How to ACTUALLY stop trading time for money (yay!)

Hello, hello. It's Mary Schiller, author and results coach at MarySchiller.com, where business is fun because why not have it be fun? I'm so happy to be here with you today chatting with you about how to actually stop trading time for money. Yay. Because who doesn't want to do that? So I want to welcome you to this call. If you're joining me live, that's amazing. If you are watching on the replay, that's equally as amazing. I really, really appreciate your interest and your presence. So before I get started— hi Clifford— just let me know in the chat where you are joining from. I always love to hear where people are joining from because as you know, if you've been around me at all, I'm sort of a tech geek and I just get so excited by the fact that we can connect with each other all over the world so seamlessly. It's just incredible. Northern Ireland is Clifford, Laurie from Orlando. Hi, Laura, nice to have you here. Terry in Kansas City, back in the US. Lou from Northampton, England. Tracy from St. Petersburg, Florida. Jesus from Portugal, Robin from Scotland. Isn't this amazing? What an international crew we have here today. Lou in Brighton. Chiara is in Quebec, Canada. Awesome. That is just incredible. Look at that, in the US and Europe and the UK. It's just incredible. I am here in Paris, France, although I'm a native Californian, hence the California-style accent that I have. And I'm sure it comes through very strongly as I'm trying to speak French with the Parisians here, but that's okay. As a little aside, yesterday I had a doctor's appointment and neither the doctor nor the assistant spoke any English at all. And so it was quite interesting going through a rather lengthy appointment and a little procedure without speaking any English, but they were very kind and they spoke slowly and, you know, forgave my mess-ups. So that was very nice. Hi, Doug. It's great to have you here. Thanks, everybody. Gosh, this is so much fun for me. And I want to preface this by asking you guys to, if you don't have something to write with, you might want to take a few notes during this conversation we're going to have. And as always with these conversations, it's very casual. You know, I don't have any slides. I have some notes that I'm going to be looking at just to keep myself on course during the hour. But it's really a conversation between you and me. So you can type into the chat. And if you have a specific question, it's really helpful to put it where it says, ask a question, because then I can mark the spot on the replay recording, which will be right on this page, by the way, when I'm answering that question. So if you come back to watch the replay and you're curious, you can just hop right to that spot on the recording, which is really cool. Hi, Suzanne in Denmark. Awesome. Beautiful. Oh gosh, I love it. So have you all got something to take notes with? Either, you know, good old pen and paper like I like to use, or on your computer or something, because I think you're going to uncover some very interesting gems, I'm hoping, as we chat. Robin's all ready. Excellent. How many of you still use a pen and paper? To do stuff with. Now, as I said a moment ago, I'm definitely a tech geek, so I do use tools. I'm a huge fan of Google Docs, and I also email myself all the time. But I can't leave the house without my pen and paper in my purse or my backpack because it just, you know, if something occurs to me, I just like to write it down and scribble it before I forget. Yeah, pen and paper for Laura. Lou says yes. Well, Lou, the artist, of course you're always sketching. Hi Yolanda, nice to see you. Very close to France. Awesome. I'll just wave at you then, Yolanda. Can you see me? So anyway, so if you have something ready to write with or take notes with, that's fantastic. So during this talk, we are going to cover a few things. Hi Erna, good to have you. And really this talk is for you if And this is really the most important piece of this. I will be talking about some practical things, but this first part is going to be sort of a broader overview. Uh, Yolanda can see me waving. So this is really for you if you, uh, have been feeling like your time isn't actually yours, like you, you're kind of, uh, you know, going through the days and you have this sense that the days are just kind of going by and you're not actually engaging in things that you really want to be engaged in. So if that is how, where you are, then this talk will be helpful. Hi Heather from couch in North London. Awesome. Hi Jeanette. Thanks for being here. So let me pause there for a second. How many of you have the sense sometimes that time is just kind of going by and you're not really doing the things that you want to be doing with your days. You know, like it's kind of, it seems like things are not really under your control or that time is just kind of slipping by. Kevin says, I'm not productive enough by any means. Jeanette says, partly yes. Kevin, yeah, I'm kind of looking at that productivity thing a little bit. Robin says, me, 100%. Okay, then what we're gonna talk about, especially at the first part of the call, will be really helpful to you. I'm hoping all of it will, but that especially. And also, you know, you want more time in general to pursue the things that are interesting to you. So that's one of the advantages of coming at business and life in general from the perspective that I'm going to be sharing with you, is that you suddenly start to find yourself having more time to pursue what you're interested in. And if you are somebody who has your own business or wants to have your own business, and you're someone who is, you know, perhaps charging by the hour, I'm gonna show you some simple ways to break out of that, even if it looks like that can't possibly happen for you. So are you guys ready to get started? 