginning if something happened, that meant that I couldn't record a show. I used to think oh my god, I'm letting the person down. Now. I just sit there and being okay with you and not the time we're so around the issue where we breeze around, is that something that becomes more and more evident that there's always a way around the obstacle? Sylvie McCracken 3:49 Oh, for sure. I mean, you know, it's it's one of those things where you just become adapt, I think at handling the fact that there's going to be hurdles and if you can't, you know, overcome those words. Then maybe entrepreneurship isn't for you. Because the reality is that that's the only guarantee. David Ralph 4:04 And how do you think entrepreneurship is because I eSports? Because I used to think it was for everyone. And then I used to think it was not nobody. And when I sort of lurch between the two, is it for somebody that is just purely bloody minded and determined, or is it somebody creative? Because you see, great entrepreneurs go under, and you see other people that are quite frankly, they seem like idiots. Rubbish, right, rather well, Sylvie McCracken 4:33 right? Yeah, you know, I mean, I think I agree with you. In the beginning, I was the event the entrepreneur evangelist, right, where everyone, you know, grab random strangers in an elevator and a Lyft, as you guys call them, and just, you know, try and convince them and the reality is, like you said, you know, it's not for everybody, and people that are completely comfortable in their nine to five and in their day job and receiving that salary. As long as they have a pulse. Then, you know, great, that's great. You know, who might have saved that's not A great life. But I think entrepreneurship is for those that are you know that that that sounds like death that working a nine to five working for someone else, you know, is something that they're absolutely not willing to do that they have this passion or this, you know, idea or this thing that they want to do they want to control their own schedule. And I think this is the big and and the big sort of requirement is and they're willing to take the risk and they're willing to deal with it's not an overnight success. And it's not get rich quick, and it's not easy sometimes. And it's definitely not easy in the beginning. So there is that sort of cost of entry, which is you've got to really go through that, you know, that that those hurdles in the beginning where you're working for zero dollars an hour, and it's hard and you're making mistakes, and you're getting told no. And that's kind of the barrier to entry to entrepreneurship, if you don't make it in that first year or three years or whatever it may be. Then, you know, and that's when a lot of people quit and say, You know what, actually my job is not as bad as I thought it was. David Ralph 5:59 Well, I'm gonna Jump back on something you said were working the zero hours because I'm a member. When I started, I was earning less than zero hours because I had costs costs that were going out. But I wasn't. Yeah. And I look back on it now. And I can't actually remember how I survived. But I did. I survived. And I scraped around and I sorted things out. And I had a couple of lucky tax breaks, which brought some money in which allowed us to do one or two things and stuff. But yeah, it was amazing at the time, where I was only seeing money go one way, and it wasn't going into my bank account at all. Sylvie McCracken 6:35 Yeah, right. It was going back. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. And I think that that really speaks to well, how bad do you want it then? David Ralph 6:42 How bad do you want it now compared to when? At the beginning because when you when you get to a certain point, and I'm going to preempt guys, and laziness comes in, where you lose track of who you was, I used to be Hustle, Hustle, Hustle, Hustle. Then once you started going well, it was like a weight off, I can relax. And the more I relaxed, the more I realise I didn't actually want to do what I was doing anyway. Right. And I kind of lost myself for a while. What about yourself? Sylvie McCracken 7:12 Yeah, yeah, no saying Absolutely. And I think it's part of it is you go into autopilot mode, which is, for me, at least what I've operated on a good part of my life. And so of course, that's kind of a hardwired pattern that I have to, you know, kind of sometimes wake myself up out of and say, Oh, wait, what are we doing? Again? What's the big picture? Because I'll get into the minutia of a certain day and what we're doing that day, and I'll forget the big picture, and then I'll find myself, you know, carrying out a project I don't even really want to finish. So I think, you know, that's a really great question. And it's actually something I talked to my clients about recently. That was, you know, really because I was asking them like, you know, especially in the early in the first year, how bad do you want it? What are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to give up? Are you willing to give up your evening and weekend for a while around your day job? Are you willing to shut down Netflix and you know, really give up your free time and do this Because that's kind of what's required. And but the interesting thing is I said, but just so you know, like, what I'm willing to do today is I'm not willing to sacrifice almost anything. And so that's, you know, the interesting thing and the, I guess the good part of that is I no longer have to write so right, you know, at today 2019 2020. I have, you know, a business that I'm able to fit around my lifestyle and not the other way around. But I'm very, very clear that those early years it was hustle, and it was evenings and weekends around a day job, and it definitely was sacrifice and that was what was required to sort of buy into entrepreneurship. And nowadays, I really don't care about, you know, going for the next revenue hurdle, right? We did that. We chased that for a while. Once we hit seven figures, I was like, Okay, I got the T shirt, and now I don't really care about it anymore. It's one of those things where I'm like, well, what's the profit? What's the how many hours? How little hours Can I get away with to run this business? There's other metrics that I'm focused on now. And am I able to, you know, put everything aside and go to a salsa Dancing festival if I want to for a long weekend, am I able to take my daughter to a doctor's appointment at one o'clock? Because I want to be there, you know? So those are the metrics I look at nowadays. David Ralph 9:10 Ryan. Okay. I agree with everything he was saying. And I also agree that the majority of people out there haven't got it. I've now answered my question. When we said at the beginning, who is entrepreneurship for? I think it's almost like, it's for somebody that hasn't got a choice anymore. It's for somebody who's in too much pain, you know, I had a boss from hell. And I just got to the point where I can't do this anymore. I just cannot spend one day more. Now. In fact, Boss wasn't there. And I had a nice boss, who knows I might have still been there. But it was the pain point that pushed me out. And so when people speak to me, and I said, David, David, I'd really like to start my own business. They don't seem to be in pain enough to really Want to push through? Yeah, Sylvie McCracken 10:01 yeah, it's a nice to have not a must have, it has to be a must have. It has to because a nice to have, you're not really willing to do that much for a nice to have you know and I and my health care professional clients deal with this a lot to where sometimes they're helping people where now they've gotten a diagnosis of Hey, you either turn around your health or your end up in a wheelchair, and now they're willing to listen now they're willing to change their diet, but when it was, Hey, you know, you need to lose 20 pounds. Okay, well, whatever, you know, so it's the same with with just about everything I think. David Ralph 10:31 Now the interesting thing about you, Sylvia, and this is gonna sound like an insult, but I'm going to say hello, I Unknown Speaker 10:36 can't wait. It's a David Ralph 10:38 bit of an insult, but it's gonna lead into a lovely compliment. Now, before you came through, I get pitched people and I have a name and the name gets given to me now in the United Kingdom. Sylvie is like a 70 year old nanny, basically. It's like, I never knew that there is an old lady's name and so So I wasn't expecting but glamorous and vibrant you see I've built it up into a compliment person. And when I went over to the website I thought this is interesting because first of all, it moves it there's a video alone and a lot of it is very kind of like Meghan Trainor, you know, making train this video's very bright and very cheerful. And your whole website is very different from most that I get to look at through the show. And it should be by surprise. Was that kind of bright leather jacket is driving around, was that part of the master plan? Or did that just sort of naturally occur over a period of time? Sylvie McCracken 11:44 You know, I usually I defer to my team who they're all so much smarter than I am. And in that particular case, that was the work of Sarah and como Ashman years ago now, I think that website went up either 2015 or 2016, probably 16. And it was all her creative direction. It was all her ideas. Very little input from me or every time I put some input, she'd be like, you know, we're doing it this way. And so she directed the whole thing starlet Fortunato did all of the photography. And it was, you know, at the time we weren't serving healthcare professionals, that's the hilarious part. So, you know, but we were doing I mean, my, my vision has always been the same as far as what I bring to the table, which is this efficiency piece. And so she really wanted to tie it to fuel efficiency, and you know, and that car theme, and so she did a lot of got just just the creative direction around that and the branding. That's David Ralph 12:34 what you said, Man was the key point. I think that was the question in my mind. I was expecting some old lady walking out of a doctor's surgery where, you know, being very focused on the health care professionals. And when I got over there, I thought, My God, this isn't this. There's a sort of juxtaposition of what I was expecting, but actually was more engaging because I realised that I was tapping into who you were, and not what somebody wanted me to see. And, you know, I look at so many websites that they bought me, they bought me stupid, you know? It doesn't come across with you, and how does that work with the healthcare professionals? Did they come across and go? Be speaks to me or actually, this isn't what I was expecting. Sylvie McCracken 13:23 Right. You know, I think that's a really good question. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of people that don't resonate with me. And the reason for that David, and we chatted a little bit before we started recording is I have a little bit of an irreverent style. So there are people that will watch our webinar and will literally will send emails into my team saying, Oh my god, she's so unprofessional. She calls us dude. And I'm like, Yeah, I do because that's what I feel like saying so if you don't buy but then no problem but then keep going because this is what I do. I'm a big fan of, you know, I sort of want to normalise doctors as other humans. Everybody poops and You know, there's no there's no title ism, there's no The doctor is better than the nutritionist or the nurse or anything like that in my world. So if you come into my world and you become a client, you basically acknowledge and accept to be treated just like everybody else with respect, but I'm going to say, Hey, girl, and I'm going to say, Hey, dude, because that's my style. And if you don't like it, that's totally cool. But that's how I roll So, so there's that and then there's, you know, I mean, I use I use rap lyrics as quotes. And, you know, my clients, the ones that do make it past all of those different filters that we've got, basically, they find it hilarious half the time, they don't know who I'm quoting. But you know, that's just kind of what I bring to the table. I'm a little bit a typical I grew up in Argentina and in the US back and forth, so I speak both languages fluently. You wouldn't think I'm Latina, based on the last name McCracken but there you have it. And so you know, I'll do weird things like that. I'll bring in lyrics that from all over the world or references and I'll actually make them into my materials. We've got literally You know, rap lyrics put into our workbooks. So that's just kind of what you got when you're in my world and for whoever it fits awesome. And for whoever doesn't fit, that's fine too, David Ralph 15:09 because I'm slightly pivoted because through Join Up Dots. If you go back maybe two years ago, I used to do a lot of singing on the show and just sort of city stuff, which entertains me, entertain me. And a lot of people would come through to me saying, you know, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't quite what I expected from a business podcast. And I thought that's that's the point. That is exactly the point. Yeah, yeah, I've pivoted slightly because I realised, once I started dropping off the overtly me things. My bank account flourished. You know, it was almost like, people couldn't accept that somebody could do that and be bad at the same time. They couldn't accept but I can show them how to create an online business that literally only takes a few hours a week to operate, you can do it anywhere you want, you know, if I was singing Bon Jovi songs on the show, but I still, I still can't break free from knowing that ultimately, I will come back to that, ultimately, there comes a tipping point where you realise that you can actually be whoever you want to be, and the world goes, and that's what we want you to be. Sylvie McCracken 16:26 Yeah, well, I just feel like you know, I mean, I, you know, I feel like in a traditional environment, you have to morph yourself into whatever is allowed, right? And, and my employees have told me this multiple times as well of like, you know, Oh, I'm so glad that you don't care that I have blue hair or that I have this piercing or whatever it is, of course, I don't care and they're on, you know, our team photos and whatever with whatever hair they have or don't have. And, you know, and I hate that there's, there's these you know, sort of weird rules you have to conform to in these traditional investors. I created a business so I could do whatever the heck I want. So I really, I don't know I stand by this idea of I am who I am and it will resonate with those it's meant to resonate with and it will repel those. It's not meant to resonate with but I don't want to have to put on the suit and act a certain way while I'm working in my business and then go back to being myself after five o'clock I'd rather be myself the whole time and even if that means it will repel a certain crowd, it's probably meant to so you know, if I showed you right now, the Facebook group of our year long clients where there's several MDS and DS nutritionist licenced marriage and family therapist, you'll see GIFs you know, we use GIFs a lot of times to communicate, you know, will will, you know, put GIFs in the Facebook group and they'll join in as well right we kind of keep it funny and light and, and that's just, you know, that's just how we do it. Whether we're having they're having a hard day and something happened or whether they're celebrating an incredible win. Why not keep it funny and light and fun. David Ralph 17:59 I agree. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And I'm going to play some words from a man or Sheila believes that as well. He's Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey 18:06 my father could have been a great comedian, but he didn't believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don't want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love. David Ralph 18:32 Now, do you think those words are correct? Because I used to, and now I love between how do you know the love unless you try anything? Sylvie McCracken 18:44 Yeah, and I think you know, here's the thing to David is the older I get, the more I realised what I don't know. You know, so I agree. Like there's things I sought out to you know, at 20 or 25, or whatever, thinking this is it, this is the right thing and the reality is I agree you don't really know whether you love it, hate it or whatever else until you try it on for size. And then also, you can reserve the right to change your mind. So I'm David Ralph 19:09 going to jump down, I'm going to jump straight in now, because I'm talking about this a lot, my and I want to get your point of view from your clients, where people say to me, I don't like doing this, I want to do what I love. And I say to them, let's just try and learn in the process. Let's let's learn how that occurs, you know, don't say how to get to somewhere, but you don't know that there's a car available, there's a pass available. Let's just try stuff, and then see the process. But I get a lot of people that want to go from I hate this to sexy and I go there's a bit of a journey between it. Sylvie McCracken 19:48 Totally. And the reality is, you know, for example, choosing what business model fits you. You know, it just depends. I mean, for some people, they want to work with a lot of people, they're really extroverted. They want to be around people all day every day and there's other people People that are more introverted and would love to be by themselves in their yoga pants with their laptop and seeing one human a week. And you know, sometimes they don't even I mean, you think that'd be a basic knowing about yourself, but the reality is sometimes you build a business model and you're like, Oh, actually, is this what my week is going to look like? I hate this. And that's okay. I mean, you know, you'll figure a lot of that out, unfortunately, in by trial and error. David Ralph 20:20 I used to have horrible days when I would look at it and think to myself, I might want to stay at work. But that boss, that boss wasn't actually as bad as I think I made. Yeah, she was she. Yeah, she was terrible. But I used to convince myself I actually, I'd made a mistake in my dog, my dark mind state of mind. If somebody came along goes, how's it going? I'd go, Oh, it's brilliant. I love it. It's the best thing I ever did. And then I'd sort of like slink back into my shell again, thinking, Oh, I haven't seen anyone for six weeks and nobody speaks to me. And now I'm very aware as we're recording here, it's November and I'm very aware when November comes my wife who still works for companies, she's doing a Christmas do every night. And every night there's a Christmas party, and she gets invited to it. And basically, she's pretty pissed from now till January, literally literally every single night. Now, as an entrepreneur as myself, I don't get invited to anything. And I wonder, does that something that you find liberating but you don't have that in your life now? Do you have to create Christmas cheer? How does it fit, really great manifested? Sylvie McCracken 21:34 So you know, it's interesting because you wouldn't think so. But I am a little bit more I kind of test on the cusp of introvert extrovert but I am a little bit more introverted, so I love my alone time. So even though we have an office for the team here, downtown, which is about I don't know, six blocks away from my house. I choose to most of the time work from home on my own. I love being on my own and I get a lot of interaction. You know, by doing client calls once a week that I do, I batch all of my calls So I do all my group calls with my clients. And I have meetings with my teams and whatnot. So all that's virtual. Now as far as physical face to face interaction, I do what's called driven dinners. And so I kind of drag out entrepreneurs and we do these kind of networking dinners. So I create those myself. And then the other very social thing for me is I like to dance salsa and bachata And so that has a lot of sort of active things in the evenings and weekends and festivals and congresses and all of that jazz that's very social and very, you know, just just that's a lot that's what a lot of my energy goes these days. So I don't know if that answers and as far as holidays go you know, it's funny because yeah, there's like the the dancing group gets together for a holiday thing. And you know, then our team is very virtual. So we usually will do like a champagne party on zoom. Because we have people all over the US we have someone in the UK, we have someone in Spain, we have someone in the Philippines, you know all over the place. So we'll do that but they basically we send them all about a bottle of champagne, and we Do that we do a toast in December. And you know, that's about it. And for me, that's plenty. But I'm not the type of person that wants to be out every night. I am a person that loves being in my pyjama pants as early in the evening as possible with a cup of tea. David Ralph 23:14 It's interesting you say that because it is prevalent with the people I speak to. And it's certainly in a case of myself, that I have to be on my own a lot. And I actually don't want to see people. But then when I do see people, I really kind of burst into life, and I enjoy it. And then I come back, and I always call it my Batman and my Bruce Wayne. And my Bruce Wayne kind of just sits there not doing anything, and they send out the bat signal and I go off and I do stuff and I sort of enjoy. Now, I see that time and time again with people I speak to so do you think that could be one of the who's perfect for an entrepreneur, somebody that actually is quite good being on their own, so they can actually Work through things themselves. Sylvie McCracken 24:02 I mean, you know, I don't you know, I, I guess nowadays, I would say not necessarily, I would say any type of personality would work. It's just depending on what type of business you build. So for example, for me, I find it hard I found it really hard as my team started to grow from just a handful of people to more like a dozen people because now I found Oh my God, I've got a relationship with a dozen different people who each have families and children. And I found that really difficult because usually my circle my tight circle is very small. I like to go deep vs wide with relationships. And now I found, you know, that had this new family had created of a dozen people and and growing. And so I found that to be a little bit more challenging. I think that you know, you just need to kind of, you know, it just depends on, you know, what you like so, for example, if you're a person that likes to work with other people, you more so than I

Introducing Rylee Meek Rylee Meek is the founder and CEO of the Social Dynamic Selling System, which turns dinner seminar marketing into a science. After responding to a small ad on Craigslist in 2009, Rylee was introduced to a new concept of selling, one in which radically changed his life forever. Having just $673 in his bank account, but more importantly a burning desire for more, Rylee went on to produce over $80 million in sales over the past 8 years. Now that he has perfected his model, through continual trial and error, he is sharing this learned wisdom, and is on a mission to help other entrepreneurs and business owners achieve the revenue goals they have to live the lifestyle they desire. Everything he teaches is tried, tested, refined, and proven to create a predictable, sustainable, and scalable selling system. As he says "Our mission is to help you create predictable, sustainable and scalable business, so you can generate leads on demand, have people showing up to appointments and closing those leads into sales without spending a dime on advertising online." Sounds pretty dam fine to me. So what was it about that small ad on Craig's list that grabbed his attention so much? And when you think that people buy from people they trust, why do so few people actually attempt to meet and discuss over dinner? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Rylee Meek Show Highlights During the show we discussed such deep weighty subjects with Rylee Meek such as: Rylee shares how the world has lost the ability to truly sit down and build a level of trust with the people they want to go into business with. Why it is so important to grab an opportunity when you see it (although so many people fail to move on past that first look) We discuss Rylee's journey from first selling products that he didn't care about, to truly wanting to make a difference. and lastly...... Why the world is missing a huge piece of the pie, by ignoring local search and attempting to find a g

In today's episode of Join Up Dots we discuss an issue that so many people have in today online world. They are struggling online to make sales, and get the right customers into their lives. You see most people it seems, start with a dream and after a very short time change their direction into something else. Just when they are getting a few pounds into their bank accounts they feel its not enough so class it as "Not working" However as you will hear this is total rubbish, as if you can make a few dollars come your way there is no reason you can't make a lot more. You simply have to learn more about what is working and what isn't. If you become obsessed with earning as much as you can then you will have no problem about it all. I promise you.... So lets start with the email that I received recently from a listener of Join Up Dots, who is struggling online to make a difference for themselves. Struggling Online Email Dear Mr Ralph, I am a long term listener of Join Up Dots podcast and also a long term dream builder. If I can share a bit about myself, I was born in a small town almost smack in the middle of the United States Of America. Growing up there wasn't much to do, and I longed for the time that I could say goodbye to my past and head off into a bright new future. So when I was 19, I packed my bags and started backpacking through Thailand, Malaysia and then a three year coast to coast adventure through Australia. I loved it, and would often spend time with people earning money online and supporting themselves without it seemed a care in the world. That is what i wanted more than anything. I wanted the ability to live stress free, and simply. Not worrying about mortgages and the restraints of modern living in any shape or form. So I set off to start earning online and living my dream...I am now 30 and no nearer to that dream. I have ended back in the town of my childhood and work in a local store to earn a living. I hate it and feel that the dream is not for me anymore. Do you have any suggestions as I have tried everything and nothing works, no matter what i do. Kind regards, Rosendo Pawnee Rock Kansas

Introducing Victoria Prince Today's guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a woman who is the classic model of the side hustle entrepreneur that has truly got the ball rolling. As she says "First and foremost, I'm a Marketing Consultant for businesses who have big ambitions; whether you're a start-up or a large FMCG brand, I have extensive experience in both arenas. My current side hustle however as an Entrepreneur is Energy Ball Recipe Kits. I design and make recipe kits for customers (on subscription) to make fresh energy balls at home. I launched the Kits on Kickstarter in July 2018 and within 12 months I had my first order from Selfridges. Of course that seems easy, and a side hustle isn't for sure and that success had a four year build up since March 2014: Victoria Prince Energy Ball Founder, started to make energy balls. Over time, if she had run out of an ingredient, she would substitute it for something else, and before she knew it, she was making recipes up as she went along. How The Dots Led To Energy Balls January 2017: Vic decided to start publishing the recipes she made onto this website, for no other purpose than to share what she had made so others could try them out. December 2017: She wondered why there isn't a regular subscription kit for snacks like there are for mealtimes. So she built a great team of people around her and developed an Energy Ball Recipe Kit. 23rd March 2018: At an Enterprise Nation Wellness event in London, Victoria took her prototype 'Energy Ball Recipe Kit' and talked to lots of industry people about her ambitions. 29th July 2018: The Recipe Kit launched on Kickstarter and smashed the target, with over £2700 in pre-sales of Energy Ball Recipe Kits, which were posted around the globe. 22nd July 2019: Selfridges placed their first order. They will be selling 3 'unique' energy ball recipe kits via their website. LAUNCHING VERY SOON. In her spare time (ha!) I'm a Mentor at the Nottingham Trent University Business School, and I carry out public speaking engagements for business networking/wellness events. So how did she overcome the impostor syndrome that seems to stop most side hustles from occurring even before they get any movement? And as most people say to me, "I wish Id started earlier" would she say the same to her younger-self if she ever got the chance? Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots, with the one and only Energy Balls herself, Victoria Prince Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weight subjects with Victoria Prince such as: Victoria shares the initial starting point of her desire to create her fledgling business due to her own health issues. We delve into why building a business that already has competitors is actually a very wise thing to do. The reason that you should never reveal your dreams to your close friends and colleagues right at the beginning when the are most fragile. And lastly................. Why starting a business can not only be great for your bank balance but also amazing for your own personal health. How To Connect With Victoria Prince Website Facebook Twitter Return To The Top Of Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince If you enjoyed this interview with Victoria Prince why not check out other inspiring interviews like Clint Arthur, Lunden DeLeon and Jack Canfield Or of course you can check out thousands of podcast interviews in our archives here Interview Transcription For Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. for you Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 0:54 Good morning, everybody. Good morning and welcome to the 800 million episode. Join Up Dots I've got no idea what we're at now base a lot is a lot. And if you want to spend some time going back over the back catalogue, feel free because you want to hear, not only will our guests have been on the journey, I've been on the journey as well, and it's a journey that you can all do. Well, today's guest who is on the other end of the line is a woman who is the classic model of the side hustle entrepreneur but has truly got the ball rolling. See what I did that way it won't make sense at the moment, but it will do later. As she says first and foremost, I'm a marketing consultant for businesses who had big ambitions, whether you're a startup or large, FMCG brand, I have extensive experience in both arenas. Now. My current side hustle however, as an entrepreneur is energy ball recipe kits, I designed to make recipe kits for customers on subscription to make fresh energy balls at home. Now I launched the kits on Kickstarter in July 2018. And within 12 months, I had my first order from self produce. Of course, that seems easy, and a side hustle isn't for sure. And that success had a four year build up since March 2014. She started to make energy balls. And over that time, she ran out of ingredients. So she would substitute it for something else. And before she knew it, she was making recipes up as she went along. Now jump forward to 2017. So she's already been doing it for three years, she decided to start publishing the recipes she made onto a website, but no other purpose meant to share what she had made so others could try them out. And then and then she wondered why there isn't a regular subscription kit for snacks like that, for mealtimes. So she built one and she built a great team of people around her and developed energy bought recipe kit. Well, we're going to jump on a bit but it's all really doing very well. And we've sell produce now selling her stuff, and they're going to be selling three unique energy ball recipe kits via the website too. She's doing very well for herself. Now in her spare time. She says I'm a mentor at the Nottingham Trent University business school, and I carry out public speaking engagements for business networking wellness events. So she's a busy lady. How did she overcome the imposter syndrome? That seems to stop most side hustle from occurring even before they get any movement? And as most people say to me, I wish I'd started earlier would she say the same to her younger self if she ever got the chance? Well, let's find out as we bring on to the show to start joining up dance with the one and only energy balls founder herself Victoria Prince. Good morning, Victoria. How are you? I'm really good. Thank you. Introduction. David Ralph 3:35 It was good. It was good. Tell you Well, I need about six energy balls to get over that one. I'm gonna be ramming them in my mouth. Left right and centre. So So I've got to come straight clean, but because this has been bothering me, Victoria, okay. Okay. Yeah, I love what you're doing First of all, okay, and I was watching your video, and you've got the most beautiful sparkly face when you were talking about energy balls and everything you said it was like I love this I love this product and your your your eyes lit up. I almost wanted to watch the video twice because you were so you were so engaging. But about three weeks leading up to this I've kept on going over to your website. I've seen the main green ones. And I've been thinking if they were in my fridge, I would have loved them out. they they they don't look very attractive. The green ones is that is that something that holds it back? Is that something that holds it back because now I'm on there and I'm flicking around? And there's all these other ones they all look gorgeous but the green ones are horrible. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 4:40 now that's that's that's a fair comment and and one of the things that I say to people so if we are at an event and we're giving away free tasters people to see what the bulls taste like, what I generally say with the main green ones is that your eyes tell you something different than than your total. So when you actually looking at it, you're saying Oh, this looks disgusting. It's green actually. This isn't something I'm supposed to eat. But actually, as you're eating it, it's like people's eyes light up and then surprise like, Oh, it's actually quite sweet and it's you can taste it with peanut butter in there and you know, you get these different flavours so it's it's very different to what to what it looks like so I think once you've eaten one you definitely went through that phase David Ralph 5:19 the rest away Do you think so? I would be converted do you think? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 5:22 Yeah, definitely. David Ralph 5:24 Yeah, I'd be going over green ones right. So I've got that out of my system now. And and it was it was a brain based app ready to burst. I had to share it. So let's go back in time, okay. You are busy. You're a lady and being just just being a ladies busy enough because I know how much effort it takes my daughters to get out the house each morning. So that's difficult. Your business is going to take up your time. Why did you want to do this side hustle? Why did you want to add something more one to you. So take us back in time through that thought process Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 5:59 started with a diagnosis of polycystic ovaries which one of those one of the symptoms is weight gain? And when I was looking online on, you know what, when you try to Google things to work out, what am I going to do to try and combat symptoms, and one of the things was to reduce my sugar. And I was looking for non sugary snacks. And bearing in mind when I finished my degree I had my first job in marketing was for Thornton's chocolate company. And so therefore, when I when I was there, I would literally eat chocolate on the way to the printer and a chocolate on the way back, which meant that I was constantly printing things because like, this is chocolates open all the time in the offices. It's lovely. But so I was I was serious chocoholic, so in order to try and kind of change my attitude to what I was eating. I need to start eating a bit cleaner. And you really reducing my sugar I mean, I don't think anybody can reduce it fully unless someone a serious plans but and I just want to be really wary of what I was putting into my body. So it really was born out of out of a health condition that that I wanted to cater for. And that there wasn't anything out there that apart from recipes online, I already made energy balls, of course, that there wasn't anything where I could literally have all the ingredients ready to make the eligible special at home and really conveniently and unhealthy, like less food ways and lots of benefits that come off the back of that being a you know, straight to the door with all the ingredients. And so it it just really kind of evolved itself. It wasn't I set out to say, I'm going to launch this product on Kickstarter, and I'm going to sell for just website and I'm going to, you know, send all around the world to Olympians and it that was never something that I wanted to that wasn't my aim. It was just that I wanted to eat healthier. And actually this all came about as a result David Ralph 7:50 of it. And what that have scared you, you know if somebody joined up your future in the saying, right, you've got to speak to sales bridges and you've got to do business. You got to speak to Libyans, would you pay? can't be bothered. All I wanted to do is eat a few of these not not all this Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 8:10 I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I've been scared. I don't think. I don't think he can. I definitely shouldn't be scared in business. I think it's you've just got to jump in because what's the worst that can happen? People say no. So even if somebody said, I'm going to, you know, speak to Selfridges then like I guess, just think, okay, let's just do it, you know, like, like this call with you. It's just Okay, let's do it. It is, but I think people should ever be. If they're scared of doing what their business is, then they're not passionate about it. And they're not they're not in the right industry. I would, I would come on I don't know. Unknown Speaker 8:47 Well, I because David Ralph 8:47 I I wonder myself because I saw this post on Facebook the other day, I don't go to baseball very often but and it said that basically, entrepreneurs have 10 times as much mental health Problems 1020 times as much energy issues and there was a big list of terrible stuff and it said so they're already going through so much support them, support them and try to help them out. And I thought yeah, that's fair enough. Now, none of us know that's going to be the case when we start until we actually get deep into it and realised that we've created a monster for ourselves and certainly with Join Up Dots I had a terrible time because naive Lee bouncing into it I bought it was GS you turn the microphone on? You have a chat and you know, you make lots of money, but there was there's a bit more to it when the scenes. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 9:40 Yeah, no, I get that. But going back to your point, just before you said about entrepreneurs have the biggest amount like 10 times might have mentioned I had depression and like inviting everything when I was employed. So and now I don't So I think I kind of put the trend on that, I would say. So I wouldn't necessarily say that if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to have mental health problems. I think, I think mental health problems can happen for anybody at any point in the life anytime, for any reason. David Ralph 10:15 I agree. I agree totally. But Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 10:16 just to book the trend on that one, yeah. David Ralph 10:19 No, I think you're going to be somebody who's bucking a lot of trends through this conversation. Yeah, I already sent that with you, Victoria. I've got I've got to tread carefully. So you get these little things, and you start making them into balls. And why balls? Why not like triangles? Why not squares? Why not? Because I got told by somebody that the worst shape is a tin because you lose all the space around it. If I made baked beans in square cans, they'd be able to store more on shelves. And so I've always looked at round products and think there's a lot of wasted space there. Square One would just like blinking Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 11:07 genius isn't it? So I I like that I like the round 10 on the shelf because obviously that is something that is taking up space and I know where you're coming from with that. But I think then when it's something that's in your fridge, it's not costing expert pounds x, x pounds per centimetre of space in your fridge is it? It's not it's not a rental. Unless you're Unknown Speaker 11:30 working on that basis. David Ralph 11:32 One blows Do you remember? Unknown Speaker 11:36 Do you remember right? David Ralph 11:40 O Victoria. Victoria. You're too young. You've just made me feel like a decrepit old man. Everywhere used to have a run blows and you could go in you could tie your TV show. Unknown Speaker 11:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah, David Ralph 11:54 yeah, yeah. And I 2010 on a Saturday afternoon, there was always loads of men looking out. Standing outside watching a football results come in. Yeah. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 12:04 I was thinking about a product you just talking about like this the baked beans on the tongue I thinking oh okay like I was imagining like a waggon wheel off. I could treat David Ralph 12:14 my waggon Unknown Speaker 12:16 tree Unknown Speaker 12:18 sounds like a tree David Ralph 12:18 but do you think waggon wheels have got smaller or have you got bigger? I know this is a bizarre thing to ask because I argued the point the other day that when I was a kid, I used to be able to take a curly Worley remember them and I used to be able to lean it up on my house and climb up it like a ladder they were that big. And now but tiny little thing I noticed said is because I've got bigger but I swear for a waggon will has got smaller Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 12:44 they do have products like that do tend to go small over time and it's all about marginal gains the retailer isn't it they just they just make an extra bit of profit on the tiny tiny tiny little bit of extra profit on everything is settled obviously them built David Ralph 13:01 That's it. That's it, I'm gonna hit this is this is why Join Up Dots is such a great programme. And I'm going to say that myself, because if I open a bag of crisps nowadays, and for people in America, potato chips, you open it up, there's about four in there that there's like nothing in there. Now, if I'm going to open it up, it's jam packed. I'm going to go back. So the consumer is actually shooting themselves in the foot by screwing us over on the size of things. Give us bigger ones, and we're going to buy more. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 13:32 Well, I don't know. All I know is that over time when you look at anything, like any kind of product file that they do tend to get smaller and like when you buy a multi pack, they're always smaller. Now if you notice, if I bought a pack of Chris, safe, they're like 30 grammes was a normal bag. You're like 28 in a multi pack. So you think you're getting a good deal, but David Ralph 13:53 has anybody ever come up to you and said the word I want pick a bowls, and Victoria? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 13:59 Yeah, something Say, ask me how big bowl should be or they'll say I only made four balls out the whole kit. And so when it makes 30. So when you mentioned balls that kind of size of a golf ball, generally, David Ralph 14:12 but I'm a large fan of people that say this to you, Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 14:16 not necessarily sports people. Yeah. Anybody? David Ralph 14:21 Because I would have thought, you know, if you've got one large bowl, you're used to eating large quantities. And so that that's what you would be doing. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 14:30 Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't advise it, which is why we say you need 30 and the idea is you have a wonderful snack a day is something to keep in your fridge ladies got into healthy snack. David Ralph 14:40 Okay, well, I'm going to delve into a couple more questions that are in my head and then we're going to get more into the business side. But how much energy would I get from one of these things? Because, you know, I remember drinking a can of red ball once and I couldn't sleep for six days. I would like mad. I went mad on it. So it was Would you do the same thing? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 15:02 know, if you're having one a day, they generally range from around 60 calories 205. So, and if you haven't one day, it's just like having a normal snack anyway, I mean, a bar chocolate or practices around now. So it's not, it's not about energy as in ridiculous amount of energy. In order for someone to be high energy, it just needs to be over a certain amount of kilocalories per hundred grammes. So it's more about the factors where they're known as energy balls and they do give energy because like any any food gives energy because it's putting into your system. And but it's not necessarily going to make you bounce off the walls like people to think. David Ralph 15:49 I thought that was going to be the case I'd be sitting here slumped, and I'd rather Bry my mouth and then be like, be like a superhero. Yeah, bursting out. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 16:00 Well, you can try it. I mean, everybody's different. Everybody's bodies react differently. You know, David Ralph 16:05 I'm worried, I'm worried. I'm worried that my bouncy energy would be too much. And then suddenly it be like that the mask Jimmy Jim Carrey, when he turned into the mask, and he would be bouncing. Now, let's take you back into the actual process of it. So what I find a lot is people come up with an idea. And then they think, oh, it must be out there already. Somebody's already done this. Did you have that same kind of thing where you're, you know, what's the point? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 16:35 Yeah, I mean, that shouldn't necessarily be a reason not to do it. Because say if there was somebody already out there doing this, which I don't believe there is I'm not seeing anybody. I'm not come across anybody that does this already. worldwide. And so I've got friends in different countries, new people are like, oh, I've not seen this in my country. And why do you think that if this is somebody already they're doing it they Kind of paved the path and created the kind of Unknown Speaker 17:07 what's the word? desire? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 17:09 Kind of? Yeah, well, the desire and, and the, the ability to know that it's there, you know, like they've done the marketing and they've kind of already got it out there. So the customers issue, the customer is aware that this product exist. Whereas the kind of positive and negative to be in a brand new brand to to the market but a brand new product and the market is that you kind of have to spend more money for people to understand what you do, and it's harder for them to kind of just get it through to me and go, Okay, yeah, I'm signing up, or I'm going to buy a kit or whatever. Because I need to feel like they've seen it before and they've to spend it a bit more money to in order to get customers on board. And so what was that so I said there's a positive and negative so that's the negative but the positive is that you don't really have a direct competitor. So you know, Having to compete against somebody who is spending as much or more, you know, Facebook advertising or you know, PR efforts or whatever it is that they're doing, you know, having to like match and constantly look over your shoulder, like what are they doing now? How they what Christmas campaign, they got, what, what January complete, you know, what, you know, it's this kind of positives and negatives to to be in something that is new and unique. But yeah, but but David Ralph 18:26 the key thing to this is, and I really want to emphasise it to the listeners, you can do the same thing. Every episode of Join Up Dots has got somebody doing a business. And if you want to replicate that business, it will make no difference on the rewards but that person's getting it The world is too big is too abundant. And so you know, I let you into secret. There's other podcasters it's not just me, and Victoria is creating energy bowls, and you could be somewhere else and you could create energy, triangle or energy squares. We've even proved that energy squares are better because you started Yeah. And you could do a multicolor one. So it looks like a Rubik's Cube you could do you know? Good idea. Yeah. These ideas I don't, I don't follow through with these ideas. They just pop out of my mind and we go, but it blows my mind though that no one else has done this because the years My mom has been hanging out fat balls, the birds in the garden. Yeah, and that's exactly the same thing but just for the crazy. Unknown Speaker 19:35 Yeah, yeah. David Ralph 19:36 Pretty much. So does that not blow your mind but somebody didn't look out the window with their cup of tea in the morning and thing. The birds are enjoying that maybe I would enjoy it as well. Unknown Speaker 19:50 Does that blew my mind? Yeah. David Ralph 19:59 Your mind But not one person on this planet. I stood and looked out the window at some birds rubbishing a platform. I thought to themselves, there must be something in it. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 20:11 Or do you know what people have done that because they're already made energy balls out there, there's already like them in the supermarket some unhealthy chops ready to just prep and go. And there's different brands, different sizes, like tiny ones, big ones. And, you know, I mean, so I guess there are people that have looked at that not necessarily looked at the fat balls in the garden, I don't know they might have done maybe need to interview them and ask them David Ralph 20:34 don't interest me in the same way. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 20:37 Yeah, so So somebody has made them they're like ready to go. It's just a make them so it's, it's a step before where you've got a bit of work to do. David Ralph 20:45 You know, it's suddenly dawned on me. I've been watching you for about two weeks, it suddenly dawned on me that you're absolutely right. But the thing that you're selling is actually the family involvement that the parents can make them with their kids, and they can You know, be a bit creative and they can make things for their friends that there's love involved in what you're giving, which just get in a bag of Old Energy balls, it wouldn't be the same. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 21:11 Know you I and I like to say to this like families or if somebody poorly or not feeling well, it's nice to send them something so that they've got a little something to make that, you know, all the time was saying to people who are in hospital like sending them chocolates and stuff. But actually, by I'm not saying like before in hospital. I'm saying this wrong. What I'm trying to say is, when people call it, it can sometimes be easier to send them something healthy Unknown Speaker 21:38 chocolates innovations David Ralph 21:41 in hospital, don't send them the green ones that will know that will push them over the edge. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 21:47 That the idea would be that if somebody was in hospital, you'd have to probably make the kit for them and take it in because they wouldn't be different facilities. a food processor Unknown Speaker 22:00 Why I went off a tangent that David Ralph 22:03 I can imagine kids to make glittery ones do you do both? Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 22:07 Yeah, that's I had a glittery one last year so we had a Christmas Christmas baubles It was called and the photo that I took was like a spray upon spray with a double glitter that you can put on. And so the seven suggestion actually said it's great to put on the Christmas buffet table so you just pile them up like forever Russia would be and all these little balls on the plate and then you spray this silver or gold and little spray and then you put them on to the buffet table Christmas and TAD Yeah you did right. And there's things like hundreds of thousands that you can mould them into the decal my birthday presents and you know just a bit more fun. Literally, the world's your oyster really can do you can put it in and whatever you want. If you make it from scratch, not using a kit either you want and you can enrol them in what if you want to give it like a David Ralph 22:57 particular finish? And what about what about things like hen parties, but making them in different shapes so they're not just just I'm not gonna say anything in case kids are listening, but I know Victoria, you're know what I'm talking about. Would that be something that you go? No, actually I want my balls to remain pristine and sacred. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 23:23 Oh, no, I mean everybody just what they want to do with them really, I mean, like, just going off on a tangent so that I can go into ways on this. So one of them is that you asked earlier about do they need the ball so they can be put into like so you make the mixture up but then you put it into a container and you'd like squish it all down to it nice and flat. And then you could get some dark chocolate, heat that up in the microwave memory until it becomes a liquid and you can put that on and then put some notes into a pass the water and then crumble them onto the Top and pop freedom feasible that that sets and then when you take it out you can put them into squares. So that's another different way of doing the same thing but you different David Ralph 24:11 containers with that word. Yeah, Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 24:12 totally. Yeah, I mean like you wanted them square so this is just perfect for you, isn't it? I think you need to test these out. I think I need to send you a min Mean Green kit and you need to test out this ice cube Ice Cube theory. David Ralph 24:25 Yeah, I'm going to be chasing the kids round with little green balls. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 24:29 But the other thing I was going to say was so you said about important stuff up a lot of interest now from football teams, and and Olympic teams, but I'm going in and doing like team building. So it works. levels. So like you said, how David Ralph 24:49 do you do this? You know, I By this time, I should have played some motivational clip. This is more interesting to me. How do you do sort of team building with tiny little green balls. Energy Balls Founder Victoria Prince 25:02 So imagine and let me give you the example of Plymouth Argyle. So they are they playing the green kit, basic policy okay with us. And so what we're going to do is set the team up into different groups so that they all have different recipes, different ingredients available. But with spirulina being green as one of t

Introducing Womens Careers Expert Bettina Arnafjall Today's guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a huge delight for me, as once again she was a listener of the show who was inspired to take action. So inspired was she that we worked together through the Join Up Dots business programme, to find the business that she wanted to bring forward to the world. Bettina Arnafjall is the founder of the womenscareerlift, where she helps ladies (and a few men) to really give themselves a huge lift in their career. You see it's not just a catchy name, but says exactly what she does through women's career coaching, Resume review and writing, Cover letter review and writing, job interview preparation and salary negotiation preparation As she says "I don't have a typical career path. I studied translation science for French, Italian and English but never actually worked as a translator. After only two years of work experience as a team assistant and customer support agent, I was promoted to be a team manager. I managed several teams of three to as many as thirty employees with vastly different cultural and educational backgrounds. Now the time has come for me to share my many years of experience and help you with your applications. But I noticed there are a lot of women around me who feel like that they are not being given the same opportunities as men because they are women. Whether this is the reality or just their perception, I couldn't say. In any case, I have noticed things that women could do to improve their chances and I want to share my experience to help women with the next step of their careers. I did have several eye opening experiences however with regards to differences in salary expectations and negotiations between men and women. During my many interviews I observed that men usually ask for a much higher salary than women. I actually almost made this mistake myself at some point in my career. Luckily I asked some men for advice and then went into the negotiations with a higher sum than I would have asked for. Guess what: it worked! So now with this amazing insight to what works in the recruitment process, she had the skills to make things happen but how did she do it? And where has been the biggest obstacle to overcome as she brought her dream to the world? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Bettina Arnafjall Show Highlights During the show we discussed such deep weighty subjects with Bettina Arnafjall such as: We share the steps that Bettina first took to get her business off the ground by understanding what she really had to offer the world. Why it's so important to potentially talk to your current employees when you first start your own business to check they are ok with you doing it. Bettina reveals why for her business, referrals are so important for continued growth. Dont forget about word of mouth. and lastly...... Why Google Classroom is such a brilliant resource to get an online course up and running for free. How To Connect With Bettina Arnafjall Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Return To The Top Of Bettina Arnafjall If you enjoyed this episode with Bettina, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Niall Doherty You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy Interview Transcription Of Bettina Arnafjall Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. for you. Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be but somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:56 Yes, hello there. Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning. Hello and welcome to Join Up Dots. Thank you so much for being here. I am all excited today because but me, this is a special show. This is one of those shows where well you'll find out as we proceed through somebody Listen, somebody took action, and he's now rocking and rolling across the world now, our guest joining us on the podcast is, as I say a huge delight for me as she was a listener of the show, who was inspired to take action. So I'm inspired was she that we work together through the Join Up Dots business programme, to find the business that she wanted to bring forward to the world. She's the founder of the women's career Lyft where she helps ladies and a few men she says she's not a man hater, but I'm not sure do really give themselves a huge lift in their career. You say it's not just a catchy name, but says exactly what she does through women's career coaching resume resume early in the morning, resume review and writing cover letter review and writing, job interview preparation And salary negotiation preparation. And she says I don't have a typical career path. I studied translation science for French, Italian and English, but never actually worked as a translator after only two years of work experience. As a team assistant and customer support agent. I was promoted to be a team manager and I manage several teams of three to as many as 30 employees with vastly different cultural and educational backgrounds. Now, the time has come for me to share my many years of experience and help you yes with your job applications. But she noticed that there were a lot of women out there who felt like they weren't being given the same opportunities as men, because they're women. Now, whether this is reality or just the perception she couldn't say, and in any case, she's noticed things that women could do to improve their chances, and she now wants to share the experience to help women with the next step of their careers. She says, I did have several eye opening experiences However, with regards to different is in salary expectations and negotiations between men and women. During my many interviews, I observed that men usually ask for a much higher salary than women. I actually almost made this mistake myself at some point in my career. Luckily, I asked some men for advice and then went into the negotiations with a higher some, but I would have asked for and guess what it worked. So now with this amazing insight to what works in the recruitment process, she's got the skills to make things happen, because how did she do it? How did she build her business? And where has been the biggest obstacles to overcome as she brings her dream to the world? Well, that's why now as we bring on to the show, to stop Join Up Dots with the one and only Bettina. Morning Bettina, how are you? Womens Careers Expert 3:49 I'm good. Good morning, David. That was good with it. You managed David Ralph 3:57 it that is that is honestly Is that 99%? Right? 100% right 200% right because your surname looks nothing like I've got you my thing. I've been going ostrich feathers yet, Is that good? Womens Careers Expert 4:15 I would say 99%. My surname is from the Faroe Islands. My husband is from the Faroe Islands and you actually put a little bit more of air on the pronunciation since David Ralph 4:28 I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm just gonna call you Bettina for the rest of it. It's a delight to have you on the show because yes, we work together through the process and I want to go back right to the very early stages because Miss I have to say to the listeners, this is a moment I never thought would happen because when Bettina first connected with me, she was so secret squirrel, she was so Oh, my boss is gonna find out all the HR teams gonna find out. You were at totally different person, you would never have come onto a podcast and really put yourself out there, would you? Womens Careers Expert 5:05 Yeah, well, it's because we have a company policy. And I mean, I'm still in a full time job. And the company policy says that you need to get approval for any side business. So I needed to figure out what I wanted to do and then get the approval. And once I had the approval, I could go full, full steam. David Ralph 5:24 Now, of course, you going full steam, which is great, but for the listeners out there, is this something that they've got to be aware of up because I would have just gone? I'll just do it, do it and don't tell anyone. It's fine. You know, they don't care about you outside the office. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe more companies nowadays do care about what you're doing outside the office? Womens Careers Expert 5:45 Well, I guess it depends. I mean, in our company, it just is written in the word contract that you actually have to tell them if you want to do a side business and then they give you a little letter, it says you're allowed to do that. And then you're fine. David Ralph 5:58 Yeah, but who reads contract No one reads it. So how are you gonna know I say, anything that comes in front of me, because you don't want them to go up to the HR people and bingo, you know, oh, I'm starting this new business and red flags and warning signs flush out when they could have just done it because they weren't aware how how's the way that they can tiptoe around this? Womens Careers Expert 6:21 I guess most companies won't really care. I know that in in my company, it is like that, because people who work that could do something that is competing with the actual business, and then it would be an issue. So I mean, just if there's nothing in the contract, and nobody ever talks about things like that, I mean, just go and do it. In my case, I had read my contract contract, so I need to make sure that everything was in order before I got started. And I mean, if you really want to promote your business and promote it on like LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and all over the place, there are chances that people will find out So be open and honest from the start, right? David Ralph 7:03 I think so be open and honest. It's not the way I operate. But I think he's good advice. I remember when I started Join Up Dots, right, the very beginning, I was so embarrassed by it. It was literally and I've said this in a few podcast, but it would have been easier for me to say that I was a pornography addict, you know that that would that would have been understandable. But it opened up so many questions up, you know, why are you doing that? What was wrong with the last bit earlier and I just saw that secretly tiptoed around, even though I had this voice I was putting out into the world. It's strange, isn't it? Because online business is so powerful. And even now I talked to guys and ladies who have created big businesses, but they're not visible in it at all. They're absolutely hidden because they don't feel comfortable enough to put themselves in there. Womens Careers Expert 7:56 Yeah, I guess this a big step to take in. I mean, knows it took me a little bit to get there but it took you a long while David Ralph 8:03 just by Unknown Speaker 8:08 year David Ralph 8:09 365 days of tiptoeing around you know how many episodes i'd released by that time before you finally did it. So so let's get into that moment though. Because what was what's wrong with your job? Why do so many people now want to start side hustlers but don't do anything about it? You know what, what's the difference between you, myself and so many people but they actually do because I speak to so many people that go Yeah, I really love this. This is really what I want and I don't do the first thing about it. What was different about you? Womens Careers Expert 8:46 I guess it's not really that is something you know, wrong with my job and I don't like my job because my job is cool, and I like it. But I just felt this need to do more and I felt this need to help Women in some way and I figured out that in my job, I cannot really do it to the extent that I want to do it. So, I started thinking about what I can do I also move from my team manager role then into more like project manager role because it could have been a conflict of interest, you know, me being a team manager and then coaching people with job applications and so on. so on. So, yeah, when I had done that, I started focusing on you know, what can I do for other ladies, I discussed it with friends. I helped them a little bit was there Java applications turned out that it really worked well. And then I did a little test run and yeah, figured out that can also work with strangers. So then I thought, now we can get started. David Ralph 9:50 with that. I love the fact that you tested you pre test DG before you even got websites and profiles and URLs. You already stepped into helping other people to confirm your talent, your skill your superpower. Did it surprise you how rubbish people actually are at the things that you can do naturally? Well? Womens Careers Expert 10:16 Oh, it always surprises me. I mean, I have I don't want to sound arrogant, but I have many things that I'm good at. So when I look around, and this is both now, you know, with the job applications, but also sometimes I'm in the day job. I'm surprised how hard some people find it to do certain things when they come really easily to me. I guess it's just because I figured out what my strengths are. And now I'm focusing on my strengths and building on them and not really, you know, trying to push through walls where, yeah, it doesn't make any sense. David Ralph 10:51 I remember back in the day, I was very good at helping people do their resumes in SC bees, and they would come to me and say, how baby could you go through it? I'll go Yeah. And I changed things. And I've moved this bit here and move up it and increase certain things. Yeah, not lying, not lying, but just kind of, you know, emphasising certain points, and they would go off and get these amazing jobs. And when it was me, I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't do that sort of beat myself up CV writing even though I could do it for other people. And it's a kind of it's a mindset that I think most people have a have a problem in of actually boosting their own career prospects don't like Womens Careers Expert 11:35 Yeah, because we don't like talking about ourselves. Then we feel like we're, I know you do. David Ralph 11:41 Yeah, I do. I love it. I love the business out of it, you know? Womens Careers Expert 11:47 Yeah, but most people don't. So you know, they they feel kind of embarrassed to talk about their achievements and their strengths and what they do well, so then they will stick to very formal resume and cover letter and formal way of presenting themselves where they hide between and behind a lot of jargon and phrases and will not really put their personality and their skills out there. David Ralph 12:14 And so with that, because obviously we're going to talk about, you know, how you actually started the business and stuff like this is interesting to me. So, can you bring humour into a CV and resume? Can you make it sparkle? Because Yeah, most of them I actually worked in recruitment for about six weeks, I worked for a recruitment company in London. I won't say their name, but they're still there. I hated it. I hated it with a passion because people would come in looking for work, and these guys would go, yeah, I tell you what, I don't want to just get you any job. Give it to me three weeks and we will get you the right job and literally take this CBS and then put them in the bin. As I walked out, it was a real commodities based business, and I just naturally want to help people. So is this something But you know, they can help themselves by sprinkling human personality and putting pictures on it, or does it have to be formal? Womens Careers Expert 13:09 Well, I guess I mean, humour is probably a bit difficult, but especially in the cover letter, you can put a lot of your personality and I noticed this, particularly when I was managing a very international team, and I was getting applications from people from all over the world. And I noticed that German applicants used to write like, very formal, boring, standardised job application. I haven't sorry, but that's just how it is. And then I noticed that, you know, like, other nationalities, but particularly like English speaking ones, they were all over, you know, I am good at this. And I love doing that. And this is my passion. And I was like, Hey, you know, this reads much better. From a manager perspective, I will much rather invite somebody tells me about what they really like and what they enjoy, rather than somebody who's just saying, I have this experience. And I have done this before. And basically, it's just a repetition of what is already on your resume. David Ralph 14:13 When I used to interview people, and I was very, very good at interviewing people, because I never went really with their skills. It was more about how they made me feel. And one of the first questions I used to ask people, it was always one that I didn't expect, because I'd come in, ready for the professional. And I remember saying to this girl as the first one, what makes you laugh? And she said, when people hurt themselves, and I thought, brilliant, that's for me, that's for me, because I laugh at the same thing. And she was like a Terminator, but work she was absolutely brilliant. And so is this something you know, before we spin it around again, into your career path? Is this something that companies should focus in on more about the personality and how they make them feel because they're going to teach the person how to work in their office isn't it is not that they're just gonna put them on a desk and away they go they're gonna have some kind of training and development period is about all the feelings. Womens Careers Expert 15:10 Yeah, it's a lot about you know, getting to know the person really Who are you and, you know, how do you pick? Because it's I mean experience is one thing experience you can have or you can gain I mean you can learn so much I learned a lot that I had not studied for just on the job, but the important thing is really to find the person with the right mindset. So what I learned and that really made a change in my hiring as well is to ask behavioural based interview questions because there you can really see how people reacted based on a concrete example and you can get real feeling of what kind of person they are and how they will pay for One day on the job. David Ralph 16:02 Now, let's take you back in time then because you was a listener of Join Up Dots and then we connected and you signed up for my, in those days. It was a four week course we went twice a week for four weeks. Now we do it over eight weeks to get people breathing space in between. How did you find that process? Was it something bad actually, because certain people say to me, I overload on certain things. Other people say, you know, it was just right. Did you find it a pressurised or weeks? Womens Careers Expert 16:35 No, not at all. And the only issue was that I was actually sick with the flu for about a week so I could not think straight, but luckily I could rewatch the video so all good. David Ralph 16:45 So with the process that we went through, it was basically an hour half hour, so an hour and a half to two hours of me twice a week, and then videos to submit that information. Now I remember when you first came to me one day Things that I always say to people is, let's try to get traffic from every source. Let's try to flood your business with traffic and you came up with women's career Lyft. And I said, I hate it. I hate it because no one is going to type in women's career Lyft let's find a name. And you went against me. And you said, No, this is it. It's what I want is