Quiet Ambition with Allan Ngo

Is success always loud? Allan Ngo, founder of Digital Solopreneur, joins Victoria to discuss the power of Quiet Ambition over loud hustle. In this episode, Allan reveals how he has helped over 5,000 customers by focusing on human connection and email marketing as a stable foundation for business rather than chasing social media algorithms. Allan shares why he views his email list as a vital “insurance policy” and how he uses simple tools like Google Docs to package expertise into products. Discover how to build a “life-first” business that provides a comfortable livelihood without the constant grind.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to the Unscripted Blend. I'm your host, Victoria Sackhouse. Listen, guys, today's episode is all about quiet ambition. In a world that tells us we have to be the loudest to win, our guests proved you can scale impact without the noise. Alan Neo is the founder of Digital Solopreneur. He's helped over 5,000 customers and generated well over six figures in sales, all from his old but reliable laptop. Today we're discussing how Alan built a business that works even when he doesn't. We're talking systems, storytelling, and choosing freedom over complexity. Alan, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

All right, everyone. So once again, we want to welcome to the Unscripted Win podcast, Alan Young from the So Digital Solopreneur. Welcome to our show. Thanks so much for coming on here.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yes. So just to give you guys a quick backstory. So the way I found out about Alan and Digital Solopreneur, I love email newsletters. I love to subscribe to them. I love to read them. And I actually, with my business, I write them too professionally. So that's just how much I love them. So through one of the email communities I was already a part of with Liz Wilcox, Alan came up. I don't even remember what time it was. I don't know if it was when she was doing her 12 days of Lizmus. I don't know what, but some kind of way I saw you, digital solopreneur, and I really love what you had going on. And I just subscribed and I really enjoy um your Sunday reflections. Those are great, in addition to everything else. So that's how um, of course, so that's how we got connected and everything. And I'm excited too because you're my first um international guest. So it's exciting for me to some big things going on, but I don't want to uh take too long to get into this. Again, we have the founder and CEO here of Digital Solopreneur, and I'll let you tell us about that. What is digital solopreneur?

SPEAKER_04 2:06

Yeah, it it's funny, there's no grand, I guess, master plan behind it. Um back in around 2016, 2015, 2016, uh, I was doing a Philip marketing locally, and I just wanted to have a domain. So it was a time when you just buy domain and just see what sticks. So I do have a lot of them. And digital solopreneur, there's really no master plan mastermind. I'm sorry, master plan behind it. It's just it just describes who I am. So I was doing digital business and I'm doing it by myself. So I figured, hey, let's just get that domain and maybe it I could use it someday. So that's the idea behind it. And to be quite honest, I when I bought that, it's really just okay, maybe something I just like the idea, and it feels like it's describing a way that we're starting to do business. So I I I came from corporate background as well as I had a franchise business in the fast food industry, and those two things are that I just say that um involves a lot of people, especially in our franchise business where all our managers would be pirated by other companies, um ice machines would break from time to time, like it's there's constant need, the same way with corporate to a lesser extent. Um, and it's just I find I found solace in working by myself, and I felt that a lot of people can shine, don't need to fit in in a team when they can shine alone the best. So that's kind of the idea behind Digital Soulpreneur.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Okay, awesome. Thank you for sharing that with us. So now you're helping entrepreneurs too with this uh business that you have with basically streamlining their their own business, their own system. So tell us how you help entrepreneurs out there.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Sure. Specifically with digital soulpreneur, we're so I come from the Philippines, and for us, like education is the ultimate equalizer, right? Like you get opportunities to work abroad, get hired, and that's where um that's why like 10% of our population is working abroad. That's our, for better or worse, our best export is human resources, right? And and the way we get these opportunities is through by being educated, by being world class. And the businesses that I help with are education businesses, like coaches, um, consultants, people who are gifting the world with their knowledge. That's the power of the internet, like liberal liberalizing in information and education. So these folks, I help them with packaging what they know and turning this into products. People can digest at an affordable cost, affordable price. And since these are low overhead businesses, like solopreneurs can live off that without having high margins. So I help these educators to have a full-time income, comfortable livelihood, maybe not to the level of like Amazon, right? But it's something livable and comfortable while teaching what they know. And that's how we can spread education in a way that's that gets in some ways to be our teachers that are get paid, that are being paid like entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Okay. I love that. And something that you mentioned too that um we're gonna get into a little bit later is you're teaching this to people in a way that is practical, it's doable. Like you don't have to come in with a team already, hence solopreneur. But it's actually something that's doable for one person, which is very important because as you know, starting out, it can be very difficult when you are the you are the team. You have to wear many hats, you have your expertise, but maybe technology isn't your strength, even if you are gonna like share your expertise with somebody, or maybe just the back office stuff that it takes to run a business that might not be your strong suit. But one thing that I like that you're doing is that you're teaching people methods to do this in a way that is practical. So that's that's one thing I really enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