'Cause I am, I'm really looking forward to this. And it's interesting because the topic of this talk really relates to some things I've been changing in my own life recently. So I'll share those with you as we go along. So if you're ready to take notes, the first point I want to make is the most important point. So if you only listen to one piece of this conversation— Yolanda says yes. Hi, Leah. Good to see you. If you only listen to one piece of this conversation, I hope it's this one. And if you have heard me before, you'll know that I'm all about following the fun in life and business. I really enjoy helping people find the fun in business and really streamlining and simplifying things. And part of that, a big part of that, is this first point. So here, here we go. Start to fill your time with activities that you enjoy, even if it looks like you don't have time for them. I'll say that again. Start filling your time with activities you enjoy, even if it looks like you don't have time for them. So let me explain this by using a personal example. So enjoy business-wise, Jeanette said. I'm talking overall, Jeanette. We're kind of in the first part of this talk, we're really looking at life and business, I'll get to this in a second, as one entity. We're looking at life in general. So if you start to fill your time with activities that you enjoy, you will really start to see some major shifts happening very, very quickly. So let me give you an example of this that's very recent. For me. So one of the things that I really wanted to do that I hadn't been doing is I really wanted to join my local gym. So the gym, I timed it today, is a 7-minute walk from where I live here in Paris. So there's no excuses for me not to go there. And I had really enjoyed going to a gym when we lived in New York City. I went to, I belonged to two really nice ones at different times, one in Manhattan and one closer to where we lived in the Bronx. And I really enjoyed going there. I liked using the equipment. I love the rowing machine. I took some actual rowing lessons and really enjoyed that. And I also love swimming. And so while there are a lot of public pools here in Paris, I kind of wanted the convenience of having everything in one place. And so a couple of weeks ago, I just was like, you know, I really, really want to join a gym. I want to go use the rowing machine. I want to take some classes. I want to use the pool. There's a pool at this one. And so I just said, I'm gonna go do it. So I went there, my husband and I went, we got a tour, we found out all the information, and we signed up for a year's membership. And ever since I did that, you know what has happened? It's been very easy for me to have the time to do it because I really enjoy it. At first I thought, you know, am I gonna have time for this? You know, I'm pretty busy with all of the business things I'm doing. Where am I gonna fit this in? But almost instantly, it was like time just showed up in my calendar for it. You know, at a certain time of day, I noticed that instead of just kind of screwing around on the computer or, you know, whatever, watching something on Netflix for a break, I am now going to the gym because I enjoy that a lot more. And so what I have found over and over and over again ever since I kind of adopted this idea that I can fill my time with all the activities I enjoy and kind of cut the rest of the things, that my time starts to feel much more relaxed. It almost seems like time has slowed down a little bit because my days are now filled with joyful things and wonderful feelings and experiences. And so what I want to ask you is, What is just one activity that you can think of that you would really love to integrate into your days on a regular basis? Something that you're not doing now, but something you really, really, really want to do. Kevin says, I have a 5-yard and 20-yard vegetable plot, which I generally try to make time for maybe an hour a day. Well, that's fantastic. Kevin, that's excellent. Is there something else that you want to try to start to integrate into your day? So let me know in the chat if there is something that, you know, when you think about it, it's like, ah, I really want to be spending time doing that, but I'm not, you know. And another thing that is on my mind is that my husband bought me an electronic piano keyboard for Christmas And so that's another thing that I'm gonna start incorporating into my days. I may take a break from what I'm doing and go play for 15 minutes and then come back. Jeanette says walking. Ah, walking, Jeanette, that's one of my favorite activities to do here where I live because there's always so many wonderful things and interesting people to see. Robin says blogging and writing. Yolanda, Zumba or beach walking. Fantastic, fantastic. Who else? Yoga, Laura says. Hey, Laura, just a little hint on that. If you haven't found Yoga by Adriene on YouTube, I highly recommend that. I just started her newest 30-day routine. I think it's called Dedicate, and it's pretty cool. Kevin, I would like to watch a bit of Gaia TV. Never have the time and so informative. Excellent. Yeah, Laura, check it out. It's really great. And what's cool about that is it's a 30-day thing. And so you just do one thing a day and pretty soon you find the time for it. It. So of the things that you've said here, and, and if you haven't said anything in the chat, that's cool too. I'd love for you to make a little promise to me and to yourself, and you can type this in the chat and say something like, depending on what time of day is it is where you are, I will do this thing today, or if it's later in the day like it is for me, I will do X tomorrow. And I want you to follow through with it. Follow through with it. Oh, Leah, her name is, uh, Adrienne Yoga on YouTube. Yeah, thanks, Shannon. Oh, thanks for being here. So I want you to type that into the chat. I promise to do whatever that thing is If it's early in the morning for you, then say today because I want you to start as soon as possible. And then if it's later in the day like it is, I want you to say, I promise to X tomorrow. So for me, oh, Kevin says, I promise to watch a bit of Gaia TV tomorrow. Tomorrow morning I'll walk. Jeanette says, I'm going to say tomorrow I'm going to play the piano for 15 minutes during a break. Awesome. So, you know, what's so interesting about this is that— and I can't really explain it— oh, Laura says, I promise to check out my local yoga class tomorrow. Brilliant, Laura. What I find so interesting about this is that when we have