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Tell me about your vision.

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Well, my vision is about lifestyle, to sum it up in one word.

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I've always looked for lifestyle for myself, which means time and financial freedom.

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And that's what I want for my clients.

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I work with business owners and I see a lot of business owners struggling to, you know,

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they start a business because they want lifestyle.

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They've got an idea.

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They have a dream and ultimately they're looking for time and financial freedom for themselves

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and their families as well.

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And then they get into their business and they get super bogged down and they struggle

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to move it forward as quickly as they want to.

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They're not always following the right processes and they end up sacrificing a lot for the

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sake of their business.

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And so my vision is really about helping entrepreneurs have success without sacrifice, doing the

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right things in the right order so that they can build the business of their dreams and

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have the lifestyle that they wanted when they first launched their businesses.

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Can you tell me more about that?

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Tell you more about that.

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Well, so I've been working with business owners for over 20 years and their business is their

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baby.

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And what I often find is they have skills in a particular profession.

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They're accountants, they're architects, they're engineers.

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And so they are experts in their field and they come to a point in their career where

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they think, you know what, I'd really like to branch off and do this on my own.

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So they either become solpreners or they start a small company and start leading a team.

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And there are completely different challenges to face when you start running a business

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and especially when you step into a new level of leadership.

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It's very difficult to lead ourselves effectively, but then you have to take things to a whole

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another level when you're leading others.

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And I find that often business owners can get overwhelmed and sometimes actually be

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kind of flying by the seat of their pants.

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They haven't necessarily created a plan for themselves.

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They dive in and kind of just get going and maybe get a bit of advice along the way, but

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it's not focused.

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And especially when you're leading a team, now you've got people seeking advice from

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you and needing support and they can feel like they're supporting everybody else and

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fielding phone calls and dealing with clients all day and then never getting back to the

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work that they actually enjoy in the first place.

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So they end up working too much in their business and not enough on their business.

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And because they're not working on their business, they're not being strategic about it.

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So that's one of the things that I do to help people get back on track is I help them balance

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that more so that because if you're strategic and you're balancing working on your business

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with working in your business and you're focused and you're working on fewer goals at a time,

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you can actually move forward faster.

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And subsequently, you'll get where you want to go faster as well.

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Does that make sense?

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Yeah, that's great.

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Thank you, Shaina.

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The statement you said business owners started to get on working in their business but not

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on their business.

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Where did you get the statement from?

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It's not a statement that I've created myself.

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There's certainly a lot of people in the business and leadership areas that talk about working

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in your business versus working on.

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Michael Gerber was one of the first people who I think coined that phrase.

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He wrote the book called The E-Myth, which is the entrepreneurial myth and talked about

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how lots of business owners are practitioners in their business.

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Like I said, they have a particular skill and they've launched a business based on their

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skill, but they're still working in their business and they're not setting up the systems

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and the processes and the people that they need to be able to get freedom from their

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business eventually.

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So they're working too much in versus on, which are the strategic matters.

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Strategic matters are having a business plan, having goals and objectives that you're working

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towards and setting up systems and processes so that ultimately the business can run without

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you.

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Michael Gerber talked in The E-Myth about the idea of whether you ever go down the franchising

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route or not.

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You really should be thinking about your business like a franchise.

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Set up the systems and the processes so that the business could be easily duplicated or

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eventually sold if that's your goal with it.

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And even if that's not your goal, with systems and processes in place, then you can have

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employees and you can get your time freedom back again.

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So that's where I think that phrase first came from.

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It is probably from Michael Gerber in that conversation.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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My next question for you, Laura, is did your vision come from the same boat as Michael

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Gerber's E-Myth book?

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That very myself.

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So as I wanted to ask you, is your business based on that?

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Somewhat, yes, because I got into business and leadership coaching after actually being

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in the nonprofit sector for 12 years.

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And then I made a switch myself.

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But my vision really came actually from my husband because my husband has had several

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companies and his companies are his babies in addition to our own kids.

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And he has really put his all into his companies.

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And there's been some family sacrifice along the way.

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And so that he hasn't, you know, over the years, he wasn't to be as present to the family

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as he wanted to be or even to himself and his own health at times.

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And he did have a health crisis a few years back.

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So my vision really came from seeing him and how dedicated he was and how his ultimate

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goal was eventually to be more balanced and enjoy business and life.

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And as I watched what he was dealing with and then met other business owners and saw

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what they were dealing with and ultimately what their goals were, then Gerber and his

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work in the E-Myth really became the outline or it became the this is what needs to happen

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in order to achieve that goal.

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So with that information handy, then I knew at least what needed to happen.

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The only problem with Gerber and the E-Myth is he didn't talk about how to do it.

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So obviously in order to be able to put theory into practice, you have to figure out the

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how.

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So Gerber was great for the what.

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And then another author came along and he wrote a book called Traction.

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And Traction is brilliant because it actually takes the concepts that Gerber was talking

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about, but it talks about the how, how to set up those systems and processes, how to

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build your team, how to evaluate your team, and how to have a very simple two-page business

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plan that you can execute consistently.

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So I use a lot of those tools in my work personally for myself because it keeps me focused on

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a track and moving forward faster.

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And then I have my clients use those tools.

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And when they do, I find that they need to exceed their goals, which is fabulous.

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Thank you for sharing that.

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My next question for you, Laura, is what is your why?

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Oh, my why is being the best we can be.

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That's work that I did with my coach a number of years ago.

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And having come out of a social work profession, one of the things that we learned about in

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my original training was the hierarchy of needs by Maslow.

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And Maslow talks about the ultimate level in the hierarchy is self-fulfillment.

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So that's what I want for myself.

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That's what I want for my clients.

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It's really about how can we grow along the path or the process of life and how can we

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be the best we can be.

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And so that's what I want for myself and that's really what I want for my husband.

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I want for my kids and ultimately for my clients is for them to be the highest expression of

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themselves.

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Where are you at in your journey of your business and your vision?

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Where am I at?

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That's a great question.

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I'm pretty I'm you know, I'm actually I think I'm living my best life.

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I feel really fortunate about that.

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You know, my my practice is at a place where it's given me the time and financial freedom

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that I've been looking for.

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I am healthy.

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My relationship is in great in a great place with my husband.

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My kids are launched and we have great relationships with my kids.

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And as a hobby, I actually do competitive ballroom and country dancing.

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And I've actually won a championship about a year and a half ago.

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So I continue to develop my skills and take myself to higher levels with my dancing.

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And I'm taking my business to higher levels.

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There's always there's always tweaking to do so getting more organized.

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And now I'm branching out in addition to just doing my one on one work.

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I'm starting to create some online programs so that I can be in a place where I can actually

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help more people get to that next level as well.

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But it feels really good.

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And I don't feel like I'm in that struggle place anymore like I was in the early years.

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I'm just in that place of just at a very nice pace continuing to grow and adapt and learn,

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which for me is all part of that self actualization we were talking about.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.