156. [Re-Release] As A Solopreneur, How Do I Avoid or Bounce Back From Burnout with Renee La Tour

She's a full time traveler and part time entrepreneur, my gal, and coining the term fancy nomad to describe her unique freedom first lifestyle. Renee, just going through your bio makes me so excited to talk to you, So welcome to the show.

And it's fine for some people, again, whatever floats your boat. But the reality of it is, is that more is not more and less is more. And what I practice in my life, and what I've come to practice also in business and helping other people and being really an evangelist for freedom and an evangelist for this movement is essentialism and minimalism and really knowing what's important to you. Because a lot of people get it wrong. They think that when they hear minimalism, they think, oh, less things, less stuff.

Yes. That's true, superficially. But when you think about and you really dig into minimalism and essentialism, and we can talk more about dissecting these words specifically, really comes down to what's important and doing more of what's important, what's a priority, and less of what's not. So even though it might feel a bit satisfying to say, I gotta take out the trash, and, oh, I have all these meetings, and I'm so in demand, and I'm so busy, and I'm running, running, running, going, going, going, You might feel really important. You might get little hits of dopamine.

But in the long run, it isn't advantageous for you, your life, your family, your business. It actually is just running, running, running, running, running, running right into the ground. And we see it over and over again and it's something to be of major concern because health of, your your own personal health, like physical health, mental health. We have a huge mental health crisis that needs to be addressed. Health of our families, breaking down of family structure.

And when I speak to not only mothers, but fathers as well. And so we're seeing this, restructure of culture. And I'm just gonna specifically talk, about and to Americans, we can't generally talk about it, we can get into it because it's quite fascinating. And, of course, being, nomadic, you see different cultures and how they interact with work, which is very interesting. We can dig into it because it well, we can go there if you guys want to.

But just speaking of Americans and how we've gone about work, and now both genders, sexes, whatever, being in the workforce and also managing families and also managing your commitments to your friends and other things you wanna do. And, hey, maybe you also wanna travel. You wanna do all of these things and you wanna live a very full life, but something's got to give. And being busy and being run, run, run, and go, go, go and on the hamster wheel, really doesn't serve you. So in a nutshell, I think if we can unpack any of that, we can go any direction you wanna go.

But in more reasons than not, no, it's not serving you and it's not going to grow your business. It might work short term, but there isn't sustainability there, especially not as a one person business if it's built on your back and you doing all of those things. So with all of that, I'll open it up to more questions and see where you guys wanna go with that.

And, you know, I used to have this memory of we're making a trade show booth for a new company, and we hadn't figured out everything yet. And we're trying to make this trade show booth, and it was lots of fun. But when we looked at the result, like, a year later, we're like, that was terrible. You know? Because we're busy doing the things that are fun and not focusing on the things that we really need to do that might be harder and produce less dopamine. So that's a really great point.

But then I realized that there are some of us that live the nomadic life a little differently, and we travel a little slower. We are a bit more intentional. We really want to be in the culture. And this is something that has been very, very important to me. When I travel, I really want to live how the people live.

And I go to really touristy places, for sure. Like, I'm in one right now. It's very touristy. And I'll be here short term, but I really like to stay long term in places where people are actually living a normal life so I can kind of really feel into that. So the the biggest comparisons and differences that I've noticed are people who are more well rounded and not driven so much by materialism.

And now, again, it's kind of been interesting because as globalization happens and the onset of smartphones, people are being more and more introduced to western culture. And so they are chasing more of the physical, superficial, keeping up with the Joneses mentality. But if you go into cultures that aren't there yet, what you'll see is a slowness that has been incredible for me. And oddly enough, I spent, a lot of time in Asia. I was living in Malaysia for, like, a year.

I was living in South Africa for, a year. But then being in Latin America this last year has really opened my eyes to the slowness that is more of a cultural norm. And the thing about slowness that I want to kind of, hone in on and a message that I've been shown reminded of is that you really do have to slow down and speed up. And I think that as Americans, we don't ever think about that. And it might kind of seem strange to hear, but it's very true.

