The Traveling Introvert

Shownotes:

If you’re a frequent flyer like me, you probably get asked how many miles you have by now every single time. As a matter of fact, if we were given a dollar every time someone tells us how much miles we’ve earned, we’d be able to afford a roundtrip ticket. So today, I’d like to debunk all the myths that people have not only about frequent travelers but also for airline miles!

Hello and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today is a question I get asked a lot, or assumed a lot, is well, you travel so much, you must have so many miles stacked up. And I think this is a case of people know that that's a thing, but people don't really know how it works and so that's what they say. And it generally works. Yes, of course you do get miles, but now, it's that much harder to get miles and it's not miles per miles you actually travel. So that's the first myth. A lot of people think that you get back in mythical miles currency, the amount of miles you actually travel per year. And that would be wonderful. Maybe.

But that is not the case. A lot of the times you will get, it's based on how much money you spend times maybe the miles or depending on the airline, how they do it. Things that don't get taken into consideration is the amount of money you pay for taxes, and when you buy a plane ticket, you don't realizes sometimes that there is a tax for leaving the country, a tax for entering a country, a TSA tax, an airport tax. There's all sorts of other little taxes that get put in, which might even make it more than half of your actual plane ticket price. So that's one thing. Then there's the fact that most of the time, how many miles you earn might be linked to the airline that you're with. Also might be linked to which credit card you might use.

In fact, it is better if you have a credit card, or you have to spend a certain amount of money with some airlines. Yes, you might have a case amount of air miles, but that doesn't get you status, and status is the important thing. Status is the thing that can get you access to lounges, can get you access to boarding first, can get you extra luggage allowance. These are things that are very helpful. But sometimes you can't get them if you don't have the credit card, 'cause you just can't spend the money, or -- here's the other thing -- if you work for a company and that company is buying your ticket, sometimes you don't have a choice of who you get to fly with and therefore you don't have a choice of where the miles go.

So just because someone is traveling a lot doesn't mean they're automatically racking up a bunch of miles. What if they're buying the cheapest tickets? And now, there are definitely tickets where you don't get miles. You're just lucky you get a seat. You might not even get luggage. You get hand luggage, not necessarily carry-on. It might just be a personal item and you have to pay extra for everything else. So, I always found it really interesting, oh, you must have racked up a bunch of miles. And I look at my miles and I'm like, I've got 12,000 miles. It's very interesting.

The other thing is okay, so I might have miles, but then how do I spend them? I have a friend right now, she says I have these miles, I've got them with Copper Airlines which, y'know, is fine. But she's looking and she's like, I wanna spend these miles but there's nowhere I can go that the miles will cover. And we've just had a conversation recently, and she's like, the most I can do is go from Mexico City to Panama City, one way. And it costs me far more money to take a one-way ticket back than it would just by return. So she can't use the miles. Some miles have expiration dates. It takes a lot of miles.

So, for example, some airlines definitely have sort of a 32,000 mile minimum for you to get a flight, one flight, somewhere, or 17,000 miles. And to get that 17,000 miles, you can't just...

Show notes:

When you’re a frequent traveler like me, you learn and experience a lot of new things not only about the place where you’re headed, but the whole trip in general. Of course, not all experiences will be wonderful but once you get over it, you’ll see that all your mishaps during that trip was kind of memorable as well.

For today’s episode, I’m going to share with you the few things that I learned like flying with a different airline, making my way through different places, and the kind of service you can get when dealing with the taxi drivers around the area. Enjoy!

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about the fact that I traveled for almost half the year last year. I was doing the math, I went and looked back at my TripIt to figure out how many trips I did and how many days I was traveling, and I realized that it was just under half the year I spent traveling, or not in my home base.

And so I want to talk about a couple of the things that I learnt last year while traveling for that amount of time. So one of the things I did last year, which I'd never done before, was crossing a land border. This was between Guatemala and Mexico. It was unexpected. Originally, I was supposed to fly but there was a volcano in Guatemala and some other things happened. And because of this, I ended up having to cross the border walking and with a Tuk Tuk and other methods. But I had to cross a land border. That was something I'd never done before and it was an interesting experience.

