116) If Starting a Business Sounds "Too Complicated" Listen to This

If starting a business FEELS hard, it’s because you don’t understand these fundamental mindset concepts.

In today’s episode, I want to go through a series of topics that I tend to talk about with my clients often, where it's like they're thinking about business with a mindset that actually keeps them in scarcity, or it keeps them confused, it keeps them feeling stuck. And then when I share my perspective about business, suddenly—boom—they're unstuck. 

Boom, suddenly they have clarity. 

Boom, suddenly they have more motivation. 

Boom, suddenly they feel more free to actually take the next step in building their business. 

So today I want start talking about these aspects of business that you really need to understand if you want to have an easier time building a business.

Building a business is NOT  easy, but it also doesn't have to be that complicated.

You don't have to be that smart to build a business. 

You don't need to have an amazing idea. 

You don't need to have a ton of upfront capital. 

You don't need to have really anything specific in order to build a business. 

So let's dive into these mindset shifts about business, hopefully then it will be easier for you to build your uncomplicated business. 

What You’ll Learn Today

• Why business is about solving problems (not passion)
• The mistake people make when trying to start a business without validation
• How to actually build confidence (you don’t wait for it)
• What it really means to be the CEO + employee of your business
• Why your business should start as a simple “baby” version
• How to create a remote work lifestyle, quit your 9–5, and get paid to travel

💻  DM me “APPLY” on Instagram @christabellatravels if you want help mapping out your online business + freedom lifestyle.

🎧 Listen to NEXT:  Episode 99 – How Long It Actually Takes to Build a Business

🎧 Ready to take action? Watch Christa’s free training “5 Steps to Work From Wherever” — your roadmap to building a remote business: digitalnomadlifeacademy.com/biztraining

