Erin Thomas Wong
You're listening to the life friendly business podcast. I'm your host, Erin Thomas Wong, business mentor, author and founder of the cocoon VIP membership empowering women around the world to build businesses on their terms. If you want to grow and scale a business that works in harmony with your family and your life, this podcast is for you.
This podcast is all about doing it on your own terms. And today I'm speaking to Laura Robinson from Worditude who is most definitely carving her own path. Laura is a digital copywriter and conversion specialist with more than 10 years experience helping online businesses make more sales through their website, sales funnels and launches. In this interview, Laura speaks candidly about how employment was just not an option, and the decisions that she's had to make in order to build a business that works around home educating her two children. Welcome, Laura, thank you so much for joining me on the life friendly business podcast.
Laura Robinson
You are so welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
Erin Thomas Wong
So tell us what was your main driver for starting your own business?
Laura Robinson
I Well, my story is not so much like bravery, courage and a blaze of glory. As I set up my own business, it was more like limping out of a corporate job in a shower of snot and tears. It was horrendous. The shortened version is our second son was born with additional medical needs. So he wasn't able to go into nursery or childcare placement. And he was in and out of hospital, we had what was called Open Ward access, which meant if your child gets ill, you don't bother with a GP, you go straight to the children's ward, and bring them back because you're going to stay there for a while. And that wasn't very compatible with work anyway, my husband dropped down to part time hours and I worked part time hours so we could look after him between us and they still have a job. He got made redundant from that job. And then he decided he, he wanted to go back to work full time. Also trying to find part time work when you're an accountant is quite difficult.
So I didn't really have any choice like I couldn't carry on in the job that I was in. But alongside that I've had this horrendous two years where besides my baby being in and out of hospital, my maternal grandmother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, she was only 73. So I was lucky to have her grandmother but 73 didn't really feel like any kind of age. And at the same time, my mum was also diagnosed with breast cancer. So they were in hospitals together. Obviously, my nan died, my mom made a full recovery and she's been 12 years clear, but it was like my entire support network completely collapsed around me. And then also needed my support at the time when I couldn't really give it because I was in and out of hospital with the baby. I was also ill myself I had a burst appendix I pleurisy. It was just like two years of nonstop medical appointments and drama. And I was just I was completely burnt out, I couldn't even work my notice at my job. I just literally walked out one day didn't come back.
And I took a whole year off not working or trying to make any money at all my babies were they really were babies, they were one and three at the time. So we just really enjoyed going to mother and toddler groups and the lovely like routine of naps and lunch and dinner and just trying to have like a gentle normality when there was all this chaos going on around us. But I really had to find a way to make money because we couldn't survive just on one income. I remember having a conversation at Mother and toddler group about money. I was really like really stressed about it because we didn't have enough every month just to pay our bills, and one of the moms who's trying to help so much. And she said, you know, if you started shopping at Aldi, you could save like some money on your groceries and like how much money are you sure every month and just deadpan I looked at her - about 600 pounds a month. So that was not, I'm not gonna save that off of my grocery bill.
So I had quite a strong driver that I needed to find some way of making money. And you know, I didn't intend to have my own business at all. It was just circumstances I couldn't go back to work I had two very young children. And I needed to find a way to make money. And so I spent hours on the internet looking I must have fallen for every single type of risk I didn't lucky didn't pay any money out. So I didn't fall out fall for scams to that extent by looks at every possible way. I even ended up like writing for they were called content farms at the time where you get paid about $2 To write a 500 word blog post that goes into like database and then businesses come in and buy it. It's so impersonal, you don't interact with the clients. But it did get me to start thinking like I knew I could do that because I enjoyed writing. And that got me to start thinking I could do this more and I don't like just writing poor quality articles at high volume for clients that I never get to meet. So knowing that I didn't what I didn't enjoy about that did get me to start thinking about okay, maybe this is something that I could do longer term and is there a way I could make more money out of it? So the short answer is desperation is how I came to start my own business definitely wasn't pretty there was no planning and there definitely wasn't like any kind of intention of how it might look like in the end.