this idea that we can simply commit to and say, I will do this, it's almost like the forces of nature or of life or however you want to call it start to conspire inspire to help us. Have you ever had that experience before where, like I was explaining about going to the gym and suddenly I saw time gaps in my schedule or I was like, well, I can go over to the gym for 45 minutes. That's not a big deal. I'll just do it right here. You know, it's like suddenly gaps of time open up and make it possible for us to do these things. Yolanda, I promise to walk on the beach tomorrow. That's a nice promise. Trish, I promise to practice guitar for 30 minutes tonight. Fantastic. Awesome, you guys. So cool. And so, you know, the other thing that I have really enjoyed about this process is that it's a, it's a very kind of lighthearted commitment to doing something because it's not like saying, you know, picking something that we really don't like doing and saying, I'm going to commit to doing this every day, even if I hate it. It's a way of of saying, this is really important to me and it's something that I want to spend more time with because it's my life. You know, this is how I'm spending my time here on this earth. And it's something that really means something to me and it's something that I want to spend more time doing. You know, there's a lot of things that I think we do that maybe aren't so meaningful. And I think Kevin maybe was the one who was talking about productivity a little bit. That when we start to move towards the things that we enjoy doing and we start filling our time with those activities, you would be amazed at what happens to your level of productivity. I, again, I don't really understand how this happens, but I just know that this is true, that when, when I start doing more of the things I want to do, they start seeming effortless, and then other things start to seem more effortless. Have you guys ever had that happen before where suddenly things started to get easier for you? Laura says yes. Leah, I promised to book a yoga class online today at my favorite yoga studio. Fantastic. Laura's had that feeling of sort of time opening up and things becoming less of a a problem and just easier to do. Kevin, greater focus is natural if you're enjoying what you do. Absolutely. Jeanette and Lori have had the same experience. And so when we are trying to free up our time, we can do that very simply by starting to do the things we want to do, not worrying about, oh my gosh, do I have time for that? What do I have to drop? No. We don't have to go there. We can just start to fill our time with the things we want. Hi, Steve, I promise to record a 5-minute audio. Fantastic. I may email you guys tomorrow and see if you've actually done it. Okay. Fair warning, you may get an email from me. So be on the lookout for that. Let's see. All right, there's a couple of questions here and I see one from Verena that I'm going to answer because it, it relates to what we're just talking about. So, Verena, thanks for posting this question. What if I have so many different interests and activities I'd like to integrate in my day and I find it hard to pick and decide which ones because I want to do them all? Just pick one. That's my simple answer is just pick one. Because when you pick one and actually start to do it, as I've been mentioning and some of us have been commenting, it's almost like more time gets freed up for all of the other things that you want to be doing. And like I said, I don't really have an understanding of how that happens. The mechanism doesn't really— hasn't been made plain to me. I can't really see it. I just know that that is what has happened for me, that the more I simply choose something and start to do it, then it's like, oh, I also have time to do this and I have time to do this. So I think our mentality is such that we're told that we simply can't do all the things we want to do. We can't. I disagree with that. I totally disagree. We can start doing something enjoyable, an activity that we want to engage in. And then, like I said, it'll start to seem obvious which other things we want to start doing as well. So just pick one and start. That's my best answer there, so thanks, Marina. And there's another question from Tiara. I will come back to that one. All right, let me see. Mike Brown, hi. I promised to read a chapter of the novel I haven't picked up in a week. I like it, just been pushed to the margins of my schedule. Fantastic, Mike. I'm reading an interesting novel myself right now. Good, Marina, I'm glad that was helpful. Heather, I'm traveling tomorrow and will be away a few days. I will start when I get back. Is that okay? Yeah, I think I'm gonna promise to swim, of course. Thanks, Heather. Hi, Mary. I'll spend 30 minutes sketching. Lee, cool. Hi, Steve. Jeanette, just an observation I've seen that might be helpful to others. Oh, did I miss a comment? Uh, I may have. I don't know. Painting as you are speaking, Terry says. Well, that's good. You're kind of doing two things you enjoy at once, so that's great. Wonderful. All right, let me go to my little notes here, and I want to come on to point 2. So point 1 was start to fill your time with activities you enjoy, and just pick one and start doing it and do it consistently and see what starts to open up for you. So the second point, and again, this is sort of big picture points I'm making here, so get ready to write this down. Stop dividing life into parts like work life, home life, personal life. So stop dividing life into parts, work life, home life, personal life, business life, however you want to call it, because life isn't really able to be divided that way. I know that it can look like that's true. But if you really take a few steps back and look at life, can you really divide it that way? How many of you say no, I don't think you can really divide life up like that? Because that's how it started to look to me, is that all of my efforts to try to separate pieces of life like that were not really working because the common denominator in all of it was me, was me living in this life and experiencing these things. And what ends up happening is that you can get kind of sucked into that rabbit hole