“Changing our beliefs can have a powerful impact. The growth mindset creates a powerful passion for learning. “Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?”

This is a statement from Carol Dweck, author of the bestselling book Mindset.

A leading expert in the field of motivation, her research has demonstrated the role of mindsets in students’ achievement and has shown how praise for intelligence can undermine motivation and learning.

So let me ask you a question right now: Do you have a fixed or a growth mindset?

Your answer to this will define how you go about learning and reaching your human potential.

If you’ve often struggled to improve and the act of learning is not something you enjoy, then listen in to this short summary of the first key idea in Carol’s book by OnePercentBetter:

“Mindset was written by Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck. Her decades of research on achievement and success led her to discover what great parents, teachers, CEOs and athletes already know. That our mindset is the basis of accomplishment.

Lesson 1: The Two Mindsets

People with the fixed mindset believe intelligence can't be changed. This leads to a desire to look smart so they avoid challenges. They don't want to look bad if they fail which holds them back. In the face of obstacles they get defensive or give up easily. They say effort is pointless and believe that people are only great at things because they were born with special talents. When confronted with constructive criticism they ignore it. Lastly, they feel threatened by the success of others. People with a fixed mindset achieve less than they are capable of.

On the other hand, people with the growth mindset believe intelligence can be developed. This leads to a desire to learn so instead of avoiding challenges, they embrace them. They persist in the face of obstacles and see effort as a path to mastery. They accept constructive criticism and use it to their advantage. Lastly, they feel inspired by and learn from the success of others. As a result, they fulfill their ultimate potential.”

Fascinating right? Yet how often do we just assume we’re not smart enough or good enough based on the stories we’ve told ourselves all our life, vs looking at whether we have a fixed mindset that’s caused this?

As Carol says in her book:

"Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives."

I wanted to share this as we come to the end of Season 3 which has been all about learning, because I think it’s critical to the role of learning in our lives, and more importantly, our enjoyment of it.

Right now I have around seven courses - yes seven, that I have invested in or enrolled in for free through some of the online learning platforms I discussed in the previous episode How to Learn More In Less Time.

Like most of us, I will often buy a course and then sit on it for months. Unlike many people I talk to though, I will dive into these when I most need them.

I made a conscious effort on my business sabbatical to really make progress thought, setting myself deadlines to do them in, or simply tuning into them at the right time - i.e when I needed them most.

So right now I’ve finally dived into Instagram with Intention that I bought from Hilary Rushford three months ago - because I love Instagram but don’t use it effectively for business and want to give it a damn good crack.

I’ll be diving back into Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula, as I go into producing some new courses, or what I prefer to call LIVE experiences to help my community tackle areas in their business and actually DO the work like my upcoming Freedom Lab on making your first hire and building your dream team.

I want to refresh my memory on some of his great tactics for interest building in the lead up to a launch. Even though I’ve done several over the years, you ALWAYS learn something new on every launch.

Both of these courses are for my business growth and learning - that’s how I categorize them.

I’ve been enjoying videos on The Wealthy Mindset by Tim and Kris Hallbom who concept of the Universal Cycles of Change I discussed in "When Too Much Change is Dangerous".

Going through these videos (often in the evening or weekends) is for my personal growth learning, and they’re helping me look at my habits and mindset with a new pair of eyes.  

Along with this I’m finishing the Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani and there’s a course that comes with it I will dive into next - part business and very much mindset and rewiring your brain - so again personal growth.

I have Dr Libby’s latest book, all about eating the right food for you and knowing how to optimize your body and mind through what you consume.

That for me is learning to improve my health.

I wanted to give you a taster of how I learn, as I fit this into around content creation, course creation, mentoring calls, working on the property and that very important thing called everyday life!

Now I want to share a few of my personal hacks for learning, in addition to those in my most recent podcast and post on on How to Learn Anything Faster.

Hacks for Learning More

• Schedule learning into your calendar so it becomes an event you make time for and has a deadline (a recurring calendar entry is even better)
• Watch videos you learn from at 1.5-2 X the speed - click the settings icon or cog on most video players to speed it up.
• Listen to podcasts (again at 1.5 X the speed) for daily bite sized learning
• Learn with someone else by taking lessons together - for example my Mum and I are doing art class together, and Josh and I have been doing a Dog Essentials Training with our puppy Kayla; or
• Go through an online course with a friend, do a coworking session together and go through the modules at the same time and share your learnings

There you have it, some hot tips for learning more faster. I hope you’ve enjoyed this season on the Quest for Freedom Podcast.

Want to stay up to date then please SUBSCRIBE on iTunes, Stitcher and Anchor so you don’t miss a show.

I’ll be changing up the intention behind this show and revealing all in the next episode!

This episode is proudly brought to you by Freshbooks.

So you’re racing against the clock to wrap up 3 projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer.

Challenging? Yes, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it.

The working world has changed. With the growth of the internet there’s never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need, FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of an all new version of their cloud accounting software!

It’s been redesigned from the ground up and custom built for exactly the way you work. Get ready for the simplest way to be more productive, organized, and most importantly get paid quickly.

The all new FreshBooks is not only ridiculously easy to use, it’s also packed full of powerful features:

• Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds.
• Set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to 4 days faster.
• See when your client has seen your invoice, and put an end to the guessing games.

Go to freshbooks.com/quest and enter Quest For Freedom in the how did you hear about section when signing up.

This is Season 3 and it’s all about the freedom to learn new things and all the benefits that come along with that. Because learning is such an important part to your life.

Without being curious and without learning you are not going to be expanding, you are not going to growing and life is frankly going to be a little dull.

I am a huge learner but there are definitely times in my life when I go through wanting to learn a lot and other times when I just want to impart and teach the wisdom that I’ve learned.

And I think it’s beautiful to have those ebbs and flows, but most of the time I think you should be setting about to learn something new or at least improve what you already know every single day.

In the previous episode I taught you 11 Benefits of Learning Something New.

And in this episode, as promised,  I’m going to be covering off on how to learn anything more quickly and some hacking techniques to learn more in less time.

As well as the what. What on earth should you actually be learning?

5 Hacks To Learn Anything More Quickly

In Fast Company’s article Six Brain Hacks To Learn Anything Faster, the first hack Stephanie Vozza suggests, is one I personally used to get my through my Certificate in Fitness Management back in 2004.

#1 Teach Someone Else

I remember that I had just on a year to do this pretty full on Certificate in Fitness Management through Otago University.

And as I was learning about nutrition, exercise prescription, sports psychology and even injuries, I just had to tell people about it.

Otherwise, there was no way I was going to remember it.  

I would come home and coach and teach my parents on exactly what we are eating and how that was broken down in the body and which of our muscles we are using to do that. When we were out playing tennis or doing something together with friends, I’ll be like “Hey! Do you know that we are using these muscles and these bones, these insertion points and this is what’s going on”. And the only way that I could remember stuff and good at it was to teach it.

I also used to dance around in my room and talk it out as if I was lecturing in a university hall or teaching as a personal trainer and it really worked.

When you have to teach a concept that you’ve just learned, you really have to understand that concept in order to put it out in your own terms.

If you imagine that you’ll need to teach someone else the material or task you are trying to grasp, you can speed up your learning and remember more, according to a study done at Washington University in St. Louis.

The expectation changes your mindset so that you engage in more effective approaches to learning than those who simply learn to pass a test.

#2 Take Notes by Hand

While it’s faster to take notes on a laptop, using a pen and paper will help you learn and comprehend better. Researchers at Princeton University and UCLA found that when students took notes by hand, they listened more actively and were able to identify important concepts. Taking notes on a laptop, however, leads to mindless transcription, as well as an opportunity for distraction, such as email.

“In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand,” writes coauthor and Princeton University psychology professor Pam Mueller. “We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.”

The course I’m taking right now called Become a Master Writer by my friend Elisa Doucette, is designed with a (now) rarely used way of learning writing and language called COPYWORK.

Copywork is exactly what it sounds like - doing the work by copying the writing of someone else. This is how schools taught for centuries. The daily assignments you get will include an excerpt or essay up to ~2500 words for you to hand-copy, along with an explanation of what you will learn from that day's lesson.

#3 Use the Power of Mental Spacing

While it sounds counterintuitive, you can learn faster when you practice distributed learning, or “spacing.” Learning is like watering a lawn.

You can water a lawn once a week for 90 minutes or three times a week for 30 minutes.

Spacing out the watering during the week will keep the lawn greener over time.

To retain material, author Benedict Carey said it’s best to review the information one to two days after first studying it.

“One theory is that the brain actually pays less attention during short learning intervals, so repeating the information over a longer interval–say a few days or a week later, rather than in rapid succession–sends a stronger signal to the brain that it needs to retain the information.”

In Lifehack’s article 8 Ways to Train Your Brain to Learn Faster and Remember More, author Maria Briliaki suggests to:

#4 Do something different repeatedly

“By actually doing something new over and over again, your brain wires new pathways that help you do this new thing better and faster.

Say you are a procrastinator. The more you don’t procrastinate, the more you teach your brain not to wait for the last minute to make things happen.

Now, you might be thinking “Duh, if only not procrastinating could be that easy!” Well, it can be. By doing something really small, that you wouldn’t normally do, but is in the direction of getting that task done, you will start creating those new precious neural pathways.

So if you have been postponing organizing your desk, just take one paper and put in its right place. Or, you can go even smaller. Look at one piece of paper and decide where to put it: Trash? Right cabinet? Another room? Give it to someone?”

Maria also suggests you

#5 Work your body.

You knew this one was coming didn’t you? Yes indeed, exercise does not just work your body; it also improves the fitness of your brain.

Even briefly exercising for 20 minutes facilitates information processing and memory functions. But it’s not just that–exercise actually helps your brain create those new neural connections faster. You will learn faster, your alertness level will increase, and you get all that by moving your body.

Now, if you are not already a regular exerciser, and already feel guilty that you are not helping your brain by exercising more, try a brain training exercise program like Exercise Bliss.

Just like I shared above in training your brain to do something new repeatedly, you are actually changing yourself permanently.

What Should You Learn

So now you have those five hacks to focus on next time you learn anything new, what should you actually be learning and where?

So this is actually completely personal to you. No surprises there.

I mean if you are a coach or a consultant, it’s always great to upskill in that area whether you are taking a new actual certificate or a level diploma something like that will actually upskill you as a coach.

Or whether you are going to a course that’s around effective leadership. Maybe it’s around financial management. Maybe it’s around negotiations and people skills and bringing out the best in people that you are working with. Maybe you are taking a project management course because that’s going to help you with your clients.

If you are a web designer or an artist perhaps you are going to do a course that’s going to help you to expand your skills, learn new code or a different platform. Just so that you can expand the reach of what you can offer your clients.

But I’d like to challenge you here to think a little bit outside of that because I love learning about stuff that is completely new and outside the scope of what I’d normally be discussing with friends or clients and that will actually stimulate my brain in a different way.

Right now I am doing art classes, I am doing a “become a master writer course”.

I’ve written a best selling book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur and another book and I’ve written 900+ blog posts on my site, you might wonder why I am taking a writing course but I want to improve as a writer. I never taught myself writing. I’ve never actually taken a course on it.

Other things that I might want to do is learn how to sing or learn how to play piano or another instrument. You may want to learn about neuroscience or space or something completely different.

