Work-life balance self-care and morning routines with Megan you Lenny welcome to the Paw miners podcast the show that will help you to optimize your time income and lifestyle fast get more done with actionable easy to follow advice and learn how to live life on your terms and now introducing your host Paul miners. Hey everyone and welcome back to the pool - podcast episode number.Three as always thank you very much for tuning in this week. I really do appreciate your time and your attention today. And today I've got another interview for you really great interview. This is with Megan your Laney who is a business coach and host of the pretty awkward entrepreneur podcast and I was really excited to chat with Megan for a few reasons. We're really similar very similar values around work-life balance kind of self-improvement morning routines, all that kind of good thing and I definitely came away from this interview with so many actionable things. Is that I need to do better. I realized that I am not always good at practicing what I preach. I know the importance of a lot of the things that she's talking about and I've let some bad habits creep in. So since we've done this interview, I've definitely improved on a few things taking more time for myself meditating and back into meditating again trying to take some time in the mornings that kind of thing. So I definitely got a lot out of this conversation with Megan and I'm sure you will as well if you want to see a kind of breakdown of the the topics that we cover in this interview you can find Poor miners.com / 143. So without further Ado, let's get into this awesome conversation with business coach Megan Eleni. Enjoy. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the poor miners podcast and welcome Megan. Thank you for joining me on the show today. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Yeah. So as I said in the intro Megan is a business coach from Megan Elaine e.com and the pretty awkward business podcast. Did I get that wrong? Very close pretty awkward entrepreneur podcast entrepreneur Megan's brand new podcast. So congratulations on the podcast. Thank you. Very excited. It's so much fun already. Yes, and I thank you. Me on the show and there's a few reasons. I was excited and I'm excited to have Megan on the show as we were saying at the start before I started recording and I've mentioned this before I get approached by loads of people who want to get their book authors and so on so on the show and most of those emails go to the trash, but you really stood out because I think we're doing very similar things. You help people develop online businesses. So I said at the start of when we were talking to the star like am I your customer like, so I'm really interested to talk to you and and and you You have these really great values around work-life balance, which is something I've talked openly about before as well and just you know, designing a business around your lifestyle. And so yeah few reasons that I'm really excited to talk to you today. Love it. Yeah, let's stick on some pretty great. Yeah. What are we get into it? Let's um, let's start with the background. If you could give people maybe let's start with actually like an elevator pitch. What is it that you do if you could summarize, you know, if anyone listening who hasn't heard of Megan you Lanie. What are you do? Yeah. Yeah. So I am I usually say I've started as a health and fitness coach and then transferred to - business but I'm really a business coach who helps online coaches scale to six figures and get booked out online using social media. I also like to help people create some more passive programs and things like that so they can have that work-life balance. I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit but really focusing on helping online coaches grow their online presence and scale their income. So they can have that that my freedom have that Financial Freedom and just be full-time with their business pretty much pretty and actually that's something thing that you just said that immediately stood out was like using social media because I I do well, I know I have my Consulting clients that find me but really it's mainly through Google actually I suppose I do YouTube which is social but I don't do anything in the way of like Facebook or really Instagram or Twitter, which I know that you're big on. So we really started to get really interested to talk about that. So maybe before we do, let's get into your background a little bit more if you could explain kind of your history. How long have you been doing this just quickly I've been in business. - technically since 2011 but in this business now for a year full time. Okay a little bit more than a year full time, but I've been an entrepreneur for a long time so I can definitely talk about that. It's the coaching that you're doing this started as a side project. It's sort of did it started as an extension of something else I was doing and just realize like this is what I was really good at and what I loved and so it kind of has an extension of a network marketing business that I was a part of. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe if you could dive a little deeper deeper into your background like take it back a little bit further. How did you get started in the just health and fitness? How did that evolve just talk us through that Journey a little bit. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So in 2009 2010 I started to do these at home workout programs and just totally changed my life loved it had great results, but just felt felt really good felt better about myself. My confidence was up and I started to recommend them to so many people naturally people asked me what I was doing and for about a year it was doing that. So I was basically Being in a business owner for that company without getting paid for it. So then I realized there was an opportunity to actually make an income with the company and I just I ran out of I was like, I'm literally doing this already. So why not get paid for it? And I when I say I ran out of it I ran out at for about a month and then I realized oh you actually have to like put effort in to make money in a business. And at the time I was living in Los Angeles pursuing acting my background is actually originally in musical theater. So have an acting background. Background musical theater singing background and I was pursuing that I was doing a lot of this typical side jobs cocktailing doing background work on film and television and I would do my business when it was convenient. That was the biggest thing. I always said was when it was convenient for me, which brought me very inconvenient inconsistent results. So I had have a month ride make $500 a month ride make nothing and it was like that for about a year and a half almost two years until I went to my first big conference a lot of network marketing companies have actually ever Marketing company has huge events like these big events every year that just rallies everyone off gets everyone really excited. It's so much fun. And once I went to that event, I saw people like shredding their mortgages and quitting their jobs or tiring their husbands all these fancy things and there was nothing different between them and me and that that is what really stood out to me. And I think that's what can be great about network marketing. There's definitely some things I don't love about it. But that was the coolest thing is everyone's on an evil even playing level and it was really really cool to see that that I left that conference going there. This is just I'm just I'm the only one holding myself back basically and this could be that ticket out of cocktailing of background work. I hated doing it. I did not love getting up in the morning and I didn't want to I wasn't that kind of person. I wanted to be someone who sprung out of bed who got excited for the day. So kind of fast