Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - How to Design Your Ideal Life: Freedom Planning with Natalie Sisson

Episode Date: January 6, 2019

New year, new you? Hopefully, yes! But forget New Year’s resolutions that feel like a punishment. How about designing a life in which you have the freedom to do what you love? (get started on postcardacademy.co)   I am definitely focusing on this personally, and in 2019, in addition to world travelers and expats, I’ll be interviewing lifestyle experts, authors, and others who can help us live our best lives. To start us off, I’m incredibly happy to share my conversation with this week’s guest, Natalie Sisson.    Natalie is Chief Freedomist of her own company and author of the bestselling books “The Suitcase Entrepreneur,” and “The Freedom Plan.” On this episode, we’ll talk about her ‘perfect day’ exercise (have you given much thought to what your perfect day would look like? are you trying to live this? most people are not!); discuss jobs that are great for people who want to live a freedomist lifestyle; and break down the steps you need to take to start living a more intentional life, and even create your own business.      I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel. Ready to travel? Sign up for my newsletter and get your free guide to cheap airfare.    Thank you so much for listening to this show. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that you’re here. You are the best.   This podcast is brought to you by Audible. Not a member yet? Postcard Academy listeners can get a FREE audiobook and a 30-day free trial if you sign up via audibletrial.com/postcard   This podcast is also brought to you by World Nomads. Need simple and flexible travel insurance? Get a cost estimate from World Nomads using their handy calculator at postcardacademy.co/insuranceDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to the Postcard Academy. I'm your host, Sarah Micatel, and I would like to wish you a very happy new year. I have several goals for this year, goals, not resolutions, and one of them is to finally achieve work-life balance in my life. So I'm incredibly happy to share my conversation with this week's guest, Natalie Sisson. Natalie is the author of the best-selling book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur, and she has a new follow-up book out called The Free World. plan. Natalie offers some really great advice to help us design our own freedom plan. So whether you want to travel more or start a business or do both or something else, today's episode will give you some inspiration on how to plan your ideal life. I wrote the other day that the average person in the United States lives for 27,375 days. So if you're 25, you have about 8,000.

thousand days left to live. If you're 50, about 9,000 days. And if you're 65, you have a little more than 3,500 days left to live. You know, I moved to London in 2011, and my godparents, who I was always very close to, had planned a trip to London and France around that time. They had just retired, and they had all these plans. But they both got sick around the same. time and they never got to make that trip. And I think about that all the time. There really is no time to waste. Someday might never come.

And I really want us all to be mindful and to live our best lives, which is why this year on the podcast, in addition to talking about travel and food and culture, I also want to talk to more people about practical advice we can all use to design more freedom into our lives to do what we really love. Natalie is the perfect person to start us off. But first, this episode is sponsored by World Nomads. Are you traveling abroad soon? Travel insurance is a very smart idea.

You can get a free cost estimate using the handy World Nomads Insurance calculator by visiting postcard academy.co slash insurance. And while you're planning for your trip, don't forget your reading and listening material. If you sign up for Audible using the link Audibletrial.com slash postcard, you can get a free audiobook and a 30-day free trial. Now into my conversation with Natalie. Welcome, Natalie. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

I am thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me. So you are the best-selling author of the book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur, and literally lived out of a suitcase for a number of years. But before this, you were actually working a corporate job. in London. So could you tell us what a typical day was like for you in the UK before you became a digital nomad? So freaking different. And you know it probably as well from being there. I was in actually a really amazing job on paper. I was head of propositions development for the British Medical

Association, which gave me so much scope to help turn doctors into entrepreneurs. So it was a pretty neat role. But as you also know in London, there's just so much tradition. politics, laws, rules, oh, so many things that just felt so stifling in that role. Lots of people, lots of silos, lots of senior management. It was a great experience, but what I think it taught me is just how much bureaucracy I had to get through in order to actually do the important work. And so I would go out at lunch like everybody else did, but often I'd be working on my own projects.

I was really keen to make a difference in there. And so I just remember phoning departments. You always had to phone departments and get in front of the person. and it just felt like endless chasing up with people who weren't really that engaged and didn't really want to help you in order to get something done. And then I would cycle all the way home. I'd usually stop to play frisbee because there'd be ultimate frisbee training, which was my life and kept me fit and happy and excited.

And then usually drinks or dinner with friends and then do it all again the next day. But I was really thankful that I started cycling because before that it used to be get on the tube, squish like a sardine, read a paper. not have eye contact with anybody, get pushed up the escalator, walk to work, head down, like just so that rat race. And I think it's particularly predominant in London if you're in a job versus being in business. I'd love to live in London now that I have my own business. I think it would be a whole new experience. Was there a specific moment when you were still in your corporate life when you thought, I can't do this anymore? Yep. I remember it really clearly. So I hadn't even been

in my role for a year. And I woke up and I've just, I just remember being really lethargic and kind of depressed, which is not my modus operandi. I mean, we all have bad days, but this happened, I think, three or four days in a row, and I just didn't feel like going to work, and I actually pulled a sickie. And I'm not the kind of person to pull a sickie. I'll turn up no matter what. And I was like, this is a big warning sign to me that if I can't even be bothered to go into work or it's just so not lighting me up.

