Ready for Anything with Dustin Lien

Perseverance. Adaptation. Pain. Though we think we would enjoy a life of pure ease and simplicity, most of us would admit we like the feeling of overcoming new challenges. Whether in business, day-to-day difficulties, or emotional struggles—we know we come out the other side stronger than ever. Most of human growth comes from challenges we didn't even see coming.

Noel Arevalo is owns an online fitness coaching business, and recently stepped into physical products as well.

In this episode, Noel and I discuss:

• How to tackle new challenges head on

• Noel's process of creating content for IG, YouTube, and more

• How social media actually translates into business revenue

• Noel's recent difficulties with manufacturing her new product

• +more :)

Episode links and resources:

• NoelArevaloFitness.com

• IG: @NoelArevalo_

• YouTube: Noel Arevalo Fitness

• Supplement for anxiety and stress (use code UNLEASHED for 30% off)

• Hear Noel speak at Coda Con 2019 (use code NOEL)

In this episode, I chat with my good friend Phil Hoprasatsuk, founder of Modern Proper Lifestyle—a mentorship program for young men looking to grow in character, leadership, and purpose.

Last episode (part 1 of this series), we talked about the 8 Do's and Don't of Coming up with a Consumer Product Idea. In this episode, we're covering parts 2, 3, and 4 to bring this series home strong!

We're talking about how to validate your product idea before spending a bunch of time, energy, and money, how to choose the right manufacturer (and some things to avoid), and finally how to pre-promote and pre-sell your product ahead of time to help with production cost.

Today's topic is on the do's and don'ts of coming up with a great a consumer product idea.

The past few months, I've been working tirelessly on launching CODA Life, and it's finally launching! The process has been challenging and fascinating, and while it's fresh in my brain, I wanted to record a series of podcast episodes explaining the process of starting this business and making the product, and some of the mistakes I made, along with some savvy tips as well.

Have you ever wanted to start a digital marketing agency? It's an alluring goal that a lot of people strive for, and today's guest breaks down how he started and grew his agency organically, with next to no advertising, and leaning heavily on great results and company culture.

This episode's guest is my good friend, and CEO of Leadhub, Aaron Watters. We talk about all the behind the scenes of running an agency, including establishing company culture, cultivating self awareness, and scaling.

Some of the topics discussed

• How I became Aaron's first intern
• Balancing out a team by knowing your own limits (and how to discover those)
• Using Culture Index to learn your strengths and make smart hires (here are my results)
• Building a company synergistically rather than hiring people just like you
• How Lead Hub started and grew to 17 people
• Reinvesting in yourself as an entrepreneur, and what percentage to invest
• Looking at your business through a calculated lens to shape your decisions
• Creating and managing company culture
• Scaling an agency
• Conservative, organic growth
• Using self awareness to scale an agency

References & Mentions

@aaronwatters on Twitter @leadhub on twitter and instagram Leadhub.net [email protected]

If you have a creative passion, if you're a photographer or videographer, or if you're interested in building a career out of your creative pursuit, you're going to enjoy this interview.

Today's guest is photographer and videographer Emma Vo. I met Emma through some mutual friends and mutual clients we worked with, and I swear over the last 12 months, every time I open Instagram I see her name tagged as the photographer for a fitness model or influencer, or I see someone praising her work.

So I wanted to interview her to learn how she got started as a successful creative in LA, and how she's effectively networked and expanded her client base so rapidly.

Some of the topics discussed

• How Emma got started with photography and videography

• Her journey of moving to Los Angeles and working up from the bottom

• The process of getting clients and opportunities

• Doing work you're not crazy about in order to eventually be able to do work you are passionate about

• Discovering what you love to do and what you don't

• Word of mouth marketing, referrals, and doing a great job with client work

References & Mentions

@3muh on Instagram

Capturedby3muh.com

Humans complicate things.

We just do. Whether we're trying to grow a business, improve our health, or be more productive at work, we default into trying to find complex details we think we must be missing, when in reality we usually are just neglecting the small things we know we need to get better at.

Queue Brian DeCosta.