And when I see in other cultures, the fact that they're just so relaxed about things makes things easier. And when we apply that to business, for example, if something feels difficult, like you bringing up the trade show and, like, let's do the fun stuff. let's set up the website and do all the things get the dopamine hit and all that. Now we often wanna focus on kind of, those funner things, and then there's other people who are like, I don't wanna sell. I don't wanna send any cold DMs or because, yeah, it's not so fun.

You know? It's kind of you have to might face rejection or whatever. Like, those things need to happen in your business. you need to do those things. You need to go into those dark caves.

And if you just relaxed about it, you know, not really put too much weight on it and kind of just like, who cares? The person said no. Move on. It would be easier. So I think that one of the biggest things when some people might say, oh, you think about Europeans, and they take so much time off, and they take all of August off.

And, like, oh, look at the, Italians. They just go and have, like, 3 hour lunches, and they're, having wine. I'm not talking about any of that because that's kind of superficial. I'm talking more about, how we feel and think about our work. And when we can slow down there, when we can really take a step back to say, why am I so tight about this?

Why do I care so much about rejection? Why, is it so uncomfortable for me to send a couple cold DMs? Let me try it out. We just send a couple of DMs. See how that feels.

Oh, that wasn't so bad. I could send a couple more and just relax about it. That's really what I'm talking about here. So, when I travel around, it's not so much of, like, what you see on the surface level and, oh, people are really enjoying their lives, but it's really when you dig in and you kind of really see how do they just carry themselves? How do they interact with each other? Latin Americans, for example, are very warm. They're very opening and welcoming, not only with, foreigners, but also with each other. You know, they're just kind of how you see them interact with one another. And so for me, when I kind of think about, well, how can we apply that to our businesses and how we interact with leads and potential clients and potential customers, what if we just relaxed a little bit? What if we just slowed down and we didn't put so much pressure on ourselves?

What does stress feel like in my body? What kind of thoughts am I having to make me feel like, hey. I feel stressed right now. I feel overwhelmed. I feel like, you know, I'm kind of up you know, again my back is up against a wall, or do I feel constricted in my chest?

Do I feel some kind of, you know, tightness? Does my body kinda feel tight and tense? Do I have headaches? like, those are really the questions that I would urge people to ask themselves to really define how how stress feels and because I think what happens is folks just kind of adopt someone else's opinion or thoughts or, medical definition without really checking in with themselves. So I just wanna set the baseline to start there.

And then as far as being able to make the difference of well, is this just normal everyday stress? Because being a solopreneur, being a one person business, it's not for everybody, and not a lot of people can handle it. Because a lot of times you're gonna feel like you're on an island. A lot of times you're gonna feel like you're a freaking nutcase. And you're just bat shit crazy.

And you have to be okay with that and be like, oh, no. I'm good. I got it under control. I'm relaxed and be able to self regulate and have tools in your toolbox to handle things that are gonna come up that a lot of people aren't gonna have to deal with. Like, this is just the reality as an employee where you have someone telling you what, when, where, and how.

You're not gonna have to deal with the things that a solopreneur has to deal with or a one person business or someone who's kind of on their own. So having said all of that, knowing the difference comes down to, am I at a stage of uncharted territories? You know what I mean? Like, because we've all had situations where we can kind of go back to, hey, I dealt with that a year ago, or I dealt with something very similar to that. Maybe, the circumstances might look a little different, but at its core, it kinda feels the same.

Again, going back to, how does this fill my body? How am I feeling? How am I thinking about this? Is this uncharted territories? What tools in my toolbox do I have where I can address this?

What things have worked for me in the past? Or am I at a point where, like, I don't even know? I am at a place where I need to get help, and then that help could look different to different people. You know, if you have someone that you in your trusted circle, whether that be a significant other or a friend or, you know, a therapist or someone that you can call to kind of bounce that off with, kind of bounce how you're feeling or kinda talk it out, that's, where you really need to start. Because it's not I don't want anyone to feel like there's this pressure of, like, I need to know the difference. do I even know that I'm burnt out? It's, such a personal thing, that it's really more about just kind of having a point of reflection of how do I feel my body? What kind of thoughts am I having? Is this different or the same of what I've experienced in my past? Do I have anyone that I can reach out to?