So I've been so I've been following you, um, as I said before, for some time through your emails. And there's something, there's a quote I want to pull up, and I think it's on your website as well. And I want you to really get into this. I feel like it's kind of like the principle or like really the key part of your brand, which is quite quiet ambition over loud hustle. Again, that's quiet ambition over loud hustle. That really resonated with me. And in this busy culture, I feel like it's a busy culture kind of globally, although each place is kind of different. But I think a lot of people in this world of tech and AI, they feel like we have to rush, rush, rush. So can you talk more about why is what did you think of when you said quiet ambition over loud hustle? Why is that so important? What does that look like for your own business?

SPEAKER_04 7:17

Right. Um, I guess like I I share best through examples. And I think the way we got connected is one way that that's an example, right? Um in a world, to your point, in a world where tech and automation is king, right? Um like for us, one of the things that differentiates us is I call my community like our principal, our effortless earners. So the idea behind there, right, is it's not this is the best thing to do business, right? Because there's a certain cap to it. Like we generally we won't grow to $100 million, right? That that size, because there's a cost to that size. So there's another um alternative, which is being an efficient entrepreneur. That's where AI automations work. And there's nothing wrong with it, right? It's just that for us, we want to focus on the lifetime value in terms of the business and also long-term relationships, right? So, and part of that, by extension, right, with that is with hustle culture, it goes 100 miles per hour, right? For quite ambition, it's slowing down and understanding and appreciating the human interaction that comes with a business like this. And yes, there's a downside with solopreneurs that you have to do everything, but also you also have that chance to build relationships because you have access. And I think though the way we got really connected was when you replied to one of my emails, right? And we had a conversation there, like it wasn't an automated um email responding to you. And as I got to know about your situation, I invited you to one of our private coaching calls as my guest, and that's where we got to know each other more without any intention of like uh monetary transactions, right? It's just that, hey, I think you need this help, and I think this call can help you out. So um building investing in those relationships without necessarily having an ROI as looming over my head, and that's that's that's part of it, right? Um I recently, I'm not sure if you you know about this story, but my Facebook account got disabled like last month, and I had 11,000 followers there. But I'm happy that we might touch on this later, but I I have my email list, so I wasn't on a panic. But at the same time, it helped me realize that hey, if I create a new account, the people who really matter I will get connected with still. And that connection with humans goes beyond platforms, right? If I have connections in the platform that I won't be able to get connected anyway, we probably didn't have much of a relationship in the first place, right? So it kind of validated like my idea of like quiet ambition that hey, let's build relationships, you know, and focus on that. Because when I started like almost 10 years ago, I didn't have any assets. It was just I was getting connecting, making new connections, um, being a genuine person, right? And that's for me, it's the way I would like to run my business. So it could be being open to conversations, um, checking in on customers, even making deals. You think making deals is really more about um business, right? But it's also, hey, you're paying monthly here. What about, hey, if you you if you commit to um staying for X number of months in my in my program, then I can lower the fee for you. So we both have win-win. So like taking time to kind of making those decisions, you can make those decisions because you know the people you're working with. And sure, it's not the most efficient way to do to do it. But right now, the two people that I did that six months ago, they're renewed for another six months. So without really hard selling them. In fact, one of them was we were on the coaching call and I was telling her, Hey, by the way, um, I'll send you an email about if you plan to renew. And right on the call, she said, Yeah, just send me the invoice and like I'll have my sister pay you. It there's no, you know, there's no convincing involved, you know. It's just we enjoyed our help working together and it was a no-brainer for them. And that when in a world where you want to keep the retention high, reduce the churn, type, right? When having churn just come uh not churn, having retention just come naturally, that felt amazing, right? Because I I was even a little hesitant to bring it up during the call. It was just we had a great momentum, and I just wanted to bring it up so that we don't she doesn't experience any interruption with her membership. So, yeah, so those are examples that um how we live, live that principle in our business.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, I like that. And I think I hope that for those of you on here who are watching or listening who are entrepreneurs, I hope that you really took that in and allowed that to kind of calm you down because sometimes, again, the message is go, go, go, post everything you're doing, post, post, post every day. And you know, you can end up doing a LinkedIn post every day. You can end up doing Instagram and Facebook every day. This isn't including investing in any ads. You can do that and still miss the important connection for that final sale that you would like to make after you post, post, post. And it has its place, depending on what you're doing too. I mean, it has its place. But if you are stressed out, especially if you're at a point in your business journey when you're like, I can't post every day and I can't hire somebody to do it for me, then kind of like take a step back. Take a step back and look at nurturing and fostering relationships. And that's really what I like about what you have been doing, and you have the track record to show. Hey there. Listen, if you've been listening to this and you realize that you need support with your brand or content, I want to invite you to work with me. As a creative consultant, I offer Clarity sessions to help you get focused and move forward with confidence. You can schedule your session through the link in the show notes. All right, let's get back to the conversation. So how that is really successful.