of trying to— I'm going to say something you all have heard— balance the different aspects of life, the work-life balance. Thing, and it starts to get very confusing, and it starts to look like there's all this stuff you have to do to balance these things out, when in fact none of it is actually real. Uh, Robin, I do divide it up, but I can see how it's not logical. Yeah. Lou says, I don't think you can divide it up. Yolanda agrees with me. If you don't agree with me, feel free to say that in the chat too, by the way. I'm totally open to being wrong about this. It just seems to me that one of the benefits, if you will, of seeing that life can't really be divided that way is that you kind of naturally then start to gravitate towards doing more of the things that you like doing, where you start to see that, oh, how I'm spending my time during working hours, let's say is actually my life. That's time that, you know, I can be filling with things I enjoy. Do I really like what I'm doing during that time? Hi, Kevin. The aim has to be to love your work. Then you're doing what you love all the time, whether in work time or not. Thank you for that, Kevin, because that's exactly how it has looked to me since I started this business 3 years ago in 2016. Is that I no longer wanted to have any separation, even an illusion of separation between how I earned an income and how I was living. I didn't see any reason for that anymore. It started to look almost weird that I would somehow subjugate all of those beautiful dreams and desires I had from ways I wanted to fill my time, that somehow I had to shelve those in order to go do something for a living. That started to look really strange to me. Hi Erna, that's what I struggle with, keeping business and my private separate. Well, that's the, that's the thing, Erna, is that I don't think they need to be separate. I think that the best possible situation is simply to be living, just living, doing what you enjoy doing and also earning an income. Those two things do not have to be separate at all. And I think that in the traditional societal conversation, there's a lot of discussion that seems to indicate that they are supposed to be separate. Do you see what I'm saying? And I'm suggesting the opposite. I'm suggesting that we can simply live. We can simply live. And we can have ways that money shows up while we are living. So let me know, Erna, if that doesn't make sense. Hi, Mike. Well, there are things I cannot do at my day job, like read a novel, that I can do at home. Maybe it's about picking the time to do the things you want to do. Interesting question there, Mike. So from where I'm sitting, I don't want to have to do that. I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I don't want to be, you know, have anybody saying to me, Mary, you can't go to the gym right now because you have to be at your desk. This is how life used to be when I was working at a full-time job. I, you know, I couldn't just get up and go do something like that. That would not have been okay. Or I couldn't have sat in my cubicle and read for, you know, 15 or 20 minutes or something. That wasn't allowed. And where I'm coming from now is that the more I have simply started to do the things that I want to do, the easier has actually been to earn a wonderful income. Some of you have heard this story before. I'll just tell it very briefly, is that when I started as a coach in 2016, I simply decided that I wasn't going to do anything I didn't want to do, period. You may have heard me say this a million times, but I'll repeat it. I gave myself permission to never do that again, to never do anything, quote unquote, just for the money. I wasn't going to spend my time anymore doing things that I didn't like to do. Now, I wish I had had this insight perhaps a few years earlier, but I was grateful to have it at the time. Being in my mid-50s, I figure I still have some time, God willing, to enjoy, you know, my time more. And it's been amazing to me how, as I said a little bit earlier, that the forces of nature, or however you want to describe it, seem to have conspired to help me to do that. Um, so, hi Erna, I think I have to be the professional in my business. What I would say as a person is something I think I cannot say to my potential clients. I think it has to look a certain way when I'm talking to clients. Oh, I see what you're saying, Erna. Um, that's an interesting point too. Because let me reflect on that for a second. I don't think I show up any differently, like with you guys, talking with you. I feel like this is how I show up with everyone in my life. I don't feel like I speak to my clients any differently, really. I mean, maybe the topics are different, but I think that I'm simply speaking from the heart and trying to be helpful and just myself all the time. I can say for sure that when I was in that job, there was no way I could have shown up as real Mary in that job every day. That wasn't acceptable. There were rules that had to be followed if you were going to be in that environment. I couldn't speak freely or risk getting fired. And again, that is just not okay with me. You know, I don't want to even attempt to try to divide myself up in this way with different versions of myself. A, it's not fun. B, it's not real anyway. And C, it's just way too much work. I'd rather spend that energy on things I like doing. And on, you know, ways of creating something that might be useful to someone else. Uh, hi Chiara. So I've been doing things I love regularly guilt-free for the last few years. Unlike you, my income has decreased, meaning I don't put myself out there like you do, Mary. Oh, I see, Chiara. There is something, uh, to that. In fact, um, I was just thinking about this shortly before this call that And I think this relates actually to what I was just saying to Erna's comment that we are free to show up as what we are. There really aren't any rules about that. And in fact, that's probably been the thing that has helped my income the most is simply saying what's on my mind and trying to be a helpful person because I enjoy doing that. It's one of the activities I enjoy is trying create something that's helpful to people and, and be a consistent