And I think the reason why this is so good to do is it expand your horizons, it opens up your mind, it expands your perspective, it allows you to reach new people because you’ll often go along into an event, a course, a workshop or an actual physical class and you’ll be introduced to all these new people who just think differently, passionate about this topic that maybe you’ve never heard about before.

Right now my partner, Josh is getting into a Bitcoin training and he’s introducing me to all these platforms that he is using, the art behind trading which is no different to normal trades to normal stock exchanges but why Bitcoin is different and I am just learning this from watching and observing him. He is reading trading books, he is listening to podcasts, he is watching Youtube videos by Bitcoin experts and along the way I am kind of learning little snippets about it.

So I do suggest that you often learn something that is completely outside your realm of interests. I mean, I hope you are interested in it. But you know something that is completely outside your realm of expertise and what you do on an everyday basis.

Best Online Learning Sites

The reason I am focusing on online learning sites is that if you are going to classes, workshops, events, conferences, seminars, or coaching in your own town, city, location - wherever you are in the world, that’s obviously a perfect choice for you.

And if you know of events and things that are happening local to you, then I highly recommend you do something in person. That’s a brilliant way to learn.

I am going to a gardening workshop down the road this weekend for about 3 hours to learn about permaculture, gardening and what I should be planting, so that’s going to be a first for me.

I know I will learn way more by being there and doing the actual planting then if I’d taken an online course.

But in terms of online learning, you can do this from anywhere, anytime. That’s the beauty of it.

So long as you now know to write out the notes by hand. So some of my favorite learning sites are:

Coursera

Coursera is basically some of the world's best courses online from Penn University, John Hopkins University, University of Michigan, Stanford, UC, San Diego, Duke University and more.

Some of the things that they have in there are like Deep Learning, Data Science, Python for everybody, Excel to MySQL, Analytics Techniques for Businesses and many of these are free.

You get to learn from the top universities around the world, even if it’s a little bit of a US focused and bias, but you are learning often for free.

There’s courses on Machine Learning, Neural Networks and Deep Learning,  and around Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency technologies. There’s even one on Learning How to Learn!

So for example, if I click on the Learning How to Learn, you’ll see when to enroll.

It’s taught by two university professors and they talk to you about the commitment you’ll need; about three hours of videos, three hours of exercises and three hours of bonus material.

It’s in about ten different languages too. They show you through the syllabus and an FAQ of when you get access to everything and do you have to pay for this course etc.

And often these sites as you’ll hear from me as I go, they often have certificates. So this course is often free but to get qualified or certified in it, is anywhere between $49 and a $150. And you’ll often see reviews on there because people have already taken the course.

edX

One online learning platform that I’ve been loving is edX.

It’s a bit cheeky to mimic the name Tedx, but hey! All the courses are free.

Their motto is they have ‘Courses to advance, create and improve your life’.

There are ones from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Berkeley University of California, University of Texas, University of Queensland Australia, TU Delft, The University of British Columbia and more.

Some of the most popular subjects that they offer are around Computer Science, Economics and Finance, Engineering, Business and Management, Humanities, Language, Biology and Life Sciences.

This is where I did the Science of Happiness course through Berkeley University and loved it!

It was quite intense. It was over three months and I only had four weeks in which to do it live, because I came to it late but I could have re-enrolled again to start with the next live round.

The material was great. I loved it. There were videos that you could play and none of them were over seven minutes.

At the same time as you are watching the video, you could watch a live transcript. You can also download the transcript after.

Plus they have little tests throughout and quizzes that you have to take and you actually get graded on those. So really really neat site.

Skillshare

Skillshare classes are taught by expert practitioners and they really focus on classes for your career and for your passions.

Once again you can choose from all sorts of different categories: design, business, technology, photography, film, writing, crafts, culinary.

These courses are more practical. Not saying that computer science isn’t but these are things like:

• Street photography: Capture the Life of Your City
• Logo Design: Secrets of Shape, Type and Color
• Going Freelance: Building and Branding Your Own Business
• Knife Skills: A Mini Class to Chop Like a Chef and;
• Learn How to Mix Music with a Young Guru.

You can also see the ratings of them, how many people have taken them. Almost all of them you have to pay for but they constantly have specials going on with massive discounts on the normal price. 

Udemy

Another online learning platform  that you probably would have heard of which is huge is Udemy.

Essentially, they have over 55,000 courses taught by experts and instructor, that you can enroll at them at anytime with lifetime access.

It’s learning at your own pace, whereas ones on edX and Coursera can often be time limited as they are doing it in a university setting with start and end dates.

In Udemy, you can find things like The Complete Web Developer course, you can learn about Javascript, Complete Cyber Security, Become a Super Learner or an NLP practitioner..

The point here is there’s almost nothing you can’t learn online.

I mean, as a course creator and as somebody who teaches people skills in business and building an online business, lifestyle, systems, sales funnels, you name it, it’s quite easy for me to be able to put some of my courses up here.

In fact, Udemy approached earlier this year to do that. And there are benefits for you as a business owner if this is what you do.

So look at some of these platforms and see whether it’s actually worth putting them up on there rather than on your own site.  

If you have a small list or reach then tapping into their huge databases of students is definitely a bonus.

Those four would be my top picks for Online Learning Platforms. There are many others.

I hope that this episode has given you an understanding of some of the hacks that you can use to learn more effectively and also some of the things that you might want to be learning as well as where in the heck you can go to learn those things.

Before we finish off, I would love to say, if you’d like to learn more about creating freedom in business and adventure in life, the 3rd edition of my book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur is out!

It is available in Amazon, Itunes, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Bam Books a Million and a couple of other book shops for the first time, it’s available in books shops in North America. For full details, go to suitcaseentrepreneur.com/book.

We have a little contest going on right now, all details are on that page so I’d love for you to check it out.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Freshbooks.

So you’re racing against the clock to wrap up 3 projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer.

Challenging? Yes, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it.

The working world has changed. With the growth of the internet there’s never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need, FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of an all new version of their cloud accounting software!

It’s been redesigned from the ground up and custom built for exactly the way you work. Get ready for the simplest way to be more productive, organized, and most importantly get paid quickly.

The all new FreshBooks is not only ridiculously easy to use, it’s also packed full of powerful features:

• Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds.
• Set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to 4 days faster.
• See when your client has seen your invoice, and put an end to the guessing games.

Go to freshbooks.com/quest and enter Quest For Freedom in the how did you hear about section when signing up.

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I don't know about you, but I'm always curious about the world, and always aware of how much I still have to learn.

The day I'm not curious about anything will be a day I personally don't want to see, as I'll either be a know it all and completely deluded or on my deathbed!

Yet in an increasingly connected world experiencing information overload and a certain amount of burnout from that, it’s become critically important - and I do mean critically, to curate your learning experience and limit the information highway to some specific side streets and cul-de-sacs of your choosing.

I wanted to talk through how I’ve been ‘easing’ back into learning zone post my Business Sabbatical and what steps I’m taking to expand past my comfort zone, increase my skills and knowledge and deepen my understanding and perceptions around areas I’m not often exposed to.

But first let’s focus on the benefits of learning something new and why you should want to do this in just 50 minutes a day.

I was reading a piece on Lifestyle Updated about the seven benefits of learning something new, and the very first one was fun.

I thought to myself how often do we, especially as adults, do something for fun. The example they gave for this benefit was a friend who’d recently learned to surf and how much fun they’d had.

I thought back to the 20+ surf lessons I took in Portugal last year and how I was constantly out of depth (no pun intended) and challenging my assumptions about what I was capable of, while learning something new every single time, if not several new things.

I quite enjoyed being a complete newbie to this sport and taking a mix of private and group lessons. I loved how our instructor, crazy Nelson as I like to call him, would draw diagrams in the sand and make models of waves in the sand to illustrate a point.

Along with this there was yelling and enthusiasm, practicing the technique on land and of course getting out in the ocean and doing it.

Full immersion so to speak - pun intended this time!

FUN! Why on earth learn something if it’s not fun?

Everything that’s taught can be fun, even accounting, especially when you’re shown real case studies and examples that resonate with you and make your learning that much quicker and effective.

Another on their list that is obvious but often overlooked is..

A sense of accomplishment and pride.

I know back in 2004 when I had landed my biggest job to date as National Brand Manager at Schwarzkopf Professional, working quite long hours but loving learning on the job at speed, I also took on more learning for the ‘fun’ of it.

It still amazes me that not only did I start training in January of that year for a bodysculpting competition, I then decided to enrol at Otago University for an extramural 1 year certificate in Fitness Management.

I was also going through Anthony Robbins Awaken the Giant Within book and working on some NLP for past events in my life, and listening to his CD series in the car on the way to work.

Once I’d finished with his CDs I recall listening to around 5 audiobooks (on CD of course) during my long-ish commute...back in the days when I actually commuted.

The results of this year were still my most impressive ever, at least in my mind.

I got straight As from University, and some A+ - proof that when you have experience in time management and a full time job you study much more effectively than when you’re doing it full time.

I won my Regional North Island Body Sculpting competition and went on to compete at Nationals.

And I had a rocking first year in my job running the best ever New Zealand Hairdressing Awards - most ticket sales and under budget.

And I felt immensely proud at what I was able to accomplish in just one year.

Naturally there were several things I had to give up in order to achieve that, like a life...no I’m kidding but I did literally eat chicken and brocolli all the time during my training and my boyfriend certainly didn’t get the time and attention he deserved during 2004.

So I’d hasten to add learning should be fun, give you a sense of achievement AND fit in with your lifestyle, not take over it. Much like my take on business supporting your lifestyle too.

So what else? Well Jon Lebreton from Sydney, Australia also shared 7 reasons why learning new things is important, what’s with the magic number of 7.

My favourites are, and I quote:

1. You can grow as a person, develop your knowledge base and improve yourself for the better.
2. Learning something new gets us access to new and different opportunities and the chance to try new experiences that might be the best ones you have ever tried
3. You could potentially earn more money in your work life from learning a new and appropriate skill or by developing one that links to the work you do. You’ll rejuvenate your working life and get so much more from it.
4. Developing a new skill will influence the way you do things day to day and they will make doing things quicker and easier, saving time, energy and stress.

While these are all obvious reasons, it’s worthwhile letting them sink in. Because at the end of the day scheduling in time to learn and the actual act of learning takes time and effort.

But the payoff can be phenomenal.

To cap off the benefits may I point you to a final article written by CCSU Continuing Education titles The Top 7 Benefits of Learning a New Skill - seriously again 7 reasons? I swear I didn’t search on that specifically on Google!

The 3 most important ones they stated in my opinion are, and I quote

Your brain chemistry changes.

The white matter in your brain is called myelin, and it helps improve performance on a number of tasks. The more people practice a new skill they are learning, the more dense the myelin in their brains becomes, which helps them learn even better.

Your learning speed increases.

Learning a new skill helps you learn things faster over time. By stimulating neurons in the brain, more neural pathways are formed and electrical impulses travel faster across them as you attempt to process new information. The more pathways that are formed, the faster impulses can travel.

You could stave off dementia.

People who learn a new skill are less likely to develop dementia, which has been linked to demyelination of your brain. People who actively learn new skills don’t give their brains a chance to demyelinate, and their neural pathways are ready for new impulses to travel along them.

Perhaps the most important reason of all though is this….

Learning something new will make you happier

According to an article in Psychologies, I quote

‘It’s actually a core need for psychological wellbeing. Learning can help us build confidence and a sense of self-efficacy.