Erin Thomas Wong
That is a lot to deal with, especially with two young kids. And you know, the extra, all these extra strains on you. It's yeah, I totally understand that. So you talk about starting to do writing for different companies. So what did you do previously where you were writer beforehand?
Laura Robinson
Yeah, my previous work, I'd work work for financial services company. And I'd always been in kind of marketing type roles. So I joined as a like, straight out of University joined a graduate Leadership Programme, where they put you through a lot of personal development, it was intense, I'm sure they were thrilled that after having put me through all that personal development, either when I'm pregnant, goodbye.
After about two or three years, I was only 23, when I had my first child, so I'd only been in the job for a couple of years. So in that role, I got to move around a lot. That was the whole point, you moved every six months for different departments that you can get an overview of the company. But I very quickly realised that actually, the department I liked working in was marketing. So I tried to make sure that all of my placements were kind of in and around that. So I'd done I'd worked in a communications type role in their customer service departments and managing the communications for the customer service department. And that was, I think there's about 1500 people that worked just in that department of the company.
Then in another role, I'd worked in marketing, and we'd been looking at user experience of websites, it was in the beginning, when you were very first able to get your own insurance, quote online. So we were at the cutting edge of, of that kind of development, looking at how do we, it was really interesting, because we're looking at how do you people have never done this before? So how do you communicate on a website? How, what are the instructions that they need to do how they can successfully complete this, and then the letters that gets sent to them after they're done, it's everything, you know, we didn't send, just send an email, I had to send this massive document outline outlining their quotes. So I'd helped on the wording for that.
And then I got into another communication as well, which was a lot around company restructure. So it was taking what the leadership team would say, in a meeting in their own special language and unique way of communicating with each other, and turning that into something that could be then used to communicate to the other like 5000 people that worked there. So it always been in some kind of role where how you use your words matters. And and you needed to understand like, what what is the goal? Why are we writing this? Why are we communicating this? And what's the best way to do it? And I really loved that I loved that kind of facilitating communication.
Erin Thomas Wong
So how old are your children now? And how does your business look today.
Laura Robinson
So my eldest is going to be 16 on this coming Sunday, which absolutely blows my mind. But he's like a fully formed adult now. And my youngest is 14, and they have been out of school for the last four years now, I think they've been we've home educated them for four years. So we started doing it before it was compulsory. And I My business is mostly around helping other business owners to write their own website copy. So I really like to focus on website, copy, because you write it once, and then it works for you over and over again. So it feels like the most efficient use of someone's time and energy is to get that copy right. So I have a course that helps people do that. And I also still work one to one with clients, helping them make their sales funnels as successful as possible, sometimes website copy, but it's usually like a particular sales funnel to sell one particular product.
Erin Thomas Wong
Wonderful. And so this podcast is all about building a life friendly business, would you say that that's something you've been able to design,
Laura Robinson
I think it is a dance. So it's not like I haven't, I didn't like draw a picture of this is what it's gonna be like, and then we get, you know, and then it was there. And I just, it just carries on the same, I've had to keep changing it or so I had a business that worked while my children were in school. And then for various reasons, it became apparent that that was not the path that we were gonna continue on. And we were going to have them at home.
I keep saying we obviously my husband just carried on going to work had minimal impact on his life. And so I needed to make changes to my business then so that it would adapt to what we wanted to do at home. And now they're getting older, and we're reaching a different, you know, so homelife used to look like to us used to be a morning spent together. And then in the afternoon when their friends were home from school, they would just play video games live and I'd be able to work in the afternoon. Now they have places that they have appointments that they go see. So my son goes to tutor three, the oldest one goes three times a week to a tutor, but there are different times on different days. And the younger one goes to this amazing occupational therapy farm. So he's a he is a farm assistant. And he looks after the animals on the farm. And that has been amazing for his self esteem and his confidence, but also, you know, like his physical development as well. But there are certain times that we have to take him there and it's miles away from home. So that's a whole afternoon out of our day. And that's new.
So I've had to change my business again to be able to fit that and then a few years time they'll want something different and I'll probably have to change my business again. So I think it's not something that I've built, it's something that I've got is like a fluidity to it that I have is more so the confidence to change it to go, Okay, this worked for us right now, or worked for us up up to this point. But it's not going to work for the next two years. So I need to make some changes to it now, and know that that will be satisfying for a while, and then I'll probably have to change it again, a little bit further down the line.