The other thing I learnt last year was it's okay to travel not with the airline of your choice, but it does make the travel a little bit more stressful, for me anyway, and a little less sure. So for example, when I travel with the airline I'm used to traveling, I know when to check in. I know how long the lines are gonna be. I know what I can get and what I won't get. When I'm traveling with a different airline, it's not as easy and not as autopiloted, so I have to make more decisions during the day.

The other things I learnt, which took me years, is ... So right now, as of today, Uber is not allowed in Vancouver. And the airport is kind of far away from the city. And so if you have an early morning flight, being able to get from your hotel to Vancouver Airport can be a real problem, because taxis are not considered to be reliable. So you can order one, but it might not turn up. So my way of working around this, and I can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier, is to look for a hotel that is close to the airport, but has their own shuttle to and from the airport, preferably a 24 hour shuttle to and from the airport, so I can stay at that hotel. Getting to and from downtown Vancouver is fairly easy because there's a very quick train, but just getting to the airport at 4AM in the morning, just make sure you use either a car service, which would cost you anywhere between 50 and 70 Canadian dollars, or an airport that has a 24 hour shuttle. So that was something that took me long enough to figure out.

Groupon. The other thing I figured out last year was that Groupon, USA specifically, only accepts US cards. So if you don't have a USA card or a friend that can buy the Groupon for you, you can't use Groupon specials. Which is interesting. Not good nor bad, but just sort of interesting.

The other thing that I learnt was Philly traffic is pretty bad. Didn't realize it at the time, but Philly isn't known necessarily for traffic, but to get from one place to another can take a really long time.

One of the other things I learnt was traveling around the holidays, I was in Nashville for the holidays and I had a particular Uber driver who on that day decided to berate people who were not celebrating that particular religious holiday. So that was a...

Shownotes:

What comes into your mind when you hear the words “digital nomad”? For some, it can be about the lavish lifestyle, the perks that you enjoy while working in different places. Because of this, a lot of people have come up with many misconceptions and expressed how they want to become one. Sure, you can. Anyone can. But the real question here is: are you ready to be one?

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about how being a digital nomad is not a job. The reason why I want to talk about this is because I see in a lot of Facebook groups, and a lot of questions on Reddit, and various other places, the main question, the most popular question that people ask is, "I want to become a digital nomad. How do I do it?" Like becoming a digital nomad is some kind of job, like I want to become an electrical engineer. How do I do it? I want to become an accountant. How do I do it? They don't equate. They are not the same thing. It's mainly because there seems to be some misrepresentation about digital nomads.

Another thing that's come up recently is digital nomads versus remote workers. I understand that people see photos, and hear things about digital nomad, which to some people might look like sitting on a beach with your laptop with pina colada. I'm not sure what you might be doing with that laptop and pina colada on a beach, but that's the impression that people get, and of course, that you get to travel. Still, it doesn't make it a job. There's a distinct difference.

When people ask, "I want to become a digital nomad," I think most of them they're like, "I like that lifestyle. I want that lifestyle. How do I get that lifestyle?" They don't understand the work that goes on behind the scenes because of the way social media is where we see a very curated slices of people's lives. Let's be honest, most of the time those slices, because they're carefully curated, only show the best side, and the things that are appealing because they have to be aspirational and inspirational. Not everyone like the beach. Having said that, some people are into mountains. The most popular images that seem to convert and get people interested are pictures of people on a beach. There is something about a beach that makes people want it. They [inaudible 00:02:25] get it, but that's the thing.

Now being a digital nomad means you have a job or you work for somebody where you do certain tasks. You might be a writer who happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a HR consultant that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a programmer that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be a coach that happens to be a digital nomad. You might be an accountant who happens to be a digital nomad, but something has to come before that digital nomad part. Instead of asking, "How can I become a digital nomad?" think about what it is you want to do with your life, your job, your career, and how you can make that job livable, how you can do that job from different locations, being location independent minus Wi-Fi. Think about that thing.

