¶ Building a Business With Belinda Weaver
So welcome back to another episode of how she Built it . And if you're watching on YouTube , well , if you're not watching on YouTube , click down to the show notes below and over to the YouTube channel . But if you're watching on YouTube , you can see here that I have Belinda Weaver as a guest on this episode . Hi , Belinda .
Hi Quajo , it's so nice to be here .
Thank you for being here too . This is going to be a good one . And just to introduce Belinda , by the way , she's a copy coach and she helps aspiring and working copywriters build a business that fuels their life rather than burning out , which is very , very important .
She's been in the business 14 years and has just as many years right Like oh geez , what was that ? With 14 years in the business of riding , belinda has courses , coaching and mentoring that build skills and confidence . As you've heard her , she is an Aussie , but she lives in California with her pug , her two daughters and her husband .
She said that that is in the order of neediness . I've never owned a dog , but I guess a pug could be pretty needy . And in the upcoming episode because this one we're going to get to know Belinda and how she built the business , and you'll also get to know me .
But in the upcoming episode , belinda will share why USPs that would be unique selling propositions share why USPs that would be unique selling propositions are not what is going to attract an aligned audience and help you build your business . Being unique is not the most important thing you need to focus on , and after 14 years , she is prepared to tell you .
What are the most important things to focus on ? All in the upcoming episode , of course , but first , belinda , you and I are going to get to know each other and how we built our businesses , and I'm going to ask you how you built your business . It's going to be like we met at an event .
I like it . This is my favorite part , where we get to know people a little more deeply , because we hear voices all the time and that's a really nice feeling . But sometimes it's little stories of how we got there , what's happening behind the scenes , how you know we spend our downtime . That's what .
I find interesting yeah , and I mean also just the experience that go into building a business , like everyone's business is so unique and we all . I just love meeting new people , so I'm looking forward to getting to know you .
I'm here for it cool , sweet .
Before we kind of talk about the history of your business and your origin story , you had mentioned right now that you're in California and you're throwing there's a play date going on right in the other room with your kids yeah , absolutely .
although I'm told they're called hangouts now they're not play dates .
So you have older kids who are aware enough to give these things names .
Yeah , absolutely . I've had to change my language around it . But yeah , there's crafting going on . There's hot glue . I've just asked that the glitter remains in the dining room . So , yeah , there's clay , the oven's on , the hot glue guns out . There's a box city happening , I don't know .
As long as the living room is reasonably intact by the time we're done , it's all good .
It's all good . It's all good , yeah . So how old are your two daughters ?
11 , or , sorry , 10 , about to be 11 , very soon and 7 .
Nice .
Yeah .
I mean well , because my daughter is eight and it feels like she wants to be an adult already .
There's a lot of adjustments because I actually had my business before I had kids , so I've run and grown my business through babies , through toddlers , through nursery school and childcare challenges . And now they're both at school . I feel like I've kind of hit the promised land , but it's bringing up all this new world of challenges .
How did you even I mean , I have so much respect for my wife because we got two kids and they're on summer break right now and my wife also manages Facebook ads like me , and it's like she is so focused when the kids have a moment on the projector watching a movie or are gone and she gets so much done like , how did you pull that off with with littles
at home ?
well , I think's I call it time confetti , where you just everyone's engaged for 10 minutes , and especially when they're little , when they're very little and you don't know how long you've got with this activity that you've just set up . And so , working in time confetti , you just train your brain to dip into deep focus zones and work in smaller slots .
However , it's not great . It's not a great way to work , so you have to be really picky and choosy about what you're trying to do in those moments and , interestingly enough , when they started at school , I had to retrain my brain to work in consecutive time blocks because I was like I forgot how to focus for longer than 10 minutes at a time .
It's a struggle , yeah , it's a struggle .
And it's amazing now to send them off to school . I mean , I also work in the school one day a week , but to send them off to school we're in California . We go to a lovely hippy-dppy California school where the parents are really involved and it's great .
But those other days to just have the school hours to think consecutive thoughts in a row , oh it's so good . But you know I work with a lot of copywriters who are parents and so it's nice to have that shared experience of , like I remember breastfeeding on calls and working while , you know , doing Play-Doh and stuff like that .
Because that's what we're all trying to do is just keep getting ahead a little bit by a little bit in the time we have .