presence for people. That means a lot to me. And I think that, that, that has helped my business as well. So, Tara, if you have a specific question about that, I'm happy to answer. Hi, Erna. I have a very different view at life that I think people will find me weird if I do. You know, Erna, I don't think you're alone there. And I think that in the back of my mind, I have some fearful thinking about that too. I just don't worry about it anymore. I figure Some people will be, you know, how I am and how I come across and the things that I teach and share and other people won't and they'll be inspired by someone else and there's millions and billions of people in this world to be inspired by and you know, if I can impact just a few of those, I'm happy to do that. I also don't go on Facebook Live on my personal page because of that. I don't do that on my personal page either. I guess if I had to say that I keep something separate, it would be on Facebook book, but it's mostly because of their rules. Frankly, if they didn't have rules about the crossover between business and personal, I would probably be doing most of what I'm doing on my personal timeline. But since they kind of are picky about that, I keep that off to the side. Okay, so, so far we've talked about 2 really, really big points. And if you only walk away from this presentation, this chat today, with these two ideas. These are really the most important ones. The first one is start to fill your time with activities you enjoy. And I am gonna follow up by email. I just decided I'm gonna email all of you at the end of the day tomorrow and see what happened. If you followed your promise or fulfilled your promise and stop dividing life into parts because it actually can't happen. So now, are you ready to move into from that sort of larger discussion into something that is specific to business, like what you can do business-wise to stop trading time for money. Who says yes, you're ready? Let me know in the chat. Because when I was— oh, great, Robin. Thank you. When I was in that full-time job, I see lots of me. It's cool. I was essentially getting paid to sit in that cubicle. Oh, let me go back here to share. Yes, Mary, makes sense. Just showing up being me. Not sure why I have apprehension about doing things like webinar. You're ready. All right, Tiara, maybe that could be something you could try over the next couple of weeks. Oh, great. Thanks, Leah. All right. So when I was sitting in that cubicle for 8 hours a day, I was literally getting paid to sit there because, you know, in any traditional job, there's lots of time when you are at that job when you're actually not doing work. Would you agree with that? So in many job situations, you're literally getting paid to sit there for— thanks, Trish— for X number of hours, right? Sana says yes. And many employers are very funny about this, that if they can't see you sitting there, they think that something's wrong. It's like, they have to see that you're actually there. And that kind of, you know, seems to generate some feeling of security, which is not true, but you know, that's what, that's what it looks like. And so there are also other types of work that people get paid by the hour for, such as if you're some kind of a therapist, whether it's a psychologist, counselor type person or a massage therapist or something like that, you may be paid by the hour. Or if you're some kind of a caregiver, you may get paid by the hour, things like that. What I see also is in the entrepreneurial space, and at first this looks logical, but when you start to pick it apart, it's just not logical at all. I see a lot of people who who start their own business, let's say as a consultant or a coach or something, and again, they're still charging by the hour. So they'll say, you know, 4 coaching sessions with me is $400. And so what they're really saying is, you know, each session costs $100. And again, that is still in that time for money kind of frame of reference. Well, the good news is that there are lots of ways to kind of get out of that frame of reference on a practical level. One, oh, I don't want to call this a mistake, but I can because I made it myself, so I'll just own up to it. I'll say one mistake that I made in another business venture that I tried for myself was that I thought I had to, um, kind of come up with something completely new instead of looking at the services I was actually offering and seeing how I could leverage those. So for example, in a previous venture that I tried to do, I was building websites for people that was part of what I did. And I also was creating animated marketing videos. So I was doing both of those things. And I was having a really hard time getting any traction whatsoever because my, my income was based on the time it was taking for me to complete those projects. And I don't know why this didn't occur to me at the time. But it didn't. So, you know, so I— it never occurred to me, for example, that I could create some kind of training course, kind of a do-it-yourself training course to teach people how to make a simple website. Or I could teach people how to use this incredible online video animation tool that I was using. It just never occurred to me that I could take the skills and the services that I was offering and leverage those. So instead of going in that direction, I just dropped the entire thing and put my total focus back on my full-time cubicle job, which I was not happy in. So I think that there are many, many ways that we can start leveraging what we're currently doing to reach more people. Another, another area that I used to work in was as a copywriter. So I wrote people's websites, for example. And again, I was getting paid pretty much by the hour, even if I quoted for the project. Like if I was going to write, you know, 5 pages of someone's website, I was still in the back of my mind thinking, how long is this going to take me? How long is it going to take me? Instead of seeing that maybe there were other things I could offer in there to enhance the value of it so I could charge more. Or maybe there was a way that I could teach a class to people on how to become a better copywriter, how to write a great homepage, how