People come at it from the wrong direction. It's not about being a digital nomad. It's about doing a job that you enjoy and seeing how you can create that job or have that job in a nomadic way or in a way that is totally online, or in a way where you need to spend a certain amount of time online and the rest of it you can do offline. Once again, being a digital nomad is not a job. They're not the same thing.

When you're thinking about, "What is it I want to do?" think about the job, the kind of tasks you like doing, what you enjoy doing. Do you like to interact with people a lot? Do you not interact with people a lot? How is your energy? Are you tech-savvy? Do you really want to travel? If you do want to travel, how fast or slow do you want to travel? Also, there is no wrong or right way...

Show notes:

When you’re a frequent traveler like me, you learn and experience a lot of new things not only about the place where you’re headed, but the whole trip in general. Of course, not all experiences will be wonderful but once you get over it, you’ll see that all your mishaps during that trip was kind of memorable as well.

For today’s episode, I’m going to share with you the few things that I learned like flying with a different airline, making my way through different places, and the kind of service you can get when dealing with the taxi drivers around the area. Enjoy!

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about the fact that I traveled for almost half the year last year. I was doing the math, I went and looked back at my TripIt to figure out how many trips I did and how many days I was traveling, and I realized that it was just under half the year I spent traveling, or not in my home base.

And so I want to talk about a couple of the things that I learnt last year while traveling for that amount of time. So one of the things I did last year, which I'd never done before, was crossing a land border. This was between Guatemala and Mexico. It was unexpected. Originally, I was supposed to fly but there was a volcano in Guatemala and some other things happened. And because of this, I ended up having to cross the border walking and with a Tuk Tuk and other methods. But I had to cross a land border. That was something I'd never done before and it was an interesting experience.

The other thing I learnt last year was it's okay to travel not with the airline of your choice, but it does make the travel a little bit more stressful, for me anyway, and a little less sure. So for example, when I travel with the airline I'm used to traveling, I know when to check in. I know how long the lines are gonna be. I know what I can get and what I won't get. When I'm traveling with a different airline, it's not as easy and not as autopiloted, so I have to make more decisions during the day.

The other things I learnt, which took me years, is ... So right now, as of today, Uber is not allowed in Vancouver. And the airport is kind of far away from the city. And so if you have an early morning flight, being able to get from your hotel to Vancouver Airport can be a real problem, because taxis are not considered to be reliable. So you can order one, but it might not turn up. So my way of working around this, and I can't believe I didn't figure this out earlier, is to look for a hotel that is close to the airport, but has their own shuttle to and from the airport, preferably a 24 hour shuttle to and from the airport, so I can stay at that hotel. Getting to and from downtown Vancouver is fairly easy because there's a very quick train, but just getting to the airport at 4AM in the morning, just make sure you use either a car service, which would cost you anywhere between 50 and 70 Canadian dollars, or an airport that has a 24 hour shuttle. So that was something that took me long enough to figure out.

Groupon. The other thing I figured out last year was that Groupon, USA specifically, only accepts US cards. So if you don't have a USA card or a friend that can buy the Groupon for you, you can't use Groupon specials. Which is interesting. Not good nor bad, but just sort of interesting.

The other thing that I learnt was Philly traffic is pretty bad. Didn't realize it at the time, but Philly isn't known necessarily for traffic, but to get from one place to another can take a really long time.

One of the other things I learnt was traveling around the holidays, I was in Nashville for the holidays and I had a particular Uber driver who on that day decided to berate people who were not celebrating that particular religious holiday. So that was a...

Show Notes:

There is a saying that goes, “You are what you attract.” People might think it only applies to relationships, but surprisingly, it is also applicable to businesses.

If you want to have an amazing client, then you need to have the same energy as that client. You need to work on yourself as much as you work on your business. You need to achieve balance in your personal and work life for you to be an effective entrepreneur or an effective coach.

