112. *Updated* $1.5M+ Working <20 Hours A Week

Andrea Nordling 00:00
Welcome back to the profitable nutritionist podcast my friend. Last year, I recorded this episode
that we are going to go back to as an MVP episode. And the reason I recorded it was to give my
number one productivity secret, which had led at that point to over a million dollars in revenue
with me working about 20 hours a week. And I gave in the episode, which you’re going to hear
today, a timeline of how my business had progressed and some milestones along the way, that
is really helpful, I think, for context to hear when certain things got introduced into the
business, like this podcast, like different offers different hires, all that kind of stuff. So it’s
important to know how like, what was the progression? What would I do differently. So I talked
about that in this episode. But also, I wanted to do a little update on the stats and everything I
break down in this episode for this year for 2023. Now, before I do that, here is a little bit of
background. Last year, when I was debuting a brand new class called three secrets for making
100k. In your nutrition practice without social media, which I talked about in this episode, it was
coming out for the first time, okay, I taught this class all of the last 12 months more than a
dozen times to different audiences. I taught it internally, I ran ads and taught this class live. I’ve
taught it a bunch of times. Okay, so what I’m trying to say is I’ve had the pleasure of hearing a
lot of live questions from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people as I’ve taught this
class a bunch of times now. So I have updated this class was even more strategy to answer
some of those questions I was frequently getting every time I taught the class. And I am now
going to be releasing the live 2.0 version this year on December 7. So all that to say in this
episode that you’re about to hear, I’m talking about a brand new webinar that was coming out.
And now we’re going to talk about a brand new webinar coming out again, because it is the
same webinar but updated with more strategy. And I think a little bit easier to understand
framework the way I am going to be teaching it on December 7. Why do I tell you this? Well,
because I first of all want you to come to this class on December 7, so that you can make more
money in your practice without relying on social media. And I know that the framework that I’m
teaching in the class is going to help you do that. So that’s number one. But I also wanted to
tell you this, because I think it’s a really good reminder that you don’t need to reinvent the
wheel all of the time. This is the same class I taught last year, it is updated, it is tweaked, but
I’m repeating it, okay, you are watching me do this in real time. You don’t need to reinvent the
wheel all of the time thinking of brand new things, you can create brand new things you can do
A
new promotions, new new new, I don’t either, okay, I’ve had so many people attend this class
over the last year. And the feedback that they give is, oh my gosh, that helped me so much.
Oh, my gosh, that helped me so much. Oh, my gosh, I can see what I’ve been doing. That is
wasting me so much time. Now I know what to do next. So instead of creating something brand
new for December, I wanted to improve what’s already helping so many people and make it
even better. And I bring this to your attention to give a gentle little nudge that you maybe need
to have a little conversation with yourself and ask the same question. What are you doing that’s
working, but you could make it work even better? Instead of starting from scratch on a new
idea. Alex Hermoza talks about this. And I just love the way he frames it. So simply more better
new. That is the order of operations. When you’re doing something and it’s working, you just do
more of it, then and only then after you’re doing a lot more of it. Do you go back and figure out
how to make it better. You’re watching me do this right now with this webinar, making it better.
And after I’m doing a lot more of a better webinar, then maybe I’ll think of doing something
new. And maybe that’s a little bit of direction that you needed today to more better knew,
Okay, what could you be working on that is already working, but you just make it better.
Instead of starting from scratch on something brand new, do more of what’s already working, make it better, always a good idea in your business. Okay, so back to the meta example of how
I am doing this December 7 is the date of the 2.0 version of this class. So even if you have
attended this class in the last year, I would highly recommend that you register for the
December sevens viewing showing teaching. What do we call it I don’t know for the December
7 live version because it is going to be new. And December 7 is also the day that enrollment is
opening for the profitable nutritionist program for the final time in 2023. So if you are
subscribed to my twice weekly newsletter, emails, you have been hearing me hint that I have a
very big announcement to make that day which you’ll be hearing all about during the live class.