So walk me through a little bit of that . You said you started your business 14 years ago . Okay , where were you at in the world ? Because you said you're from Australia , but now you're in California . Was this pre-move , post-move ?
so I quit my corporate job , became a full-time freelancer yeah and that was in order to have a business that would allow kids . Because we usually have to make that choice Do we take like a crappy part-time job that lets us be with our kids , or do we pursue a different career ambition and have to have a lot of childcare ?
And you know , I was at a point I discovered copywriting when I was kind of like what does that choice look like ? What is more important to me ? And I was at a point I discovered copywriting when I was kind of like what does what does that choice look like ? What is more important to me ?
And I was actually running the business for a couple of years before we had kids . And then I got pregnant and my husband said let's move to America , what do you think ?
So I moved to the States with my laptop and my husband and my pug and a newborn baby and so you know , like I just said , if you're going to change one thing , change everything sure I mean change time zones .
Okay , so you immigrated to the states yeah , in 2014 all right . Right , I can relate . I felt like if , because I lived in China for 12 years , so I felt like if China allowed foreigners to immigrate , I probably would have immigrated there .
But I'm in the process of immigrating to Mexico , like with temporary residency that will become permanent residency in like two years . So like , how did that work out for you ? I'm actually curious , did you ?
well , we , we were only going to stay here for four years because we actually my husband and I moved to the uk . He's a brit , so we got married in australia , moved to the uk and we said like four to five years and then we'll bounce back .
And four and a half years we hit back to australia , and so we the the plan was and four and a half years we hit back to Australia , and so the plan was to do that for America . Okay , four to five years and then we'll bounce back to Australia . Eleven years later , we're still here .
Yeah .
So we're not . I don't know if this is our forever home , but we're not done yet in terms of exploring , and we're actually looking at a move next year that will open up the East Coast . So you know we're adventurers , always looking for new places to be and explore . I don't know like can you be a homebody and an adventurer at the same time ?
Because I feel like that's what I am . I love being at home , but I also love being in new places .
Yes , I will say yes only because a similar contradiction exists within me , whereas I love living in different countries , but I don't love during the doing the tourist thing gotcha , it's the little locals , insider stuff that you love uncovering .
I mean , yeah , it sounds ideal , but really I just like living in foreign spots , you know , without having to troll around and see all the sites and everything .
Yeah , so I have a question for you now , quite like you said you would have if China allowed it . You would have just stayed there yeah is that ? How quickly did you discover ?
I love this , I love this place oh , I would say it took six months and that first happened . So there's there's . I have two separate china trips . One is when I married my wife and we moved to china like three months after we got married four months Now , how does that math work ? We got married on May 23rd and we were in China by September .
So that many months and then . But the first time I was in China was in university , studying abroad , and so being there doing you know the full-time language study thing , four hours a day plus like four hours of homework and lots of acting the fool outside of the university . It took me like six months and I was like I could stay here .
I really enjoy it .
¶ Cultural Exchange Through Travel and Work
Nice . What was your favorite part of being there ? What did you miss the most when you left ?
When I left the first time , it was the people from other countries that I missed the most . I was studying at a university in the north of China and there's a ton of Korean foreign exchange students there , just like there's a ton of Korean enterprise , like factories and things like this , like all the TVs .
There's lots of factories there , like there's lots of factories there , and so I missed just being able to speak Mandarin with people from around the world who didn't at that time , didn't speak English .
I feel like lots of folks speak English , but this was back in 2004 and there are plenty of students who the only common language was Mandarin , chinese , and so navigating that , plus trying to have a good time , plus trying to be funny when you have like very rudimentary foreign language skills like it , really impacted me and I got addicted to it .
Yeah , and there's that magic phase , I think , when you're young , where the intensity is just dialed up , making them those cool memories so much more yeah , for sure , like many , many , many , many , many many cool memories .
Can you relate ? Are you have you traveled and spent time in other , like non-english speaking countries or ?
not non-english speaking , but the experience when we went to England . As I said , my husband's a Brit , but we ended up being friends with a lot of people who had moved to England , a lot of South Africans , people from Singapore . You had Brits , there were Aussies . Now , when I say it like that , it's actually a pretty short list .
It wasn't that much of a mixed group , but it's so cool being around people who have come to a place and I have that here in Silicon Valley actually , because the Bay Area lots of people coming to the tech hubs . So we have friends here of all different nationalities who have traveled here for work .
