S1 Ep2: Lara Acosta On Becoming a Millionaire at 26, Going VIRAL and Why Work-Life Balance Is A SCAM!

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Yeah.

Do you feel like you can create a work-life balance?

Work-life balance is the second biggest scam we've been sold. I remember telling you how much money I was making with that playbook, which, uh, $10,000 for that playbook. You're making millions and I was making $10,000. I was like, why is he getting so excited about a PDF? More excited than I was.

Our first cohort, we ended up doing like $70,000 in full day. It's unbelievable.

Hey Lara, just an FYI, your cohort is live on this website being sold for $20. And I was like, what?

Lara, welcome to Wake Up. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

Growing up in Mexico, what were the biggest influences that shaped your early views?

My dad. My mom and dad, my parents' dynamic was crucial to, for me, understanding how the world operates now. I have the most unconventional family upbringing, by the way. Like, I wasn't normal. I was a weird kid at school to start. I'm an only child with a very weirdly religious but not so much Mexican family. I am vegan. Like, I was raised vegetarian. So everything about me was weird.

Yeah.

In Mexico, veganism wasn't a thing. Vegetarianism wasn't a thing. My parents were Buddhists, not like Christian. They also wouldn't let me leave the house. And my dad is a workaholic. He's always been working for like as long as I know him. And so has my mom. And instead of taking me to a playground, instead of letting me read fun books, I was reading Donald Trump's books when I was younger. I was listening to CD podcasts or like audiobooks in the car. And I was going to networking events with my dad and I hated it at the time, but I'm so thankful that that's happened in my life because I'm able to communicate with all the people with ease because that's what I've always done. And it's helped me on LinkedIn so much because I can appeal to both Gen Z and, you know, millennials and boomers because I can still communicate with professionalism and tact. While still remaining cool and fun and merging those two. So my dad's passion for business has truly, truly reflected on the person I am today. And he's the kindest person I know. Yeah.

Can you tell us more about your dad's story and like how he influenced your, your entrepreneurship?

How long do you have? I could talk about him for ages. I love my dad. He His story is actually quite extraordinary. He grew up poor in like the north of Mexico, and he used to pick cotton from the fields when he was younger because they were poor and broke. He had like 4 brothers. Everybody else was like playing. And my dad told me this beautiful story that when he— every time he was picking cotton in the sun and he would walk like 10 kilometers back and forth from home, he would think about what his life would look like. When he was a millionaire, or like when he was doing the thing, or like when he made his first $100. And one thing led to another. He became like a scholarship student. He got flown out to the London School of Economics to study. He got flown out to Harvard to study, everything paid for him. I studied at the best university in Mexico at the time, again, fully paid for because he was so brilliant at what he did, which was like mad. My dad's an engineer. He's a solid, like, smart man. And he then started working in the Bank of Mexico. So like, legit guy. And being around him and seeing how hard he's worked in, like, again, standard business, then retired and built another business for fun, and then another one, and another one. I think he's just so iconic. Yeah, but the thing that makes him so unique to me and why I would always say he's the biggest influence in my life, he is such a masculine man without having to be alpha. Never once he told me, you're a girl, you belong in the kitchen. You're a girl, you do this. He was like, do you, sweetie? I support you. He was the most kind, graceful man on the planet. Never once he told me no. Everything was like, yes, how can I help you? You want to be this? How can I support you? You want this? Okay, how can I like give you the tools? I was never just given things. I was just like made— I would work for them. And so the way he raised a girl, I think a lot of people should learn because he, he loved me. He loved me. He, he loved me so much. That I had no other choice than to shine. And now I'm filled with his love and like his impact and like his wisdom because he, he is that. And he's such an amazing, powerful man. Yeah.

And you've said before your dad helped you through your own challenges, your own periods of depression. Like, what do you think are the main takeaways there in terms of, you know, bringing yourself to where you are now?

I remember I was struggling with panic attacks during the pandemic. And obviously Mexican parents, like, have no idea what mental health even means. Like, I think only Gen Z has become quite vocal about mental health. And so I had one of these panic attacks where I froze, I couldn't move. And I remember just standing there and like shouting for my dad. And I felt so ashamed of like not having control over my body. I don't know if you've ever felt that, but just him sitting with me and being like, it's going to be okay, we're going to get through this together. And knowing that there was no one inch of judgment and all support, that just goes a long way. I think my generation really suffers with not feeling seen enough by older people. And social media just makes it seem like even worse. And when you actually come through with like, I have a pain and I don't know where it's coming from, can you help? We usually get told no. Like we get called lazy, we get called like, I don't know, soft, wet, whatever. And it's like we're just a little bit more in touch with our emotions and knowing that we don't have to suppress things. But with my dad, it was like, don't suppress it, please tell me, I really wanna help you win. He was like, you're a winner. And so it was the kindness and love, the lack of aggression. And he never put me in a box of who I should become. Obviously, he always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I always said that when I saw him working the hours he was working when I was 6, like he was working 24 hours. Like, I'm not even kidding. He had like 3 phones, computer, assistant coming in and out. I would never see my dad. I would see him through a window and say hello. Only until I was like 15, 16, I got to know my dad for the first time, which was nice. But before that, I was like, I will never be an entrepreneur that's working all these hours. And my dad wouldn't run out of gas. He would keep on going. He was traveling back and forth. And I think right now I'm like the actual reflection of him then, because I'm traveling back and forth. I'm like working the 24 hours. I'm obsessed. I can't live without it. Um, yeah, he's— it's just, it's fun, it's weird.

But so you actually went to a 10X event with your dad that had a bit of an impact on you?

It changed my life.

And 10X is Grant Cardone.

Yeah, wow. Yeah, you know Grant? Yeah, I read—

I have— I know of him.

Yeah, so I, I was at uni and I was third year uni partying, like, I just want to have fun, whatever. And he's like, I mean, that calls me up, he's like, oh hey sweetie, like, I'm gonna go to Vegas, I know you want to home. Do you want to come with us? And I'm like, hell yeah, like, let's go do some gambling and like to the casino. And he's like, you'll need to go to this event with us, uh, your mom and I are going. Do you— it's Grant Cardone, do you know him? I'm like, no, is he an influencer? And I looked him up, like, I was like, this is weird, yeah, not interested. Arrived, didn't know what, what it was still, and it was like at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. And we sign in. My mom couldn't make it, so I got her ticket and I was like, fine, like, if I don't like it, I can just go back to my room and I go swimming. That was my entire plan. I was like, I'm going to go drop my dad off, have some pics, satisfy his need to have his daughter that hates entrepreneurship there, you know? And then I remember I— the feeling of going into this arena is something like out of a movie. I was walking in, there were so many people there, like, queuing and queuing. Business conference, by the way, to me felt like suits, boring, pen and paper, talking about SOPs or like KPIs. This, entered the room, we scan our tickets, they give us like cards that said 10X, like really cool branding. And I'm like, right. And it's like, be unstoppable or something like that. They give us like merch. Go in, we see like books, merch, hats, 10x, uh, be like, you're, you're a loser if you don't, you're not making money, cash rich, like all of these phrases. And I'm like, what is happening right now? And then we get into the arena, I look to my left, there's a tattoo parlor in the middle of the, the thing, like as people were walking in. And I just peek, I'm like, what is this? People are getting 10x tattooed on their arm. And I look at my dad and I'm like, what is going on? Is this a business event or what?

Yeah.

And then I sit down. Obviously it's a massive arena that like people would actually go and do like the presidential debate, like things that— or like boxing. And then I see like in the middle, I see 10X in like the stage. It was like moving, like kind of like running. I'm like, what? What? And I start seeing like all of these people that were coming, like Kevin Hart, Floyd Mayweather, Marie Forleo, Donald Trump's marketing guy, Ryan Days. I just sat and then everything shuts down. Like, there's, there's the lights go off and I start hearing music. And then there's like a show, like fire coming around. Grant's wife starts coming in. And then Grant gives like his rags to riches. And at the time I just got diagnosed with BPD and depression and OCD and all these things. And you know, as well as I do, when you get diagnosed, it's very relieving and also very frustrating. And he opened with, I got diagnosed with ADHD, depression, alcoholism, got sober, got fired, blah, blah. And he mimicked exactly what I was going through. And from that moment he had me.

Yeah.

After that, I, fuck yeah, I bought all these courses and coaching and books. But the impact that event made, made me see the other side to entrepreneurship that school hadn't taught me.

Mm-hmm.

I'd just been going through a business degree for 3 years. I learned more in that day.

Yeah.

Than I ever did in my degree. Why? Because there were real entrepreneurs that were actually practicing entrepreneurship and the art of it, which is also like a performance. And that were teaching me the marketing, the sales, the systems, actually, like, the interesting things that drive us to do the work that are interesting instead of just being sat down at school trying to memorize this essay to get a grade.

Are degrees a waste of time?

99% of them are. I think they are usually a path that leads nowhere. Throughout my entire life, I'd been promised that if I got this shiny degree, I would get to wherever I wanted to in life. Newsflash: you don't get anywhere after. I remember graduating with my 3-year degree in business and had nothing lined up, hundreds of rejections, had written hundreds of COVID letters, spent so much money trying to get— hire someone to write my own CV because clearly mine wasn't working. And so that's a lie that we've been told so hard is that you need a degree to be successful. In fact, most of the people that I know that are successful don't even have a degree. And I think a lot of people call entrepreneurs and call sellers or whatever scams, but the biggest scam of all is the education system.

It is a funny place in the world right now where, like, I was turned down from the Warwick University Entrepreneurs Society.

Really?

Which I'm not saying I have a big chip on my shoulder necessarily about that, but what I think is very interesting is like at my university it was so discouraged to be an entrepreneur. I said they were just so against it. The society was tiny, it was run by like people from the maths department, basically maths and computer science, and people like me. And it's so funny, you said it a minute ago actually, I ran an agency business and for some reason agency businesses just have a really bad rep. And so like I never And it's funny because I'm now friends with, as in like, Dan Murray runs what I think is one of the best founders communities in the UK. Like, I was never invited, and yet I ran a business much bigger than most people in it that had never taken funding, but it was an agency business and was just never invited. And I feel like this is a weird thing where you're like, if you're a coach or you're an educator or you're an agency, people think it's seriously which is crazy. Like, I think our business was doing something like 10 million when we sold it, and it's like, that's a legit, legit business, you know, with so many people. Um, but also, you know, nowadays education is in a strange position where I can't remember how much I paid for my degree, but presumably a lot. Um, would I rather my kids go to university, or would I rather my kids do online training from credible entrepreneurs? And I look at it, I'm like, well, university is going to get them a lot of fun, sure, but like, if I actually want them to learn tangible skills that will compound over time, I would love them to learn from you. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just the idea that I'm spending X amount of money to learn about like a lot of these fringe degrees, and I, I did politics So I'm not saying that's like a main degree, but I suppose it's like quite core. Whereas the, the degrees that have popped up around— people forget university is just a business. They're just trying to make money.

And they call all other businesses a scam, but we're in the biggest scam of them all.

Yeah. And there's like this amazing trend at the moment where like traditional education's like going down and then digital education is going up and I, I find myself in a position where for 10 years I thought entrepreneurs training people often was like quite prefaced with scamming because of, you know, a lot of it is really low quality. But then nowadays I just think that there has been a shift where I would rather my friends who work normal jobs, if they wanted to be entrepreneurs, I'd rather they took some of my friend's courses, you know, because it would just make an impact.

I'll give you— my dad called me out on this because he saw my podcast of mine where I said the education system is a scam. Granted, my parents worked really, really hard to even get me into one of the schools in the UK. So for them, it's like, why are you even saying that? And so our debate was like, I didn't learn anything tangible from university. And my dad's reaction was like, that wasn't what we sent you there for. And I was like, okay. He's like, look at the girl you were before you went to school in the UK, like GCSEs and A-levels. And the girl you were in Mexico. My dad would argue, and I could agree, that university and even school, you learn how to socialize and you learn how to sort of direct yourself into how to make an essay, how to write an essay, how to do homework, how to do all these things. And I guess that is the main purpose of why entrepreneurs that understand that maybe we won't learn anything, there's like a slight edge to having formal education because you learn how to formally do things and present things and stuff. But I do not think we should be paying that much for like that type of skill set. Yeah, it could be taught somewhere else. Yeah, I have a must, like a main bone to pick with GCSE, A-level education, because that is the most strict and rigid type of learning. Yeah, that I've ever seen. Because I proved it. I am fluent in Spanish, right? I'm Mexican. I failed Spanish GCSE.

No way. That's ridiculous.

What? And they were like, well, yeah, you're not speaking the way we want you to. And in that moment, I understood that I wasn't dumb. I wasn't following their lead. And I wasn't just doing what they wanted me to do. I've always been very socially savvy, like street smart. With economics and business, I was always like, I always got it. Like I was quick with it. I would have conversations and debates with teachers. But when it came to the exams and essays, I would fail them. Why? Because I wasn't saying exactly what they wanted me to say. And that, when I told my dad this, and when I say this, it's like, that makes sense. Like why I have such a bone to pick. Because for 3 years, 4 years of my life, I felt like a failure and I felt dumb. And the impact that does, that, that, that has on like a kid that's truly passionate about something, it kills a light. And I think that's why I, when I entered university, I was so sad and didn't want to pursue business anymore. Like the idea of like success, because I was proven on and on again that I didn't have what it took. But a grade again doesn't define you. Like How much you're willing to learn does. And I'm so glad I had YouTube, free education, to actually teach me the real skills that built me as the person I am today. And I guess that's why you and I are so keen on giving so much away for free. Because I don't know about you, like, I learned a lot from YouTube for free. It's taught me nearly every single thing I know. So it's like a way to give back to that younger self that deserves that access to information that is gated, it's too expensive, or people just won't teach it.