So here are the dates you need to know December 7 to the 14th enrollment is open for the
profitable nutrition program and I am making a big reveal that is very time sensitive. On the
live class on December 7 that I’ll be teaching the new and updated strategies for three secrets
for making 100k and your nutrition practice without social media. I will be doing that live I will
be making the big reveal. I will be answering any and all questions about the content I’m
teaching in that class as well as the profitable nutritionist program. So Oh, you need to register
at the profitable nutritionist.com/learn le AR en for the class. And also make sure you are
subscribed to the emails because all of the important information that you ever need to know,
come straight to your inbox via email from the profitable nutritionist. Okay, so the profitable
nutrition is.com/learn to get registered for the live December 7 2023 webinar, where I’m going
to be teaching updated tactics and strategies around the three secrets for making 100k in your
practice without social media, if you love social media, and you are on social media, and you
never want to be off social media, will this still be a good use of your time? Yes, it will. But you
may be swayed to a different priority list based on what you learn in the class. Okay, so now on
to some of the updates that I wanted to make on this MVP episode, I said I kind of wanted to
update the stats. So last year, when you’re going to hear this as you continue to listen, I
reported that it was around a million dollars in revenue a little bit over I believe, since I had
radically simplified my business model and implemented my biggest productivity secret, which
is what I explained in the episode. So I’m not gonna tell you what that is, I talked about it in the
episode. If you’ve already heard this one, go back and listen, these reminders always hit us
differently depending on where our head is at and how we have grown in our business. So even
if you’ve already heard this, go back. And listen, I bet you’ll get some new gems that probably
didn’t stand out to you the first time. So since I recorded this episode, a year ago, it is closer to
$2 million. And climbing fast since I have radically changed my business model and
implemented this big productivity secret. I have been tracking my time over the last couple of
months really diligently. And I’m going to be doing an entire podcast around that coming up
soon on why I’ve been doing that and what I have found out but I can say with a lot of
confidence that I know exactly how much time I am working these days. And I have been
working in my business right around that 20 hours a week mark, and on my business another
10 or so hours per week, I want to be really transparent about that because it can be so
misleading to hear those numbers. And I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about where I’m
spending my time and what it really looks like over here. Behind the scenes at a an HQ. Like I
said, I have another episode coming up where I’m going to be going into depth. But for now I
want to just explain what I mean here, the big picture planning, and strategizing and learning
and going through programs that are helping me to implement coaching in my own business,
that is a 10 hours or so a week that I categorize as working on the business like the big picture
strategy, the big vision, working on the business, the only person that really can do that in my
business is me. So I need to make time to do that than the 20 hours of my time that is spent in
my business is used for coaching in my two programs, creating content creating this podcast
managing my team meetings with internally with my team and with external contractors that
we work with. So there’s meetings, there’s check ins, there’s me creating content, me
coaching, that is the inside the business for me. So when I’m working in the business, it’s doing
tasks, and it’s doing management, when I’m working on the business is the big picture
strategy, and the big picture planning, just to give you a kind of a breakdown of where I see my
time is being spent right now, I think that that’s really helpful a year later to check back in and
tell you, here’s where we’re at. But something I think that is really misleading is that my
business isn’t working only 20 hours per week. So when I say I’m working in my business 20
hours per week, that doesn’t mean that a million dollar a year $2 million dollar $3 million.
However big business is created on only 20 hours per week, my business is working several
100 hours per week, because I have a lot of other people that are doing tests in my business.
So as we continue to grow, and I continue to bring on people that are doing tasks that they do
way better than I ever could have done. So not only are they being taken off of my plate, but
they’re being done a lot faster and a lot better. And I mean, a lot more things are happening
than I could ever do, we are able to have a much higher production. So my business isn’t only
working 20 hours per week, that is what I am working on in my business. Very important to
think about. So when you are seeing other examples of businesses, are you asking yourself,
okay, how much is the business working per week? How much time is going into the business?
Because it can be really easy to say, you know, I worked very part time and I definitely do, but
my business isn’t working part time. Okay. Again, we’re gonna be talking more about that in an
upcoming episode. I have a lot to say about this. But just keep in mind for yourself, that
leveraging other people’s time and expertise is how your business will continue to grow long
past your availability and your bandwidth. So it’s an important thing to be thinking about and
wanted at the forefront of your mind. All right, in fact, another thing I wanted to talk about is
that since we originally are since I guess I originally recorded this episode a year ago, we as a
team at the profitable nutritionist have gotten back onto LinkedIn and we are using that
platform to publish content and connect with our audience and run ads and test some things ad
wise and also foster some referral relationships with other companies and other organizations.
