Stoic Wellbeing - Design Your Ideal Day

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

What are the life skills that really matter?In this episode, you’ll hear specifics on how to live a good life. A simple life. One that will give you more energy and inner peace. I’m joined by Stephen Warley, fellow Stoicism lover and host of the Life Skills That Matter podcast. This interview originally aired on my other podcast, LIVE Without Borders, a year or so ago. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, so I’m sharing it with you here.Our interview was a two-parter. In part one, Stephen and I discussed the future of work and life skills that will enable you to live a more freedom-filled, location independent life. If that interests you, you can head over to LIVE Without Borders and listen to the episode: “Life Skills That Matter for Aspiring Solopreneurs.”This is part 2, where Stephen and I talk about energy, digital detoxing, designing your ideal day and more. We’ll be jumping right into the conversation, where Stephen and I time travel to our younger years, and share where we started out in our careers. Enjoy!  Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there? Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDo 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.

A lot of us say that we want more meaning in our lives to be part of something greater than ourselves, to feel more connected to other people in the universe. This begins with becoming more connected with who we are and more self-aware of what's unconsciously motivating us. Welcome to Stoic Wellbeing. I'm your host to Sarah Megatel, an American in England who uses stoicism and other techniques to help my coaching clients become more present, productive, and open-hearted. I am here to help you to visit Stoicwellbeing.com to learn more. How do you live a meaningful life? In this episode, you will hear specifics on how to live a good life, a simple life, one that will give you more energy and inner peace. I am joined by Stephen Worley,

host of the Life Skills That Matter podcast. This interview originally aired on my other podcast, Live Without Borders about a year or so ago, and I think you will get a lot out of it, which is why I'm sharing it with you here. Our interview was a two-parter, and in part one, Stephen and I discussed the future of work and life skills that you need if you want to live a more freedom-filled location-independent life. If that interests you, then you can head on over to Live Without Borders and listen to that episode. It's called Life Skills That Matter for Aspiring a Solopreneurs. This is a part two where Stephen and I talk about energy and digital detoxing, designing your ideal day, and so much more. We are going to be jumping right into our conversation where Stephen and I are

time traveling to our younger selves and share where we started out in our careers. Enjoy the show. I actually started out as a business major in undergrad. I lasted a semester before switching to journalism, but I had like this idea in my head when I was in high school that I was going to open like a vegetarian frozen food empire with my grandmother. But I didn't like it as a freshman taking accounting and finance and like all of this other stuff. Anyway, I heard your gasp. Were you a journalism major too? I wasn't, but I fell into journalism. I was a history major, and I ended up going into television news.

I did internships at local television stations in Rhode Island, and I ended up working at CBS News for the first couple of years after graduating. And then immediately was like, this is not my future. I mean, I could quickly see like, this is a corporation. I'm like, look how this is. It's falling. I even, for whatever reason, even at 23, could see, like, how it was all falling down around me. that's why it's still funny to me that people are so aghast about different

industries or different things and how they're changing or falling apart or going out of business. I'm like, yeah, this has been happening pretty much my entire life. Yeah, I did an internship at a TV news station and was like, yeah, no, this is not for me. But then ironically, I ended up starting a business for teaching local radio intelligent broadcasters how to use digital for their news operations, marketing. And I ended up focusing the business just around generating revenue or money around digital advertising. And then I just realized, like, I think that's the other thing back to this when I'm trying

to help people. Yeah, I was making a lot of money. But it was not my, my heart wasn't it. I didn't care about saving broadcasting. You know, I, this is not what I. I didn't want to do sell more advertising to get people to buy more stuff. stuff that they didn't need. That's just not what I wanted.

And what I'm trying to inspire people to do. Like, we haven't had a lifestyle calculator. You can go to Life Skills That Matter.com slash calculator, download this calculator for free. And it calculates like, how much do you need to make to live your ideal lifestyle? Because so much of us, we're fascinated with all these status symbols. Like, I want to make six figures. I'm going to be $250,000. I'm a millionaire.