Transcript

Solve Problems Not Passion

Validate Ideas With Market Research

Confidence Comes From Trying

Be The CEO And The Employee

Your Business Grows Like A Person

How Her Business Grew Up

The Simplest Definition Of Business

From Baby Offer To Toddler Systems

How To Reach Out To Krista

Core Recap And Passion Reframed

The Business Bridge Strategy

A Client Story About Finding Dharma

CEO Of Your Life In Practice

Take Real Action And Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast. I'm your host, Krista, also known as Kristabella Travels, on social media. And I always say my handle at the beginning of every episode because I want to encourage you to send me a DM if you have any questions at all about how you specifically could become a digital nomad. Do you want to just travel more? Do you want to make money online? Do you want to build an online business? I hope that you want to build an online business because that really is what this whole podcast actually is all about. Yes, some of the earlier episodes are about traveling, but um, really where I have arrived at in my journey of being a digital nomad, which now it's been 13 years, which is just insane. 70 countries later, hundreds of thousands of dollars generated online. Um, and so much joy, so many adventures, so much uh satisfaction in my life. And I really, after having tried it all, can say that having an online business is the freaking cheat code to life. Like whatever you want in life, I'm serious, whatever you want to experience in life, if you have an online business, you can probably have it. You wanna you wanna make a fortune? Okay, you will probably not be able to do it with the job. You need to have your own business if you want to make a fortune. Um, or you need to do something sketchy. Don't do anything sketchy. You wanna travel the world? Well, you could do that, I guess, if you're unemployed, but it's probably gonna be better if you're making money while you're traveling. And how can you make money while you're traveling? By having your own online business. You want to have complete time freedom to do whatever the hell you want with your day, like to be able to pick up your kids from school or take your dog for a walk four times a day. You wanna be able to go to the beach at sunset every single day. You wanna be able to take an 11 a.m. Pilates class or go to the gym when it's not crowded at 3 p.m. Like whatever it is that you want to do or have or experience in your life, having an online business, I'm telling you, is the way. And I'm so passionate about this. I will die on this hill. So um, I will die on this hill of talking about why having an online business is the cheat code for life, which is really what I want to give to people. My whole mission is to help people live happier, more authentic lives. And if I think that an online business is a cheat code, then that's what I'm gonna be talking about. Now, here's what inspired this episode. As a business coach, I am constantly talking to people who know less about business than I do, right? Obviously, that's why they're hiring me so that I can help them have a more successful, more profitable business faster than they could if they did it themselves. So I'm constantly talking to my clients about their business and about business in general. We often talk about the concept of business and again, specifically online business. And in this episode, I want to go through a series of topics that I tend to talk about with my clients often, where it's like they're thinking about business with a mindset that actually keeps them in scarcity or it keeps them confused, it keeps them feeling stuck. And then when I share my perspective about business, then suddenly, boom, they're unstuck. Boom, suddenly they have clarity, boom, suddenly they have more motivation, boom, suddenly they feel more free to actually do the next step of their business building. So um, without further ado, I think I just wanna jump right in and start talking about these aspects of business that you really need to understand if you want to have an easier time building a business. And speaking of easy, I just I want to make sure no one ever has me on record saying that building a business is easy because you will never hear me say that. But what I will say is building a business doesn't have to be that complicated. You don't have to be that smart to build a business. You don't need to have an amazing idea, you don't need to have a ton of upfront capital. You don't need to have really anything specific in order to build a business. So it's not that complicated, but it's not easy. I'm never gonna say it's easy to build a business. It's hard to build a business because people often have mindsets about building a business that are not conducive to ease. Okay. So when you get these mindset shifts about business, hopefully then it will be easier for you to build your uncomplicated business. Okay. All right, let's get into the first belief or the first mindset shift that you need to make if you want to have a successful business. This one, if you understand this, you're gonna be just fine in business. This is like the fundamental be all and all thing about business that you have to understand that somehow a lot of people don't understand. But when they understand this, then suddenly everything clicks. Okay. So it's that business is not about passion, it's about solving problems. Business is about solving problems. Business is about solving problems. What a lot of new people, new entrepreneurs do is they say, Oh, okay, I have a skill and I have an interest. And therefore, if I marry the skill and interest, then I've found my Ikaguai and people will pay me for it, and then it'll be amazing. But that's not really how it works. That is you trying to get money for doing something that you want to do. But that's not necessarily something that people will be willing to pay for. People aren't willing to pay for you to do something that you want to do. We would live in a super different society if that were true. What people are willing to pay for is what they value. And what they value is to have their problems solved. So if you can solve a problem and it's a problem that causes someone some kind of pain, discomfort, inconvenience, frustration, then chances are they will be willing to spend money to have that problem solved if you have the solution. So in the travel writer example, okay, like being a travel writer is technically a job, but it's not necessarily a business because we don't know what problem being a travel writer is solving. Now, if you want to do travel writing and you want to create a business out of it, now we need to think about a problem that travel writing can solve. So that's how you're gonna make a business. Um, I'll give you an example. Okay, so how can writing about travel solve someone's problem? Well, there's so many people out there, but out there in the world, but we want to think about who are the people that travel, who are people that travel that have money, who are people that travel that have money that also have problems that they're willing to spend money to solve the problem. So, what comes to my mind are consultants, right? Consultants are often flying around um multiple times per month. They're going to major cities because they're visiting their clients and they're living out of suitcases. And you know what? I bet a lot of consultants might have, let's say, like six hours or 12 hours free in cool cities sometimes. Or maybe they'd be able to like book an extra extra late flight one day, and now they have a few hours free in Paris or in London or whatever. So now we've