February 2019 Archives

Episode 32: Sacred Time + The 100/50/10 System

As a young mom in my 20’s with three small children, nap time was terrifying.

Everyday, I would tuck my 4 year old, 2 year old, and 1 year old into their beds, shut the door, and panic.

I had 90 minutes a day to myself. 90 minutes. The pressure I felt trying to figure out what to do with that 90 minutes is where I birthed the concept of Sacred Time and The 100 System.

Like every other mom on planet Earth, my to-do list had items for days. 90 minutes was barely enough time to get to three things done on the list, never mind the 100 other things below it. As I calculated how many nap times I needed to finish the whole list, I would dissolve into tears of hopelessness.

This is a true story. This was my life for a decade.

There were days when I would choose items on my list that, after getting done, would make me feel amazing and spark more productivity. There were other days however when what I’d choose would leave me feeling scattered and unfulfilled.

Eventually, I figured out HOW to choose what to do on my to-do list, and this became a massive aha! for me.

Let’s say my list looked like this:

Pay bills
Answer emails
Clean desk
Workout
Do laundry
Make grocery list
Clean out fridge
Plan Evan’s birthday party
Call my sister
Bake cupcakes for school party
Research vacation spots
Write a blog post
Finish book for book club
Record video for blog post

I scrutinized every single item and asked myself this one question:

“Can I do this with my kids underfoot or do they HAVE to be asleep?”

What was I really asking?

I wanted to know if the task on my list required 100% of my brain power and concentration, or if it was possible to work it into a part of the day where I had the kids.

The reality is that for that particular day’s list, the ONLY things that I could not do with my kids underfoot were:

Pay bills
Write a blog post
Record video for blog post

All of those either required a quiet house or enough concentration that trying to do them with kids would end in disaster.

Those became my 100 tasks. Things that truly require 100% of my brain power. Everything else, I tried to figure out how I could work them into other parts of my day.

That 90 minutes became the MOST sacred time of the day for me, everyday, and so I vowed that I would ONLY do 100 tasks in my sacred time, no matter what, no exceptions.

This took a lot of practice, because even though it sounds really easy in theory, actually living it is a whole different game.

Let’s talk about what I naturally “wanted” to do (and as you observe yourself, you’ll see similar patterns I’m sure).

When the kids would go to sleep, I wanted to tidy up my space. It was almost a compulsion. It seemed so harmless to pick up the toys, throw a load of laundry in, clean off my desk, and THEN start writing a blog post. However, this meant I was allowing three extra non 100 tasks into my sacred time.

Not only did it eat into the 90 minutes, it also led to other mini-tasks I saw along the way. Every single step I took in my house was like allowing a room full of possible new distractions into my 90 minutes.

At first, I tried to “sneak” in non-100 tasks into my sacred time because I rationalized that it made me “feel” good to get those things done. I couldn’t focus until they were done. But it never failed, I would lose momentum and time, and never get my 100 tasks done in my sacred time.

Eventually, I began the practice of ignoring my instincts and compulsions. It was REALLY hard. So hard in fact I started adding in buffer time BEFORE my sacred time, just to handle these silly little games I would play with myself so that I wouldn’t use my sacred time for anything other than 100 tasks.

As the kids got older, I earned more “sacred time” slots in my day, and continued to earmark the 100 tasks to those time periods and everything else went anywhere it could fit. My business grew, my to-do lists grew, and the concept of sacred time and 100 tasks only became MORE important!

What we’re going to do next is work into your life and business two new systems:

The 100/50/10 Task System
Sacred Time

100/50/10 Task System

The first exercise for you is to identify what 100 tasks TRULY ARE.

This is REALLY important to understand. The 100, 50, 10 system is to label tasks according to brain power, not by how much time it takes, how important it is, how much you love it, etc. We’re categorizing the task based on how much brain power it takes to do.

Make a list of the most common things you do in life, and we’re going to label them as 100, 50, or 10.

100 means it takes 100% of your brain power and concentration.
50 means that it takes concentration, but it’s not so difficult that you can’t do it while other things are happening around you.
10 tasks are just mindless type tasks that are a part of life but can almost be rote.

Some of you who struggle with focus are going to be tempted to identify everything as a 100. Here’s a way to look at it….