And I think two weeks of feeling like that, which is probably not. that long for some people but for me I was like this is two weeks in my life I can't get back and it was I just couldn't stand it anymore I was like enough is enough like I don't want this feeling there's clearly a reason for it I feel stifled I feel pulled back I'm not enjoying this and this isn't a way to live so I think that was the I'm trying to remember I think that was around July and I handed in my notice and I was out of there by August and a big part of it is I got invited to play for the new New Zealand women's master's team at World Championships. And so there was this date in August in Canada.

And I was like, well, why don't I work towards just buying a one-way ticket to Canada to make that happen? So it was a pretty well-win once I made my decision because I also owned some property there and there were just a lot of loose ends to tie up. But it felt like this scramble of awesomeness to just leave and leave it all behind. Yeah, so you owned property in London, but that and we're like, I'm headed to Canada. Yeah. And luckily my friend who I bought it with was like, well, that's cool, just get a flatmate.

and I kept it for several years after, but I did just literally sell up my stuff and drop everything and leave. I love that you realized, you know, this is two weeks or like a month of my life that I can't get back, and you actually took action because, you know, life is so short

and a lot of people don't realize that until too late. So how did the suitcase entrepreneur come about? Once I got to Canada and once I played Frisbee, I did tons of networking, and ended up co-founding a tech company with my business partner. So I went from, you know, all these years in the corporate world, which were great, through to being a co-founder of a tech company and jumping in the deep end of trying to figure out how to market a brand new product

with no budget and no customers. And did that for around 18 months, really enjoyed it, super fast-paced, too much coffee, long, long working hours and realized about 18 months down the track. I'd essentially bought myself another job, except one that I was kind of in charge of. So I had started blogging around the time of this business starting, just because the experiences were blowing my mind.

It was so much new stuff. And I love learning and then sharing what I'm learning. So I started the blog, which was called Woman's World, because I was very much of the realization that I was a very small percentage of the population of a woman in a tech company. And so I started interviewing other women who were successful in technology companies

and trying to figure out why there weren't more women in it. just really shine light on awesome women entrepreneurs. So to answer your question, once I got a bit of traction and left the business that I started to do my own thing, which was blog, and somehow figured out how to turn my blog into a business, once I realized I could actually earn money online through some courses that I launched, I was like, well, I should just take off and do this from anywhere because the whole point was to have freedom and flexibility. And what year was this?

This was 2010, late 2010. So it was around October I'd run there. these social media boot camp workshops in person, and they went incredibly well. They sold out, earned tons of money from them. I went from broke to like $15,000 in a month. I kid you not, because I tapped into some government funding in Vancouver. And then I was like, wait a minute, why can't I run these boot camps online? So then I headed to the US for some conferences and put together my first online course and released it. And while I was there and actually going, oh my gosh, I've made some money online. It's so exciting. I also met somebody at a conference

who asked me what I did as everybody did. Nobody could ever understand what I did. And he's like, so you're like a traveling entrepreneur. And I was like, yeah. And he's like, you're like a suitcase entrepreneur. I was like, yes. And we both like, you know, when you have those aha moments, we're like, yes, he's like, you should buy that domain.

I was like, I will. So that's literally November 2010, went back up to the hotel room, bought the domain. And I think from there, everything just expedited because I finally had this kind of name and brand and niche that I understood, which was about not only just packing up your business to take it on the road, but also minimalism and being able to be location independent and do everything.

It wasn't so much about the suitcase, but it was about that freedom and flexibility to live and work from anywhere. So that's where it all began. Yeah, so you call yourself a freedomist, a word that I love. And you help other people design their ideal lives and enjoy more freedom. What would you say it takes to be a freedomist? That's a great question. I think it takes you getting a really clear vision on what freedom looks like to you

because I know that it's completely different to everybody I meet. I do start to see some trends and pattern. I've done a lot of research and surveys around this. But typically, most people will tell me that freedom means the ability to choose where they want to work, live and how they want to spend their time. And that seems to be true for around 85% of the people that I've surveyed and there's been around 1,000 now. So extrapolating that out to most people, it means choice.

And when I was traveling the world as a suitcase entrepreneur, that's all I wanted to do. And I thought, gosh, surely everybody wants to live out of a suitcase and travel to all these amazing countries and have this cool business. But it was funny because I started meeting some people were like, oh, I couldn't think of anything worse than living out of a suitcase. And I was like, hmm, I hadn't thought about the fact that it might not be appealing to people. And they also looked at my audience at the time through my blog and podcast. And about 70% of them didn't have a desire to actually. travel as crazily as I was, but they did want the freedom. They wanted the ability to take off and travel if they chose,

but most of them kind of wanted their comforts of home and being in a lovely place and having the freedom to work from home if they wanted or cafes, etc. So that freedom to me is all those things, but to other people, sometimes it's just the freedom and flexibility to do what you want whenever you want. And it's just, that's the biggest thing I think it takes for a freedom is to understand, is first figuring out what you want out of life and then redesigning your business or your career to fit with that. Yeah, this is something that I've been thinking a lot about this year, especially after reading your books.