to write, write a great email series, that I could teach those things. I could leverage my skills and my time to reach more people. So let me pause there and see what comments you have. Is there something that you do right now that you deliver maybe on an hourly basis or one-to-one that you think you could maybe shift, even if it's just partially, into some other form or some other format? And while you're thinking about that, I'm gonna go to the question here. Okay. Oh my God, I suddenly gained lots of ideas from you. Oh, cool. I was just about to answer your, your question. Let me, uh, well, write those ideas down. I'm going to answer your question here. I actually very much enjoy working with groups live and one-on-one. Would love some tips to do, still do what brings me joy, like working live with people. As I type this question, finally answers are emerging. I still would love your insight on this. So one of the things that I have learned in the past 3 years is that I started working with people one-to-one because that was what coaching looked like to me. And I still do one-to-one work. In fact, I'm going to invite you if you'd like to do that with me. I have a way for you to do that. But I also started to see the benefits of working with groups, and I started to see the interaction amongst people and that when I would teach groups, there was learning happening in the group. That I could never have predicted. And it was so amazing to see all that beautiful creative energy even on a call like this or on a Zoom call. So, so I was pleasantly surprised at how rich that environment can be. So, you know, if you're doing it live, I'm telling you, as in a group, it can be an amazing experience. So I really encourage you to do that, Chiara, and everyone, if that's interesting to you. Let me go over to the chat. Let's see. Whoops. Let's see. Heather says, singing lessons. I also do a weekly group course, but would like to extend it to a far wider audience. That sounds good. Hi, Laura. Yes, even though I package my coaching, it still breaks down by the hour. I'm gonna talk about, a little bit about that in a second. So hold on there. Kevin, plan to write a book utilizing knowledge picked up working with individuals. That's another idea I've got. Erna, your Let's Make Money Honey group was great. Yeah, wasn't that fun? You know, because we really got to share a lot of ideas in there and things that I couldn't have come up with on my own. Hi Leah, I tried it out and we'll try it again, but at the moment the clients want something different. You know, Leah, that's a really good point. I'm glad you said that because it's wonderful to respond to what people want. Totally get that. I tend to do that as well. However, I only do that if it's something that I really want to do. So I'm just putting a little caveat there. Okay. So that's one idea is we can go from this hourly thing, working one-to-one with people or pricing things, thinking how many hours is going to take. We can move from that into doing something that's more of what they call one-to-many or teaching or working in groups. And another thing that is really, really big, and Laura, this will start to address your question, uh, is that we can review our pricing. Okay, we can see, you know, uh, what, how could I increase the value as I increase, uh, the price for this? And what is something valuable I could offer that doesn't necessarily depend on how much time I am spending. So let me give you an example of that. Uh, so something that I'm developing right now is a, is a, a new course that I can, I'll be able to teach it live or I can offer it as a do-it-yourself. I'm, I'm still putting it together, but it's something that I could offer to any new one-to-one clients who sign up with me. And it's an incredible amount of value that they would be receiving for that. But it doesn't depend on my time to deliver it. So even within a one-to-one context, you can still bring something else into it that doesn't depend on your time. Another aspect of one-to-one coaching that I've done that people really appreciate is unlimited access to me via email at the same time. Now, that is a really nice benefit if you ask me. I'm kind of on call for you 24/7, But at the same time, it's not a reflection of, you know, how many minutes is this taking me? You know, how many, how much should I charge for this? It's just simply included in the whole price. So it starts to get virtually impossible to break things down like that. So you can start to envision the services you're offering from a much wider perspective. So Laura, let me, um, Let me know if that was useful to you. Uh, good, I'm glad that makes sense, uh, Leah. All right, here is a question from Verena. Is there a way to leverage my time work if I'm working as an employee in project management, or is it just possible for people working in their own businesses? You know, Verena, I am convinced— I could be wrong about this, but I'm convinced that employers would actually, at least many employers would love for their employees to come to them with some new and creative ways to make things better, to make things more efficient. And so, uh, if you could come up with something to present to them that would save them time and/or money, and that also means that it benefits you in that way, you have a good chance of them saying yes. So kind of think from the employer standpoint, like, what would really be useful to them? That, you know, side benefit could also make it so that I'm not getting paid simply for the hours that I'm putting in. So let me know if that's useful, Verena. Thanks for the question, I appreciate it. Uh, oh good, Laura, I'm glad to hear that. So, uh, we've talked about on a practical basis going from solely one-to-one to one-to-many to including other things that can add value and can also allow you to raise your prices so that you're, you're really giving people a lot for what they're paying for. And, and many of those things do not have to equal your time. For example, if you, Let's say you're somebody who works one-to-one in any capacity. It could really be a lot of different services, I could imagine, and you find yourself having almost the exact same conversation during