It can also be a way of connecting with others too,’ says Vanessa King, positive psychology expert at Action for Happiness. ‘As human beings, we have a natural desire to learn and progress. Psychologists call it mastery.’

There is evidence to suggest that adult learning seems to have its most positive impact on self-esteem and self-efficacy when the learning provided meets the needs of the learner, and when the learner is at a stage in their life when they are ready and receptive to benefit from it.

‘Learning also fuels our creativity. Ideas can come from making connections between seemingly unrelated things,’ says King.

‘Learning something new in one area of our lives can trigger ideas in another. So curiosity and creative thinking go hand-in-hand.’

This can also help with creating what psychologists call ‘flow’ or ‘being in the zone’ – when we’re so absorbed in what we’re doing, we lose sense of time and of ourselves.

‘It’s not passive, like when watching TV – it’s active,’ explains King. When we’re in flow, the level of challenge in the activity just exceeds our level of skill.

We’re also getting instant feedback from the activity on whether what we are trying is working, so we can adjust what we’re doing accordingly. As our skill increases, so does the challenge.

So there you have it, more than 7 reasons to learn something new. The reason I’ve researched into this, above and beyond my natural curiosity, is that it’s important to have a foundation of your why.

A strong why linked to learning on a daily basis will keep you motivated during times when you feel you can’t afford the time or energy to learn.

And in the next episode I’m going to be covering off on exactly that, the how of effective learning and hacking techniques to learn more in less time.

As well as the what. What on earth should you actually be learning?

Tune in on all good podcast platforms like Stitcher, iTunes and Anchor.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Freshbooks.

So you’re racing against the clock to wrap up 3 projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer.

Challenging? Yes, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it.

The working world has changed. With the growth of the internet there’s never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need, FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of an all new version of their cloud accounting software!

It’s been redesigned from the ground up and custom built for exactly the way you work. Get ready for the simplest way to be more productive, organized, and most importantly get paid quickly.

The all new FreshBooks is not only ridiculously easy to use, it’s also packed full of powerful features:

• Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds.
• Set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to 4 days faster.
• See when your client has seen your invoice, and put an end to the guessing games.

Go to freshbooks.com/quest and enter Quest For Freedom in the how did you hear about section when signing up.

Hey! It’s Season 3 and it’s all about self learning mastery.

How do you decide on what you should be learning and the most effective way to do it?

I’ll be talking about hacking the way in which we learn and also going the slightly unconventional route because why should we always be following the traditional education model which hasn’t been that successful. And I’ll be throwing some stats and interesting factoids at you about that.

Before we dive in, I just want to give a quick update as to why you might even be listening to this podcast. So hey!

It’s Natalie Sisson and I am on a quest for freedom for you. This is the Quest for Freedom podcast and you are joining me in 2017 as I uncover what you can do to simplify your life, feel connected, live mindfully and develop true personal and financial freedom.

In Season 1, I covered off around personal freedom and I really delved into that mindset freedom through meditation, through mindfulness.

In Season 2, I talked about business freedom and all about the business sabbatical that I went on where I essentially fired myself from my business for three months. I shared the outcome, I shared the results and the journey of taking that much time for your business as well as flipping your life 180 degrees which was an added bonus.

In Season 3, is a topic that has always fascinated me because I believe that if we really want to truly grow and learn and later very fulfilled life we need to be constantly learning, we need to stay curious. And yet as we get bombarded more and more with information overload, how do you that in a way that feels good, that feels fun, that feels like you are actually developing, growing and taking things in. You are not just consuming stuff because it’s in front of you. You are curating what you want to learn, what you read and what you take in.

And so that’s what this episode is all about.

I recently read an article on Quartz by Zat Rana called ‘If you want to be smarter, learn to say “I don’t know’”

The Value of “I Don’t Know”

When you think about it, acknowledging ignorance is actually productive.

Sometimes, the best answer is simply “I don’t know.” Now, that isn’t to give you a reason to exercise indifference or to avoid making difficult decisions. It’s just about choosing to stick to your circle of competence and awareness.

At any given point, there’s only so much information we can make sense of. On a daily basis, there will be things we don’t understand. If they aren’t relevant, it’s okay not to know. If they are, it’s better to take time to think.

This may seem fairly intuitive, and yet, the vast majority of people rarely find themselves comfortable enough to be at ease with not knowing. Instead, they recite from memory whatever has been ingrained into their mind.

They would rather stand for something with a loose foundation, and they prefer certainty even after being challenged rather than to reconsider.

In the long-term, none of these tactics tend to lead to a healthy outlook.

“I don’t know” not only keeps us in our circle of competence and awareness where the risk of potential harm is low, but it also works as a feedback tool.

It’s a competitive advantage because it adds an incentive to critically break things down rather to take the easy way out. It forces us to get smarter.

There’s no point standing for something if you have a bad reason to do so.

Life is complex and messy, and it’s okay not to know everything. It’s fine to take time to form an opinion, and it’s useful to acknowledge ignorance.

We live in a world saturated with ideas, and not all of them are good, and not all of them are right for everyone.

Ask questions, be critical, and don’t be afraid to change your mind. There are no solid rules against doing so.

No one makes progress by standing in the same place, and we didn’t get to where we are by always being right. Everything is trial and error, and if you truly want to understand the world, you have to be comfortable with that.

It’s okay to open your mind.

I want to share with you that I’m experimenting with doing 60 minutes of active learning EVERY Day.

Apparently it’s good enough for Oprah and Bill Gates and other super smart, successful people.

I’m doing this because if I can’t even commit that amount of time to invest in my myself, and in my mind, then I’m clearly saying I’m not worth it.

Robin Sharma believes you can grow effortlessly in 60 minutes and unlock your hero potential.

Robin is considered to be one of the top 5 leadership experts in the world.

His work is embraced by rock stars, royalty, billionaires and many celebrity CEOs, so again I’m going to heed his advice and suggest you do too.

Here’s a snippet of a conversation where he’s talking to Vishen Lakhiani, founder of MindValley, about why 60 minutes of learning each day can unlock your Superpowers.

They go on to discuss Traffic University - as in listening to a podcast when you’re stuck in traffic and learning something new.

Or Running College - where when you’re out running you go with someone you can learn from, or again you listen to an audiobook or educational podcast.

Or School of Walking - same concept.  Listen to a course while you are walking.

The real point being - anything that you’re doing you can be learning - working out, grocery shopping, walking to your airport gate.

What you feed your mind is ultimately what you will believe and become.

So why not take the time to curate it carefully with what you WANT to expand your mind with, not narrow your mind.

So how do you go about learning anything faster and better?

Well as part of my learning I’ve been looking into this.

In Elle Kaplan’s Medium article she shared some tactics on this very topic.

In fact Elle quotes research that says Robin Sharma’s 60 minute principle is 10 minutes too long.

And I quote:

“Ellen Dunn of Louisiana State University explains that “anything less than 30 [minutes] is just not enough, but anything more than 50 is too much information for your brain to take in at one time.”

To put this into practice, make sure you’re scheduling your learning sessions for short bursts of time, using quick methods like flashcards.

Schedule at least a 10-minute break between sessions to give your brain some much-needed R&R.”

Elle also quotes Tim Ferriss who seems intent on hacking everything in life from your brain to food to health.

“He says you should focus first on the most important 20 percent of what you’re trying to learn, which will actually cover 80 percent of what you need to know.

Ask yourself: What are the most important elements that yield the biggest return on investment?

For example, if you’re learning a foreign language — what 20 percent of words are used 80 percent of the time?”

When I read that I instantly thought to myself: But of course!

I mean this is the Pareto rule we’re talking about here, where you aim to focus on the 20% of whatever it is that you do, that gets you 80% of the results.

I typically apply that in business whenever I can, but I hadn’t thought about applying it to learning before, and frankly I’ve no idea why!

Why do we learn all this extraneous stuff that doesn’t serve us, instead of narrowly focusing in on the most important.

Now to find a language app that does just that….anyone have the answer to that? I’m happy to put my hand up and say “I don’t know”.

That’s the premise of this entire episode remember!

And the final tip I liked most in her article was this one

A Johns Hopkins study found that “if you perform a slightly modified version of a task you want to master, you actually learn more and faster than if you just keep practicing the exact same thing multiple times in a row.”

Think about modifying your self-teaching techniques as you learn. If you use flashcards in one session, think about a more hands-on method the next time, or listening to a podcast or webinar. This will help your brain remember and recall information at a quicker rate.”

So I think that’s enough learning for today, I wanted to start off light, and build up over Season 3.

That way I won’t lose you in information overload.

Instead I’ll help to expand your mind in the best possible way, and learn more than ever before, that’s actually relevant to you and even better, curated by you.

More on that in the next episode when I bring on Phoebe for more insights.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Freshbooks.

So you’re racing against the clock to wrap up 3 projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer.

Challenging? Yes, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it.

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• Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds.
• Set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to 4 days faster.
• See when your client has seen your invoice, and put an end to the guessing games.

Go to freshbooks.com/quest and enter Quest For Freedom in the how did you hear about section when signing up.

In my previous episode called You are the answer’ I talked about the results on my business that my sabbatical had.

Namely all the changes I made before taking time off - new website, new brand, new systems - and how they initially negatively affected the business.

I think this is partly because it was too much change all at once.

Now, fortunately the changes are making a positive impact on my business and the results we track weekly. But it seemed pretty dire at the time!

Then I realized that this happened in my personal life too, with the complete 180 degree flip I’ve made since April.

I tell you, business is one thing but massive life changes are something else!

As Shana Aborn said in her article Coping with Life Changes:

“For many of us, disruption to familiar routine sparks anything from mild anxiety to extreme terror.

Maybe something's been pushed on us, like being downsized or getting sick. Just as likely, we've made a risky but necessary choice, like relocating to a new town or having our elderly parents move in with us.

Shift happens, like it or not—that's part of the human adventure. Then why do we resist so much?

It's partly a natural fear of the unfamiliar. People think of change as something dangerous. But it helps to remember all the ways your life has been altered in the past and realize that not only did you not keel over and die, things often turned out for the better.”

I’ve never been afraid of change, I’ve always welcomed it with open arms. The very nature of how I’ve lived my life for the last seven years is testament to that fact.

Changing locations every couple of weeks has meant a constant barrage of change - new surroundings, often a new language, new people to meet and things to learn - all the time.

This is something that many people find daunting, but I really love.

Or did, until that time that I felt like slowing down a little, having a base I can call my own and being surrounded by more nature, less fast paced city life.

But the changes I made come April 5th, when Josh and I flew back from Bali to move into our new property, a huge house with 2.5 acres of land, have actually thrown me completely.

It was too much change, too fast and I completely underestimated this.

While my friends and community were quick to point out that it was a massive shift in how I live my life and that it must be quite the shock, I saw it as exciting.

Let’s put it in perspective.

• I went from constant full-time travel out of my suitcase to living in one house, with no international travel for the first three months of being back in New Zealand.

• I went from being single in December to a loving full-time relationship, and moving in together in my apartment for a few months, to then buying a house together, creating joint bank accounts and taking on this beautiful property - Josh’s first ever property ownership.

• I went from zero responsibility to this mortgage, getting a puppy a week after moving in and five chickens the week after.

• From owning so little stuff to having to furnish a 369 sqm house with four bedrooms and two living rooms in just a few weeks. (People who visit us now say how it looks like we’ve lived here for years).