But I love that sense of community and connection that you get in certain places of the world where people are drawn to for whatever reason .
Wow , silicon Valley , that sounds fantastic . I remember when I was in university because you mentioned going to the UK and being there with other folks that had moved there too , so to speak I remember the first time like I really got it that you know we might share the same language , english , but the culture is so different .
And it was when I was volunteering in this organization called I think it was called FIUTS , like Foundation for International Understanding , something about basically at university , helping people who had come , as you know , and studied from other countries , just feel at home .
And I remember there was a group of Canadians actually that were there and I'm like but you guys , you're Canadians like you're only three hours from my university , like we all speak English . But after having conversations at length with them , that was the first time I realized , okay , just because , like you speak English .
But after having conversations at length with them , that was the first time I realized , okay , just because you speak English from Canada or the UK or Australia , the culture is quite different .
And you still go through to an extent or at least they went through not quite knowing how to fit in and understanding the language , yet not picking up on some of the cultural cues and all this kind of thing . And so I was quite intrigued by meeting them and my mind was open to this whole concept of different cultures intermingling yeah , absolutely .
It's one of the things I really enjoy when you . I love the moment when you're in a new place and you're like they might say when we did a bit of traveling through Southeast Asia and we always hear that phrase same , same , but different .
You're like on the surface , things kind of feel the same , but you hit a moment where you're like , oh , I am not at home . This is very different and it might be .
I have it a lot here in the states when I use australian slang like no one knows what I talk about for example well , just this weekend I was where I'm planning a weekend away with some girlfriends and someone said what time are you going down ? And I said I'm going to go down on Friday , arvo , and I'll come back on Saturday .
And there was a moment , just like your face , where everyone went what ? And I'm like Arvo , it's afternoon and they went oh right , you know , and I've been here over 10 years and I still have those moments where people go that , oh , that's not a word here . Another example that trips me up is raisins .
In Australia we have sultanas , and in America sultanas just aren't a thing . So it's what it is . Are we talking like a fruit , a cracker ? What is a sultana ? Well , it's , it's for kids .
Are we talking like a fruit , a cracker ? What is a sultana ?
Well , it's just like a slightly bigger raisin . You have the grape , the sultana , then the raisin and then the currant , all in stages . Everyone's learning so much .
I know .
And when you have little kids , that's one of the snacks you give them . Except over here , sultanas aren't a thing . So I love , I kind of find joy in these moments where it's whether it's a coffee or a food or a direction the way people reference their freeways or slang .
I love that , the moment when you're like , oh , I'm somewhere different now sultana , I'm gonna have to pull that one out the next time I talk to somebody who's from Australia . I've never heard of that .
I might well be like why are you talking to me about Sultanas , but go ?
for it . Well , I mean , but that's what makes it all interesting .
So copywriting .
Yeah , but you started copywriting in Australia , right ? Yeah , that's right with the intention of starting a family , and so that was like your exit from corporate world yeah , that's right .
We bought a house , got pregnant , had the business okay , I don't know why , I thought that , like Australia was much more progressive when it came to like maternity leave or job , like being held for someone like to be to have a kid , and then go back like a year later , I think .
I think it is , but you know I wasn't very happy . I think it's more progressive than some . However , you have to build these kind of things up . So I wanted to change my job because I did not like the environment that I was working in . I was doing marketing and it was very clicky at work .
It was a small business , the topic was boring , so I was like I can't like this needs to change . I'm not happy here . So I was on the lookout for another job and then I thought if I stayed in corporate , I'm starting from a fresh start .
So I have to build up any maternity leave or capacity to take time off and reputation and relationship , or I take a different track and I focus on starting a family and kind of put the career on hold . So that's that's a choice that that a lot of people have to face .
Even if you get some maternity leave , like 12 weeks or longer , it's still not a lot . I mean no , I'd love to say it was better , but you know a lot of parents face that choice of career or family .
I mean it's tough .
Like .
I remember I wasn't . Obviously I did not birth our child , but my first was born when I was a teacher , at the time , still in China , and my first was born just before the school year finished .
And so then we had like the summer to be all three of us together and I remember feeling and this is nothing compared to what my wife felt , but still I remember feeling super sad and I was just moping around on the first day of school .
I may have cried in my office , I didn't admit it to , like the other teachers , but like I was just like I miss being at home , like with my kid , you know , after spending all day and plenty of nights together , you know .