I usually live in England, although I was a digital nomad for most of this year. And I realized I like living in one place and then traveling when I want. But my sister had a baby this year. And I really do want the freedom to be able to hop on a plane if I want to and get home and spend a month there. So just going back to what you were saying about freedom meaning different things to different people, in your latest book, The Freedom Plan, you have a perfect day exercise. And this is just such a great way for people to sort of wrap around their minds about what they really want out of life. Could you talk a little bit more about the perfect day exercise? Yeah, I think it's something that gives so much clarity to people.

It's really super simple and it's also really fun to do. So you just basically grab a piece of paper and start imagining and envisioning what your perfect life would look like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. If you had absolutely no constraints, no monetary constraints, you were free to be waking up wherever you wanted in the world. And the thing that I find so fascinating about it, especially for adults, is most people, haven't actually done a good job of thinking about that. So they're kind of letting life happen to them. You know, they wake up, this alarm goes off, they maybe don't jump out of bed, but they just kind of roll into their day without being intentional about it. And what I love about the perfect day

is it really highlights to you what's important. So a lot of people say, you know, they wake up by the ocean and this beautiful light room or for some people they wake up and they have all the time in the world to do yoga and have a beautiful shower and a lovely breakfast with their family. and what it does is it just highlights, as I said, what you prioritize in life, what's really important. For some people when they write out the perfect day, it doesn't even involve work. For others, it involves a lot of work because they love what they do, but it also involves lots of freedom and adventure and time out and quality time and reading books and lying in hammocks. And the thing that I found over the years is as people do it, they're one usually quite surprised at what they consider as a perfect day. And I'm all for people having a couple of perfect days.

And so one, for example, you're working week, and then one maybe for the weekend or a holiday, because they can be different. But what people start to realize is they're not that far away from their perfect day. Like they could get up a little bit earlier. They could give themselves time, for example, to go for a swim or to do yoga. And they could give themselves time out by planning better to have a breakfast in the morning that's a bit more leisurely. They could easily take half an hour out of the day to go off by the river or, you know, go and sit in the cafe and read a book. And that all of these things don't need to wait until, oh, I've got all this time and freedom in the world. because we all know it doesn't happen, even when you have all the amounts of freedom in the world,

you sometimes still don't just take time out to read a book. What does your perfect day look like? It's changed a lot over the years, actually. I kind of, and I wouldn't say it's a problem, but since moving back to New Zealand and buying this amazing lifestyle property and having our puppies, I kind of like every morning get to live it. I'm a huge fan of breakfast, so typically I just wake up naturally these days and naturally quite early, and I typically roll into a beautiful yoga rhythm, a lovely hot shower.

And then it really depends on what I'm doing, but typically I'll go into some form of writing or creating first thing in the morning, playing with the dogs, and having some fun time outside, just taking in the nature. We live around a lot of nature now, and that just revitalises me. And then we usually have a late breakfast because we do intermittent fasting. So I really like that the morning is my peaceful time to plan. and work on the most important things of the day that I've set the night before.

And then along leisurely sort of breakfast with our fresh eggs from our chickens, and I'm a huge fan of breakfast. I could have it all the time. And that's when I usually catch up with my partner, Josh, and we talk about what we've been learning or doing. So it's just usually my mornings are actually quite cruisy. I typically try not to put any calls in too early because I want my time in the morning to be my time to plan,

to strategize, to think, to visualize. And then it kind of rolls into the afternoon. I usually I'm training for triathlons right now. So I'm training every single day. And that becomes one of my priorities. And I love it. I either go out cycling or swimming or running. And so the afternoon is often about more getting back to people,

conversations, discussions, interviews. Yeah, and just doing some of the other work that I guess needs to be done. Some of the financials, the marketing. But yeah, mornings to me are really precious and sacred. So they're my time to get my exercise in, my meditation, my thinking time, and my creative time. And then always doing something active outside, being in nature, a big part of my day, and usually socializing with friends or family. So just quality relationship time with people I love is a big part of my perfect day. You're living your perfect day.

I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And then just really – By design. Yeah. And then just really quick. So you mentioned, so your life has transitioned quite a bit over the last few years.

You went from living out of a suitcase to settling down a bit with your partner, Josh, in New Zealand. And you mentioned a lifestyle property. What does that mean exactly? I know. It's funny because in New Zealand and parts of the world, lifestyle property, everybody knows what it means. But when I speak to people from North America, they're like, what is that? So typically what it is is a property that's anywhere from one to 10 acres. so sort of, you know, anywhere two to five hectares or so.