Erin Thomas Wong
I totally agree. I think that it is ever evolving when you're running a business anyway. And especially when you're adding kids into the mix. And my days of working on my business were completely different when my kids were younger. And now my kids are eight and nearly 13. You know, it is different because they're more independent. And I don't have to be watching to make sure that it kills themselves when they're running around the house and things like that. So that gets easier. But then the emotional support, and things like that, that you need to give them. So what I mean, do you have an average day that you could describe?
Laura Robinson
No. So it also seems it would be disingenuous of me to not admit to this happening two days ago, so two days ago, because it helped this all about having a life friend, your business. And two days ago, I had a complete meltdown about like, I was just so overwhelmed by trying to do everything in one day. My husband just started going back to work in the office two days a week, because he's been home this whole time been amazing, because he's there to do really small, you know, could you just do that? Can you just run to the tutors and go and pick them up? Can you just do it just tiny little bits where you can help out and you don't realise how much that's made a difference until there was a big yearning, 11 hours and it wasn't there. And I'd had to change, like what I was doing in the day, so many times because they needed to be in certain places at certain times. But I also had appointments that already booked in with clients. And some I'd had to switch gears in that particular day, mentally switch gears so many times from this task to that task. But also remember, you've got to be here at this time. But by the time you got home from work, I just completely lost I was like, it's like my head has been in a blender.
There's just so much going on inside my head today. But I also felt like I had failed every single one of these things because it was like seven o'clock and hadn't started the dinner, then people that means dinner is not even going to be ready to like eight o'clock. So I'm stressed the whole time I'm cooking it and I haven't replied to this other email. So no, there isn't one day, that's the same. But actually that going through that and feeling so overwhelmed, made me realise that the reason I feel so overwhelmed is because I don't have a single day, that's the same. So in my old life and the kids went to school, Monday through Friday looks kind of similar. Like we'd have to always get up at the same time every day, we'd have to be at the house at the same time every day, they would be back at the same time every day. And even when we first started, home-ed there was a pattern a rhythm to our week. And now every single day is different because we need to be in different places at different times on different days. And then the weeks change because that even though we home-ed, it does also depend on whether it's school holidays, because that impacts on the activities that they do. And whether my husband's going into the office, and whether it's like a busy month ends, he's going to be tied up on calls and I thought flat No wonder I felt completely overwhelmed. And I just been coping with this for weeks and not really notice that that was what was going on.
So no, I don't have a typical day. And I would say that is the hardest. Like that's the height. So on the outside, it looks like this amazing level of flexibility where Callum said, I'd like to have an extra day at the farm. And I could just go yep, that's fine. I just pick up my diary. I won't have any client calls for Fridays. That is what we do on Fridays now. And if the sun is shining, yep, I can just drop everything. And we'll go to the beach. And there's massive advantages to it. But the disadvantage is that the level of planning and preparation that's needed to have that spontaneity is fairly intense. And it's pretty. You know, it takes up a lot of headspace to be able to do it. Not sure if that answers your question?
Erin Thomas Wong
Well, what you're talking about really is is how vital the flexibility is in your life with all the different things that you're dealing with. And what I wondered about that is have you had to make difficult decisions in terms of your business in order to keep that flexibility?
Laura Robinson
Yeah, I think so. I think a few times, business coaches, different business coaches have said suggested like an agency type model, where I would have copywriters working for me because I would have way more demand than capacity. And I know you get to like put your prices up. But there is a limit to that to to how much I'm prepared to charge to do it. But the demand always outstripped supply and I think I could have a team of copywriters working for me and we would work it and then that would add value like we would work on it together. And that would make the copy even better. But I would really struggle to have other people be waiting for my feedback waiting for me to have another calls booked in because that's just another thing that sheduled into my diary that I've got to be around for.