Who cares? What is it you really want to do? You know? And I think that's this idea of like, what's enough doing something that I'm really good at and it's really sparked my curiosities. I'm working at a fair amount of time every week, 30 to 4 hours or less or more if you want. And solve a problem we're solving. You know? Yeah. The world does not need another fart app. Yeah. I think like, yeah, we're so used to and like we're like schooled to think about money and

nobody is thinking about time, which is the real precious resource. Energy. Energy and I've even learned, there, it's attention. Attention is your, because that's the other thing. Sorry, you're just, sorry, by the way, so sorry, I just interrupted you. I always like to be sensitive, but I just want to tell you're getting me that excited. That's why. Go, go. You're going to come on my show, right?

And then you get to blather on, okay? That would be great. I think that's only fair. Okay. So I think, oh, you're right. We always think we look at money. It's a personal resource, but it's outside. We have an outsized, uh, folks.

focus on it. And we overlook our resources of time, of energy, of attention, of connections, of skills, of knowledge. When you start looking at all of those and then you put money in there, you start to have a more accurate, a more honest context of what money is. I actually think money is one of our least valuable personal resources because it's really a storage device for our energy. That's what it is. It allows us to do things at a later date. And you only get money when you properly align all of your other personal resources when you think about it. And in the domino, the thing that starts at all is attention. If you cannot focus your attention and at a moment in time with your limited energy to then learn something or to build a connection, you're never going to make

any money. It's so interesting that you're saying this because I didn't realize until this year pretty much how important energy was. I just never, I never thought about it as being important. and just never came into my mind until I, you know, I started to realize I was quite tired, a lot of the time, not focusing as much as I could. And so a few months ago, I started a meditation habit, which was something I resisted for so long, because I thought it sounded so boring. Love meditation. And, yeah, I started meditation.

I, like, got strict with, like, when I went to bed. I'm not drinking coffee very often. Like I do these vegan detoxes periodically. I feel amazing. My mind is so much sharper and I'm just getting so much more done. So I can 100% agree with you that you need to get that resource locked up before you can really do anything else at a higher level. And I think a lot of times when we start doing these habits and sometimes something takes a lot less time. It's a lot less effortless, but it has a huge impact. And that's the other thing

that with this, the way we've been taught about working hard, this idea of people are so proud about how much they work and how long they work. And I'm sorry, I think you lack priorities. I think you are completely unaware of how to properly use your personal resources. For too long, we've looked at it as this way of like, I'm controlling and I'm beating nature and myself. I'm forcing myself to like stay up and work 12 hours every single day. But you're human and most people end up burning out eventually. Your body will rebuild against you. I mean, people end up in the hospital. People die from overwork. And we just, it's just sad, I think the way society is where there's such a high level of economic scarcity right now in society that it doesn't need to be. There is plenty of

wealth. If only we would all choose to look at it differently. Yeah. So we were just talking. about energy. I have a question for you about that. Okay. How many hours a day do you feel like you have for your most important work? How many hours a day do you think you have of your maximum physical energy combined with your sharpest mental clarity? Is this like, is there a real answer? There actually is from everything I've yet to like, let's fit this way. I live in a world where it's your own experience and like that's your answer. But what when you, do say it, it usually always falls in line to the range, which is fascinating. I mean, I've read, I was a history major, so I've read all kinds of biogamous throughout the ages. So

when you really dig into like all these folks habits, politicians, philosophers, artists, writers, that you find that they worked on average of a certain amount of time every day of this knowledge type of work. I've interviewed over 500 people in my podcast. This number shows up again. I've seen it in my own life experience. So how many hours a day? do you think you have of your sharpest mental clarity, your maximum physical energy? Oh my gosh, I'm feeling the pressure. No, just go with your gut. Go with your feeling.