When you are categorizing the task, if someone interrupted you, could you get back at it after the interruption was done? If so, then it’s a 50 task.

An example would be working out. If you’re lifting weights and a kid comes into the room and asks where the cereal is, you can answer and go back to working out.

If that kid interrupts a podcast interview or a book writing session, regaining concentration is a lot harder. Those would be 100 tasks.

10 tasks are either things that are rote (like showering and driving), or they are wasted time tasks like waiting in line.

Here are how I would categorize some life & business tasks…

100 Tasks

Writing a book 100
Recording video 100
Building curriculum 100
Podcast interviews 100
Executive meetings 100
Coaching 100
Teaching 100
Selling 100
Livestreaming 100
Training 100
Tech 100
Creative design 100
Date night 100
Sex 100
Heart to heart talk 100

50 Tasks

Emails 50
Planning 50
PM 50
Meetings 50
Cleaning 50
Working out 50
Shopping/errands 50
Cooking 50

10 Tasks

Social media 10
Organizing files 10
Watercooler talk 10
Netflix 10
Showering 10
Driving 10
Waiting in line 10

100 tasks are usually the things that allow creativity to birth new products, services, ideas, etc. They are the hardest things to do, require the most brain power, and get snuffed out constantly by everyday 50 and 10 tasks. Once you have a general idea of all the tasks in your average day, and how to label them, the next exercise is to find and capture Sacred Time.

The Sacred Time Exercise

Some of you reading this might be thinking one of the following things…

Finding Sacred Time is so easy and not rocket science, not sure why you’re making a big deal of this
I am a mom of young kids and have NO sacred time so I’m screwed

Please stick with me! I’ve implemented this system effectively with people who’ve thought exactly the same things, and I promise if you really work at this, it will change your whole life.

The first step to implementing this into your life is to simply identify your sacred time slots.

Take an average 24 hour work day, subtract the time you’re sleeping, and circle the slots that qualify as sacred time.

For the purposes of this exercise, we’re going to identify sacred time as – The Time You Have In Your Day That You Are Absolutely In Control Of. You Can 100% Dictate How You Spend That Time.

This means your kids are asleep or tended to by a nanny or parent, you’ve got an assistant or someone who can answer phone calls and emails, you have the power to ignore notifications and dings from your phone, you don’t have animals begging for you to take them for a walk, or you have a door to your office to shut out co-workers and interruptions.

11:00pm -7:00am SLEEP
7:00am -8:00am Kids off to school
8:00am – 12:00pm Sacred Time
12:00pm – 2:00pm Sacred Time
2:00pm – 5:00pm Half Time
5:00pm – 8:00pm Kids home & dinner
8:00pm – 11:00pm Half Time

You’ll notice on this list, I identified a few things as Half time. That’s because while I do have control of those time periods in theory, I don’t have total control. There are other people around that might need me, and so I wouldn’t truly classify it as sacred time.

Half time is time you control but not fully.

I also know that my brain is usually not as perky during those times, so it would be mislabeling them as sacred time because I can’t truly get 100 tasks done in those slots (which is the ultimate goal of these two exercises).

The two spots that say KIDS, I would label as Busy Time. That means most of my energy is taken up with the logistics of parenting, and there is very little brain power left for creative thinking or my business. So an average day really looks like this….

11:00pm -7:00am SLEEP
7:00am -8:00am Busy Time
8:00am – 12:00pm Sacred Time (for 100 tasks)
12:00pm – 2:00pm Sacred Time (for 100 tasks)
2:00pm – 5:00pm Half Time
5:00pm – 8:00pm Busy Time
8:00pm – 11:00pm Half Time

Your first job is to simply identify your sacred time slots.

Some of you might do this exercise and it looks like this:

11:00pm -7:00am SLEEP (maybe, but baby wakes up)
7:00am -8:00am Kids wake up
8:00am – 12:00pm Babycare
12:00pm – 2:00pm Babycare
2:00pm – 5:00pm Big kids come home
5:00pm – 8:00pm Dinner & Bedtime
8:00pm – 11:00pm I’m dead

If you have NONE (this is mostly a problem for stay-at-home moms trying to run a business), this means you need to rearrange your life a little bit.

