Lifestyle Entrepreneur
Project Ignite Podcast by Derek Gehl From Corporate Captivity To Lifestyle Entrepreneur In Less Than Three Years - With Karen Wojciechowski
00:00:00 00:00:00
  • Episode  77
  • Karen Wojciechowski

Summary:

Learn how Karen Wojciechowski quit her job, started a digital business and became a lifestyle entrepreneur in less than three years. This interview is packed with valuable insights and lessons that everyone starting down the entrepreneurial road should hear!

Transcription Episode 77: From Corporate Captivity To Lifestyle Entrepreneur In Less Than Three Years – The Lessons Karen Learned!

Welcome to the Project Ignite Podcast, a podcast designed to skip the hype, skip the BS and bring you real actionable tips and strategies from real digital entrepreneurs to help you grow your business and income on the internet.

This is your host, Derek Gehl.

Today, I have a guest I’ve been looking forward to interviewing for quite some time. I met her quite a few years ago, when she was working for a mining company in Perth.

Since I met her, I’ve watched her transform her life, moving from employee to digital lifestyle entrepreneur in a completely new field, starting a business that allows her and her husband now to travel the world, really living that internet lifestyle, and I know that being a lifestyle entrepreneur is a goal so many people want.

I think she’s a great example for people out there asking themselves, what is a lifestyle entrepreneur?

Today she’s a founder of Realenergyfood.com, and that’s a site that allows her to help other people boost their energy levels and improve their health through finding the right foods that work for their unique body.

Today, she’s working with clients all over the world while she’s travelling all over the world as a lifestyle entrepreneur, and so, without further ado I’d like to welcome Karen Wojciechowski to the show.

Karen, thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for having me.

Karen, I’ve never ever said your last name right. Was I at least close?

You were kind of close, it’s Wojciechowski.

Oh, Wojciechowski. No matter how many times you … Wojciechowski. If anybody listening could spell that and get it right, they should win some kind of prize. It’s an amazing last name.

I used to be Hume, that was a lot easier.

Way easier, absolutely. I’ve always just called you Karen W, even in my show notes here I wrote Karen W, because I don’t even try anymore.

Karen, for our listeners today, let’s start at the beginning, because I think your lifestyle entrepreneur story is a total inspiration. To so many people that are listening to this and just starting down the road, maybe they’re taking the first few steps, or they’re thinking about taking the first few steps and haven’t yet.

You’ve done it, you’ve gone from the employee to the lifestyle entrepreneur, and now, you embody the internet lifestyle right now. You’re travelling, every time I talk to you you’re somewhere else in the world.

Walk us through this, how did you get started down the lifestyle entrepreneur path? What inspired you to take the plunge, how did you figure out your niche and walk us through this journey to what your lifestyle business looks like today.

I started up as an environmental scientist, as you said working for a mining company. I went to university, I studied environmental science and I thought that’s what I wanted to do.

I always loved travelling, though I did, while I was at university, I did a few years of university and then I would do a year of travel, I’d defer for a year and do a year of travel, and then I’d do a year of university. I did always have the travel bug.

I finished my degree and I was working for a mining company, and then I took a trip to Vancouver, Canada. That’s where I met my now husband Mike, and I lived there for a while and I was still working as an environmental scientist.

Although I loved a lot of the work I did, I always … I don’t know. I didn’t really like the structure of the 9 to 5, of … I always like to do things my own way, and so I did start to think, “Maybe I’d like to do something different.” That’s really where the lifestyle entrepreneur idea was born.

I was still happy working in the corporate world, and I moved up the ladder and got better at the things that I was doing there. Mike and I decided to move back to Australia, so the next almost 4 years Mike and I moved back and forward between Vancouver and Australia.

We’d have to quit our jobs, we’d get jobs, and then we’d work in those jobs and then we’d have to quit and go back to Vancouver, and then we’d have to quit again, and we’d go back to Australia.

I really started thinking more and more how I could do something that I could take with me, rather than continually having to … These employers weren’t that thrilled that I kept working for a year, and then I would change jobs.

I did a lot of different environmental science jobs. Mike wasn’t super on board yet with the lifestyle entrepreneur idea, and this is about the time that I found your program. I heard you speak at a conference in Perth, and I signed up to do your internet marketing program.