It's amazing as we get older, and I'm sure you're experiencing this, but how many of the entrepreneurs you know are— would self-identify as being rubbish at school, having some degree of ADHD or, or similar, um, and just generally weren't taken seriously at school. I mean, I don't know many really successful entrepreneurs who don't in some way identify as that.

Crazy, right?

I mean, I find it staggering. Like, I was quite literally considered an idiot, as in, like, I think my parents were aware, I think my friends were. I was very good at sport, but I think everyone just thought I was a moron. And it's like quite a funny thing, again, growing up with everyone thinking you're really stupid. When you yourself are like, I'm not stupid, I just don't necessarily— I just don't necessarily work on the way that you're telling me to work. And then nowadays, like, I think the daftest thing is I've got so many great friends in the world who obviously work themselves to the bone for their jobs and their lives and whatever. And if you are a half-good digital entrepreneur, you can make a yearly salary so quickly. And it's not, it's not overly complicated to do these things. And entrepreneurship, yes, comes with challenges and whatever, but, you know, I've got friends who work 80-hour weeks and they're— they can't, you know, they can't afford to keep their lives going. And I find that it's almost like, yeah, I'm not book smart, but like, I suppose I'm savvy to what, what life requires you to have.

It's pretty smart.

Yeah. And I think, I think as time goes on, you realize the people who work out a way to win. Like, ADHD is an interesting one because again, you know, you're just told you're so bad at school and studying or whatever, you kind of find ways around things.

You just think differently as well. Yeah, yeah. I, I don't think I have ADHD, although I do think that I may have some traits. Like, I cannot go to a coffee shop and study with my friends, and I always felt like I was that sad, like I'm just dumb because I can't do that. I couldn't just study for like hours like they would force us at uni, at school. But I could learn in another way. But if you wanted to learn in a different way, you'd be told off, right? Hmm. That's probably the biggest flaw, I think, with the education system, that because it's so systematized, it's like a one-size-fits-all. That is the problem, because when everybody is different, everybody has different interests, hobbies, and ways of learning. And I reckon if they could fix that and like help people understand that they have a lot of superpowers in them. Like, you and I probably could learn way more doing something else and taking a different route, but school wouldn't have never allowed that, right? So it's a, it's a back and forth.

Do you think that Gen Z are lazy, or do you think they're redefining what work is?

I think Gen Z are probably one of the laziest people I've met. But also, I've met some of the smartest and hardest working people in the world. So it is a complete duality of the types of like people that are Gen Z. The Gen Z that are lazy just know how to hack the game. They know that they don't have to work the hours or more than the hours that they have to. They don't have to overdeliver. And then the other Gen Z who are the hardest working and rich now, they understand how the internet game works and they know that they have to get the reps in. So yes, Gen Z are lazy, but also Gen Z are smart.

And do you think that personal branding is actually sort of replacing like the resume, you know, the CV? Like, is that a change that is happening right now?

100%. In 2022, I'd had like my CV and I had no job prospects, nothing lined up. I have my LinkedIn now in 2024. I have every single job that I, like, applied and failed to get into coming to me and offering me that job now. Last week I was at SEMrush, an event. They took me there to speak. 3 years ago I got rejected applying to work with them as, like, a marketer, and now I'm speaking. That's just because of my personal brand.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

I love that story. I bet that's going to happen on like everything you ever applied for.

It's happened a lot and it is a very surreal moment.

Yeah.

But I think I don't— I wouldn't be here without LinkedIn.

And in today's like job market and professional market, is a following more valuable than like specific skills?

I would— yes and no. In order to make your following worth it, you need to have a very good niche skill. Like content creating, writing, or marketing or sales. Because in order to get that following, you need to be good at that one skill. So I think they go hand in hand. But it also depends on who you ask. So many people that I met see 50K on LinkedIn, they're like, oh my God, boss. Yet their engagement would be like 2 likes a post.

Yeah.

So it depends on who you ask. But if you want to monetize your audience, you need to be good at that single skill, like writing.

Those people who do have like big followings and no engagement, What is that? Is that because I, I would say that that is either a really old audience or that's a fake audience.

They— what I've seen from most clients that have that audience and they're like, hey, my engagement sucks, but I have 100,000 followers. I'm like, what happened? They're like, either joined a very old engagement pod that's dead. So like, no one's there. They had that following. Most people on LinkedIn drop off because LinkedIn is still a job-seeking platform for the majority of people, right? So they either don't use LinkedIn anymore because they're not looking for a platform for a job, or they either bought their following, which is also equally as wrong.

Yeah, I see so many people now. I'm not gonna name names, but so many people who have massive followings, like, still— I saw someone who had 600,000 followers and was getting like 50 likes on a post.

It's a bit sus.

And I was like, that is so sus.

It's so sus.

And also, it can't be— it can't be good for business. I think the thing people always forget is like, there's a vanity metric obviously in having lots of followers, like if people aren't converting through, like what's the point?

I think people have this skewed view on following and what it means because I was at a wedding the other day and these people were like, oh, this guy's a sick, is sick at LinkedIn, like he's a pro. And I was like, okay, show me your profile. 2,000 followers. Yeah, those people in that wedding, 2,000 followers meant a lot.

Yes, mega.

So it's just interesting how you and I see things very differently to the average person that just uses LinkedIn as a way to keep up with their job.

Yeah. Um, do you think Gen Z tries too hard to look rich?

Yes. It's a means of— we're consistently trying to show up online. Everybody is looking at us. We're in the social media generation where we're used to flexing, showing off. And I think it's trying to mask a lot of insecurity that we have because we don't have a lot of things that other generations would have, like job security, housing, a degree that actually serves them a purpose, a job that's stable. So we have to sort of make ourselves look like we're fine. And I think that's just like culture on social media. And then it's up to you to escape that and realize, who am I doing this for? I used to be like that. I used to try and flex. I used to get all the, you know, fake design. I really, really wanted to. But then I looked at myself and I was like, who am I doing this for? Why am I wearing this? And then it stopped making sense. And then I actually stopped trying so hard when I met more wealthier people and I saw how they all dressed. Yeah, look at how you're dressed.

Well, I always find it when you, when you see someone who's like doing the pose, you know, they're posing next to a fast car or they're posing next to like a, or inside a jet. And so much of that stuff is fake now.

Yeah, it is.

It's like a set. It's like a movie set, you know. And the thing that I know now is like I didn't get wealthy that quickly. It actually took effectively 10 years to get to a point where I would say objectively I was really well off. But what I learned along the way is that the more and more people I met who were super successful, it was almost the inverse relationship. You know, the billionaires that I spend time with have invested in my companies before. Like, you would never see them flex, ever. Like just wouldn't even cross their minds. Whereas like all the young entrepreneurs who might, you know, message me and reach out to me on social, the whole thing is a flex. And I actually, I would say that I would never have been the person that would have done or flexed. However, there was a moment in time where I, even I was like pulled to the trying to show off. Like, status symbols. So it sounds so lame now going back and saying this, but after I sold my first company, I went and bought one of the most expensive watches in the world.

Okay.

So that I could wear it around and show that I had money. I wore it literally once. I wore on my, uh, wedding day with my wife, which I'm glad that I wore it that day. Otherwise it has sat in a safe since, and I've basically said to myself, I'm never wearing it again. Uh, and there's something about it which is like, when I sit down with my content teams and my teams, I say like, how do we demonstrate value and education to people without flexing? Like, how do we do all of this stuff and show that we've been successful and that our way of thinking about life and business is, you know, is the right way of doing it? And you don't have to try and show off about how much money you have. But it is really hard, you know, because the content where people post and flex.

It works.

Yeah, it really works.

It does.

And that's, that's really challenging.

There's a balance with everything, how much you talk about, how much you're earning, and how much value you give. I think you and I probably do that quite well, where we're leading in with the hook, which is the money, or like, I guess, the benefit, growth, transformation, money, wealth, whatever that is. And then we deliver the value that is actually going to get them there. Most of the people, like, you know, a Forex course, creators with the rented Ferrari and the Rolexes and the bling. That isn't really giving any value. It's just showing up a lie. And I think we don't necessarily need to do it. I stopped caring about that when I realized that I had more wealth within my knowledge than I had with what I wore.

So you're 26 years old and you make millions online, and I know you quite well nowadays. You have incredible businesses. Do you feel like you're able to switch off? Do you feel like you're working all the time? Do you feel like you can create a work-life balance?

No, but do I want it?

I don't know.

I think I've, I built an entire business based on my interests. Yeah, that is probably the biggest hack for any entrepreneur to do. And that's why entrepreneurs love what they're doing because they're building businesses upon their interests. Like my first interest was marketing. I then built an agency and then, then I shifted to personal branding and storytelling. We shifted the agency towards that. Then I understood how to growth hack, which you and I know it's like accelerating. You just love hacking the game. You understand how it works. You teach it to someone else, it works for them, and it's like consistently. So maybe I'm not able to switch off because I don't have to or want to or have any desire to. But I do find it really hard to be outside and not check in with like people on LinkedIn or my emails because every single email I get, I'm happy to get. Whereas when I, I don't know, in the worst bits of the agency where I was working with my first Nightmare Clients, a Slack notification would be the death of me. Yeah. Like, the sound would annoy me.

Yeah.

Now I'm excited. I'm like, what are the team saying? What are we doing? So I struggle to switch off because switching off is probably the worst thing I could do because I'm living the dream.

Yeah.

That I so much wanted to build. Yeah. And I am so very much aware that there is only so much time that I have with the momentum that we have built, especially as I've been banned from LinkedIn like 5 times at this point. So I know that I would regret so hard not pushing so hard because I want to take a break at 26. Like, that's a bit ridiculous. I have so much energy. Like, why would I not? I think I have my 30s and 40s to really chill out. Every, every single entrepreneur that's like 30, 40, they're like, you are at your peak right now. Like, use that energy. Because I was talking to my dad. He can't travel that much. He gets tired, like, naturally, like, his back hurts. He's like, he's can't— he takes a lot with jet lag. I don't feel jet lag. I think jet lag is like a social concept, like construct. So while I think that, why would I stop? You know? And then the social bits of it is Things like this. And this is still work. We're talking about business.

Yeah.

I love it when I'm talking about growth.

Yeah.

I find it very mentally stimulating. I don't like small chat anyway. When I'm at networking events, I'm like, okay, what about your business? Or what can I help? Straight into it. Not like, hey, how are you? Like, how's your mom? You don't know my mom. I know your business. Let's talk about it. That's very interesting to me. Yeah. Because I, for so long, I tried to I was off for like the last— the first 22 years of my 20s, 3 years of my 20s. I took the time off already. Now I'm making it back.

It's also— I, I think what you said there, a lot of entrepreneurs don't realize, which is— and I've been talking about this a lot more recently— there are just periods where an enormous amount of stuff happens. And I would say that if you're able to recognize those periods, then you have to go 100% all in, because you're going through one right now. As in you're in it this second.

Yeah.

And when you open your eyes in a year's time, you'll be like, wow, my life is truly unrecognisable. And then you'll have— you'll have made what you do now easy for yourself to do. You'll have lots of other stuff that's keeping you busy and keeping you engaged and so forth. But I actually think the advice of having a work-life balance the whole time is really bad advice. Because, for example, for me, I— not this year, this year I've worked to the bone. I've killed myself this year, uh, but last year I was chilling. I was, I was not working very hard. I was just doing like my social media. I was doing a little bit of coaching, but I wasn't doing many hours. And so I was chilling, whereas this year it's like ratcheted right back up to, you know, in a normal week I would now be working like easy 60 to 80 hours again. And it's like, but the momentum is there, and when it is, like, capitalizing it, because I've seen so many people have it and lose it And that's the— getting it so hard, eh?

Work-life balance is the second biggest scam we've been sold. There is no balance. There are seasons of growth and rest. You and I know, especially you and I, like we're going through it right now. We're working maybe 10, 12 hours a day, non-stopping. Maybe you stop drinking for a bit. Everything else gets compromised. Social life, maybe even fitness or everything else. For 6 months, 6 weeks, 6 months, maybe a year. And after, big period of rest, and then you recuperate. Every single entrepreneur I know that works hard and smart, they, they rotate seasons.

Totally.

And the season could be in a day, the season could be in a week, the season could be a month. The best part about entrepreneurship is that you choose what the season is for you that month or that week. And then you just execute on it. Because if you're able, we create our own timetable. We look at our calendar, we wanted this meeting then, here, here, and this, we can time block, we can do deep work, and then also coordinate deep rest. So work-life balance can only exist if you don't want to be successful.