So I've toyed with it for a couple of years actually gone back and forward around the idea and I can see The potentials there and the potential to make money is there and it would be if I didn't have anyone else to think about, I think that would be quite an enjoyable way for me to work and to run my business. If I was single woman with no children, it sounds amazing. But I have kind of closed that avenue off. So I think it does, it makes, you know, there's probably opportunities that I don't even see because I just automatically screen them out because I think that's not I know that that's not going to be compatible with my life.
Erin Thomas Wong
How are you measuring your success,
Laura Robinson
For me is whether I can respond to the flexibility. So every, every time I can just drop everything and go to the beach, that is a win is there's not one big goal that I'm working towards. I also feel like the being able to take the kids out of school. Both of them really needed it, they were really not not doing well in a school environment. And our youngest son has autism, and the mainstream school got him so far. But then we were gonna have to start looking at sort of what the special needs provision was where we live, it's not great. And for me that will having the flexibility to just say, we will choose first what is developmentally and emotionally and socially, the best choice for them is the first thing that was that's the decision was based around that. And then I'll make everything else work around that have been able to do that, which I know I wouldn't have been able to do if I was dependent on a job was, to me is like the biggest success I've had in this whole journey.
And it felt like when I was doing my degree, I'm not designed to stick up things for a really long time and say three years was a really long slog. And the way that I got myself through it was thinking, when you've done this, no, it never goes away is yours for it, like you've got it and it's yours forever. You don't have to keep it up to date. I mean, obviously, I do prove by having professional development, but you just you've done it, it's yours. It's a keeper, you've got it forever. And that moment feels like that to me that I'd done it, I was able to make that decision for them. And that was like, that's a banker moment, I think I've achieved that. And it doesn't matter. Now what happens with my business. Or even if I ever decide to go back to work, I was able to make that choice. So far, that's been the biggest, like big success.
In terms of small successes. It's just Yeah, every time I can just drop everything and say, Should we play a game of cards, or let's go to the beach. The other day, I say, oh, so under I'd like so far behind with emails, and you know, six o'clock in the evening and thinking and I feel I'm so stressed out by how much I need to do. And the oldest one said he was sun in the sky for the first time in so long. And it looked like it was going to be a nice evening. And he said, Could we go for a walk? And my every instinct is like, No, we do not have time for this right now. I don't have time to go for a walk. And I just don't yeah, let's let's go. And we had a lovely walk along the beach didn't and it doesn't take very long either. It just takes like 20 minutes, half an hour at the house. But being able to do that, because I can just drop everything. And it actually doesn't matter if at nine o'clock I'm replying to emails, that's my business, I can arrange my time, however I want. So is a one or two big wins. And then I try and like grasp every single tiny success I can along the way and treasure it to keep me going.
Erin Thomas Wong
And how do you know you have such a busy life with, you know, running the business and homeschooling and all these things? How do you look after yourself? Do you look after yourself?
Laura Robinson
I'm definitely getting better at that. Right there when I don't even know which number locked down it was I think it was the second one. I just it finished and I enrolled, we've got a spa not very far away, because I really love to swim. But the local swimming pool has was cold. Nobody wants to go out in a cold swimming pool. But they have like timetables of when you can go and this is me just fine. Why don't use the public swimming pool, which to an extent I don't need to do. But there's a timetable of when you're able to go and then that was just another level of stress of like I don't how am I going to fit my work around when it's public swim time as well.
So I enrolled at the spa, which was a bit of an extravagance, I have a monthly membership there, their pool was much smaller, but it's very warm. And it's almost always empty, because everybody just lies around the pool, reading a book and then I just I get in and have it to myself. And I can go there whenever I want. between the hours of six in the morning and nine in the evening or weekdays. And that is how I look after myself. Now I've got like I've had enough I'm going I'm getting in the pool, nobody can talk to me in the pool, my phone can't come in the pool is amazing.
Erin Thomas Wong
That's brilliant. And do you find that you? Are you good at setting expectations with your clients? Like you know, you were talking about working flexibly and you know, deciding when you can't take calls like how do you manage that with your clients?