So that is something new from last year, I could say 1,000% last year that there was no social
media in my business. But now I guess maybe that isn’t true. Depending on if you consider
LinkedIn to be social media or not, I think it’s a professional networking site. But that’s splitting
hairs doesn’t matter. That is a change that has happened in the last year. What I want to say
about that is that it does not take extra time for me personally, to do that. I am not personally
creating content for LinkedIn, I am not personally scrolling a feed on LinkedIn, I am not
personally doing any of that. So when I tell you that I’m spending zero minutes per day,
scrolling social media, I’m spending zero minutes per week thinking about social media or
anything around that that is still true. But because of the time that I have spent up until now
getting systems in place, and bringing people on board that can help repurpose my content,
like this podcast, for example, there is content on LinkedIn, and there are posts being made,
they’re just not for me. So my presence is still there for my company on that platform, but it’s
not sucking any energy or focus or time from me. So I just also want you to keep that in mind
as you listen to my number one productivity, secret and practice that I’m going to share with
you in this episode has a lot to do with social media. And if you have any questions on it, I
cannot wait to answer those live at the all new three secrets to making 100k and your nutrition
business without social media webinar 2.0 version coming on December 7. All right, again,
register for that at the profitable nutritionist.com/learn. And I think that that is it for our
updates and getting you up to speed on everything that we have going on here. And that’s
coming up for you. Again, December 7 to the 14th. The TPM program. We’ll be open for
enrollment for the final time in 2023. And I do have a very big reveal to make on that live class
on December 7 Regarding that enrollment, so we’d love to see you there. In the meantime, I
want you to listen, think ponder, reflect, apply all the information that I have to share about my
number one productivity secret that has resulted now in almost a $2 million business
cumulative working about 20 hours a week. Enjoy my friend. Welcome back to the profitable
nutritionist Podcast. Today you are in for a treat, because I am going to give you my biggest
productivity secret. And if you are listening to this in real time, you’re really in luck because in
addition to getting my biggest productivity secret that I’m sharing with you on this episode, I’ve
compiled my other top three juiciest secrets for making money online in your practice without
social media. And I’m teaching them in a free live class on December 1. So to save your seat for
this brand new live webinar, register at Build a Profitable practice.com/learn le AR n. And if you
are listening to this after the December 1 class date, go to that link anyway and add yourself to
my email list so that you’ll be notified of any upcoming classes. Again, that is build a profitable
practice.com/learn. Alright, like I said, On this episode, I’m going to share with you my biggest
productivity secret. But first, it’s storytime because you need to have some context on what my
business used to look like versus what it looks like now, pre 2015. Which, let’s see. So I started
my real estate business in 2006. Is that true? 2005 2006 Maybe 2005. Regardless, when I was a
tiny infant fresh out of college like a baby puppy, I have no idea how I started selling real estate
or how people trusted me with this huge purchasing decision of theirs. But luckily some of them
did. And I was very successful in real estate. However, pre 2015 my productivity was a hot
mess. My time management was non existent by birth decision did not really happen. And as I
recall, I spent way too much time doing the things that I needed to do. All of the things got
done. I was a very successful business owner. However, it wasn’t a inefficient, inefficient
endeavor. And maybe it was and I’m just looking back with it through clouded glasses. I’m not
sure but as I recall, anything prior to 2015, I was pretty inefficient. And I was wasting a lot of
time as I recall in my business. And that was my real estate business. In 2015, I accidentally got
certified as a nutritional therapy practitioner. And if you don’t know my story, I’m gonna go into
a tiny bit of detail here. So this makes sense to you. I had had my second child in 2013. And
ever since that time, my body was a little wrecked and I was trying to figure out why my
thyroid wasn’t working anymore, and why I couldn’t lose weight and why I was so tired and why
my doctor wasn’t worried about any of those things at all. We’re just very impressed. straining,
and why I had a cyst on my thyroid. But yet my doctor kept insisting all puns attended, that
there was nothing wrong and that my levels were all in the normal range. And it was shortly,
totally unconnected to all of this, they read symptoms that were happening to me. And so that
was an interesting time in my life, from 2013 to 2015, when I found the realm of holistic
nutrition, and I found the nutritional therapy Association and decided, Oh, my goodness, this is
exactly what I need, I need to heal my own body, I need to figure out what I’m feeding myself
that is ruining my body. And I need to figure out how to feed my family better. So in 2015, I
enrolled in the nutritional therapy Practitioner program at the NTA. And the rest is history, I
learned so much, I realized, holy cow, I never want to sell houses again, forget it. This is way
more important, every single person in the world needs to know about the role that nutrition
plays in their health and in their family’s health than with their kids. And this is so important.
And I have to tell everybody. So that’s the short version of the years 2015 and 2016. In my life,
I became a very, very overzealous paleo prophet. And I was telling anybody who would listen
how this had changed my life, I also was feeling much better, I was feeding my family better, I
was very, very excited about what I was learning. So I stopped selling houses at that point,
which I was grateful to do, because with two young kids at home, it is very, very difficult to be
available all the time. And when I say all the time, I mean every night and every weekend to be
showing houses, and to be working with clients and answering the phone all the time. And I was
really over it. So this came at a perfect time, as I would say most timing is divine like that. And
when we look back in our lives at these pivotal moments, it comes at the perfect time, this was
no different for me. So in 2015 to 2016, I got certified as a nutritional therapy practitioner. And
I actually started budgeting my time. And looking at my time management for the first time