• I went from a full on business period, getting it ready for my sabbatical and writing the Freedom Plan book manuscript which I finished on March 30th, to NO work.
• And I went from eternal summers traveling the world to my first ever autumn (fall) and winter. And that was probably the biggest kicker - I hate being cold.

So with all that in mind, no wonder I’ve had moments of doubt, and even mild depression - or more rather feeling simply lost.

I had literally taken everything that is my identity - travel, my suitcase entrepreneur brand, business and singledom and thrown it out the window!

Too much change all at once.

It didn’t hit me straight away, but I can definitely see the path now, and why even just a few weeks ago, I was still feeling demotivated and lost.

The initial three to four weeks were pure excitement due to what I term "Project Set up House" which involved constant daily checking of Trademe.co.nz (like eBay and Gumtree) and winning auctions and buying used furniture.

I was shopping for house stuff, and then going to collect it via trucks we hired - doing it DIY style - super fun by the way, but a lot of organization and effort.

Then it became settling in and a few ongoing projects and trips to get other things we needed ike bins and domestic bliss items as I call them, that you just don’t realize you need until you’ve been living in a house for a while.

Next up we collected Kayla, my adorable White German Shepherd eight week old puppy within just one week of moving in.

To be honest I had NO idea how much energy a puppy has and how much attention and training you need to do with them, and for yourself.

It was constant supervision and learning, coupled with lots of beautiful moments, followed by pain, bites, scratching, peeing, pooping and me yelling or losing the plot.

Now I know how it feels to have a low maintenance kid over an intense period!

Yes it’s like having a kid, but luckily you can put them in their happy place (aka crate) when you need some time out.

That was my other problem, I spent too much time with Kayla, wanting to be the best puppy Mum and learning as much as I could through books and videos about her training.

I didn’t give myself time out, instead I became rather isolated out in our home at the same time Josh’s business schedule turned into a full on one, that saw him leaving the house on the 6:45am train and getting back after 7pm.

For a social butterfly like me I severely underestimated how much human connection I crave and require to feel motivated, valuable and helpful.

Not having the workload from my business was pure bliss but at the same time quite a transition as it’s all I know.

And to not have to worry about it suddenly meant I threw myself into online learning taking a number of interesting and varied courses on areas I don’t know much about.

I also had to train myself not to watch, monitor and get caught up in what other entrepreneurs were doing.

Hence the previous episode about not playing the comparison game but instead being your own No #1 fan and believing in your abilities.

At one point I was raring to dive into something new and start a fresh business project, but I restrained myself as I knew, at that stage, I didn’t have enough energy yet for that.

It also wasn’t the solution I was after. I just needed to be and stop doing.

Which brings me to a conversation I had last week with my dear friend Gideon Shalwick, who himself has gone through many reinventions himself in the last four years, from personal brand and video expert, to starting a new video software business and more.

He’s been digging into and learning a lot about the Universal Cycles of Change via Tim and Kris Hallbom over at The Wealthy Mind.

I had never heard about it, so before I share our snippet of conversation I wanted to give you and I some background on it because it’s juicy stuff and it’s important.

Universal Cycles of Change

According to the Academy of Leadership Coaching and NLP there are seven change patterns that govern our lives.

In a business context, leaders who are able to embrace this cycle often emerge stronger and more emotionally aware and understand how to best support themselves and their team members through change.

1. Creation

The word creation evokes pictures of new beginnings. It is the beginning of a new life event – the starting point that typically begins with an idea or an action.

This could be the start of new business, or a new stage of leadership development.

Creation marks the point where we begin our journey. It is an “X” marks the spot kind of moment – and once we move from that location, a new journey starts.

2. Growth

From the moment creation begins we start to grow. We develop and become “self-organizing.”

This means is that once the creation takes place, new patterns of behavior start to develop, and the system organizes itself around the original creation.

For example once a new business is launched, the business owner needs to start making plans – this could be product development, marketing plans, new clients and new staff.

The business has taken its shape as a business (it was created), and now it is starting to grow.

3. Steady State

A steady state is a place of great comfort.

It has past the point of creation and through the pains of growth to a place of what feels like you have arrived. It is a place where all systems are go and are firing correctly.

Everything is moving forward as planned and everyone is in their sweet spot. It is a position to which most leaders aspire.

And, if leaders are not careful, it can also become a point of complacency which will inevitably lead to the next phase in the cycle

4. Turbulence

I have heard it said that we are either in a crisis, coming out of a crisis or heading back into a crisis.

Turbulence occurs when the system becomes too complex, or we become lax in our preparation, and problems begin to develop.

Times of turbulence can be viewed in two ways depending upon the maturity of the leader. They can be used as a warning sign to right the ship and get back on track, or they can be ignored.

Ignorance, however, often leads to chaos.

5. Chaos

Chaos is when the system begins to fall apart.

It is past the point of the bumps and jolts of turbulence to a full blown tail spin. It is the time when leaders need to take control before something catastrophic happens.

6. Dropping Off

Dropping off is the point of acceptance for many leaders. It is often the lowest point in the cycle of change.

The point when an individual has no other recourse but to let go and move on.

It could be closing a door on a failed business and moving elsewhere or getting rid of a caustic employee. It can be painful, but also should be viewed as an important turning point in the cycle.

It is the point when a leader takes control.

In order to move forward through a difficult life challenge, we often need to let go of a limiting belief, a dysfunctional relationship, change a behavior or reorganize how we view the world.

This allows us to make the space to create something wonderfully new.

7. `Meditation & Dormancy

Meditation and inward silence (dormancy) are the final point in the Universal Cycles of Change.

Just as a tree stands without leaves in the brisk cold winter, leaders need to “be” like the tree, standing in the moment and accepting who they are and where they have been placed.

It might be uncomfortable for a while, but meditating and inward silence can be very healing and ultimately can set the tone for a new Universal Cycle of Change, creativity and growth.

So now you have that context, let’s pick up with Gideon and I.

Gideon: “I am so glad that you took that sabbatical.

It's so important that you go through this stages of the droppings off, and the shedding where you let go or prune something off, and then you just have a break.

If you jump straight from the chaos stage to a new creative cycle, then you end up taking that back with you and you don't rest.

You are just depleting the tank more and more.

So you might get a bit of energy from this new creative process but if you didn't deal with that previous cycle properly, it holds you back on the next cycle.”

Natalie: It’s so true because I think back to where I’ve tried to step back a little before and take a small break. It helps you for a little.

Then there have been times where you’ve been excited by say, maybe another business idea.

But I am really proud of myself because I have had that moment and I thought, "Is it just exciting because it’s totally new and therefore it gives me energy right now?"

What about coming back to what I’ve got and getting re-energized about the stuff that I know I love and I’m good at, and that’s where I think I’ve got to on that stage now.

But I needed that break and then I needed to come back with a new perspective and go, “You are not throwing all that hard work away, all that credibility and all the things you’ve built up.”

Just come at it with a fresh perspective and improve upon the bits that you really believe in and you think are amazing.

And that’s why with the Freedom Plan I have this whole new perspective about it. I want to have this freedom tracker, some apps and make it world class.

And that is new to me yet that’s my core offering. So that’s where I came to in this circle as you said.

Gideon: We understand this cycle and that each stage is really important. It gives you perspective but also patience.

For this latest cycle that I went through, I realized that I was actually in the rest phase. Previously I would try and rush it.

But then I just went "Screw it.

I am not going to push anything. I am just going to sit back and I don't care what happens.

I am going to let the universe share me what is the next step.

When have you found yourself rushing into the next thing because it feels energizing?

Only to realize after a few months your energy is depleted again and your motivation is waning. As Gideon points out, that’s because you really haven’t dealt with the shit that was holding you back or troubling you before. You’ve just transferred your attention on to the next bright shiny object.

Back to my business sabbatical story….

I had a beautiful period where the weather was amazing, where I could finally take Kayla out into the public (post her vaccinations), and we started discovering beautiful nature bush walks.

I also was loving the house more and more, as well as pottering in the garden and being outside.

I was becoming truly grateful for this amazing location and our joint vision for what it could become.

I had new friends I’d made starting to come over each Tuesday for coworking sessions and things felt good.

But then things shifted.

Josh wasn’t here at all during the weekdays, our workouts in our crossfit barn gym had stopped, the weather was getting colder and the novelty of this new life started wearing off.

I’d scan my Instagram and Facebook feed to see beautiful photos and videos of friends in exotic locations and for the first time ever I could see how my life used to look to others - damn it looked amazing.

The odd thing was I didn’t want to be there, but I did want the feeling of what they were experiencing.

And I missed Portugal - as I would have been there in my three bedroom town house and learning to surf, if we hadn’t bought here.

So how did I get myself out of this funk of too much change?

Well it took some work. It helped that my Science of Happiness course was taking me through the stages of empathy, kindness, compassion and mindfulness.

I was putting that into practice.

I talked it through with friends, I read up a little on it, and mostly I stepped back to see what was really going on to change how I was feeling.

In Shana’s article, she shared this advice, that I hope is valuable for you if you’re going through change:

“Fighting what's happening just leads to frustration and keeps you from growing to your full potential. When you try to put your life in a box and keep it the same all the time, you're making something dead out of it.

Welcoming new things can even be good for your health. People who greet what life offers with curiosity have stronger immune systems and live longer.

The first step is realizing that even though you can't control what pops up in your life, you can alter how you react. When change happens, say yes. Learn and grow from it.

Taking a live-in-the-moment attitude will help keep you from miring yourself in what-ifs and should-haves.

The most important thing to remember, though, is that you already have the inner resources to make the most out of anything that comes your way.

Bring out your natural resiliency by taking a look at how you can deal with six of life's most common upheavals.”

How I handled it was slightly different. I pretty much NEVER get down or depressed, but after two many weeks of waking up and feeling lost, unmotivated and down, Josh and I had a heart to heart, and here’s what I came up.

Five Ways To Get Yourself Over Too Much Change All At Once

And here are my five tips.

1. Focus on quality time.

We both agreed to make more time for each other, that he would get some time off teaching in his business and we’d take long weekends or have days together here at home. Essentially we’d spend more quality time together.

As an entrepreneur I appreciate some periods in your life are just going to be crazy and full on and you need to show up to them 100%, and Josh is going through one of those periods.

But I could also see how it was draining him and therefore me, even though we supportive of each other.

Once we acknowledged that things became a lot better instantly and we felt so much more connected.

2. Make time for you.

I started putting Kayla into dog daycare once a week and heading into town to cowork, meet with friends and entrepreneurs and enjoy the city vibe.

I also started meeting more people in the area we now live, making friends and going for dog walks, having them over to visit or visiting them and making time for lunches or meetups.

3. Wallow where necessary.

That may sound odd but too quickly we try to come up with solutions and find the answer.

I purposefully wallowed in how I was feeling, on the good moments and bad ones and asked myself how I was feeling, what did I think the cause was and could I shift it with an attitude reset, or a change in activity or scene?

Practicing mindfulness, like I discussed in this Mind Your Mindfulness really helped to be aware and present, and not listen to the voice inside my head, that at the time, was not helpful at all!

4. Embrace the seasons.

I’m a summer baby, but this has been a particularly beautiful winter in New Zealand with more sunshine than ever. We are also blessed to have two fantastic woodburners that pelt out the heat.