Laura Robinson
I everyone has a booking flow they speak to me anyway so that my calendar is only available at times that are convenient to me and then I don't need to you know, not so flexible that I end up cancelling and moving the appointments around so for the most part, they probably don't even see that side of my life. And I'm not usually going to be around to answer emails in the morning because I tend to do more work later in the afternoon. The people that work with me long term I know that I don't take on very many new one to one clients now because I don't need to, and I don't have the space for it. So it's not really an issue. And then I've the group programme that I run, I've really set that up around what's going to work for me as well. And I hired another copywriter to help me with that. So she's on,, she's on the calls with me, she helps do the feedback. So we've got I've got backup. So if anything did happen, and I wasn't available for the day, or I couldn't make a call, I know that I've got someone there that can step in for me. But also, we just make a great team, the quality of what we can do together is so much better than I would be able to do on my own.
Erin Thomas Wong
That leads into a great discussion about outsourcing and about creating that support around you as well. Because as solo business owners, often we feel like we should be doing everything ourselves. So what kind of support do you have around yourself apart from that
Laura Robinson
I have so much and I was like exactly like that going on, I'm going to do everything myself. And I will not pay for anything. I remember needing like, I think it was PicMonkey or something but like a graphics platform, and there was a level that you could have for free. And if you would just pay like $20 It would unlock all these amazing things, I will not pay for anything, I can definitely make this work on my own on the free level. That was a long time ago. Now. Now I'm definitely way that other way where I'll just pay for stuff to see if it's going to be useful. Like I'm not going to use up the brain capacity to decide whether I really need this or not. I'm just gonna try it, pay for it. Try it and then see what happens in terms of having a team around me.
I have the wonderful Amber who's been with me for years now she is a website designer, but she's also great graphic designer. So she's responsible for how good everything looks. So it's great people that your website looks lovely on here. Thanks. I can take that great. Like it's nothing to do with me. I've done nothing of this. Sometimes I go on Creative Market and I find like doodles that I like and I send them check out I just bought all of these aren't they pretty? Do something with them. And she takes care of all of that side of things. For me.
I have Rachel who's a copywriter. So she helps me with delivering the programmes and giving feedback to people. And I have a social media manager at the moment, which is this is revelation to me that I can send her something go do you think people would want to read this? What do we like? What do I do with this and she takes care of scheduling it and making sure it's got the right hashtags and showing me I'm really underselling what she does say I feel really guilty. Faye does a lot more than that. But it's because I understand so little of that world is very hard for me to express what it is that she's doing. And but that's been a huge help, because I would ideally, never look at social media ever. And that's not really compatible with running a business. So it's nice having someone encouraged me to do it in a really targeted way in a way that's gonna make a difference and in a way that I feel comfortable to do.
Erin Thomas Wong
And have you ever had a mentor or a coach
Laura Robinson
I didn't mention my coat is gonna be sending me daggers I doubt things that I also work guess with a coach and Nicole, she is a mindset mastery coach. So it's more than just business, which is what I love about working with her. So every month, we work we work together every month, and I can choose what is the thing that we need to focus on. And it doesn't have to be anything to do with work. So this last month, like say, actually, this has come up at home. And I know that that is like I can feel the energy that is sucking out of me and how much headspace it's taking up. So that's the thing we're going to focus on. And she completely understands how the you know your experiences success of life, your fulfilment is a holistic thing. It's not just on what you do inside your business, which I love that's really been very compatible with me.
Erin Thomas Wong
I totally remember when I was working with my coach who I worked with for a couple of years, when we were first talking about it, she was she does an online business consulting. But she also does a lot of mindset stuff. And I remember saying, I don't really need the mindset stuff. It's just, it's just the online business stuff that I need. And of course, I was completely wrong, because every single session ends with some kind of mindset block that you've got around selling around, you know, taking action. So yeah, it is absolutely a kind of all rounded approach that we need to take with this, isn't it?
Laura Robinson
Definitely. And I found out how things show up for me when there's, there's like, bad I'd say it's not even hidden. Like obviously most people can see this block in broad daylight. It's just that I haven't noticed it. Things come up first in threes for me events that are kind of similar, but some of those might happen in my business and some of it might be something that happened at the supermarket. So I need someone who has that kind of overview that's helping me join all the dots are gonna go oh, that's the same issue like they showed up in my car in the supermarket and in my email this week, but that's the same problem and then we and then we can tackle it, you know from a more holistic perspective.