because I was having to find the time to go through this online program, which was quite
robust and was taking a lot of my time, there were workshop weekends. At that point, I don’t
think it’s the same anymore. But at that point, we had three in person workshops that we went
to. And so I was flying to another state to go to those workshop weekends, I was making live
calls and I was having to do. Instead of setting my own schedule, I was having to cram a lot into
my existing schedule with my kids in my real estate business that I did still have going at that
point that was overlapping a bit. And I had learned about this thing called the internet. And I
have learned about this thing called online marketing. And I was really, really down the rabbit
hole during this point. And I was figuring out how to build my first website and what this
blogging thing was all about. And oh my goodness, there’s something called podcasts that I can
make myself instead of just listening to other people’s podcasts, I could actually make one
what I was learning so much. So during this time, was when I really kind of was my eyes were
opened up to the concept of time management and budgeting my time and some time blocking
strategies because I was taking on so much. I was learning so much I was soaking everything
up like a sponge, this probably is familiar to you think about your life as well. And I don’t know
what it is. But when any mom listening to this will understand when we have young kids and
sleep is at a premium. And there’s just a lot to be done and they need a lot of our attention. I
feel like we are the most productive humans that the world has ever seen. I feel like a mom
with small children gets so much more done in any day or month or week or year of their life,
then the rest of the world could ever hope to so that was where I was at at this point in my life
had little kids. And I was just doing all of the things. So when I graduated in 2016, with my
shiny new nutritional therapy practitioner certificate in hand, and that was ready to help all of
the world, online and in person and anyone who would listen to me to heal their life. I, I was
ready. I was armed with information. However, I was armed with too much information. I was
doing everything at this point. So remember, I had grown my real estate practice organically
through referrals and word of mouth and had never even had a website for my very large real
estate company which had 15 agents working in my company sold hundreds and hundreds of
houses. And it was all by good old fashioned word of mouth handshake referrals, that kind of
thing. So when I say that this brand new thing called the internet and online marketing was
happening in my life, of course, it wasn’t really new. But to me it was because I had never run a
business before that was marketing to strangers on the internet. This is a totally new thing. And
I was like what is happening? I can figure this out. I know I can crack this code. I could see
people’s stories online of how they were marketing their businesses and growing really quickly
and I just was thinking I’m way smarter than most He’s people I know I could do this. Here we
go. So I had learned all of the things I was doing all of it. In 2016. When I look back, I was
blogging, which was an entirely new world, I was figuring out how to pin those blogs on
Pinterest and get traffic from Pinterest to my website with a lead magnet and build an email
list. I was just experimenting with different social media platforms, and what in the world did I
need to be saying on there? And what is this about having to be consistent, that’s really hard.
But what I’m gonna learn, and I’m gonna figure it out. So I was trying all of the social media
platforms, I was doing some experimentation with some paid ads on social media. I was doing
live workshops at some of them for my own sphere, and some of them at other practitioners
spaces. So I was experimenting with some people promoting my workshops to their client base,
and I would come and host them. And then we would split the proceeds that did some of that I
was hosting, like I said, my own private classes, group classes, I was also building not one, not
two, but three online courses, do not recommend. Please do not do that. Don’t even think for
one second that that’s a good idea. It was a terrible idea. But I was building multiple courses I
had between 2016 and 2019. I had multiple online courses and membership sites. I was taking
lots of online courses to learn about marketing concepts. And I was learning some more
nutrition stuff. I was learning about hosting webinars, and how to sell things on the internet to
strangers. I was reading tons of books, I was listening to all the podcasts, I was going to
conferences, I was doing the website building and creation myself. I was figuring out different
platforms to do that on I was all in the midst of this on the background, I was growing my email
list, like I said, with lead magnets, a lot of the traffic there was coming from Pinterest. It was a
hot mess. It really was I don’t know how else to say that was it was very throw all the spaghetti
at the wall and hope that some of it sticks was the mentality. And it did. A lot of it did sticks.
Happily, I did have success in various departments of the whole, this whole maze that I was
creating for myself, including learning to do email marketing and sending emails consistently.
That was something I learned how to do, I got better and better over time, the more I was
writing, the better my emails got. And I learned during this time that that was something that I
really wanted to go all in on the rest of it would kind of fall through the cracks. And it wasn’t
necessarily consistent on everything else. But the email marketing and sending emails, that
was my jam. But at this point, I was at my computer about eight hours a day I was cramming
courses and YouTube videos after hours when I said that I wasn’t working anymore. And I was
pretending to be present with my family. I was actually sitting on my laptop, watching more
courses, watching more videos on marketing things. I do love business. I love that I’ve said this
so many times on this podcast. It is actually a hobby for me, I’m just curious about it. I love
listening to stories of other successful business owners how they did it, what they struggled
with. I love hearing stories of completely different industries that I’m not even in and just
looking for patterns and threads. It’s just it’s something I love. So listening to podcasts or
reading books, taking extra courses. And YouTube videos isn’t really that big of a surprise that I
was doing that after hours because I did really enjoy it. However, I was rather obsessive about
it. And I was making money at this point. Luckily I was selling courses, I was working with
clients, I was selling my membership, things were working, I also was selling not one, not two,