I think one of the things that in my entrepreneur, founder, creator community is one of the things I say in the first week is like, this will push you. To your absolute fucking limit. Like, if you listen and execute on everything I tell you to do, which will be a lot, and like, I will be on your back every week pushing you to do it, um, it will like push you to a point of really being uncomfortable. But if you do that for, I promise, 10 to 12 weeks, in 10 to 12 weeks you'll be like, holy shit, I have just created myself this like massive outsized advantage. And then people are like, oh, I want to rest now. I'm like, unfortunately, now's not the resting time. You know, if you've done— if you've done— yeah, now it's like time to double down. It's time to find efficiencies and scalability and, you know, outsourcing, automation, etc. But I've seen it, you know. I've seen ordinary people who've worked corporate lives for 20, 30 years do, you know, do the training and then find themselves in a position where they now primarily work from home. They spend way more time with their families because they're not traveling anymore. But they're still working really hard. And so I think that, I think the lie we've been sold in many ways is that you can both be extraordinarily successful and have a work-life balance. I just don't think those two things can ever— I mean, maybe people are lucky, some people, but I just don't think there's any, any credibility in that.

No.

So Lara, today you make millions of pounds. To the outside world, it might seem like you have the dream life and the dream job. But can you tell us about your first experience with entrepreneurship?

My first experience was I bought a $1,000 course that I saw one of my friends take, and I only bought it out of spite because she had done like a biochem degree and she suddenly started an SMMA, like social media marketing agency. I've been doing marketing for the last 3 years, like business, and I didn't feel like I could. I was like, you know, building your own agency is like a— was a big thing at the time. Like, it just felt like a thing that you would do at 30, 40, 60, right? And I was like, why are you doing that? Who are you? Who do you think you are? And I was like, why am I so upset at this? Like, I don't even care about it. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try it if she's doing it and she's got clients, like, I'm going to do it. And so I didn't have money at the time. Obviously, I was unemployed at home, like, depressed, all these things. But that kind of like spiked a little bit of like something. Like, I felt so emotionless at the time. I was going through so much. And so that's like a new feeling of drive. And so I borrowed $500 from my dad because I didn't have any money. I was like, I'll pay you back. and I took the course. The course was the most awful thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I could have done something better on Canva in 2 days. I literally knew more about marketing than this person that was teaching it did. And I felt so disheartened at how people were teaching the art of marketing. If there's anything I've been in love with for my entire life, it's creative and marketing and influencer, like marketing, all of these things. Like, I love the internet. and I was like, I could do so much better. I did the math of how much money this girl was making off his, like, her, like, 997 course. And I was like, okay, there's something here that I could do 20 times better. Anyways, I didn't really act on it because again, I had imposter syndrome. I was going through a lot and I was looking for a job or like going back to university. But that course introduced me to a Facebook group at the time, like community, my first taking community. and people were showing their wins. Hey, I just made $10,000 with my first client. In that mindset, again, the law of proximity, being around people that were doing different things, mm-hmm, caused and led me to think differently, want different goals. I was addicted to dopamine from social media. Soon I became addicted to dopamine of success. Mm-hmm. And what progress looked like from a perspective of actually self growth and not fake social media posts of me looking happy on the beach when I just cried for 3 hours because I didn't like the way I looked. But I needed to make it seem like I had the best time online, right?

Yeah, cool.

So then after that failed, like, didn't really like it. I was getting like shitty clients. I didn't know how to negotiate. I had like clients trying to negotiate me $300 down from like a $500 deal to do full management of like their Instagram account. That was ridiculous. Obviously, $500 at the time was a lot for me. But I was like, I don't think this is it. I don't like doing this woman's Herbalife social media thing anyway. So I'm just going to like, whatever, good experience on my CV. Let's go. Well, that's what we are taught, right?

Yeah.

Get experience, put it on your CV, get a better job. And then my second thing, I was scrolling on TikTok. And this guy is making thousands, a Ferrari, watch, bling on TikTok. TikTok ads at the time were just like going on. And he was like, buy my dropshipping course. It's so super simple to set up. You do it on Shopify, 5 minutes, then you print cash. And I was like, yeah, that's it. Yeah, I want a Ferrari. And so I got the course. It was not expensive. It was like $500. And I, I took it and I was like, this is gonna be, this is gonna make me rich. Mm-hmm. And I think that's why I didn't succeed at it. 'Cause I was coming at it from, I wanna get rich.

Yeah.

Rather than I'm interested in building this. And so when I realized that dropshipping actually, what actually meant was like buying products from Alibaba, pricing them up, creating a product that you don't even believe in. And then like white labeling it as yours, putting on Shopify and have to deal with like different vendors, different like pricing, like the platform in itself, actually creating ads for it. I was like, wait, you told me I could make money in 10 minutes a day. It's actually taking me a month to even understand how to deal with Alibaba people. And also, like, I wasn't sold on selling jewelry. That was my first attempt. And I wasn't sold on selling like antibacterial wipes and face masks because that's what I was doing because that's what I thought could work. Plus having to now run Facebook ads, right? So then that was like my third business after like what I learned from that course and running Facebook ads. I'm like, okay, I'm going to try and run Facebook ads. My business lost thousands of money. I didn't have like dollars. I didn't have— I had to borrow again from my dad. Shout out to him for like giving me so much money to like waste. Paid him back now, obviously. But I learned that, you know, I stacked some skills, so I learned some negotiation from there, understood why businesses work, and it gave me my first, like, sort of like hit of dopamine again for business. I would never do dropshipping as a business. I think it's like probably the worst one unless you're actually sold in on the product that you're selling. But dropshipping is quite soulless. Like, you're selling products at a markup. And I don't think that's right. I don't feel— I don't, I don't align with that. And then the social media marketing agency, I didn't like Instagram at the time. I have a very flawed relationship with Instagram and TikTok, so I didn't— I wasn't in it either. I don't post on Instagram for a reason, like I don't like the, the fakeness of it. I don't appreciate it. But then one thing led to another. I kept on, you know, finding things. I sort of already learned how to write from the copywriting that I was doing on social media. And then I found LinkedIn, changed my life.

So I, as a, as an entrepreneur that wasn't online, so I just genuinely wasn't posting at all, I saw the rise of SMMA, social media marketing, and dropshipping and Forex and all this sort of stuff. And the thing that I always like The thing I always struggled with is I ran an agency that had a massive social media department, and so I knew that working with a big brand and executing on their social media was fucking hard. Yeah, like, you needed countless really good people in your team. You needed amazing creative. You need to be on the ground shooting it. You needed to edit it, cut it, you know, finesse it, post it, like, hack it so that it's successful. And so, like, I saw this rise of all these, like, online gurus being like, yeah, build an SMMA. And I was like, are they talking about a social media agency? I was like, 'cause that is just some hard fucking graft. And obviously I built and sold one, so like I really knew it. And then dropshipping came and I remember being like, people aren't buying, people aren't buying this stuff, are they? And it was just, yeah, I was, yeah. But it was like this wild period where people were selling the idea that buying products from another country, rebranding them and selling them, which was my first business as a kid, I ran Donnelly Imports, which was, um, me buying products from Alibaba, branding them, and effectively selling them in the UK and selling them to stores and online. And it was a full business. I mean, like, negotiation, selling, websites, marketing, returns, challenges, vendors. And so when I see these courses, I'm like, who's, who's believing this stuff, you know? But, but What I think is fascinating is that I don't know if those courses that you took were great, but you did them, you learnt them, you learnt the bugs to them, you transformed yourself. It compounded over time. And before the age of 26, you're now running a multimillion pound business. And so I can't knock them that much. I don't, I don't condone having crap courses or selling the dream or saying you can get rich overnight because it just doesn't happen. Because even you, I mean, you've been at this now 4 years and it's like lots of different iterations and changes. I mean, and that is bloody fast to be that successful that quickly. And it means, it means that you're going through just revolutions of, you know, how to improve what you're doing. Then you're executing it, improving it again, uh, which I think is incredible. But I don't know, I think it's a positive that you did all that stuff because—

oh, I don't regret it one bit.

Yeah, exactly. Look at you now.

I wouldn't shame the courses publicly because I know that they've helped one person at least grow. Like my friend built a business. I have another friend from LinkedIn that actually took that exact same course and now she's also running a multimillion Pinterest, uh, SMMA thing. So even if the course itself doesn't teach you anything, it introduces you to new ideas and ways of thinking. Mm-hmm. Um, one thing that's led me with so much grace and power is this quote from my dad is like, what are you being left with? And he would always say this at the end of a conference, like, what are you being left with after this? To make people feel like that even if they felt like they didn't learn anything, what are you being left with? Like, just that reflection. So every single time I bought a book or a course or something, I'm like, okay, what did I learn from this? Community is great. Oh, okay, you can actually monetize your skill set. Oh, this person sold this thing because they're really good at speaking. So I've, I've been a chameleon my entire life. I think it happened when I flew from Mexico to England when I was 15, and I had to just learn how to adapt quickly. So then what I do with most of my things is like, I see who's successful, I adapt it, I then I run with it. I take in the traits that work and then make them work for me. Probably the best skill I actually have, just blending in with what's going on. So you, I can adapt fast. If something changes, I can change with it. Super useful skill for us to have with social media. Algorithm changes, okay. Do we cry about it? No, we just move with it. Like there's absolutely nothing we can do with it, for it, about it. So we can just change what we're doing. I have this really cool story from an entrepreneur who had events-only businesses before the pandemic hit. And when I heard that, instead of feeling sorry about himself when the pandemic hit and his entire business was kaput, like couldn't work, he was so excited. Why? Because he saw the opportunity on webinars and workshops.

Yeah.

And he printed so much money. If you met hit him, like, he would be like, I'd love for it to happen all over again.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there were some massive winners from, yeah, digitization.

But imagine if like he hadn't adapted and he would have been like, oh, the government, the economy, the, the things, like, it's all wrong. Instead of seeing all the wrongs, you see all the rights.

So before we get on to what you've ended up building, there would have been some serious periods there of failure. And, you know, you, you've, you've done all this like self-learning and education, you've invested in courses, you've built businesses that haven't worked. There's going to be thousands of people watching this and listening in general who are there now. So what's the takeaway for them? Like, how did you get past that, that hard period of time?

Community. Building in public on LinkedIn aided me to keep myself accountable to what I was doing because there's like, there's this like law or like psychological thing when you talk about what you're doing, you're more likely to actually keep on doing it because of peer pressure. Like if you say you're gonna do one thing, you have to do it, otherwise you're gonna disappoint everything, everyone else. So for me it was, I never did it for me until like probably this year. I did it for the people that were in, in the journey with me and that had supported me. I never did it for me, I did it for them. So me showing up online and creating content felt like I owed it to the people that supported me from day one to actually keep on growing this business. So people need to find why they tick. For me, it's always been community. I crave it because I'm an only child and I never really had that sense of belonging. Feel now with LinkedIn and like overall social media, that social media provides you that, that proximity to your ideal friendships that at school or university you wouldn't have access to. And so finding people that were interested in me without any, like, other, you know, intentions that had the same skill set as me, that had better skill sets than me, were willing to teach me. And people that I could admire that were just one LinkedIn connection away from a second to a first felt like the best way for me to grow because there was— I could not fail. How could I ever fail when I have proximity to the richest, wealthiest, smartest entrepreneurs in the world? I have free access to the best tools in the planet via the internet. I have access to every single recording if I want it of like courses and etc. Like obviously we can't get into the black market of courses. Yeah. So me knowing I could— I was just one Google search away from my dream person and my dream knowledge made me not want to quit. Not because I knew that I was good at it, but because I had no, no excuses.

My takeaway from you as well is that like you, you have had loads of micro failures, but you almost just see them as just part of the journey now. And I'm sure that in your day-to-day running of the current business, there are things that don't go perfect, might not be exactly as you plan them, but then it's just all part of the idea of building something over a long term.

I love testing. Yeah, test your learning, you iterate, right? What else are we gonna— like, I'm an athlete, I'm used to failing. Like, I've been competing powerlifting for like 5 years, and I showed up to the gym every single day to see absolutely no progress or even see myself digress. So that built, I think, the mental strength for me to be able to deal with failure at a massive, like a bigger scale or smaller scale. Because if I could show up to the gym and feel like shit and still enjoy it, I could show up to business and feel like shit and still find a way to enjoy it. Because you know that if you show up enough times, you're going to get lucky.

Yeah.

We don't get lucky. We create our own luck by showing every single day.

I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, what do you think is the— because I think there's so much rubbish advice in the world, and I think that, you know, all the gurus online are often saying something, trying to sell something. And I'm not necessarily against that, obviously, because like I sell my own products. But I think that if I could give one bit of advice to youngsters, it would be like the act of just showing up every day. You will just become undeniable. Like, if you show up every single day towards any skill set, Enough time in, you become great at the thing. And it doesn't— I don't really mind what it is. It could be powerlifting, it could be— I mean, to an extent, powerlifting requires some sort of natural strength, I'm sure. But, you know, whatever it might be, like running, cycling, business, etc., if you put the time in, you will become good to great at it. Yeah, without question.

There is no other choice if you show up every day. But I think people think business is easy because Unfortunately, social media makes it seem easy. Most of people would look at me and they're like, where did she come from? I'm like, I've been here for 4 years. What do you mean?

Yeah, exactly.