the first session, or, you know, there are things like that that are just taking a lot of time repeating yourself. Record it. Record it. Make sort of an onboarding process for people. And then, you know, you can include that as something of value that they can have and keep, something that really, you know, gets them off to a great start. And yet you're not having to repeat yourself over and over and over again. I kind of did that in a way when I was a writing instructor for university where, you know, students made some similar mistakes over and over again. So I had this bank of responses and I would just click and you know, send it to them. And then I provided that, uh, this whole big thing for them. You know, here are the common mistakes I see and here are the common ways to fix them. So I was no longer having to spend all that time repeating myself all the time. So let me know if that was useful. Um, uh, all right, well, nothing comes to mind at the moment, Verena, but sit with that and, and see what happens. Um, so another way to really take back your time is, and I know this, this is a thing for people, they don't want to let go of things, but there are certain things that don't need you in the mix. There are certain tasks that can be done by someone else. It doesn't all have to be you. So you might, if you're working for yourself, you might want to review every single thing you do related to your business and see what could be either outsourced or streamlined or frankly dropped entirely. Uh, one thing that I've been talking with a lot of my one-to-one clients about recently is, uh, you, when you use social media to share things about your business, it really helps to just pick one social media channel, just one. Focus on one and see what you can get going there, because otherwise your time is just being spread out amongst all these things and the impact isn't happening. So consider how you can streamline things like that. Um, hi Lori, you've got me thinking. I have a project that seems unique to a specific client I have, but what if there are common features that could be useful to other clients? Perhaps I could figure out a system that scalable, and then I could work one-to-one with a client who needs something more specialized. Yeah, meaning the book is relevant to a larger audience, and if a client needs something specific to their needs, it's an add-on. That's a great one, Lori. It reflects something that I'm working on, uh, for the spring where I'm going to put something together that answers a lot of questions people have about online course platforms. It's a question that I'm continually asked. And I have an advanced degree in online learning, so I have a lot of understanding of what makes a good platform and what doesn't and what features to look for and what ones really don't matter. And so I decided that that's going to be something I'm going to put together for people, is a program that really walks them through different things that they might need, things that they might not need. And that is something that I often say one-to-one to people that I don't really need to do anymore. So again, going back to what I was saying a moment ago, that's the kind of thing that you can prepare if that in your field of expertise, something you hear repeatedly from people, you can present it to them. And that, you know, looks and is really valuable to them and is something that they then have that you can now include as a bigger value item in what you're offering. So another thing that, um, you might want to consider, uh, is, is there someone that you could train to do what you do? So for instance, if you, um, are offering something that includes a Facebook group that you facilitate, could you train someone to take that over for you? So you could be You know, maybe you could come in once a week or something, but the daily upkeep of the group and the daily conversation, maybe there's somebody else who could do that so that your time, your expertise time, is then being used where it's most valuable and where you can get paid for that. So that's another thing to consider is where, where could you train someone to do something that you're doing that's really not the best way for you to use your time. And also, this is a biggie for me in the way that I work for people, and I kind of alluded to this earlier, is what can you do for clients in between sessions? So, you know, if— let's go back to the example. If somebody is like a massage therapist and they may think, well, there's nothing I can really offer people in between sessions because they come for a massage, you know, every other week or whatever it is, or once a month, or you know, or they buy a package of hours from me. So, you know, that's it. Well, that's not how it looks to me. It looks to me like there are myriad ideas of things that you could prepare for people, that you could create for them, that could help their sense of well-being and health between sessions, that would allow you to, A, be of incredible service to them, A, so that they'd be recommending you everywhere, and B, you could raise your prices. The things that you could create don't necessarily have to be personalized for each person. Like Lori was saying, there are things that are common across the board. Think about what those are and address them. Then you're really starting to leverage your time. Let me take a quick pause there. I have a couple other points I want to make before before we conclude, but are you starting to see that there are things that you can do differently? Even if it looks like you're stuck with this hourly thing that you've got to keep, you know, are you starting to see the possibilities here? Oh, cool, Laura. Yeah, thanks, Roman. And you know, we haven't even talked about, for example, how to productize yourself. So if you want to really get out of the time for money thing, you can— I think it was, who mentioned the book? Was it Kevin? I may have that wrong. Oh yes, Kevin. Like I have done, I have lots and lots of books on Amazon, and those are essentially me helping tens of thousands of people without my actually being there to do it. So you can look at how you can take your beautiful creative energy and your