We all can. Again, I'm, like, ready to give the number to 1800 BetterHelp or something. But I know, Carly, maybe that does feels like it's not answering your question. But my point in saying all of this is it really comes down to you personally, like, taking personal accountability to say, how am I feeling right now, and what do I need? And do I have the tools?

Because I have tools that I can tap into. I don't need to you know, I can label it burnout if I need to, but then it's like, alright. What am I gonna do about it? So you know, having the tools available to me or making those tools available to me is, the next step. Regardless of whatever you call it, I don't really care.

You know? But I really do want to get ahead of that curve because it's unnecessary. Like, we talked about, it's completely unnecessary to burn yourself out. And you'll know that when you just spend a little time with yourself to really dig into what's important to you. What is important to you? Not what your family has told you, not on how you were raised or how you were culturally brought up, but what do you want?

What do you want your life to look like? How do you wanna interact with your family? How do you want your businesses to support that lifestyle?

And really sit with that. Because I think too many times, too many people, the reason why they're running around and they're just can't really get a good grasp on things is because they don't have a sense of priorities. And they don't have a sense of priorities because they haven't identified what's really important to them. And when you start there and again, I know, like, this is why it is said over and over and over again to a cliche of, knowing your why, having a vision, knowing your mission is because the reason why there's all this scattering and clinging and all of this is because people don't know. And they haven't given themselves the space and the time to know that.

So when you do, you're like, alright. I got it. I'm clear. I know my why. I know what I want. I know what I want my business. This is my goal. This is how I wanna interact with my family. Alright. Done. Did it. Moving on. How do I prioritize? And that's when all these things are coming in. Right? We're in the information age of, everything in the power of our hands. We can just have access to all the information. Nothing is sacred anymore. It's all there. What do I do with it?

You know, there's like so many options. I can be on all these different social media platforms. I can grow my business in all these gazelle ways. There's this person telling me I can make, you know, 90,000,000 in 90 days. There's this person over here telling me I need to be on TikTok and do all the TikTok things.

And, there are all these options. So what do I do? Right? So that's when, prioritizing comes into place. And really, again, kind of sitting down and saying, what's going to move the needle on where I want to go? What can I commit to? What can I say for the next 90 days? And this is something I preach over and over. If you can do it for the next 3 months, like, what in the next 90 days can I do on a consistent basis to see if this will work? You have to experiment.

Again, going back to people who are taking the leap into this one person business, into the solopreneurship journey, you are taking the leap to say, I'm gonna experiment, and I'm gonna try things out and see what works and what doesn't work. So your willingness to be able to do that and grow a business that's gonna support the lifestyle you want takes a level of commitment and dedication to say, alright. I can give myself the next quarter to do this. I can give myself the next 90 days to see if this is gonna work. And that's why you really wanna prioritize and not try to do everything.

You know, you're just gonna be doing a handful of things. And when things come into your world, information, opportunities, someone saying, hey, be on my podcast. Hey. Let's do this collaboration. Hey. Let's do this live. all of the things. It's just endless. No.

I said I was gonna do this thing for 90 days. This is my priority. This is how I'm gonna be balanced in my life so that I have time for my kiddos, so that I have time for my family, so I have time for me, dancing and going to the beach or whatever. All other things I wanna be doing, this is how I'm gonna keep my priorities in check because I've committed to this experiment, you know, for this sprint of 90 days, and that's what I'm focused on. So, I'll go back to your toolbox question, but I just wanted to touch on that.

It's very important. People are really overcomplicating this whole burnout conversation.

I don't know. I'm not gonna say anything bad about anything. But, it really is. It really comes down to us all reminding each other, of how simple life can be and how beautiful it can be and just knowing these are my priorities. This is what I'm gonna stick to.