but three, multi level marketing product mines, direct sales lines, also don’t recommend, I
could do an entire podcast about that do not recommend it was not a great idea. But it was
doing all of the things. And then I was making some money. Luckily, like I said, and I was also
reinvesting everything back into the business. So I wasn’t actually paying myself and the
proceeds of all of this hard work. And believe me, there was hours and hours and hours, I was
working probably eight to 10 hours a day, to be honest, and bringing nothing back into our
household. So my husband never saw any of it. And that was to be honest, a source of
discontent at times where he saw how hard I was working and never saw the fruits of any of
that labor. So there was a lot of concern about if it ever was going to if the tide was going to
turn and if there would be a point where I was contributing that any of those proceeds back into
our household. So it was it kind of a crazy time, I learned a ton about online marketing. I
learned a ton about selling to strangers on the internet. I learned a lot about constraining focus
and maybe not throwing quite so much spaghetti at the wall all at once. And during that time, I
also learned about a little platform called Trello. And if you are in my world at all you know that
I love me some Trello it is a software that helps organize ideas. That’s how I’m sure other
people use it for much different uses. But I teach how to organize your business ideas and
workflows and processes on Trello. So during this time, I think it was probably around 2019, I
discovered Trello, I really systematized my business and got all of the disorganization
organized onto Trello boards and created processes for myself and streamlined a lot of it. Like I
said, created workflows organ, I had an organized place for all of my brainstorming and my
ideas and my future ideas. So I wasn’t feeling like I was losing them. But I also wasn’t cluttering
up my energy and my, my bandwidth at the present time with these things that I didn’t need to
be worried about. So Trello really helped me get my thoughts and ideas mapped out. And so I
didn’t have to worry about losing them, but also to systematize, the processes I was doing
every single day or every single week, it was super helpful. So when I started working with my
early business coaching clients, in 2019, I created a tutorial course with templates for my the
Trello boards that I had created for myself, I made templates of those, and video screen shares
and walkthroughs for my early business coaching clients to teach them how to use it. So they
could get themselves organized, because I was finding with those early clients that I was
working with that their lack of processes made it really hard for me to help them. So I thought,
okay, if I could just get everybody on the same page and get everyone organized, then we
could move forward and really make some progress. And guess what it worked, worked really
well. And people love, love loved that course, it was called Trick take charge with Trello. That’s
what it was called, I sold the heck out of it. And my clients were like, This is the best thing ever.
I still actually include that for new students in the profitable nutritionist program, even though
the software has changed quite a bit, the the principles and the way to organize Trello still
remains the same. So I still include that actually, for my students in the profitable nutritionist
program. So that was about the time where I started to really hone in on how I was spending
my time and how I could be more efficient in my business. Like I said, this was 2019 ish. But I
knew that I had a long way to go. I’m sure as I’m telling you the story, you can see some places
where you are falling into the same patterns, don’t worry, there’s hope for all of us, this story is
going to have a happy ending for both of us, I promise. So in 2020, I integrated time blocking
on a Google Calendar with my Trello verse that I had created for myself. And I actually started
documenting the time that I was spending on various tasks in my business. This greatly
enlightened me to where I was spending the most time where I was inefficient with my time
and where I needed where like where I was consistently thinking that things were going to not
take as long as they do and cutting myself short and why I felt behind them certain tasks. It
was so useful. So like I said, this is about, I think this is early 2020, where I started actually time
blocking and blocking out time on my calendar, and figuring out how my workday was going to
be spent before the workday happened. So I actually knew that things were going to get done.
And it was a work in progress. For sure. It didn’t just come together overnight. And I instantly
just did everything that was on my calendar that I told myself I was going to do. That didn’t
happen. But over time I did. And I think that that has been such a game changer for me in my
business. So again, this is something that I also teach to my students in the profitable
nutritionist program. If you are a student, the program, you know this as total calendar
mastery, I think it’s so important, I think it’s so important to do an audit of your time and know
where you’re actually spending it and then have an ideal scenario of how you would be
spending spending it instead. And then work on closing the gap between those two, then COVID
hit as we know, 2020, mid 2020 was a quite an interesting time. And so for my family, we
decided to sell our house and to travel and homeschool during that time. And we knew that the
kids weren’t going to be going back to school as normal. And we knew that where we lived was
not going to be normal anytime soon, either. So we hit the road. And we just made a
commitment that we were going to make an adventure and we were going to have fun. So as
you can imagine, I was forced to change my time management strategy quite a bit at that
point, because now I’m working remotely, my husband’s working remotely. We’re
homeschooling both of our kids. And the whole reason that we hit the road in the first place
was to have lots of adventures. So we don’t want to be sitting behind our computers all the
time. We vowed that we were not going to be doing that. Therefore, it was I didn’t have this
quiet office anymore. It was time to figure out how am I going to get the important things done,
figure out what the essential priorities are in my business to move the needle forward. What is
that actually going to be? How much time is it going to take and how am I going to get those
things done consistently without stressing myself out or my family and actually enjoy this
incredible time of adventure that we were having together with over 100 episodes of the
profitable new trician is podcast at this point, my team asked if we could create a podcast and
roadmap quick guide to the most popular episodes, which I thought was a fabulous idea.