And what it is is kind of this dream property really. Usually it's not too big to be a farm, but it's, you know, a lot of them will have a beautiful house. They might have a swimming pool. They might have a lovely garden. They might have a little bit of land, lots of trees. So you can grow your own vegetables, have chickens. But it's more that it's meant to give you this perfect lifestyle. But really what it often is is, oh, you've now got a whole lot of work

is to keep the property out to spec and to, you know, weed your garden and to look after these trees and plant more. So we love it, but typically it's meant to be that you're more enjoying life and the lifestyle that you've created and being out in the country or closer to nature. And is your barn a co-working space? It is, yes. So we have this big barn and it's about 240 square meters. I don't know what that is in feet, but it's big. And so we have a CrossFit gym in there, and we also put in desks and standing desks and a big whiteboarding couches so that we could have a co-working space. It's very much just for friends and neighbors and local entrepreneurs, but it looks out onto our beautiful field full of daisies and across to the hills and trees.

So it's a pretty special spot. So let's say I'm sitting in an office. I'm in the UK back where you were a number of years ago. I'm working a corporate job. but what I really want is a life that will allow me to be location independent. So what are my options to financially support myself for this kind of life? Yeah, I think there's just so many options now that there didn't used to be. I love people who are doing portfolio careers where they're, you know,

picking and mixing, whether they're partly in a job or in a contract or freelancing, doing a number of different things that earn the money that suit them. them. Of course, you can freelance and then you can also start your own business. And typically an online business is just easier for those who are traveling and wanting to be in different locations. But there's just so many different ways, I think, to earn revenue from different sources of income. And not all those are related to work either. If you have the ability or the opportunity to invest in property and turn them into rentals or, you know, use Airbnb to rent them out, then that's a great form of income. And that's certainly helped me. Also, obviously,

investing in shares and stock is not always an option for everybody, but just not putting all your your eggs in one basket so that you have some residual or passive revenues and then you have active revenue coming in from the things that you love to do. So I think it really depends, and I do talk about this quite a lot in my book and my latest book as well as how do you want to show up in the world? What's your kind of ideal lifestyle? And then how do you design your career or your business to fit around that and what's going to work for you? So for me, for example, I had about eight revenue streams at the full on time of the suitcase entrepreneur. And it came from online courses.

It came from workshops that I ran, retreats and masterminds. It came from my book. Affiliates referrals as well for courses and programs that I loved and promoted and tools of technology and speaking. And it was amazing, actually, just how many revenue streams you can build up from various things depending on what your focus is and whether you want to be doing the work or whether you want to be promoting the work of others. So there's just lots of options.

So you can sell your own services, you can sell the products of others, you could get affiliate payments by recommending other people. Yeah, I think in my book I do say that there's two ways of like essentially making money. Sell yourself or sell other people and not sell yourself in that way. But, you know, whether you're becoming a personal brand or an influencer or an expert, whether you're offering services done for you services, educating online, consulting, coaching. those are the ways you can work for yourself or run a freelance business. And then the other option is to promote the other work of other people. So tools, technology that you love using. If you have built an audience, you can promote that to them.

You can look at other people's courses and programs that maybe you've taken and benefited from and share those and promote those. And also physical products that you can promote or potentially sell yourself. I think there's just so many possibilities that it doesn't always have to come down to you doing the work. And that's something that I've really realized in the last few years as an online course creator. I've absolutely loved creating curriculums and courses and experiences. But it takes a ton of effort and planning and marketing in just so much energy.

And so often it's easier to promote somebody else who's done a great job of that, whose work you believe in, whose work you've maybe undertaken or experienced yourself. And I think just sort of people underestimate that it doesn't always have to come down to them. If I am sold on the idea of creating an online course, but I'm not sure what to create, how do we find our zone of genius? You've mentioned this before. Yeah, I do believe that there's this thing called the sweet spot or I'm calling it, the freedom spot, which is the intersection between what you're good at or really great at,

what you like doing or love doing and what people will pay you for. And somewhere in that intersection there is your, what I call sweet spot. It's not my idea, but I've sort of extrapolated on it over the years. And it doesn't have to necessarily be something that you absolutely adore, because often I think those things are best left to just being a hobby or something that you love doing. But it's usually the things that people say about you that you kind of dismiss or ignore. And we all have so many skills and talents, but because they come naturally to us,

we often disregard them as nothing special. And then you'll meet a friend or somebody who's like, oh my gosh, how do you do that so easily? how are you able to connect people so effortlessly? Or how are you able to figure out those spreadsheets in that way? Well, gosh, you're so good at organizing events and parties. How do you do it? And those are typically the signs that you should be looking at capitalizing on that. And so for a lot of me, people say,

but I don't think I have any specific skills or experiences in this. And I'm like, well, what are people constantly telling you that you're good at or saying that you're naturally good at? And what do you enjoy doing? And what do you think the intersection of that is that people will pay you for? So it seems quite simplistic. But once you actually start writing these things down, all the things you're good at, all the things you enjoy doing,

and then how you think that could be monetized. It becomes quite a lot simpler to actually look at what your options are. How could we validate, say we come up with an idea and we think it's great and people will actually pay for it? Before we go through all the trouble of building a course, is there a way to validate whether our idea is something people will actually want? Yeah, it's such a great question. And I think we've all been guilty in the past, those who've started businesses or whatever,

of going, oh my gosh, I've got to go, great idea. I'm going to buy the domain name. I'm going to get a logo designed. I'm going to whack up a website and I'm going to be, you know, packaging it all. And the very first thing that I would do these days is literally go out and seek out my ideal customer and sell them on it and get them to prepay before it's even there. I know that sounds super like, what are you talking about? But I would literally be either online looking in groups and seeing people who have a problem that I think I can solve, direct messaging them, calling them, inviting them for a coffee, sitting them down and saying, tell me where you're at, what your challenge is.