forward. I moved back to New York. I was living in California for seven years move back home just really missed home loved it and I met my now husband and started to just see the future. I To see like this is you know, I want to create a family. I want to have all these things. I want to be able to have my own business and stay at home and really dove into this business and in about a year and a half. I was able to quit all those side jobs go full-time and a year later doubled that income a year later hit another six-figure year and it was just one of those things that once it started it and I'm sure a lot of people listening who are entrepreneurs you're going to experience this. It was very slow going and then beginning it felt like crickets like going up and down escalator and then It took off and it was like a rocket ship and all of a sudden. I went from zero clients to just tons and tons and tons of clients and it just took off and it was amazing and I loved it and then things started to change a little bit. I started to get a little antsy because in network marketing you were at the mercy of the company. You don't put the products you're not able to decide what happens what their marketing and I just I had done so much work as far as like self-development personal development. I took tons of courses. I had lots of Trees so had all these skills and this knowledge that I couldn't share because I wish I could share and I was sharing it for free but I couldn't create a business off of it because they had to purchase that specific product for me to work with them kept getting people asking me what do you do coaching outside of this. Do you do Health coaching outside or life coaching? And I was like, no not yet. But why why not and so I started to really look into that. I also the company I was with experienced kind of a real shift. They went digital which everyone. Had to at the time I totally get that and that really actually hurt the company in a sense to hurt the Distributors and my income got cut in half that year. So that was pretty scary too. When you're used to certain level. My husband quit his job. He did that. We did the whole fancy shebang, you know, he was still working on his own business. He's an entrepreneur as well. But that was really terrifying and I didn't want to just sit there and complain and work extra hard for no return because that's what I was doing for a while. So I said, let's do it. Let's go for it. And I just started to Branch out of my own and do Health coaching one-on-one. I joined a group coaching program that really changed the game for me hired my first coach really got some good strategy good support to build my own company and then I went to life coaching school still in that process. It's very long process and after my first life coaching intensive, it's like it was a three-day weekend. We learned so much and they are like, okay, you're good to go. You can actually start coaching like yes, you need more skills. Yes, you should teach keep coming back, but that weekend fired. Me up so much and that was May 20 what your we in 2018 is last year and I left that that weekend going. Okay. I am not health and fitness coaching anymore. I am life and business coaching because my favorite part of my network marketing company was the business aspect was helping my my coaches my my team build their businesses on social media and that's what I was good at. Yeah, love health and fitness, but I didn't want to talk about workouts anymore. I was very like done with it. So I just dove in what? All into business coaching kind of rip the Band-Aid really went. Hey not like cannot health and fitness coaching anymore. And I'm so glad I did because I truly was doing what I was passionate about what I was good at and that business in a one-year has taken off more than I could have ever ever dreamed kind of like we were talking before if nothing else changes. I'm really happy for the rest of my life. If it stays this way great. So it's really good to kind of be in that place now, so that's a long story. That's awesome know that is a great as an awesome story. I want to Circle back on a few things that you said, I think few things stood out what which was like, you see how the Barrett barriers that you didn't use these words, but the barriers to entry doing what you do what I do a very low and saying, you know, everyone at that conference is the same they're just a few years ahead and and but really they are if they can do it I can do it and I think that's what's great about this kind of business working for yourself online. Whether it you do some kind of coaching Consulting whether you do affiliate marketing selling products all the different ways. You can make money online the barriers to entry are so low, literally, You can pay you pay for a website, which is what I don't know five dollars or less for hosting per month. There's a few tools that you need like an email provider like a MailChimp or convertkit a few little things like that. You know, there's a few little costs but it's not like you're having to invest thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront to start this business. That's what I love about this business is it's so easy to start and really you're only limited by your brain your imagination the knowledge that you have of everyone has something they're good at everyone has a skill and a onion some kind of expertise they can bring to the table and that is monetizable usually one way or another and so that's I think just yeah, so true. What you said is everyone is the same and the yeah, the obstacles are the same for everyone exactly and it's kind of nice. It's nice to know. Hey, like there's nothing different about me and you there's nothing special and that's why when people try to use maybe what happened to them in the past or their childhood their life and like hey, I have met people who have had the toughest story ever and they're crushing it in their business. So it's really just about Internal work and working through that kind of stuff to get out on the other side and have success and the other thing you said which was like it was how it would just really took off like you try and try and try for ages. Nothing seems to work you feel like you want to give up like why am I wasting my time on this and then it does take off and I can definitely relate to that. I tried selling products and building my site for years. It was only when I started the Consulting really that I was able to that that kind of took off and I learn a little bit more it more money that way which really just got me to the point where I was like, okay, I'm comfortable enough now that I could Quit my job. And really that that was then now that I could put more time into my business. That was when everything started to take off. And so yeah, I just want to highlight to anyone listening that is kind of in that position where you feel like you're throwing all this spaghetti at the wall and nothing's working. Nothing sticking just keep going because if you keep trying new things if you are persistent enough, you will find that thing that works that sticks and with enough time. Yeah, I think everyone will kind of reach that inflection point as well where it really does just take off totally. So it takes it's always happens. I had a client who I was with her for Months she was making some really good progress you assigning some clients the month after we stopped. It was so funny and it sounds funny like oh we stop coaching and she took off but she's like you were right it all started to snowball and she signed a seven High ticket clients in one week. And I knew that what happened she was doing everything right? It was just a matter of time. So you just got to be patient and kind of stick it I have to love what you're doing so much that you'd want to do it. Even if you didn't get paid honestly in the beginning, especially Sochi with so with these with the