LifePilot: Be the CEO of your life with Natalie Sisson

Are you at a point in your life where you’re really not feeling it? 

The career you’ve chosen and the business you have is not as fulfilling as you wanted. Yet maybe to the outside world, it looks like you’ve got it all together. But inside, you’re feeling like there’s a deeper calling that you’re not paying attention to. 

Everything is pointing you towards actually doing that by tapping into your calling and making a bigger impact in the world. 

On this episode of Untapped, I got to chat with the charming Lucia Giovannini and learned how she tapped into her true calling and discovered a whole new life.

Lucia Giovannini is a yogi, life coach, fire-walking instructor and former Italian super-model.

Lucia started modeling by accident quickly realizing that career was bringing her all a girl could hope for, yet it still left her feeling unfulfilled. So after several years, she went on her own healing journey. It was back in the 80-s when she’d get other models to sit with her in a dressing room, chanting “Om”.

Lucia went within, going barefoot for a year, and immersing herself into healing practices. One of the first transformational speakers in Italy, she was soon regarded as the “Louise Hay of Italy”. Her book “A Whole New Life” sold thousands of copies around Europe and was translated into 8 languages.

She’s someone who has had a very successful career but decided to take the leap and embrace her true calling to embark on a whole new life. Definitely something I can relate to!

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The tools that can help you remove the barriers that are stopping you from following your true calling
• Lucia’s thoughts on making radical changes in your life
• What tangible steps you can take to transform your thoughts and beliefs
• Lucia’s advice on how to discover a whole new life

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So this weekend I had the honor of being invited to go and speak in front of around 80 to 90 Ultimate Frisbee players who were at their first training camp trying out to be selected for the World Championships in Netherlands next year.

And for those of you who don't know, I have been an Ultimate Frisbee player for the last 16 years. It's been a long held passion of mine and it was really neat to be able to be a guest speaker at this training camp and to talk about finding your finish line, which is a big tribute to Nathan Martin, my triathlon coach.

I wanted to recreate that presentation for you. This talk is specifically related to being your best self, pushing yourself, challenging yourself, crushing your goals and setting those intention.

If that's what you need today, that's what this episode is all about.

Listen to the podcast or you can read the full transcript below.

Imagine a room full of slightly sweaty, smelly Ultimate Frisbee players who've just spent the entire day playing, training, drilling, strategizing and trying to be their best selves so that they will make the team to be at Worlds next year representing New Zealand at the World Championships of Ultimate Frisbee.

They've had a big day. It's been raining. It's been wet. They are a little bit cold. They've just eaten. And I'm the final person to speak to them at the end of the day and it was such an honor.

It's always a little weird to be speaking in front of some people you know especially when you probably realize that most those people don't know about you because if you've played a sport before you get on really well with your teammates but typically you're talking about the sport and of course you get into personal lives and things but often you're so focused on the competition and the team, the drills, the strategy and the game plans that you don't always get to learn about who each person is and what else is going on in their life. So I think this was quite a surprising evening for some people.

I will share the pictures that go along in my slides. I'm a big fan when I speak and present of having lots of visuals and very few words. All of it was 16 slides and most of those had very few words on them and images.

I called it "Find Your Next Finish Line - Tap into your potential Master your mindset."

Well, I am Natalie Sisson. Originally born here in Wellington, New Zealand and for about the last ten years I've been running an online business teaching other people how to travel the world and run an online business. I've been to 70 countries during that time and lived out of my suitcase for six and a half years full time which is fantastic, if you're into that kind of thing.

And during that time I actually got to play a lot of international Ultimate Frisbee tournaments especially beach tournaments which I love. If you're ever going to travel and spend some time overseas I highly recommend checking out the international scene for Ultimate Frisbee tournaments. It's also the quickest way to make fast friends because you basically arrive in a strange country you've never been to before and you have this instant community of like-minded people who adopt you as one of their own. So I highly recommend it.

I have been playing ultimate Frisbee for 16 years now.

Is anybody here in the room 16 or under?

I did ask that question because I was a little bit worried that somebody might be younger than the amount of years that I've spent playing Frisbee.

Luckily nobody was.

The next slide was my two books: The Freedom Plan and the Suitcase Entrepreneur.

So I basically put those up and I said, "So I've written two books but I'm posting them here really more to tell you that they are probably the only two business / lifestyle and mindset books out there that talk about Ultimate Frisbee" and that mentioned Ultimate Frisbee for a start and also talk about it in a really positive way. So I just thought I'd put that out there.

The next slide was a track and it was the finish line there and it said on it "7 lessons I've learned from finding my next finish line".

Speakers note: One of the best ways to build credibility is to obviously show what you've done and achieved but that can also come across as a little bit wanky if all you do is go "I've done this and that".

I had visuals of all of my sporting or individual pursuits and achievements but with every single one of those there was a story and from each of those stories there was a lesson.

Once again I'm just going to roll straight into how I sort of presented.

In 2004, I had actually just hired a personal trainer to help me with training for triathlons and she was so amazing in terms of how she looked. She was strong. She was lean. She was muscular and I just never seen a physique like it and I asked her what she was training for and she said I was training for a body sculpting championship. And I was like, "What the heck is that?".

I went and looked up the sport and I thought, "What a bizarre sport". You basically get really lean. You put on a lot of muscle. You eat chicken and broccoli. It's pretty much what I ate. And then you stand up on stage with this ridiculous bronze tan on you at the end of that and strike some poses.

There was something about it that really just intrigued me because in all my years of playing sport I had never ever changed my body shape. I'd always pretty much look the same. And I was so impressed and fascinated by this lady that I was like, what would it take to change my body and do something completely different?

And then I asked her how she went and she said well she couldn't give up sugar so she ended up just not competing. She clearly hadn't wanted to sacrifice sugar and so all her hard work and dedication had gone nowhere as a result.