They’re so smart. We ended up categorizing 30 ish of the top episodes into a few different lists
and categories. So you can easily find the most useful content for exactly where you’re at in
your business right now, to get the podcast roadmap download, just go to the profitable
nutritionist.com/roadmap One word, you’re more than welcome to binge all of the episodes, of
course. But if you’d like the shortcut guide, this roadmap is going to be gold for navigating to
the exact episodes that you need right now. Again, download the PDF at the profitable
nutritionist.com/roadmap. Again, in retrospect, I can tell you all of this as if it was a seamless
process. And there was never any headaches and never fighting the four of us in a in an RV in
close quarters about how people were spending their time. But you would know that that is a
lie. So I will not lie. It wasn’t a seamless process. But it was worth it. And it did work. We figured
out our our hours of operation. I’m an early bird. So I ended up getting up really early and
getting most of my stuff done in the early morning before the rest of my family woke up, which
worked really well for us. So as you can imagine, during that time in 2020, and 2021, when we
were traveling pretty much full time, I really honed my process on time blocking and figuring
out those essentials, like I said, and when they were going to happen. And I got really clear on
what things were not the most important things in my business. And I just decided not to do
them anymore. So as I tell you the rest of the story, and you realize that a lot of things I just cut
out for my business completely. It was really born of necessity at this point. I mean, I had that
little intuitive nudge that I maybe there were some changes to be made. And I had been
thinking about it. But at this point, when we were living in an RV and traveling a lot and making
memories, and not wanting to be working all the time, of course, I had to get ruthless with my
time and with the activities, how I was spending it. So 2021 To present time, I have really
embraced this very diligent schedule that I have for myself workwise I wouldn’t say I’m a
diligent scheduler. In my personal life. However, I have very specific focus hours, and things
that I need to get done every single day in my business timewise. And I have pretty strict
boundaries around getting that done, I have set myself up for success. I know exactly how long
most of these things are going to take me to do. I scheduled the time to do them. And I really,
truly do them when they’re on my calendar. So at this point, I have trained my brain to stop
having a complete fit, when it’s time to sit down and do the things that aren’t my favorite
things to do. We just do it anyway. And I can trust myself that I’m not going to procrastinate
and actually get it done. Yes, there is a process to this. Yes, I teach it in my program. But really,
I am way more realistic about how much I can do and how much I want to do in my business,
which I think is a really important thing to mention here. To do that I have simplified
enormously, even since 2020, when we hit the road and we’re traveling and last year and even
the beginning of this year, I can see just how I get tighter and tighter and tighter on the things
that I want to focus on the one to three things at any given time that are my essential priorities
that I want to focus on, instead of trying to do everything at once. Which is why I felt like it was
so important to tell you about the hot mess days of my early online business with my holistic
nutrition practice. Because it was so scattered, I was trying to do everything at once I was Jack
of all trades, master of none, doing all of the things. And in retrospect, I’m glad that I have that
experience because I can so clearly see that that is not the way to do things. It makes it so
much easier for me to tell you please do not try to do everything at once, you won’t do any of it
very well. And it’s way too hard to iterate and tweak and see clearly what things you should
double down on and what things you should let go of when you are spread so thin, just even
bandwidth wise, this isn’t necessarily spread so thin with your time, although that could
certainly be true for you as well. But your attention is such an important resource. So we want
to protect the focus, at least in my mind that think that that’s a very important thing to protect.
All right. So in January 2021, to continue this tale of productivity improvement. In January 2021.
Something happened that had the very biggest impact on my productivity by far. And which
had come a long way in this by this point, let me tell you, but the thing that changed the game
for me really is I deleted all of my social media, everything, all of it business, personal, all of the
platforms, everything done, which was kind of unexpected, and I didn’t see the cause at the
time of that being such a huge reason that my productivity was going to skyrocket. It was hard
for me to connect those dots initially, but I see it now I see it so clearly. And when people ask
me all the time, and many people do, how do you get so much done in so little time? Like how I
honestly don’t understand how you get so much done, and you don’t work that much, which is
true? And the answer is twofold. First of all, I have trained myself, like I told you to focus on the
tasks at hand and time block and do what I said I was going to do when I said I was going to do
it. Right now I sat down to record this podcast, it was on my calendar, I knew exactly when it
was going to happen. And I did it, I’m not going to say that I really wanted to do it when I sat
down here. There are other things that I’m sure I would enjoy doing more than working right
now. But guess what, it’s on my calendar, it’s time to do it. I’m going to record this podcast, I’m
going to be so glad when I can check it off my list when I’m done. And I get to move on. And I
don’t burden myself with the lingering, the little like lingering to do list in the back of my mind
of like, okay, I’ve really said I was gonna do that I really got to do that I’m late I’m behind, I
really don’t have that feeling. Because I just do the things when I say I was going to do that. So
that’s first and foremost. And I do teach this process, it’s a very specific process that I’ve honed
over time. And I do teach it in the profitable nutritionist program. So if you’re wondering exactly
what it looks like to gradually increase your efficiency like this, and what you should actually be
scheduling during your work days, I teach that it’s a whole module in the program. But the real
reason, remember, I said this was twofold. The real reason I get so much done these days in so
little time, I truly believe this is because I spend zero hours scrolling on social media, ever, zero
hours for business purposes, zero hours in my personal life ever. Which means I focus way
better when it’s time to focus, because I have 10 to 20 hours a week freed up that most other
business owners are spending, quote unquote, working on social media, which means they’re
engaging and posting and repurposing content, and checking DMS and scheduling reels and
scheduling stories. And then going down a rabbit hole and watching his reels and stories, or
posting in groups or whatever that looks like that can be construed as work and for some
people it is for other people, it’s or Cresta nation, I think whatever it is, I have zero of that.