SPEAKER_04 13:54

Thank you. And I I think it always goes back to um, like, what's your goal for the business? So I would have clients that would say uh I need to do XYZ, right? Then okay, rather than just go diving into it and let's optimize all those things. Let me go back, like, how much are you looking to earn anyway? Because I want to go look back and do you even need to do XYZ? Like, what if you close two clients for this rate? Then you're set for the month, right? So that's when oh, okay, you don't even need to post, like you can just probably reach out to your Rolodex, or do people have Rolodex anymore? But just reach out to your contacts, right? It might, there might be, right? They might maybe it's it's just like getting people, getting your first two clients, make them have the ask for referrals. It could start there. Once you have the funds, then that's when you can perhaps invest in ads or maybe start investing in people to help you with other stuff, right? But um, but to start, you don't necessarily have to have complex funnels, right? Uh invest in software. Um, you anyone listening here already has relationships, right? It's important, it's impossible to grow up and not have any any contacts along the way. And I reach I have this message as well because as we learn, we are all adult learners, right? When I started, I didn't have that mindset, like, okay, this is education, this is how we teach it, just like in school. But as adults, I mean, nobody has like two hours of free time lying around, right? Especially if you have family, kids, obligations, or even ailments, right? So, like, why do we need to does it really take so much work to like just get one sale? Maybe it's we're trying to overcomplicate it and just putting too many barriers between us and other humans. Right? So that's why I like to let's understand what will really make us happy. Right? Because like there are folks who would have this target goal and would need to make X number of sales, they have to do webinars, all that jazz. But in reality, like they're just doing it because they're copying others without really understanding what this business means for them. Right. So you get X number of clients and you're good, you don't have to do all the other stuff.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah, this stuff is just kind of like if you just really want to or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yeah. So um, as you were talking, I thought about again one of the things I like that you do is you make it so practic practical to start. So I feel like you are the king of using Google Docs. And I never would have thought that to generate, like, and you have clients that have like amazing success stories, and I would never think that Google Docs would be a part of that. People would probably assume that they invested thousands and you know, Facebook ads and everything, which by the way, I'm not against any of that stuff that's good, but I do know some people that they get overwhelmed and they feel like they can't start unless they do it that way. So if you could speak to you briefly about like what is it to really like use what you have? You've already touched on it already, but what is it to like use what's what's in front of you?