I'm gonna commit to this because these things are important to me, and just remind yourself of that every day, in and out. And then you're gonna you're gonna evaluate that. Every 90 days, you evaluate, how did it go? How did those experiments go? How did what's the ROI?

What happened in the last 3 months? And if you can have that level of commitment and accountability, for yourself, you will see the momentum you want to see. You will move mountains in that way just by keeping it simple. Keeping your own focus. Because like you were saying, Joe, there are so many different ways you can be pulled if you allow it. So you really do have to captain your ship in that way.

You know, we went from 30% attendance to 50%, but we don't really know why. What worked and what didn't, and it was worth doing because we can do all those things and just keep it going. But, it's important to try to find a way to measure those things so you wind up not really clear what was good and what was bad.

Were you moving multi again, I really do look at business as experiments. Like, were you moving multiple dials at once? Can be a little tricky now to know what really moved the needle. So, you know, if you just really okay. There's one dial that I'm gonna turn up, and I'm gonna have the patience to know I'm running a marathon, not a sprint. So I'm gonna be like, alright. Let's dial that, see if that affected the numbers. Okay. It didn't. Now let's move another another dial.

And you kind of are just working in a more calculated way instead of what I see solopreneurs often do again because it's difficult. You're not part of this big team of, really brainstorming, really hashing things out, is they're quick to throw every like, scrap everything and just start over again. Or, let's just revamp everything. And it's like, woah. Woah. Woah. Slow down. Slow down a little bit and just change one thing. Let's see if that makes a difference. Okay.

Now we'll change the other thing. But changing 16 things at once, you're not gonna be able to measure and continue onward. So, yeah. I just thought I'd put a pin in that one, Joe, because you brought up a good point.

Give me some examples. What is someone dealing with? Like, I don't know. I'm just kinda thinking maybe we should talk about, a real life example. Like, what is going on and what needs to be addressed, and then we can just kinda shoot around some tool ideas that maybe somebody could use in a practical sense.

The app will be coming, hopefully, shortly, but we're just a go to resource for solopreneurs looking to grow their business, and while also living the life that they want to live. So the SEO thing has been mind boggling because I'm in marketing, so I focus on SEO. Joe has given a lot of time and attention to this, and we have another marketer on our team, who's also a contractor who is very well known in the space of marketing and great at what he does for SEO, and yet the needle still isn't moving. So it's just a frustration knowing that we have knowledgeable people on the topic, and yet it's not moving.

And then they helped grow. They helped coin the term inbound marketing and all of that. And solopreneur is obviously a phrase that people are kind of aware of, but it is a really mainstream. So we wanted to, get it from the beginning so that eventually we're the go to resource for when somebody types in solopreneur. but right now, solopreneur resources, solopreneur tools, how to grow a business as a solopreneur, things like that.

And I think that has been the biggest thing when it comes to, the stress, burnout, all this pressure. The pressure that we put on ourselves is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. And I think it's important to have people in your corner who are gonna call you out on it and remind you and remind yourself. I remind myself every day, damn near, that I am figuring it out.

I'm not, like, I have to figure this out. I have to get this done. I need to be, I'm figuring it out. I am figuring it out. This is a push process.

This is a evolution process, not a pressure process. for me, the image I often remind myself is of, being in a pressure cooker. And, , you're kind of, putting all of this weight on yourself, and it's completely unnecessary and completely unhelpful. And if you feel like I'm stressed about this because I'm beginning this out, we got smart people on the team. what is going on? But going back to our original kind of, like the tools are endless like, giving yourself space. You let it be meditation.

I just wanna, like, let it go, let the energy go. It works for me. Would I tell everyone that they need to dance, that that needs to be a tool in their toolbox? No. I don't it's not for everybody. So it's not necessarily, like, okay, this is the thing. It's more about, catching yourself, oh, I am putting a lot of pressure on myself for something that I actually am figuring out, something that I actually am making movement on. And what happens is people will stop themselves getting their own damn way to think that they're not doing it right or they should stop doing what they're doing or maybe I should fire that marketing expert that I thought was great because things aren't happening fast enough.