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk about being your own worst client. Imagine that you had a coaching client who consistently failed to complete their tasks on every week, or every month. Or, every time that you talked to them they couldn't find the time to get their opt-in page completed, or they were too busy to write the next chapter of their book. They were basically just working too hard and completely forgot to put together a webinar, or a presentation, or something really important.

It wouldn't take too long before you sat them down and had a serious talk about the future of your coaching relationship and their business. Coaching a client such as that is frustrating, and it's also a waste of both of your times. So, why is it that so many people continue to accept these and other excuses for themselves? Why is it that you might have a lack of business developmental growth which will allow you to continue and do better, even when you know it's important that these tasks, for the future for your growth, why do you still make excuses to not do them?

It doesn't make any sense, and I know you might think I'm being hard or weird, but all entrepreneurs struggle with this same issue. We all put our clients, our family, our friends, and even the neighbor we barely know, before ourselves. And sometimes it's even worse for introverts, and especially in this day and age where we're always on, or available 24/7, or want to be responsive in case something else happens, or our client goes to somebody else. It's really hard, but you need to think about this. I'm giving you permission right now to stop doing that.

You need to treat yourself like your VIP client, you need to put yourself, your needs, your introvert balance and your business growth ahead of your clients, because by doing that, and by learning how to grow your business you can then help your clients do that. You'll be able to reach a larger audience, help more people, and achieve the goals you set for yourself. So you need to put your business growth and your introvert balance ahead of everything else.

The simplest way to do that is make appointments with yourself. I started doing this on my calendar, you know, that hour or two you have free on Thursday afternoon, make sure it's free. Make sure you can't have a client call booked in that spot, book it for yourself. What I've had to do recently is put in blocks of time, one or two hours a day where it is just work on my business not in my business. Put it in your calendar, make it a funky color, make it stand out, but it has to come first and you need to treat it as an unbreakable appointment, just as you would with an appointment with a client, or a doctor, or somebody else. You need to set those barriers as well.

And, spend the time working on things that are important to the continued growth of your business. It could be, develop a new coaching program, or develop a new product, write a chapter in your upcoming book, write emails for your autoresponders, reach out to partners, think about a summit that you want to do. Just get everything in line. Maybe it could be, just get your acuity up and running, maybe you've had it up but you need to tweak it, or make sure that the emails that go out to your clients are fully understandable. In short, do the things you tell your clients to do, you...

Show Notes:

When we have a lot of things on our plate, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the volume of our workload. For people who are able to manage their time wisely, it will never be a problem. If you’ve just begun your career, you can get lost along the way pretty easily and that might even lead to procrastination.

And of course, we don’t want our time to go to waste! So today, I’m going to share with you some tips on how you can build your own system to effectively manage your workload and documents. Once you’ve successfully done everything, you’ll notice how easier your career has become and that you also get to spend some time on yourself.

Hello, and welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today, I would love to talk to you about some solutions for de-stressing your business that you can do right now.

So, what if you could say, around an hour a day starting tomorrow, that's five hours per week, or more than half a day off? Imagine closing up shop at 11:00 AM every Friday without worrying about the stuff that didn't get done, or just stop working. Close the computer and go and have a nice Friday afternoon. Well, you can do that when you put these solutions in place, and you can start this week.

So, the first thing I wanna talk about is proper project management. If you're still managing your team with email and Skype messages, stop it. Stop it right now. It's not great. We all know that emails turn into to-do lists and Skype is unreliable to say the least. Things get lost. Messages are forgotten or never received and balls have dropped. Not to mention the time you spend shifting through the list of emails and searching for that one piece of information you need.

I highly, highly recommend that you sign up for project management assistant. You can start with Clickup, Asana, Trello, start putting all your projects in one place. You'll have one place for all the tasks that are all outstanding, ready-to-do, then you'll be able to tell at a glance what needs your immediate attention and what needs tweaking. Having one central location for everything is super important.