my branding. Now I look at it, and I like it, because I can understand it. But why were you so passionate to say, David, I don't agree with what you're saying. And I'm going to do my own thing. Womens Careers Expert 17:35 Well, a I had been thinking about a name for the business because as you already saw my name, my own name is a bit hard to pronounce and to remember so I wanted to something that easy, David Ralph 17:49 easy to say. Easy. Womens Careers Expert 17:57 I wanted something that people can remember you know, and also So that they can understand both in English and in German, and gives them an idea of where the business is going. And also, I had already purchased the URL when we did the course. So I didn't really want to switch. David Ralph 18:15 You didn't want to waste 10 pounds or whatever it is to take my advice and move it forward. But what you've done, which is very clever, is it's it's a branding, you know, it's a branding, but when you look at it, it makes sense. Now, a lot of people come to me and I had these really esoteric sort of names, I suppose Join Up Dots is one of those ones. Now I look at it and in many ways, it makes perfect sense for so many avenues of my business, but for Wow, it was just the Steve Jobs speech. And if you hadn't listened to that, it didn't make any sense. Now, with that, having those three words women's career live, does that make it been easier to bring your content and your branding and your your profile. does everything for lot from that easy. Is that something that people need to think about? How do those three words cascade down through everything that I'm doing? Womens Careers Expert 19:15 Yeah, I mean, I think it makes it clear, you know, who is the big target group, let's say so I don't get too many people coming to my website and then figuring out only after reading through see three or four pages that it's not they are not really right for me or I'm not really right for them. David Ralph 19:38 What Well, I'm amazed with you as well. And I'm amazed every as I'm doing that little IoT business with my fingers. Every phone that I speak to, is how brilliant you are at English. And I it just blows my mind. You know, I'm possibly English. I've been studying it for many, many years. But every other language no I can say hello, goodbye. And that's about it. Now, when you decided you decided quite strongly that you wanted to focus in on German speaking women. Was that a market that was prudent to go into now you're in but have you found it difficult to crack that code? Womens Careers Expert 20:22 Well, actually, because we did the course together in English, I started my website and all my online presence in English and I still have not launched a German website. So all my German speaking clients have just come through recommendations. David Ralph 20:40 Now this this is brilliant, man. Okay, so let's talk about this. So you because so many people think I got to grow a huge audience, I've got to grow a tonne of traffic, but I'm really fascinated. In joining up the dots. You see what I did there, finding the very small pockets of traffic, but actually kept K through, I would much rather have one customer a month that pays me thousands of dollars more than 100,000 customers that don't really pay me anything and take so much time to manage now with yourself, those referrals, bear in mind that you were and you still are full time employed. Was that something that was an open gift? Did you look at? Obviously brilliant, this is fantastic, or did you think to yourself, hang on, hang on? I'm not quite there yet. I haven't quite got the website done. I haven't quite got the the Twitter feed going and all the other stuff that we think we have to have. Did you embrace it easily? Womens Careers Expert 21:39 Oh, I was ready to go. I mean, I was really really happy and I still am really, really happy every time somebody refer someone to me. I also noticed that you know, when people come in via referral, they will never discuss with you about price or whatever, because they know already what they will get. Whereas you know, I found a couple of customers A via Facebook or online and they will always try to negotiate, which makes sense because they don't know me yet. And they don't know if they can trust me and if I really can provide the value that they are looking for. David Ralph 22:13 So So do you think that you actually don't need any online presence? Can somebody get a business up and running just by doing stuff for somebody and saying, Tell your mates about me. Womens Careers Expert 22:27 I think you need, at least in my case, an online presence because even though my friends talk about my services, they don't know somebody or they don't meet somebody everyday who wants to change their jobs. So I mean, the target group is not so big in amongst my friends and family. So, of course, I need an online presence, but I also now do some local networking and meeting people and just getting the word out there about what I'm doing. I think this is a Also very important, because only online is not enough, I think, especially here in Austria, and also in Germany, I would say, there's still a lot of mistrust about everything to do with online and this new technologies and so on. And people trust their neighbours and their friends and whoever they know. And, yeah, their word of mouth is really, really important. David Ralph 23:26 I'm going to play some words pain, and then we're going to delve back into what Bettina is saying, his Oprah, Oprah Winfrey 23:32 the way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move and not to be overwhelmed by it because, you know, your life is bigger than that one moment. You know, you're not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction. David Ralph 24:03 Now let's get back into the Ripper or because something that is is really prevalent in my life at the moment, is how powerful local search is. It operates in such a high level in Google, Google now will know where you're based. You can do Google My Business, you can start getting traffic, even without a website. Google will give you a free website. You just have to post on it and and connect your cell phone, your mobile phone and all those kind of bits of details. I find Oprah Tina, what you're saying makes total sense because you're networking. You're getting out there in your local community. So you become the expert in that local community. You find the people that are there's a lady just down the road who does bad. Why don't you speak to her people trust locally, but I speak to once again so many people that think that they've got to get a client in new York before they can get their next door neighbour to sign up, it's a mistake, isn't it? Womens Careers Expert 25:06 I mean, if you find the client in New York more easily than your next door neighbour, why not? But I guess you know locally because people know you it's easier to find the first clients and from Derek pendants snowball. David Ralph 25:22 snowball in Austria is quite easy to get right imagine. Womens Careers Expert 25:26 But right now it is. Yeah, it started snowing about two weeks ago. So now in the mountains, there's already a lot of snow. David Ralph 25:34 Now what point do the Austrians and the Germans been mistrust online work? I don't understand that. And it's the first time any guest has mentioned anything like that nowadays. I I push people to say online and offline aren't separate. They're the same thing. You've just got to, you know, find your traffic in both sources. Why do you think the Austrians and Germans are new Point of View mistrust it Womens Careers Expert 26:03 it's all about privacy. It's they're all afraid that their data will be leaked to I don't know which company who will do I don't know what with it and you know, they are very private people. And this was also one of the challenges I had to overcome was really to put my real name out there and because there is nobody else in the world with this name, so it's just me and also to put my real address because in Austria and Germany, you have to actually put your real address on your webpage otherwise you get a problem. So that was that was really one of the main challenges because I know the fan you know of, yeah, having all this information out there and and maybe just people showing up at my doorstep or something like that. You never know what can happen. David Ralph 26:52 It's not gonna happen, though. Is it me? It's not Womens Careers Expert 26:54 gonna happen. I know. But these are the things you think about, right? David Ralph 26:58 Yeah, I can. I'm just it because I did a similar thing when I started off at Join Up Dots, I gave a fake address. And because I thought to myself, you know, what happens is somebody comes along, and Nick's my microphone and you know, it's stupid really thinking about it because I just buy another microphone. You know, it's not a game changer, but they were the kind of fears in my head. And most of the fears with business is about what's in your head, isn't it? It's very much you when the inner game to win the outer game. Have you struggled with that? Have you struggled with the who's gonna trust me? Who's gonna hire me? Who's going to base who's gonna be back? Womens Careers Expert 27:38 Well, a bit.

Todays guest coming onto the show brings over two decades of branding and digital marketing experience with her everywhere she goes She is the author of the book What's Working Now? YOU-centric Marketing, and also the founder of Think Media. She has been featured in Yahoo Finance, The Ecommerce Times, The New Food Economy, and Brand Experience Magazine, just to name a few, as a branding expert. She has personally worked with brands such as Kellogg's, Visa, Marriott, and Apple so she knows what goes into advancing a great brand. She's overseen multimedia divisions ranging from a few million to over $300 million in revenue. Now when she isnt spending time in her Denver home, with her husband, two kids and dog, she leads a team of talented digital marketing experts. From strategy, to creation and production, to execution, they know what it takes to deliver the performance and customer experience outcomes that your brand desires. As she says "Work doesn't feel like work when you're passionate about helping customers grow. We want to help your business succeed. We want your customers to think about your brand first when making purchasing decisions." And this focus can help with low brand awareness, a huge problem if you are in a pool of huge competition, or reaching new customers. To stimulating those comments, re-shares and customer engagement on Social media. So why do we see time and time again, companies and individuals fall into the trap of being boring with their branding, instead of insightful and uniqiue? And what are the things that any newbie can pay attention to when trying to get their branding right? Well lets find out as we start joining up dots with the one and only Shahla Hebets Show Highlights During the show we discussed such weighty subjects with Shahla Hebets such as: We share how every entrepreneur struggles at the beginning and fall into a miserable world of "where did i go wrong?" but this is perfectly ok.. Why great branding is sharing a vision that insights and inspires the customer to see themselves in a different way Shahla discusses the myth of the overnight success and why the world is more and more looking for the lazy way to success. And lastly...... We talk openly about the "scare" factor of putting yourself out there, but its the key to getting the success that you want. How To Connect With Shahla Hebets Website Twitter Facebook Linkedin Return To The Top Of Shahla Hebets If you enjoyed this episode with Shahla Hebets, why not check out other inspirational chat with Clayton Morris, Dorie Clark, and the amazing Niall Doherty You can also check our extensive podcast archive by clicking here – enjoy Audio Transcription Of Shahla Hebets Interview David Ralph 0:01 Once upon a time there was a guy with a dream a dream. He's Jobs for himself online and have a kick ass life working when he wanted him where he wanted across the world. Little did he know that dream would lead him into a world of struggle, burnout and debt. Until he found the magic ingredient and knows drunk was became a thing of the past, of course, was bad person. And now My dream is to make things happen. BU Welcome to Join Up Dots. Intro 0:31 When we're young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here's your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph. David Ralph 0:56 Yes, hello there. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. And welcome. Welcome to Join Up Dots. Yes, the podcast that is rolling into its sixth year, rolling out to about 2000 episodes. And still people come along and say I just stumbled across here. So if you have just stumbled across this, thank you so much for being here. And of course, thank you so much to today's guest who has rolled out of bed at six o'clock in the morning. She's probably looking out at darkened windows and thinking what the hell am I doing? Well, we're going to find out what she's doing because she is a guest coming onto the show with over two decades of branding and digital marketing experience. And she takes that with her everywhere she goes She's the author of the book what's working now you centric marketing and also the founder of think media. She's been featured in Yahoo Finance, e commerce times, but new food economy and brand experience magazine just to name a few as a branding expert, of course. Now, if that's not good enough, that's quite sexy on it is she's personally worked with brands such as Kellogg's, Visa, Marissa and apple. So she knows what goes into advancing a great brand. So it's not just creating one is actually pushing one on to bigger and bigger results. She's overseen multimedia divisions ranging from a few million to over 300 million in revenue. And now when she isn't spending her time in a Denver home being dragged out of bed by an excitable podcaster from the United Kingdom, that's me, that's me. Spending time with her husband, two kids and adults. She leads a team of talented digital marketing experts from strategy to creation and production to execution. They know what it takes to deliver the performance and customer experience outcomes. But a great brand desires as she says, work doesn't feel like work when you're passionate about helping customers grow. We want to help your business succeed. We want your customers to think about your brand first when making purchases decisions. And this focus can help with low brand awareness a huge problem if you're in a pulled up huge competition or reaching new customers. Just stimulating those comments and those we shares and customer engagement on social media. So why do we see time and time again, companies and individuals bought into the trap of being boring with their branding, instead of insightful, unique and helpful? And what are the things that any newbie can pay attention to when trying to get a branding? Right? Well, let's find out as we start Join Up Dots