I just thought that was really sad to put in all that effort and not take it further. Plus for me it was a nine month period of eating really clean and healthy, going to the gym seven times a week, working out really hard but also being very mindful of my nutrition and partway through that I started visualizing.

I started of visualizing being up on stage, on doing these routines onstage, on winning to be honest. I had actually written down on a piece of paper that I used to take to the gym every single morning. It was actually in a little booklet. It was my workout routine, the weights and what amount of weights I had and what exercise and I used to in a very disciplined way fill that out every single time, seven times a week, sometimes twice a day. And at the top of that piece of paper in this booklet I had written, countdown to comp win.

Basically somewhere in my head, I decided that I was going to win the competition. And so I wrote it on that piece of paper and that's the same piece of paper I looked at seven days in a row for close to nine months.

Strike forward to basically October of 2004 and I'm standing on the stage in Hamilton at the regional Body Sculpting Championships. I'm in figure. I'm in the novice figure tool division. So basically Body Sculpting is also called figure because you're not buff. You're actually quite lean and feminine. But I did have an eight pack and an awesome arse. My muscles on my arse was so amazing and lean that's never going to be like that again but it was pretty impressive looking back at the photos.

Anyway I digress.

I'm standing on stage in these sexy heels that I actually had to buy at like a stripper shop (That got a laugh in the audience). I've got way too much bronze, fake tan on and I hadn't tanned my face enough. I'm on a tiny little blue bikini and I'm posing and showing off my abs and my biceps and my triceps and my lats.

At one point during the competition they basically started calling out names of people that were going to make it into the judging round and I realized in that very moment that I had not prepared to not win. So all I thought about in the back of my mind and also in the front of my mind was visualizing winning. And here I was on the stage and they were calling out who they were going to take forward and I was like, "Oh my God, I haven't prepared to not win".

How am I going to deal with this if I don't make it?

It just hadn't even crossed my mind and it wasn't coming from a place of ego that I was definitely not going to win but that's what I'd focused on that's what got me to this point. And so luckily I won the whole thing which was awesome. I won my division. They called my name. I got a tacky big trophy and some more protein powder and I was thrilled and the very next day I was eating like mellow puffs and all the things you shouldn't. And basically my eight pack disappeared overnight but it was such a brilliant lesson for me to learn that you need to sacrifice some things to get to where you want to be.

I sacrificed a lot of social events, a lot of socializing with my friends. I sacrificed a lot of late nights for early starts, a lot of the time in the gym. I was super disciplined during that time because it was a nine month period where I really wanted to be my best and see what I could achieve. Then I achieved the win which was amazing.

The other I learnt was that visualization is one of the most powerful tools ever. And while I was presenting for the ultimate Frisbee crowd I did talk about a study with soccer players and they'd had half of the team train as normal that they would for a competition that was coming up and they had the other half just purely visualize. Visualize training, visualize being on the field, striking the ball, running around, doing everything perfectly.

When it came down to the actual competition, both sides of the team turned up pretty much exactly the same. So those who had done nothing but visualise were performing as well as those who had been training and putting in the effort.

For this slide, I had the Sisterhood Dragon Boating across the English Channel and then I talked about what this event was and what I learnt from it. So this was 2007 around August when 20 of us ladies set out from Shakespeare's beach in England. We went 21 miles across the busiest shipping lane in the world and landed in Shakespeare's beach in France.

It was epic. We absolutely smashed the time. We did it in 3 hours and 42 minutes and the previous record had been set at around seven hours.

It was incredible we fell out of the boat when we got to France. We drank champagne. We were super excited and I was the person in charge of making this a Guinness Book of World Records attempt. We had a timer and we had people photographing it and videoing it and we had all the rules and regulations and we stuck to them and then we found out about a week after that we weren't awarded the Guinness World Record for this. Even though we had smashed it and I found out that we should have had a dragon head and tail and somebody beating a drum on the dragon boat while we were crossing because that's how you apparently hang out in dragon boats.

If you've never dragon boated before you'll know that typically you race thousand meter races in these boats. They are very, very low to the water. You have a paddle. You start from high up and then you'd plunge that paddle down to the water and pull back and a short sharp stroke and the whole team has to be in synchronicity to make it go forward and go at pace. So we did this for 3 hours and 42 minutes not for a thousand meter race.

If we'd had a head and tail and a drummer, we would have pretty much drowned. Were going across the busiest channel with waves and everything. So that was super disappointing. But the lesson that we learned out of that as we still smash that world record.

We can still claim that and internally, personally and as a team. We were immensely proud with what we did. So we didn't actually need the official record to be proud of ourselves and to really congratulate and celebrate ourselves on that accomplishment. And we raised over a hundred thousand pounds for charity so that one was set and smash your own records.

For this I had a photo up of my Great Britain gold medal winning Ultimate Frisbee team at the beach championships in Brazil from 2007. So the same year that I did the Dragon Boating couple of months later I found myself in Brazil where we had been training in addition to my training for the Dragon Boating for the world beach championships.

We were the British women's team and we managed to beat the US in the finals and up until that point the US women's team had won every single tournament at beach pretty much leading up to that. And so this was the first time ever that Great Britain had won and it was such a huge achievement.

And the reason why we won I believe was that we're a total team. We trusted each other, we respected each other, every single person on that team through to every single other person, even the weaker players versus the stronger. Nobody had ego. Nobody was putting themselves on the field all the time. We played the whole team. We trusted the whole team and as a result we won as a team not as a bunch of individual superstars.

So the reason I want to point that out is that there were probably a lot of people in that room who were individual superstars and that that only gets you so far and if you're gonna play at Worlds you absolutely need to have a team moving in the right direction and winning together.