Pick one that's right for you, you'll often have free sort of things that you could do, free months trials what have you. The first one you find might not be the best one for you, there are so many out there, but there's the top ones, there are Notion, Asana, Clickup, and Trello, oh, and Basecamp. Pick one, and put everything in there. Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything, have it in this one central place.

Then there's proper documentation. Do you find yourself sort of reinventing the wheel every time you have to record? For example, a podcast, or a video or write a blog, or get pins for your Pinterest, or Instagram. Take five minutes and document the steps, and then the next time you have to do it, or better yet, when you have to hand it off to somebody else, you'll be able to get it done quickly and figure out what needs to happen and there will be fewer mistakes. So, there'll be a checklist and the work will get done.

Proper documentation, that's my thing right now for a couple months ago, what I did was, my thing was document everything, and so, no matter what it was that I did whether it was for a client or for myself, I would document the steps that I took. And so, that documentation is there if I ever have to hand it off or if I forget or something happens, then I can be like, "Here's the documentation." And it's just super, super helpful. And when you have to look back at something, or if you forgot something or something changed or you drop something and then come back to it a year later, you'll have that documentation.

The next thing I'd like to talk about is time blocking. This is super important. Get out your calendar and start

One of the situations that introverts struggle with is the introduction. Based on experience, it can be pretty awkward to tell people about yourself and what you do for a living, especially if you are meeting them for the very first time. Can you just imagine saying things like, “Ah… I see. So...”? It just makes you want to dash to the exit!

Keeping up with the conversation is another thing that most of us have an issue with, so today, I’d like to hit two birds in one stone - I’ll be talking about how you can introduce yourself in the most natural way and how you can keep the conversation going to make new friends at this social event.

Hello. And welcome to the Traveling Introvert. Today I want to talk to you about networking events. And not just the whole thing because there's a lot I could talk about with networking events. But specifically I want to talk about how to introduce yourself at a networking event. And the reason I want to talk about this is because it's something that I find a lot of my clients struggle with. They might have multiple things that they're interested in, or they are looking for a new job, so they don't want to introduce themselves as X because really they're looking for job Y. The other thing that happens is that people don't want to brag. They don't want to misconstrue themselves. They don't want to be seen as, oh yes, I'm this and I work for such and such because they don't want to be put into a category.

I've found a different way of introducing myself that I find has worked and other people have used this as well. So this is feedback I've got from other people. Instead of saying, "Hi. I'm Jane, and I'm an accountant." And then peoples' next question normally is "Oh. So who do you work for?" And if you don't work for a company that people have heard of, they then don't know what to ask next. And I have this problem. If I say, "Oh, I'm a career coach for introverts." Most people have no idea what to say next. They are like, "Oh, so you've come out of your introvert shell." Or the conversation literally just dies. It's not exciting. It's not sexy. People just don't know what to say to that, unless they're an introvert. Then they're super interested.

I've come to say instead that I help introverted women achieve success in their career and their business because this helps lead to other questions. People will then ask you, "Oh, well, what does that entail?" Or "How do you do that? Is all your work virtual? Is that what you're doing here now?" It naturally leads to more questions where you can then maybe talk about a client. So I would say, "Oh I helped X client do this and this and this, and now they work for this company." Or "Now they have their own business." Or "Now they do sales without pressure." Or whatever it might be. But if you get a person who's interested, you can be like "Okay, so what is your top problem?" And they will tell you their problem, and you can say "I would solve it by doing this, this, and this."

It shows your problem solving skills and puts you in a light of oh, you can help do this, that, and the other. It gives a very practical example of what you do without you saying, "I'm an accountant." There's so many different types of accountants. There are forensic accountants, there's small business accountants, there are corporate accountants. Saying accountant isn't enough. So if you could say, "Oh. Well I help businesses or I help my business save money on their bottom line." Then someone's like "Oh, well how do you do that?" Because you do this, this, this, and this. It helps guide the conversation better than just saying "Hey. I do this, and this is all that you need to know about me."