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Right. Um so I have to credit. Um, I first discovered the Google Doc from Ian Standy. So I want to give credit very clearly this Drew. But um it's I I love your question. Um use what you already have. Like one of the things that I encourage folks to do is look at their hard drives because chances are products the best products typically aren't necessarily created, but they're discovered. So perhaps in your hard drive you have so for example, if you're somebody who's who's helping people with um closing real estate deals, right? Property deals. Um, if you're teaching people how to do that, it probably in your hard drive, we have um proposals that close deals. On your phone, you have dialogues that you were able to overcome objections, right? Right, maybe you have call recordings. Of course, there's privacy issues there, but um call recordings that maybe you can transcribe, remove the names, and see, hey, these are how I was able to negotiate this tricky client. Right? So all of those can be packaged into a product, right? Could be templates, it could be scripts, um, it could be materials for a workshop, right? Um, I had one client that he was he was an email copywriter in the e-commerce space, saw that advice, and he packaged like his different campaigns and offered it for aspiring copywriters as well. He was able to close like around over $2,000 from things he already had in his hard drive. So that's how I want to look at things. Like, is there so since it's effortless learners, this there's always that bias in my head, like how can we make it more effortless? Right? And and to your point, like I'm not against ads as well, because I'm I'm despite meta not liking my account, my my I my North Star is really effortless earners. So whatever will help people earn effortlessly, ads can be part of it. It can be a bit trickier, that's why I also study it. Um because it can generate that and ultimately the idea with the effortless earners is not necessarily not not to do any work, but have control over your calendar, right? Because one of the reasons I went all in here was around late 2023. Um family had some health issues, it has been lingering for my side and my wife's side. And I enjoyed the time that hey, we can go to the wig. Um, we can well while they were in the hospital, we can be there. And I my dream is having a business that can run um easily. Either there are SOPs and somebody somebody can help me out with it, or at least have an ad campaign, for example, that runs and drives traffic in. So um, so that's that's the ultimate idea. And if I want to work more, I can because I I still treat what I do as a job, and that's not a bad bad word, right? People tend to kind of distance themselves with the word job, but for me, it's important to that I call this what I do a job as well, because because like it adds a level of commitment and and professionalism behind it. Just because I work from home doesn't mean I should leave.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