There's no right or wrong answer for you. That's what, and this is an important lesson for everybody. It's what you are feeling and what you are experiencing. That's what's really important. Let's say five hours. That's about three to five hours. See? It's about three to four for me.

some people say two. What people start saying six, seven, and eight, I think that's just the indoctrination of the system that we've fallen under that we live in. It's, and also because we're not taught to how to really use our feelings as a guide to manage ourselves. It's always very, we're looking to technology. We look to other people to tell us if we're good enough,

if we're successful or not, right? We're not listening. And there's so many times, like I know, Sarah, like I'm a morning worker. And also that period of, do you find that that period of time is at a certain time of day for you on average? I love mornings. I have prioritized when I wake up, I'll do a little meditation. And then I go walking for like two hours.

So for me, I usually don't start until like 10 a.m. But I would say like I probably am at my sharpest between like nine and 12. So yeah, in the morning stuff like, if I'm going to write a blog post, is not happening 8 o'clock at night for me. No way. It'll be take forever. I'll be frustrated and it will not be of the same quality. If I just wake up the next day, make that my first report activity,

I'll crank that thing out and like no time flat. And it'll be pretty good. I'm not going to be, you know, it's going to be a lot better. And that's the kind of stuff that we're looking for. It's always this idea. I'm just going to crank it out. I'm going to force it out. And my point is we've lived in a system where we're

taught to constantly suppress ourselves into this one uniform ideal. And we think we're the problem where we keep beating ourselves up. You aren't, what you've been denied is to say, what is my rhythm? What are the pros and cons of how I need to work to get my best work done in a reasonable amount of time? And I think more and more of us, because of the pandemic, are starting to realize what that might be for ourselves. So I think it's important. And so I happen to know my sweet spot is in the morning. So I don't want to do like a lot of email or social media kind of stuff or do my laundry in the morning. I'm saving that for content creation, like my most impactful work.

And then I like to schedule podcasts or phone calls or meetings in the afternoon in the evening when I, it's a different type of energy for me. And I can still be doing something. But I know I don't have the same quality of energy to really do some really great content creation. So you're doing your deep work in the morning and then the more social reactionary. Right. Reactionary slash social. And also take your take time. Like I'm in this weird pattern right now of needing to take afternoon naps. And I think sometimes it's like a season change. And I'm really affected by I'm affected by all natural things now for a very long time because I've been so out of the corporate system for so long and commuting that I wake up with the sun. I go to bed with the sun. I really have a sensitivity with different foods, people's energies, changes in seasons. And I think that's something to it. And sometimes you just kind of kind of go with it.

Your body like needs it for some reason. Or I try to understand. You're back to nature. I love it. But in this really way I never anticipated without me having to be like out in the middle of the woods all by myself. Yeah. Well, tell me more about like how you're flowing with life.

If you mentioned, you structure your days, I guess, kind of along your energy. Tell me more about your routines and what your day looks like. What does the first hour of your day look like? What the use is where it's routines? Because especially when I, you know, I've been traveling around a lot in different places for the last two years, internationally, domestically. And one thing that needs to keep me sane in order for at least me to do independent living successfully is I need routines. No matter where I live, I need to know that I have a certain core kinds of foods that, you know, it's like a protein of starch vegetables, you know?

And like even with my first 24 hours of arriving in a place, I'm quickly just like setting everything up, you know, as if I've lived there for a year. And basic routines of like, how am I going to be exercising with the year? What are my social opportunities? What am I going to be working? Is there anything affecting how I'm going to be working? and just trying to keep those routines quickly. And it's hard because you live in different parts of the world.