It may mean waking up super early and NOT using that time for something like working out (which is not a 100 task).
It may mean hiring a nanny for a few hours a day.
It may mean implementing nap/quiet time in the afternoons.
It may mean asking your husband to take over the dinner routine one or two days a week.

Ultimately, having NO sacred time in your life on a daily basis is a quality of life problem. Everyone should have some – somewhere. The question you need to ask yourself is “How can I get at least 90 minutes of Sacred Time in my life, everyday?”

Others of you will do this exercise and it’ll be like this:

11:00pm -7:00am SLEEP
7:00am – 11:00pm Sacred Time

You don’t have kids, an easy going spouse (or none), and your whole day, everyday, is yours. I promise you while the mothers reading this book are completely annoyed at you for having 16 hours a day of Sacred Time, the reality is most of you don’t have much actual sacred time because all your time has lost its sacredness because it’s abundant.

That’s one of the features of sacred time. It’s scarce. It’s sacred. It’s from heaven for Pete’s Sake! When you have everyday, all day to yourself, you are much more likely to waste time because you think, “Well I’ll just do it later.” Because later has more sacred time anyway.

Both extremes are a problem.

It would be amazing if every entrepreneur had 8 hours a day of sacred time each day, but the truth is that you can run a successful business with just 4 hours of sacred time each day. But it actually has to be sacred. It has to be time that is ONLY used for 100 tasks. Once you have a general idea of your Sacred Time slots each workday, block them out in your Google calendar.

The Primary Goal Of the Sacred 100/50/10 System

Like I said earlier, implementing this in your life is not as easy as it sounds. Some of you may have come to the unfortunate realization that one of your sacred time slots every day is 5am-7am and you’re currently using that time to work out, make a smoothie, and shower.

Working out
Making a smoothie
Showering

…None of those are 100 tasks. Not even close.

The idea of this is to MATCH your 100 tasks to your SACRED time. Then match your 50 tasks to your half time. What would life be like if you could sit down and write out your next book or course everyday from 5am-7am and then go do your workout and your smoothie and shower during a 50 block a bit later in the morning?

This is exactly how I wrote Russell’s books in such a short amount of time! I NEVER use 100 blocks of time for anything other than 100 tasks.

If you can identify between 2-4 hours a day of sacred time everyday, and ONLY perform 100 tasks in those times, you will notice a drastic difference in your productivity immediately.

In another post, I’ll show you some ways that I worked to eliminate non-100 tasks from my sacred time when I started with this habit.

P.S. Are you liking the productivity posts? There are MORE of them! Check out The Paper Whiteboard, Stop Stacking Time!, and The Art of Refocus for additional tips and strategies.

Business Strategy Featured The Best Stuff Feb 25, 2019

The Adventures Of Funnelhacking Live 2019

This is the first time in ten days I’ve opened up my laptop to write. It’s been torture not being able to write in real time- all the things that happened at Funnelhacking Live this week – but the impact on my heart is strong enough that the emotion of it all is right under the surface still, ready to spill out.

This will be Funnelhacking Live through my eyes, which I realize is just one of 4500 perspectives. I’m just a sliver of an angle, but if we all share our slivers together, it creates a breathtaking diamond that shines a story of hope and impact and meaning for all entrepreneurs.

I hate goodbyes, and last night was no exception.

At the Hickory Steakhouse with the ClickFunnels team, it took me a solid 45 minutes to say my goodbyes. With each one, my eyes blinked harder and harder, trying to push the emotion down.

We’d just – as a team – pulled off one the most life transforming weeks 4500 people had ever seen. I wish I could explain the team’s work ethic in a way that would make you love them just as much as I do. You know how in a sports team, there’s maybe one or two star players and then the rest support them? That’s not this. Every single person is a star player.

Early mornings, late nights, last minute designs and funnels and changes of plans….
Patiently answering questions, running orders and forms, handing out swag….
Near 24/7 video and photography capturing every single moment of the event…
Setting up chairs, manning doors, and high fiving 4500 funnel hackers…

All of them did it happily and with insane amounts of energy.

There was not one moment where I reached out to someone to get me something, report a stat, make an adjustment, and wasn’t immediately helped. And not only that, many of these behind-the-scenes staff members took time out of their day to come up and ask how I was in the craziness of being “on” for an entire week.