I took that, and then me and Mike actually went on a 6 month trip around the US and Canada. I was doing a little bit of this internet marketing stuff, I built my first website, which never really made a lot of money, but it got me learning some of the techniques and some of the tools that I would use later as a lifestyle entrepreneur.

By the time we got back from this trip, we went back to our full-time jobs and now Mike was a little bit more on board with being a lifestyle entrepreneur and willing to really try and see if we could make the plunge to see if we could actually develop something online that would mean that we could go back and forth between …

At that stage we really just wanted to be able to go back and forth between Canada and Australia, because Mike’s family was all in Canada and my family was all in Australia.

That fast-tracked that. We got to the point where we really wanted to give being a lifestyle entrepreneur a go, and as I said, I’d kind of been building this website, and doing some work on learning as much as I could about building a business online.

We quit our corporate jobs and we moved to Vancouver, back to Vancouver, which is probably the most expensive city in the world to start a new lifestyle business and become a lifestyle entrepreneur.

Yes it is.

Pretty much. That was two years ago now, so two years ago we decided to say goodbye to the corporate world.

We started building these lifestyle entrepreneur businesses in Vancouver, and then I went back to study nutrition as well at the same time because that was something I was really passionate about and I really started to get more interested in how the foods I was eating and how to set up …

How our lifestyle habits would affect everything, my mood, my energy levels, how I was able to concentrate, and so I really wanted to take my business in that kind of direction.

I started studying nutrition, right in the most expensive city in the world. That was two years ago, it definitely took us a while to really start making our first income in terms of these businesses.

I must admit, when we first got to Vancouver, we did way more mountain biking than business planning, which when you are first starting down the lifestyle entrepreneur path does not help you make a whole bunch of money online.

That definitely cuts into it. Walk us through the business, because I think this is a natural progression that so many new lifestyle entrepreneurs go through. As you said, you started learning, and you started a website in a niche, and it never really did anything, but you learned a lot from that.

That’s part of the process. Walk us through this, so what was your first niche?

My first website was Howtomakeproteinbars.com, and it was a website that just taught people how to make their own homemade protein bars. I sold a $19.95 recipe ebook on this website, and I shared my recipes with the people on the blog.
How did that evolve, and become what it is today?

I quickly learned that it’s difficult to make a full-time income just selling a $19.95 ebook.

I’ve always been interested in nutrition, but I must admit, researching things with this website and learning how to make all these new things, I got even … Learning how to share this information with other people really led into me wanting to get a certification in nutrition so that I could help more people and then expand my offerings within that niche.

My next site I launched was Realenergyfood.com, which is my business now. The site has definitely had some face lifts over the last couple of years as well.

It definitely progresses, you start off with one idea, or start with something that interests me, and it’s amazing how much you just get different opportunities or different things come as you progressively work on the idea you have right now. It just progresses over time, you get more and more ideas and more opportunities come to you that help it grow.

I think that’s such a key message here I want our listeners to hear, especially those people that are starting out.

A lot of people think, “Hey, I have to come up with a magical idea that’s going to be my home run right away.”

I can honestly say that probably 90% of the lifestyle entrepreneurs that I’ve worked with, their first idea is not a home run, but it’s that first idea and the process of developing that idea that starts to open these other doors that then leads to other stuff.

I always say, action creates opportunity, and I guess had you just continued to do what you were doing as an environmental scientist, you would have never found your way … Maybe you would have, who knows, but down this path to what you’re doing today, right? Which is so cool.

I think so many people need to realize that you just need to start getting momentum, and try something, and then as you said you learn so much through this process of building, and it opens up so many other doors.

100%, and it’s amazing, when I started, let’s say … When I first started doing your course, and we’re doing … Find your niche, and build your first sites.

I remember writing my first blog posts, and a blog post, I used to have no ideas. I couldn’t think of anything to write, even though it was a topic that interests me, I couldn’t think of anything to write. One blog post that was like 300 words would take me 2 days, it would take me forever, which just … I would struggle, I was like, “How do people come up with so many ideas?”

Over time, I would write another one and another one. Now, I’ve got too many ideas, I can’t write all my ideas, I can’t develop all my ideas. I have to have a separate workbook for ideas that I’m going to do 3 years down the track, because I’ve got so many things that would be so cool to work on. I think exactly what you were saying.