Yeah , but that's what I love about copywriting . That's why a lot of you know I don don't exclusively serve women , but a lot of people in my programs and my membership women going , I got fire in my belly . I'm a smart woman , I'm ambitious , I want to do something , but I don't want to .
I won't , don't want that to cost how much I want to spend with my child and you you don't have to be like an earth mother to want to spend time with your baby but also want a career .
Earth mother .
Well , you know , as mums , we often get put into nice little buckets . You know , we're a career woman and that's the most important thing . Or we're an earth mother type where all we want to do is spend time with our children .
But there's lots of , you know , mums in between who were like , like , for me , I thought I'd be the kind of mum I was like , yeah , we're just going to play lego and do play-doh all day and it's going to be the best fun . And five minutes into play-doh I'm like , oh , I don't think I am that kind of mom .
Actually , this is boring , so that's okay , but it means , you know , I want to do more in terms of my business and my career and my personal potential .
Okay , all right , so you're at home . Yeah , you've started copywriting and you've had your first daughter , your 11 year old . Well , she was not 11 at the time . What was your focus on copywriting then and then ? The second thing I want to know is how long did it take you from that point to arrive at , like your , your business focus now ?
so we had just moved . I'm in a new time zone , as you said , a new country , I've got a newborn and a dog . I didn't even have a car so I couldn't really go anywhere and everyone's driving on the wrong side of the road anyway . So I was very much at home trying to figure it out , but all my client base was still in Australia .
So there's a nice time zone crossover , but I was basically putting her down for the night , then starting my day in terms of work wise and working in time , confetti and things like that .
And interestingly enough and this is another thing a lot of moms working moms face is no one asked me about my work or what I did for two years , like I would have conversations with people and it would be just about the baby or about my husband . I got asked about my husband because he brought us to America .
I got asked about my baby because babies are cute , but I was kind of living a double life where . I felt I was hustling and working every spare minute I had , but it was invisible to everyone . I knew which was really challenging , but that actually was part of the what led me to go . This isn't working for me .
I need to figure out a different way to run my business , because I'm trying to meet client deadlines or in newborn naps . It's not going to work for me . And so that's when I started going . I actually had a business coach who goes hey , you're going into other people's groups and presenting about copywriting . You seem to really like it .
Why don't you start your own program ? Okay , and that's when I switched weird time zone deadline meeting for building a course , week by week as people were going through it . But it was really exciting and I'm glad I . I'm really glad I did that shift .
It was really exciting . You're really glad you
¶ Evolution of a Copywriting Business
did . The shift Sounds like maybe you're skipping over a little bit of hardship or struggle . I mean , you went from , you went from one on one strictly service provider or me . You know , having a program and I feel like I feel like you just did the the Disney , the Disney swirl .
You know how , like in all Disney movies they're like little and then all of a sudden the song plays and then you see like fairy dust float and now they're adults .
Well , yeah , obviously it wasn't that easy , but I appreciate that I had a coach who went you're good at this , you like it . I mean , my first step was actually quizzing my audience who's ? I emailed all my blog readers because I was blogging every week and I was like who are you like ? Are you a copywriter or a business owner ?
And most of my audience had shifted to become copywriters because of the content I was putting out , and so that's when I went okay , okay , I have a new audience , now I can make some decisions . So I did a .
You know , I'm thinking of putting together a writing program for new copywriters who would be interested , started building up some buzz , started showing me building it as I was making it . But the truth is that I was delivering . I was creating the program week by week , as they were getting it .
Which is , I would argue , pretty smart .
Yes in hindsight , yeah it was , it was good , and that program went on to run and grow Like I just got more and more copywriters signing up for it . I ran it for quite a few years actually , and then I've recently , in the last couple of years , rebranded that copywriting masterclass into the copywriting incubator and it was a chance for me to go all right .
Having run this program for years and years , and years , how would I go back and reorganize it ? How would I go back and rebuild it , knowing what I know now about how to motivate learning and how to organize content , and more examples and more experience ? And so I went back and I just rebuilt it from the ground up incubator with a k ?
yes , all right , I've I've never seen that . Well you know copywriting . Oh geez , my mind jumps to like how people put . Like I don't know , in certain German words there's a K instead of a C , but that makes perfect sense . Just my brain was not following .