None. So my attention is so much more focused on my actual work and on what is actually
producing results in my business. And I’m telling you, that is a game changer when you focus
on your actual income producing activities, and really make those a priority by taking out this
the constant noise and chatter, and I kind of think of it as collateral attention damage, this is
what I think of and I have zero of this. But a lot of people do, which is the energy and the
bandwidth that’s used, comparing yourself to someone else’s business or comparing your
business to someone else’s business. I don’t have that I don’t have I don’t work. I don’t even
know what other people are charging. So I’m not comparing my offer to anyone else’s. I’m not I
don’t even know what other people that do what I do are offering to their clients, which might
kind of blow your mind, because a lot of people would tell you that the way to be successful in
business is to sleuth out what your competition is doing. And to be very aware of what the
going rate is and what other people are offering. I think of that as a terrible, terrible waste of
time and attention, and worry, and energy. I don’t do that at all. So I don’t know what other
people are offering. I don’t know how they’re promoting their business. I don’t know what ideas
they have. I don’t, I just don’t have any of those inputs. So I’m not second guessing my own
ideas, because I’m not even I don’t even know what other people’s are. So I’m not second
guessing mine. I’m not second guessing my pricing or my own offers or my own marketing. I’m
not second guessing any of it. I’m just solid on my decisions. I don’t spend any time on
ruminating on things outside my essential priorities, or planning extra extra things which I see
people do a lot if they are especially if they are comparing and despairing on what other people
are doing on social media, what will happen is that those people will spend a ton of time
planning to do something different, like oh, I have to plan some art, I saw someone else was
doing this kind of marketing, I have to do that same thing. And they’ll plan that, or they’ll plan a
course because they saw someone else is selling a course or they’ll plan a membership
because someone else is doing a membership or whatever the case may be. And I don’t have
any of that. And like I said it was kind of unexpected at the time and early 2021 when this
happen. Because for my personal beliefs, I just didn’t want to be supporting social media
platforms, big tech in general, but for sure social media platforms with my attention or my ad
dollars. It just felt like a very very principal issue to me because of censorship. And so many of
my colleagues that I was seeing lose their entire platform their pages be disabled overnight
because they said something that wasn’t in line with the prevailing wisdom that post platforms
would like be willing to be talking about, you know exactly what I’m saying. And I was just it
was a principal issue, can you tell I’m an Enneagram, type eight, if you know anything about
Enneagram, you would know that a type eight is the Challenger that just cannot, it cannot let
go of a principal issue. So to me social media censorship, time and attention on the platforms is
a principal issue. So I deleted all of it done one fell swoop, it was gone. And I wasn’t even going
to tell anybody about it at the time. I’ve said this before. But I think it’s so funny now, because
of how much I do talk about it, doing an entire webinar in a couple of weeks all about this topic.
But at the time, I thought, Okay, I’m just going to delete these Secretly, I don’t really want to
talk about it, nobody’s going to understand nobody feels the same way I do. I’ll just quietly
delete all of these things, and go back to what I know works really, really well, which is referral
based marketing, I’m going to get my clients way better results, I’m going to focus on them, the
word will spread, I have other means of getting strangers on the internet for my marketing
purposes that have nothing to do with social media, but to do those things. And that was my
plan, which I did. However, I did start talking about it, I realized that there were so many other
people that felt the same way that I did that didn’t want to be on social media, they didn’t want
to feel like they had to be on social media for their business. And a huge proportion of them
thought it wasn’t even possible to have a business in 2021, or 2022. Without being on social
media, which made me realize, oh, my gosh, I have to be the person that talks about this more,
not less, because people don’t even know that it’s possible. I can’t just quietly not be on social
media and not tell people about it. Because my people want the same thing. Which is why I
always am talking about the marketing, and the selling that we do in our business off of social
media being better. It doesn’t have to be on social media, if we are really good at getting our
clients results, they will talk about it, they will send the referrals our way. It’s just what
naturally happens. It’s how I naturally grew a really big real estate company. It’s how world the
world has worked and how business has happened for centuries and millennia. Before now, we
have to remember that these things work. But there’s such a temptation and such a prevailing
business strategy tactic, I don’t know what we even want to call it, that’s you’ve got to be
everywhere, you have to be on all the platforms, you have to be visible, you have to be
consistent, you have to be posting all the time, you have to have a page, everyone’s going to
look for your page, if you don’t have an Instagram page, nobody’s going to work with you.