I'm gonna never have it figured out. Right? I feel like the wisest people among us know it's not gonna always be there will always be something challenging you. There will always be something that will stress you out if you let it. But instead, release that pressure. Don't put yourself in a pressure cooker because it's completely unnecessary. Just let that out. Just say, hey. I'm figuring it out. I got this. I'm figuring it out.

Do you notice a commonality with those?

The more disciplined you can be, the more time freedom you will have. So when it comes to these damn things, okay, I am a bit of extreme. I haven't had notifications on my phone in years. I practice digital detoxes, where I'll take a whole day off of screens just to give my whole system a break. I think that we, as adults, need to be leading by example on how to manage this, technical technological age that we're in and always being on and setting an expectation of always being on.

I don't do any of the wearable stuff. I have a watch that I use sometimes if I wanna measure my sleep or whatever, but I try to just not have it, on if I don't need it. If you can turn off as much notifications as possible and remind yourself that it's completely unnecessary. You don't need to get to Slack right away. Very few things are urgent.

None of us are working in the ER. No one's life is on the line. And for anyone who has, wife, husband, children, kids' schools, all those things, those can be set up on your phone as, exemptions. So if you have your phone on do not disturb, if you have everything turned off, you will still get those notifications. So you don't have to worry about, like, oh my god.

What about my child? Or what about my husband? Or whatever. If I have my phone on do not disturb, which I do all day long, my calls to my from my partners still come in. So you're good.

There's a way that you can do this. It sounds really extreme to people, but it's really not. I feel like the fact that people's phones are pinging, and I go out in public and I'm hearing people's phones pinging, it drives me nuts because it's just like, oh my god. I can't imagine having that pinging, pinging, pinging.

It's a constant distraction, and our brains aren't wired for that. So if you can have your phone on silent, if you can have, your notifications and again, you can set it up just kinda starting off, maybe just eliminating a few notifications, you know, just starting with the social media notifications. That kinda thing, I I really do feel it might sound simple, but it's just moving mountains. So I would say, to answer your question on is there, a calm theme, myself and people closest to me and people that I work with, the biggest reason why we all have more time than most people is because we don't engage in any of it. So I don't get any notifications.

I don't have a bunch of notifications going off on my screen right now. I'm here with you guys. You get all my energy right now, and it's the same when I'm with my loved ones. So when I'm at dinner, I'm not looking on my phone. I'm with them. And it's really about being present. And, you know, you can decide. Do you wanna be in control of your life, or do you want this thing to control your life?

You know? Take a good look at that, and I'm right with you on the notifications. I have a bunch on right now, and I, actually, am leaving them because I wanna do, a blog about deleting all the notifications and measuring what it does to my life. And I just haven't started that one yet, but, it is incredibly distracting.

You know, we all have the whole 24 hours in one day. really, I know I might sound like a broken record at this point, it comes down to your priorities. Because if you're saying yes to all of these things and all of the things that are coming in, it's gonna be impossible to really be present where you wanna be present, to really move things forward in your business. So when it comes to your business specifically and being able to remove yourself as a bottleneck, because that's the biggest thing I help people with is, like, alright. You have this one person business, but if you really wanna scale, it needs to be a little bigger than you.

It has to go from being your baby to being an asset. So the first thing there is just kind of readjusting your your reference point and your mindset of building out a machine and getting things out of your head and into the physical practical world. So, really, that just comes down to standard operating procedures, which are not sexy to anybody else but me. I'm the only person on the planet who, like, peeks out to it and, loves it.

The first thing I'm gonna do with that extra time is start building out machines, is start building out the systems. And people complicate, what are systems? systems is just documenting how you do the thing. So that's as simple as it is. don't make it more complicated than this is how we do x.

Say, for example, this is how we do sales. This is our sales system. It's now documented so that anyone can look at this and know, oh, this is how Renee does sales. So if Renee was to fall off a cliff or whatever, we know the system.

And now that we have the system documented, doesn't matter, it could be a lone video, it could be a Google doc, that does not matter. It's documented. Now we can figure out how to make it better. But you can't figure out how to make that system more efficient and more, systemized without first looking at it.