thought about people who have money to spend on solving their problem. Their problem is that they have these few hours free in a cool city and they don't know what to do with them. The problem might also be that they don't have the bandwidth to research what they should do because most of the content that's out there online is catered specifically towards people that have more time than them, or maybe people that have less of a budget than them, or people that are wearing sneakers, and maybe a consultant is wearing uncomfortable shoes, where we need to consider the fact that they might not want to be walking around a ton. So a consultant is someone who has a really specific situation and they want to solve their problem, which is that they've got this many hours in a cool city again, and they don't know what to do with them. So you as a travel writer could say your I help statement, which communicates your value. You might say, I help busy consultants who have several extra hours in a major city in between client meetings, enjoy the fact that they are in these new cities. I create for them travel itineraries that are optimized for their unique situation. So this is a super random example that I just came up with off the complete top of my head. But the point is that again, when you are creating a business, what doesn't work is saying that you have a passion and you want to get paid for something about that passion. You need to think about who your ideal customer or client is. What problem do they have? And how can you solve that problem with what you have in your toolkit? If you have writing in your toolkit, okay, great. How can you solve a problem with your writing? Now, um, for anybody out there that's listening and is like, oh my gosh, I could be a travel writer for consultants, um, you're gonna need to do some market research on that idea that I just threw out there. I don't know if that's a thing. I don't actually know if consultants would be willing to pay for that. And that is a huge thing, actually, another mindset shift that I think is so important to talk about. And it is that business is not a hypothesis. Business is something that needs to be researched and validated every single step of the way. And when I say every single step of the way, I mean the way that you build a business. I have this, uh, it's something called an inside-out model. I talk about this literally almost on every single coaching call. Um, but it's basically like the order of operations of which you build a business. You're gonna start off the first core thing, the center piece of your whole business is your skill set or like the actual thing that you wanna give out to the world. Then you're gonna think about who needs it. Then you're gonna think about how you're going to offer this thing to that person. Then you're gonna think about how much you're gonna charge for this thing. Then you're gonna think about how you're gonna brand it. Then you're gonna think about how you're gonna market it. Then you're gonna think about the content, then you're gonna think about the way that you're gonna receive the customers. Like it's a step-by-step process. And every single one of those steps, you wanna be constantly researching and asking your clientele what they think about your business decisions. So you have this skill set, and in the silly example that I just gave about travel writing for consultants, I have a hypothesis that consultants would be willing to pay for custom itineraries. That is my hypothesis, okay? And maybe my hypothesis will be proven to be correct, but I don't actually know. And therefore, no one should go build a business based off of my hypothesis because it could very well be a huge waste of your time. If you, someone out there are listening and you're like, oh, but I would actually love to do that, then what you need to do is research if this idea actually has legs. How are you gonna do market research? You're gonna go find the ideal customer, which in this case are consultants who travel a lot, and you're gonna ask them, hey, would you find value in these custom itineraries? If so, would you value them enough to be able to pay for them? If so, how much would you be willing to pay? Okay, what if it solved this problem? No, yes, no. And you're gonna actually just ask them. You're not going to build without validating your hypothesis. As someone who personally failed at building a business several times before I actually created the one that I now have that has grown and evolved a lot over the years. But um, yeah, I really tried so hard to be an entrepreneur back in the day. And um, if you know me, you know that giving people business ideas is a huge part of what I do. People come to me when they know they want to create a business, but they don't know which one to create. And then I sit down with them and I analyze their personality, and then I'm like, how about this business idea? And they're like, oh my God, that's genius. So um, for me, a lack of business ideas was never, ever, ever my problem. Actually, the problem was I had this abundance of ideas, but I never validated them. So I can't even tell you how many times I started building a business and then I, you know, god, I was like God three months in or something. And then I realized, oh, hold on, this thing doesn't actually have legs. Where if I had just done the research at the beginning, I would have saved myself so much time and so much energy and so much frustration. So remember, you are never, ever, ever gonna build a business from a hypothesis. You're gonna build a business based on doing market research on every single step of the way. Okay, so the market research one leads me into the next one, which is that if you wanna be confident in your business, you just have to try first. And sometimes you're gonna have to be messy and cumbersome, and you're gonna have to not do a killer job at the beginning, but you're gonna have to put yourself out there anyway. And every single time that you put yourself out there, you're going to get a little bit more confident because what's probably gonna happen is that you're gonna put yourself out there or you're gonna try something and it's not gonna go as bad as you thought. And therefore, you're gonna be like, oh, that wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe I feel a little bit safer to try again. And you will feel safer to try again because now the mystery of it is not so big. And the more tries and attempts that you make, the more confident you will be. But what a lot of people want to do, and this is like a poor mindset that they have with business, is they want to just be confident at the beginning before they put themselves out there. They want to wait until they feel confident in order to start posting on social media. They want to wait until they feel confident before charging the price that they want to charge. They want to wait until they're confident to do any aspect of the business. But the irony is that it's by doing that is how you're going to get confident. And the reason why that's relevant to the market research is because when you do something, you're gonna put it out there and see how people respond. And if they respond great, amazing. Now you can be more confident that the thing that you're doing is working. And if they don't respond great, okay, well, now you have information and you can iterate and change and put something out there that you're gonna be more confident that people are going to like and enjoy or resonate with or value. So um, yeah, this is just really my reminder for you that like at the beginning of your business, you're just probably not gonna