And I was at it for 5 years prior online, doing influencing, doing Instagram, trying to understand things like finishing my degree. So in reality, the overnight success people see took me 8 years. And I'm okay with it because I had fun all the way through and I learned so much. But a reason for why I've never quit is because I never really had the goal of monetizing anything I do. Everything has come as a result of the fun that I'm having. And so fun over profit has always been my motto. If I'm not having fun, I don't want to be part of this. Because again, probably, you know, if you don't like it and it doesn't align with you, then there's no point, no matter how much they're going to pay you. We get thrown sponsorship deals at our face all the time with LinkedIn stuff. You're like, I don't want this. Like, yeah, no way, no way I'm gonna promote this tool that I hate. Um, and you can see right through it as well. So it's like, do you like it? Are you having fun? Are you willing to commit to it for 5 years? Then if the thing is yes, and it's the right business for you.

Yeah, I mean, if you can, if you can find some semblance of fun in a, uh, in a business. And like, I've had periods where I've had incredible businesses that have been successful that I have become bored of.

Yeah.

You know, like I was definitely bored of my last companies before I moved on.

But were you bored at the start?

No, no, no. I mean, lived and breathed it. Like the start of Verb for me, like, I mean, I was your age. No. But like—

20 years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's so funny. I actually, I miss being the one making the age jokes. But the, like, In the early years, like '21 through '26, I gen— there wasn't an hour I wasn't working, and I loved it. I loved the build of it. And I think now I take different love and enjoyment from what I do. Like, I, I'm so much more tactical, so much more strategic. I have like blocks in the day where I will go out with an un-networked iPad, um, iPod, and I would just listen to music and force myself to think about 3 issues. And I'll just go out and walk for hours thinking about them. I'd take pen and paper, and my wife's always like, you're so bizarre. But I will go out with the challenge of trying to solve, like, how do I deliver what I'm delivering now as a business but with 3 staff instead of 5 staff? Because I want to move these 2 staff into something new. And when I was younger, it was just brute force, just hours worked. I would do everything myself, whereas now I'm trying, like, Can you build a business that makes $100 million with 10 staff? Like, is that possible? And I think probably is possible. You just got to work out, you know, use of AI, use of automation, use of delegation, external teams. Whereas when I was younger, it was just all about making sure that everyone was like in the room with me working, grinding. And I just think as you get older, you enjoy different parts of it.

Um, I like that.

I—

when we met, um, our creator thing and you were saying like, my goal is to work the least amount of hours as possible and hang out with my wife.

Yeah.

And I, Timo was there and I was like, I want to be like him. And then he told me something that really resonated with me. He's like, I don't think you'd enjoy that. And that was a lesson for me on self-comparison.

Yeah.

Because you're in a very different stage of your life than I am. Totally. And me comparing myself to you wanting to spend time with your wife, and have fun, but also not be glued to your phone. It's interesting, but to me, I think I'm going through that period where everything is just going. It's so alive.

You gotta get with it.

It's alive.

Yeah.

Why am I gonna kill it for the sake of SOPs and systems and like hiring more people when I know I can do this myself? And then hopefully in a year's time, I can then systematize it and then get someone else, an operator, to come in it. But if I'm having so much fun figuring it out, And it's like, again, I'm in the motions, I'm in the waves, I'm in the trenches with people, and everybody's following the same purpose. I don't have to let it die just because I'm seeing you doing another thing that feels like it should be a thing that I should be doing. Did you ever have that, have that when you were in the motions and you saw people were that with way more experience than you doing things differently than you were at the time?

Yeah, I mean, I would still say it happens now. And like, I'm, I'm always caught in the— like, you inspire me. Like, I see your business, I see you working.

Thank you.

Like, I see you hustling. I'm a hustler. Like, I might look like quite a polished hustler these days, but like, I'm there grinding in the evenings on my laptop too. I love it. But like, the, the difference is like seasons in life and like priorities and so forth, and that stuff does shift. But like, for me, you know, last week, in the last few weeks, I've interviewed like 4 billionaires on Secret Leaders. Like we had Richard Harpin on the other day who sold his company for $4 billion. We had James Watt the other day who's BrewDog founder. And I meet these guys and I'm like, oh my God, there's levels and levels, you know? And so I think a great realisation I had in my life was that there will always be levels. Unless you're Elon, there's always a level of comparison. And so I had to, I had to take a view that I had worked from 21 through basically 32, 33, maybe harder than most people will ever work. And obviously the success was amazing off the back of it, and like the compounded learning I had was crazy. But now, for the life that I want now, yeah, there's a slight pivot and change. Um, but I'm like jealous of, you know, like I can see in you the hustle, how much you're enjoying the hustle. Like, I'm just—

I can't stop.

Yeah, exactly.

My friends have to buy me tickets to the spa and tell me, Lara, fuck off and go to the spa right now. And I'm like, why? Yeah, shout out to my friends that do that for me, but I wouldn't take a break if it wasn't for them.

Yeah, and I think, I think most people who aren't entrepreneurs, it sounds insane, but to the people out there who are like in the, in the trenches of the hustling, haven't quite made it yet, keep putting the time in. I mean, like, keep putting it in and keep iterating. Because effectively, you, as you just said, you went through SMMA, SMMA, uh, dropshipping, dropshipping, forex—

not forex, I did crypto as well. It's a crypto girlie, tried it all.

And obviously now you're in a position where I think you've truly understood like some fundamentals which are so early to understand, which is like you have an almost infinitely scalable product set you have the most unfair advantage in the world in that you are your own demand generation, which is just wild, you know. Like, you have huge community of people, super credible. Um, so I want to get into it. I want to talk about the business. I first came across you on LinkedIn, and I remember being like, holy shit, this girl is going so fast. And like, it wasn't the speed of your growth that I think made me reach out originally. It was the how much people were engaged with you. Like, your community was wild. And I don't know, like, what, what forms your community, but I could see a lot of young people in the community being like following you, liking everything you put out, commenting on everything you put out. And I was like, wow, this girl is gonna go mad. And I am glad that a year and a half later you did, um, because I feel like I've still got it. Um, so you didn't obviously start LinkedIn to go viral.

No.

So talk us through the idea of coming onto LinkedIn. Was it LinkedIn to get a job?

Yeah, I wasn't there to get a job. I was there to get a reference from whoever teacher that I could reach to get into the master's degree in Exeter. So that was my only goal with LinkedIn. I never did it for the business. I never did it for anything else but getting back into this education system that I so much hate. But I knew that going back into a master's was my golden ticket and 100% it was. And I don't regret it one bit. My master's experience may not have been the most educational part, but it has been the single thing that's given me the most advantage in life. I'm an immigrant, so that plays a big part as to why people may not understand why I have such a polarized view on the education system. Yeah, I'm still in it. I would happily go back as well because there's parts of it that I would always be grateful for. One of them was access. Sahil Bloom talks about the 5— was it the 5 types of wealth? And one of them is social, right? And when you get access to different types of people, and maybe through university or even on LinkedIn, you get a different type of advantage. You know this. Yeah, I've seen it with you and me. So going back to LinkedIn, it was the only thing I wanted was to get a master's degree. And so me as analytical as I am with social media, as addicted as I am, I felt really drawn to the platform just because I'd seen a cat photo go viral. I was like, what is this shit? Is this Facebook? And I was like, yeah, my friend Shoaib Ahmed, he also runs an agency on LinkedIn. He posted a photo of a cat. It went viral in 2022. And I was like, if this is going viral, I have stuff to show you.

Yeah.

My jealousy again kicked in because I consider myself a good enough marketeer.

Yeah.

To be able to create valuable content that could actually change someone's life. Although I hadn't done it to the scale that I wish I could because I felt like I had nothing to say. But seeing someone go viral with a cat photo, that was enough for me to be like, okay, I have something to say and I have a lot to tell you. Sit down and listen. But I still didn't want to do it because all I wanted was a fucking reference. I couldn't find any of my teachers. I never got the reference. But I did get some content in to make it, make my profile look nice. And in that post, it went viral on a random Sunday morning. I posted it, didn't really look at it. Next thing I check, 4,000 likes, 300,000 impressions, thousands of comments.

What was this post?

It was an introduction post.

Your introduction post went viral?

Yeah.

Bloody hell.

It was like, hey guys, my name is Lara, not Clara, not Sarah. And I'm here to announce that I just hit my 500+ connection goal. I had set it to be a month, but we've hit it in 2 weeks. And I just wanted to reintroduce myself. And I gave some fun facts about me. It was a random photo of me at a cafe pretending I was working. I took my mom to take me to take that photo, by the way.

Love it.

Fake it till you make it. And then it truly changed everything for me.

Yeah. So that post went viral, your introduction post.

Yeah.

And so, so at this point you've got 2 degrees?

I had 1.

Yeah.

And just going for the second one.

Going for the second one.

Yeah.

And had you decided that you were going to be an entrepreneur, or were you still thinking, I'm gonna get a job?

No, never till midway through my university degree I thought I could be an entrepreneur.

Maybe through the master's?

Yeah.

Blimey.

I never wanted to be an entrepreneur. I will preface that until I die. Like, the entrepreneurship area never interested me because of my dad, obviously workaholic.

Yeah.

No, thank you. I want to be a banker. I want to do the 9 to 5. I want to have a salary, and I want to go to drinks with my friends after, and so on and so forth.

And so when this post went viral, what happened? What were the things that, like, the knock-on effects?

Fast, the dopamine hit. Hello.

Yeah.

I felt so famous.

Yeah.

And the second thing was like the opportunity of what my life could look like if I actually kept at it for a month or two. So from that, I committed to posting 3 times a week every single week.

Yeah.

And I had no idea what I was going to write about. I was like no expert. I was just someone that was learning on the go. I think that is the biggest lesson that I could give a student. You don't have to be an expert to become one. You have to try and be an expert to do become one though. So through that, I was like, I'm just going to talk about the things that I'm learning and the things that I'm seeing. I started breaking down like Stranger Things, Netflix ads that I was seeing, trying to like sort of like emulate what the other marketers and like personal branding experts, storytellers were doing on the platform. Proven concept, adapt it to me, templatize it, guaranteed workaround, right? That was my natural logic. I just naturally reverse engineer things. Again, back to when I was 15 and just saw like people around me and I was like, how can I become this? How can I become that? How can I take that? And so I took that logic to LinkedIn, applied it. My first LinkedIn post, I will say quite honestly, and I never said this before, I played it down a little bit. I'm like, yeah, it just went viral. I don't know how, but now in reflection, I know exactly how it went viral because I spent like probably 2 weeks prior like analyzing the platform. And an introduction post was the common theme of content that went viral. So it was luck, yeah, but also 2 weeks of deep analysis and a good hint, like hunch of what I could be doing. Never intended it to go mega viral. Like I was expecting like 50, 100 likes and maybe, a good connection. But I think that how genuine that post was and how it came across as, again, I wasn't pretending I was an expert, I was literally telling them I wasn't. That was quite refreshing for people. And after that, the opportunities that came was my first inbound lead. I don't know what you do. Like, it was like, hey, I don't know what you're doing. Can you do it for me? Yeah, yeah, sure. $100 for our consultation. Raise my prices. But the biggest thing that came out of all of it was meeting Richard Moore, my mentor still to this day. Do you know him? I do actually. Have you not met him? I'll introduce you. He's on LinkedIn as well.

Oh, okay.

And he reached out to me. I already kind of like seen him around. He had like 50,000 followers at the time, very like highly engaged audience. And like he felt like an icon. You know, when you, when we came into the platform and you like have like, oh my God, these are the top creators, right? He was one of them. And he sent me a connection request. And I remember, I think I took a screenshot because I was so excited. And I was like, what is someone like that doing looking at me? And again, back to this thing with us Gen Zs wanting to be seen. He saw me. I don't know what he saw. Probably the same thing you saw. He took the time and hopped on a call with me. I was in Mexico. And I remember he gave me a time. Mexico is 6 hours behind, 7 hours. I had to wake up at 5 AM to have the call. No issues. I did it with pleasure, would do it again anytime. And he— I asked him to lose it. I don't know what he saw. He's like, I just saw potential. And that like stamp of approval was everything for me to keep on going. He gave me some sales tips on like how to navigate LinkedIn, positioning stuff, things that I didn't really recognize at the time. And after that, off we went to the races.

What's the wildest opportunity you've got so far through this? Social media game.

It's built my entire fucking career. I've like, I've seen crazy money coming in from LinkedIn that I just never could never fathom seeing. Like my, one of my 6-figure launches. Yeah, like multi-5-figure brand deals. That's, that's crazy.

Yeah, on LinkedIn as well.

On LinkedIn, a platform that is for job seeking and is boring and is cringe. It's insane. Like, LinkedIn is so untapped right now. It's still— and I'm working with dream companies. I'm getting, I'm getting to meet my dream type of mentors and people. There is no better place to actually be in. The opportunity itself is just a lifestyle change. Yeah, there's this thing called the law of proximity that I just recently learned, and it's like there was a massive shift that happened with me when I started LinkedIn, and it wasn't just about the money. I actually didn't start making money on LinkedIn until month 3, but it was the people I was meeting. Yeah, that were creating those loops in my mind of what was possible. And I think my generation is lacking that, being surrounded by the right people. I would argue that if I tried to do the same on Instagram or TikTok, I wouldn't be where I am because I wouldn't have connected with people like you that have built million-dollar businesses offline. and now you have all this knowledge and experience to share for free or with people that you think have potential. Mm-hmm. And my first mentor, Richard Moore, like when he showed interest in my pursuit of self-improvement, he opened doors to a new realm of understanding and knowledge that I didn't have any access to.