Okay, if I could offer this, this, this and this to you, would you be interested in that? And if a person's like, yes, and you say, great, it's this much, when can we start? I mean, quite honestly, it does get that simple. And I see so many people spending tons of time and energy affecting whatever it is they have, with never, ever validating it with somebody. So I'm so glad you brought that up. And the best way to do that is to just ask and really get an idea of whether people jump at it and they get that, like, fire in their eyes or their eyes.

eyes light up and they're like, yes, this is exactly what I need. And then it's tanking the gumption of going, okay, what if I was to coach you on this? Or what if I was to put together this package that allowed us to work together over four weeks to get this problem solved and putting a price on it and working from there. And a lot of coaches and consultants do this. They might start out for free. But it's really just about understanding that person's problem and then presenting them back with an opportunity or an offer to help them solve it. That is so great and so bold. So I guess you really, before you sit down with the person, have to, you know, have it sort of mapped out what you want and have a price in mind so we can actually pitch people if they seem like

they're the best fit. Yeah. I mean, it does sound bold, but it's, as I said, so many people waste so much time, almost like they're validating their own idea on themselves. And a lot of people, let's be honest, start a business because they're trying to solve a problem that pisses them off. But there will be many other people out there who probably have the same problem and you don't really want to be your own customer. There's a lot of things for and against that, but ultimately at the end of the day, you want to not be your own customer because I think you can get quite skewed in how you view something. Other ways to obviously validate stuff is to go on to Google trends and look at how many people are typing in keywords or

search terms around what you're thinking of offering and seeing what the, I guess, the demographics and the volume of people who are searching on that because it's quite good to be niche when you're starting a business, but you also don't want to be so niche that there's not an audience for it. And so just looking at what people are searching on there. Also, as I said, jumping in LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups, forums, and just seeing what people are talking about. Is this enough of a problem that you can kind of see that people are talking about it, especially if you have a solution for it?

So some of it's gut instinct, a lot of it's just asking the right questions and then continuing to validate. And I'm a big fan of surveys out to your own audience, out to your friends, to your peers or into some of those groups, just getting a feel for what people are really, really interested in and what they need. That is so brilliant. Such good advice, Natalie. Thank you. So, okay, so we've done the work. We have an idea. How do we go about creating a business plan? I know you're a big fan of just keeping it simple. So yes. Well, I'd love to offer at people my free template, which is the one-page business plan, which I've adapted from others. And

And it literally is one page. And I just did mine up the other day for a new business that I'm looking at starting in the new year. And why I love it is it's just super simple. It gets you to focus on like what's the name of your business? What's the mission? Because having a mission, having a why is super important to staying focused. And then popping in three goals that you'd really like to achieve and three objectives or strategies that are going to help you make those goals a reality. Putting in what income you have or if you're a new business, what you'd like.

to earn and putting down some potential revenue streams based off what you've come up with and talking with these people and validating what they need. Also thinking about your expenses that you might have, which, you know, when people start out there often like, oh, what am I going to have? And I'm like, well, you're probably going to have a mobile phone and you're probably going to have, you know, Wi-Fi or a broadband connection. You might have, you know, a simple website. You're probably going to have some tools that you use like an email provider. So just pop in, you know, go to the websites, research, build a budget and then probably double it because it's going to cost you more.

And from there, just start to really look at, okay, is this business potentially going to be profitable based on these rudimentary expenses, where if you know what they are and the income streams? And then from there, you get to just really put it into action. So it's a super simple one-page plan that you can update every three months, every six months, every 12 months. I really recommend people put in like three months' worth of goals and then continue to come back to it because things do change so much.

But I love that it's in one page. You can print it off, stick it on your wall. And it just keeps you focused because when you, you're starting especially. I know so many people just switch ideas constantly rather than staying focused, which is easy to do the switching. So I really love it that it's just super simple. It does require some research, but it's not a 50-page document that you're never going to look at again. Could you talk a little bit about, I think a lot of people have heard what smart goals are and objectives you should be setting, but I think it's still hazy for a lot of people.

This is quite a key. So could you make this a little bit more concrete for people? Yeah, I'll try and give an example off the top of my head. So smart goals stand for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound. So an example of a non-smart goal is, I want to earn $100,000 next year. It's got elements because there's a measurement there. It's got a time frame in some ways it's next year. So let's assume it's end of next year.

But along with it, it hasn't got any. anything that's super specific, like how you're going to do that? And is that even attainable? Like if you're earning 30K right now, how are you going to do that? And is it realistic? So a better example would be, I am going to increase my income by 20% by the end of 2019, buy, and then actually kind of like incorporating what your plan is. So introducing two new revenue streams that are this, for example, like really spell it out.