And there's those different energies and different things that you need to figure out. And there's different languages, different money, right? So I tried to kind of move through that acceleration a little bit more intentionally when not forcing it, but more intentionally knowing that these are things I'm just going to have to flow. And things just pop up and that's okay. So I feel a basic mix of routine for me is when I wake up. up in the morning, I have really gotten into, have you ever heard of the Wim Hof breathing method? You know, I've heard people mention him, but I'm not mega familiar with his work. Because I've just gotten into researching a lot about how to like get back in touch with your actual

body and all these different systems that we've evolved with that we can use. But industrialization over the last definitely 200 years, some people in say 300 years has really gotten us away from it. For example, breathing, you should only be bringing through your nose. I do do that. And actually, because like a coach that I have, I've been, it's so interesting that you're saying this, Stephen, because a breathing is another thing that I never used to pay attention to. And now, like, periodically through the day, I'll do, like, a deep breath through my nose. Hold it for, like, six, like, breathing in for six, holding for a second and then breathing out for like seven or eight seconds.

I do that a few times and it like totally changes my energy and my mood. And yeah, so I'm totally with you. So tell me more about my body just did it. It just felt so good as you're talking about. Oh, it does. I just feel so serene right now. I know it sounds so corny. I would have totally made fun of myself for saying that right now.

But I'm telling you people. So breathing, it's the fascinating thing is that it's like one of our core energy sources. We always think of food as our energy, right? It's really oxygen, right? And we also need carbon dioxide and we need some other things from the air. And it's available to you all the time for free. Although we're starting to pay a cost with it because of our horrible pollution of our air. But so the Wimhawp breathing method is kind of like a meditation.

You can Google him, W-I-M-H-O-F, two words, has his name. Dutch guy. He's known as the Iceman. But it's something I started this fall. And it's just these deep breasts, like I lay down. deep breaths all the way in. He's like, go all the way up to your head. And you just let it go.

Don't force it out. Just kind of let it go and do it again. So you do it like 30 times and then you just hold in as long as you can. And then you let out and then you take a deep breath in and you count to like 15 seconds. And then you do this whole cycle again. You do it for three times. So by the third round, I have been able to hold my breath up to four minutes completely comfortably.

Oh my gosh. It's crazy. It feels like. So from his point of view where I, gather for him, it's kind of like, it's kind of like aligning your energy chakras, right, from kind of the ancient Chinese and Indian medicine. So it's like your electricity and just kind of really just doing this type of breathing is really charging your body up and just like really getting it going for the day and clearing out on your pathway. So all of your nutrients and everything that needs

to like go where it needs to go can do it. That's the way I take it. I don't know if there's any science behind this, but it feels great. And then I do 12 sun salutations. I have a nice breakfast, a green tea, some oatmeal, and then I do work. And then I have a lunch. I might work out in the afternoon. I've been getting into that again. Do phone calls. And then there's some day in phone calls. And then, you know, have a dinner at night. I love walking. So there could be a hike in there. reading. I've recently committed since mid-February. I don't watch video right now and I'm not doing news, which is really reclaimed a lot of energy and attention back in my life. And I also want to tell people like my routines will evolve and change. It's not like I'm not a robot. I mean, I do tell people

I have my robot mornings the first hour of the day. I do like to have pretty regimented no matter where I live to make me feel very connected and rooted and consistent. And it does make me, my days better, even if I know if I'm not going to have a crazy day. I always tell people, it doesn't matter when you wake up or how much you have going on your life, is just to be as intentional as you can with that first hour of your day. It's just going to set the tone for the rest of your day. Yes. Don't let in the social media or the email. Get your head. Oh, oof. Yeah. Well, I have to say really quick, Steve, in that. So I mentioned that I've gotten into meditation this year. And it's so interesting, like what it can tell you. And so

So the last, like recently I realized some of like my thoughts before I'm going to bed are something that I saw posted on social media, like something ridiculous and not even important. I know to me. I was like, wait, I don't want this. I don't want these to be my thoughts. Like this is really disturbing. Well, it's back to the attention, right? You don't have to pay attention to that thought.

That's the crazy thing. You don't have to pay attention to it. But I was like, oh, I don't want to spend this much time on social media. like I definitely want to only have like certain times that I'm on it and then that's it. And then I'm not looking at it. Like I'm not going to be dreaming about Instagram. Yeah. I mean, even like there was a month, I think it was like late February to March.