Mm-hmm.

Sales, marketing, how you communicate, how you dress, how you position yourself. That is something that I've never seen on Instagram or TikTok, which is probably the craziest thing. It wasn't— it's not the money, it's like the opportunity of the people that I've met.

I would say as well, like, I, I actually vividly remember you sort of appearing on, on LinkedIn because you were like, you were like a freight train, you know, like you arrived and then you were just there, which doesn't happen with most people, you know. Like, that certainly didn't happen with me, like it took a lot longer to build the momentum.

Yeah.

Um, from, from the beginning. But I remember you arriving, and I remember from the outside being like, you make it look so effortless, but I bet you're such a hard worker. Because to move at the speed that you are through all of these things, which is obviously like building a huge personal brand, building one of the most trusted, incredible personal brands, building multiple different products, like, you must be working incredibly hard. And I think you're very good at showing that it is hard work, because I hate when people rock up and they think it's so easy to do these things. But can you give us a bit of flavor in what it takes to build like a personal brand in the early days?

I think— okay, so for context, I was, I was still at university building my personal brand when we first spoke.

I think you're at uni.

I was like my uni dorm room, uh, which was insane. Like, you're like a super accomplished entrepreneur, full 30 on the 30. And I was like, why is he calling me up?

It's because I love networking.

I was like, I, I had to double-check, like, is this correct? And you, you, thank you so much for showing so much interest so early on. That, that really goes, I took that as like a compliment, honestly. You were so curious. Yeah, you just wanted to say like, what are you doing? How are you making money? I was like, oh yeah, I'm doing this. I'm like, why is he asking me these questions? Like, you obviously know.

Obviously, like, I have a great understanding, I think, nowadays of of business, how money's actually made, etc. However, I think that like great entrepreneurs, which obviously you are, spend time— no, okay, curiosity, you know. Yeah, just, you just follow your nose. And like, I remember, you know, I met you, I met a bunch of other people in that sort of that period of time, and I remember that like formed the ideas for all of my new companies. And it's like, what an amazing period. And I got to meet people like you. So I think I feel, feel like people see relationships super transactionally. And actually, you know, technically speaking, we've never done business together and we've never bought or sold anything from each other. And yet I would say that if you ever need anything, I'd just have your back. And I think that's like, that's old school business thinking, like, applied to this sort of new creator world, which I think is quite rare.

I don't, I don't think it's old school. I think it's just you. I've not met many entrepreneurs that have done what you have. That are so welcoming to Gen Z entrepreneurs. I really took away from our conversation that we had like a year and a half ago, 2 years.

Yeah.

You're just curious. You were just picking my brain and you were making me feel like I was on the right path.

Yeah.

The majority of the business owners that I've met are more like, this is like they don't care. Or like if I say what I'm doing, they're like, are you sure? Or they just try and undermine me. You never did that once.

I just— it's just— I just love— it's so lame. I just love entrepreneurship so much, and I love— as you should, as we should.

That's the entire thing. Yeah, if you love it, then you're able to bring everyone else with you. You and me, we don't have competition, we're competitors, but okay.

Yeah, you know, funnily enough, I would genuinely say— and it's gonna be— I don't want to like put down a lot of other people who do the same thing, but only other person I would consider who has something in the same quality as us is you.

Thank you.

There must be— I don't even know, to be honest, these days, but there must be dozens of people out there who have legit great stuff, and I don't know about it, maybe. Um, but I look at most of it and like, I know from— because I, we— I'm sure we share customers, I'm sure that we share people from community. Like, the people who speak about you, who've worked with you before it's like unbelievable, you know, the value is insane, etc. And I, and I know that to be the same with our stuff.

Yeah.

And so like it's hard to cultivate that, which is why again, you know, if, if I speak to the, you know, as you say, like Gen Z, although I never would like see you as Gen Z or anyone else as Gen Z, but I just knew you were going to be successful. And then like a year and a half later, it's so cool.

How did you know that? Uh, Do you have a knife? You have a knife, right? You have your—

Totally. And like, and I am an investor and like all these things. So like I'm always, I'm always thinking to myself like there are businesses to be made here and like me teaming up with people who are, you know, like 10 years younger than me is super smart from my point of view. And so I'm always kind of with that lens, how do I help people? I believe in paying forward. Um, like I, my first thing when I was younger was like I, and I wrote this one of my first posts on LinkedIn ever. Was, uh, I do 50 meetings a month, in-person meetings, and I try and do a favor a day. And I did that for like 10 years, and I still do it to an extent now. It's just now I can meet 50 people in a day because we do talks a lot.

Yeah.

Um, but I kind of still think that like my network, if ever I need anything, there'll always be someone I can reach out to.

100%, basically. Yeah, I know. If I ever need investing, like One of my dreams—

not that you need it, let's be honest.

One of my dreams is to go to like— I'm a big fan of like The Apprentice, the US one.

Yeah.

And like I used to watch it all the time and they just like— I remember seeing Piers Morgan calling like random people, like offering, asking them for like hundreds and hundreds of dollars for charity. And I'm like, one day I'm gonna be on The Apprentice, I'm gonna need people, and you're gonna be the first people I call.

Yeah, sounds great. Who's on your like hit list to try and meet? Like who, which entrepreneurs or people out there do you want to meet?

I am very inspired by Grace Beverley. She, that woman raised me.

Yeah.

I'm very upset that she's removed a lot of her old content from YouTube. But I met her when she was just like starting Ask Grace for UK. And so I was, we were at university at the same time. And without her, I think I would have been really lost on how to study, what to eat, what to do, how to manage work. Gym and business and how to be a girl overall that's trying to be entrepreneurial, but also feminine, but also driven, but also trying to do a dissertation. Like, Grace would actually literally sit down and record herself studying. And that was so comforting to someone like me who was always very introverted or like lonely and never really fit in. I would just have her videos playing up and I felt comfort. And though— and so seeing her build all her businesses has been really inspiring, inspiring, because I know how hard she worked to get to where she is. And sometimes I see the media and how they criticize her, like they rip her apart, and I'm like, you didn't see how hard she did this. And so I'm very inspired by her because like she never took it for granted. She did an entire degree in Oxford, and after like she launched two businesses during her dissertation week. That was insane. Yeah, yeah, I'm very inspired.

I mean, yeah, she's a, she's a powerhouse. Absolute powerhouse. I mean, yeah, she runs like 4 businesses. Yeah, I have no idea what the future holds for people like that. Same as you, like, I don't know where you will be in, you know, 5 years or 10 years, but like the compound of all that work is is staggering. Um, but I would say, yeah, she's definitely an inspiration of mine as well. Like, I always look at her and I'm like, again, just makes it look so effortless.

But Grace has dominated both business and personal brand. I haven't seen a more engaged audience that loves us so much than her specifically. She's cultivated it like a maniac for years as well. And she's done something that a lot of accounts fail to do— she's transitioned from one niche to the other. She used to be very heavily fitness Yeah. And now she's mostly business and entrepreneurship. And so it's been really interesting to see that shift because I remember there was a period where she had 1 million and then she kept on losing followers because she kept on talking about business. And I, as someone that's tried to do that, I know how hard it is to have split audiences and trying to merge them all together. And she's the only one that's done it so, so, so well.

I would say the exact same thing. I literally said that to my team the other day. Yeah, I was like, if you want to look at someone who has managed— like, because most creators I speak to struggle with the idea of, like, even in the most basic sense, if you ran a, like, DIY Instagram and you wanted to move to being an interior designer, that's still hard, let alone going from, like, fitness to business. Yeah, um, yeah, very impressive.

What about you? Have you met all your heroes?

So I would say the same thing now, and this is such a weird one to say, but I did actually shake Barack Obama's hand in, uh, in like 2009, um, and I would say he's kind of my hero. I don't know why as well. I just think he's—

he's got res.

He's just the coolest guy in the world. He's got so much res. And like, I was working at CBS News in Washington, DC. I wanted to be a political journalist. That's what my— yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Yeah, really obsessed with politics and really obsessed with becoming a politician and whatever. And, uh, I got an internship at CBS News in Washington, DC. I was reporting on this like car crisis in the US, um, and I was working with this guy called Bill Plante, and we were, we were reporting from the White House on this car crisis. And I was in the same room as Obama, and like he literally shook some of the journalists' hands and then left. And I was like, oh, like I've never watched your hand.

Yeah, I mean, I was like 18 at the time, so he's got presence and magnetism. I've seen his breakdowns on Charisma, like people breaking how he interacts, and it's just like very interesting. Cass.

Yeah.

And he, he's a presence. You can hear him, you can feel him. So cool.

And I, I just always think like he— I don't know, I mean, this is like a comment on like life and politics in general, but he was able to beat his competitors with like awesome and quite positive speech whereas I feel like nowadays politics and the media and stuff, it's all like hate, hate, hate, hate. Whereas I just thought he was such an inspiring dude. Um, so yeah, I mean, I would love to meet him again, but I mean, you know, maybe Obama, he'll come on to LinkedIn one day. Yeah, maybe. So if you could wake people up to one thing, what would it be?

I have so many things. I think you don't need, you don't need a degree to be successful. That's one thing, um, very well ingrained in us, and I hate it. I don't think all of the education system is a scam, but I do think the majority of it is. The second thing is, I think for me it was alcohol. I've been 3 years sober from like now, and it's been revealing how much I've improved throughout the years without having a sip of alcohol.

Yeah.

And I think that's very linked back to drinking culture at university. I don't like how it is almost endorsed so heavily at university. Yeah, I come from a very strict family where I was never allowed to drink, and obviously I let loose so hard at uni, and that caused me to lose touch with who I am as a person in my, my shine, because I was hiding all my insecurities and pains and problems behind nightclubs and societies. And all of this drinking is fun until you realize that you haven't made a single real friend at school. And that's heartbreaking for someone that's always craving connection. I always felt like I was in rooms full of people, but I felt so alone still. And I think a lot of university people and like just people are drinking because of it's just normal, it's a normal thing to do, feel like that. They're not facing what's truly affecting them, which is maybe they don't have a purpose. We hide. I used to hide personally behind drinking because I felt so lost and there was no help for that. It was Wednesday sports night, Thursday bingo night, Friday something else night, Saturday blah blah, Sunday brunch, Monday whatever. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. So you're not just paying for, you know, $200,000+ or like pounds into a degree that you're not going to use. You're also wasting a lot of your time partying with people you're not going to be friends with in 3 years and then not building something for yourself. Some people love it. I think for the majority of people, it could be quite detrimental because it was for me.

Yeah, I mean, oh, it's, it's a strange one these days. I am someone that does drink, and I, however, I did just— I mean, the last time I saw you I think was just at the end of doing IVF, and so I'd had like 6 months off drinking. I have, I've never accomplished more in my life. Yeah, than in those 6 months. And so it's, it's a challenging one because I think once, if you're drinking every weekend, and like, I would say that I am someone that still does drink and I'm much more controlled than I used to be, etc. Um, but if you do give yourself— like, I would challenge everyone to try and do a month. And if you can do a month, after that month you'll be sitting there and you'll be, you'll be so surprised at how amazing you feel. Like, you'll be— you'll want to tell everyone about how amazing you feel. And then, like, like I, like I said with me, I've never had 6 months in business like I've just had, and I wasn't drinking in those 6 months. And now that I am drinking again, I'm finding things a hell of a lot harder, and things I feel are going much, much slower. And so what's the benefit really?

Every single entrepreneur I know has done monk mode, and in monk mode it means you're not drinking at all. And I've never had anyone regret it or feel bad about it. The thing is, I'm not— I don't want to make people feel like they need to be sober and like alcohol is demonized. I won't do that. But I would force people to question why their reasons for drinking are like this. Like, are you drinking because you feel like you have to do it to fit in with your friends? And if you are, I think you're rolling with the wrong crowd. And for me, that was the biggest realization. Nothing is worse than like actually realizing that your friends, you're not— I'm not your friends again. Like, it's just, who are you? Like, I don't know you outside this environment. But I thought you were my best friend, and I thought you guys knew me. But in reality, no one knew me, and I also didn't know myself.

How much you've achieved since I met you a year and a half ago to now— what, what it must be like for your friends who are presumably the same age and doing normal things. What's it like for them seeing this insane rise?

It's been For some of them, they don't understand it yet.

Yeah.

A lot of them have been very supportive because they always knew I had like a thing for social media. I've always been like manically online. So like, obviously. But some of them, I remember one of my very close friends from university asked my friend Jodie, who's also an entrepreneur, and they were like at the gym together. And she's like, he said to her, is she legit? One of my friends.

Yeah.