That's all right and you know it's the egg , because I want people to learn in a safe space where you can make mistakes and it can . You know you can throw a lot of things out there , try things and and learn faster that's .
But okay , I didn't see that . But like you're right , there are two eggs . It's like one is a blue my monitor is not the best , my second monitor , but it looks like you got like a burnt orange until blue two eggs , or one egg shifted there the copywriting .
Belinda , I like how you just said casually that for quite a bit of time you just copywriters , just kept signing up for your program . Um , would you mind sharing like what you were doing to generate all those sales ?
well , I want to be real about it . I've you , you know I don't run the kind of programs that have thousands of people signing up , because I do a lot of coaching in my work , like really hands-on . I have a gift for building really unscalable offers .
But I kind of like it because we , you know , we do really get to know each other , and so I would run it twice a year . It was 12 weeks and so I would start building some anticipation for the next open date .
That's what I'm always doing and while I'm running the program , I'm sharing what we're talking about and I'm sharing insights and I'm sharing screenshots . So people are getting that kind of behind the scenes view and I'm letting people know when it's going to be opening again . And I do fairly traditional launches around it .
But in my first launch it was just email , like it was just join the waitlist , it's open , and then over the years I would add a live component or I'd add some Facebook lives , and then maybe I'd add a webinar , a live component , or I'd add some Facebook lives , and then I maybe I'd add a webinar , and then I I've done events and stuff like that .
But you know , I'm very much a slow , slow mover .
I like to get something bedded in before I add another layer okay , when you started , you were one-on-one , so to speak , and then you moved into the program and now you have the course and the membership and one-on-one coaching
¶ Creating a Business Offer Stack
. How did you decide ultimately on these three offers ?
Well , it was the writing program to begin with , which is now the copywriting incubator . I had that and I was like this just focuses on writing skills . I'm not going to teach people how to run a business , because if I teach people how to run a business , because if I teach people how to run a business , I have to take something away to add that in .
Otherwise it's like a year long program . So I always knew I wanted to add the membership to show people how to run a business as a copywriter . So the incubator is the 12-week deep dive . The membership is the ongoing kind of , I might say , mastery of running a business , and I always knew that was going to be the case .
But I didn't add the membership until I start . I launched a program in 2015 . I didn't add the membership till 2018 , even though I had the idea . I was like I'm I'm not ready yet and I'm a big believer in doing things before you're ready , but you still have to have a certain level of confidence . To show up and go here is a thing .
And then , after running the membership for years , people work through my confident copywriting roadmap , which is the stages of copywriting , and they kind of get to a point where they're like what's next ? And that's when I started thinking about the mastermind and working with people even more closely .
And again when I started offering digital products , I was like , oh , I'd really love to have a mastermind one day , but I don't like to rush these things . I like to wait until it's the right time for me and it's the right time for everyone else . The mastermind is not the one-on-one coaching .
No , the one-on-one coaching is something I just kind of have off at the side . I've always had that where people go . Can I just pick your brain , or can you help me with my pricing , or can you help me develop a marketing plan , or can you review my copy ? So I just created that container to be like yeah , sure , it's a paid container .
Sure , it should be valuable your questions , I got answers , so that one's a kind of like hangs off the side of the overall roadmap . If someone wants my time , I'm happy to give them answers that I have .
Nice , with , with the multiple offers , it sounds to me like you want people to come in to your business ecosphere first in a paid capacity in the course . How do you successfully help people understand where they should start out versus where they should end up ? And was somebody's , let's say , customer journey ?
Was it naturally what you thought it should be or what it is now ?
That's a great question because , no , not at all . I thought people would take the writing program because they're a new copywriter . They need to understand the craft of copywriting . Then I thought they would move on to the membership , learn how to run a business .
What I actually found is that people were joining my Confident Copywriting membership and then building their business and then realizing their writing skills weren't as strong as they needed to be and then going and doing my writing program . So that has actually changed my offer stack a little bit , which has been interesting , and it's something I'm still working on .
And the mastermind is something I don't really talk about in a huge capacity , but if people are in my world , you know it's kind of one of those , if you know .
You know I don't want it to be the internet's best kept secret , but my capacity for doing big launches is also governed by school holidays and my energy and all those kind of things which I've become a lot more protective of .