You have to continue with this action, you just have to keep trying things or keep going, and it progresses into more ideas coming to you, or as you said, more opportunities come that take you in a direction that maybe you couldn’t have thought about when you started.

The other thing I would really like to highlight about your journey is the fact that you went into a niche that wasn’t your expertise at all when you started out, right?

Over the period of 3 years, you’ve now immersed yourself in it. You’ve created a lifestyle entrepreneur business in it, and you’ve established your expertise in it, and have grown your expertise and knowledge through resources, education and learning.

I think so many people start off and go, “Well, yeah, it’s interesting but I’m not an expert.” Describe the learning process, how did you go from where you are to … What were some of the things you did?

Environmental science is very different from nutrition, I’m an integrated nutrition health coach now and it is very different, and I think being … I definitely had times when I have almost thought, “Am I expert enough? Do I know enough?” You really need to know enough or have enough knowledge to be able to help the person that you’re trying to help.

I studied at the Institute of Integrated Nutrition, and that’s a health coaching certification course that has a whole bunch of nutrition information, and a whole bunch of great stuff.

All I need to do really is take that and be able to share it with somebody who doesn’t already know that information, or apply that to be able to help somebody improve their health, improve their energy, I guess get the results they want.

I might not be able to be the nutritionist for a nutritionist, you don’t have to know more than other experts. You just have to know more than the people that you’re trying to help.

What is a lifestyle entrepreneur

That’s such a key message when you’re getting started, because I think a lot of people lack confidence to go forward, because they go, “I’m not an expert.” The question I always like to throw back is, what is an expert?

It’s one of those vague things where people are like, “Well, I don’t know,” you know? What is it to be an expert, and as long as you have that knowledge you can help people that need it.

Great, you can get started with it, and then you build as you go, because I know the answer to this question, but when you started in this niche or even 6 months into this niche, did you know as much as you know now?

Of course not, no.

Now your knowledge has grown and grown and grown, and your expertise is going to evolve over time, which is absolutely fantastic.

Let’s talk about some of the challenges you’ve faced along the way to becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur. As you were starting up, if you had to rewind through the timeline, what were some of the big obstacles and challenges, or what was the number one thing that you ran into and had trouble, or was challenging for you?

I think one of the things in hindsight that I would have maybe put some more thought into or maybe done a little different was really maybe start to validate some of the ideas that I had, or maybe build a bit more of my business.

Before I quit my job, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I had built this first business, but maybe I’d made a couple of hundred dollars. I was like, “No, okay, I’m going to quit, and I’m going to, as I said, move to Vancouver, and it’s going to be awesome because we’re going to make all this money online and be lifestyle entrepreneurs.”

I just think that it was a little bit of a shock to the system to really take that cut in earnings. I felt I would be able to adapt to it a little bit better than if I’m honest, I kind of did in that first few months. The more people can do that side hustle where they build whatever they can, if that is something that …

If that is something that you’re looking to do where you are looking to transition into full-time working on your business, if you can do whatever you can before you quit your job, I think that takes a little bit of the pressure off.

I love the term you used there, side-hustle. That does describe it in fact. I watched a video, one of Gary Vaynerchuk’s videos. It was a few months back, and it was exactly … Someone asked him the question, “What do you recommend that I do to start a business? I don’t have anything right now.” This is one thing I like about Gary V is, he’s pretty pragmatic.
He’s going to tell us how it is.

How it is, and he’ll drop a few f-bombs along the way. Basically, he said, “Look, if you want to start a business, don’t go out and quit your job today and roll the dice on everything.” It’s a hell of a lot easier to build something when you have a little bit of cash flow backing that up, and that takes some pressure off.

What you need to be prepared to do is, as you called it, the side hustle, which is to, in your spare time, using that as effectively as possible to build something.

I love the way he positioned, is he said, “Look, go out there and find a job that’s a 9 to 5, pays enough money that you can live off of, maybe it gives you a little bit extra, but it doesn’t require a whole lot of extra brainpower or after hours commitment,” and stuff like that.

A kind of job you can do it for 8 hours, make your money, go home, and then focus on it, and then he took that a step further and said, “Hey, find a job that, you know what? You figure out how to do it in 4 hours and spend the other 4 hours working on your business.”