I'm like, what do you mean I'm legit? Of course I am. And then he's like, yeah. Mm, but I thought you were doing this and that. And it's like the transition period where like you're doing one thing, it doesn't work, you're trying things out. People are seeing you try in public, which is a little bit embarrassing. And then they see this massive transition of like when it doesn't work and then when something actually hits. 'Cause like nothing happens and everything happens all at once, you know that. And so nothing was happening, like dropshipping, I failed it. Etsy stores, I failed. Facebook ads, I failed. SMMA, I failed every single business model I tried that the internet was telling me. TikTok courses. I was trying them all. And then I was like into crypto as well, like trying all of these things just because I was curious. I wanted to learn. I was into just the, the motion. I was, I was gaining momentum. I was trying new things. I was acquiring new skills, meeting new people. Then one thing led to another. LinkedIn happened and then it just took off from there. But then people only see bits of the process and they probably just remember the things that you failed at. And seeing you trying, and then they see something like, oh, she's making X amount of money, or like she's gone from this to this in like no time, they're like, what's happened here? Yeah, it may be jealousy, or maybe just like complete like not understanding social media, but the majority of them are very proud of me.

Does that drive you, the negativity?

I have a massive chip on my shoulder. Yeah, so I'll tell you a story. I got rejected from one of these entrepreneur networks.

Yeah.

Rejected because apparently I didn't have enough money. I did. I had triple the required amount to enter at the time. It was like a year ago now. And they were like, yeah, sorry, we can't let you in. I'm like, why? And they're like, oh, you don't have proof of funds. And I'm like, yes, you do. And then I go back to their website and they've changed their website to we don't accept agencies, consultants, and coaches. When that wasn't before, wasn't there before.

Yeah.

I had like 3 references from my friends like that were inside. Yeah, you should join this networking club, like whatever. And that when I got rejected and I didn't, I got told that I didn't have enough money. I went and made 5 times that the next one. I was like, fuck you. Yeah, yeah. Fuck you. You don't fucking tell me like I don't belong when I actually did.

Yeah. I would say most of the really successful entrepreneurs I know I have like huge chips on their shoulders.

What's yours?

Oh, mine's, mine's almost identical to yours. Like, honestly, you know, I would say— and I've come back together. This is such a nice thing about like, uh, what COVID did to me was like, in like '20 through '29 for me was basically building a big agency business. So like bootstrapping, working really, really hard. Um, and like I disappeared. It was like doing It was like doing monk mode for 9 years, you know, like I didn't see friends for that long, you know, worked so, so hard. And I had no social presence, none of that sort of stuff. I was just like literally in a room in Shoreditch working. Anyway, because I had been quite public about my stuff and I'd clearly failed loads of times and things hadn't gone as fast as I'd wanted them to go or whatever, I had like some of my best friends calling me out behind my back about being full of shit. And like, I was, you know, to the day we're friends and like we've spoken about it, you know. But there's like a really great example of my wife bumped into one of my best friends who was drunk on a train back from Paris once, and he said, um, like, is it all real? To my wife. And my wife is like, you know, like a lioness. She was like, fuck you, of course it's real. Like, I see him working. But I think a huge part of those early years defined now who I am, which is like, I, I am somewhat defined by my work, my effort, my impact, like velocity, speed, being inspiration for others. Um, but I do think if you were to like peel it all back, until really recently, I just feel like I was working to prove everyone wrong, whereas now I actually don't.

When did you break out of that? Asking for a friend.

I would say that, uh, it was probably when I had like some really unequivocal, very public success that everyone was like, ah, like, because I sold Verb. And then when you— and the chip on your shoulder, it forms at that point. People start calling you lucky, uh, and you're like, motherfucker, you know, like, what the— I'm not lucky, I just did 10 years on this shit. Um, and then Obviously I was fired from that company and then I treated like quite badly. I was a bad leaver and then 2 years later got made a good leaver, um, and I had to prove I could do it again, uh, and so once I had done it again with Lottie, I felt a lot better. I felt like everyone knew that I was a legit business people. But, and the thing is, what's so stupid about how entrepreneurs think, and I'm not going to speak for you but I'll speak for myself, I'm sure 99% of what I'm thinking was bollocks. I'm sure that most people were like, yeah, Chris is an entrepreneur, you know, and probably weren't calling me out. But I feel like sometimes you, you just have to use what you've got to help you through it all, you know.

Yeah, it's a bit toxic, but we do what we can. Yeah, we have to. I think, um, I alchemize a lot of like negativity into energy or like fuel every single negative story I've had. I was bullied a lot when I was younger. And I went through a lot when I was in Mexico. And I just managed to turn that into a way to push me forward. And now I can tell those stories and help people, you know, see themselves in me and be like, it's gonna be okay. I know this is hard. But you can use that to push you forward and tell your story. My mom hates the fact that I'm so vulnerable online. She's like, who the fuck— why are you telling a lot? Why are you telling your business to people on the internet? I'm I'm like, because it works.

It's like, yeah, because it works, because it works.

Like, you get more connection and more loyalty. And she's like, she hates it. My mom will never ever read my LinkedIn content because she wants to throw up. But I'm like, okay, you're a hater. My mom is my literal biggest hater, and that's okay. Yeah.

Um, have you ever suffered from like imposter syndrome?

Yeah. I am right now. What am I doing here? Hello, Chris? Chris? Lara? Like, what the fuck?

That's too much. Um, I'll ask instead then.

Why do you not— have you not had it?

Have I had it?

Yeah. Yeah, but I'm, you know, I'm 34 now, so, you know, you don't have it anymore.

I actually don't anymore.

That's cool.

Which is cool. I feel like I'm the most zen I've ever been.

Yeah, you seem it. Yeah, every time, every time I look at him, I'm like, I want to be a chill person.

But, but, you know, for example, uh, like, I have had periods of my life— God, I'm meant to be asking questions. I've had periods, I've had periods in my life where I've been so anxious, so unsure of myself, so such high imposter syndrome that I've literally had the shakes, you know. Like, I, I had a, I'd had a wedding and I'd I took 80 people to Barbados. It was ridiculously extravagant wedding, and like, it's the really only really expensive thing I've ever done. Um, and I did it just after I sold my company. And if you were to ask anyone there who were like all of our best friends, like, we had like, like 85 30-year-olds on the beach in Barbados for a week. It was awesome. But one of their takeaways would be like, Chris was just so anxious the whole week, it was unbelievable. Yeah, and I was just the worst, worst place of my life. But, you know, I think you— in lots of ways, I think you get over imposter syndrome and you get over that anxiety by proving to yourself again and again that you can do the thing and you can be what you want to be. And I think that, like, repetition is a very important thing. And so I've never been one for, like, necessarily telling myself that I will be, like, stop being an imposter or reduce my anxiety. My way, which might be conceived as a little bit, you know, unorthodox, because I was like, I'm just going to prove to myself that these things are true. And obviously I reached a tipping point where the things I'd always wanted to be known as or wanted to do came true. And I was what I always said that I wanted to be. And I suddenly felt this unbelievable cool and zen come over me. But yeah, it took 15 years.

So question, and like, you can, we can talk about me if you want. So I don't have to— like, I'm not asking questions, but I'm just curious. Obviously, a lot of entrepreneurship right now from Gen Z is coming from the internet, and a lot of it, as you've seen, can come quick. Like, the success of it is quicker than your 10-year build to build your businesses. Does that— do you not think that that increases the imposter syndrome we may feel because it just feels like it just came out of nowhere? And it's also internet money. Yeah. I've said before, I don't consider myself an entrepreneur. I don't call myself that. I feel like I'm a creator. I don't, I don't feel it. You are. You've built for 10 years, had to do investment rounds, how to hire a lot of people, fire them, do like all the legal stuff, contracts, all this shit. I've done it, but because I wanted to. Like, if I fire someone, it's because I, like, I didn't like the vibes. I don't have to go through this like entire process. If I want to make money, I can post and make money.

Yeah.

You, on the other hand, would have to create the thing, market it, um, talk to other people, maybe, you know, but go back and forth for like a few weeks.

Yeah.

Sell it, get refunds.

Yeah.

All these things. And so for me, that's what drives the majority of my imposter syndrome is like, I don't understand how this is happening so quick. Mm-hmm. I don't understand it. And then there's like all these other people that don't understand on the internet. 'These other people are calling me X, Y, and Z on the internet.' And I'm like, I also don't know what's going on the majority of the time. I'm just, you know, trying.

Yeah.

And so I think that's where it comes from for, for me specifically.

I mean, you're— you are such an entrepreneur. Like, it— like, the thing— so there's like, there's normally two sides to business broadly. I mean, so I want to make it seem so basic, but like, you have the the attraction, the demand generation, the marketing, the awareness, all this sort of stuff here. And then you have, you know, whatever operational side the product is, right? But like, most entrepreneurs are just awful at this, this bit here, the marketing, the awareness. Like, that stuff is the hard stuff, stuff that sets you apart. Whereas like, I just told you earlier off camera, like, my new business, my third hire is a super experienced managing director, you know, they'll be on minimum $150K and they will plus, plus their bonus and whatever as their salary. And their job will be to execute on my business so that I just get to do the stuff that I enjoy doing, primarily on the marketing demand generation side, and they will deal with everything else. And maybe I have the confidence to do that because I have run businesses, but I think if you were to, if you were to, I mean, not that you need to, but if you were to continue to expand what you do all you need is a good right-hand person who's operationally focused.

I've been, I've been hearing this a lot, uh, you need an operations guy, you need an operations guy. So I've been trying to find him. Yeah, hopefully soon.

Yeah. Um, before, before we get into that, I want you to unpack a little bit the idea of— I think you called it templatis.

Templatis, yeah.

So you're new to the platform. Let's say that someone new to platform is going to watch this. How should they be thinking about that first couple of days? So you looked at what was working on the platform? You thought, you know, what do I want to speak about? How did you do it?

So when on LinkedIn, people overcomplicate themselves too much on like my profile optimization, my headline, my thing. No one looks at that unless they look at your content, right? So you need to spend at least like a week analyzing who are you most interested in reading because Naturally, we like the things that we are like and the things that we're interested in. So I spent time curating my LinkedIn feed, following new people, finding new people so I could, one, have a better, like, experience overall on LinkedIn. So I didn't want to throw up and quit, which is the common experience with LinkedIn from people that follow, you know, their old employees and people that just announce things like Fix That. So I filled it back up with people that were actually providing value, like I guess yourself and like Richard Moore and all the people. And then I was like, I sat down another time. We didn't have Clio or any other good tools. So I manually took 10 people and scrolled all the way down to the profiles and found their most viral posts. I put them in Excel sheets, like everything manually. It took me like probably a week or two. And I was like, what is the thing that's actually getting them the most hits? And after that, I literally looked at the hooks, looked at the idea, and replicated it. And like, now I know that's a template, and you can like take any creator's like post and turn into your own template if you want. Obviously change the thing, but it's the easiest way. And it's like the oldest trick in the book where people just take, take what's working. Yeah, change 20% of it and it's yours.

So you had the first post go viral, you obviously noticed that You had an instinct for it. You were very scientific about it. But the way I remember you is like, you arrived and I was like, huh, who's this person who's like loved by the audience? And then it was like huge. And it was like not just huge, but your account grew super quickly. You like fast became— everyone was like, okay, do what she's doing, like, like post like she's posting. And like the whole of LinkedIn changed. Off the back of your posting. And what— that's what I felt at the time anyway. And so talk us through that rise. Like, how did it happen? How did you go from, oh, I have a viral post, to I'm gonna go all in on this platform? Uh, you know, you get millions of impressions on your content. Uh, so talk us through it. What's the rise?

I think so, first viral post happened, then the month after that and the month after that, it was consistent 50, 100 likes, which compared to the 4,000 like post, I felt like I was failing. But I was— I made this big commitment to consistently improve myself. And luckily for me, LinkedIn is filled with writers teaching writing, right?

Right.

So with that, I found Justin Walsh, Matt Barker, very cool people. I love them both so much, learned so much. And they were quite vis— visively verbally, like through their content and then like in the action teaching you how to write. And so I was like, my content about marketing isn't working. Why? I know it's good, but no one's seeing it. And then I saw, I got my first introductions to hooks and, you know, frameworks and the body of the post formatting, all of these things. And then after that, I found my good friend now, his name is Jasmin Alec. and he's a Fortune 500 copywriter, worked with Microsoft, etc. And I learned a lot of my final piece of writing from him where he was visual formatting, how to actually retain an audience, how to use psychology, keywords, retention, carousels, all of these things that he had managed to understand prior to LinkedIn, and now he's applying it. Also conciseness. And that's how I sort of like learned how to write well on LinkedIn. However, I then became a good enough writer, but I wouldn't consider myself a copywriter. And then I looked around and I was like, who is in this platform? We've got people like you who are already established in the business world. So you have that advantage of that recognition. Justin Welsh, millions and millions of followers. Someone else like my friend Jasmine, Microsoft in his headline, you know. Those are the hidden elements that people don't consider when it comes to growth. And one of the main reasons why I really like LinkedIn, 'cause it's a hierarchical platform, it's almost like playing politics. I love politics as much as probably you do. And I was like, how can I get ahead with what I have right now? I didn't have the Microsoft, I didn't have the full study on the 30, I didn't have a 7-figure business. I had stories. And with that, I compiled a bunch of them and I decided to tell them using the exact frameworks that I had learned from all the other great writers. And I hit, cuz LinkedIn hadn't seen vulnerability the way I was able to express it. And with that, I was able to capture a very large market from the Gen Zs who didn't feel like they were being seen in a large market from the millennials and boomers that saw themselves in me. And that is a deadly combination when you're able to reflect back to people what they looked like and to reflect what people want to be in the future. And I was like a two-for-one deal. The, the easiest way to do it so you don't come across as like arrogant or lame is you talk about the scars, not the wounds. And I was talking from a reflective point, reflective point when I was making you know, just simply showing off what had happened, whether it was good or bad, and then telling people what I was doing to fix it. And it was the building in public type of structure where I was taking people in, in, in a journey. Through that, I built a series of content that it wasn't like series part 1, part 2. That's like, Karen Olsen, please don't do that. It's more like, how can you take people from like, I started building my business this week, there's an update on how we're doing. And so having that very engaged audience from the get-go, because I made the active effort to engage them and then take them through what was going on every single week and how I was improving, I was improving live. Like for most people, it probably felt like a TV show of this girl actually learning the skill, failing, learning it again, getting fired by her first clients. Hiring someone and then growth. So the engagement is not just about, you know, paying for it or like joining an engagement pod. True cult for me has been in how much can we create this connection that is not post by post, is day by day, and it's like emotion by emotion. So that for me is what created this type of community, and I'm very grateful for it.