I have often been told that you know you've always got 20 percent more in the tank or even up to 40 percent. But I recently listened to, I have to say a fantastic book by David Goggins who's an ex Navy Seal and has done all these 100k plus, 100 mile plus ultra marathons. I listened to his book which is called, "Can't hurt me", a New York Times bestseller while I was out training for my triathlons and it was inspiring because, sure he's slightly crazy but he has gone to the depths and beyond and back to really master his mindset and to realize that your mind controls everything and that you need to control your mind in order to do the unachievable, to achieve the impossible, to push yourself further than you've ever pushed yourself before and to grow as a person, as a result of that and be the best version of yourself to completely unleash your potential.

In his book he says you always have 60 percent more and he talks a lot about some of the sporting events that he's done including running a 100 mile race with no training and making it to the finish. it is grueling and it is epic and he draws on every single ounce of his reserve and his stamina and his perseverance and his Navy SEAL training etc.. But what ultimately gets him there is finding this new lease of life somewhere within his mind that he is capable of doing this and that only he can do it and that it is possible.

I then talked about when I cycled down Africa from Nairobi to Cape Town six and a half thousand k's never cycled anywhere near that in my life. Every day it was pretty much 100K's of cycling. And basically some days I'd get out of my sleeping bag and my tent and I was just like, "I just don't know if I can get on that bike today. I don't think I have anything left".

I got known as Flatley because I had so many flat tires and there were just days where I was like I just I can't do this but I would like everybody else somehow. Well not everybody. Some people didn't but get myself dressed and get into my gear and get back on that bike and just push each pedal until I was moving and somehow or other, the body and the mind merged and was off cycling every single day without fail.

Whether it was for three hours or eight or nine hours, I would always make it to the end. Even on the super long days we were doing like 180K and it just blew my mind that we always have more gas in the tank.

We are always, always capable of more and you just have to dig deep to get those reserves and when you think you can't, you absolutely can. You're not even anywhere near your capacity for achieving for doing and for pushing yourself.

Just remember that you always have 60 percent more and when you're going to be at those events or those races or whatever you're doing in life right now that you feel like you want to give up know that you have barely scratched the surface. I think it's inspiring and it's going to serve me well in my triathlons coming up.

The photo that I used here was at the 2016 World Championships where I played with the New Zealand Women's Masters team. We came fifth. It was epic. And during that tournament, I realized even though I was a master and I was getting older, I was 39 then. I was like man I still want to improve. I've still got so much more potential.

Sure, I might not be the fastest person at all ever and sure I'm probably not going to be as fit and I'm not as young as some of these people because Masters is basically 30 and over so our team was actually quite old on average but I still wanted to improve and I found different strengths that I now had as an older player like as a thrower, a handler, I had different wily strengths and skills that I could use to my advantage, to overpower the ones that were more of my weakness now and it just you know, I just loved the game so much and I was like there's more than I can give.

There is more than I can do and you should never think that you're top of your game. You should never just assume that you're the best that you'll ever be. There's always more room and ability to improve.

I also got everybody in the room laughing on this one because the photo was me with my back to the camera throwing and one of my team members looking like she was about to be hit by my disc and literally cowering because I have quite a big throw with my left hand and also on the back of my T-shirt is my number.

And so I had to sort of share because the number is 69 which obviously has connotations and I just wanted to share with the room that the reason I chose that number is one, no woman will ever take it because of the connotations so I always get the number that I want in a tournament and a team.

And you'll be surprised lots of people like the same numbers and you can't get hold of them. So nobody ever wants 69 and 2 it meant that if I was ever upside down or laying out or whatever that you could always tell what my number was. But I think the phrasing that I used was that if I'm ever up the wrong way or round the wrong side or something like that and it just sounded all wrong so that got everybody laughing.

This was a photo of our team once again 2016 World Champs. We became fifth but we also won the spirit prize. We co-won actually which is a first with Germany and this is at the heart of Ultimate Frisbee.

If you've never played the sport before or never heard of it, the entire game has no referees and it is basically you self referee. So each person on the field makes a decision based on the rules. You discuss things. You discuss calls. You call fouls and you can retract them or keep them. It's an incredible game where basically you adopt the attitude of fair play at all times and you discuss and talk through anything and everybody is responsible for playing fairly and to the rules on the field. Once again no referees, no whistles, no umpires.

It's amazing and a huge part of their ethos and philosophy behind Ultimate Frisbee and why I adore it is that it's about the spirit of the game. So it is deemed to be spirited if you help somebody understand the rules on the field. It is deemed to be spirited if you make a call and you explain it why you made the call and you discuss it and then you either go ahead with it or you retract it. It has deemed to be spirited to clap and cheer for the other team and to celebrate a great play or a great throw or an amazing bid or a layout or defense and it's just this beautiful thing that comes through in the game.

At times over the years I've seen it lost especially when it's super competitive. Some people just get downright competitive, nasty, rude, aggressive etc. But most of the time spirit win through.

To win the prize for being the most spirited team was a real honor and more important than winning. And so I was really just trying to get that across because especially in the younger players sometimes it's all about winning and it's not. It's really not.

It's about your internal spirit, what you bring to the game and also the spirit of the game. And I think that applies in life not just Ultimate Frisbee.

In this example, I had a photo of me finishing at the national sprint triathlons in Kinlock which was in February this year in New Zealand by the lake. And I've got my hands outstretched in the air and I'm joyous that I finished this race. And it was a really tough race and I got my ass kicked and I got my ego bruised because I had started training in October of the year before.