And you can even go more granular than that, but a smart goal is something that really is something that's achievable, a bit of a stretch, but based on reality and based on some past experiences, the same can apply for health and fitness. You know, when you hear people go, oh, I want to lose weight. Well, there's no specific measurement of how much you'd like to lose,

why you'd like to lose it, when you'd like to lose it, and how are you going to go about doing it? So these are the questions that you need to ask yourself to have a really smart goal. It's actually going to be one that comes true. Something that really resonated with me in your book, The Freedom Plan, was the line, there's this constant pull between being a tourist versus an entrepreneur, and I feel guilty whenever I am doing too much of either.

I feel that way all the time. And one of my goals for 2019 is to have more of a separation between work and my personal life. And I'd love to hear more from you about how you achieve this balance and how you schedule your week so you're working smarter and not harder. Yeah, I think when I was traveling, it took me a long time and when it really hit me, I was I was in a hotel in Vietnam and I think I'd had 24 hours in the city and I hadn't really stepped outside yet to, I mean, normally I do that all the time. I step out and I explore and I go on a big walk and I get used to the area, but I'd had this deadline that I'd set myself and I was so busy trying to finish the work that I just hold up in the

hotel for something like six or seven hours. I was like, this is insane. Like, I haven't moved myself today. I've an exercise. I haven't gone out. And I just remember slamming my laptop shut and going, this is ridiculous. You're in business for yourself so that you can have the freedom. And I was like, that's it.

I'm taking the afternoon off. This isn't as urgent, as I said. Things can wait. And I just remember marching out into the street and going, right, I have no idea where I am, what I'm going to do. I'm going to grab a map. I'm going to look around. I'm going to get some food.

And I was starving as well and super thirsty because I was in this new place. And I think that was the day when I was like, it's up to me how I want to structure my work. So what I started doing was getting up earlier, you know, as I said, doing some yoga from wherever you are. You can always do it. And I would go into three to four hours of really intense focused work. And then I would take the majority of the day off. So I'd go out between like 11 to 4 and be a tourist and just enjoy and just totally switch off

for that time. And then I'd come back and I do a little bit of work before dinner and maybe a little bit at night. And it felt so much better to me because. I was basically taking a huge chunk of the day to go out and enjoy an adventure and be cultural, and explore. But then I got my creative time in the morning and my kind of time at night when I wanted to chill to just finish up some odd ends. And it really, really worked for me as a structure.

And also condense the amount of work I was doing into a short amount of time. And now that I can work from home, I also find sometimes that's a challenge. I'm a super productive person on the road. The more traveling I do, the more efficient I am. It's really weird. I can work in trains and planes and cars and cafes and airports. And I know a lot of people who can't. So here I try to do the same thing.

Like I will get up early and I'll do my focus work. And then I'll typically make an appointment or a meeting or a lunch or a training session that kind of breaks up my day so that I condense my work into the morning or early afternoon and then take a big chunk of time off in the afternoons so that I'm out and about in nature, gardening, doing something physical, being away from here and socialize. So that's how I've kind of built in these freedom breaks and routines into my day. So you're very structured with how you manage your calendar. You put everything on their personal work.

Could you give us some tips on how we can do this? I do when I'm being really onto it. I find that there's good times to be super structured. Like when you really have quite a lot of work that you're juggling, I find it really awesome to block out every single sort of piece of your day. and it might sound over the top crazy and anal to some people, but it really works because by doing that, you're committing to yourself.

So I'm talking about when are you having brunch, when you're having lunch, when you're going to exercise, when you're taking time out, to have fun. But also when are you putting in those chunks for the projects that are really important? Because if you don't, they don't get done. And even just by doing it for a week

and seeing your calendar visually in front of you, I use Google Calendar, but you can use a wall planner, whatever works for you. You do get a greater sense of, oh, okay, is this realistic? And, oh, I didn't realize I needed this much time to finish this thing or this project or this client work. And, oh, I probably don't need quite that much time for this.

And suddenly it just gives you a much better representative of where your entire day goes. You know, when you get to the end of day and you're like, oh, my God, what did I do today? And it's typically because we sort of let life happen to us rather than going, I was intentional about spending an hour to write here, two hours to design here, one hour here for an event or a conversation. And here's my exercise time. here's my meditation time, here's my relax time. It really gives you a much better sense of just how much time you actually have in your day

and how you want to spend it. Yes, I need to get much more systematic about this. And I know you have a course called Life Pilot to help us organize. And I need to do this because I have started doing this before. Like I know I need to get everything on the calendar or else I will just, like you said, the whole day will go by. And I'm like, I feel like I've been working all day. And what have I done?

But why? So, but I've started this before. What happens to people? Why do we like, we know what we need to do? We start managing our calendars. And then it sort of falls off. And it's like, but this is probably the most important thing for our sanity. Why do we not do it?