be that confident, and that's okay. It's part of the process. Like, confidence is not something that you're just gonna snap and have. Um, a lot, some people are delusional and they just like can be confident without having any evidence. But most of us need to have evidence in order to get confident. And the way that you're gonna get that evidence is by putting yourself out there. All right, the next thing that I want to talk about, this one is, I guess, unrelated to the ones that I have previously been discussing. But uh, this is one of my favorite concepts and important mindsets that I share with my clients all the time. And that is that when you have your own business, you are embodying both the CEO and the employee of a business. Because probably when you start your business, you're not gonna have employees, you're not gonna have anybody to help you, you're probably gonna be a solopreneur at the beginning. And um, that's okay. But if you're a solopreneur, that means you as a solo person are managing every aspect of a business, which is again the CEO, which is like the strategist, the visionary, and the employee, the one that actually does the grunt work, the one that sits behind the desk and just gets shit done. Now, the reason why I like to talk about these two aspects of business and how you need to embody both personalities of the CEO and the employee is because I think that when you have a new business, people tend to forget. Like they are so used to being an employee, they're used to waiting for direction. And when you have your own business, now you're the one giving yourself direction. And um, I think a lot of people that are new business owners don't have experience in that position of giving direction and calling the shots, and they feel uncomfortable about that. And um, it's almost like they end up twiddling their thumbs, waiting for someone else to give them direction. Um, that is actually maybe a pattern that I see a lot of my clients falling into when they come to work with me. And a lot of what I do, by the way, in my work as a business coach, I mean, I will give direction, I will give advice, but really my job as a coach is to coach you into becoming the person that gives yourself advice. Okay. So, um, how do I say this? Like when my clients hire me to help them, I'm essentially kind of like the stand-in CEO at the beginning of their business. I'm like maybe a fractional CEO. Not really. I'm a fractional strategist, I'm a fractional consultant. They say, hey, I want help accomplishing this goal. And then I get to talk to them and ask them about what their goals are and basically consult with them on what they need to do next. And when you have someone in your corner that's been where you want to go, which is me for them, then you get to move a lot faster. So I help my clients get to a point where they essentially create the foundations of their business because, you know, they're new and uh I have a lot of those answers. But then it gets to a point where once they launch the business, now they might still be coming to me saying, like, okay, I'm not sure what I need to do next. And I'm like, all right, well, I could give you some ideas, but actually I want to hear from you what you think would be your next best step. And then they end up saying, Oh, I think that it actually should be this, or I think that it should be that. And I'm like, okay, so your inner CEO is online, your inner CEO is in there, and now I want to know why you're not listening to the inner CEO. And um, usually because they're like, oh, I don't know if it's the right thing, or I don't know if it's professional enough or whatever. And I'm like, yo, you're the CEO. You get to decide if it's the right thing, and you get to test it out. You get to do the market research, you get to try and build the confidence from either succeeding or failing. And uh yeah, anyway, I think that is just a really useful concept, like a useful mindset to have when you're building your business that you are both. You can again hire a coach to be the stand in CEO for you in the early days of your business. Um, and Any point that you want to actually like grow and scale your business from wherever you are now to the next level. But ultimately, um, you are the CEO of your business, you're gonna call the shots. You're also, by the way, the HR of your business, just to bring this back to kind of the digital nomad lifestyle aspect. Um, another thing that I see and hear people doing all the time when they're new to online business, like one of my clients the other day, she just quit her, um, she just quit her job, which is so exciting. And now she's like, oh my God, I'm a full-time entrepreneur and there's all these decisions that I have to make. Like now I don't have anyone telling me when I need to wake up. I don't have to be anywhere at 9 a.m. So when will I start work? And I'm like, yeah, girl, it's up to you. Like if you want to be like me and not start work until 11 a.m. ever, then then go for it. Um, or if you tend to be an earlier person and you want to just like bang out a bunch of work between 6 a.m. and 11 a.m., then also go for it. Like you get to decide. There's no other CEO that's deciding for you. You're the one deciding. So um that's a pretty cool thing. Like, you're not just, by the way, the CEO of your business. You get to be the CEO of your life. And um, that can be a lot of responsibility, I think, for people, but ultimately it is really exciting and it is what you signed up for. Like, I know you're only listening to this podcast because you have high standards for your life, you have big hopes and dreams, and you do want to be the CEO of your life, but um, you're just you just might not be used to it. So if you think about it, like you have an inner CEO and you have an inner employee, and they get to communicate with each other about what needs to get done rather than you just staying like fully in one uh archetype, then you'll probably get a lot more done in your business because you'll just be giving yourself permission to act in both roles. I hope that concept makes sense. If you know me, you know that I use a lot of metaphors when I am explaining things. It's just kind of the way that I think and the way that I see the world. And now I want to move into uh the next mindset thing, mixed mindset concept that I think is so important to remember when you're starting your business. This one I use literally all the time in my coaching. And it is that your business is an entity, it is a living, breathing organism. You might not be able to tactically see it or touch it or feel it, but it exists as something that is outside of you and it is born the day that you actually decide what the business is. The day that you get clarity on what the business is is the day that it was born. The day that your business was conceived was the day that you decide that you want to create a business. And when you're thinking about it, when you're like seeking clarity, your business has been conceived and it's incubating. And then it is born when you're like, okay, this is what this is the business that I'm going to create. So um if your business is being born, it's not going to just uh enter the world as a mature adult. It needs to be able to exist as a baby first, then it's gonna grow into a toddler, then it's gonna start walking and running on its own. You're gonna start building some systems into it, then it's gonna be a child, like a kid, then it's gonna be a teenager, and then it'll become an adult. So um I would say that I have a mature adult business at this point. It's existed for over six years. I've got a ton of systems in