Walk us through the stages, because like I say, like, I saw you arrive on the scene, thought you were like incredibly good at it.

Thank you.

And thought to myself, I bet this person refines their craft and becomes massive. Yeah. And obviously, like, we spoke and you were at university, which I can't believe that, but we spoke, you were at university. Um, now obviously you have a massive profile. But like, talk me through the stages. Like, how did that happen?

So I guess it started from my childhood room, Sunday, back in May 2022, and just found LinkedIn. Didn't know anything about writing, didn't know anything about storytelling. Kind of like, could only like reflect back on like what I knew about social media, right? So then that was stage 1. Went viral, tried to figure out why. So that was like my, again, instinct, like reverse engineer why this is going viral and reverse engineer everything else. That like realization then led me to the second stage, which was learning basic writing. Because writing is everything in this world. Emails, content, YouTube scripts, speeches, everything leads back to writing. Understanding that is the single most powerful skill I could learn was everything. So I went away, kind of like looked at the best writers, how to write a good hook, how to create a good framework, how to, you know, structure a LinkedIn post. And then I went away and YouTubed a bunch of like the LinkedIn influencers at the time, which weren't that good, teaching me fucking Sales Navigator, which was useless because I didn't need it. Then after that I was like, okay, these people are going viral creating the worst content in the world that's helping absolutely no one. I can actually help some people out with what I have to say. So then learned that for a bit. And with that, and I think this was the pivotal point in my career that if I had to do it over again, I would. I started the agency, got my first freelance clients to write, and then from that I scaled it. And the ability that like the, the wisdom, energy, and skill that gave me to then build my own brand was priceless because I was writing at scale for multiple clients during a period of time. I had so many deliverables at the end of the day, plus all the writing that I had to do at university. Which as a result, it made me a good writer just by brute force.

Yeah.

Never read a copywriting book, never studied copywriting. Don't know a thing about storytelling. All I knew was getting the reps in.

Yeah.

And I got them in fast. So I went in, got clients, went straight into the trenches, wrote really horrible posts for myself, for clients, got fired, got fired clients. All these things, but I went through it quickly because I knew, like, I guess I don't think I knew it at the time. I just was moving with them. Like, I was moving with the speed. Like, I was, I was quick. And so that created the writer I am today because I was writing for lawyers, I was writing for oil and gas, I was writing for doctors, dentists, business coaches, finance people, real estate agents. If I can write for anyone and I can like again be a chameleon, I can do it for myself 10 times better because no one knows me better than me.

And so you went from effectively building a copywriting agency for LinkedIn, and you were going through it, you were doing the reps, you working with loads of different people, and then I remember seeing you released something—

my playbook—

your playbook.

We had talked about it, that's why you reached out to me. Yeah.

Was that it? Was that why I reached out? So yeah, so I saw this playbook and I was like, one, I was like, this person's sick, like they're smashing it. Like I was getting going on the platform and I was like, I want to learn what she's doing. And then I reached out and I was like, tell me about this thing. And yeah, you did.

You were so— I was like, what the fuck is he doing here? Like, don't you have a business to run? Yeah. Thank you. I was like, he's cool.

Yeah, I mean, at the time I was like, yeah, running lossy.

Yeah, you were. Yeah, you told me.

Yeah.

And, um, I remember telling you how much money I was making with that playbook, which, uh, $10,000 for that playbook, uh, for me was everything.

Yeah.

But I remember telling you, I was so excited. You were excited. You're probably more excited than I was.

So I remember being so impressed by you because I was like, I could tell you were young. I could tell that like you weren't that long in the game, like you hadn't been doing it that long. And I remember being like, fuck, isn't it genius that she's built her own distribution from her university bedroom, was selling a product that was infinitely scalable? You were making effectively £10,000 profit. And I remember being like, go you. And I, I was just fascinated by it. So, so you did that.

Well, thank you for being so supportive. Like, you don't understand how much that meant to me at the time. I was going through a lot of imposter syndrome and you even booking a call with me. I felt like, I think I know I'm on the right path. So keep on doing that for creators because I think it's the most powerful thing. And act excited, like, what the fuck? You're making millions and I was making $10,000 and I was like, why is he getting so excited about a PDF?

I mean, yeah, God, it is the— it is like, it's obviously a strength, but it's definitely a weakness where like where the minute my businesses become easy to run and like they are, you know, they become almost foregone conclusions. So like by the time I stepped back from Verb, it was a senior team, hundreds of people, like a proper business, you know, making, you know, very tangible amount of profit. And I was like, what am I doing here? Like I'm the starter, like I start the businesses, that's what I do. And the same with Lottie, like I took Lottie to being worth $125 million, and I was like, you know, at the forefront raising the money. I got the first 100 clients with the products, and then like, yeah, I came across like what you were doing, what a lot of other people were doing, and I was like, God, this is fascinating, this is so interesting. Um, but it is hard to keep up helping new entrepreneurs. Um, but it happened the other day, like this— I mean, obviously a lot of people reach out online, it's impossible to speak to all of them, but but it also depends how someone reaches out, right? So like, how does someone, a youngster, get a hold of you? Like, how does someone actually get your attention and get, you know, words of wisdom from someone like you? Because yeah, as much as like your mentor is here, you're there for so many people, right?

Yeah. Um, a good way to reach me is, um, and I hire 3 people because of this, like, don't you— they don't just reach me, they get money from me at the end, but they have to have true pure intentions of, you know, helping. A lot of people is like, can I pick your brain for 5 minutes? I'm like, for what?

Yeah, come on.

What is that?

Yeah.

What do you mean? Um, hey, could we hop on a 15-minute coffee chat? I don't even like coffee, so no. But, um, I always seek to be treated with the same respect I treated my elders. And so if someone doesn't have that tackling approach where It comes from a place of give, then you don't get. I always try and give something of value to someone before taking, because that to me is respect. Respect is the name of the game, I think. So when people create an asset, like people edit my videos sometimes, and when I see talent and true hunger, I will help these two people out. I just hired a new videographer to like try and do some day in the life stuff. And I met him on LinkedIn. The one thing he did was like break my process down, and now he has access to my network, my reach, my, um, and now he's like part of the team. That's the best way. Just lead with kindness and value. Don't take, give.

It's such a fair point. I mean, if you are listening to this, reaching out to someone for a 5-minute coffee would just never work.

You're busy, I'm busy.

You place a lot of importance on your time, and the more successful you get, the more valuable it is. Someone the other day did get through to me though. They— I had a job spec out for a chief of staff and a general manager, which I was hiring for my business, um, and they critiqued the job spec and the way I was marketing the job spec. And I'm so busy generally that I missed loads of these things. He was like— I was like, where did you get all these tips from? And he was like, I got them from your videos. So he was like, I'm critiquing your job spec and your marketing of your job with your advice.

And I was like, I was like, yeah, because it shows effort, effort that they took the time to get to know you. There's so many, especially because we're on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a job-seeking platform. Get bombarded with, hey, uh, love what you're doing at name, would love to exchange synergies. I saw you connect with name and name. They don't even remove the fillers. They actually just let you do it. So lazy. It's so— it, it's actually so scarce to see someone putting that little bit of effort into even looking at one YouTube video and consuming the content in it.

So you had the Playbook, and the Playbook made you, you know, multiple 5 figures, and your brand was growing really, really fast. Um, I think that then sort of became a tipping point where you became one of few people that the majority of LinkedIn looked to for like how to grow, how to build personal brand. And I think that happened maybe last year, and you then changed your business model. So tell us a bit about what you did, um, and what you do now.

Well, I was running the agency at the time while with the, with the playbook, I saw a few people like Justin Welsh and again my friend Mark Barker having this assets that they created and they just sold on demand. Like, build one, sell infinite times, right? Best single side hustle model a student could build tomorrow. Like, you productize your own knowledge and people will buy it because people like buying cheap things. Like, the product was £20, and then it had enough things to make it worth the £20, right?

Yeah.

And it took me— I built it on Canva for free. Cost me nothing to build. Then with the agency was growing and I was consulting with a few of my mentors and they were just looking and I think they saw what you saw. It's like this internet money, like what are you doing? Like, so I was getting tired of running the agency because I was juggling finishing my master's degree and I contemplated quitting either one of them. It was either going to be school or the business because I really didn't feel like I could do both at the same time well. If I did my master's, it needed to be at the highest quality because I'd sacrificed so much to get there and I needed to pass at least at the very bare minimum. And with the business, well, because I never had that drive and ambition, I was fine to let it go. And then two of my mentors and one of my other coaches, they sat me down and they were like, you have the biggest audience that we've ever seen right now for your age. You need to start No, you need to stop trading time for money. Mm-hmm. I didn't know what that concept meant. For most people and how we're indoctrinated by society, you trade time for money. There is no other way. What do you mean? If I work harder, I'm gonna make more money, right? That's like how it's meant to be. But that is capped. So with the agency model that I was running, I was like a solopreneur. I tried to hire people. I couldn't. I didn't like it. You know, it was just not my instinct to be an operator. I just create. And I do, and I like it, and I like writing. But then scaling that on the back of the master's degree was impossible, nearly impossible to run. And so I was like, I can't do this. What else can I do? And they were like, start consulting, start a course. And I was like, probably just like you, I was like, courses are a scam. I took plenty of them. I don't want to be another course seller. And so it then came to a point where I was I got introduced to this platform called Maven. Have you heard of it? And I was going to do my cohort there. I got introduced by a mutual friend called Jake. They had reached out to him to do SEO cohort. And he was like, look, I don't want to do this right now, but it feels like for what you're telling me, you hate the agency right now because you can't scale it. You're not finding it fulfilling anymore. Probably like when you hack it, you're bored of it and you're like, okay, I didn't have anyone to hand it off to. Because I didn't have staff. I had like a few freelancers here and there, but like it wasn't something I could hand off and like be the CEO and then go build something else. I didn't have that system built. So it's like, okay, I'm going to scale it back down to like 2 or 3 clients and try and start this thing. So with Maven, the idea was I got introduced to the idea of a cohort-based course. Mm-hmm. Brand new idea. I was learning all of these things on LinkedIn, by the way, like all this new knowledge. And so it wasn't a course where I just record and sell it. It's live. And that felt a lot more comfortable because I was testing the idea, seeing people live. And after that, okay, I was like, I'm going to do it. Then I realized I didn't want to do it on Maven. I created on like a different platform called Helpy.chat. And after that, I marketed it. I thought it was going to fail, but it was a very great success. And through that, I was coaching people live. and that was so satisfactory. Mm-hmm. And I was no longer trading time for money and I was monetizing my audience, which is something like I was starting to regret cuz I was seeing so many people with 20,000 followers, 30,000 followers making millions. And I was like, I could do so much better. And again, that chip on my shoulder was shouting at me and telling me to do that. And, um, I speak to a lot of agency owners now that there's this perception of agency that's like the coolest thing to do. Mm-hmm. And like so cool, so much like It's a badge of honor. But people that are running the agencies are like, it's not like—

Yeah, it's tough work.

So I spoke to my agency friends and they were like, Lara, like, just start a course. Like, we would do the exact same thing with you. And realizing that one of my agency friends was making as much as I was with half my audience, I was like, I can't do this. Why am I trying to compete with them in something I don't have a foot to stand on right now?

Yeah.

I can outcompete them in something else. And again, that's about finding your unfair advantage. What are you so good at? What are you so good at that no one else is? And you can beat everyone else by not doing much. And for me, it was audience building. So then with that audience, then we end up marketing it to the masses and it creates internet money.

This concept of internet money, I think, is a funny one because, I mean, I'd heard the phrase before, but you've said it today a few times, and I don't know exactly what I would describe it as, but I suppose, as you've said to me before, like, I ran traditional businesses, you know, like, in, in, in your— like, the way you look at it, it's like traditional business, like lots of staff, lots of employees. Whereas you're right, like, since, since I launched my, um, sort of education business, which is predominantly me training people, I've, I've never really seen a more successful business unit ever. Like, I, I, I look at the business size I built previously. Like, I used to have a business that made $10 million and $2 million profit, and I now have a business that makes $10 million and $9 million profit. And it's like, how does that work? And it's, it is, it's a game of if you can build infinitely scalable products, if you can, um, you know, if you can find ways of scaling yourself. And I think that's the challenge. So Now you have a community, the Literally Academy, um, which I think is awesome. Uh, again, like, huge inspiration to me, and I'm sure to so many others. But how does that work? So how many people can that affect? What does someone get by joining the academy? Like, how do they— you know, what's the benefit for them? Can it— can a beginner join?