I think because it actually does take effort in planning. So when my partner, Josh and I started doing this, we do it on a Sunday afternoon when we do our life pilot reflection. And we would open up our calendars and, and really get a handle on what's coming up in the week ahead. And sometimes you just didn't want to do it. We're like, oh, I just want to relax. But every time we did, it was just so fascinating to see, oh, I didn't realize I had this meeting this week,

or, hey, we've got a dinner with friends, or, hey, let's go into town one day this week. And suddenly your life kind of comes to life before you. And you just get, what I love about it is, yes, it takes a bit of planning, but it gets easier each time you do it. And you start to develop a rhythm and routine. And honestly, people like routines and, habits. They kind of like knowing where things are and what time they're going to be doing stuff.

And having more of a habit and routine and discipline around that actually gives you more freedom. I know it sounds so odd, but I've always said discipline leads to freedom. Because the more structured you have in your day, the more you can do within that timeframe that you've given yourself. So if you know you're working nine to three, you're going to squeeze as much as you can into that time and then take the rest of the time outside of that to do the things you love. hopefully you're loving the work you're doing as well. So I think it's because it initially takes upfront effort and planning. And planning always sounds boring to people.

But for the 10 to 30 minutes that you invest there, I reckon you save hours and also tons of frustration and energy throughout the week. So it's just a matter of discipline and effort. Yes, I think it's a great thing for our mental health to pick a maybe Sunday, plan out the week, and then also be realistic about what we can actually achieve a day. I think, how many intentions do you have a day? Do you have one or three or it depends on the week? That's a good question.

I'm a big fan of three in our life pilot program. We talk about no more than three as in no more than three goals or intentions for the day. So those are my three focuses and they're usually across around seven to eight areas of life. So they're not always work focused. and I think three is just a really three or less is a really lovely number but it's also being proven to work we we have a limited ability I think to remember much more and when I look at people's to-do lists and even mine sometimes I'm like well no wonder you're failed today because there was no way you could get those 12 things done whereas three important priorities and the three

most important that are going to really move the needle for you if you get those done you feel like a rock star and then anything else on top of that is a bonus yeah and I think if you don't write those down. You're just sort of floating around and like dipping into 20 different things. And that's where the same. Yeah. And that's where that feeling comes from at the end of the day where you're like, I've been doing so much, but I didn't do anything. And so yes, I really love that. And I look forward to checking out life pilots on a deeper level. So what are your favorite tools for managing your business? I have many, but I am. also quite minimalist on that front.

So if I could point to my three favorite ones, I'm a huge fan of the Google Suite in general I pay for in Google Suite. So I use Google Drive and Google Calendar and Gmail every single day. And I link it up with Asana, so my favorite free project management tool where I put my tasks in, my team tasks, and I manage out projects. And then I probably would say,

if I think about a tool, life pilot has become, it's just transformed our lives. So it's a simple, beautiful, easy-to-use spreadsheet. I know not everybody loves spreadsheet, but it's color-coded and it's fun and it's funky. And I have that open every single day and that's where I map out what I'm focusing on, what my weekly goals are, what my monthly intentions are. And it's just, yeah, it really keeps me on track and I notice it when I don't use it.

So it's good that I use my own tool, huh? So you plan out your week and then daily. You do a little check in. week on a Sunday, we usually go to a cafe and we talk about what went well and what we loved and roses, thorns, bananas, it's part of the life pilot process. Bananas being surprises. Rose's being good things and thorns being things that are, you know, obviously stuck in your side or frustrating you.

And then, yeah, we set our weekly goals or intentions and I often will map out two to three days worth of things I want to do as well because they'll usually link back to that weekly goal, which is usually the missing link for people. Like, I've set monthly goals before and then I don't achieve them because I didn't have any link into what does that mean I have to turn up and do each week and what does that mean I have to turn up and do each day. The same goes for annual goals as well. So yeah, that has really, really helped me to get clearing to go, ah, that's why I'm missing this or, oh, that's why this keeps popping up on my list and making a plan to actually make it happen. So I think I would

guess that when a lot of people are starting out to their own business or a little side hustle, they're doing all the work themselves. If we have, some money to outsource something. What are the first things we should delegate? I imagine it's different for different people, but do you have any sort of top tips about what we should get off our plate as soon as we can? I love this topic so much. And I created a free video series where this was one of the videos just around this. And I call it your four list to freedom. So you basically write up four columns on a blank piece of paper. And the first column you put things I just don't like to do. So you don't like doing them. The second column, things you can't do, like I'm not a

WordPress coder or I'm not a developer, so I can't code stuff behind the scenes. I'm also not an accountant, even though I can reconcile on my account. So I just don't like to do those things, things you can't actually do, things you shouldn't be doing. Like when I started my podcast, I think I edited one podcast, and from then on I got an editor. I was like, this is not the best use in my time. It might be fun. I might be okay at it, but it's just not something that I should be doing, transcribing things. There's so many more talented tools and AI now to do that for you in the blink of an eye.