As I left the Hickory last night, I wiped my eyes and reminded myself that it wasn’t goodbye really…because I get the honor and privilege of working with this team every day, and that is not a gift I take lightly.

The week was filled with highs and lows…as any high intensity event is. It’s impossible to feel the great high of pride and joy and ecstasy, without also feeling intense amounts of stress and pressure and nerves too. And I want to share it all with you.

The trip began with the longest road trip of my life (warning – I will cry as I write this…it’ll be impossible not to).

Somewhere in my brain I thought it would be a good idea to stuff my family of six into a minivan and drive 15 hours to Tennessee over the course of three days. I didn’t think about how annoying it would be to travel with a raging fever-ed preschooler. I didn’t think about how it would feel to be in the back seat of a minivan for 10 hours trying to keep him comfortable. I didn’t think about the logistics of stopping at two different hotels and all the packing and unpacking that I would have to do. I didn’t think about the stress of driving through the dark windy mountain roads of Knoxville trying to find an Emergency Room that would help Alex and I bring down William’s 105 fever.

That’s how the trip started. Alex and I remained a team throughout it all, all hands on deck, the entire drive down to Nashville.

What I failed to mention was that the entire way down, I was suppressing the rising anxiety I had about my decision to bring my entire family.

You see, the night before we left, I had a showdown with Ellie’s therapist, who made a recommendation I didn’t agree with. It was a drastic recommendation that would have meant she couldn’t come to Funnelhacking Live. The therapist subsequently fired us and called the school to report me as not following recommended medical advice. It was testing all my courage.

Here I was, staring down professionals who told me that my choices were incorrect, and even though I knew her coming along was the right move, in that tiny squished car trying to deal with William being sick, I questioned whether I could be a support to her, plus all my kids, my husband, and all the team members and customers depending on me.

That’s how I arrived.

In marketing, we talk about pre-frame a lot. That’s the mood/energy state/perspective that your customer comes into your funnel with. If you pre-frame your customer properly, it’s way easier to sell. My pre-frame to Funnelhacking Live was infused with a ton of stress and anxiety.

As we unloaded out of the car, our gear and luggage spilling out – the first person I saw was Chad Thibodeaux. He was grinning from ear to ear, a signature feature of a funnelhacker by the way, and gave me a hug and said, “You survived the trip!” Everyone had been watching on Instagram, and in that moment, I let go of the stress and thought, I’m here with the biggest most incredible family ever and they will support me no matter what.

Over the next two days, I think I clocked one comma club worth of hugs. I couldn’t walk more than 5 feet without stopping for a selfie, a hello, a high five, or a handshake. As my kids tagged along, I could see out of the corner of my eye…I was gaining a cool point or two.

I found my Digital Insiders – the small group of people that I call my Inner Circle – and it felt like home.
I found more of my close friends fellow 2CCX cruisers – Ashlan, Wallace, Dave, Brandon, Peng Joon, Stephen, Nick, Amanda, and too many more to mention here.
I found my Yara and James.
I found my partners – Russell, Ryan, Todd, Brent, John, Dan, and Dave.
I found my team – Jake, Nick, Karen, Josh, Shane, Myles, Leon, and many many more.
I found the human that I trust with every detail – my assistant Emily.

The people continued to pile on higher and higher.

There was Stu and Amy, Toby & Kim, Ethan, Nichole and Josh, Pete – amazing hearts I traveled to Kenya with.
Reese and Yael and other CYLLers that nearly toppled me to the ground with hugs.
Inner Circle members Ryan and Brad, Stacey and Paul, Bart and Sunny, Alison Prince.
ClickFunnels spouses Ashley and Vanessa and Carrie and Collette and Andrea and Amber.

Sometimes when Alex and I are trying to deal with all the stuff at home… we are like an island. We have our family, but very few friends. Definitely no village or community that is filled with an abundance of positivity and connection.

But as the relationships piled higher and higher, by the time Wednesday hit, the weight of human connection and love literally crushed me and my squishy heart into a million pieces. I’m pretty sure I’m the richest human on planet Earth. I wasn’t quite sure how to thank God for such blessing in my life.

The event itself was incredible. The majority of the room was in tears within the first 10 minutes. Russell always does a great job of offering a blend of tactical, strategic, and inspirational teaching. I can’t possibly capture here all the ah-ha moments that rippled through the audience, but it’s safe to say that there were 7-figure ideas and hacks in every presentation. Implementing just ONE of the hundreds of strategies could (and will) completely transform your business.