Erin Thomas Wong
And that's what is so valuable, isn't it about having a mentor coaches that they can hold a mirror up and you have to face you know, face those issues? So what advice would you give to people listening who really love the idea of creating a more life friendly business, but feel like they're kind of stuck in just the overwhelm of day to day?
Laura Robinson
That's a really good question when this feels a bit morose to say it this way, but if you were, if you were in a position that I was in, where you have literally got no choice but to make it work, or you know, something happened, that meant that you were unable to work certain number of hours a day or you were quiet to care for someone you would make, you would make it work, because you'd have no choice. But what happens is, when we've got like more time available than we actually need, the task expands to fill this gap.
So the my best example of that is when my kids went to school, I would sit down at my desk at like nine o'clock, I dropped them off, and I'd start work, and I will be there for six hours until it's time to pick them up. And I didn't really feel like I was achieving amazing things. And then I took them out of school and the amount of time I had available to work half, like literally halved overnight. And I made my business more successful, because I made more money because I had to make at least the same amount of money. And that made me take a step back. Okay, this is the hours I've got available. How am I going to make this work? What can I do? So it made me strategize, it made me create a plan when before I didn't have one. And I made it work. And things have changed again, since then. And I've had to do the same thing, take a step back, okay, this model is not going to work anymore, what we're going to do, how can we and I'm already recovering the income and working towards making more money.
So if you're feeling overwhelmed, I think there's probably a chance that it's just like a gas that's expanded to fill the space that you've got available. And if you were to be a bit more strict with yourself about how much time you're prepared to spend on it, and chunk that time down of like, actually, I'm only going to give this decision this afternoon, I've got to make this decision and take action, I'm going to do it this afternoon, the end, then I draw a line under it and get on you know, get on with whatever the next thing is, you can get some momentum going like that. But when you've got so much to do, and so much time to do it in, it's just kind of like a stagnant pool, it doesn't go anywhere. It's really hard to come and get any movement going.
Erin Thomas Wong
Yeah, absolutely. And I know we've talked about James Wedmore. And his his thing about the the 5%, you need to focus on the 5%. And we can spend hours and hours stuck in the 95% that doesn't really move the needle on our business, but we can be so much more productive. And like you say, even if you've got one hour a day, if you're focusing on the 5%, you're actually going to see the impact in your business,
Laura Robinson
You have to just come to terms with being a bit rubbish at some things as well. Like I'm, I'm not going to be able to reply to every email, it just, it's literally impossible for me to do that with the amount that is in my life. So for me to be able to do everything that I do and to fit everything in, some stuff gets done really badly. Like sometimes the house absolutely looks terrific. Sometimes the kids look at me go but we haven't got any pants left. Yep, that's because the laundry basket is very, very full right now. Because I got too involved in what I was doing today. And so that I've definitely had to come to terms with not being good at everything all the time. And I just try and share it around a bit. So the thing that's neglected isn't always the same thing. It just takes it in turns like, oh, it's not your turn this week, I'm just gonna ignore this thing. And then next week, I promise I'll make up on it.
Erin Thomas Wong
That's brilliant. So I've got two last questions for you. One is what's next for us next.
Laura Robinson
I am I have only just started to transition towards running this write your website programme. So that's feels like it, that's now but it's also next because it's relatively new. I'm running it for the third time right now. And my plan is to run it two or three times a year. Because I can really see the value in picking one thing, doing it really well doing it over and over again so that you can make it better every time. So I think for me, the next phase of my business is about doing things that are repeatable, repeatable and refinable. I don't know if that's a word but so that I can keep making it better. I've got a couple of other courses that support that and really compliment it. And that's what I want to focus on is the delivery of those the ongoing development of them marketing just this one thing. And just seeing what happens when I do that. So like it's also for me, there's always an element of curiosity and fun to just go well, let's try this and see what happens.
Erin Thomas Wong
And where can people find out more about that?
Laura Robinson
If you go to my website, which is worditude.co.uk or on Facebook just put worditude it is a made up word. So I loved it.