I can understand that . Forget , forget her last name . But I first heard of this concept from her . Her first name is Shannon and she talked about a secret menu of upsells . Basically , programs are like your mastermind .
It could be , for example , where somebody it's not publicly on the website , but after somebody purchases another program and a moment of time passes then they are presented . This . It's like a secret menu of programs that aren't public but they get it via email . Is that kind of how you ?
yes , except it's not . My mastermind is . It is on my website , but it's not . You know , we know the rule what grows is what you water . So it's not . You know , we know the rule what grows is what you water . So it's not necessarily something I water in the public forum , but it is something that I'm talking about once you're in my world .
Okay , all right , the membership is where people usually find you . I think the listener who has a membership is going to be encouraged by this because , at least for my ads clients and people that I consult with , memberships can be some of the hardest things to grow as a quote . Unquote primary offer .
Yeah , it's . But at the same time , the way marketing is shifting right now .
The membership , it's obviously a lower price point it's a monthly price point than my writing program , which is , you know , 12 weeks of intensive coaching , and so people are making different decisions about how much disposable cash they have and they're choosing which investment will give them the return on investment .
And so I think a lot of that decision making is different now post pandemic , and it's down to priceandemic and it's down to price point and it's down to the ROI , which we need to talk about a little more publicly . And so the offer shifting is something I'm going through right now .
I'm even looking at coming up with some lower ticket offers because the budget constraints are real and I want people to be able to take some first steps forward to get them to the point where they can join the membership as well .
So you know , in all of this it's not just having the right offer stack that people understand where they need to go to next , but having the runway Agreed ,
¶ Navigating Parenthood and Work Balance
agreed , agreed .
Tell me about your 11-year-old how , like I , have hopes and aspirations for my kids .
Yeah .
What is it like you being a successful copywriter and seeing kind of the gifts and talents that your daughter is developing ? If those aren't the same , how do you ? How do you kind of weigh in balance , like maybe attempting to let her go in the same kind of way that you've gone , or just to expose her to the written word as you've been exposed to it ?
what's funny is she hates writing okay , all right that's the biggest struggle , because this is what I do . No , but it , you know , it reminds me that everyone will like their own things and um , it also reminds me that , like if I went back to my 20 year old self and said you're going to become a writer , I'd be like no way because .
I've never identified myself as a , as a writer , so you know , I also know that what she likes now might be seeds of something , but they might not . So for both my kids I'm just like try a lot of things . You know , for a while she was really good at making slime and so for a while she was doing slime on YouTube and stuff like that .
But you know , what's really funny is , as a parent trying to give the kid advice , it's immediately rejected on impact , because I'm trying to give her tips on , like , doing YouTube videos and she's like no , I'm like I have a YouTube channel . I'm not an expert , but I know a thing or two .
No , no thanks mum , and so constantly being challenged in that way to go all right , she's her own person , she's going to , she's going to do what she wants to do and it's going to evolve in what's right for her and we'll see where it ends up .
You're so gracious as a parent . You said slime in my inside I'm like fringing , because my daughter and my son loved to make slime . I hope I thoroughly squashed that interest Because , like we still have marks on the walls , I'm like why does it have to go on the wall ? Why ?
do you need to ?
like touch the furniture and like how are you choosing the materials that seem to leave a stain that could not be like removed ?
Yeah , well , you know I'm . We went to preschools . One thing that is such a great introduction to their early childhood is the preschools we went to in California , very focused on sensory activities . And so you know I've I've got footage of me letting the kids jump in puddles in their nice dresses and I'm like go for it , get muddy , get dirty .
And I think it's really important for girls to hear that as well . Get muddy , get dirty , take up space , be loud . You know , even though it can be a little bit inconvenient as a parent , just a little , just a little we do a lot of things together .
So when I have to sit down and do some work , I think it's equally as important for them to see that I have other responsibilities and also that there is a career path outside of the corporate workforce . And so you know , when she was making slime , she's like I'm going to start a business . We designed a logo , we got containers .
I said well , you got to think about what you need to start up costs . I'm prepared to think about what you need as start-up costs . I'm prepared to put in this . You need to fund the materials . And that was just a fun conversation to have .
Yeah .
I built a slime empire in my head .
That didn't go anywhere . You know , like why not still try ? Before I had squashed their slime dreams , my kids were watching those same . When , before I had squashed their slime dreams , my kids were watching those same . I have no shame in squashing their slime dreams . Happy I did it , happy I did it .