with the one and only Charlotte habit. Good morning, Shahla, how are you? Shahla Hebets 3:29 Good morning. I am wonderful. How are you? David Ralph 3:32 I'm always wonderful I am. I reflected on that the other day. And as I talk a lot on Join Up Dots. I know, hey, it's my show. So I talk about myself a lot. But when you start anything, you go into it with all the enthusiasm in the world, but it's going to be easy and we've been about six weeks, you're gonna have the dream life. And for more of us, it becomes a bit of a nightmare until it becomes really good. And now I'm in a really good phase where I'm clinging to the miserable Stage, I want to remember that because I don't want to get so far away from it. But my advice to my listeners becomes inaccurate because I can't quite remember. Do you remember the dark days? Charlotte? Do you look back on it and think when THiNK Media wasn't thinking at all, it was just something that was occurring? Steve Jobs 4:20 Oh, absolutely right. We've all had that pain of growth. And the struggles that come with it. David Ralph 4:28 You can give us a bit more than that. Charlotte is a podcast. It's a podcast. That's what we do. We I asked a question, and then you answer, and then I asked extra questions because I'm interested about your answer. Steve Jobs 4:39 Okay, perfect. Yeah, you know, I mean, to elaborate. I mean, I think it's exactly what you said, right? You start out with these aspirations, these visions of how you're going to go out, you're going to change the world and you're going to, you know, really connect with companies and they're going to understand everything that you're saying and then, you know, you get in there and you're having a couple And you realise, oh my gosh, you know what I said? Just one, you know, didn't connect with them at all, and they don't get it and, and is anybody going to get it? And how will I modify this such that, you know, it makes sense and, and I've certainly experienced that, you know, many, many times, not only in the beginning of starting my business, but you know, even today I have those conversations where I get off the phone and I think what just happened? You know, but it's, it's more about, you know, I think finding the right audience and realising that your message isn't necessarily going to connect with everybody. But when it does, that's when you really can move your business forward and their business David Ralph 5:43 is interested enough. Hey, that was a great answer. And I don't I don't want that sarcasm afterwards. Show that you see. This relationships going bad already. I don't know what's happening here. Now one of the things that I realised early in the day was bad, a lot of my marketing that I was doing and my conversations that I was having with people, even though I knew the stuff inside out, was falling flat, and I couldn't understand it. And people were like listening. And over again, that's wonderful. Thank you so much for that information. And then I realised, but actually, I wasn't painting a vision of where they will be because of what I know in my head and what I can share. I was very much giving them the technical aspects, I was teaching them how to drive a car, but not saying because of this information, you're going to be whizzing over that mountain, you're gonna have sexy people all around you, you're going to have the wind in your hair, is that we're sort of branding falls down because I look at some people's websites. And to be honest, it's just boring. I look at it and I think it's just about them. And it's not about the customer and it's not about the promise of what the customer is going to get by working with you. It doesn't excite me at all. Steve Jobs 7:00 Exactly, I think that's exactly what it is, you know, it's so funny, we, I always refer to that as sort of brand speak, you know, a corporate speak, it's, you know, we have a tendency, and I understand it. But we have a tendency to sort of fall in love with our company, you know, and sort of say, Oh, it's so obvious, right? so obvious that what we do is going to change your life is going to change your world. So I'm just going to use a lot of, you know, jargon and a lot of, you know, terms that I think, you know, resonate with me my brand and all our benefits and everything that we bring to the table. And the truth is, that's just noise. And it is boring. And it isn't something that incites anything outside of let me move on. And I think sometimes we just fall in love with the brand and we we do that with the right intention, right? Of course you fall in love with your brand and your brand. But what we tend to find is that the customers thinking about themselves, know the customer is thinking about why does this matter to me How's it going to move me forward? What educational value do I have? Does it motivate me? Does it inspire me? And that's why I think so many brands fall into this trap of, you know, me, me, me, me, me and the customers and I wanted actually to be about, about what's happening in my life. Yeah, yeah. How I can grow. David Ralph 8:19 And is that something that comes across on because I tell you, once again, I'm going to talk about myself, but my business really took off really took off when I had burnout. And when I had corporate burnout, and I really struggled and about giving everything up. It sounds like you're making a coffee. Are you making this? Is that the first morning coffee? I can hear clinking away? Unknown Speaker 8:43 Yeah, it is. I'm sorry. That's good. That's good. David Ralph 8:47 We like we like to feel like we're in your life. And I imagine you sitting there in a nightie now I'm not gonna go that far. But anyway, so so you're drinking your coffee and most people out there when they are looking at bear that sort of branding right at the very start, they failed to actually get that insight into the person's life. And so when I get that corporate brand brand burnout, I realised but from that point on, I had to share more about that and I had to share but I found a better way of operating because of that. I had to go through that. Now. You sitting there with your cup of coffee and your you know, and your pyjamas, my pyjamas, that's better. And the fact that you can connect with customers all around the world. Fat is great branding material, isn't it? But there's people out there thinking that's what I want. I want to be drinking coffee. I want to be talking to that sexy guy. And I want to be in my pyjamas at six o'clock. No, maybe not six o'clock in the morning. But everything else sounds great. Why do people not throw that out? Why do we not show behind the curtain? Steve Jobs 9:53 You know, I think it's vulnerability maybe you know, it's it's I don't want to come out and show you sort of the reality of my life. And, you know, the all of the things that I have gone through and, and my storey, right. It's really my storey when it's all said and done, it's also the brand storey and, and I think sometimes people say like, Oh, you know that that part isn't important. That part isn't sexy at that part makes me look like I, you know, I didn't wake up out of bed and become instantly successful. I don't want to talk about that. And and the truth is, is that what works with branding is the emotional connection. And so if I can connect with somebody over my cup of coffee and my jams, you know, then, and I can tell them really this is, this is the reality of who I am. This is my storey, you're going to find people who are going to say that's my storey. That's my storey, too. And that actually breaks through the noise more than anything is that sort of heart centric, you know, we've all been there. Let's do this. Let's let me share the growth that I've had so that you can have the same experience or at least you can perhaps get a bit of inspiration out of it. David Ralph 11:00 is I have had an epiphany recently, but it's one of those epiphanies that I'd realised all the way through my life, but it suddenly struck home that the world is full of lazy people. And they basically want the maximum results with the minimum effort. Unknown Speaker 11:19 And David Ralph 11:20 I've been speaking to people time and time again and I've been saying to them yeah, I will work with you, they come through to me and we have this discussion and I, you know, we we talk about things and even though that I can show them exactly how to create, you know, in a microsite, a multiple six figure business, its work involved in it now Vax the stumbling block master bit when they go, there's work involved in it. Oh, I thought I could just click a few buttons and stuff. And so through there, I've been delving deeper and deeper and deeper to try to find a business that I can share with people, but they can literally do whatever they want in the world. Whenever they want to do it. I don't need a lot of investment. And I've got one, I've got one, but I'm playing around with at the moment, and it is sexy times. It's sexy time. But I know still that when I promote it and market it to people, people still want easier that they want easier. Now, that's wrong, isn't it? I'm I thinking that life is about work and is not about play, or is it more about play and not work? What do you think? Steve Jobs 12:29 I mean, everything requires work, you know, everything requires adjustment. I mean, businesses is no different than life. Right? If I find that amazing because I think you're, you know, you're spot on in terms of, there's this notion that and maybe it's social media, social media, but you know, maybe it's this notion that oh, you know, you you just arrive and everything just is easy and everybody knows your your storey and everybody knows what you're trying to do, and then they get it and you just want around this, you know, sort of perpetual bliss. And, and the truth is, is that, you know, there are everything that you do is going to require learning and adjusting and modifying. And that's work. And you know, if you sit down and you say, Hey, I'm going to build out this business, and then you, you get out into the marketplace and you think you're rolling out this wonderful idea. It's sexy, and it's exciting. And everybody goes, huh. I don't really get it. You know, then you're, you're you're starting a new you're figuring out how do you communicate it in a different way? And I think that's a, that happens a lot. You know, we see that with people who will say, Well, I just want to skip the brand awareness. I just want to get the results. David Ralph 13:42 Why Why? Why would they say that? Let's let's delve into that. Because Surely, brand awareness is the absolute foundation that everything is built on is that understanding that customers will remember you and even if they don't buy at that time you stick in their mind, you know, we all remember you know, I'm loving it McDonald's now I bloody hate McDonald's. I think it's disgusting food. But I still remember the little tune in my head. And although that is what brand awareness really is, you shouldn't skip back should you Steve Jobs 14:16 never and you know, and I think the reason is, is that they don't want to go back in and champion to their box at Hey, you know what it might be a little while before we really see these efforts pay off that it might take a little bit for us to really get exposure in the marketplace, it might be a while where we just sort of pound this, you know, these storeys into the minds of our consumer base or client base. And I think they don't want to have that discussion. They don't want to, you know, really paint the picture of what it actually what actually goes into building a strong brand and it absolutely is brand awareness and it is being able to, you know, remember the catchy tune from the channels. And that takes work and that takes time. But you know, I think that we've been sold on This notion of well, it's, you know, just get the lead and get the sale and, and make it happen immediately because we only have a short period of time before we can get this thing rolling. And it's like, you know, it doesn't tend to work that way. And if you're gonna, you know, you're either going to earn it through brand awareness that you're going to pay for, or you're going to earn it through trying to skip the process and paying through the nose. Because you don't have brand awareness. Well, David Ralph 15:27 yeah, let's just talk about that. Because I've got listeners out there won't grasp what you just said. But effectively, by skipping brand awareness and building stuff, you're effectively leaving 98% of your money on the table. Customers are going to come across No matter how much marketing you do, they're going to land on your website and they're just going to bounce off. Now we can talk about having funnels, we can talk about having retargeting, we can have all the sexy marketing stuff around behind the scenes, but still be memorable and making somebody smile and feel inspired is the key to making a success, isn't it? Steve Jobs 16:09 Exactly. That's exactly what it is. And you know that the thought behind it in terms of you know, hey, making it memorable making people will connect with you making somebody smile. Of course, that's going to be the sauce, right, the secret sauce to success, but we have this, I think we tend to fall into this thought process that, you know, I, my product is so great. My service is so amazing. And again, you know, there's something wrong with that. But the truth is, is if the customer doesn't get it, then the customer doesn't get it. And we are in a very crowded space, right? We're in a very crowded space every every market is crowded, right? And it's not like there's just as you know, perhaps every once in a while there's a really novel idea and a novel product that is so unusual that it Sort of captures your attention. But that is almost never normally it requires that you're, you're putting that messaging out there, you're connecting with the customer, you're doing it again. And again and again. Because the customers thinking, well, you are just very similar my eyes to everybody else's out there. And so I always liken it to, you know, in the health and wellness space, you know, a lot of times we work with people in the health and wellness space. And you know, they'll say, but our product is organic. You know, our product is fair trade. Well, those are wonderful, fair trade and organic is lovely, and important. But there are 50, organic and fair trade products, you know, on the market and the customers looking at us saying I don't know which one's different. The brand, the brand awareness is the thing that gets the customer to go, Oh, no, I like this brand. Yes, it's organic. It's fair trade, and I'm so happy for those attributes, but what I really have about is how this brand makes me feel how my identity is wrapped into this brand, how this brand is a reflection of me. And that takes time it takes earning it. And it takes repetition. And it takes, you know, some business for you to actually break through the noise so that when somebody is looking at 50 products that seemed awfully similar. They remember you. Yeah. And your brand. David