And I think that's a lot of the gap like, you need to look at your business in order to do that. You have to be able to physically, like, have something that you could show another person, you know, that it could actually be looked at.

So you just need to again, it's the perspective shift of, like, I'm building out an asset. I'm building out a machine. I'm building out, systems that someone else can come into and help me so that I can step away, so I can remove myself as the bottleneck, so that I can take some time off, like, completely off, like, off the grid off, and still have my business running, generating income, getting money into my bank account without me having to do anything. that is a real possibility. Again, I'm not saying, you just click a couple buttons

and you're good. No. Just click a couple buttons and you're good. No. Like, you can actually build it out to be that way and to support you and your life in that way and have real longevity, but it starts with you just making the decision and the perception shift of, okay, this is gonna be bigger than me.

I'm cool with that. I'm comfortable with kind of, letting go a little bit. And then if that's inviting someone else in, they can help put together those SOPs. They can help just see you getting on a a Zoom call, recording the Zoom call, and now that's your rough SOP, just teaching them what you're doing.

Right? You don't have to make it complicated. Doesn't have to be fancy. You don't have to use all the AI tools. You can just really rough and dirty get started by just bringing someone on board and saying, alright. This is how I'm doing what I'm doing. Now we're creating SOPs together.

Everyone defines it differently. What does freedom mean to you? And so once you answer that question, well, what does freedom mean to me? And most people are like, well, I just want, you know, autonomy. I wanna be able to when, where, how, and what.

I wanna be able to, you know, like you're saying, go on a walk with my daughter. Like, that's freedom to me. Or, I wanna be able to just buy whatever and not care about the price tag. Like, that's freedom to me. And once you have defined that, then you use those set of principles to run your life.

And that's as simple as it is. You know, it really comes down to the simplicity of how do I wanna live a full and free life, and how can I bake that into everything that I do? So, for me, like, those freedom freedom first principles is instead of what we've been culturally adopted as being acceptable, maybe that's like, well, hey, you know, we gotta make money, you know, the money first. Or, like, hey. health is number 1.

Hey. You know, faith first. Family first. you hear all of these. Right? there are these sayings that are just, like, freedom first. So it's like all this first, this first, this first, that first. Well, for me, I'm like, well, why don't you just start with freedom first? Like, if you start with freedom first, knowing, okay. what does freedom feel like to me? What does that look like? What does that how do I interact with my life if I lived as a freedom first person? And then that just is the guiding light for how you carry yourself because that really is your business, especially true for, one person businesses. Your business is just a reflection of how you carry yourself.

Otherwise, I'll get so much in my head, and I'll be like, I'm gonna say this exact quote. But it was the one question that I was like, well, I'd better have a freaking quote. Oh, you know, like a penny banger. And then now, I'm just like, well, now the quote escapes me.

But, no, I have a lot of great quotes that I love. One of my favorites, and I don't know that some people might not might say, well, it has nothing to do with success. It is, Victor Franco's quote, and he says, you have 2 choices at any point. Either you can step back into comfort or you can step forward. And the back is into safety. Like, I feel safe. I feel comfortable. This is what I know. Is it where you can step forward into growth? And the growth is scary.

It's not always fun. It's sometimes feels reckless. It feels really risky. It feels like I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what anybody is gonna think about this.

This is a mess. This is not fun. But it is where the growth is. And I really do believe that for myself. I believe that with everyone I encounter that if we keep keep stepping forward into growth, it'll be a reflection of your life and your business will reflect that growth if you just keep stepping forward, keep going into those dark caves.

Now I'm going into another quote, Joseph Campbell on the the dark cave is where the gold is. It's something along those lines. It's another one of my favorites. This is just things that I remind myself of, but I completely butcher everyone's quotes anyways. So that's good.

I'm really, happy and eager to have conversations to help people through. And, like, you guys also, we're all part of this movement of, knowing you're not on an island. You can reach out for help, and people are very generous and open more than you think