So this was October, November, December, January and it was into early Feb so I'd done about four months of training and I really thought I was going to do pretty well. Like I didn't have any grandiose ideas I was going to win but I thought I could be pretty good at this sport because I've been good at other sports and won medals and done all these things and yet I came probably quarter to last in my race and division and age group and I was just pretty disappointed in that and I thought it sucked and I was like I'm not very good at this at all and I ended up speaking to a bunch of people after the race who had been doing triathlons for like two years, five years, ten years.

One woman was 77 and she just won her age group and she was off to the World Champs and it was amazing. And she's like I just love the sport. But it took me so long to get good at it and it's every single year it's just a small improvement at the time and every single person that I spoke to had the same energy. They were like you can't just get good at triathlon quickly. There are very few people who are naturally good at it. It's one of those things you just keep at it and you make improvements and you make these just continual upgrades to your training, to your nutrition, to your attitude. And it will come.

And I remember being there and just feeling a little bit like deflated and Josh was like, "Nat, your goal was to finish and your goal was to get the certain time and you hit that and yet you're not happy," and I was like, "No, because I came like in the bottom quarter of the whole field which means I suck", and he's like, "No, you have to set your intentions way too high. You've only been training for four months. This was the Nationals. This wasn't just some local event. This was the best of the best people turning up who were trying to qualify for World Champs and you made it and you did well and you completed it and you should be happy with that. And this is the first of many events".

I'm glad Josh gave me a pep talk in that moment and I walked away from that and I went, "Yeah, triathlon is going to be all about the long game. It's going to be all about the micro improvements day after day, week after week".

It's about showing up, committing to consistent training and training with intention and just continuing to get better. And always, always enjoying it and I'm pleased to say that since that race it was in February I moved up to sort of halfway through the field in events that I did and more recently I ran a 10K race in Wellington which is a huge race actually, thousands of people competing in it. And I was in the top third of the entire race group, of my gender, of my age group. And as I said overall and I was just thrilled because that proved to me that I had made massive strides in my running over the sort of four month period and the discipline of running that I have always found to be my weakest as what I have often told myself unless I'm running after a Frisbee or a ball and so it was just really thrilling to see that OK I put my head down. I trained better. I believed in myself. I called myself a runner. I called myself an athlete and I trained with more focus and moved up from quarter to the bottom to top third.

I'm really thrilled with that and there's long, long way to go but it just proved to me that once I reset my mindset about how I was going to turn up and once I reframed, once I focused on being my best self and being an athlete and really focusing on that mindset, everything changed.

Everything changed and so my lesson there was that you know it's all about mind over matter and you have to have self belief and then you have to put in the work to make it happen.

Then I touched on to finish off, goals versus intention.

So I asked the room what is the difference between goals versus intentions? And it was interesting because you know in a big room most people don't answer questions but luckily some brave people put up their hand and there were some of them are a little bit on track but this is actually a really interesting question and I have an entire podcast about this so I will get the number for you. But basically goals are focused on the future. They're about a destination or a specific achievement and goals are fantastic.

If I didn't have goals, if I knew that I wasn't competing in my first ever half Iron Man in December I probably would not be getting up to train and do long runs and long bike rides and swims pretty much right now I'm starting to train every single day of the week and will be for the next four months. And it's only going to get longer and harder. But if I didn't have that goal in December that I want to be fit and ready for and I want to do really well and for myself and I want to enjoy it, I probably wouldn't be getting up in the morning.

Goals have an absolute benefit. They drive you. They give you a focus. They give you a deadline, a timeline. They give you something that you can aim for and achieve and they give you purpose. And so they're brilliant and they're about a future event. And so you can set up your strategies for it. You can train. You can really know what you're going for and then intentions are in the present moment.

Intentions are lived each day independent of reaching the goal or destination. And why I think this is so important to know the difference between goals. So just to recap goals are focused on the future. They're about a destination or a specific achievement. Intentions are in the present moment. Intentions are lived each day independent of reaching the goal or destination is that you have probably felt this before when you've set yourself a big juicy goal and then let's say maybe you've had it or you've missed it but after that even sometimes when you've achieved it or smashed it you kind of have the sense of disappointment after. You just often actually can have that sense of deflation and lie oh what was that all for over.

My major lesson there is that you also have to have an intention of how you're going to show up every single day. It's not just about that one goal. Your intention should be or I hope is to be the best version of yourself. To live with passion, to be on purpose, to be kind, to be generous, to be driven, to be ambitious. Whatever your intention is. How you want to show up in this world is the absolute thing that you need to put all your energy and effort into. It's what you're going to focus on every single day. It's how you're going to show up. It's how you are going to live and breathe and act with that intent.

When you have intentions that are backed up by these goals and milestones you're not going to get depressed or disappointed or upset after something because that goal will be all and end all of how you live. It's just the next driver. It's the next point that you're trying to reach but because your intentions are constantly with you those are the things that are always going to carry you through.

I think goals and intentions are needed but intentions are the thing that is going to be how you act and show up in this world and they're going to be with you long after you've hit and smashed all your goals that I know you're going to do.

Now it's your turn. This is what I challenged them with and this is what I'm challenging you with.

Within the next 30 days what is one goal and one intention you want to set for yourself?

You can share it with me in two ways, you can tag me in Instagram @nataliesisson and you can say that “@nataliesisson my one goal is X and my one intention is X #untapped” or leave a comment below.

I am going to give a copy of my brand new Freedom Plan audio book to one lucky person who comments in either of those ways.

• Most powerful tools ever
• Importance of celebrating yourself
• Learn how to control your mind
• Goals versus intentions

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Lately I’ve been going back to learning what I thought I already knew, and at the same time I’ve been embracing everything I don’t know as I throw myself into the arena of the future of work and learning.

And that’s a scary place to be. The not knowing space. The relinquishing any thoughts you had about being an expert, to embrace a beginner’s mind and enjoy being a student of life.

That’s at the very heart of what Derek Loudermilk and I jammed on in this episode of UNTAPPED.