But if they were watching these YouTube channels and I'm looking at the number of subscribers and views on these videos and like . I'm saying to my wife from time to time , like what are we doing wrong ? Yeah . And like I'm saying to my wife from time to time , like what are we doing wrong ? Like , yeah , can we ?
Can we not just show our hands and our feet squishing slime too , and just have a million plus subscribers like this is ?
great , asmr slime channels are massive . As I said , I built the empire in my head , but then we let it go and it's fine . But you know , I think it's . It's great for the kids to see a different way of working and every now and then , like today , I'm it's .
It's great for the kids to see a different way of working and every now and then , like today , I'm like oh , I'm on a podcast , so I need everyone to be a little bit quiet . That's . That's a little bit normal for them .
It's okay , I'm recording . That's me , not you well we have .
We actually have different grades of interrupt . Like I sort of go I'm having a coaching call , you can come in if it's important , but I prefer not to be interrupted all the way through to . You do not touch the door , you do not go near the door , you do not make a sound , which is pretty rare because I'm very family friendly .
Like on my coaching calls and stuff , I want people to see that this is all happening behind the scenes . I'm fixing doll heads and sometimes I'm breaking up fights , and that's what people need to see that it's still possible to run a business around that .
Yes , and please keep doing that , because you said that you're actually taking your kids to school and you , you have memories being in their classroom and it's like I feel like everyone needs to know that it's okay to have your kid peek into the zoom call .
You know and understand what the life of working at home and running a business really is , like Our kids know .
Our kids are watching us and , like my son , only five like understands , Like it's just this different thing where I want to make sure that I'm still available even if I'm busy , you know , and the kids are like I can't approach dad while he's at work or dad's in a grumpy mood or dad's always telling me to go away .
You know , like oh , dad's not even here because he has to go and work in an office .
But at the same time , like I , you know , like I kind of hope my kids would maybe do something that has to do with online business and it's a luxury to go away to an office , I guess in your kid's eyes , because they're like I don't know what dad does . Well , they still know what I do , really , but he's away at work , or mom's away at work .
I go to daycare . I grew up in daycare . Both of my parents were away at work during the day and my dad daytime and swing shift and it's like , but being here at home , they might not quite understand what I do , but they can very quickly develop like a understanding that oh , don't bother dad , or dad's always like saying go away , go away , go away .
How much do you narrate your say even like stress response to your kids in that , or say even like stress response to your kids in that , for example ? You know I can carry around work in my head and seem a bit sharp and irritated and I try to be mindful of going . You know what ? I just had this thing happen and it's taken up all my head space .
I just need to take a couple of breaths and then can you ask me again how much do you relate , say work experience going on in your head so that your kids get it's not them .
I mean , look at the expression on my face . I should start doing that . Thanks for calling me out . I should start doing that a lot better .
Yeah , it's tough , you know , because we get no commute , no transition . I'm walking out that door and then I'm deep in kids , and so that's one thing I've really embraced is that narrating the experience of what I'm going through , and it's that thing you do with toddlers you narrate everything so that they understand that you feel emotions too .
And so now I'm sort of like hey , I've just done a thing and I'm in the dip . I'm in my low energy dip . So've just done a thing and I'm in the dip . I'm in my low energy dip , so I just need to go for a walk around the block and then ask away .
I'm going to try that . I'm going to try that .
You and I .
What did you say ?
They get it . You know , kids are smart . They are quite smart Once we give them a framework to go . Oh okay , I know how this works . Now , after the thing , there's a little bit of an energy dip or a little bit of grumpiness but it's not me and he swings back .
I like it . Let's stop this episode here . Yeah , because I want to make sure we have enough time to talk about the five Ps of being choosable . How was that ? For a very hard transition , but here we are .
It's a juicy one . It's a big one , let's keep our energy .
Right , so we're going to jump
¶ Next Episode Release and Business Growth
into the next studio . So you , the listener , and what is for moments for us , if you're listening to this episode right now and it's a Monday , because it just released , then the upcoming episode won't come out until Wednesday . Monday because it just released , then the upcoming episode won't come out until Wednesday .
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You ready to hop into the next episode , belinda ?
Let's do it .
All right . Well , thank you for being here and until the next time we see each other , are you here for me ? Be blessed , and we'll see you in the next one . Bye , bye .