I might be biased of course, but the branding, design, swag, room, hotel, all of it – was at a level of professionalism and choreography that you don’t find anywhere else. Not even at events with 10 times the budget. And for all the attention to detail, there is equal amounts of attention to each and every story represented in the seats.

I did the best I could to soak in every moment of the event, even though at times it felt impossible. Wearing the hat of wife, mom, influencer, partner, employee, mastermind lead, coach, inner circle member, and speaker tested my emotional resolve.

About 24 hours in, I could tell it was a crazy unrealistic expectation I had of myself that I could navigate the OCEAN of needs/wants in any given moment and make everyone happy.

My Voxer never went more than 1 minute without a message.

I ended up ignoring 99% of messages for just the “hair on fire” moments – Evan’s bathing suit was too big (even though I told him a thousand times to try it on before we left), William’s fever spiked, Nick needed me to review copy for a last minute funnel, last minute meeting places, coordinating dinner plans and reservations, managing online campaigns to match in person logistics, the music needed to be turned up and changed for 2CC awards, gathering coaches to meet new students, reporting 2CCX purchases, and on and on it went.

Navigating the hotel was also a game of fun. That place was RIDICULOUS. It took me til the last day to even get my bearings around the 9 acre atrium covered in walkways and waterfalls and nooks and crannies. And even when I did get the path right, unless I was literally running through the hotel with my four kids lagging behind, I was stopped every five feet for a hello and selfie. In fact, one trip between my room and the convention, I counted 75 selfies.

I’m not complaining.

To have that kind of responsibility, influence, and impact is an incredible honor.

I felt humbled by the number of people touched by my podcast, blog, emails, courses. It reminded me that when you focus on value, everything else you want falls into place.

Watching my kids experience their first Funnelhacking Live, I’m pretty sure I ruined them for regular conferences forever. They LOVED it. And…honestly…they were amazing. Helpful, flexible, easy going, and responsible. Even my 11 year old figured out how to navigate the hotel alone. Evan stayed for sessions I missed, and took pages and pages of notes. Ellie – normally the one who struggles with social anxiety the most – opened herself up to the experience and became a different kid.

She and Eden hung around Alison Prince’s girls’ and speaking of Alison, if you ever get the distinct honor of being this woman’s friend, consider yourself highly favored by God. She has no idea the depth and level of impact she had on me this week.

I think the person who sacrificed the most this week was Alex. He spent so much time searching for grilled cheeses (the only food William was eating), arcading with the kids, taking the kids swimming, staying in at night so I could go out, etc. It wasn’t all roses and sunshine. William was sick for a good part of the event and the responsibility fell on him. I could not have pulled off what I did without his support and love and commitment to the family. It definitely took its toll on Alex.

Emily too. And my dad (who flew down just to hear me speak). All these people behind the scenes that you never see, but are the pillars of support that enable me to do what I do.

As I stepped out on that stage and stared at the crowd before me, I carried every single one of these people on that stage with me. I could see some of their faces in the crowd, acutely aware that they are all a part of who’ve I’ve become. That the ONLY thing we take with us into the next life is our relationships. That’s it. Not money. Not power. Not fame.

People. The relationships we create carry on eternally, with God – with ourselves, and those we love.

That’s it you guys.

That’s the big lesson from Funnelhacking Live. People. People are everything. The people that love you…even when you can’t give back.

I think I spent five minutes with Yara + James the entire time – two of my closest friends. It was such a tease to be in the same place and so unable to connect. There was just too much going on at every moment.

And not every moment was perfect.

There were some difficult moments too.

Moments where I could see the disappointment on Alex’s face that I couldn’t relieve him of William duty after so many long days.
Moments of stress when multiple people wanted to connect and in my indecisiveness, I ended up not being able to help anyone.
Moments when I knew someone was upset with me because I didn’t meet their expectation of what I was supposed to be for them.
Massive moments of overthinking and getting in my head.

I wonder sometimes if people see me (a speaker, partner, influencer) and think I don’t struggle with insecurity or overthinking. Ohhhh I do. It doesn’t really matter what level you are, you’re still human.