place, um, I have a really well-established brand. I've done an incredible amount of market research. Therefore, my business has um like it ha it just has so much to it. It's a whole thing. It was born, I think, the day that I actually hired my first business coach back in 2019. And over the years, as I have been nurturing it and giving it lots of attention and care and just putting a lot of work into it, it has grown and evolved through many different stages, um, where it went from being a baby business to a toddler business to a teenager to an adult. Now, I kind of want to walk you through what what the stages and life's life cycles of my business were so that this um metaphor can come into play. And then I'll tell you why I think that this is so important. So when my business was a baby, basically I just I knew that I was a coach who helped people become digital nomads. If I'm honest, I didn't even really know how I was gonna be doing that at the time. I just thought, you know what, I have a wealth of knowledge and information and experience from my time being a digital nomad that I know there are all these people out there that don't know what I know. So I'm just going to have a really simple offer, which is that I sit down with the person every week for an hour for 12 weeks. And my goal is just to talk to them and help them get closer to their goal of being a digital nomad. And that was as simple as it was. I didn't have any worksheets like I do now, I didn't have any videos like video training like I have now. I definitely didn't have a podcast, um, I didn't have marketing content. I didn't have a freebie, I didn't have an email list, I didn't have a website, um, I didn't have anything at all. But I was still able to get my first client because I talked to someone who was interested in the value and the problem that I was solving, right? The problem was that she wanted to be a digital nomad and she didn't know how to do it. And so I was like, yo, I know a lot about this topic. And she was like, Okay, great. Well, if you think that you can help me make this change in my life, then I want to work with you. And I was like, amazing, okay, let's do it. Here's how it works. We're gonna talk every week for 12 weeks. And she was like, Okay. And that was my business. It was very simple as that. I literally collected her payment via Venmo. Um, and I didn't have a contract, I didn't have anything other than the knowledge that was in my brain and my time and my energy and my attention to give her. And that for a baby business is totally enough. That is enough. I uh remember the first fundamental thing that we talked about in this podcast was that I was offering value. I was solving a problem that my ideal client was willing to pay for. So the reason I'm telling you this story about my baby business is because I really want you to understand that businesses do not start off as these big, complicated, polished machines. They actually just start off as a very simple exchange of value. You have the knowledge, you have a skill, you have experience in some area, someone else has a problem, and they're willing to pay you to help them solve that problem. And that is literally a business. A business is not a website, it's not a logo, it's not an LLC, it's not a brand color palette, it's not a content strategy. A business is when someone just pays you to solve a problem. And it really is as simple as that. Personally, I think a lot of people delay starting a business because they think they need to have all these things in place before the business actually becomes real. I mean, I just can't tell you how many clients that I have worked with where we go through the whole clarity part of them working with me, where we land on the business idea actually, and they're like, oh, cool, yeah, I do have this knowledge inside of me. I do know how to help someone with this specific problem. And then when it comes time to actually now building the business, which is like, let's say, when the the bait the business goes from being conceived into actually becoming a baby, then people think that they need to have the website, they need to have the logo, they need to have the brand color palette, they need to have worksheets and a community and all this fancy software. And um, what I'm constantly reminding them is like, yo, you don't need any of that stuff. If you can solve a problem right now with your energy and with your mind, you have enough to have a baby business and just let your business be a baby. You don't need to project all these long-term things, like long-term ideals onto your baby business, just like you wouldn't do that to an actual baby, right? Like, okay, the the baby is born, and then you're not gonna be expecting the baby to go for a marathon run. Like, you're gonna teach it how to crawl first. It just needs to learn how to move its bodies, it needs to know where its knees are, etc. So think about your business like that, right? If you are in the process of just starting a business or you have not yet started a business, I really want to give you permission to just make it so stupid simple, right? Just like I shared with you the story of how I started my business. I just had the knowledge in my head, I had my time. Um, Zoom existed already, and I just got on a Zoom call and talked to someone. And they were willing to pay me for that because I had value to offer. So if you don't have a business idea yet, think about what's a problem that you can solve based off of something that you already know. Maybe you know how to use a specific software that you could really support someone else. Maybe you have an intuitive um understanding of social media because you grew up with a phone in your hand. Or maybe you actually have a lot of deep wisdom in a specific area of your of your professional life because you've been working in corporate for many years. Maybe you know how to climb the corporate ladder. Like there's a lot of things that I just really believe that every single person has so much to give and so much value to offer, but it's gonna be different for everybody. So the key here is really just getting clear again on what your value and your skills are, and finding the specific kind of person that you can offer that value to in the simplest way possible. And that's how you're gonna end up being a business owner in no time. When I say no time, I have a whole other episode. It's one of my favorites actually, and it's about how long does it actually take to build a business. It happens to be episode 99. I do recommend going and listening to that if you are, again, kind of curious about how fast your life could change. Because it really could change super fast if you follow the business model that I teach, which is the high-ticket small service provider business, which is literally what I've just been describing, where you have a skill and you offer it to someone in the simplest way possible, but you package it up in a way that it feels super valuable to the end customer, and then they're willing to pay you a quote high ticket price, which is anything above a thousand dollars. And you can command that kind of pricing by extending the length of it or other things that you're willing to do. Um, but anyway, I again I recommend listening to episode 99 if um what I'm saying right now is resonating with you or supporting you, or again, giving you permission to launch the thing without having a hundred thousand followers on TikTok. Launch the thing without having a community built out. Launch the thing without having a defined brand. Just launch the thing as you are. And there really is something to be said about doing