So things that you just shouldn't be doing. And then finally, things that you love to do. And I put that on the list because so many people sometimes end up delegating stuff that they love. And there's a difference between something you're good at, but you could actually delegate it to somebody else because they are more affordable, they can do it more quickly, and you can put your time into more things. But sometimes people do give away the very stuff that they're generally.

you're at and they should actually take that back because that's the stuff that lights them up. Though the very first things that I get people to delegate or think about depending on their business is, for example, get an accountant to do your bookwork. It is get a virtual assistant to do some of your basic admin, answer some of your email, deal with your customer service and start doing those tasks that you're doing repetitively every day. And one of the first things I gave to my assistant was publishing a blog post because I loved writing them, but then doing all the formatting, SEO, images, linking, cross-checking, editing, and then publishing was just, you know, it was an hour each time I did it, which doesn't

seem like much, but every single hour I could get back to do the work that I loved was just a much better use in my time. Yeah, and that's a great point about, you know, we might love doing certain things, but it might, we have to also remember we need to earn money. And so if there's something that we love doing, but it's probably, you know, a little too time consuming for what we need to grow our business, then outsourcing is probably a good idea. The way I like to think about it, can I just put this in as an example, is if you charge $75 an hour, for example, as a web designer, I'm just putting it out there, but you, the actual client proposal that you put together each time and the formatting of it and changing stuff

out takes you around three hours and you don't really like it, but you could dictate that or tell somebody what you need in that thing and they can type it up and you can pay them $15 an hour to do that, then that's just like a no-brainer because you get back one of your hours which you can charge out at 75, you've already saved yourself 60 bucks. Does that, like it's just, when I put it that way, I'm like, hmm, why aren't I outsourcing this? So once people, I think, get that in their head and realize outsourcing can be super affordable and yes, there's some initial upfront training and handover, but eventually they're going to be saving your time and effort and hopefully making you money. It just makes so much more sense. It does. And there's such great

resources now, like Upwork, where you can find people living in, you know, different cities around the world. So those time zones could be beneficial for you. They're living in cheaper places, so they're not as expensive. Exactly. Exactly. I believe you usually come up with a word of the year. Have you come up with your word of the year for 2019? I have. I have. I, She did a couple of Facebook lives on it, and I love this because, as you know, and maybe from what I've said about it, it just helps me focus. It gives me one singular focus for the year. So this year it was called, and my word was, sorry, brave, turning up and being brave.

And quite a few of my friends laughed at that because they already think that I am a bit crazy and brave. But for me, I just knew there were a lot of things I needed to step up on and do and make some changes in. And my word for 2019 is method, which I was really surprised that I chose because it sounds kind of a little bit boring and not as aspirational as I'd normally pick. But for me, I really want to dive deeper into the methodology behind everything I do. I want to do my due diligence. I want to learn and understand more. I want to be much more sort of methodical about stuff that I do.

Sometimes I can be a bit more creative and surface level and I want to dive deep and really get expert knowledge in the arena that I'm going into. So for me, method was all about developing a methodology around everything I do. So that's my word for that. there. I love that you are always trying new things. Do you have any projects coming up that you want to share with us? I do. I actually am wanting to, I really had a good hard look at my sweet spot recently and what I love doing and what I'd like to learn and become more expert in. And since I've now published two books and I've gone through self-publishing, traditional and hybrid publishing, I really want to help authors leverage their books beyond the book. So my new business,

idea for next year is to actually work with authors to turn their book into a business, hence the name beyond the book. That is through sales funnels, courses, speaking, etc. And really understanding what they need to do to get the most out of their book. Because as authors, you put so much time and effort into just writing it, let alone publishing it and marketing it. And so many people stop there. And I think there's just so much more that they can do to really get the message across from their book. So that's one of my intentions for next year. And I've, interesting, talking about validating earlier, I already had two or three people come to me independently asking if I could help with that. So it really validated that that is something that I can offer in a boutique way.

That is so exciting. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me today, Natalie. Where can people find out more about you? Well, I would love for them to come across to nataliesysyssin.com. It's kind of my hub and in my blog and various resorts. on there. And of course, if they're interested in the new book, the freedom plan.com is where they can go. And there is a free video series there, even if you don't buy the book, and resources that are free and lots of fabulous endorsements and testimonials. So if people are wanting to redesign their business, so they can work less and earn more, then that's the place to go. Excellent. Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

I hope you enjoyed and found value in my conversation with Natalie. You can visit postcardacademy.com slash freedom plan to check out Natalie's business plan. I am using it myself right now for some of my three goals for this year. One, make a living podcasting. Two, publish a book. Natalie will come in handy for that as well. And three, achieve work-life balance. As you heard in this episode, I'm not always present where I am. If I'm working, I'll wish I were with friends and family. If I'm strolling and charming Italian street, my mind drifts to work, and I really want to change this so that I am truly living in the moment and I'm present for those around me. What are your three goals for the year? I would love to hear them. Email me at sarah at postcardacademy.com and perhaps we can

hold each other accountable. That's all for now. If you like this show, please subscribe and tell a friend about it. That is the best way to grow the show. Thanks for listening and happy people. beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarah micotel.com slash blank no more.