So I started to appreciate clear blue skies on these wintery days, the sunshine and the opportunity to rug up and go walking with my gorgeous puppy.

I also got over my minimalist suitcase self, and simply bought warmer clothes which made me feel much better and more inclined to get out and about.

I lit more fires, drank more hot herbal teas and nourished myself with homemade soups.

I also started the 30 Day Yoga Challenge with Adrienne - can’t recommend her free YouTube Channel enough. She’s an angel.

I notice the effects of yoga on my body and mind very quickly. I felt amazing.

The seasons are here for a reason, as I read in Elizabeth Peru’s Global Energy Report (if you’re into that kind of thing, I’m experimenting with reading it daily and taking what I need from it).

Winter is the time for focused project work and doing, spring is time for launching and summer is the time to take off and enjoy the fruits of your labour.

So I am focusing my efforts on upgrading and transforming my content, my Freedom Plan program and my offerings.

5. Learn, grow and relearn.

A lot of the stories that were circulating in my head simply needed to be replaced with better ones. I needed to take control of my own attitude and focus on what I wanted.

Even when I got sick and was feeling less than sure on what the heck I was doing, I knew that it was up to me to CHOOSE what I wanted to happen.

And for me that meant reading inspiring books - both novels and business related, learning new things from online courses, meeting new people and getting involved.

Like running popup coworking trials in Upper Hutt to connect with more entrepreneurs (and making the news).

I coupled this with relearning.

A big part of my sabbatical was to get a fresh perspective and I’ve since fallen back in love with the foundations of why I started my business and what made it successful in the first place.

I’ve been conducting interviews with Freedom Plan Alumni members and getting jazzed up at making it a World Class experience when I relaunch it in spring.

I’ve been doing interviews for podcasts and sharing my story and this new story and it’s been super cathartic for me and great for the interviewers who’ve loved hearing the rawness of it.

I’ve taken opportunities I’d been saying no to on my sabbatical and they’d reenergized me and fed my soul.

It led to me being on stage with Roger Hamilton at Fast Forward Your Business the day I was officially back in business, and getting interviewed by NBR (National Business Review) this week!

And while in Melbourne Josh and I did our three year Life Plan together which was huge, because I finally had the clarity and energy to know what I want out of life, business and love over the next three years.

So those are my five major takeaways on my Quest for Freedom….for now.

And it seems a solid place to round out Season 2 before embarking on next season where I’m going to head into the realm of Self Learning and Mastery.

Never lose sight of the ability to design your freedom lifestyle around what you most want.

This episode is proudly brought to you by Freshbooks.

So you’re racing against the clock to wrap up 3 projects, prepping for a meeting later in the afternoon all while trying to tackle a mountain of paperwork. Welcome to life as a freelancer.

Challenging? Yes, but our friends at FreshBooks believe the rewards are so worth it.

The working world has changed. With the growth of the internet there’s never been more opportunities for the self-employed. To meet this need, FreshBooks is excited to announce the launch of an all new version of their cloud accounting software!

It’s been redesigned from the ground up and custom built for exactly the way you work. Get ready for the simplest way to be more productive, organized, and most importantly get paid quickly.

The all new FreshBooks is not only ridiculously easy to use, it’s also packed full of powerful features:

• Create and send professional looking invoices in less than 30 seconds.
• Set up online payments with just a couple of clicks and get paid up to 4 days faster.
• See when your client has seen your invoice, and put an end to the guessing games.

Go to freshbooks.com/quest and enter Quest For Freedom in the how did you hear about section when signing up.

So I promised to tell you what I think the biggest lesson from my business sabbatical was as well as the result that I got from it. And for me it’s this: it’s time for me to back me. t

I think it’s time for us all to back ourselves.

And what do I even mean by that?

Basically, to me, it’s about serving up your own delicious cocktail, alcoholic or non-alcoholic and being happy with what you are drinking. It’s like drinking your own goodness. It’s talking about you and why you rock versus everybody else.

So basically it’s being a bit of a celebrity in your own right and believing in yourself!

I think I’ve mentioned this in the past couple of episodes where I talked about the Power of a Business Sabbatical, is that the biggest thing for me in having time off and away from my business is, that I had to get past some really bad feelings when I got to thinking.

I’m talking about the dangerous and pointless ‘comparison game’ or thoughts like ‘What have I actually done? What have I actually achieved? Have I made an impact? Who am I to have built this business over 7 years? Oh my goodness. I’ve done nothing!’

Yes, all this crap came out of it.

Once I got through this little moment of self-doubt I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I’ve done some pretty fantastic things. I’ve published a best selling book on Amazon. And that’s now been picked up by Simon & Schuster and the third edition is coming out this September!

I finally got to speak on stage at TEDx and I get paid to speak around the world.

I’ve built a multiple six figure business that has been that way for several years and I’ve been in business for 7 years. That’s no mean feat!

I started reading back through people’s lovely emails and just seeing the impact that I’ve made.

And then I even put a post up on Facebook a couple of weeks back before ending this business sabbatical, when I was having a little moment of doubt and asked:

‘What is it that you actually think is my superpower?’

It was absolutely overwhelmingly beautiful how many people commented and how they saw me versus how I saw myself.

The long and the short of what I took away from all of these people commenting: friends and clients and just people on Facebook was, “Natalie I think you help people to believe in themselves. You show them what’s possible and how amazing they can be.”

That came through as one of the most common aspects of my superpower.

Which is so incredible right? Because I wouldn’t have necessarily seen myself that way and inspire people to take action. Yet that is exactly what I desire to do, day in and day out.

I have a broad depth of knowledge across a range of topics that helps entrepreneurs to build and design their perfect freedom lifestyle and business.

Believing in yourself

I think the most important thing about the business sabbatical was to step back, reflect and come back to this point of I have built and designed a business that I love that fits and supports my ideal lifestyle.

At the time that I’m recording this I am sitting in front of a gorgeous fireplace. My puppy is sleeping to my right. The sun has gone down. It’s been a beautiful day.

I’ve co-worked with a friend. We’ve come up with some entrepreneur business ideas about where we want to head next, grow and what we want to be doing next.

So I am excited again and I’ve got my mojo back. I’m almost over being sick and I am ready to drink my own Koolaid in the best possible way.

So what are the results of my Business Sabbatical?

From a Google Analytics point of view, website visits have actually gone up and down over the space of that three months, which shows that if you stop posting content on your blog which we’d pretty much have done throughout May, June and July, if you got great organic reach and you’ve got excellent content and articles from years before, your traffic is going to remain pretty consistent.

People are still going to be finding you on your site.

My email optins have stayed fairly consistent and because I haven’t been emailing at all and that my team didn’t email much I’ve had way fewer unsubscribes. So my net positive effect is pretty good.

I canned all my advertising during the last three months so I haven’t actively promoted outside of my normal social media posts my assistant does.

I’ve only just started doing interviews again, so basically over the three months there was a net gain in website traffic after a dip thanks to some Google algorithms that probably didn’t help, and then my traffic came back.

My subscribers have stayed pretty consistent and I haven’t lost as many because I haven’t been emailing as much.

And from an online sales point of view, that dropped quite significantly. Because I wasn’t promoting anything. I wasn’t doing anything new. I wasn’t actually there behind my business. There were no Facebook ads going on. There was no other form of advertising and as I mentioned the content stopped as well.

I am actually quite happy that the months have been fairly good when I look at the sponsorship for this podcast and online sales continued to come in, as well as other affiliate sales that came through during that time.

So it has been a really positive three business months.

Now I am raring to go to really amp up the revenue, amp up the business impact and also I have a couple of businesses in mind that I will be embarking on, researching, validating and prototyping for the first time in seven years of just having one business.

I guess that gives you some insight behind a business sabbatical. For me it wasn’t a massive growth during that time, nor did I expect it to be.

I actually expected a decline in my business if I am going to be really honest but luckily it sailed pretty steady. Slight dips and then growth.

I really attribute that to fantastic systems, to having great sales funnels in place, to having a small and nimble team and for a wonderful community who continue to support me throughout.

It just shows that after seven years in business all the things that you’ve done leading up to that point stand you in good stead, that if you really have a good foundations nothing tragic is going to happen and that by not being actively behind or running your business it will not die.

It will not fall over without you if you’ve put those systems in place.

I feel pretty happy about that.

On this important point, I wanted to share with you an excerpt from my friend Amy Schmittauer, the vlogging boss.

I saw her blog post about how she hasn’t had a break in 2 years and how she was giving herself permission to go on a two week vacation. In this blog post she almost sounded like she had to convince herself that that was a good thing.

So I asked her to record her favorite part of the blog post, I Haven’t Made a Decision Like This in a Long Time. Here are her nuggets of wisdom.

“This is typical practice for me. Fit in the free time when I can. Fit in family when it works out.

One of the things I most Iooked forward to when I started working for myself full-time in 2011 was the fact that I could decide to do this whenever I wanted. Not having to worry about whether a boss approved of it 2-weeks ahead of time.

I can take the afternoon. I can take the day. I can take a week.

Hell. I can take a vacation.

It’s not very often that I actually take advantage of my business ownership perks though. I love what I do and it keeps me busy and fulfilled. Genuinely.

But upon coming back from a business trip last week, I was exhausted. I started to think about how I’ve been feeling lately. So tired and busy. I’ve been talking about 2017 like it’s already over and it’s May!

We have multiple trips and events planned every month for the rest of the year such as speaking engagements, client business trips, family visits, our wedding and the parties around it. So. Much. Awesome.

Our honeymoon is planned for January of next year because that’s the earliest we’ve been able to fit it in. I finally started to wrap my mind around that while on this plane ride home and thought , “Is that going to be the next time I get to just take a break?”.

It suddenly became an overwhelming feeling. A tired feeling. Then I thought, “when was the last time I took a vacation?”

To finish off, I want to share a couple of things back when I was talking to my friend Lauren Parsons, and we were discussing what I’ve learned out of this experience and what I wanted to do.

She summarized it in an email back to me and I thought I’d share it here, as this was around 2 months ago but it still stands:

• You mentioned being in a transition period career wise with your move back to NZ. (I had no idea how much an impact that has actually made on me. How much changing your entire life can mess with your identity)

• Following a lack of energy which started Sept 2016 you want to movetowards more people coming to you, more off line, in person. Fewer people, bigger results.

• 1 year from now you want to:
  • Have had a successful re-launch of my updated Suitcase Entrepreneur book (It’s happening in September)
  • Work as a paid writer, speaker and influencer
  • Successfully rely on my properties for income
  • Be able to invest my time as I wish and volunteer in ways that are fulfilling that I choose
  • Be able to enjoy the right balance of art, fitness, time with my puppy, Kayla and to create the retreat lifestyle property that I want (and of course Josh!)
  • Spend 3-5 days at home enjoying nature/animals etc with some national travel and one international trip each year at least
  • Ultimately to feel light hearted, joyful, powerful, energised (by my work and people I spend time with) and in alignment with my purpose
  • The biggest barrier may be me – saying yes to things and busyness

We talked about scheduling in time for the key things that I WANT to have in my  life and prioritising these first which includes focusing on ‘Reclaiming My Time’ through:

• 1 hour per day invested in learning
• 2+ hours being active outdoors (in every season)
• 3-4 hours of focused effective work time

Something that came out of this is I said I will complete my own Perfect Day exercise that I take all my Freedom Plan members through and my three year vision – working title Freedom Vision Map.