As the newest partner with ClickFunnels, I doubted myself several times – and let my insecurity bring me to tears. In fact, not one hour before I took the stage, I had the worst case of FOMO/left-outness of the entire week and had to pace the halls and blast music to keep myself from falling apart and ruining the 80lbs of stage makeup on my face.

There were several moments that I wanted to make executive decisions…and wondered… “Can I? Am I trustworthy to think this through and make the right call? Will I let the team down?” It was scary to step into that. And it’s hard for people to adjust to a new person in a position of authority because they don’t have the past and time on their side.

Sometimes you get it really right…and sometimes you need others to help show you perspective. In a high pressure situation like Funnelhacking Live, everyone is running at 1000 miles per hour, so it bodes well to always believe the best – and give people the same benefit of the doubt you would want in a high stress situation.

A perfect example of this happened right on the last day, when Garrett White took the stage and brought a young man onto the stage to coach him through the decision making process for 2CCX. It caused a lot of polarizing opinions – from those who felt like he was using high pressure sales tactics and manipulation, to those who saw it as an amazing intervention to get someone to finally break free of fear and step into the unknown.

Social media blew up afterwards, and I personally had an intense reaction to the whole thing. I hate saying the word “triggered” because I feel like it conjures up those cheeky memes that makes the triggered person seem crazy, which isn’t fair or true. When people are triggered, it means they need to look at what it’s doing in them yes….it also could be that there was something “off” in the event too. It’s never black and white, no matter how much we want it to be.

My emotions were on fire as I processed what happened.

And even putting my own feelings aside, there were hundreds of people having the same reaction. And hundreds of people having the EXACT opposite reaction. It was a fascinating look at how differently people perceive the same event.

The good news is that we as a team (I think) handled it very well. We created a safe space for the discussion to happen, and paved the way for respectful debate. It was amazing how it went from negative to constructive in the group when we just created the place to talk openly.

There’s a lesson there. Don’t run from discomfort.

Don’t run from conflict.

Lean into it.

Make space for it. It honestly takes the heat right out of the problem and allows understanding to come in.

For me personally, I knew I needed that too. I needed someone to validate that I wasn’t crazy for feeling uncomfortable, and that was exactly what I needed to allow myself to hear other peoples’ perspectives too. Ones that can help shape my opinions and bring me another way to see the situation.

I don’t resonate with that style of selling, and that’s okay. And it’s also okay that others DO need that. It’s all just okay.

The more comfortable we get with opposing realities co-existing, the more maturity we gain.

I will never forget so many of the moments this week.

The moment I saw Alex and my kids stand up and clap as I stepped onto the stage.
The moment I met my dad who’d come down to Nashville, just for me.
The moment when Russell came up to me and told me I had nailed my presentation and done a flawless job.
The moment when Emily showed up – just to bring me Advil when I was so busy I couldn’t even take care of a migraine.
The moment Shane looked at me, gave me a hug, and whispered, “I got you.”
The moment Yara sent me a squishy “I love you” text as we sat on opposite sides of the room during a live concert.
The moment I saw Alison and she held me like my life depended on it.
The moment I watched Ellie listen with tears streaming down her face, to Nicholas’ story.
The moment my super shy Evan ran up on stage to dance in front of everyone.
The moment when Nick mouthed, “I’ll take care of it” without me having to even explain myself.
The moment when Ryan (super busy) took the time to ask me how I was doing…and really cared to hear the answer.
The moment when I watched my kids listen to Dave Lindenbaum at dinner, and I just knew..their world was changing right before their eyes.

So many more…some I can’t mention here because they were just for me.

It took me about 90 minutes to find all the people in the hotel I had to say goodbye to last night, and even that wasn’t enough. There were so many I never got to touch or talk to again…and won’t see…until the next FunnelHacking Live.

If you’ve never given yourself the opportunity to experience this kind of energy and community and power, you owe it to yourself…and to the future relationships you’re meant to have…to do WHATEVER you have to do to be at Funnelhacking Live in 2020.

And it is my moral obligation to make sure you get there – because I know – without a doubt – that for those who are ready and come with an open heart, there is NO telling where you and your business will go next with that kind of community in your corner.

They’ve got your back. I do too.