Clones that you've helped. Have you noticed any patterns, you know where I don't know there's something they did or something that tends to work really well that helps them to get to that point where they take off like one of the patterns that you've observed with the clients you've worked with. Yeah. I think it's a lot of foundational aspects that people want to skip it's something I definitely teach all the time on my social media all over my blog. It's in my courses like but it's really building as if you're building on social media specifically have to build trust with everyone who comes to your page. So if you think about it, whether Someone opts in for your freebie or someone comes to your Instagram or your Facebook or wherever they find you even your website. They don't know you this is completely cold traffic Pinterest is another Avenue. I love to use and people find my blog on Pinterest come to my blog. They have no clue who I am. So why are they going to all of a sudden purchase this like high-ticket item? And once I really grasp that I realized the whole the biggest thing about signing High take a client is building that relationship over time. So having whether it's a strategic funnel or if someone's just like hey, I resonate with this person. I'm going to follow all them on Instagram sharing free tips giving good advice getting in your diems and sending genuine messages not just selling them in your in your messages. That was definitely the it's still the pattern that constantly works is for about I would say two ish months when I started business coaching. I didn't try to sign clients. I just gave so much free value. I had a freebie started collecting emails building that relationship. So by the time that I actually launched they were ready and waiting and like wait, how can I actually They work with you. So that's probably the biggest theme or pattern I would say is for not a week not two weeks but months of consistent free value and when you do it, that way you're not coming at it from this desperate. I need clients. I need clients way because people can smell that and I've been in that position and it feels icky on both sides. And so if you can just build that trust and have faith that if you if you do that consistently when you do launch your program or your product or whatever it is. They're going to they're going to be ready. They're going to be primed and ready to buy because they trust you people want to purchase from people they actually like and they trust so yeah, I think that's so important especially online because I mean we live in like an online world now and everyone is you know, well, I talked to him talking to online but like I've said like the thing that's worked really well for me is making YouTube videos. And again, I give away so much we value and there is a little bit of concern and sometimes people like, oh, if you're if you're teaching people all this stuff for free on YouTube why they're going to pay you and I'm like, well, it's amazing how often people see all that. Daphne like okay, you know exactly what you're talking about. I want to work with you and kind of just teach me that for my business even though the message like I'm often repeating myself like I'll be saying stuff and I'm like, oh, yeah, you said that in the video I'm often saying the same things but I'm applying it to their business and bringing that extra kind of like level of customization to that person's business and it's just amazing the more you give away the more people want to work with you because they trust you and when they do come to you, like people book a call with me to learn more it's like getting on to a third date, but they already know who I am and what I'm like and they're just like, oh I see you. Do a sauna and all this other stuff and productivity and you just don't want somebody I want to talk to and it's something actually you said earlier as well as it's amazing how even though II primarily help people with a sauna and pipedrive I often get approached by people who are like, oh, can you help me with just my this whole other part of my business like my systems automation or this tool that I'm still learning just cause I know that you'll have a kind of a good opinion on it and they people ask me to do all sorts of weird things that aren't really in my wheelhouse but because I don't know I just I guess that they see me in the light. He looks like someone I would work well with it's amazing. What other opportunities can come up? Yeah. Yeah, it's so cool. That's awesome. I love that. It's kind of like the power of niching down to and becoming really well-known for a few things. You just kind of raise your level of expertise in general so that they're like, hey, can you also help me with this by the way, I love that. So let's talk a little bit about the Social Media stuff because yeah as I was saying at the start, I mean the main way I find clients actually YouTube, which I guess you'd call social but I think what What I'm not doing is like going on Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest, you know to find to find clients. So I'm really interested. Like is that an opportunity? I'm missing what what is your advice generally around using social media to find to find clients. Yeah. It really depends on the kind of client. Right? You want to thank where does my ideal client actually hang out? So if your ideal client is, for example, I have one client who most of her clients are 45 or older. They're not on Instagram as much like They're not but the Instagram is more like 35 and Below like 20 to 35. That's like the prime for Instagram again. You have your exceptions, but Facebook Facebook groups, that's huge for that age. That's a really big one as well as Pinterest as well as blogging as well as YouTube actually don't use Twitter. So I'm not real familiar with Twitter, but I know I probably should there's definitely there's definitely a lot out there a lot of good leads. But but that's the first question you want to ask us like, where did they actually hang out and honestly a simple Google search for your Your age your the demographic the lifestyle all that but that that's number one is where do they hang out? And then how one of the biggest things is like how do they want to be talked to so I teach which I'm sure everyone here has heard this term but I don't I was actually surprised by how many people didn't know what it meant. I teach market research as a real real staple in my course and just with my one-on-one clients to if you don't do the research and actually interview your ideal clients interview people you would eventually like to work with about where they hang out. Why did they purchase? They buy what are their goals? What are their struggles where there are obstacles you're going to be putting out something that you think they want instead of like knowing hundred percent. This is what they want. So that's another way to use social media is purely for research in the beginning so you can start wording things the way they actually say it so if someone says just for health and fitness example because it comes up a lot with my clients. A lot of people would say I struggle with emotional eating or stress eating versus some other trigger word, right so stress and Emotional I actually had a Health and Fitness Signature program that I totally changed around after I did a lot of research and it's sold out because I had the word emotional eating in the tagline. It probably wouldn't have sold out if I had something else and I learned that purely by doing the research and everyone telling me that's what they struggled with. So that's number one is really focusing on finding out where your ideal clients hanging out. So then you can just go all in on that one social media get really good at that and then move on to another one so I don't recommend trying to do a ton at Very overwhelming really dive into one and then also do