that, again, about launching the business as you are, so that you can learn what kind of toddler business your business is gonna grow into. Because this is the thing. Like, your business is an entity. I know that um a lot of the people that I that I speak to and also my clients are creating personal brands, or again, when it's a service provider business and you are the service provider. There can be a little bit of like, let's call it codependency when or enmeshment or in like feeling entwined with your business, like your business is you. But the thing is, your business is not you. Um, it's something that you birthed, but it is not you. You are separate entities, and your business is gonna grow from being a baby into being a toddler into being a child and then a teen and then an adult and then a mature business. So, what does it look like when your business goes from being a baby to being a toddler? Well, if you have launched your baby business and you've served a couple of clients, let's say three, three to five, okay. When you have three to five clients, that is when you can start noticing patterns in what your clients need. So um if three is like the minimum amount, I think, in order to make a pattern. But if you start seeing, like if two people have the same question, it could be a coincidence. But if three people have the same question, if three people need the same thing, if three people are confused about the same thing, now that tells you that you're like, ooh, okay, this is a theme, this is a pattern, and now I can start creating material to um answer that question or clear that confusion faster than if I was actually gonna sit down uh next to someone at their laptop or across from someone on Zoom and teach them or guide them through the whole thing. It's when you start noticing patterns that is when you will start creating stuff. And I think it is the stuff that um at least at least a lot of my clients, I feel like they're learning business from me, right? And at this point, my business is very mature. I have a lot of stuff in my business. Um, I have a community of like a hundred people in it. I have resident coaches that teach in the program every week. I have uh I have multiple people supporting me. I have someone editing this podcast, I have someone else helping me run the back end, I have a community manager, I also have so much marketing material, I have so many marketing platforms, like, and I have so many worksheets and I have so many videos, like I have so much stuff which has allowed me to scale my business from being a baby, which remember, I was sitting down with my clients one-on-one, spending two hours every week with each person. Now I don't need to do that because I notice enough patterns after working with, I don't know, hundreds, maybe four, somewhere between four and five hundred people. Um, that I've obviously noticed a lot of patterns and I've been able to be like, okay, if a hundred people all of this question, I'm gonna make a worksheet about it. I'm gonna make a video training about it, and I'm gonna bake into all my content all the little mindset shifts that I know everybody has a problem with. Um, side note, that is something that I feel really proud about in the Digital Nomad Life Academy is when you go through the business building content, I'm not just teaching you how to build a business, which I think is what most coaches and most um like online teachers and courses do. They're like, okay, you need to do this, this, this, this, and this. I do tell you that, I do teach you what you need to do, but I'm also like, and once you get to this point, probably what's gonna happen in your subconscious is you work you are going to encounter imposter syndrome. Now, here's what to do if you have imposter syndrome. Here's some shadow work and some mindset and some spiritual exercises that you can do so that you actually believe that you are worthy of this, and then come back, once you feel good about it, come back and continue building the business uh in this step-by-step format. So that is something that you can expect. And I just want to point out that the only reason why I know how to embed all of the mindset and spiritual exercises into my um business training is because I have worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people. So I have so much data and so much pattern recognition of what people that are in your situation need. So, um, but remember, it was not always a mature business. I I sometimes I see my clients, and because they are learning from me at the stage that my business is at, they're like, Oh, I need to have all these worksheets. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Let your baby business be a baby. Then once you've worked with a few clients, then you can grow it into a toddler and you can start creating stuff. But please, you don't even know what patterns your people are gonna need yet. When your business is still a baby, you're just assuming what they're gonna turn into. Um, so anyway, that is my metaphor of the baby business turning into a toddler. You know, eventually you are gonna see enough patterns with your clients that you're gonna be able to speak to them so much more intelligently and um connectively in your content that your content's gonna start popping off. And then you're probably gonna go viral a couple of times with your specific people because you have a lot of experience working with them. And that's when your business becomes more of like a child. And then then you can start launching group programs, maybe when you have a teenage business and um because you now have an audience, right? So it really all just builds upon itself. And I just my my message for you here today, right? Because I'm I'm here with a purpose on this podcast. I'm not just making it because it's fun. Sometimes it's fun for me to make these episodes, sometimes it's a lot of work. Um, but ultimately the reason why I'm here is because I want to liberate people and I want people to understand that it doesn't have to be that complicated to build a business. Like it's actually super simple. You do need to go through the mindset challenges, and that's why it's hard, but it is simple. Um, and I just want you to know that you can do it. Like, I don't know who you are listening to this, but I have full faith that if you had enough motivation to discover this podcast and you're still here listening to some random chick on the internet talk about business, you have what it takes, okay? Trust me, you do. Um, so I just actually I feel like this is a perfect time to invite you to connect with me at some point if you are curious or interested in starting your own online business. I would just be so honored to support you in that mission. I think you and I could make magic together. I would love to get to know you and your story. And yeah, again, just help you go from wherever you are now, wherever you're listening to this podcast, to one day ultimately being a podcast guest for me and me interviewing you and asking you all about the journey that you have gone on and the highs and lows and the challenges and and the successes and and the scary moments and the thrilling moments, and all of this is so possible for you, but you do need to take that next step, which is actually, you know, doing something about moving from where you are now to the next phase. So the thing that you can do is you can slide into my DMs on Instagram at Christabella Travels and send me the keyword apply. When you send the keyword apply, you'll get this auto response message, and um, I'll ask you, I think, five questions. Uh, like my auto thing will ask you five questions. If