I didn't look at email. I put an auto reply up and my sister was monitoring it. And it felt great. I just needed a break because I don't like that's what I'm always trying to look at like. How can I reduce the amount of times my brain is being stimulated and in a reaction? kind of way and I want to be more intentional about it. I have no problem with social media, but I'm like you, I'm very well-intentioned. It's like I'm going to go visit somebody.

I'm going to hang out there for like 10 minutes. And then that's it for the day. Yeah, I'm not, I don't think it's like totally evil because I've met some like cool friends on there. Yeah, but I totally agree about the intentionality because I realized that like when my brain was fatiguing, I was reaching for Instagram and then all of a sudden 45 minutes goes by. And I'm like, no, I can do a death. I can rest my brain in other ways, like through meditation. You're bringing up a really fun example I like to let people know about because when

you are craving a distraction in the way that Sarah was just describing, that is your brain's way of saying, I need a break. It's not even telling you that you need a break. Your brain is saying, I need a break, right? And so the next time you have that type of craving, what you want to beforehand, but before you even do that, have a list of what are some productive. destructive distractions to give yourself your brain a break a little bit more restoratively. Like, can I go for a walk? Can I call a friend? Can I go meditate?

Can I take a nap? Do something away from screens. Do something that is not too stimulating just to like allow your brain to kind of like catch up. That's really our brain just cannot consume the amount of information that we're trying to shove into it. Basically we it's like we're gorge the way that we gorge on information, if we gorged on food debt way, we would be vomiting probably three times a day. I'm sorry if that was a little too gross and graphic, but you're not going to forget it, are you people? You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I'm trying to be more intentional of taking more breaks throughout the day, but like proper breaks because previously

and until recently, if I'm honest, when I was trying to take a break, my break would be to check email or to do something else. Or look at the news. Digitally. Yeah, and that's not a No, no. And so use it as a red flag is like, see it differently now. It's like, oh, I'm about to go in there. It's like, oh, right, I'm craving something because my brain wants a break. So like, that's the cue to like close your laptop, get up, catch yourself. And also a lot of this is like breaking an addiction. We, we're all addicted to something now in the way society has been structured. And some of it's hard. I have to say even like giving up video is hard. You know what I mean? Because it's because this is the other thing where we're, We're also looking to ways to satiate ourselves, to self-soothe. And it's so easy to, like, go for ice cream or have the class of wine or watch something on Netflix or YouTube or look at social media. But it's not what we need at all. That is not, it's not living your life intentionally. And if you can start retraining your brain and training yourself to know these cues and pick up on them, you can be much happier, much saner.

I'm very into stoicism. And who are you? I, yeah, this is so crazy, Stephen. But yeah, the whole living life according to virtue, meaning like your highest self. And doing things that are good for you and for others in the long run, not the immediate indulgent satisfaction. You mentioned ice cream will taste good for like 30 seconds, but then not later on. just feel so much healthier now that I'm getting rid of a lot of the electronic inputs and just getting back to nature league you, going to bed on time and just things people were doing

200 years ago that must have made them feel like more whole people. I was like, could, you know, I was think about the people who started the United States and all the writings they did. I mean, would they have been able to do everything that they did if they had all these stimulation that we did, you know? And the funny thing is that when I first gave up watching television for a summer for four months, I think I was 27 years old, the thing I was most blew me away was I was waking up an hour earlier every day. And I was like, how is this happening? What's going on? I'm like, oh, I'm going to bed an hour earlier because I have nothing to do and I'm tired. So I just go to bed. Like, that's what your body needs. Just go to freaking bed.

Yes. Go to bed. So you're in the Berkshires. Where did you spend most of this year? So because of the pandemic, I mean, I came back to the United States, like March 15th. Like I thought that was like the beginning of everything. I felt like in the United States. On 2020. Yeah. Yeah. March 15, 2020. So I've been in the United States. No. Hold on one second. Is this is a cat? There is a dog that just got sight of some. Yeah, sure. Thank you. So I. So I have friends visiting and they came yesterday and they're here till Friday and I'm staying with them. And so I kind of like gently got them to go out to lunch and as a family of four. It's their vacation. I'm crashing and I'm still got it at work to do. Hey, they should have lunch out. Enjoy yourself.