Derek is a friend and kindred spirit, and he’s also the creator of AdventureQuest Travel, a professional adventurer, bestselling author, speaker, digital nomad and a business coach.

He is the host of the Art of Adventure podcast, one of the top podcasts in the world for location independent business, adventure travel and cutting edge topics.

And to top it off, he is the author of Superconductors: Revolutionize Your Career and Make Big Things Happen, which was long listed for the 2018 UK Best Business Book awards.

He specialises in coaching people who wants to get out of their cubicles and create a life of time, financial, and location freedom. Yep we are pretty much on the same page!

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How Derek has built up revenue streams from his multi-faceted career choices and life experiences including being a pro cyclist!
• Derek’s thoughts on robots and automation of work
• The value of self-experimentation
• Derek’s view on developing an alter ego
• His advice for untapping your potential

Resources

• Learn more about Derek over at Derekloudermilk.com
• Check out his podcast the Art of Adventure
• Support Derek’s new project by pre-ordering your copy here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it possible to completely change your life by simply making a decision to take responsibility for your health and purpose in life?

Nathan Martin, my personal triathlon coach and friend is living proof that it is.

Growing up in a family where gambling and drinking were the daily pastimes, he went down a path as a teenager that was leading him to a life of drugs, low paying work and no real future.

But Nathan had better things in mind for his life, and the lives of others and it started with shifting into the health and fitness industry in 2006 when he started out as a personal trainer at Less Mills Gym.

He the went on to discover triathlons and strike forward to 2010 ended up crossing the finish line at Ironman NZ, which was a key moment in Nathan’s journey to finding his purpose, his passion for life and ultimately happiness.

Nathan has now completed 6 full Ironman events plus K2, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, and the Taupo Enduro. He has also represented NZ as an age group triathlete in 2012!

Led by his desire to help people, Nathan set up his own business Change Fitness in 2015 where he focuses on helping others to become great role models and inspires them to find their finish line.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• The story behind the tagline "Find your finish line"
• What triathlon truly means to Nathan
• The real key to happiness
• How Nathan built his business

• Learn more about Nathan over at ChangeFitness.co.nz
• Change Fitness Facebook page

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Madonna has truly mastered the art of reinvention, so when a friend told me she was coming on the Graham Norton show this weekend, I stuck around to watch her segment.

I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen Madonna speak and was intrigued to see what she would deliver.

Naturally, she didn’t disappoint.

She walked on stage wearing an eye patch and a sexy number which had her boobs almost falling out of her corset (a wardrobe malfunction I’m sure she would not be thrilled with knowing about since she controls her image with immense care).

Yet her star power was undeniable, and the guests on the couch alongside her were left to sit quietly as she answered Graham’s questions with mystique, cheekiness, strength and an appropriate amount of intrigue.

She has just launched a new album and is going on tour at the age of 60 years old!

This in itself is a huge testament to her longevity, creativity and ability to keep on changing with the times and reinventing herself, to not only survive in a super competitive market dominated by teenagers, but to thrive in it for over four decades.

In the past few months, several of my friends compared me to Madonna – not because I like to sing and dance to 80s music (which I really do) or because I wear sexually enticing outfits (I don’t), but because they said I’m always reinventing myself.

I have to admit I was surprised by this as I personally couldn’t see it, and so they explained to me that I had successfully, in their eyes, morphed from corporate career girl to Tech CoFounder to blogger, to being The Suitcase Entrepreneur with relative ease over the last 10 years.

And that when I returned home to New Zealand in late 2016, I apparently made it look easy to morph into being a brand …ME here on nataliesisson.com

Yet that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In my world I’ve been through a two year long metamorphosis filled with doubt, fear, curiosity, joy and exasperation.

If you’ve listened to my podcast or read my blog post on When Too Much Change is Dangerous, you’ll know that I did a 180 degree life flip that entailed going from:

• Constant full-time travel out of my suitcase to living in one house, with no international travel for the first three months of being back in New Zealand.
• Being single in December to a loving full-time relationship, moving in together in my apartment for a few months, to then buying a house together, creating joint bank accounts and taking on this beautiful property – Josh’s first ever property ownership.
• Zero responsibility to having this mortgage, getting a puppy a week after moving in and five chickens the week after.
• Owning so little stuff to having to furnish a 369 sqm house with four bedrooms and two living rooms in just a few weeks. (People who visit us now say how it looks like we’ve lived here for years).
• Having a full on business period, getting it ready for my sabbatical and writing the Freedom Plan book manuscript which I finished on March 30th, to NOT working.
• Eternal summers traveling the world to my first ever autumn (fall) and winter. And that was probably the biggest kicker – I hate being cold.

Thankfully I’m almost 2.5 years down the track and LOVING life, but it hasn’t been an easy journey and what surprised me most, was an event that happened in late October 2018.

Not long after a pretty successful book launch of the Freedom Plan (audio book coming out this month!!), I also relaunched my most successful course ever of the same name that, to date, netted me over US$500,000 in sales – which still blows my mind to this day.

Except this time, I decided to totally redesign it and upgrade it to better align with my new book and to be more focused on how to work less through systems, outsourcing and clever sales funnels.

It catered to an experienced business owner wanting more freedom – the folks I wanted to work with as I could see them experiencing burn out and overwhelm and I truly wanted to help them.

Yet in doing so, I overlooked the majority of my community I’d lovingly built up over the years, who in reality, were still wanting to build their online business, learn how to earn more money and gain financial freedom.

The launch result?

That hurt, a lot. I cried in the final days of launch and sat there in disbelief as literally nothing happened – at least that’s what it felt like.

It caused me to doubt everything I thought I knew and was really good at, built up over nine years of business.

I was in shock. I was numb. I felt like a fraud.