So first I want to say, my first product, like the first launch of the cohort that I It didn't— everybody thought it was an overnight success. Day 1, I sold 1 seat for the cohort.

Yeah.

And I thought, I'm going to become a meme.

What did it cost?

It was $997.

$997, okay.

It was the first, and I got 1 buy for the first 24 hours. Have you seen that meme of that?

Come on.

Thank God you got one, eh? Have you seen that meme of that girl that only sold 17 shirts with 1 million followers?

I have seen that. Yeah.

And I was like, I'm ready. I was, I was waiting for it. All the, all the likes and cash pros were going to come for me and I was ready. I was expecting it. And then I realized there was something wrong with my fucking Stripe that it wasn't letting—

Oh, it was technical.

—there repeat purchases. So people were— there was like demand. Yeah. They were— they couldn't just buy it. So I fixed that. The team that I was working with didn't help. So I had to fix that day 2. First of all, we ended up doing like $70,000 Wow. I was at university.

What were you like, 24?

Yeah, 20, 23, 20, 24. Yeah, 24. I was just fresh out of uni. Yeah. Um, no jobs lined up, just this wild dream of building this business and made $70,000 in 4 days. Unbelievable. That was really cool.

Did you not just feel— how did you feel? What did you do in those 4 days? Because presumably it didn't start immediately, so you just had 4 days of—

I did. I was so dumb. I, because I had pushed the, the launch back A bit. Okay. It started literally the next day. Okay. For those that don't know, like launch models are like incredibly exhaustive. So I was marketing it like a maniac. Firstly, I hadn't done marketing before for anything besides like something that I didn't care about. This was a combination of what I cared about, the audience that I really loved and cared about, and a product that I had built from the ground up myself. Yeah. And it feels different when you're marketing a product that you build from scratch.

Yeah.

And so I was already exhausted because I was posting 3 times a week, a day, um, hosting lives and just creating a business, like, from the— yeah, like, it was very new and I hadn't slept. I was running on, like, energy drinks, caffeine, every single other, like, type of, you know, thing that could keep me awake. And I started it the next day. We ended up getting about, I think it I can't remember, 60 people in maybe. Wow. Off the bat. Off the bat in 4 days. Just, we never ran ads. The website wasn't even finished by the time we launched it. And we actually created the website on Canva with my friend Jasmine 12 hours before. Wow. We didn't name it until 2 hours before it launched. But it was such an exhilarating experience. What I love about marketing is like the adrenaline of doing things, being at the speed. So then that happened and it was great. It was a very great success, got really, really great case studies. And I realized then and there that I'm a great teacher. Like, I love the craft of it and I love explaining it. And people saw that. And the people from the first school who like had the best connection with me still love me so much. They still pay me for like consultations, even though they took the first ever product. And having that market validation was everything because you don't know what you don't know. Mm-hmm. And I didn't know if this product that I created in my head for me was going to hit for someone else, but it did. And it wasn't that hard to build. It was hosted on a different platform. We had the community Zoom calls, everything. And so I was like, okay, let's run it again, but bigger. Mm-hmm. So the second cohort we launched 6 months after, like in February, had the biggest run. We hit about 165,000. Yeah, raise the price, like double that, because obviously I— the feedback from Fast School was like, you're undercharging. Yeah, which is probably the best thing you can hear, right? The best, best, like, compliment. You're undercharging, overdelivering. So raise the price, um, amped up the marketing for like 100%. So it's 3 posts a day, webinars. I, I love webinars. They print money like crazy. It's like a life sales school. And if you know how to speak and have a little bit of charisma, then you're good to go. Yeah, people love seeing people explain their thing. It's like magnetizing when someone's actually obsessed about the thing that they're doing. Maybe they don't, they're not bought into the product, but they buy you. And personal branding, that's all it is. So use my audience again, never run ads. And the cohort actually did very, very well.

You were 25 then, you made $160,000 from Cohort 2. Yeah. Did you have a time off between marketing and launching?

Yeah, I had like a week, but still.

What did you do that week? I just went to sleep. I love it. Proper hustle.

Oh no, wait, I actually have the worst story. So end of launch, 4 days in, wrapped up, very proud. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad. Called my parents, like, didn't really celebrate. I don't really do that, just go back to work. And I was so excited. I was like very pleased with myself. Like, it was a Amazing, right? Yeah. Then I get a message from one of my students. It's like, hey Lara, just an FYI, your cohort is live on this website being sold for $20. And I was like, what? And then I go look at it. It's like Lara Costa literally LinkedIn sold for 50% off. And I was like, there's no way. Like, there's no way. Obviously, like, the platform that I'm in will protect me from that. I scroll down, there's like a life lesson of mine that I had filmed inside of the product of the cohort on there. And I was like, okay, I start crying obviously, because it's like, I just worked so hard on this and you're like not even giving me a day. And so my friend was like, you know what, like I have the contact, like we can get it down, you just email them. So I emailed them, they took it down in 5 seconds. I was like, okay, fine, good. Thank you, God. Like I'm so happy or whatever. Wake up, I'm like, just curiosity. I just Googled that again. 10 different websites all ranked highest on Google. La Costa Cohort, La Costa Cohort, La Costa Cohort, $15, $20, $50, whatever it was. Oh my God. And so I was like, fair, because I myself was the person that used to go and look for free imangaji courses at like I don't know, 2019. Yeah. So I think it's karma from the universe. Wow. But yeah, I take it as a lesson. It's funny now, and I get— they're still out there. Yeah. But I think that—

I think from, from my understanding of like cohort businesses, the value is in the live course. Yeah, the value is in the— it's in the community, it's the momentum, it's in the instructor. Like you say, like most of those people, they'll buy into the thing you're selling, but they're buying you as much as anything. Yeah. Um, okay, so at this point now, you've done two successful cohorts, you had a successful playbook, you've— you're just compounding the success and the knowledge of, of the game, basically. And then you launched— what was next?

So after that, I was quite exhausted. I think we spoke by then, and you were like, tell me everything. I was like, are you ready to die? And you were like, yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, yeah. And so I I was just a bit tired of the marketing because it's quite exhaustive, especially if you're doing the launch model. I didn't want to do that. And I also knew that the prices that we were selling the tickets were too high for my general audience. I am very aware that a big chunk of my audience isn't millionaires, is students and people from like all the countries that they can afford, like Mexico, like people like, they will follow me obviously. And so I was like, how can I make a product that appeals to them? While making it accessible. And the idea of a community was obviously the first thing I thought, because I'm firstly seeing the success with school communities, seeing the success with all entrepreneurs. So it worked. It was a proven model. I don't go into things like not knowing what the model is. Like, you need to understand that it's a— it works for these people, it can work for you. So I was like, okay, I didn't want to do it on school because it just felt like the wrong platform for what I was trying to do. Uh, Sarko felt a little bit too formal for me. Um, and all the other platforms just didn't suit. And I just wanted, like, just, I think, vanity. I wanted my own thing. I wanted my course to be hosted in my own place. So I then created the course based on the two cohorts that were so successful and did very well. And I poured my heart and soul into scripting the, the, the content for it for 6 months. And I recorded it and we turned it into a community. The idea was to sell that for like $997 to $2,000 because it's a course, you can have it like forever. But then I analyzed the market and I looked at the 3 top products from my competitors. Justin Welsh, $999, maybe $250 when it's not on sale. This other guy called Kieran Drew, $297. So it was like—

I don't even know that guy.

Yeah. Kieran Drew, like, so he's like a writer. And I looked at the reviews but also the demand for it. And I was like, what is making this thing sell like pancakes? It wasn't the product itself. It was the social proof from it. Why? Because people were getting such a big deal that they had to brag about it to their friends. Yeah, yeah. So I took that logic in and I was like, okay, we created this course, planning it to be $997. Let's take it down to $297. The team was like, what the fuck are you doing? And they were like, no way. And I was like, let's do it. It's going to work. And so we sold it at $297 and it created this thing that I call like social proof flywheel. When the marketing, you create a marketing monster that you don't have control of because it's not yours. It's your clients that have had such success that they cannot wait to brag to their friends about it. So we did that and it was the best way, the best way for me to get a two-for-one in the marketing where I didn't expose myself, but also, you know, kind of capitalize on the demand for a low-ticket product and help people that so desperately want to start a brand but they don't know where. So it was like a course and a community.

Can you unpack how well it's done? I mean, we have a— Josh, who works for me, is friends with yours, and I remember him saying to me that like he was like, well, because we have, we have something not the same but similar premise going live soon. And I was like, I guarantee that hers will be the best. And then, and then I was like, we should look at the school world as well, like see what's happening over there. Yeah. And I agree with you. I think that as this like community game plays out and this like, as you say, like internet money and all the sort of like—

Thank you, this is your new favorite word.

I love it, I love it. You see, I'm so old. Um, but as it all plays out, the, the decision you made to not use school will be a phenomenal decision because like that will be commoditized so, so heavily. Um, and so yeah, Josh said to me, he was like, from, from what it looks like, definitely the best. And then I can't remember who else he said had a good one. But, um, how's it gone? Like what's the, what's the top line? Not, not necessarily revenue, but how do you feel about the launch?

So we've done 200,000 from the course and it's been really cool. Wow. Because I have to do less effort. Yeah. Like obviously cohort was exhaustive. The first cohort, by the way, I did, I was doing, I was overdelivering like a maniac because I had all this like imposter syndrome. I was doing like 4 live calls a week. Wow. The second one I did 2. This one I do 1. Right. And I show up to community and hang out. But it is way less exhaustive than everything else that I've done. Obviously, it's low friction, less contact because it's not high ticket. So I don't necessarily— I'm not required to. And the effort is in the course material. Like, the course is literally filmed like a Netflix film and scripting and all of these resources that I don't think anyone has ever really seen stuff like that. I get really deep into the marketing psychological things that do make a person run. And with this community, it's just been such a breath of fresh air that I know that people are improving without me having to be super mega present. Because, you know, it takes a toll on you having to repeat the same things over and over again. Yeah. And one thing that I do want to enforce a lot is that you don't always need to ask the obvious questions. You can just figure them out. Or at least you have me. For that. But I don't think I'd be where I am if I got— if someone held my hands. Yeah, the entire way I had people around me that would answer questions, but I never dared to ask them a stupid question if I didn't do the work that they told me to do before.

Yeah, what wasted opportunity as well to get through to someone that is like someone you genuinely want to ask good questions to and get great advice from, to ask stupid questions. Like, especially because the mentor themselves, when asked the stupid question, will box you somewhere. Yes. They'll go, this person won't do the basics, and if they won't do the basics, like, I'm not going to go out of my way to help them. Whereas there are obvious people that I've trained, that you've trained, that you're like, day one, you're like, that person, they'll be successful.

Yeah, you can just tell. Yeah, because of the way they just go around the, the loops of the questioning. They're not gonna ask you how to optimize your banner. Like how to go viral. They'd be like, how do you do very specific niche thing that only someone that gets it will understand and see?

So you're 26 now, you're making 7 figures a year, your momentum is unbelievable.

What's next for you? Be present. I've, I've always said this. I started saying a lot more. I said it in a YouTube video. For the last 10, 11 years of my life, I've been running away from the version of me that I hated so much. The depressed, um, ADHD, BPD, OCD type person that I was escaping. The, the person that I didn't like and the person that people thought I was. And I've been running towards this entrepreneurial, successful, multi-millions, multi-six figures, whatever it was. Many friends. And for the first time in my life— oh no, I've also like been changing cities, countries, places, never actually had a home. I finally have a flat where I can just be in and I can actually hang stuff in because I know I'm not moving in 8 months. And the comfort that brings me is undeniably the best feeling, that success. Has ever brought me. I have peace for the first time. I have comfort and I am safe. And that is what— that is the one thing that I've always seeked, just to feel okay. And I finally have that. So whatever I can do to maintain that, I will do. And I obviously have drive. And yes, I have all the business ideas and stuff I would love to, you know, we're talking about doing things together and stuff, but As long as I keep meeting cool people like you, as long as I keep on learning new things, expanding my skill set, and being that 1% better, like maybe a better friend. Right now I'm working really hard on being a better daughter to my parents because I finally have the bandwidth to be present in their life. And that is very important because we just run towards something. It was like a season of hard work for 2 years. But now it's like, okay, I'm still hardworking as fuck, but I want to be a hardworking daughter and a hardworking friend and the best person that I can be in all the places. And I think that's what you probably had when you got married. You're like, I actually— there's a new priority in my life. And it's nice because I never thought I'd have that option. And the most beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is that we have all the options in the world. It's up to us if we want to pursue that.

Well, from me, I think you're genius. Thank you. And a role model for so many people watching. So thank you very much for coming on Wake Up. It's been awesome.

Thank you for having me as a guest. You're the best.