you answer all those questions, then I will see ultimately whenever I'm online, and then I'll be able to respond to you, and then we can actually talk about if the program is right for you. And if it's not, no worries. I can suggest something else to you. Sometimes people have like really specific businesses that I'm like, you know what, maybe actually it'd be better if you went and worked with this coach or did this program or learned this thing first before you came into the DNLA. So um just know that, like, again, I I don't I don't know how to emphasize this enough. Like, I'm a very mission-driven person, and if I think that I can help you, hell yeah, I'm gonna tell you how. And if I don't think that I can, I'm gonna guide you in a different direction that will ultimately still help you. So that is that. Slide into my DMs again at Christabella Travels on Instagram with that keyword apply, and let's get you set up. So um, there are some conclusions that I have about this overall podcast, right? And um, because I really Want you to integrate the things that we have talked about today. So, first of all, remember, always remember this. Business is about solving problems. It is not about following your passion. I know I often talk about your Ikagai. I know I often talk about having a passion-led business. I know I often talk about doing work that you actually enjoy that feels really meaningful. But what you have to understand is you can have all of those things while also solving a very real problem. And I tend to believe that when you are actually solving a problem and you are seeing your result in your clientele come to fruition, you're gonna start feeling pretty passionate about this problem that you're solving. Cause you're gonna see how you solving this problem can make a real impact on someone. Let me just give you an example, like a very real example, which might be um branding. Okay, so like, or even website building, something like that, right? Like some kind of more um practical business. So you might think, oh, like, why would I ever feel passionate about building websites? Well, yeah, you might not feel passionate about building websites or branding someone's business, but what if ultimately you saw how creating a new website for someone actually made a huge impact on their business and allowed them to make more money and their business saves the coral reef or the brand, like you create a better brand for someone else's business, and you see how that brand allows them to attract more aligned clientele who are willing to pay them higher prices. And now this person has just actually doubled their income because of your support. And because they've doubled their income, now there's a ripple effect where they are, I don't know, I'm on the charity train, like donating to some charity, or maybe they actually just get to spend more time with their kids, and now their kids are gonna grow into more secure, loving people because ultimately their mom started killing it, and their mom started killing it because you supported them with their brand. You might start to become really passionate about how brands change businesses, and then if you are working with the kind of businesses that you feel fulfilled by, that's where the passion is gonna start coming in. So if you're someone who you want to create a business, you want it to be passion-led, but you you're a little bit out of touch with what your passions are, um, or you just don't know what skills you have to offer or what you can do, just know that you can always start with what I call a business bridge. And that will really help you learn what your Ikagai or what your passion-led business ultimately will be. Now, the business bridge is um, I've brought it up in a few other episodes, but I think it's important to talk about here today, too, because I do think this is a pretty fundamental, but like a fundamental mindset that you need to have, especially when you're a new business owner or a first-time business owner, first-time entrepreneur. So yeah, again, like, you know, my my message to the world is you can have a business that you love. You can have a business that you feel passionate about. And then I do these career assessments with people, which I described earlier, where I support someone in coming up with the business concept that is aligned with them. And um, you know, sometimes we're we I get on that call with them and I'm like, look, I'm gonna give it to you straight up because that is my style. I just say shit that I see. And sometimes I have to say things like, you know, there's not a ton to work with here as it currently stands, but I do see that you have this quality and this quality and this quality, which if they were applied to this specific industry, then you could probably learn this skill really quickly given your personality set, and you'd be able to launch a business doing this thing. Now, um, because my whole MO is helping people start businesses quickly, that thing that I might suggest could be something pretty basic. Like, I might be like, you could given your personality, I think it would lend itself really well to being a social media manager or a virtual assistant or something. And then people might be like, oh, but like that's not like how could I be passionate about being a virtual assistant? And I'm like, yo, you don't have to be passionate about being a virtual assistant. I I don't think that you would be passionate about being a virtual assistant either. Some people are, and that's amazing for them. But um, if it's your very first business, sometimes you need to use that business as a bridge in order to discover what your passionate business is going to be. And then your second business is gonna be the one where you you're just like souls on fire because you're doing something that's so aligned. But oftentimes, when you're an entrepreneur, not oftentimes, all the time, as an entrepreneur, you go through such an intense personal development journey. Um, you learn so much about yourself. You learn about the way that you work best, you learn about what your values are, you learn about how you prioritize things, you learn about your sense of responsibility, you learn about problem solving, you learn all these different skills. Like it just you really learn so much when you become an entrepreneur. And um, I think that a lot of people need to go through their first entrepreneur endeavor in order to discover what they really love. So um I have a client or a previous client, for example, um, Lucy, I interviewed her on another podcast. Lucy um started off as a brand, like as a basically like as like a graphic designer, like branding specialist. Um, and that was her first business. And she liked it, um, and it was like an easy transition for her. She previously was working on window displays, so she had this like very visual eye, and um, it made sense for her to start a branding business. She's actually now on her third business, which is she was doing branding stuff, and then through that, she was like, Oh, do you know what I really like supporting my clients in a broader way? So then she became a virtual assistant. And then she was like, Oh, a lot of other people are asking me how I became a virtual assistant, and now she's coaching people on being a virtual assistant and she's crushing it as a coach. And um, yeah, it's just really cool to see her in her dharma basically as a coach, as a teacher, as someone who supports others in changing their lives. Whereas when she started off with her business bridges, she even had two business bridges, right? Like first she was a brand that brand designer, then she was