the research to know what kind of words what kind of phrases how should you speak to your audience? You really want to relate to them using their own words. That's when they kind of think your mind reader. Mmm, really? Cool. So yeah, I can definitely see that like, you know, I can definitely see health and fitness, you know, that may be under 35s there on Instagram with my audience liked it more, you know business owners. Some of them are older but they go to YouTube because they want to learn about this. Tool and that's where they find me. I think LinkedIn is probably something that I'm not using enough. Actually. I don't use it at all but it's something I should probably be doing because I'm sure these people are on LinkedIn but I think that that that message is so true is that you just and I've said this as well you need to just go to where your audience is. Where do they go to solve problems? Are they Googling it? And it going on YouTube. Are they networking with people in forums? What is it? Yeah hundred percent. That's why I think blogging and Pinterest and YouTube are all I don't personally use do you too but I think it's such a good Avenue for almost every business. I don't know anyone who doesn't go to YouTube personally. So everyone I Know Myself included every single day. I YouTube something but blogging and Pinterest can be great because if you're someone's typing something into Google and you have the right keywords, that's where they can find you and that was actually a huge way. I built My Health and Fitness business was I Niche down to intermittent fasting and I like dominated the intermittent fasting. Hang on Pinterest. I don't know how it happened but it was strategic keyword. So I know how it happened. But but we took it over and my blog got so much traffic from really being strategic with keywords on Pinterest and I never thought people would search for that stuff on Pinterest. I thought oh that's for wedding planning and recipes and and you know people search for all sorts of things on there. So just kind of think outside the box to with that stuff. Hmm. Well, let's um, let's change topics a little bit. I know that on your blog and you've talked a lot about self-care and maybe this probably I'm from your health and fitness background, but it sounds like you apply a lot to your coaching as well because to run a successful business you have to be looking after yourself. I've talked before on the blog about how I've basically view sleep diet and exercise as three productivity multipliers. If you keep everything else about your your work your tools your system your business the same if you just focus on those three key things, I think you'll just your output your results. Your performance will just lift. So I'm I'm really into self-care looking after yourself. What have you As I've talked about, you know, these three carriers, what are the kind of top the key topics in self care that you really like to focus on whether it's like mindfulness journaling. What do you want your self-care important? And what are you what are the messages that you preach to your clients about self-care? Yeah. I love those three. Those are cute. Sleep is sacred. I'm asleep for sure. My family makes fun of me because I'm in bed by 9:30 10 o'clock every night, but I need to get my sleeve. So definitely sleep definitely die it definitely exercise. Exercise 5 days a week usually every single morning and go to a group fitness class here. And if I'm traveling I do something at home no matter what I'm moving my body almost every single day but a couple other Staples is my morning routine is really sacred. I have a bunch of blogs on it like successful morning routines for entrepreneurs that will definitely be one of my really soon to come out podcast because everyone keeps asking about it, but that has been I think just like you said, I didn't change anything in my business and my income started to increase because I was just so much more centered. I was so much more calm the way I showed up on social media the way I just showed up with my clients was so much more present and focused just because of a couple thing so your morning routine can be as long or short as you want it to be because they don't have to have a long drawn-out 45 minute to an hour morning routine. Even if you take 10 extra minutes to Simply do a little breathing meditation, you can call it what you want, but it's really just focusing on your breath and trying to focus on being Right there right now and not all the things you have to do that day. The biggest thing that made a difference for a lot of my health clients believe it or not and business clients was simply not checking their phone first thing in the morning. So I really urge everyone here if you could just put your phone on airplane mode or do not disturb or something like that and don't look at it until after you do your morning routine that alone will make you just a happier person. Don't look at the news don't look at social media take that time to really breathe to maybe do some journaling. I just Journal very simply what I'm grateful for a couple things every day what my intention is for the day I affirmation or quote or just what I want to get done that day just so I can kind of brain dump because I think a lot of times we get so overwhelmed because actually I have such a good quote that I read in a book that I was like, oh I should have this for for this because it's all about overwhelming. That's such a common common thing that people struggle with where is it? I'll try to find it but oh here it is overwhelm isn't having to much to do it's not knowing where to start and if you can start your day brain dumping then you can go. Okay. What do I have to get done today? What do I have to start with? Everything else on the top is gravy and then you can just go into your day feeling like you've already won a little bit because you have everything organized versus someone who just jumps up grabs their phone. They have all these emails customer support something's going wrong because never really that happens in business and that's how you start your day. And that's just not a very high Vive energy to start your day with so morning routines sacred sacred for me. And then drinking a lot of water on a slate is really big to just staying hydrated and I agree sleep is so so huge. So those are some of the Staples and I've Just Seen actually I had a whole blog when I was in health and fitness purely, but I had a Blog about how myself care in 2016 help me double my income and it's so true barely anything changed in my business that year except. I started intermittent fasting and I started to just really really protect my sleep protect my mindset and my in Come doubled that year and I swear it was because of that. So I totally agree with what you just said. So that's awesome. I'm I love that quote was it overwhelm is not having too much to do. It's not knowing where to start. Yes. I'm reading a book called Joy of missing out. I don't think it's actually out yet. I got an advance copy and it's from a book. Her name's Tanya Dalton and it's it's just a textbook but it was well-made. Yeah. That is honestly that is I just heard that I said wow light bulb like that was awesome because I feel that's why I do my like a shut down at the end of the day. So the last thing I do is I even have a task in a sign that says shut down and it's a checklist of like check your email check the calendar for tomorrow. I have I got everything planned look and I even I get my tasks for this is very kind of specific assignment thing, but I get my tasks that I have coming up for tomorrow and I move them up into my today section and I put them in the order. I'm going to do them so that in the morning I come in and I go right I know what the first thing is. I've got that interview with Megan then I've got some clients stuff and then I've got something else and it just means I can get in and my the first thing I'm thinking about is not what am I going to do today? And I'm not wasting that mental energy on making a decision that's already been made the day before so I but so I think working out where you're going to start and doing it the day before even I think is super powerful. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love the shutdown time. I think that's something a lot of entrepreneurs. I know will probably go into that but that they don't do is be on their phone tracking their messages till 10 o'clock at night with their family and it's just I've been there done that and it's just not fun. It's like why are you doing this business? Yeah. It's funny with morning routines because years ago, I was the same way as a sacred morning routine. It was actually back when I was working full time doing my business, but I would get up I'd meditate for 10 minutes. I think I would even do some journaling. It was very much based on how Elrod's Miracle morning book and his his format. Yeah. Yeah great book and I was kind of doing he has the steps that he lays out in I was doing most of those things. It's funny though over the years as I've gotten into my business and my client work is increased. I've kind of sacrifice my morning routine because of the time zone difference. Rinse with New Zealand and the US where most of my clients are often. I'm working at seven eight. I like I'm over 6, I'm at my co-working space and workin by seven and I don't have time as that's terrible. I hate that phrase. I don't have time for a morning routine. But hearing you I'm like, you know what Paul you can get up a little bit earlier and just do 10 minutes of meditation. I know that would make a difference and I'm putting my hand up and saying I've been really guilty of being slack on that and not not giving myself time in the morning because I know that I can like today as you today. I About six I had a client call at 7:00 right before this interview. I'm doing this interview. So I feel like my day has already started a little bit kind of almost getting a bit rushed quite quickly and I haven't taken that time to just yeah, like you said be present observe my breath and just kind of ease myself into the day. So I'm hearing you and I'm like, okay, I'm going to make some changes now. So thank you for motivating me. You're welcome. I'm gonna check in with you in a week and see if you're doing it this way you can I talk about this all the time. I preach it on my blog and it's kind of do as I do as I say not as I do. But I'm just as guilty as anyone for getting into bad habits. Oh I get it. I'm the same way. Like I'm pretty sacred about my routine my morning routine because I had one day like two weeks ago. I didn't do it and my nephew's I was babysitting my nephew's so my day started with two rambunctious little boys, and I was like, this is not how to start and my whole day was off I had client calls after that and I just felt really off and I went. Wow what happened. I didn't do my morning routine today. That's probably why so even in like you just said 10 In its you going to do something. It's just going to make you feel like I had some me time before the rest of the world took over because especially as an entrepreneur, you know, you feel like that sometimes so let's definitely let's let's get into it. Let's assume onii-chan because you said you are you'll get your income doubled when you did this, so I'm curious what on average. What time do you normally wake up? I usually wake up by six. I'm pretty early riser if I'm taking an earlier workout class because I do because my morning routine is so important if it's at six, I'll wake up at 5, which I am doing tomorrow and but I go to bed very early a good bed by 9:30 and 10:00 o'clock 10:30 the latest like that's evenly for me and so I get about seven and a half at eight hours. I wake up. I always have my coffee ready the night before so I just press go when I wake up I chug water. I usually chug like 20 ounces of water first thing in the morning just because you're so dehydrated. Wake up. I have this little like apple cider vinegar cocktail every morning, which is just a little apple cider vinegar water lemon juice. It's really gross. Honestly. It doesn't taste great. But I feel really good when I have it so I know it's making a difference and then I get my coffee. I do a little bit meditation. I've actually been doing this Tony Robbins priming exercise that he doesn't want to visit friends little longer is 15 minutes, but it takes care of gratitude visualization meditation like what you want to focus on I love it and and every time I do it I specially do it when I'm launching a program like during launch week. I'll always do that because it just gets you in this like such grateful mood and visualizing what you're going to have and what you're going to what you're going to manifest what you're going to create in your personal and work life. So I do that and then I journal for a little bit. I just kind of write down what I basically saw in my visualization what I'm great what I've said, I was grateful for and then I read I always read maybe only sometimes only five pages hopefully 10, but for some reason I Love reading in the morning weekends are my like guilty morning routines. I read for like an hour half an hour. I'm really just take my time. And it's sometimes it's just a personal development book that I love sometimes. It's Harry Potter like literally I'll rotate between that and then there's a fun fiction book that I'm just like hey, I just want to have fun today and that's usually it's the journaling the meditation the reading but I do not look at my phone. I do share like screenshots of what I'm reading on Instagram, but I won't look at my messages. I'll just share. It and then turn it off. Yep, then after that I'm like cool now I can go into checking my one-on-one client messages going as a groups all that stuff, but I just like had that time for me and then I go to a workout class usually about 15 minutes after my morning routine is John while I'm like checking messages. So so some people might be hearing that and going wow, that's a lot. How long does that how long does that take? It's about an hour. Usually I get up at 6:00 and I go to my class. I leave my class at 7 a.m. Right It is long and if if somebody was just going to start with getting up 15 minutes earlier or 30 minutes earlier and if you were just because I'm always conscious when giving advice you don't overwhelm people and we're sure you are this great example of someone who's got the Fantastic morning routine. Somebody might look at that and go. Oh my gosh, there's no way I'm going to fit all that in what would be like the 80/20 of that? So if there's one thing you could make you could say like, okay if you forget everything just do this one thing. Yeah, what would that be? Hundred percent I did that from years and I was doing background work and building my business. I still do my morning routine and I only had 15 minutes. So I totally get it. I started there too. And sometimes I wake up late and sometimes I only get to do 15 minutes for me. I think the biggest non-negotiable is chugging water and breathing or meditation. If I only can do two things. Those are the two things that I it's funny. I don't want to do the most. I'd rather read. I'd rather Journal if I do those two things. I see a significant difference. And especially the meditation where if you're starting out, I'm I'm still quote unquote not good at it which you never should say, you're not good at meditation because that's like defeats the purpose of it. But it just I really see a significant difference in my day. Even if I'm president quote unquote for 30 seconds out of the five minutes that I do it really really helps. So that's what I would do either three minutes of meditation. You can use so many apps headspace simple habit. There's just so many things out there