It was brilliant, because I think a lot of people wonder that, is, “Should I quit my job, should I go all in,” and I’ve coached so many people. I’m like, “Look, don’t put yourself into financial turmoil. It’s easier to start a business when you have a little bit of cash flow going to back you up.”I think that’s a pretty important message there.

Also I think the underlying message is, don’t go somewhere where the mountain biking’s really good, because when you’re supposed to be working on your lifestyle entrepreneur business you end up going mountain biking too much, which may have been a little bit of a setback as well, correct?

Or spend your buffer money on new mountain bikes.
There’s that too, right?
Totally.
The other theory is burn all the bridges.
Then you’re forced to make it happen. You know what, that strategy did work in the end, but if I could suggest the side hustle, it’s maybe an easier way to go to be a lifestyle entrepreneur.
Let’s go through your timeline. When did you look at this and go, “Ah, okay, it’s working.” What was that moment? Where were you in the process? You’re still a young business, you’re still growing, right? When was that moment where you sort of went, “Phew, I don’t have to go get a job again.”
I think it was definitely winter, once we’d gotten through the summer.
And the mountain biking.

We really knuckled down once it hit winter, and it wasn’t until … We quit our corporate jobs in June 2 years ago, so that’s June 2014. It really took us at least 6 months to really start bringing in really much at all.

Throughout that next few months I guess after that, that’s when we started to make a little bit more consistent income and stuff started to come through. I would say in between that 6 to 9 month period, we started to think, again, we’re not replacing our corporate jobs or anything, but we’re just getting enough where we’re paying expenses and we’re making it work.

How do you structure your life right now as a lifestyle entrepreneur? You’re working, you’re travelling. What does the average day look like?

There’s not really an average day anymore when you’re a lifestyle entrepreneur. In saying that, we are getting way better at structuring our day a little bit, because we’re now in Poland.

We’re spending this summer in Poland, and the last 2 years we’ve lived in … We’ve lived in and traveled through the US and Canada, and Australia, and Thailand. We went and spent 5 months in Chiang Mai, which is amazing. We traveled to Vietnam, and now, as I was saying before, we’ve spent some time in Spain and Portugal before arriving in Poland.

One of the things we have started to do is stay in one place for a longer amount of time so that we can still set up a bit of a routine. We work really long hours, we get a ton of stuff done, we schedule things in, we get stuff all ready, and then we’ll go and do a trip. That works really well for me as a lifestyle entrepreneur.

We’ll go and see a different part of the country, we’ll go spend a week in a new place, and we’ll go check out a new town or a new city as we’re traveling around the world.

We do definitely like to set up a bit of a routine in wherever we are so that we can be productive. In the beginning, one of the things we did do when trying to be a lifestyle entrepreneur is we moved around too much, we kept moving and we found it hard to be super productive and get things done.

Lifestyle business

We find it better now to have some work time, do a chunk of stuff whether it’s spending a bunch of time in one place and then doing little side trips from there.

I think that’s so important to, as you said, I think one of the key things is routine when you’re a lifestyle entrepreneur.

Wherever you are, creating routine, because without routine I think it’s very difficult to have substantially sustained productivity, and so, as you say, you went to Vancouver the first time, you spent that mountain biking a lot, right?

Creating those routines, and what I like that you said there as well, which is good for the listeners, is big chunks of time where you’d go at it really hard. I’m wired that way too, I like to go focus on a project and put in a whole bunch of time, and then recharge.

For me, I find that a more productive way to work than just trying to grind out 8 hours a day, it just doesn’t work for me, right?

I think that’s a lesson a lot of listeners can take, is as you start to become a lifestyle entrepreneur, particularly when you have this type of a business that doesn’t have an office and people coming to it and you don’t have to work the 9 to 5.

You can now create a schedule that suits your lifestyle and you’re becoming more productive that way.

Let’s talk a little bit about your business today, this is the other challenge I see with a lot of new entrepreneurs that are getting started.

There’s just so many directions you can go, and every time you check your email there’s the new hottest thing you need to be doing, whether it’s Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever it is there’s somebody telling you you need to be doing this, right?

Where are you focusing your time, how are you generating leads to your business, what does that look like and where are you having success right now as a lifestyle entrepreneur?

In my business, I do, I guess as you said before, I do one on one coaching, I’ve got group programs. I also do some consulting.