The facts didn’t help either. I’d spent too much money, hired too many people and ended up handing over most of the things I’m great at, and got stuck with managing people, logistics and operations.

Along with that, I had not listened to my intuition and how I felt energetically, and forged on regardless as I wanted to stay true to my word and launch this course I said I would – damn upholder in me!

(Check out The Four Tendencies Quiz I talk about in my book to know what I’m referring to).

When I did my launch analysis, which I do faithfully every time, it wasn’t as bad as I thought but the damage was done. My confidence was knocked and I wasn’t bouncing back like I normally do.

Can you relate?

I was desperately trying to find the lesson in the failure as a good entrepreneur will always do that, but I was taking it way too personally.

After almost a decade it felt like I’d made a rookie error and it had cost me more than just money and a bruised ego.

Deep down I was quite tired of my business. I’m sure I’m not alone when I admit this. For most of my business journey I’ve loved every aspect of my business, but there’s only so long one can continue to talk about the same thing all the time, before they don’t get a little bored, stifled or jaded.

Despite continuing to learn I had gotten comfortable in my knowledge and expertise and was looking for a challenge. Most of the time I had managed to find that within and apply it to my journey and clients.

But with all the life changed I’d experienced, and the time off I had taken from my business in 2017, I had never really found my flow again and I felt like I was holding onto something that I wasn’t passionate about anymore.

Josh and I headed away on a break to sunny Gisborne that December, and had some long walks and talks on the beach to explore my options, how I was feeling and what would make me happy.

While he had utter faith in me and felt it was just a minor setback, I wasn’t so sure.

One of the options that had come up was taking on a contract to experience the things I was missing as an entrepreneur:

• Being part of a physical team (not just virtual)
• Not having to lead and manage everything all the time
• Experiencing being part of someone else’s business and to learn from them
• Have a consistent income while I bounced back
• Getting into the city so I wasn’t so isolated out at our rural lifestyle property
• Be energized by the city vibe and socializing and;
• Getting some structure back in my day

We used our own Life Pilot system and a Seasonal Dreaming session – which we do each quarter, to share our hopes and dreams across the eight areas of life we value most highly and by the end of that week away I had a plan.

I’d looked at job websites, which I happen to know every great business owner will look at even when things are going well, and wasn’t impressed.

Job descriptions made me yawn and sounded so formulaic or stifling and salaries seemed on the low end compared to what I know I can make in my business – but that wasn’t the key criteria – if I was referring to my criteria in the bullet points above.

Then I saw a role of Learning Designer, that I didn’t realize existed, yet wasn’t dissimilar to what I had learned and applied in launching online courses and designing curriculum’s to educate people.

I then sent possibly the worst email to a recruitment person ever that went like this:

Dear Beth

Very keen to learn more about your freelance opportunities for learning designers.

I’ve developed many curriculum’s for online courses in my own business and am known for making the complex simple and breaking things down into bite sized content that is practical and implementable.

Natalie

Naturally she asked for more details including my CV, which I then sat on for a while until I replied again, rather nonchalantly with this response:

Hi Beth

I’ve realized I’m not going to create a CV anytime soon. I just know after 8 years of creating, building and running online courses, events and retreats that this is my sweetspot of what I do well.

My LinkedIn profile is here www.linkedin.com/in/nataliesisson/

Understand if this is not conventional for you 

Natalie

This resulted in her Googling me where everything I have ever done is publicly available to see – proof of what I’m capable of, calling me up and having a good chat.

She saw an opportunity and my potential and took a chance on me.

A week later I was having an informal coffee with the CEO even though there was no role for me and less than a week later I had a job offer and a start date in 10 days time!

As you can imagine this wasn’t quite how I anticipated it happening but I took the leap.

Strike forward almost five months and I can hand on heart say it’s been the best thing for me.

My working week went from working on my business anytime to having only Monday as my One Day a Week business day and Tuesday – Friday working at Inspire Group in the city including a remote day at home.

In and around that – yes even some evenings and weekends, I did paid consulting for four gigs I’d inadvertently picked up since January after volunteering my time to help these purpose driven companies, plus working with a few coaching clients.

I was truly living in the GIG Economy and am tapping into Future of Work by doing this.

If you’re wondering, YES I was at capacity!

For the first time in a decade, after preaching freedom and time off and experiencing that in droves, I was now energized by maximizing every hour I had – plus still having time out in the evenings and weekends AND training for triathlons.

In fact I credit triathlon training for instilling confidence, focus, drive and momentum back into my personal life, along with a self belief and mindset I had been missing, that then overflowed into EVERY area of my life. It’s been remarkable.

I also used all my own tools, systems, content calendar and 1 Page Biz Plan that I teach my clients and are featured in the Freedom Plan book on MYSELF and, low and behold, they worked a treat.

I’m not going to lie commuting via train, car or bike an hour each way into town wasn’t entirely thrilling initially but I used that time to work on my business, contracts, or listen to audio books.

I genuinely enjoy my job, the team and simply being in a different environment, which has allowed me to stretch myself, learn and grow plus take on an entirely different outlook and put myself in other peoples’ shoes.

Then something magical started to happen.

A combination of fewer hours to work on my business meant I became ultra focused again and started enjoying every aspect of it.

I cut my team down to just me and my Virtual Assistant so that I could get back to more of the doing, and experience what that felt like again.

This brought back fond memories of my hustling days early on in my business and showed me all the things I had almost forgotten I knew how to do. I decided not to outsource anything for a few months and ‘get my hands dirty’ doing all the doing.

This increased my love of all the things I missed or realized I’d lost touch with and things started picking up in my business.

Revitalized energy shows in business and people pick up on it. Before long I was vlogging, podcasting and creating again and getting back to being Natalie, doing all the things I did so well when I started out in business.