That's what I wanted to share. Think about what you've done or how you help people, how you serve people. And use this as your introduction when someone

Show Notes:

No one is ever a pro right in the beginning. All of us have to start somewhere, so don’t feel pressured to be a beginner in the industry that you want to pursue, because there are a lot of ways to learn and get help for ourselves – just like mentoring!

For this episode, I’d like to talk about one of the topics that I value the most – mentoring in general, finding a suitable mentor to work with, growing your relationship with them, and reciprocating their efforts. Not only that you’ll have an honest and reliable opinion on your decisions, but your friend list will definitely grow as well!

Transcript:

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert! Today, I’m going to talk about mentoring. I think mentoring is something that is very important and often overlooked when people are out thinking about their careers. You are in charge of your own career, and as part of that, you should have a plan. While it’s an idea of where you want to go, and if not getting outside your views and help, and mentors can help you in while doing that. While beefing up your career skills, mentoring is proven to be essential for your career success. Several mentors to utilize range from CEOs to CMOs to college professionals. There’s no one set thing that a mentor should be as far as job title is concerned. But these people are instrumental to your career growth and success. They will offer their time, care, and commitment to improving your skills. Great mentors have the knowledge and experience to guide you, your men, as a mentee. Mentors are valuable because they guide you on your career path whether you are an experienced professional or recent college grad, mentors are a valuable asset in your career toolkit.

And how do you get started with creating a relationship with your mentor? Well, you should determine your mentorship goals before you seek out a mentor. [Right now], all your expectations and the role that you would like to mentor to play in your life. Do you want a mentor who can help you with installing network attempts? Or would you like a mentor who can assist you in learning more about a particular industry? Or do you want someone who can provide guidance on how to be a successful entrepreneur? There is a specific experience or skills in your career that might need further improvement. It’s crucial to determine your set of objectives and goals because this is what you and your mentor should be achieving together.Then you have to recognize what is a good mentor. While trying to discover a good mentor, you may look for someone that can aid your personal growth, but in addition, you need to find someone who’s truly brilliant and has found success in many areas. The most obvious mentor candidates are your current or former bosses, colleague, or college professors because you already have a good relationship with them and they are leaders that can help you beef up your career skills in almost any field of work.

During the entire process, however, bear in mind you are not limited to a single mentor. You can choose to have a mentor for each stage of your career or different areas of your career. There are multiple mentors who will specialize in different areas, so just think about that. Don’t feel you just have to have one mentor, and then like how do you request the mentorship? So, it’s easy to approach a mentor candidate if you’ve known the person for a while and have a pre-existing relationship with them. You can easily ask them for a meeting at a coffee shop or an office environment, so that’s okay. If it’s someone that you don’t know, sending out an email or connecting with them on LinkedIn is the first step. And then, showing interest in what they do and then proceeding from there. Communicate all of your career goals and identify some of...

Show notes

Communication is one of the most important recipes for a successful business. As an introvert, it is never easy to deal with it, especially if you’ve just come out of your comfort zone. However, if you really want to be successful in your job, you need to learn how to understand your colleagues and business partners and be able to express yourself through an effective communication style.

For this episode, I’d like to give you the four communication categories often used in the business field. Aside from being comfortable, knowing which one of styles is the best for you will help you learn what kind of people you’re best paired with!

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to The Traveling Introvert. Today we’re going to talk about, do you know your boss’s communication style and why this is important. Closely tied with our personality type, your communication style will drive many elements of your career and business, and just relationships in general. How you choose business partners, who you hire, people you work with, and the programs you create. Even marketing materials or like your resume and CV. Depending on who you speak to, communication styles may have many names but regardless of the titles, they all fall into four broad categories.

One of those is analytical. You want numbers and facts to base your decisions on, not emotions or feelings. Personal communicators make you a little bit crazy. And so knowing, think about people you know, and think about if they are those types of people. If they’re analytical and they want numbers and facts, but you’re giving them warm and fuzzies, you’re not giving them what they want or they expect and therefore they might feel that you can’t communicate well. And so you might need to adjust if your boss is an analytical boss and they want numbers and facts, you should give them numbers and facts. It’s very important to think about these things.