YouTube. Do you have a favorite app? I actually rotated my husband uses headspace. I love headspace but I really loved um simple habit. I got there like your subscription. They just have saved something for every kind of situation in your life. It's really cool. So I really really love those guided apps, but honestly, even if you just sit there and take three really intentional deep breaths that or just throughout your day just like take a really deep breath. You'll see how I feel way more calm right now and more centered and I'm not gonna if you ever want to like snap at someone or snap. A significant out there just take a really deep breath and it'll kind of put things into perspective for you a little bit. I had something really interesting. It was on Joe Rogan's podcast. He was interviewing Laird Hamilton. I don't listen to a lot of Joe Rogan's interviews, but I go through the ones and I see the people he's interviewing and the ones that stand out I go and check out and Laird Hamilton who's a big wave surfer lives in Hawaii someone. I just really admire and he said some what does he say something about breathing and when you can't sleep or if you're just feeling stressed and overwhelmed if you take 7 breath It's seven seconds in seven seconds out. So seven seven seven that will actually it does something like with the with the biology of your body. Like it will calm your heart rate down and it actually puts you into a state that makes you like physically Karma makes it easier to sleep because it's literally changing the rhythm of your body a hill. If you listen to that segment of the interview, he'll explain it like the science behind it a lot better than I just tried to do but he if you do this thing seven breath seven seconds in seven seconds outs are really slow. It will literally just calm your body and making it easier to sleep and relax. It was really really interesting. That's so cool. I believe it. I see it all the time. It's crazy. Yeah, okay. It doesn't have to be at so tomorrow morning. Okay tomorrow morning. It's going to be getting I'm meditating because I sometimes meditate middle of the day when I have a chance to when I do have a chance to stop and I have some lunch or go for a walk and then I'll meditate always you always finish me like like like I feel really calm. I can't either afford a now and it is amazing how it is like kind of just wiping the Slate clean your it's almost like waking up. Sometimes I literally start meditating. I feel like I've just woken up and it's I've reset it's an incredible. Yeah, or even if someone has a long commute to work or even if you're just going to your co-working space instead of putting the news on or putting on a music or something like that music is great. But put on a they actually driving meditations that I've done before when I was like late to a workout class. I'm like, all right, let's put on my driving meditation. Yeah, and all it does is make you actually Focus. On your driving which is kind of funny, but how many of us aren't autopilot when we drive. Oh, yeah, so it actually makes you look at the trees. Look at the signs like be there and as funny as it sounds it really it really helps. So even if you have to use your car time try to listen to a good podcast or something like that, that's a really good tip. Yes, even if you are driving like that, you've still actually got time to be mindful. Yeah. Yeah for sure. That's what we should be mindful and we're all not driving Akash, so Want to change topics again because there's still so many where I want to talk about. Yeah work-life balance. You talked about this a lot making sure you have time to enjoy the summer. You're not working too much. Yeah, let's just talk about that. So how do it with the clients you've worked with again? Like what are the what are the common struggles that people face? And then what is your advice when you're working with someone and they're just like, oh, I'm so busy. I don't have time. I'm overwhelmed like or I feel like my business is running me instead of me running the business because I definitely have times like this when I get really booked up with clients. I feel like I'm losing the freedom that I wanted in the first place. How do you go about kind of treating that problem? Yeah. Definitely I very much experience that when I quit all my side jobs and was full-time in my network marketing business. I was working twelve twelve hours a day easily like sunup to sundown non-stop while planning my wedding and barely seeing my fiancé like it was just non-stop and I remember one day being like I can't do this much longer. This is like you just said this isn't the freedom I wanted. I'd rather go back to get a nine-to-five job, honestly cuz at least I'd be done it by. Yeah, and so then I realized and this is I'm sure a lot of people have heard this term or this phrase. But you treat people how to sorry you teach people how to treat you and that was something I had a really like take to heart because I would if a client messaged me or a prospective client message me, I would immediately respond. I had all my notifications on and in my head if I didn't respond right away. They were going to fire me or they were going to not hire me and or they'd hire someone else right away. And that was that was my mentality for like probably the first year when I actually did scale my business a little bit, but then when I really started to scale I realized that's not how this works. If someone needs me to respond right away. I I'm not teaching them that that's just not how it's going to be and or they're not my ideal client. So I think the biggest thing is to set boundaries with your clients and then with your social media and especially with your spouse or significant other your Family, you have to be really clear when you're working you're working and this is something my mom always used to joke around because she works from home. She's not an entrepreneur, but she was she's lucky enough to be able to work from home remotely and people will come into her room all the time because she's home and think she's not working and she's like I'm working like, you know understand I can't talk right now and I totally experience that now and luckily my husband's an entrepreneur as well. So we have these boundaries where hey if I'm in the room if the door is closed I have calls from this time this time I'm working but then when we're done Usually around 5:00 6:00 7:00 at the latest. I'm done. I'm not working and you have to really stick to that because if you are saying you're not working, but you're checking your Instagram messages. You're checking your email. You're still working. You're still attached to it. So I think those are two things is set boundaries with your clients. Let them know this is what I'm checking my messages. This is when I'm stop checking messages. This is when I'll answer you tomorrow and then also set boundaries with your your family to this is when I'm working. This is when I'm not and truly. To it don't have your phone next to try to have your phone in another room. That's something we've been trying to do, which is really hard is we've been trying to like put our phones in another room for like at least an hour or two because if you're not working what I've really never need my phone other than other than work to be quite honest. So so those two things have been really helpful and just having that more work like fish balance, it's hard to have that true balance, but that has really really helped us for sure. Yeah. There's some great advice in that. Again, I'm I'm more than happy to put my hand up and admit my mistakes, which is like finding those boundaries it is it is tough because I mean I work at a co-working space but I often will be home in the afternoon just so that I can kind of be around like in the afternoon to help with jr9 motherboy and also sometimes I'm at home doing content in the afternoon, which I can't