I did the analysis, I looked at what had worked all those years before and what I’d stopped doing or needed to stop doing to fully realign with who I was, how I could help people and how I wanted to show up in the world.

Then in June I totally redesigned my own website home page with a brand new look and direction – even though this felt like I took three months to actually get it done.

I was so proud as this is the first website I’ve fully designed by myself. Clean, clear and to the point. Let me know in the comments what you think!

2019 Design

2018 Design

I did this by using the best and easiest WordPress theme I have ever come across, Thrive Architect.

In fact I shot this vlog Thrive Architect – Your Must Have Website Builder Tool to show why it rocks and how to use it to redesign your website.

As you can see by the live demo I give it was before I had learned how to use it fully and well before I’d finished the homepage design – but you’ll appreciate it.

The messaging was clear as I’d been working/ procrastinating on it for months after many conversations with friends, peers and clients, and through a lot of internal introspection.

I listened to my own advice I hammer home to clients all the time:

1. Niche down

2. Keep it simple

I have a tendency to want to offer the world and help people on all fronts and this time I looked back to what I have consistently been doing ALL throughout my career and business – seeing your potential and helping you to monetize it by getting paid to be YOU!

While recording my Freedom Plan audiobook I had two major realizations:

1. This book is full of gold nuggets that are damn useful (remember my previous knock to my confidence around the book launch time in October 2018…yeah it had the knock on effect that my book wasn’t good enough either).
2. It would work really well to also pull out Chapter 6 on How to Monetise You and turn it into a teaser episode on my podcast, as well as to repurpose it into a standalone audio.

I then went ahead and created my first new freebie (gift you give in return for a person’s email address and trust – AKA optin) in ages – and I’m damn proud of it.

It’s this audio I created accompanied by my brand new amazing step by step guide.

I emailed my community, some of which have been following my work since the beginning to share it with them and the response was awesome.

More importantly close friends and peers personally messaged me to say this was completely me and so on point and that I had truly found my sweetspot – the intersection between what you’re good or great at, what you love doing and what people will pay you for and that aligns with your purpose.

Ironic really given this is what I’ve been teaching in courses, my book, podcasts and interviews since…oh you know 2013!

From this I have gotten so much clarity on exactly how I want to help YOU get paid to be YOU and thrive in the future of work.

In fact, I tested my theory around this with a mini launch in June which went amazingly well and helped me appreciate that I was back on track, doing what I do best and how my mission was to help others turn their skills, knowledge and passions into multiple revenue streams.

You’ll see this rolling out in the coming weeks and months, and I hope you’ll like what you see and get to experience it as a result.

But first, let’s recap on the method I used to reinvent myself. Even if you can’t see the method in my madness, it’s all there:

• Get super honest with yourself when you feel you’re not aligning with your intuition or your energy.
• Throw in an epic failure or an event that makes you stop, reflect and take action – if you really want to create change!
• Reflect back on all the things you know you love, are great at and have been paid well for in the past and compare them to where you’re at now.
• Assess the situation and look at what you need to STOP doing and START doing. This may mean taking on a side hustle, starting a new business, taking on a few gigs that help you upskill and challenge you.
• Talk to good friends, peers and mentors to get an outside perspective too.
• Take definitive steps to be the architect of your own life and design it around what you really want out of life.

I hope there have been some key takeaways in here that you can learn from and apply to your own situation.

Never give up.

Always keep learning.

Trust your gut.

Listen to those who love and know you well.

Embrace the lessons failure teaches you.

Then pick yourself up and reinvent yourself!

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In Chapter 5 of The Freedom Plan book, I showed you nine key steps to take to monetize yourself using your sweet spot.

In this podcast, my next gift to you is Choosing the Right Revenue Streams for Financial Freedom which is the entire Chapter 6 of The Freedom Plan book.

The purpose of this chapter is to help you identify your best path to monetization.

If you want to succeed in making your Freedom Plan a reality, you have to make sure you structure your current or future revenue streams to serve your financial goals too.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this podcast episode:

• How Jasper Ribbers was able to earn a full time living from becoming an AirBnB Host and then expert
• How Nora Dunn travels the world while running her financial planning business
• How Paul and Sheryl Shard sails the world full-time while making money
• How The Denning's family of nine travels the world
• 
  

Want to be first to be notified on when I release the audiobook version? Get on the waitlist here!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Instagram has long been one of my favourite social media platforms - until it came to using it for business.

I had always found it a place I went to for inspiration, to keep up with my friends and peers and witness some beautiful photography.

Then over time the platform became increasingly promotional and showy and less about #nofilters and #reallife and as it did, I struggled to figure out how to use it authentically and effectively to gain new leads and clients for my business.

So when I first came across Elise Darma on Instagram, with her refreshing style, wonderful travel images and equally valuable Instagram musings, I thought 'This chick is doing it right'.

I continued to watch her journey, how she posted, what she posted and how she cleverly weaved in promotions to her blog content, courses and her webinar on teaching entrepreneurs how to use Instagram to grow their business.

Unlike so many other folks I was watching from the sidelines, Elise was actually teaching how to get leads and sales in a more personal and effective way. So I hired her for a personal Instagram strategy session and made some changes to my profile and things started to click.

During our session I learned, not only some Instagram strategies, but how much she loves being a digital nomad (like I was at the time) and how Instagram had allowed her to become the founder of a content marketing agency for e-commerce brands called Canupy.

While growing the agency, Elise has traveled to Bali, Hawaii, Australia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Spain, Portugal, the British Virgin Islands (and got to visit Necker Island while there).

Figuring that she was growing her clients Instagram accounts so successfully, she realized she could walk the talk and show others how to do it by growing her own personal brand @elisedarma

In less than a year she reached over 60,000 followers! What's more she founded a second business to help others achieve their own "travelpreneur" goals. Along the way he’s been featured for her Instagram expertise in publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Brit + Co, Elite Daily, Teachable and Later.