And then, the second type of communication style is intuitive. These people see the big picture and often only want to know the outcome, not the details of how to get there. And so for them, speaking to someone who’s a functional communicator makes them lose interest really fast. I’ve definitely worked with clients that are very, very big picture. I just, just get it done, whatever needs to happen, just get it done. But my big, glorious picture has to work. And so again, if your boss is a big picture person, or just someone you work with is a big picture person, you might need to adjust the way you communicate with them to deal with that and to compliment that. It might not be your personal communication style but if you want to move things forward and get things done, you need to communicate with people in a star that they recognize and appreciate.

Then, the third type is the functional. They prefer step-by-step plans and outlines. No detail is too small to be held up to endless examination consideration, and so they’re a little different from analytical and that it does tend to be a blur in the lines between those. But they want step-by-step, so they’re the kind of people that will want checklists and workflows, and that sort of a thing, and they’ll go over it and see how it could be tweaked and how could be made better. So again, when you’re communicating with these types of people, just, just think about that.

And the last one out of the four is personal. They value emotional connections and build them easily by recognizing not only how people think but how they feel. They probably have a very high EQ. And those type of people need to be communicated to it in a certain way as well. So just think about that.

Think about your communication method. Are...

Show Notes:

Many people dream of having their own business. It may seem easy from another perspective, but when you’re in the shoes of a business owner, you might realize that it’s not always rainbows and sunshine.

For today’s episode, I want to make a few points on the difference of being self-employed and being a business owner, and their similarities. Moreover, I also want to introduce you to the idea of automation and outsourcing to help you continue living the life you’ve always dreamed of even when you have a business to run.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to The Traveling Introvert! Today, I want to talk about building a business and not another job. So many people dream of working for themselves, being their own boss, having their freedom, to take on, projects they love, and they have this dream – and it’s great.

It’s great to have dreams, but what they don’t realize though is that there’s a huge difference between building a business and being self-employed. Business owners scale their income. They strategize, they think about certain things. Self-employed people traded dollars for hours. Business owners leverage the skills and talents of others as well as themselves Self-employed people rely only on their own skills. I’m not saying this for you to be discouraged. It’s just that every business started out self-employed, they just don’t stay there. And so I want to talk about things that can help you sort of build a sustainable business and not just another job. And these are things that I’ve learned over time. Don’t try and do it all yourself. It took me a really long time to learn this. To build a sustainable business requires that you leverage the talents and time of others as well as yourself. It might not see, it might seem cost-effective to do everything yourself especially at the start because you might have more time, money, and it’s but it is a path to burnout and stress, and that’s not why you’re doing this. Separate tasks into being things that you love and you are especially suited for that you’re good at and you enjoy doing, and things that you dislike and you are not good at. Separate those tasks, then make a solid plan to get those that you’re not so good at off your list.

Either automate it, outsource it, whatever it is that you have to do, or cut it out from your business altogether. Do what you needed. If you feel like you can’t afford to outsource it all right now, start with the one thing that you tend to procrastinate the most on, even if it’s just for three hours a month. It will make a difference. The other thing you need to remember is don’t allow yourself to work all the time. The trouble with being your own boss and technology these days is that when you work at home, is that you live at work, and that means there’s no clear line about when your work day is and your home day is because there’s always work to do. Always. And it’s easy to find yourself working every available moment because you need to make this work, or because if you don’t, stuff will happen or you’ll miss something, or you’ll miss an opportunity. And normally, this is to the detriment of maybe at your health, your sanity, and maybe other relationships.

So, you can avoid this by setting and maintaining clear work hours or office hours, having a room specifically for your work so you can close it when you’re done, and scheduling time and your calendar for family and other activities as well. Please do this, take time for yourself, and my last sort of thing about getting a business and not a job. Though this is, by any means, not the last thing ever because there are so many things that go with this, but vacations and downtime are very important. Don’t create a business that requires you to be in the