To be honest, especially when I started in this nutrition area, starting out my coaching program, starting to launch my different offerings, personal relationships, online, but personal reach outs online to my network, it’s amazing how many people …

I’ve reached out to people on LinkedIn, and people through Facebook, just to touch base again with old connections and let people know what you’re doing now.

Also through connections in Facebook groups, especially some of the paid Facebook groups that I’m in, paid programs where they’ve had a Facebook group, some of my first clients I got when I first started out was from some of these Facebook groups where I was just active in them and kind of almost got to know these other people in the group, without meeting them in person.

They start to see you as more of the health expert in this group, especially a couple of them were business ones, and so there wasn’t necessarily too many people that were doing a similar thing to me.

I started being seen as the expert in that area within this group, and so just making sure that you’re adding lots of value where you can, and just being seen as the expert in this Facebook group was something that really helped me when I start, because I found that, especially at the beginning of becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur, leveraging the personal connections that you have is really one of the fastest ways to start to …

These people already know you, to be able to start getting your client base that you can get referrals from there was really big for me.

That’s interesting, I’ve done so many interviews now, and I’ve talked to so many entrepreneurs. What I find is, that’s a common message when people are getting started. One of the fastest ways is to start leveraging a network, and starting small like that, and building your authority.

One of the things I hear a lot is Facebook groups, right? Participating in those Facebook groups, contributing value to those Facebook groups, and a byproduct of that contribution is now increased credibility and authority, which you can then leverage into starting to generate clients. This is a great tool for a lifestyle entrepreneur.

I think it’s interesting … Particularly in the niche that you’re in. You’re in the health niche, right? Health, I think you’d agree, is probably pretty competitive, right? There’s a lot of people in the health space. A, you need to find a niche within there, but I think what happens is a lot of people starting off, they look at the health niche.

They look at the really big players in there, let’s call, Mercola, Dr Mercola or something like that, and they say, “Hey, these guys just put up a sales page and people flock to it and buy. I’m going to create a product, I’m going to put up a sales page, and people will flock to it and buy.” They think it’s an easy path to being a lifestyle entrepreneur.

They don’t have that credibility, they don’t have that critical mass of a brand that people understand and know and reach. The process that you’re taking, I think, is such an important one, the steps you’re taking are such an important one for people that are going into particularly more competitive niches.

Assuming that you can go in and model the guys that already have this massive expertise and credibility and become a lifestyle entrepreneur right away is a little misleading, because you start of as you’re starting off, and you start building that credibility, you start building that authority, you start building your network.

Over time, that’s going to gain momentum and start to snowball as word of mouth spreads, and then eventually down the road, what that turns into is the ability to sell

Let’s call sell products on more on autopilot, right?

Too often, I hear entrepreneurs, they want to skip this whole section, right? They just want to put up a buy now button and have people just come in, and buy all their products, which, particularly in the more competitive niches, I think you need to take the steps that you’re taking.

For all of our listeners, I think there’s a really valuable lesson to be had here. You’re doing it in a competitive niche. Speaking of competitive niches, do you have a specific niche that you’re focused on within the fitness market? How would you describe that?

I focus on helping people, I guess, that want to increase their energy levels. I really focus on talking a lot about energy as a marker of health, rather than maybe something more like weight loss. I guess that’s the area that I tend to focus on.
You’re not looking for people with specific ailments, with … You’re looking for people that are saying, “Hey, I need more energy, I have low energy.” That’s your sandbox?

I’ve got two, that’s my sandbox. I guess within that I’ve got two of my ideal clients. They are different I guess, but they’re the two types of people that have seemed to be attracted to me the most, and that I tend to just end up always working with.

To be honest, that’s kind of how I have worked out that these really are my ideal clients. Over time, I found that really figuring out my ideal client was a little tricky in the beginning, actually.

The first one, I guess, is somebody who … I focus on energy with them, but they’re somebody who’s already interested in health, they are already relatively healthy but they just want to either get back on track because they’ve lost momentum or they want to really increase their …

They want to get more energy so they can get more done throughout the day. They might be really busy people that are quite healthy but they’re just tired all the time.

They need those extra tweaks and that extra accountability to take them to the next level. The other group of people is the yo-yo dieters, the people that have tried things like diets, and different kind of more traditional advice in that case.

I take them from focusing on that to switching to focusing on other health markers, and all the things that I teach them to do, and the way I work with them. They end up losing weight anyway, but it helps them take the focus from this diet mentality.