It's very nice to go. So they said, can we leave the dog behind? I'm like, yes. And he just misses them already. Yeah. So. Oh, so I. So, yeah, I mean, I stayed with a lot of family and friends, basically ended up staying in the north-eastern part of the United States.

Florida, as my parents and sister are down there. I spent three months in the panhandle of Florida. I thought it was going to be a cheap, easy, domestic place to say. Wasn't my scene. And actually, now I have to, like, I'm a fuss up. I actually just put an offer on some land in the Berkshires to, like, have a home base again. No. That just happened.

So that's a little surprise. Never set that before in a podcast. So. But I'm always going to. a person who's going to always leave. You know what I mean? I'm never a 365 day in a row person. I have maybe a little bit of a broader definition of what it means to be location

independent. So really quick, I mean, so I was looking for a place to say it. I randomly found, because I do have this Airbnb policy. I just put it in, I'm paying nowhere than a thousand bucks a month. What do you got in United States? And this place came up in North Adams, Massachusetts. Okay. It's home of MassMoka.

And so I stayed there for three months. And I'm like, I really like this. place because I was thinking about that. So I like this mix of nature, but I also like having access to civilization. Yeah. And so I have this place now. It's like on a mountaintop, take a 10-minute drive into North Adams, best of both worlds. And then it's super easy, two and a half hours into Boston, three and a half hours into New York City, hour to, or like about an hour to Albany Airport, ski mountains. He's got everything and interesting people. You know, like people are entrepreneurs, artists, people are doing stuff. So it was checking

on my boxes. So I'm like, I'm not questioning it. I'm just going with it. Very cool. Yeah, I haven't spent a ton of time there, but I remember it being really pretty. But I think most towns in Massachusetts that I've been to have had some charm, New England charm. That's what I say? I'm glad that you use this word. One of my filters and one of my needs in life is like there has to be a little charm to the place. You have to come visit me in the UK. Or if you find yourself in the UK, come and I'll like show you around because I lived in London for quite a few years, but now I'm in this beach town called Fokston. Amazing weather.

It's like a really big art scene. And we were very under the radar until the pandemic. And now all the Londoners are like coming here because they were like, are we spending money in London if we can't do anything? Well, I think that's what's happening everywhere here. It's just crazy. And I hopefully like, well, like, broadband access like the town I'm buying it. It's like they're just getting.

broadband. So I think that's going to start changing things. I hope that could help rural communities out throughout the world and showing that we can work from anywhere. That'll be interesting. For us, we've been experimenting. We've been like in the colonies in terms of location independence. But now it's starting to be like, oh, the real big next wave of people might be coming. I'm also curious about your Bali experience. Then also you mentioned that you had, well, I had read that you generated like $600,000 from like 50 clients working 20 hours a week. And I feel like we should have gotten into that a little bit. Do you want to talk about either of these? Do you have time to chat? I mean, here's the other thing. I like to do the content. I know like I put those

numbers up there because it's unfortunate. Like people respond to that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. But I will let me. So that was when I had the sales training business that I did it, was working with local broadcasters. And I discovered that instead of going around to all the radio and television stations, every state had a state broadcast association. So what if I just sold my trainings in volume to them for the, then they can distribute them. So I didn't have to run around to all these radio and television television stations. So I ended up having 32 of the 50 state broadcast associations as clients at one point. Wow. And then because I had such good distribution, then I would be called by individual stations. Can you come to a training? Can you speak? So it's like I was trying to get off the road,

but it ended up creating more business. And I just had this attitude of like, all right, I'll take every dollar I came from the broadcast this dying industry because I knew in the long term I wanted to reinvest into something else more meaningful. And that's what I'm doing now, right? I really learned to live on no more than about $50,000 a year. There were a couple of years that maybe I spent around $70,000, $75,000 a year, but I was making well above that.