This is this is how we met. I didn't see you on um on any of the social media platforms. Was email is how we got connected. So if you could also talk about the importance of that, especially given that situation with Meta, let's talk about while email marketing, guys, is still relevant, still important.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And it's wonderful that you brought that up. And it's funny that that happened to me as well. Just to be clear, the the reason that um there was cybersecurity issues, I guess Meta thought that my account was hacked, but it wasn't. So but when I sent her them my photos and stuff, for some reason they didn't approve it. Um, I guess AI was the one that decided on that, but um I digressed. Um, but yeah, and that's that's exactly the reason that I wasn't panicking when that happened. Because like my family is still here, like I mean, it's just a social media profile. Yes, I do have followers there, but my business is still mainly run by emails. And somebody asked me this recently, like email, like people have been wanting to kill email. When I started uh over 10 years ago, they were already saying that email is dead, right? And like it's like over a decade later, and it's it's still the norm. But I think what makes email somebody asked me if how do I think how how long do I think email will last, or what's the projection for emails? I I'm not like married to emails, although I love it very much. Like, I mean if it stops working as an effortless earner, like we move on and find what works. But at the same time, you know, um email is the social media, or ultimately we want to start a business because we want to find stability, predictability in our revenue. So that's where that's why we got started, right? That's why we hard work hard in order to have that consistency. Now, in now media, marketing, of course, that's part of attracting leads. Now, what I worry with social media, what's beautiful about it, it it has wonderful reach. The downside is you have to play by the algorithm, right? So yesterday, for example, I posted in my Facebook group. So luckily, like luckily my groups weren't suspended. My sister is an admin to it, so you still have access to it. So we have 15,000 members in that group. Yesterday I had a post, it went pretty good within the group, but it reached only 1,400 people. And these are already people who said, Hey, I want to hear from this group, right? So I still have to prove my birth, right? So I'm always under the uh I should worship the gods of the algorithm in order to for me to reach people who are already my people, right? So it's like playing basketball, football, baseball, where the game the rules change while you're playing it. And I mean that doesn't sound like a stable business, right? It's like standing on shaky ground, right? Unlike with emails, right? When when I send an email to say 15,000 subscribers, 15,000 subscribers will get that email. Then they have to decide to open it or not, right? Right. And that's a direct access. And if you if we really think about it, all social media is is like one giant email list. Because like, how do we open a social media account? Name, email, address, right? So they have the giant email list, that's why we pay ads for them to show our ads to their email list, right? Right. So it's like in in some ways, if you have your own email list, you have your micro social media platform. Like it's just you you just create it under it's like just Tories world, right? Tories platform, and it's full of people that who resonate with you, right? So that's why in my first email, um, I updated my welcome email, and first thing they read is like my five core values about calm money over chaos money, um over systems over sweat. And I also tell them that hey, um, every day I'll send you insights. Oh, there will also be an accompanying offer to get more help. So that hey, if you see a link to buy from me or to get my consultation, the rules are set. Okay, it's fair game. So right, if you're here, you know what you're gonna expect. So that way I'm filled with people who who understand the rules, know how to engage with me, and those who don't will will just go out. And that way, I would have a healthy relationship with my list. That's where I have direct connection with my audience.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

That's so important. Um, I don't know if you remember when Vine was out.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

Um the six-second video platform, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Right, right. And then it just went away, and not everybody took advantage of building an email list back then. So some people had to start over from scratch with the platforms that were already there. And some people were on more than one platform, but there were quite there was a good chunk of that population though that they put everything into that platform, right? And then they had to now go and try to reconnect with everybody. So like email is a good way. Like this is again, this is my community. And if Facebook closes tomorrow, is I don't know if TikTok buys Facebook, if you know, if somebody else buys a thing, shuts it down, like this is your one connection to everybody else until they come up with something else. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 27:49