At the time when I chatted with Lauren about this, I just couldn’t complete it. There was nothing concrete there that made me want to jump up and do it.

I am really pleased to say that over the weekend when I was in Melbourne with Josh, the four days that I had out there were just fantastic and were so good for me just to get away from it all, and go into the new city,  have a timeout and just be in a new environment.

On Monday we were so motivated we sat back and did our three year plan together in the space of half an hour or an hour.

So now I am going to put that into my Freedom Vision Map and I am going to share it with you guys. It’s the first time in a couple of years that I’ve done one and it’s going to be completely different to my last one where I’ve achieved a lot of that. My whole emphasis has changed now.

I hope you’ve enjoyed coming along with me on this ride of the sabbatical.

And now back into work and to several different areas that I’m looking at, that I’ll be sharing here soon.

I hope that you’ve been able to hear my process as I’ve been going through this and understand and learn from it just as much as I have.

As I said, you will consider taking time out for you to get perspective, to get creative, to get re-energized and to totally make sure that you are aligned with what you truly want out of life.

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As I come off my 3 month business sabbatical, I realized that you can have a little sabbatical every single day of your life.

Through practicing what I talked about in Season 1, Mindfulness, Meditation, breathing and I am right now studying “The Science of Happiness” through edX which is an awesome online platform of amazing courses from incredible universities around the world.

I am actually going to be revisiting a lot of what I spoke about in Season 1 back before I knew so little and now I’ve learned so much. It has absolutely opened my mind how every single day it’s the little things that you do in 10, 20 or 30 minutes of time that all radically change how you feel and how much more freedom you have.

In this episode, I am going to talk about a daily freedom routine because I think it’s really important.

Before I jump into that I just want to share with you a snippet from Hilary Rushford of The Elegant Excellence who went on a sabbatical about a year ago for three months as well.

This is a one snippet from her video where she was talking about the fact that there was never going to be another time like now when she’d have all this time to read, relax, chill out and learn.

And when I first listened to it I was like, “Yeah I think you are right!”, but now having been on a sabbatical when I have all the time to read, relax and learn you still don’t because it is a journey. It is ongoing. It is an everyday commitment to being your best self, to giving yourself the space and time to be.

Here is the snippet and her insights are really useful:

“I've now built what is now over a million dollar revenue a year business in the first five years. And for me, 3 months into sabbatical I just realized, I am not doing the things that I wanted to do. I am not changing in the ways that I wanted to change. There's still those things on my list where "I am wishing that I have more time to do" things and here I am on sabbatical, one of the most times ever.

And so I really just started to dive in and explore why are we not doing these things? And I think one big reason for me is that I have these visions of "It's got to be done perfect. It's got to be this epic change. It's got to be hours of a week. I've got to commit to it now for every single day for eternity".

That's wonderful but it so rarely happens.

And so challenging myself to just take 10 minutes a day. Commit just 10 days and to not do things in some perfect epic change but just something, just take a step.

Make a small step towards what I think is the biggest game changer that not enough people talk about in business which is you as a CEO, your joy, your peace, your rest, your emotional health, your ability to make big decisions, your ability to tune into your gut and what you really want.

And I think the reality is that so many of us are exhausted, anxious, overwhelmed, depressed, unhappy. We want this to be just a little bit easier but we are not actually doing the steps to make the change.”

And then recently I received an email from Suzi Dafnis who owns herbusiness.com and she said this:

Since starting my business 23 years ago, I’ve been given lots of advice. And, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was to hit the “pause button”.

What? Wasn’t I meant to be hustling?

Pushing? Striving?

Nope.

There have been times where what I really needed to do, was pause.

Pausing is not stopping.

Pausing is simply taking time to reflect, recharge and renew - free from distractions and free from the daily push and pull of commitments and catering to others’ expectations.

In his book Thank You for Being Late, the New York Times best-selling author, Thomas Friedman writes:

"... opting to pause and reflect, rather than panic or withdraw, is a necessity. It is not a luxury or a distraction — it is a way to increase the odds that you’ll better understand, and engage productively with, the world around you."

'When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings they start,' argues my friend and teacher Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN, which advises global businesses on ethics and leadership.

You start to reflect, you start to rethink your assumptions, you start to reimagine what is possible and, most importantly, you start to reconnect with your most deeply held beliefs. Once you’ve done that, you can begin to reimagine a better path.”

Choosing to pause has been hard.

Up front, it's felt expensive and like an investment I couldn't afford. I had so much to do, so many commitments and deadlines.

Looking back, I know that had I not made the investment in pausing, I would not be where I am today.

I would not have made important pivots and changes that have allowed me to stay in business, to continue to evolve, to keep loving my business — and to stay relevant and producing results.

This October I am taking time out to 'pause' once again.

Thank you Suzy for those wonderful wise words!

That’s exactly what I’ve found on this business sabbatical where little times business-y things would creep back in where I am tempted to check on email or how things were going. But when I wasn’t and when I was just being, enjoying and learning, I was back in my creative zone. I have had so many wonderful thoughts, ideas and improvements that I want to make.

I’ve got my mojo back for my business!

And I’ve also got a whole new perspective on it that I just couldn’t see before I took a break because I wasn’t giving myself space to pause, reflect and observe.

I also spoke to my friend Colin Wright recently of Exile Lifestyle, who like me for so many years has lived out of the suitcase, travelled the world and every 3 months he lets his community choose where he is going to travel next.

I had emailed him about my Suitcase Entrepreneur book and updating his story in it since the third edition is coming out in September. Woohoo!

 

A post shared by Natalie Sisson (@nataliesisson) on May 12, 2017 at 2:45pm PDT

Anyway, he told me what he’s been up to and I was really really blown away but also super excited for him. Here’s what he said:

“I've been meaning to learn to cook for years, and finally got around to doing that; have made every meal for almost a year and am loving it as a craft. I've also wanted to learn to play the piano, and to learn some music production skills to go along with the guitaring and singing I've always done, so that's also been quite rewarding.

Beyond that, I wanted to do really, truly boring things, like buy furniture, because I haven't done so since 2009. I haven't owned a car in all the time, and I was curious how I would use such things, and live such a life, now that I've done so many other things and been so many other places. Getting mail is a novelty, as is having reliable and consistent internet access and electricity. So bizarre how much cultural understanding is dependent on having these things. So many things I could understand intellectually, but not really get. I do get them now, though, to some degree.

I'm sure you can relate to that — do anything long enough, and it becomes a little bit predictable. And the one thing I kept coming back to that scared me a little was holding still in one place for a bit, buying my own furniture, and owning a car. Weird, but the concept was mildly frightening to me. So, of course, I had to do it :)”

So I just love that people around me are doing what they need to do to pause, to reflect, to recharge, to re energize, to take these many sabbaticals from not only their business but their everyday life.

So if you are like, “Natalie, I can’t take three months off!”

Well, first off, I challenge you, you should be able to. It’s your life. You get to choose.

And I appreciate other things get in the way, you might have commitments and family but instead today I am offering you up a few doses of daily freedom routines that you can include to have a more simplistic, beautiful day and those little moments to yourself.

I got some of my freedomists and my Freedom Plan community to share some of their routines.

The first is from Fiona Hall:

“My freedom chores in the morning I journal three questions. This helps me get my mind see it really fresh and ready for the day. The first question I ask is what am I curious about?

That’s from Elizabeth Gilbert's book “Big Magic”. I love that question. It gets my mind into problem-solving mind and I always come up with something new and exciting for myself. The next question I ask is how am I feeling? Because if I don’t acknowledge how I am feeling and I am not feeling that good, it really impacts on my productivity, on my fun, on my ability to deal with my children first thing in the morning.

And then the last question I ask is a productivity question it is what actions am I going to take today? And because of those first two questions I find the action one as really simple. I’ve worked through what am I curious about, what am I feeling and process anything that I need to process until I am ready for the day and my mind is how I need it today. And the other things I do in  terms of exercise as I try to is 30 minute walk 3-4 times a week.”

This next one is from Ricardo Ferreira:

“I ride a bike everywhere.I think it’s one of the ultimate expressions of freedom. You can go almost anywhere on a bike.

You can be fast or take your time and you're free to stop whenever and wherever you wish. It’s on a bike that you start thinking more about enjoying the journey and concerning less about the destination.”

What about this one from Sif, the vet:

“Working in my little garden. I love to take a break from the computer and go outside work in the garden, dig in the dirt, rearrange things and plant seeds and watch the flowers and the vegetables grow.

I really love the feeling of growing some of my own food which makes me feel extra free. And this is what I do to be calm everyday because you have to work in the garden everyday.”

Here’s Stephanie McGuirt freedom routine for her inbox:

“My daily productivity tip or routine would be to use an extension, it’s a Chrome extension by Baydin called Inbox Pause and that actually does like it says it stops messages from coming into your inbox until you unpause your inbox or unless you have them scheduled to come in at certain times.

So I know that at 9am and 3pm everyday, I will get all of my messages that have been sent outside those times and I can focus on them for the next 30 minutes or hour and outside of 9am and 3pm, I am focused on other tasks. So it has really increased my productivity and I highly recommend it for anyone that is overwhelmed by their inbox.”

So I hope that you learned a lot from these lovely people who offered up simple, little tactics related to business and life that they are doing to create more time, space and freedom.

Of course I have a ton more of my own I talk a lot about them in the Freedom Plan.

On my business sabbatical, I thought of so many improvements to my signature program and just how much more amazing I can make it for you to really truly learn how to reclaim your time, make more money, work less, earn more and be free.

I hope you tune in to the next episode we are still on a digital sabbatical and the business sabbatical theme and how you can incorporate this in your life. I am going to share the results of my business sabbatical essentially as come into first of July when I am officially back on board for business.

Tune into the next episode by subscribing in iTunes and Stitcher.

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Welcome back to Season 2 Episode 3. Today I am going to talk about the power of a sabbatical.

What I'm already finding just with two and a half months off my business is that I have finally given myself the space to reflect and to look back on all the accomplishments that I've had so far, that maybe, just maybe, I'd forgotten about.

If you are a business owner, you totally know what I am talking about.

How often do we pat ourselves on our back and congratulate ourselves on how far we've come?

Seven years in business, that's how long it's been since I had my business, since I started officially April 2010 and until I took the timeout and time off of my business, I didn't realize all the things that I'd actually managed to do.

The reason why that came about is when I had the down time to not be working on stuff, I took a trip down memory lane and thought about the products and services that I've created since I started, all the blog posts that I've written. I had a few people linking to blog posts from like 2011 and I was like, "I wrote that post? This is actually pretty good.”

Then I just had a chance to reconnect with clients from years ago, from cleaning stuff up and going back through old folders, I forgot that I've coached these people. I wondered, where are they now and what are they doing?

So when I am back online in July, I really want to reconnect with some of my first ever clients and community members.

What it's forced me to do on the sabbatical is actually go back to my roots and think about all the things I loved when I first started out.

If you think back to your business, what were the things that made you so excited and so happy to be doing what you did that got you up every single morning and kept you up late at night when you were hustling and doing everything you wanted to do on your business?

What were those things?

The reason I even needed to take a break from my business is I'd forgotten what I loved about it in the first place. So this sabbatical has helped me to gain perspective.

It's forced me into slightly darker places where I've been playing the comparison game. Because I've been watching on social media from the sidelines, people doing things and launching. And I just get caught up in that and normally my go to is I'd follow that launch, I emulate it, I take notes from it, improve on it and learn from it.