And I just kept shoving it to bank accounts and investments. and now I'm able to take the time to grow my business longer term in the way that I want without that pressure of having to take a lot of shortcuts just to like survive. So last year in 2020, traveling the world and living my life and being really happy, I spent about $23,000. And even in this journey, like it just, you don't need to be spending all this money. Even as I'm buying this property and I want to build like a tiny house. community in the burk tears, I want to challenge the notion of how much it has to cost for your

housing. You know, I was just able to buy nine and a half acres of land for $50,000, you know, in Massachusetts, two and a half hours from Boston, three and a half hours from New York City, you know, it is possible. And I think we just accept too much that we don't need to. I think everybody just loves immediate gratification. But if you can have the courage to start slowing some things down more, you're going to give yourself more options. that are going to be more in alignment with what you want, and they're going to cost you a lot less. And that's what I really am trying to inspire people to believe in. The business model of that is I'm a big believer, and I was already saying this, like,

the simplest way to start a business is start with what you know, monetize your skills, solve a problem that for people that you already know or an industry that you're going to know, that is ideal. I know that's always perfect for everybody, but that would be ideal. And that's what I did for myself. And I call it the niche tribe model. and the more that you can drill down into a specific niche and really understand them and their needs, you become their person. And they are going to refer you around.

So that way you can spend a lot less time going after and chasing clients and they can just be coming to you. So that's kind of the vision behind that kind of a model. What would be your top tip for like new entrepreneurs to find clients? For finding clients. The thing that nobody ever does and often overlooks because it just seems so simple, make a list of everybody. you already know. I can't tell you how many times people do not do that, Sarah. They just don't do it. Scan all of your LinkedIn connections. Scan your phone, scan your email. You will forget that you know people. My other little nuance with that is only put people down that you feel

really energized by like, oh yeah, I just like, I think they might know people or they might be into this or I know they might have some advice for me. Just kind of reach out to the people that energize you. And even as you're, you'll get to a point in your business where you have to reach out to strangers, reach out to organizations that people that inspire you, that you really let you up. Don't just crank it out. Like corporate racents have to reach out to lots and lots of people to support their types of business models. When you are a sole entrepreneur, you do not need that many clients. You need the right clients, the ones that light you up and the ones that you energize. That's what you're looking for because then you're not going to feel overwhelmed. You're not

going to feel burned out and people will refer business to you and you want to be chasing after them over the long term. And ironically, you'll actually be able to charge more for that, too. You'll make more money in less time. Amazing. Just get paid to be yourself, people. Just be yourself. I know everybody wants to be somebody else because that's what we're sold.

But that's like kind of the truth in life. I've learned the more you can just embrace yourself. You are the most, you are our scarce resources. This is our only shot to ever experience this version of human in our human history. This is it. That's how rare you are. And even if a lot of other people are doing what you're doing, you're doing it in a different way. And there's somebody's going to vibe with that.

And that's what we all need to have the courage to do, to just be ourselves. That is the future of work. Where can we find out more about you, Stephen? You can head on over to Life Skills at Matter.com. And if you are interested in starting to work for yourself, you can learn the very, very, very first five steps, which are not something you're going to see up on most business websites. You can find that at Life Skillsat Matter.com. get started. Thank you very much, Stephen. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you so much for your questions and for

just, I know, you found all of my passion buttons. I don't know how you did it, but you did. Well, I'm waiting for you here in England so I can show you around and I'm going to come visit you in the Berkshires. Well, you always have a spot on one of the tiny houses. Done. Sounds good. All right. Bye, Stephen. Bye. That's all for now. Go ahead and follow the show or hit subscribe so you can hear more episodes like this. And if you would like my help taking bold action on your own dreams, like living abroad,

changing careers and other life transitions, visit live without borderspodcast.com. Thanks for listening and have a 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 sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.