Erin Thomas Wong
So if you could travel back in time and speak to Laura, way back then when you were basically forced into a position where you had to make something work had to start a business. What would you tell her?
Laura Robinson
I would definitely make her have timetable time that was for reflection, and planning and that inner work, rather than just frantically doing like if I think for how many hours I spent on the internet, so like how many versions of make money online can you Google anyway? There was no way I needed to spend that many hours doing it. Probably a two hour search would have got me started on my journey. But there was just so much attachment to doing and feeling like I had because we didn't have enough money. It felt like if I wasn't working towards that all the time, then I was like slacking. I was letting letting the side down in the family down. But actually, if I just calmed it down a little bit and thought, I'm going to spend this much time of my day doing researching, working towards building this business, I'm going to spend a huge chunk of time reflecting on how I would want that to look, you know, what kind of work do I enjoy? But I didn't I didn't even know that that was possible. Like it seems, when you've worked for someone else for so long. And then you first come into this online world, it seems crazy. Like I remember that my mom just going like, but how do people give you the money? Like how how does the money get to that was how alien this concept was. So I had absolutely no idea what was possible. But I would definitely tell myself now take some time out to explore what's possible before throwing yourself into trying to get it done.
Erin Thomas Wong
And that's about stepping into the role of the CEO of your business, isn't it? It's it's taking that broader picture view. And you can't do that when you're deep in the weeds, you have to give yourself time to reflect
Laura Robinson
It's a huge change in the way that we're like, the way we're raised the way that our culture is that you from four years old, go somewhere five days a week for a certain number of hours, and then you get a job and you do the same thing. And I remember being really young, I think I'm like I remember at university they talked about, this is how old I am. At university, they talked about this thing that was gonna be called virtual working. And sometimes people will be able to work from home and still have a job. And then there was going to be this micro economy of solo, but obviously didn't call them solopreneurs. But self employed individuals who ran their business. And I remember every fibre of my being screaming like yes, that is for me, I do not want to have to be paid to sit in somebody else's office for five days a week for the rest of my life. But that's how we're programmed is to do that. So if we take ourselves out of that environment and become jobless, it's really hard to embrace that freedom that you've got an all of the time and how you've got control over your week. Because if you've never if you've never had to plan a week like that before, it's it's very disorientating. It's hard to know how to to use that time wisely. So I think it's natural that we then just go right, okay, I'm going to replace my job with some activities that I can do for six or seven hours a day for five days a week and only take weekends off.
Erin Thomas Wong
Yeah, it's absolutely about thinking outside the box, isn't it and and carving your own path, which is something we talk about a lot on this podcast and doing it on your own terms and not feeling like you have to fit into that box that were brought up to believe.
Laura Robinson
And you're going to upset a few people when you do it. Like, I've definitely lost some friends along the way. I've gone like no, that life's too weird. I can't be hanging around with you.
Erin Thomas Wong
And that's why it's. And that's why it's so important to surround yourself with people that do get it you know, that's why these communities of small business owners are just so valuable.
Laura Robinson
Oh, definitely. And you can see what's possible when you're in a community like that, you can see other people who are further ahead than you or other people whose lives just look completely different from your own. And that gives you ideas and inspiration that you just can't get you can't get that from mainstream media. And you can't get that from usually from your real life friends, because you're you know you're restricted by location and who you see and who you happen to know. You're only going to see a range of opportunities. Once you get into these online communities. It's like this whole other world of what's possible.
Erin Thomas Wong
That's brilliant. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today, Laura.
Laura Robinson
You're very welcome.
Erin Thomas Wong
You've been listening to the life friendly business podcast, which is all about carving your own path and doing it at your own pace. But I know that's not easy to do. So to help you decide what a life friendly business looks like for you, and help you to stick to the boundaries and commitments needed to create that I've created the life friendly business prescription. download this free workbook and spend 30 to 60 minutes reflecting on what life friendly means to you and the changes you may need to make in order to achieve the work life balance you desire. Once you've made these decisions, you can add them to your own printable life friendly business prescription that you can put on your wall to remind yourself that you have the power to design your very own life friendly business. Download yours now at lifefriendlybusiness.com/prescription
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