record at at the co-working space. But what that means is I might finish at 4 or 5 o'clock and then it's harder to shut off because That boundary between work and life is blurry because you are working at home. And so I've been guilty in the past my wife and I were just talking about it recently like I say like, oh, I'm finished. I'm done now, which is my way of saying like, you know, I can help you. What do you need like preparing dinner helping with the baby, but then occasionally and and this is where I'm guilty. I'll check my phone. I'll see an email and I'm like, oh wait, I'm just gonna go and quickly reply to that because it's really important. And so that's when I'm now I'm not fully shutting off from work, and I'm not fully committing to family time. I'm stuck. Tween and it creates issues because now it's like hang on. I thought you were helping with dinner. You can't run away. And so yeah more than happy to admit that something I definitely need to improve on so, okay. I think we all do how so a part of you said, you know, you just really need to stick to it. What can I what can I do? Like, what would you say hearing that? What can I actually do to really I mean, actually the phone thing is really good idea. I need to look probably leave my phone upstairs something like that. Anything else come to mind like if you were going to treat that problem. Yeah. So definitely try to leave your phone messages send an email send a message. Whoever you have to as far as clients goes and just say hey, I'm setting these boundaries. So as long as they know sure. Yeah, they're gonna respect that. I've never had a client be like no you need to be at my beck and call they actually really respect that and I've had a couple clients who will even this weekend. They'll message me on the weekend and they say don't message you back. I know you don't check till Monday. I just had to tell you while I was thinking of it. I don't want to forget and sometimes I do message them back on the weekends. Like my husband's playing sports and I'm just hanging out at home. Why not but you have to like be really clear. So I would send an email out or send a private message to all your clients saying hey, these are my new hours. I just really want to be strict with not strict. I wouldn't say that I would say clear with my time and my boundaries I want you to do the same. If you're you know, if you have a online entrepreneur, I want you to do the same with your clients or your family or whatever it is. They're going to be actually really happy because they'll know. Okay you're available from this time to this time. I'll take advantage of that and then I won't ask afterwards and then you have to of course they message you after don't look at your phone and it's heart as like tempting as it is to answer don't answer because then you're if you constantly are answering after that time, they're expecting you to so if you don't answer to the next morning there be like, oh, why didn't you answer, you know earlier so really try to stick to your boundaries with that leave the phone in the other room and then there is an app. Actually I don't even know if it's an app. I forgot what it was. It might be just a setting on if you have an iPhone. My client actually told me about this for social. You specifically that you can set a limit on how much time you're on your phone. Do you use that screen to Meyers green time? Actually, I'm not too bad with social media. Like I think my screen social media about a day is like an hour and occasionally a few days a week. I will get the warning all you've got 10 minutes left of social media and then you're locked out but I'm actually not too bad with social media. Like I'm not really checking it much. It's more probably email. Yeah or just like or even yeah, I'll just have an idea. I would like still be thinking about work and I'll have an idea and I'm like, oh I'll just quickly run upstairs and Write myself a note or something. Yeah, I am. I think it's okay to like and actually the book I'm reading right now. She talked about email and how addicted we are to check email is setting specific times of day that you're going to check it. So that'll just help with productivity to instead of having it open all the time even maybe get rid of it on your phone or at least don't have the notification on your phone so that all you do you have like a couple maybe four times a day, but you check your email and that's all you're doing and then you don't have the notification on your phone. So you're not looking at it, but all those I If anyone's on like for me social media is the hard part to unplug because that is where I do so much of my business too. So that that screen time has really helped me a lot. It's so funny. I mean this is all stuff I've heard and said before and it's this is why I loved in podcast because then I can hear from someone like you to tell me instead of me telling everyone for a change I can hear you tell me and it's like yeah, you know what you're right. I know it and I just need someone to like, yeah help me just kind of drill it into me. Okay a few more quick questions. So with some tools and automation of things that you use to run your business. Do you have I think did you say earlier you have a virtual assistant? Do you have a team that helps you or I do and I have a huge team. I have virtual assistant who I have on contract every month. She's literally my right hand. I could not imagine my life without her and then I have an online business manager to that. I just started working with about three four months ago. And that was a real game-changer personally just at the level I was at I knew I needed someone to help me streamline systems things like that. Help me find this awesome virtual assistant and kind of be the go-between. So I have those two are like my core and then I have a copy writer that I use on just project basis as well as a designer just on Project basis and those are and that now a podcast producer actually. So those are the main ones that I have on my team. Oh cool. You'll be see your business manager is that like they are sort of probably similar to you like a coach or someone that you check in with every week or how does that work? Sort of I have a I also have a business coach. So I guess I should include her on the team. So that's more like she's my co she's me for my clients. You know, she's someone I go to for strategy and he's built the business that I want to have and and she's such a great example of someone who doesn't have such a good work-life balance. She works maybe four hours a day and just shows how you can have an incredible business not you know working 24/7, but my online business manager more sets up the systems instead of I know the strategy. I know what I want to do for social and she takes all of my ideas and helps me only coach only right content only film so that everything else I can delegate you kind of helps me figure out what do I delegate? Who do I delegate it to and then what procedures like zapier she got me into a sauna, right? So a lot of what you probably do. She she really helped me set up a lot of that. She said you need stuff like this to help make your day. I was doing so many little things that I didn't need to do purely because I didn't have those. Those in place. So that's really what she's helped me do this year, which has been great. That's really interesting. And what are your key the key tools that you rely on? So you've talked about sauna zapier like in what capacity do you use those you have any favorite automations that you have and what yeah, one of the key tools that you rely on. Yeah. So I use a saint I would say is the biggest one Asana Google Calendar obviously which sounds silly but those two especially to plan out my launches to plan out. Just I have so many different calendars on my Google cal which I love so I can see where my I want to one client meetings where my podcast interviews were just my travel schedule things like that. So I love separating that and then I have a calendar purely just for my launches so I know what are we launching? When what do we have to plan and that's where I take the launch calendar and I go to a sauna and I set up a project. We have a launch template in a sauna so that we could just make a duplicate copy of it and every single launch. We know we have to send emails. We have to send Instagram stories. We have to send do posts and all of the all of these things. It's Already mapped out. We just duplicate the project and fill in the different content. So that's been really helpful as far as project planning and then I can assign my virtual assistant tasks through a sauna that's been game-changing. So that app has been great. And then the other app I just rely on is boxer that walkie-talkie app. I use it for communication instead of like email or text message or what's app I use Voxer because I really like the voice feature. Okay. I just love it. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, I mean it sounds great for that. Yeah, I've recently in the last month or to hire a virtual assistant as well. And yeah, just just working with her in a sauna and assigning tasks has been has been so good just being able to like it's kind of hard to let go but then being like actually this is something that she can do and give her a task and then she comes back like, you know a day later and say great done on my car. That's awesome. Like the little things that with my OBM kept saying to me, but you really need to do that. You really need to do that because it would take me. I was like, oh just takes me five minutes though. It's so quick. It's so quick with so many of those tasks come up on your day and all of a sudden it's an hour and a half two hours of little tasks that you just don't need to do anymore. And that's been really huge is what can only you do. If you can if you can afford this if you can, you know do this. I'm not saying everyone needs at this level, but if you can only do it only you can do that's when you're going to truly love what you're doing every day Megan. This chat has been so good. I've definitely got so many valuable. That I can take away and go and apply my head is spinning with just like stuff that I'm going to go to honestly. I've got a final question which I've been asking on my last couple of interviews just out of habit now really, so this is kind of a self improvement based question and I'll be really I'm really interested to hear your response. So you've got kind of three questions really what is something you would like to start doing something you would like to stop doing and something you need to keep doing. Oh, I love this question. I'm putting you on the spot here. So I love it. I asked very I have been asking to on the spot questions on mine. Everyone's like oh gosh wasn't prepared for them. Like that's the point. Yeah, so start doing right. You said start got stopping you doing? Yeah start stop and keep I would say I would like to start actually it's something I used to do. So, I hope that counts but I'm a singer and I've definitely let that go to the side as far as not keeping up with it not Doing it as much I want to start having consistent voice lessons. And that's something I had one last month and my goals have to a month. So that's what I want to start doing. I love it. It just it self care for me. It brings me joy and not doing it to pursue it as a career anymore, but I love it. So start singing singing lessons again. Stop doing I want to stop checking social media as much as I do which sounds sad, but it's just such a part of my and that's such an excuse right olds my job. It's what it's my job. Yeah. I do not need to be checking it. As much as I do my screen time limit is really long. It's really sad. So I actually would love to get it down to an hour a day. I think that would be ideal. So that is something that I'm putting it out there for everyone just like you did with the morning routine. I'm going to stop checking social media as much I think I'm gonna limit to like four times a day or something that seems crazy to me, but I'm going to try and then keep doing Let's see keep doing. I mean my morning routine. I've definitely keep doing yeah, but especially during the summer is my daily walks. I've been going on even if it's a 10-minute walk, you know, we sit so much as entrepreneurs were constantly sitting on yeah, and boy, does that energize me and it just I love the sunshine. I'm addicted to it, which is why I should live in California probably, but but I love it. So definitely going for my my my walks every day. Fantastic. Well Megan one more time. Thank you so much for your time today. So everyone you can find Megan and Megan Elaine e.com any other final kind of messages for the audience? Like where can people it's anything on your site. You can point them into in particular or sure. Yeah. No, definitely many lean.com. I have some great freebies there. I have a good case study how I signed five high ticket clients in one week that you can find there and then just at Megan Eleni on Instagram. I'm always sharing fun stuff and stories is is my fun place if you just want to see a day in the life and and we're really silly there. It's called the pretty awkward podcast because I really like to share how you don't have to be perfect to build a really successful business or paint this perfect picture on social media. I've literally built a brand on spilling things on myself walking into walls like a silly as it sounds that's kind of how I built it as being a little different in that sense and people we have fun in our community. So definitely check out the Instagram the podcast and yeah, this has been great. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. It's been great. Yeah looking forward to putting this. Live again one more time. I've just taken so many useful things out of this conversation. So thank you for all your for your contribution today. Great. Thanks so much. All right. That was my interview with Megan you Laney as you can tell I as I said many times. I got a lot out of that conversation with Megan really appreciated having her on the show. What did you get out of today's episode leave me a comment head on over to the blog pull -.com / 143 and I'd love to learn the big takeaway that you received today one more time. Thank you very much for listening and I will catch you next time on the poor miners podcast.
On the podcast this week I talk to Megan Yelaney who is a business coach and host of the Pretty Awkward Entrepreneur Podcast. I really enjoyed this interview and took away so many actionable tips of things I need to do or improve. In this episode, we talk about:   An introduction to Megan and her background (2:50)  Why the barriers to starting an online business are so low (10:34)   Common patterns around getting your business to "take off" (13:36)   Using social media to get clients and build an online business (17:28)   The importance of self-care, looking after number 1 and morning routines (21:55)   Work-life balance and having enough time to enjoy life (36:50)   Megan's recommended tools and team (44:49)   What is something you'd like to START doing, something you'd like to STOP doing and something you need to KEEP doing (49:24)  Show notes » paulminors.com/144 Download my productivity blueprint and learn the processes and tools I use to be more organised and achieve more in my business and home life. You'll also get my FREE 3-part video training series where I'll explain 1) 4 simple steps to supercharge your productivity 2) common mistakes to avoid 3) the 10 productivity tools I couldn't live without. Download here » paulminors.com/products/productivity-blueprint/ If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast. Doing this will help more people discover the show so they to can get more done and get more out of life. 