But I don't want any of that in my world! I don't want any distraction. I don't want to know what other people are doing. So I put the Facebook Ad Blocker on.

I just want to reconnect with my friends, get back to my roots and get perspective on how far I've come but also how much more I can do & how much more I can offer.

I needed to reconnect with what it was that I fell in love with at the very beginning.

I just want to have a little insert here from my friend JC Bougle, who actually is recovering from burnout. As I've mentioned before in this podcast, I almost burnout when I first self-published my book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur back in 2013 and I didn't even realize I was so close to it.

The problem is when you don't take a sabbatical, a break or holidays from your business and you just go hard out for years, you burnout.

Then you are forced into a break that you don't want to be on: where your body can't recover, where your mind is jaded and stuck and where you actually physically aren't able to do much work anymore and I just don't want you to get to that place.

This is gold. Here's what he had to say:

"What happened to me last year is that I was very close to burnout and no enthusiasm for business, for entrepreneurship and no energy. And I couldn't take a long sabbatical really to disconnect from the business so I took a short sabbatical for a couple of weeks.

I really disconnected from anything online and after that which was even more important in my recovery after 2 weeks of disconnection, I really paced myself along with the expectations of what I could achieve and I also set a less ambitious goals for myself and worked a little bit more intensely.

This helped me a lot to recover completely from this burnout. Pacing yourself after the sabbatical is as important as taking a real break."

And then I had my friend Jesse Krieger of Lifestyle Entrepreneur Press, who posted on Facebook about a month ago about his retreat away from his business for a week. He wrote:

"I've just arrived back from a week retreat in the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru. Quite honestly, one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.

This is the first time I've been offline all year and it was relaxing, reinvigorating and full of insights as I sat deep in meditation in the Peruvian Andes.

My host was Javier Regueiro, author of the two books that I'll be publishing in September, "Ayahuasca: Soul Medicine of the Amazon Jungle” and "San Pedro Huachuma: Opening Pathways to the Heart”.

It's hard to overstate the importance of taking time just for yourself. Not being beholden into anyone, not needing to have any conversation. People just simply sit and enjoy the surroundings and become aware of whatever thoughts and emotions arise.

While deep in meditation, it came to me that my role as a publisher resembles that of a crystal. A crystal such as the quartz is transparent and can be carved in a way that focuses energy, taking diffused light and focusing it on point almost as a laser.

In short, I got the insight that I am a crystal and you are the light and that is my new approach to working with authors and publishing and its good to be home.”

And now I want to bring back in Jason Van Orden who you heard about on the last podcast, "Firing myself” because he did exactly the same thing with his very successful 7-figure business that he ran with Jeremy Frandsen for years.

Here is what Jason had to say:

"Truthfully it was really fast for me. I am not saying it was the right thing to do. In hindsight, there's a lot of realizations here. But basically I was so ready to be removed.

And that might have been maybe a little too fast to remove myself. We probably needed a little more processes in place, expectations set and measurements.

Fast forward several months and it kind of came to this realization that the point of the business is that when I left, when we left or we kind of stepped away, was she was going to be able to maintain it.

But we hadn't changed things over in terms of systems and teams and all the other things that kind of needed to be there for a proper exit or removal of ourselves for it to continue growing consistently like it had been before.

So we are faced with this choice: do we go back in to start it growing again or do we just say, "Okay it is what it is. It's this nice source of income and for now it's going still but we have no more expectations of this actually becoming any bigger than it already is."”

So insightful right? It's really neat to hear from other people who have taken some time out or forced themselves away from their business or literally just shut something down because its not working.

I think as entrepreneurs we need to give ourselves that permission to do that more often than we ever think because it is incredibly powerful and you just don't understand how important it is that we recharge our batteries.

I also like to think there's a bit of a 7-year itch thing going on here. I appreciate Jason and Jeremy it was well over a decade but a lot of people that I've been speaking to recently have been in business for around 7 years and they are tired.

And let's face it, any job that you've been in 7 years is a long time in a job right? These days most people are in jobs for 1, 2 or 3 years in max. It's the norm for millennials to switch jobs incessantly.

Where as back in my Dad's/Mum's days, you'll stay in a job for 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years plus! And you get a little golden watch at the end of it if you were lucky, a handshake and a thank you very much.

But when I was in the corporate world, I'd switch jobs all the time because I would get so bored or I just wanted to change it up. Then I realized I really just needed to be an entrepreneur where I could work on my own projects all the time, change them at a speed of light and work on multiple projects that excited me.

The great news is the whole point of this entire episode is that I found more freedom. It's so good!

I am filling my days with painting and practicing piano. (I lie on that I haven't actually touched the piano but I am going to today.) And training my puppy which is like a full-time job and I am learning so much. Training myself I should really say not my puppy. In training myself, I am effectively training my dog to be more obedient and awesome.

You can find Kayla, the white German Shepherd on Instagram at kaylathemajestic. If you want some joy in your day, go follow her. And you can follow my adventures at nataliesisson or my Facebook page.

For me personally, now that I've eased into my sabbatical, I've had all these opportunities come my way to work with other people on their businesses, help them start businesses, be on teams and I am resisting all of these things until I finish my sabbatical.

I really want to look at where I am heading because I've got the mojo back, people! I have got the mojo back! And I am very excited to bring this back to my business. Natalie is back!

I am super excited to be creating and implementing when I get back into it but until then I am still on a sabbatical.

And in the next episode, I am thrilled to bring you daily habits of freedom. Before I went on a sabbatical, I asked my community about their daily habits that they have to give them a little bit more freedom in life and these are going to apply to you personally and professionally, so make sure you tune into the next episode by subscribing in iTunes and Stitcher.

Want to sell your own online courses (and have a great launch)

Selling online courses is one of my favourite things to do, but as I pointed out in this episode, it can be a real headache.

With Teachable, you don't have to worry about the tech.

Teachable is the easiest way to create, sell and deliver online courses.

And while it is so easy to use, it's also packed with a lot of powerful features.

With Teachable, you're able to...

• create your own course website, with your own custom branding, so you get all of the credit for how professional your course website looks.
• accept payments and get paid instantly when you sell your courses
• integrate with hundreds of your favorite tools and email service providers
• create beautiful sales pages for your courses

Teachable is the #1 course creation software, with over 12,000 instructors using their software to create, deliver and sell online courses.

All types of business owners and online entrepreneurs use Teachable. Sure, that includes people like Pat Flynn or The New York Times. But most of their instructors are just regular people like you and me and who are looking grow their businesses with courses.

And guess what?

Teachable is offering a 30 day free trial to my listeners. To claim it, just go to teachable.com/suitcase.

Yup I fired myself. That's what I did. April 1st, 2017 I fired myself from my business and went on a business sabbatical.

So you may be wondering what prompted me to take a business sabbatical in the first place. Let me take you back to September 2016.

I was in Australia speaking at Problogger and staying in this amazing suite Darren Rowse and the team organized for me as a paid speaker. The view was incredible and the hotel complex was too.

I was there to do a Tony Robbins style pump up session in between keynotes and also to run a session track on how to have a lucrative sales funnel that converts.

Josh was with me and that made it extra special as it was his first real look into my world and the circles I connected with as well as some of my community who were there. I even managed to get in some videos for a Ten Day Freedom Plan Blog challenge with my fave videographer Mick Russell.

After that we had some quality time in Byron Bay and a surf session before heading to San Diego, US where Josh was speaking at a conference in an entirely different area to what I operate in, and then I was speaking at FinCon.

Both our events were back to back and we were fortunate to stay in lovely hotels once again with sunshine and swimming pools. The trouble was I was in launch mode for my signature program, The Freedom Plan.

Even though I've launched this four times before, and even though I was super systemized this was my first time taking my team through a launch and training them up at the same time. I was working in between time and not doing the normal networking and socializing at conferences that I like to do.

In fact I really didn’t feel like it. I was kind of tapped out and feeling a bit jaded and while I was enjoying the relatively new romance with Josh I wasn’t enjoying what I almost always have done, the art of launching and running my business.

It all felt heavy. And as much as my team tried to keep up and do their best, I just felt like I was pulling their weight and mine. As a result I was exhausted.

I’ve come to realize over the years that for whatever reason, I am incredibly focused and can work at speed on almost any task I set my mind to. Until I worked with around 6 people on my team during a launch I realized this was not normal, and that you have to respect and understand other people's’ working methods.

It’s just that during a launch it’s really hard to do this - you NEED to work at pace and everything needs to be timed super well and you do actually need to do things on the fly and change tactics at any point to reflect the nature of how your launch is going, and how people are responding.

While this is great and exciting for a Wealth Dynamics Entrepreneurial ‘Star’ Profile like myself, it’s a nightmare for a Lord or Mechanic who have a much more grounded energy and need detailed plans and order to work best.

So to them it looked like we were out of control but to me it seems very very much in tuned with exactly how everything should be going along.

And slowly but surely deadlines got missed, communications broke down, things didn’t go out on time and it ended up being the worst launch that I’ve ever done.

I still made close to $40,000 in the space of a couple of weeks but I spent a lot more on my team. I spent a lot on advertising. And at the end of the day, it just really felt heavy.

And it wasn’t a successful launch and I felt like my list and my community just felt tapped out including myself.

I remember getting off a live webinar where a thousand people turned up and the energy was fantastic but the results from it were not great.

And I sat back at the end of that webinar and I was like,

"That's it. I'm done.

I just don’t understand why this is not going well and I have had enough.

I have run this launch before and it's an amazing program and I made multiple six figures!

I know it works and I know it gets people results and I just don’t understand what happened. This was a flop.

The ironic thing was I was running a Freedom Lab at the same time and this is where I actually show you real-time, something that I am doing.

So I have done one on “Write the Damn Book - how to write a book in three months but the first one was called “How to Launch like a Rockstar.

And so people following along my launch live, every tactic we were doing around Facebook advertising, emailing and sales copy and I was sharing it live through videos, through blog posts.

Here I was at the end going AND it was a big flop!

It might not look like it to you, but transparently doing something live and sharing the real results when they don't come off how they should is embarrassing and at the same time very real.

If anything it taught me, our team and everybody else out there a lesson that shit does not always go right.

So that is when I decided, I am going to fire myself and it was such a great decision to make, but that was in late September, early October and I did not end up taking my business sabbatical until the first of April.

And why was that?

A couple of reasons:

• We were changing over to a brand new design for The Suitcase Entrepreneur which looks amazing. (Thank you Filipe - my team member in Portugal!)
• We were changing the website over so we were using a new theme and Kasia - WP Rockstar, who has been through my Freedom Plan, she handled all of that.
• We were changing from Infusionsoft over to ConvertKit for email, Clickfunnels for my sales funnels Leadpages and landing pages. Closing down the Leadpages pages that I had.
• And shifting over my courses and creating new ones on Teachable.

So November and December were massive months. And even though I thought all those changes are beneficial, they actually affected my business for the next two or three months in a bad way.

Just because when you change systems and change lots of things - like we took a ton of pages away from my website, we leaned it right out from over a hundred pages and 950 blog posts right down to just several pages!

We took a lot of our landing pages and sales funnels over to Clickfunnels and the traffic dropped because we were just cleaning everything up.

So what prompted me to think that firing myself was a great idea?

I have been on a few digital sabbaticals before when you go completely offline and of course when I was cycling down Africa in 2012, I was pretty much away from my business for a good two months.