Brian is a former corporate accountant turned online fitness coach, and he helps busy people get in great shape and great health. What's unique about this interview is that not only is Brian in amazing shape (seriously go look him up on instagram, it's crazy), but he's also a successful entrepreneur, so we got to cover topics about health and fitness and also about growing an online business from scratch. His philosophy about both of those things is to keep it simple.

Topics Discussed:

• Daily productivity - Getting ahead of the day by starting your day off the right way mentally and physically

• Easy tips to keep high energy throughout the day

• The 20% of things to do to get your health and fitness 80% of the way there

• Are you focusing on the important things in your business, or just feeding your ego?

• "Results show up over time."

• Offering services with integrity vs. selling to people you know you can't really serve well

• Using social media to get more clients for your business

• Speaking to your target audience vs. trying to appeal to everyone

Mentions and Resources:

Brian's Private FB group - The Online Fitness Coaching Incubator

Brian's Instagram

Brian's YouTube Channel

Today's guest is Hayden Fulstone, a co-founder of the massively popular brand, Liquid I.V. It's a consumer beverage company with their hydration multiplier being sold now in of 20,000 stores. I'm excited about this episode because it's really the first one that dives deep into a lot of the processes involved in launching a physical product startup. We talk about getting investors, testing the product, going from idea to creation, and some marketing and sales tactics. We also talk about Liquid I.V.'s giveback mission and how they've baked that into their company from the start and are on track to donate over 300,000 servings of their hydration multiplier worldwide this year.

Plus, Hayden's a cool dude, and super smart.

Topics Discussed

• How to start a physical product company
• Iterating on versions of your product
• Creating a consumer beverage
• Using and expanding your network to get startup funding
• Balancing humility and confidence
• Getting over fear of asking for investments
• Marketing and sales tactics for scaling
• Liquid IV's Giveback Mission, and how they're helping combat dehydration

Resources and Mentions

• Follow @liquidIV on Instagram
• Liquid-IV.com
• Follow @Hayden_Fulstone on Instagram
• [email protected] - He's open to follow-up questions via email

Doesn't it sound nice to work a maximum of 25 hours/week? Or, what about adding more time and fun to your schedule without sacrificing revenue?

My friend Selina has it figured out :)

What do you do when you want to start a service business, you know you have a marketable skill, but you have no idea how to start? Or, what do you do when you have a healthy 6-figure business, but you feel like everything is chaotic with little to no structure, and you have almost no time for yourself because you feel like if you stop at any moment, your business will collapse?

If either of those are questions you find yourself wanting answers to, listen to this episode.

Selina is a lifestyle business designer who consults successful entrepreneurs on how to scale their business, build outsourced teams, and free up their time so they can have it all—high profits and life quality.

She's wildly entertaining to talk to and has a fun-loving and wickedly smart personality, and in this episode, she brings the heat.

Topics Discussed

• How Selina started her business with just one email (bonus: she reads us the exact email)
• The generosity in sharing what you know with the world
• Getting past the fear of sharing your knowledge
• How to not become a robot
• Getting your identity from the right sources to feel empowered
• Playing small versus humility
• The cyclical nature of life and business
• The stages of business growth
• Using the pomodoro technique for more focused work
• How Selina works only 25 hours/wk
• Self discovery and finding purpose
• Learning to turn bad situations into good outcomes

Resources and Mentions

• Selina's website: TheLifeDesignCo.com
• Book recommendation: Predictable Success by Les McKeown
• Book recommendation: The Synergist by Les McKeown

I just finished moving from the west side of LA to Hollywood, which for context, is only about a 20 minute drive away, but the culture is pretty different. One of the biggest changes for me, is the people I used to see on a weekly basis, I'm not going to be seeing some of them as often anymore.

That got me thinking about how to make time for certain people, and even what new people I now have more quick access to that I didn't before. I'm a big believer in being deliberate about the people you spend time with if you want to have better relationships and more success as an entrepreneur.

And it's one of the most simple concepts, though not always easy to control. So for this episode, I'm going to deliver a slightly modified version of a chapter from my book, It's Time to Start. The chapter is called "Surround Yourself with the Right People"

Topics Discussed

• The 4 types of people to surround yourself with as an entrepreneur
• Identifying entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs
• Paying for a mentor
• Getting virtual mentors for free