um the virtual assistant. She wasn't in her dharma in either of those experiences, but she was learning how to step into her dharma. She was walking across the bridge to her dharma. I don't think that corporate lets most people understand their dharma. Corporate keeps most people in silos. Corporate keeps most people doing the same damn thing over and over and over again, day after day, year after year. And you don't get to broaden your skill set enough in corporate in order to understand what your passions or your dharma is. So sometimes you just have to start off again with a bridge so that you can discover what that ultimately is. So this is also why I like for me, the DNL, the Digital Nomad Life Academy is yes, I teach you how to build a business, but I also teach you how to be an entrepreneur, how to step into entrepreneurship, how to make entrepreneurship a part of your soul's evolution. Um, so you don't need to have a business idea to get started working with me. I support you through literally step one, which is discovering either what your dharma is or what your business bridge is going to be. And then I help you build that business and guide you through the spiritual evolution the entire way. And when I say that, I promise you, you are in for a ride with entrepreneurship, but it's the best, most rewarding one ever. I just obviously love it. And I want to point out that I, when I started my business bridge, I had no idea that I was ultimately going to be teaching about entrepreneurship. I needed to become an entrepreneur first, right? So maybe whoever you are listening to this, one day being a business coach is your future. But how can you know unless you start a business first? You kind of need to like have a successful business first in order to then become a business coach. It's just it's just the order of operations and it's just how it works. Um, so every person that's a business coach had no idea that they were gonna be a business coach when they first became an entrepreneur. Okay, so just let that let that sink in. So um, as I already summarized, business is about solving problems, not just following your passions. Another thing that I want to recap before is you need to validate your ideas with market research. You're not just gonna guess, you're not just going to assume, you're gonna, you're gonna ask people what they need, then you're gonna deliver it little by little by little with your baby business, get your pattern recognition, and then ultimately grow from there. You cannot, you cannot be confident in what it is that you're building unless you actually put yourself out there first. You are not just gonna be confident and then show up on social media. You're not just going to be confident and then uh put out a high-ticket offer. You need to put it out first, let yourself be vulnerable, let yourself fail, let yourself face the risk, and also let yourself succeed by trying and trying again. And then once you succeed, that is when you will become confident. And we need you to be confident because when you have a business, remember, you're not just the employee of your business, you are also the CEO. You are the CEO of your business and you are the CEO of your life. And it feels so good to be the full CEO of your life. When you get to wake up when you want, by the way, today, you know what time I woke up? 9:30. To me, that is so late. But um, I was just like in a work zone last night at midnight, and then my brain like needed an hour to kind of like simmer down, and then I went to bed kind of late, and so then I slept in. Whereas if I worked in corporate and I had some exciting project that I was working on until midnight, I would still need to wake up by seven and get my ass to work to be there by nine, you know? Um, because there's probably an hour-long commute in there. And that is not being the CEO of your life. That is being that is following someone else's schedule, someone else's rhythm, someone else dictating your hours. And uh that just that shit ain't cool to me. Um, yeah, so it's not just having control over your time when you're the CEO of your life, having control over your whereabouts as well. I'm recording this podcast in my bedroom and I'm uh wrapping it up because I'm gonna go meet my friends for a co-working session at the beach. And I see my little dog's ears just perk up as I say her favorite B-word. Um, because we go there every single day to watch the sunset dip behind my laptop. I mean, usually I do go for like a nice little 45-minute walk around sunset time just to take a break from the laptop. But yeah, I tend to work afternoon into the evening because that's when I am most awake. It's when I want to be working. I don't mind working when it's dark because I'd rather be outside in the sunshine when there's sunshine. I used to get seasonal depression when I was an employee, when I was not the CEO of my life. And now I'm just tan, 24-7. And I love that for me. And I wish that for you. I wish for you to have the life that you want, for you to have the energy that feels good for you, for you to be operating in a way that just feels so authentic to who you are. And again, to do work that feels meaningful to you, that even if you're building your business bridge where it's not your dharma, it's not your soul mission, but at least you know that it's a stepping stone for you to continue learning and going through your soul's evolution. I wish that for you. And when you do that, also, by the way, like sometimes even when the work isn't amazing, but you still are running your own business and you get to be the CEO of your life and go move to Bali or Portugal or Buenos Aires or wherever the hell you want to go, like that feels so good. And I wish that for you. And it doesn't have to be about travel, it can be about whatever you want. Like, I, as I mentioned earlier on in this podcast episode, like I used to make episodes all about travel. I have come a long way, I have evolved a lot, and um, that's just not really where my passion lies anymore, or it's just not what I want to be shouting from the rooftops about. Um, I don't care if you travel. I frankly doesn't matter to me. I care about you being happy. I care about you living an authentic, passion-led life, and your career is such a big part of your life. So take it seriously. Get ready for this soul's evolution, which is coming for you if you do step into entrepreneurship. And again, I just want to point out that if you've listened to this whole episode and you have not yet taken concrete action on how to become an entrepreneur, like Googling doesn't count. Okay. Asking ChatGPT doesn't count. What counts is taking real action. And if you're not sure what that really looks like, again, just slide into my DMs at Christabella Travels on Instagram. Send me the keyword apply. You don't just applying doesn't mean that you're gonna sign up. It doesn't mean that you're committing. It just means that you're asking someone who here humbly is saying to you, I want to support you. Like, I want to help you. I have a mission. Like, let me help you for free. I will answer your questions for free. Just message me and let's talk about what is holding you back. Because I can almost guarantee you that whatever it is, I probably made a podcast episode all about it. I'm like, I don't even know how many episodes deep right now, but or your question will inspire my next episode, and then it will help me too, and it will be a beautiful exchange. So I hope I see you in the DMs. Again, send the keyword apply at Christabella Travels, and I wish for you the most wonderful day. Thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.