Today, Elise works one-on-one with clients so that their own businesses (and Instagrams) can thrive, and so they can build their own life of freedom and travel. You can see how aligned we are in our thinking, and what's even cooler is in our interview, she shared how she found me early on in her journey and how that impacted her....

She's the perfect example of how to get paid to be you, by figuring out your sweetspot and monetising your skills, knowledge and talents into multiple revenue streams.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How Elise went from 9-to-5 to a full-time entrepreneur
• Meaning behind her content marketing agency "Canupy"
• Why Elise hired a business coach
• Sales strategy to get paid for your course before you even create it
• Elise’s advice for marketing through Instagram
• How to make connections through Instagram Direct Messages
• Why it’s quality, not quantity that matters when it comes to followers

• Learn more about Elise over at EliseDarma.com
• InstagramGrowth Boss - Swipe the strategies Elise used to grow her clients’ accounts to over 250,000 cumulative Instagram followers and generate over $907,331.49 in tracked revenue to businesses (and counting!).
• InstagramGrowth Boss Masterclass - In this masterclass, you'll learn 3 ways to gain 1,000 Instagram followers in 30 Days without being an “Insta-Model" or spending hours in the app each day

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Debra Searle is a unique and inspiring individual. Debra first hit the headlines when she and her husband set out to row across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, her husband and rowing partner had to be rescued. Debra continued alone and rowed 3000 miles across the Atlantic. It should have taken them 6 weeks but, to achieve her goal, Debra ended up spending 3 ½ months at sea alone.

She also lead a group of women (which included me!) known as The Sisterhood to a new World Record for Dragon Boating across the English Channel. This particular adventure created huge media interest in the UK due to a rather famous teammate – Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge.

She achieved a first class honours degree, has launched four companies, won Gold World Championship medals for GB, presented over 40 programmes for the BBC, had two books published and become the youngest ever trustee of The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Her Majesty The Queen has recognised Debra on two occasions – in 2002 with an MBE and in 2014 with an MVO. She has spoken at over 1000 events across 38 countries.

This 2019 Debra will be making frequent trips to Hollywood as the movie telling the story of her Atlantic row is currently in development.

I am inspired and I hope you are too!

In this episode you’ll learn:

• Debra’s solo Atlantic crossing
• Her ‘choose your attitude’ philosophy
• Why storytelling matters
• How to charge what you're worth
• Tips on mastering your mindset and choosing your attitude
• How to use Debra's "how bad is it scale" to change your perspective

• Start telling yourself the stories that will help you to achieve your goals this year. Click here to download the guide
• Choose Your Attitude: Debra Searle at TEDxSalford
• DebraSearle.Com

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Jennifer Lachs is a former scientist turned freelance writer and the founder of Digital Nomad Girls, a community for location independent women around the world.

She has made it her mission to connect, inspire and empower other nomad girls and foster community online and offline through her virtual coworking community, the DNG Inner Circle, and mastermind retreats in Europe and beyond.

Yet her story is a beautiful collection of taking the path less chosen, taking some leaps at the right time and trusting her instinct. It's also a perfect example of how, when you're willing to do the work and understand who you are and what you offer, that you CAN get paid to be you, and help a ton of other people while you're at it.

Originally from Germany. Jennifer is tough to pin down these days, as she's taken over my role as the 'Suitcase Entrepreneur' with her own style! I've not met many people who put as much time, attention and energy into their community and clients as Jennifer, and it's the key reason she's developed a tribe of adoring fans and friends, as well as a successful business.

In this episode you’ll learn:

• How Jennifer went from scientist to digital nomad
• Her top tips for running a successful Facebook group
• The top 3 skills Jennifer gained from leading and valuing her 20K+ Facebook members
• How she took her skills and knowledge and created multiple revenue streams doing what she loves most 
• The importance of mindset to being successful in all areas of life

• DNG Inner Circle is the virtual coworking community that travels with you. DNG Inner Circle members get access to a virtual coworking sessions, monthly expert masterclasses, monthly goal setting, regular challenges and accountability. 
• Digital Nomad Girls is an online community of location independent women.
• Jennifer's Guest blog post on my site: Goodbye Loneliness: How to meet new friends as a Suitcase Entrepreneur

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I believe that every single person who has skills and knowledge, when combined with a love for what they do and know, can monetise all of this and get paid to be themselves.

And not just because that's exactly what I did 9 years ago when I started the Suitcase Entrepreneur blog....although that's certainly made me more bias!

I had no freaking idea that I would end up building a business from my blog by tapping into my sweetspot, the intersection of what you know, what you're good at and what you can get paid for.

Looking back to my childhood, school days and what I naturally enjoyed and was good at, through to my University days, jobs I landed, people I hung out with, activities I did and I realized that what I ended up building, was really an extension of all the things I LOVE to do.

Add in a ton of value for others and you have yourself a perfect platform from which to monetize your expertise (if you're willing to do the work, dig deep and commit to the journey of course)!

I became a 'Leading Learner' by being an avid student of business, travel and life, and then teaching and coaching others on how to come up to speed so they could go after their dreams too.

I shared my exact path, that I turned my humble blog into multiple revenue streams bringing in a quarter of a million US$ dollars per year over the space of 4 years, in Chapter 5 of The Freedom Plan book.

I'm giving this entire chapter away as a free episode of my UNTAPPED podcast!

Here's what you'll learn in this podcast episode:

• The exact way in which I built my revenue streams from scratch.
• What steps you can take to layer your revenue streams as you grow.
• Nine key steps to take to monetise yourself using your sweet spot.



Want to be first to be notified on when I release the audiobook version?

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