And I think like, of course, I have I am biased because I'm an email marketing guy. So if if you want to look like even there's big YouTubers, like for example, Ali Abdal in the productivity space. I remember he has like three, four million subscribers on YouTube. And I remember one of his videos he mentioned, because I would quote him on this, um, where he said his real audience is his email list. Even for somebody who has millions of subscribers. There's also this uh Brian Holliday, the uh best-selling author of like um with stoicism, right? When you you watch his YouTube videos, I haven't re watched recently, but I noticed like every time he has a video, he always has a call to action to join his newsletter. So as especially as they scale, there's so much more to lose for them. They understand that hey, we have to get them on our own platform. It almost serves like an insurance policy on top of like a business engine, right? Because if their channels go away, but they have their lists who have been following them for years, you know, these are their top, top people, right? Because who goes to watch a YouTube channel, sees a URL, types URL, and signs up. These are really folks who are really loyal to you, right? So, um, so yeah, I mean, if they're the one, look at people's actions and see like what they prioritize.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Hey there. If you are enjoying today's episode and you're on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and go ahead and like the video.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Also, if you're listening on Apple, Spotify, other podcast platforms, follow over there, subscribe over there, leave a top-notch rating too while you're at it. It's all greatly appreciated. Okay, now back to today's episode. That's so important. I like that analogy too out of being like an insurance policy. Because again, it would be a shame, and and I won't belabor the point, but it would be a shame to like build up everything, have those followers, and again, something happens and I have to rebuild. So that's really good. It's like an insurance, like an insurance policy. But we'll we'll pivot for a little bit now. Um, we're almost coming to a close. I feel like this has gone by pretty fast. Because I I can talk about this all day. But um, I feel like things, things are moving now. Um, let me let's talk about AI in this space. So some people, depending on what their business is, they may feel like like there's no space for them anymore. And this is going to be kind of something I explore with the mini-series I'm doing right now with this season of my podcast. I want to talk about how you can still leverage AI to work for you, work with your business, make it more efficient, as opposed to you becoming obsolete because of AI.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Right. Um I remember this um story from Simon Sinek. Um, he's the author of The Start with Wine. Um, I hope I'm quoting him correctly. There's this, there's this um couple of guys, like their buddies, they just ended a 5k or a marathon. Then the organizers, so there's free bagels there for people who finish the race. So there's two guys. One guy wanted to hey, there's free bagels. Then his friend would say, then he his friend would see the long lines, right? For the bagels, because everyone's hungry. So but he said he wasn't even convincing his friend. He was saying, free bagels. It's like it's a no-brainer. Then the other guy says, right? The long lines. So the so the point of the story is there are people who would see the bagel, and there are people who would see the line. So and like with AI, it's similar to when the internet came, right? Um, I lived through a life where there weren't any cell phones. So we had payphones, we had beepers, then there were cell phones, then there was an internet, then now there's an AI, right? Every change, there's always an opportunity, and there's like, I mean, it's it's for me, ultimately, it's your choice on how you would like to see it. Because this is reality. We won't go back to the time where there's no internet, there's no cell phones, and now there's no AI. So it's a choice for me. Like, I have with Effortless Earth, we also have this mindset that always grow on offense, right? Um, because the time we spend feeling sorry for ourselves or kind of doubting ourselves, or time being lost, right? We only have X amount of remember, like I started this because I was faced with death in the family, you know. So there's I understand that there's time is cars, and I only have X amount of time, like it's not the in the movies where you can transfer time in your arm, right? I forgot what movie that was, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:52

But right?