I remember clearly from that that I forgot about my business, I did not worry about anything because I was so busy cycling up to a 150 km a day.

I felt freer than ever while I was cycling down Africa, simply just waking up in the morning, crawling out of my tent, putting out my bike, having breakfast and just hitting the road.

At the same time, my business was doing just fine. I was in my early stages, my virtual assistant, that I had hired just before I left, was doing a great job.

And it made me appreciate that it had been a long time since I had really left my business behind and handed it over to people I trusted or just trusted in the systems that I had built.

I thought for me, as a freedomist who is constantly preaching you need great systems, you need to outsource, you need the right tools and you need great sales funnel, I was like,

Well, why not put mine to the test by removing myself as the bottleneck of my business?

Around this time I actually chatted to Jason Van Orden, a good friend who used to have Internet Business Mastery with Jeremy Frandsen and he had also gone on a business sabbatical.

In fact, they handed over to a CEO to run it, so I had a quick chat to him because I was interested to learn from him: what went well, what did not and why he took that step.

Here is the conversation we had about it:

Eventually I had to stop and ask myself why there was that waning in motivation. I’m sure partly I was maybe scared a little bit to look at that but what does it mean?

What if I ended up figuring out I've got the wrong business or that I am done with this business.

One thing that finally helped is when I went on a personal retreat. By then we were living on Paris so I went to Prague for 4 or 5 days.

I did a little soul searching, journaling, thinking and I remember coming back from that and just saying to my wife, "I think I need a sabbatical from this business".

So I asked Jason, how long did that take you to remove yourself from your business and here is his response.

Truthfully it was really fast for me but I am not saying it was the right thing to do. In hindsight, there’s a lot of realizations here but basically I was so ready to be removed and that might have been maybe a little too fast.

We probably needed a few more processes in place, expectations and measurements.

So as you can see it was really quick for Jason once he made that decision.

I have to say for me, I made that decision pretty instantly, the minute that launch finished, that I was going to take a time off.

Then I spent the time just gearing up my team to be able to survive without me and to show them it was fully possible that without me in the business, it potentially would go even better!

Because as the CEO of your business often, you do end up still doing things, making the shots, calling the shots, having the key relationships and all those things.

Usually that is a great thing but sometimes you can just hold on a little too tight.

You just need to release and beauty comes into the picture. Things that you'd never even considered before.

And I am going to talk about those in Episode 3 for Season 2, so make sure you tune into the next episode by subscribing in iTunes and Stitcher.

I would love for you to share in the comments section below:

• Have you ever taken a business sabbatical?
• What freaks you out about doing that?
• Have you thought about firing yourself when you've been a little less motivated in your business recently?

Tell me where you are at. I want to know. I am doing this for you so I really want your insights.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Season 2 where Jason Van Orden will tell us about what actually happened when he basically took a break from his business. We'll also have some other key guests on here that I think you are going to love with their discoveries on this topic.

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Welcome to Season 2 of Natalie Sisson's Quest for Freedom!

I'm delighted to be back and I know you've been missing me...at least 2 people have asked me "Natalie when is your next podcast episode coming out".

So thank you to the two of you, I appreciate it.

Obviously to talk about a business sabbatical and how you can truly have a profitable business that can technically run without you, you need to experience that in full glory for yourself.

Luckily this podcast is about making me the guinea pig of my own experiments in order for us to uncover what true freedom really is.

Since the 1st of April I've been on a business sabbatical and in this episode I reveal all.

Well almost all, I'll tell you the rest when I'm finished my break from my business. But here's what I will share:

• What a business sabbatical actually is (and why you get to define this for yourself)
• Behind the scenes of what really happens when you take time out from your business

Then I went on to answer some great questions from a fan on my Facebook page that watched my previous video on this topic where I shared the realities of it, and why I was extending my sabbatical for another month (which has now turned into 3).

The only thing I'm bringing back is this podcast because it's my baby, and it's helping me to learn and grow real-time by sharing my findings with YOU.

So for the full lowdown you can watch the video below (here it is on my Facebook page) OR listen to the podcast by clicking the button at the top OR you can read the full blog post below this video.

"For those of you who have been following The Suitcase Entrepreneur and my Quest for Freedom, you'll know that I took the entire month of April off my business.

No checking emails, no checking in with the team, no watching anything related to business, not thinking about business and just taking a month off my business, The Suitcase Entrepreneur.

And I then extended it into May. I appreciate it's May now as I record this, but I don't feel like doing a Facebook live video to answer your questions feels like business to me, and I love my business so it's you that I am here for. You guys have helped me build it.

I do think you've got to talk about these things in the moment because several months down the track I may actually forget what it really, really physically feels like to be on a sabbatical right now, and continuing it on through to the end of June.

Next week actually I am going to be taking a digital sabbatical and be totally offline, off the Internet probably for 3 to 5 days. It's been awhile since I've done a digital sabbatical and I just want to disconnect.

I'll be doing some reading, thanks to Brendon Burchard's The Motivation Manifesto and Tony Robbins Unshakeable, so these are a couple of the things that I'll be focusing on. I also have some novels.

And I just want to chill out by the fire, play with my puppy, exercise, read books and think. I want to practice the piano and I want to enjoy myself, which I already have been doing.

Just do more of that.

But today I wanted to answer specifically questions that you guys had from the Reality of a business sabbatical Facebook Live video where I took you behind the scenes.

The first month off was kind of weird.

I was 1) moving into a beautiful new dream lifestyle property, 2) getting a puppy, getting 5 chickens, and setting up an entire house - because when you've lived out of the suitcase for close to 7 years you don't really have much stuff!

And I realized that I still hadn't fully given myself the time out to just enjoy and re-energize and get my verve and my mojo back for everything that I love to do.

The great news is it's starting to happen since I've given myself more space, more time.

I'll admit, I can't ever fully stop. I've been reaching out to networks where I now live and looking at potentially helping getting a co-working space setup, which would be so awesome because I've used so many of them over the years as a digital nomad.

I've just been connecting with more and more people especially women entrepreneurs, getting to know the area and of course, dreaming up lots of visions and ideas for what I would just love to do in the near future.

Not only related to my books that are coming out but also making my Freedom Plan program the best ever and just a bunch of other things that I've been wanting to work on for so long. Now I have the headspace to think about them.

That's one of the huge benefits of a business sabbatical - headspace.

I wanted to answer some questions from Angela Fitradi who posted after my Facebook live a couple of weeks ago, she said,

"I'd love to know how the business runs without you? How often you check in? When you check in? What do you focus on? And how to know what to focus on and what can be managed without your attention?"

So the business runs without me, because as I've been blasting from the rooftops for the last couple of years, you NEED to have sexy systems in place.

Freedom systems are really what I am talking about and ultimately at the end of the day you should have a fantastic website that people can navigate to once they're there, a fantastic sales funnel that takes them on a journey to show them exactly what content they can consume, that they should sign up to receive more email updates from you and what programs and products that you have to offer them that would be really beneficial.

Now I will absolutely say the business has kind of plateaued and even declined a little because I am a huge believer that energy in vs energy out applies to everything you do in life.

So if you are putting energy into your health and fitness, it's going to pay off - if you are doing it right.

The same applies to your business. If you are putting tons of energy into the right areas as Jeff Walker was saying the other day in his video, as in you've got to strategize and prioritize into the right areas not just throwing yourself at everything, but if you are putting the energy into your business in the right places, it will grow.

Naturally when you take a step back from your business you will find it doesn't grow as much.

To recap, I would say a fantastic website or place that people can land on whether it's landing pages, sales pages, and a great sales funnel really helps once all those things are automated.

And outside of that some key team members, definitely starting with a virtual assistant who can do your customer service, check your emails for you, answer on your behalf and to answer your question more candidly, Angela, anything that Angeline can answer, my awesome assistant, we have some template canned responses and the things that are more important like somebody not being able to access the program or something not working, Angeline knows my business.

She's been with me for almost 3 years now, in a part-time capacity and so she knows where the resources are or how to help my community. That's been hugely helpful and I have a small team around the world, and most of them right now are kind of on a break as well.

But if we do need to communicate, we do it typically through Slack. I am doing my best to not login to email at all, but essentially Slack is a place where we can just communicate briefly.

And they all have their team objectives that they've been working on. Our marketing and editorial calendar, we know what's coming out, we know what's working and we have been reviewing that.

I asked my team, especially Debashish to review that while I was off on my break and come back to me with some recommendations so that when I am back properly we can change strategies or direction.

So how often do I check in?

For the first month, I didn't want to be contacted at all. Typically I'd say if you are going on a sabbatical, the point is to be offline, but once a month is probably more than enough.

Or if you feel that's a little too infrequent or you really want to know things then probably every week and just make it a short check in and make sure you know what you are asking for.

Your other question was, how do you know what to focus on and what can be managed without your attention?

Most stuff can be managed without my attention. It's only when I am creating new content or launching something that really all my attention needs to be on that and I need to be driving my team.

But outside of that I've worked very hard over the years to set up Sexy Operating Procedures (SOP) and some really great strategies and direction for my team to be empowered to do their things and to do them really well.

Right now, I am focusing on my own learning and my own growth and understanding different areas that maybe I just haven't put aside the time to actually delve into. I am doing several online courses myself around The Science of Happiness through Berkeley University via the edX platform, and around health and nutrition through Dr Libby.

I am learning or I will be learning (when I am off my sabbatical) more around e-commerce and getting up to speed on social media trends and tactics.

And I think most things don't need to be managed by you. So the best thing to focus on would probably be partnerships and key relationships. But even those have been really well managed by my team because they know that I've dealt with these people for years and they can often answer their questions that those partners would like to ask me.

I think it's nurturing those relationships that's the key stuff that you still do want to focus on.

And the next part of your question, have there been any situations where your absence has created a situation and has your business income and finances has been affected by your absence?

On the second part, absolutely as I said energy in vs energy out. But I've been pleasantly surprised that it's been earning really, really well over the last couple of months without me there so that proves I don't always need to be there!

And to answer your question about has my absence created a situation? I think it has probably provided relief to my team. They are probably enjoying the break from Natalieville to be really honest you know.

I think there have been no situations that have arisen. I wasn't expecting anything major as we had pretty much planned out a year ahead so I don't expect any hurdles or anything that would come up and so therefore no situations.

The only situation caused by you not being in your business for awhile would be a lack of clarity around expectations, priorities, objectives and milestones while you are not there.

Who to contact? Who to reach out to? How to move forward on projects if you are not the person who's absolutely able to drive them like you normally would be. So those are the sort of things that you probably want to think about.

I hope that's given you guys some insight and I just wanted to pop in and say hello to my beautiful freedomist community and give you some understanding behind what a business sabbatical is.

You can make it whatever you want really but the point is to take time out from your business to get the creative juices flowing and to really just actually come back to your roots and focus on what you loved about your business in the first place and that has been so enlightening for me so far. "

Stay tuned for the next episode of Season 2 where I talk with other entrepreneurs about burnout and their business sabbaticals like Jason Van Orden

"Eventually I had to stop and ask myself why there was that waning in motivation. I'm sure partly I was maybe scared a little bit to look at that but what does it mean? What if I ended up figuring out I've got the wrong business or that I am done with this business."

Don't miss a thing by subscribing in iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play. Or jump on to get email updates whenever an episode goes live here.

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