These are lies, these are all lies. So as an aside, that’s why I am so passionate about talking
about this topic, because it isn’t true. None of that is true, I have a thriving business. And I’m
not on social media at all. And I’m really, really strategic byproduct of that is that I don’t work
that much. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with working a lot, especially in the
beginning of your business, when you’re figuring it out. You’re figuring out your messaging,
you’re figuring out how to sell, you’re figuring out how to deliver the best results possible to
your clients, and you’re putting in a lot more hours, that’s that I did the same thing. I’ve done it
now in three businesses. So there’s nothing wrong with that. However, when you take the
complete time drain out of the equation, that is social media scrolling, and comparing and
despairing and quote unquote, engaging that people might not even be seeing because you
may be shadow banned on these platforms. When you take that out of the equation, you’re
going to have so much more time to do the improvements and tweaking on the things that are
actually moving the needle, like getting better results for your clients and getting better at
nailing your messaging and talking about the problems that people have in the way that they
talk about it. And talking about you’re selling the solution that you offer in a way that resonates
with your people and practicing that over and over and over again, you have so much more
time and bandwidth available to do that, when you’re not spending two to three hours a day on
social media, which is what I see a lot of business owners doing. So I can see now that it is my
superpower that I do not have that diversion of my focus. I’m a completely different business
owner than I used to be these days. And what I’ve created in my business over the last few
years of completely exponential growth while working very part time and traveling with my
family is a testament to that. So I can confidently say, as I’m recording this episode that I know
a big reason of that is having the systems and processes in place for tracking my time and time
blocking in the first place, which is very helpful. But also I don’t spend any time on social
media. It just doesn’t exist in my life personal or work wise. I don’t compare and despair about
what other business owners are doing. I don’t scroll when I’m bored or when I’m procrastinate
working, for me progressed to working is learning something business related instead. So if I’m
going to progress to work if I want to feel like I’m being productive, but I don’t actually want to
do something. I’m going to You tune into a course that I’m working on, or I’m going to listen to
a podcast about business that I like, or whatever that is, whatever the diversion is for me. But
I’m gonna make a deal with myself that I only do that after my essentials for the day are done.
So I use it as an incentive, not a diversion. Hopefully, if you are on social media, that’s how
you’re using your social media as well. But I know so many people do not. So I’m just saying,
think about how much more you would get done. If you weren’t going down any rabbit holes on
social media, or if you weren’t going in for 10 minutes of answering DMS on Instagram and
posting repurposing something and posting something that really leads to 30 to 45 to an hour
of scrolling and watching people’s stories. And then inevitably seeing a colleague that’s posting
stories, or reels or something, and then thinking, Oh, my gosh, they’re doing it way better than
me, oh, my gosh, I have to rethink my pricing. Oh, my gosh, maybe I’m doing this all wrong. Maybe I need to go, Oh, I think I should go launch a course I wasn’t going to do a course. But
that’s what they’re doing. I think maybe I need to do a course. Do you see? Do you see how
much energy sucking that is? for your business? Truly, I just offer, it’s completely optional. You
don’t have to do it. You could just get to work. This is what I do. I just get to work I create from
my own brain. This is my number one productivity secret is that I think of the thoughts, I really
actually think they’re my thoughts. They’re my ideas. I certainly have learned a lot I get to
learn a lot from my clients that I share. But I just get to work thinking about those things and
not being distracted by other people’s ideas. I just get to work I create for my own brain, I crank
out the things I need to crank out, and I close my laptop or shut my office door when I’m done.
And I actually don’t think about unfinished work, I don’t have that lingering To Do List running
in the background of my life, I don’t have that. And so I just want to offer that that’s possible for
you to as a business owner, if that’s what you want. And if you’re listening to this in real time,
like I said, you’re in luck, because I have compiled my three juiciest secrets. This was my
juiciest productivity secret. But I have three other very, very juicy secrets for making money
online in your practice without social media. And I’m teaching them in a brand new free live
class on December 1, like I said, so to save your seat, if you’re coming to that live webinar,
which is brand spanking new, register at Build a Profitable practice.com/learn. And like I said, if
you’re listening to this after the December 1 class date, go to that link anyway and add yourself
to the list. So you will be notified of upcoming classes. When we do them again, it’s build a
profitable practice.com/learn. Okay, my friend. Now in the meantime, between now and our live
class, take an inventory of how much time you’re spending on social media, and be really
honest with yourself about it. Is that amount, something that you want to change? Do you feel
like you can’t? And if you do want to change it? Why? I’d be really curious about that. Why?
What do you want to intentionally create in your business or your life instead of scrolling on
social media or posting on social media for your business? Because it’s not the only way? And
did you know it’s possible to hire someone else to do it for you? If social media is working for
you and your business? Do you know you can just hire someone to do that? Mind blown, right?
It’s not even that hard to do. Alright, have a wonderful week, my friend. I’m so grateful that
you’re here tuning into this podcast, because you know you won’t be seeing any of this on the
Instagrams. Alright, I’ll see you next week.