Ralph 18:24 Yeah, I also, I'm going to play some words now. And we're going to delve back into this because it's key. But here's Oprah. Oprah Winfrey 18:30 The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh, I got all of this stuff. What is the next right move? And then from that space, make the next right move and the next right move and not to be overwhelmed by it because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment. You know, you're not defined by what somebody says is a failure for you. Because failure is just there to point you in a different direction. David Ralph 19:02 Now if we take those words and we we reflect on the fact that she says Just be quiet and think most people will come to me with a snappy Logan logo or a slogan and say that's my business. And I say to them fats, not chia business bad. It's just a slogan, that's a business card. And I say, what is the promise? What is the promise that you are delivering? What is the thing that somebody can't get anywhere else? And how do you emphasise that through every part of your material? Now if we I'm going to do a quiz? I'm going to do a quiz with you. Okay, so I'm going to give you some slogans. Okay, being being Mrs. Branding expert out there and see how you do with this. Okay, so who said because you're worth it Unknown Speaker 19:57 I don't know actually. David Ralph 19:58 Move. Yeah. Hair hair product. Right? Okay. Okay, and if you could move slightly closer to the microphone you've just gone slightly, slightly dipped. Okay. Oh, sorry. What about think different? Apple? Apple? Brilliant. Okay, what about melts in your mouth? Not in your hands. Unknown Speaker 20:17 Lars? David Ralph 20:19 Mas OM m&ms. Yeah, somebody? Yeah. Okay, what about finger licking? Good. Steve Jobs 20:28 Good KFC, David Ralph 20:29 KFC. So all of those not only do they have something that's memorable, but they have something that is right for the customer. It's it's finger licking good. You're going to enjoy it so much but you you've got to get every single part of your your fingers you don't want to just leave it in the box, you know, and L'Oreal because you're worth it. Yeah, you're going to use the shampoo and you're going to feel great. Those words are worth billions aren't by because it just those four words you translate what the Bible Business is offering what your promises. I sound like I know what I'm talking about, don't I? Steve Jobs 21:07 really do. David Ralph 21:10 Just for that moment I hold real well there. Okay. So, so when somebody starts, they're businessmen and they come to you, do you how do you start it? What's a good way for a newbie? Is it better to grow the business and then start thinking about actually, their, their key proposition that they can develop into? Or is it a case of finding that first and then building the business around it? Steve Jobs 21:36 No, I think it's really it's exactly what you said it's finding it first and then building it around it. You know, I think that that that notion of exactly you know, finger looking good, I mean, great example, or Apple, I'm a huge Apple fan. But you know, that notion that, hey, if I if you want to connect with somebody in a way that is actually going to move the needle for your business, then you've got a start in the fundamental And you've got to figure out what is it from the very beginning stages that are going to make you feel very human in your approach and very connected and relevant. And so you have to really start from the ground up. And you've got to really challenge that. And I think, you know, the, the quote that you've said from Oprah is exactly it. You've got to get still, you've got to, you've got to think about what am I trying to accomplish here? What am I? What am I? What do I want to be known for? What is going to make me resonate with my audience in a way that feels like I get them? And it's also, you know, it's not only that piece, but it's also really understanding your customer. You know, so often I see brands that maybe they have already a great slogan, maybe they already have a great promise, but it's more that they they have a miss on the customer. You know, they think, Oh, this is going to resonate with this person. And this person, you know, we worked with a company at one point, that, you know, they were convinced that their product was You know, completely connected to bodybuilders, you know, and male bodybuilders and what they found out through a lot of sort of pain was that actually, it was a female that likes to have a tasty, you know, energy bar when she was going for a hike. Yeah, she was active, but she wasn't in there, you know, she wasn't in there just, you know, going crazy in the gym, that wasn't their target audience. And I think what happens is that we get this notion of, Okay, this is where it is, this is how it's going to resonate. This is the customer that I'm going to connect with. And what ends up ultimately happening is that your customer can be very, very, very different than you think they are. And that's the piece that you work at, right. That's the piece that you're constantly fine tuning because as you're doing more with your messaging, as you're doing more with your branding, you're learning a lot more about your customer and who that customer truly is and what really moves the needle and what is really going to make your brand storey Now for them David Ralph 24:01 is I realised through the process of running my business for the last six years, there was a point when I thought people wanted the money, Show me the money. And they were, they were desperate for that. And through the process, I realised that people actually don't want the money. They want the freedom, they want the stress free. And now let's see everyone that I talked to, who actually come through my coaching programmes, but they always say to me, David, if I can just pay my bills, that would be a great way, that would be a great way if I could pay my bills and have four days off each week, even better, and they're willing to do the work, you know, because they sign up and they start learning the structure, but it's not the money. And I always thought it was because I thought if you get the money, you know, that's, that's happy days. But then I look back at myself and I realised that actually, I used to be into telephone numbers. I used to think Yeah, you know, each month had to be better financially. When the before, but now, I'm just happy to live a happy life. And I think once again, when the words are coming out of your mouth and you're living those words, your branding just kind of starts to take shape somehow it it becomes congruent with your personal beliefs. And that comes out for your company. Would you agree? Steve Jobs 25:21 I absolutely agree. Yeah, you know, this need for just basic, you know, that everybody has this need for an enjoyable life and enjoyment. It's, it's, I always think of it in terms of financial freedom isn't necessarily just, it isn't how much money you have in the bank. It's, can you do what you want to do when you want to do it? Yeah. And I think that's a you know, it's a huge piece of, you know, sort of the fulfilment and the more that you feel, it's like anything else, it's like the energy that you put out, right, but the more that you that you live, and you you Read that reality and you, you come from that place, the more your customers feel it. David Ralph 26:06 And, and the amazing thing is to emphasise what you said there is, when you can do what you want to do when you want to do it. More often than not, it's so cheap, you know, you don't actually need the money. You know, I'm taking my wife to Venice for four days. And it's a return flight, which is about $22 or something like that, you know, which is nothing. And because we can do it whenever we want, I just looked at the cheapest day to go out and the chief cheapest day to go return and you know, that's it. Now, if I was working in the time where I'm restricted by kids holidays, for example, because I don't know if they're like that in America, but over here, the company screw you over as soon as you have kids, by you know when the school holidays are and everything becomes three times as pricey after bat because of fat and because of having worked with restrictions literally that would have cost me 250 pounds might be free or hundred dollars you kno

Introducing David Bain Today's guest is a man who is at the forefront of digital marketing in the UK and has been since way back in the early 2000's Starting his career by gaining an MBA in business from Napier University, he worked for a series of digital marketing agencies specialising in SEO, PPC and Social. He then moved away from the UK to Sydney Australia when offered the chance to head up the growth of the SEO department for MEC Australia. These were all the fledgling steps into the world of entrepreneurship, helping marketers to stay up-to-date with the latest tools, tactics and technologies through his books, podcasts and digital services, helping them to cut through the noise and focus on what shifts the needle. Nowadays you can be working for someone on a Monday and change your title on Linkedin To Expert on a Tuesday, but our guest has done his time getting to where he is. A digital marketing pioneer, podcast host and producer, he started his first online business back in the year 2000 and his first podcast in 2006. Since then he's worked with several global organisations including Google, Nespresso, PA Consulting and Farfetch, delivered dozens of digital marketing training sessions and hosted hundreds of podcasts, webinars and online summits. David, his wife and son are based in London, UK. So today the world is screaming "Buy from me, look at me, grab my course and book" but certainly not when he started, so why the interest back then? And where does he see the mistakes that people make when entering into the world of online work with such eagerness today. Well lets find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr. David Bain. Show Highlights During today's show we discussed such weighty subjects with David Bain Why blending the offline and online world to get your customers attention, is such a powerful way to really boost the effectiveness of your content. David shares why we have such little time to make an informed decision that getting noticed has become a big issue. We discuss the process of getting a book from the content of a podcast to the real thing, and the effort involved. and lastly....... Why its so important to focus on servicing people who are closely linked to you and your passions. Become your own avatar.

In today's episode of Join UP Dots we tackle the questions that come to us through the listeners of Join Up Dots. Everyday our email inbox gets full of requests for information from our listeners, which we often respond to directly. However in today's episode we save them up and answer them all in one go.... Ranging from depression to waiting too long, to how to find that spark to work on. Whatever you want from your life it is there for you, you just have to go after it and make it happen Enjoy Question One Dear David, can't get enough of our show...yes I say our show as I feel you are speaking directly to me everyday. I am now ready to roll but what can I do? I know the fire is burning but I just dont have a clue where to head....lost from New south Wales, Australia Question Two Hi Join UP Dots i was listening to one of your earlier episodes when you were speaking about hanging around in your job for a few years too long. Do you think this held you back, as I would love to be free from the hell that I am enduring due to my f**wit boss but just cant see how I can do it as quick as I would like.... Penai Chitzo, Argentina Question Three Good day to you from Bolivia. Please excuse my written English as your language is not my natural form of communication. I listen to your podcast as I am improving my Engish speaking. I do not understand everything you speak about as it is very fast speed. I enjoy it very much and long to meet you one day and say "Hello" Do you have a favourite episode out of the ones you have delivered lovingly to us...Adirana Question Four David Ralph, you sexy man, you god of the microphone, you pumping piston of positivity (did I get your attention yet?) What would be the number one mistake that you made creating your online platform. I would like to do the same so would like to know what you would change.... Victor Benji, St Louis, America Question Five Hi Mr Ralph, do you regret anything in your life. You seem to be always happy and full of life. I suffer from very dark periods of depression which come from nowhere like a perfect storm. I can only imagine that things go wrong for you, so how do you deal with them. The reason I ask, is i would very much like to create my own income and make a go of it, but I dont know if I would be able to handle the issues that you make very clear will come along sometimes Claire Merchance, St Ives, UK

Maria Pesin is todays guest joining us on the Join Up Dots podcast is a senior apparel industry executive. with an outstanding history of achievement and over 25 years of field experience. She has developed brands from the ground up and taken well-known names to new heights of excellence. Her proven leadership ability has led her to spearhead marketing operations. She has constructed and implemented business plans for New York apparel giants like Fleet Street and GIII Apparel Group, building multi-million dollar brands. Maria has established herself as an expert in everything from merchandising and sales to product development and budgeting. Maria is passionate about the apparel industry and dedicated to working with up-and-coming enterprises that are as devoted to the trade as she is. Establishing new businesses, growing existing businesses and bringing new fashion trends into the marketplace is what she enjoys most about her job. With her consulting business vibe she specializes in helping companies start new divisions, turn around existing ones, or bringing companies to the next level. As she says "Our specialties are sales and marketing, merchandising, organizational efficiencies, and managing Profit/Loss." So is it rare that a consulting company caters for so many different specialisms? And has this just happened or was it part of the master plan? Well let's find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Maria Pesin Show Highlights During the show we discussed such deep weighty subjects with Maria Pesin such as: Maria shares her key focus of sales and marketing and why this is such a vital component to all businesses. If you arent getting the sales or the customers you will fail. We talk about the need to find a differing position to your business landscape if you ever want to gain traction against your competitors. Why the story of spanx has become a driving force behind so many businesses around the world who know the key to perseverance. and lastly...... Why it's so important to focus in on all aspects of time management especially Parkinsons Law. Dont let that time spread into your life.