Create Your Laptop Life Podcast Digital Marketing The Best Stuff Feb 12, 2019

Episode 31: The 5 Different Types of Laptop Living

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There are actually several different types of laptop lives you can live once you join the online business world.

Hey everyone, this is Julie. I hope you are doing awesome. Today I want to talk about, basically the title of my podcast. I call it Create Your Laptop Life, but, and I know I hear that a lot, or you hear laptop life, but there are actually several different types of laptop lives you can live once you join the online business world. So I kind of want to dive into those a little bit, so that you can find the one that’s going to work for you.

Alright, so let’s get started. The most typical laptop life, when you hear that word, what comes to mind is being on the beach, maybe a pina colada, laptop on your lap. So the first type of laptop life that we all associate with kind of this online business world is the digital nomad.

I have a friend, her name is Julia, she is on Instagram as Destination Nomad, and she is literally a digital nomad. She has an RV and she travels around the country and on any given day she could be in Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan, and who knows. And she is a word press developer, so she codes word press websites and that is her job, and that is how she supports herself while she is on the road. So that is one type of laptop life.

So if you had the desire to travel full time, you want to go around the world, you want to get an RV travel the country doing some sort of online business, whether it’s service based, or info product based, allows you to completely travel around the country.

A couple of things to think about when you are doing that type of laptop life, you want to make sure you are considering your wifi situation. She said that that was probably the biggest problem when she went on the road and sold her home, was making sure she had really good wifi all the time so that she could connect with her clients and continue to build her websites. So whether you’re traveling to Bali, China, Australia, keep in mind different countries are going to have different requirements. Even in China there are some websites that you can’t access that you could access in the states.

So if you are really considering a digital nomad life, that’ll be your biggest hurdle to jump. In fact, we were on a cruise a couple of weeks ago and we were like,

what would it be like to do a cruise around the world? And we actually, there is one, it’s like 210 days or whatever and I thought, that would be amazing. It’s like $80 grand to do it for the whole year. And if you are a single person and you can just hop on a boat and travel the world, the only thing that’s a real sticky wicket there is the wifi. Okay, so that’s the first type of laptop life. There’s actually, and that’s the one that we most commonly associate with the words “Laptop life”. But that’s not actually the only one there is.

Second type of laptop life is the kind that I started out with, which is the side hustle, or the moonlight. So maybe you’re in a 9 to 5 job and you don’t really like the job and you have other passions you want to pursue, so you create a side hustle. It could be something like a blog, it could be a freelance job like writing, social media. You could also be moonlighting because you want to eventually have your own business but you know you can’t make the leap now.

I did the moonlighting thing. I started as a side hustle. So when I was married to my first husband he had the insurance, he had all the things. I was a stay at home mom and once the kids went back to school I realized, oh my gosh they’re all at school six hours a day, now I need to figure out what to do with my life. I had spent my 20’s in a complete haze of breast feeding and diapers and potty training. So now I had to make some decisions.

So I started as a freelance writer doing a side hustle. I was on all the sites, Upwork and Text Broker, and HubPages. Oh my gosh, throwback days. And I was really just trying to make enough to pay for the groceries. So for me that was a $150 a week. That’s all I cared about.

So I kind of stayed in that side hustle mode for quite a few years. Now, when we ended up getting divorced, and it’s a big long, dramatic story, I ended up needing to not just have a side hustle, I needed to have a full time job. And I was pregnant at the time and it’s hard to get a job when you’re pregnant. And I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to do it, it’s not easy. I found a temp job, but I knew that that would run out because it was temporary.

So I did my temp job by day and I moonlighted by night. And I would say that the laptop life of a moonlighter is a little different than a side hustler. So a side hustler laptop life, you know if you’re trying to make a million dollars or have these big, high-reaching goals, when you’re in the mode of a side hustler it’s really hard to get the fire under your butt to really make that kind of money. I mean, I stayed in side hustle mode from 2009-2014, it’s like 5 years. And I never really hit more than a thousand or two thousand dollars a month.

When I got divorced, I went into moonlight mode, and that was a different mode. The laptop life for moonlighting is you know, you’re up all hours, you are hustling to try to get clients, to try to build your business, get your list built, do the things that you need to do so that eventually you can take the leap.

So I would say, I would consider those two different types of laptop life’s. The moonlighting one is not designed to be forever. Eventually you want to go to the next version of a laptop life, which is fulltime laptop living.