SPEAKER_04 32:54

So it's just like okay, let's just go on offense. So, how can we turn this into our advantage? And as solo printers, like a lot of it is like it's almost like no one's a solo printer anymore, because AI is like your employee that doesn't complain, doesn't sleep, but it gets tired because if you use up the usage, then it it needs to rest. But other than that, um you can use it as an advantage, right? So um for me, to your point about posts, so I do have my sister helping me out um right now with my with my business, and I would write the emails, have AI, um turn them into um posts for socials, for Facebook, LinkedIn, um, Instagram, whatnot. And then sometimes I would even not I'd be surprised. Oh, I have a LinkedIn post. I didn't know that because it we just put scheduled that ahead of time. And I wasn't writing these LinkedIn posts deliberately, it's just a spin-off of my main email. And that's something I wasn't able to be able to do before. Um, my calls, uh the group calls where you also attended, I would get transcription there because sometimes I would say something smart enough, you know, that I I I couldn't think uh uh by myself. Like it just comes out in conversations, right? And you were able to track insights there and turn them into emails that would in turn become social media posts. Um and that's just like the tip of the iceberg on how we can use it. Um, and I'm not even on the cutting edge of it. Like I take what's useful, I look at my business, see what I need, and take from the world what I need rather than being learning everything, then not applying anything in my business, right? So I look for the bottleneck and find solutions. And a lot of the solutions now are coming from AI, right? So education-wise, business-wise, information will be commoditized, so a lot of it will be go back to brand and trust, right? So I think it it's more important now to have that quite ambition, that human-to-human connection, because like information will be commoditize. So it's it's your ideas that will reach people. Those ideas, to your point about seeing that quite ambition over hustle culture, right? It's also an idea, and that's how we start to get connected from that initial connection. That's when we can deepen the relationship, and it's and that comes back to what your beliefs are, right? What your beliefs are, and ultimately it comes back and comes back to being human. So so yeah, I mean, for me, we have to embrace it and treat it as an advantage, almost force yourself to think of it as an advantage because there's no turning back. Right. Think thinking otherwise will only scare you for the future, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Yeah, that's true. And we don't we don't want to give you fear here. Um, one of the things, reasons I like to talk to you, and we'll be talking to other um entrepreneurs as well, because I want to take the fear out of it. There's a lot of people who have good ideas, they're not launching, or maybe they gave up because they're afraid. And it's like, this is something we don't have to be afraid of. Um, I like what you just said just now. Take what works for you right now with where you are. So, no, you don't have to run and get a certificate. You don't have to become an expert prompt writer right now, but take what makes sense for your business right here, right now. Take what makes sense for your brand right here, right now, because I work with people for their brand strategy. So take what makes sense for your brand, for what you're doing right here, right now, and don't worry about becoming you know the master AI expert. Now, if that's what you want to do, that's like you know, a career goal, then hey, go for it. But if that wasn't the part, then then figure out what works for you right now and go from there, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Right. But that that's why we what we do, we we like to label it as a life first business. Like we want to figure out business to help our lives, but we haven't really figured out the life we want that the business will support. Um, that came to my my realization then was we had a family business where we do wholesale trading, and there's this like cliché in our local community where when somebody's in the hospital, like not the entire family couldn't visit because somebody has to stay in the store. So that's the kind of in our culture, right? And there there were times like it it's funny as well, but at the same time, I was thinking, um, sometimes we would miss like milestones or trips because somebody has to be in the store, and it made me think, um, are we living to support the store or is the store there to support our lives? Right. And sometimes um I have a client who does workshops in person, she has to pay for the venue and stuff, and she just feels that she needs to do that because she does like breath work, yoga work. But are you doing that just because you see other people doing it? Because there are others who are making money just doing it online, right? So, and she was sacrificing she since she works with people who work in corporate, she can only do so after office or on the weekends. And she was sacrificing time with family, relatives, right? And she's barely breaking even at the time. She's okay, but not really, but the cost is too high for her. Right. So let's figure out what we want in life first, right? And try to let's assume, let's not make any assumptions first. Let's test. To your point, I love your point about it's okay to fail. Maybe we don't look at it as failure, but because us as adults, right, in school, like we take a lesson and take an exam. But in life, what I noticed is really uh we take the exam first and learn the lesson later on. So it's just a series of tests, right? Experiments that and give our say ourselves like allowance to fail. Right? So, okay, let's stop the in-person thing, let's test out like just the virtual thing. If it works, then you have your schedule back. It could be as easy as that.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Right. And that's so important. I like what you said too about like, are we living to support our businesses or are the businesses are they supposed to support us?

SPEAKER_03 39:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:41

That's what's important. Uh, and and you establish that with effortless earners and with the digital solopreneur community. So I want to say now we're pretty much coming to a close. Thank you so much for joining me here today on the Unscripted Blend podcast. Listen, if people want to keep up with you, Alan, how can they stay connected to you? And I'll make sure I include things in the show notes too, but how can they stay connected?

SPEAKER_04 40:04

Love that. Thank you, Lori. Um, yeah, I'm I'm on LinkedIn, um, Alan Guang. Um and my website is digital solopreneur.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Look, yeah, I know. It's happening.

SPEAKER_04 40:19

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Take care.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Thank you for joining me for this conversation with Alan. Listen, if his story inspired you to rethink the hustle and embrace your own version of Quiet Ambition, then guess what? We have something special for you. Check out the link, Quiet Ambition Zone, in the show notes to access some resources that were prepared just for you. These were curated for those seeking a more intentional and ambitious life without the constant grind. Because who wants that, right? Thanks again for listening today to the unscripted blend, and I can't wait to see you the next time. Take care.