I think, again, another valuable lesson there, and something you said that I want to point out to our listeners is, it was difficult to identify your ideal customer when you first got started.I think that’s common, right? When you’re starting a business, everybody wants the perfect plan.

They want to know, “Who my customer is, will this work, is it getting …” There are no guarantees, and there’s a lot of frickin gray area when you get started, right?

You take your best guess, and say, “Okay, based on what I know, here’s who I think my ideal customers could be, and I’m going to start targeting that.”

Through this journey to becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur, you’re either going to find that you’re totally wrong, and you will find your right customers, or you’ll quickly figure out who in this group are the best customers. I love what you’re saying there, because I know a lot of people that are listening to this can relate to it.

They’re like, “I’m not really sure yet who my ideal customer is.” I guess my message is, the good news is, is keep doing what you’re doing and you’re going to figure it out, and that’s so key.

One of the things that I’d love to point out to what you just said there was, one of your key clients is people that have already taken an interest in health. I think there’s another lesson there for our listeners is, when you’re getting started, you want to go after the customers that are the lowest hanging fruit, that are going to be the easiest to convert.

I think in your case Karen, you’re going after people right away that have already taken an interest in health.

They’re already healthy, they’re just looking for ways to be more healthy, or get a different level of health. You don’t have to sell them on being healthy, that’s already been done. You just need to now move them to your system, and how you can help them be more healthy.

For everybody listening, I think that’s always an important question to ask when you’re first getting started. In let’s say health, for example, you have this whole spectrum of people that are unhealthy and don’t know it, to the people that are healthy and just want better health, and then everything in between that.

Going to the beginning and trying to sell people that are unhealthy and really don’t care about being unhealthy, that’s a …

It’s a hard sell.

It’s a hard sell, right? They don’t give a rip, right? Figuring out, “Okay, where’s low hanging fruit,” and starting there, and then building out from that is so key, which is exactly what you’re doing, and I think that’s really valuable.

I’m not going to let you off the hook without at least one health question though, so, entrepreneurs. We are notorious for abusing our bodies in the sense of pushing them, pushing them, pushing them with long hours. Energy, it’s so valuable.

If you could send one message to our listeners of entrepreneurs, what would be the most important message you would send for helping them to increase their energy and be more productive? Give us something we can take.

One of the first ones is to think about these things you’re doing to your health in terms of them being a business activity. Eating right, or adding vegetables in, or exercising, think of them actually as a business activity.There’s a bunch of research, I’m going to throw some stats at you, on healthy living and productivity.

Productivity, especially if you’re somebody who’s trying to do a side hustle, you need all the energy and the productivity you can get.

There was research done from the Health Enhancement Research Organization who showed that people that ate healthy foods all day long were 25% more likely to have higher job performance. They were 20% more productive, and people who ate healthily and regularly exercised were also absent from work 27% less and performed 11% better at their jobs.

Especially if you want 20% more productivity, it’s kind of all the simple things that you know you should do, but sometimes struggle with.

I like to say that the five things to really boosting your energy is real food, just add in some real food, even if you’re not cutting out the other stuff, just adding in some healthy greens, some healthy fat, some real food.

Drink water, everybody forgets to drink water. Set a timer, put it by your computer, get some water in there, it’s amazing how much being dehydrated sucks your energy.

Exercise, get some movement. Exercise doesn’t have to mean you’re at the gym for 2 hours every day or anything, just see where you can move in-between getting your work done.

Try and walk to work or get a 7 minute workout in, or do something just to get in some extra movements. Get a FitBit, get a tracker so you can see how many steps you’re getting in. Anything like that would just help you boost your energy levels and improve your productivity.

The other two are sleep and stress.

They could be a whole other podcast episode, so I’m just going to say, prioritize getting some sleep as much as you would these other health things. It’s amazing how much we don’t value sleep, but it’s kind of one of those undervalued health hacks that actually really can help improve your health.

See if you can do a couple of things each day or each week to reduce the impact that stress has on your body, whether that’s meditation or yoga, or whatever works for you.

You said something there that was absolutely brilliant, that so resonated with me, and I just made a note to start doing this, is treat it like a business activity. That’s it.
It is.

It is, right? At the end of the day, if I’m 20% more productive, imagine how much more I could get done.