Full time laptop living means that you are full time, bread and butter income that you use to live is happening from a computer at home or wherever you happen to be. So a lot of young, small agencies, or info product, coaches, consultants, course creators eventually go from moonlighting to their fulltime gig. That’s what I did, I did it as an agency owner. I have always preached that doing freelance service provider work first is the easiest way to make a fulltime living online because you don’t need a huge following, you don’t need a big, enormous list and every single customer that comes into your door you can charge a fair amount of money for.
So fulltime laptop life living could be you in the dining room as a mom with kids, but also running a small agency. Or it could progress to, technically I don’t know if I can call my life a laptop life anymore because I’m not using a laptop. It progresses to having an office in your home. You have gotten to that level where it’s like, alright I need to a dedicated office space. If you see my office, I have a big giant desktop. I just need, I’m about to get a second screen. You know, it’s like, it’s becoming more and more and more legit.

Of course, you can still travel, you can work from anywhere, but you really do have set office hours, you’re in your office every day. I know for me, when I finally took that plunge it was time to get childcare and I was in the office by 8 in the morning and would come out by 4, or what have you.

The idea, eventually, is for most people, they have to make a choice. And that laptop lifestyle is now you’re really fulltime running your own business and it’s thrilling and amazing. But eventually people want to work themselves out of their businesses right, and just work on their business instead of in it.

So there’s a couple of trajectories you can take once you’ve become a fulltime laptop life liver. The first one is you can just continue to work fulltime and run your agency, run your business, run your coaching practice, whatever it happens to be. The second thing you can do is continue to grow. At some point, you will begin to hire people. At some point, you may decide that you need an office space because you need that sense of place. In which case, you kind of graduate out of the laptop life, it’s a little sad, you know. But it’s cool too.

You create an office, you have employees, maybe most of those employees are remote, but if you work in house, you’ll see, a lot of you know Brandon and Kaelin Poulin in LadyBoss. They’re LadyBoss and they’re in the Clickfunnels community. They started out as laptop lifer’s with their laptop making money using their membership platform and their course creator platform. And it actually, I don’t know if you have heard them tell this story, but once they made a fair amount of money, they went and retired to Puerto Rico, and they tried that super chill laptop life, you know where they work a few hours and just live on the beach. And
they didn’t really like it.

They ended up saying, “You know what, never mind this. Let’s go back to the states. Let’s actually continue to grow the company.” Now the company has headquarters and an office. And I think last time I checked they had 50 or 60 employees, so it’s really fun.

So you can decide kind of where you want to go once you hit that fulltime business sort of moment in life. Lastly, there is also another type of laptop life and

it is the laptop life where you are actually a remote employee. So in this kind of life, you are not running your own business, for whatever reason. Whether you don’t want to, or you just prefer the security of a regular paycheck, or you like working on a team, you feel like you’re better as a teammate rather than CEO. But there are a lot of people that are remote employees, so they get all the benefits of the laptop life, being able to work from home, being able to travel different places and still log in, but they are employees. So I know companies, like Clickfunnels which I work for, and work in, has a lot of remote positions. I know
companies like Word Press, more and more companies are doing remote work. So for those of you guys listening, the laptop life can take on many, many forms, whether you are a freelancer in an RV traveling the country, or you are side hustling, or moonlighting, or jumping into that fulltime online business space where you have carved out a spot in your home where your business is going to take up residence. Consider that you will probably go through multiple evolutions as you grow your business.

So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. I have literally, except for the digital nomad, done all of them from side hustle, to moonlighting, to fulltime in my office, even the remote employee, I’ve done it all. So I would not change my lifestyle or the work I’ve chosen for my life in a million years. And for any of you listening who haven’t quite gotten into the lifestyle that you want yet, don’t give up. Okay, don’t give up. The world is changing and this kind of lifestyle and remote work is only going to become more and more mainstream. You are still on the front end of this revolution. So there is opportunity everywhere. Anybody who just absolutely refuses to quit will eventually get there. You may have to change your idea of what your laptop life is going to look like, or maybe what you thought your business was going to look like, but if you don’t quit, it will happen for you.

So I hope you guys have an amazing day, I appreciate you all. Talk to you soon.