Again, you have your personal stuff and health over here off on the side, and business is the big focus.

When we’re focused on business, all that other stuff goes to the side. If you integrate that and make it part of your business activities, scheduling it, stuff like that, that’s a brilliant way to position it and make it an integral part of what you’re doing, and it’s going to pay dividends, no doubt about it.

As you said, 20% more productive, that’s 20% more of your time there that you can go spend exercising. Richard Branson actually says that exercise is his number one productivity hack.

Hands down, hands down, as is mine. If I don’t exercise for a few days, I’m just in a fog, and my productivity just plummets.In the world of entrepreneurs, ADD is so prevalent.

If you go to any entrepreneurial conference, I think half the people there are ADD. Anything aside, exercise is so key for your ability to focus, and your ability to be able to sit for long periods and focus on very intellectually intensive tasks.

It’s fantastic advice and I love that, make it a business activity.

This has been a fantastic interview, and before we wrap up, do you have any final words of wisdom?

You’ve made it over the hump, you’re on your way. You’ve been through the challenges, the scars are still fresh, the wounds are still fresh, and not just from falling off the mountain bike. What words of wisdom do you have for our listeners who are just starting down this path of becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur?

Find some like minded people. Find some people that you can talk to about your journey, because especially if you get to the stage where you are doing it full-time, there suddenly is almost less people around you.Not so many that you might have hung around with before and doing this kind of thing, and so making friends with people that are like-minded and doing similar things has just been so helpful for me, especially to bounce off on those times where you are like, “Oh, was that not the smartest idea, to quit my good mining job, and launch a business?”

They’re the people that go, “No, this is why you told me that you did it, keep going.” I think finding the community, or even finding a mastermind, one accountability person, someone that you can, or a group of people that you can bounce ideas off and go through this together has definitely helped me become a lifestyle entrepreneur.

That’s a huge piece of wisdom that you just shared there, especially as a lifestyle entrepreneur, it can be a lonely journey if you isolate yourself from other entrepreneurs. It’s you at a computer, right?
It felt like a long time.
For a long flipping time. The little voices in your head, you’ll start to second-guess yourself sometimes, and go, “What am I doing?”
You will, at some stage you will.

Absolutely, absolutely. I shared a graphic, and I think you may have seen it, it was a few months ago and I shared it with one of my Facebook groups of my members. It was the emotions of being an entrepreneur.

It goes from, “Yeah, this is the best life ever,” to 24 hours later, “Why am I doing this, I hate my life,” to, “Woo,” you know? It’s such an emotional roller coaster, and to try and go that alone is tough.

That’s why I think entrepreneurs as a whole are relatively giving, sharing people with other entrepreneurs, they’re willing to sit down to discuss, to give opinions, and in every city around the world, if you go to Meetup.com or start looking around you’re going to find networks of entrepreneurs you can participate with.

I think that’s a great piece of advice, and before we wrap things up Karen, if people want to get in touch with you, if they need more energy specifically, where do they find you? Where can they follow you, where can they connect with you?

The best place to connect with me is in my own free Facebook group, you can just come along to Realenergyfoodgroup.com, and that’ll take you straight to the Facebook group, and I’m in there every day answering questions and connecting with people. Come across and say hi.
I’d recommend it, I’m part of that Facebook group and Karen’s always posting really good stuff, and keeping us motivated on our track for more energy. Karen, thanks so much, that was a wonderful chat today and I know our listeners have gotten so much out of it, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks so much for having me.

All right everyone, that was Digital Entrepreneur. Karen W, I’m not even going to try the last name again. As always, any links mentioned in the interview will be included in the show notes, along with the entire transcript of this episode. You’ll find it, as always, at ProjectIgnite.com/podcast.

If you haven’t done so already, remember, you can have all the episodes automatically delivered. All you’ve got to do is subscribe, so head over to iTunes, search my name or Project Ignite, click subscribe, or if you’re an Android user, you will find us on Soundcloud and on Stitcher Radio as well.

Now it’s time to take the tips, the tools, the strategies you’ve learned here today and apply that final essential ingredient to making them work for you, and that ingredient is action. Go for it, take action, apply what you’ve learned and stay tuned for more info-packed episodes of the Project Ignite Podcast.

This is your host, Derek Gehl, signing off.

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