expertise and how you can put it into things that are accessible to people 24/7, where you don't have to be there delivering it yourself. I think I just thought of this, so I'm going to just say it. I think a lot of us think we're a lot more necessary than we are. Like, there are— I'm sure there are a lot of things that I could be doing to take my personal self, you know, my time, my, you know, whatever, out of it and put it into something. In fact, that's something that I'm really looking at this year. I love teaching classes like this online and having talks like this online live, and I don't ever want to stop doing this. But there are, like I said, a lot of things, a lot of questions that I answer over and over again that I could put into some kind of, you know, training program that doesn't have to cost a gazillion dollars but would really be useful to people and also be a nice source of income for me. So start to look at what you're doing and really analyze it in a fun way and see what you can pull out of there. Leah, yes, I just did that this week, 14 videos after the coaching. Oh, awesome, that's fantastic, Leah, great. So one thing I wanna say about the product creation thing before we kind of conclude this is that people can get really stuck on this and they, they get intimidated by the tech pieces and things like that. And I would suggest doing something that really doesn't seem hard. You know, I'm not one of these people who encourages people to work hard. I'm kind of the opposite. It's like, let's do the easy thing. Let's do the simple thing. So, you know, if you have no interest in writing, don't go write a book is what I'm saying. You know, unless that really sounds like something you want to do, like a mountain you want to climb. Pick something that you already know how to do, or is so simple that you could learn how to do it very quickly, like record audios. You know, most of us have the equipment for that already. It doesn't require anything, you know, big, fancy, expensive. So start simply and easily with what you already know instead of, you know, setting some humongous, you know, gigantic goal that is just not even in the realm of feasibility at this moment. I would rather see people do things that are easy, that they can complete relatively quickly and see some results and some quick wins, if you will. Does that make sense, what I'm saying on that? That you, you know, you don't have to learn massive new skills in order to create something in terms of like a product or, or anything like that. It can be something that's already within your wheelhouse, something you already know how to do. Um, oh good, Jeanette. Yeah. And also, you know, Here I, here I am again, the tech geek. But there's so many amazing people in the web development and, and a software and online world that I just admire so much who have made it easy for us to offer things like that without having a website, without any of it. I mean, if you guys have heard me talk much about this, you know that I love Gumroad, Payhip, Teachable. I'm now using a wonderful a service called Kartra. All of these kinds of platforms make it so easy for us now to do these things that technology is no longer a barrier to us at all. In fact, it's, it's a helper in helping us to get out of this time for money thing and really, um, you know, have the time to start doing what we enjoy doing more and more and more. And I happen to find this creative aspect of business of how can I help more people at once? What is something that I can create once and get paid for over and over again by people who really would appreciate it? Those are really exciting and creative questions to start asking yourself. Uh, yeah, the other one is Payhip, Kevin. Uh, Gumroad and Payhip are similar and they're platforms where you can sell digital downloads. And Gumroad is slightly superior in my opinion, uh, in that it offers some cool things like video streaming and video rentals. Like, you can put videos up there that people can rent, uh, and watch over a certain period of time, and then the rental goes away. So that's kind of cool. So I just love all of that stuff. So, uh, I guess what I would say in conclusion here— let me just kind of wrap up. We've been talking about the fact that one way we can sort of reclaim our time and stop doing this time for money thing is to start doing more of the things we enjoy. Just simply start doing them. If you have lots of things, then pick one and start there. We can stop trying to divide life into all of these parts because that's just not how it works. We can ask ourselves how we can start leveraging what we're already doing, and instead of trying to invent something totally new, just look more closely at what we're already doing and see how we can leverage that and what more value we could offer in ways that people might appreciate even more. They don't need to hear— we don't need to deliver the same thing over and over and over again. We can find ways to make it better for ourselves and for the people who are our clients. And we can also look at fun ways to turn ourselves into products. Productize me, you know. So, so many options are open to us and it's such a creative field. So has this been a helpful talk? I sure hope it has. And if you didn't want to post a question publicly on here, please feel free to reach out to me by email, mary@marieschiller.com. I'm always happy to answer. There is a green button here that says, "Ready to take back your time? Get on a call with me and let's do this." I am offering some one-to-one coaching called Bold Business Coaching where I help people to leverage their time and make some bold moves in their business and see some quick results. So if that is of interest to you, I would love to have a conversation with you about that and see what we can can do right on that call because my whole aim is to value your time and during that half hour we can make some stuff happen right then and there. So if that's of interest, please go ahead and click that button and sign up for a time to chat with me right on my calendar. I'm so glad this was helpful to you guys. Thought-provoking is good. The lightness, Jeanette, you know, I don't take things seriously. I try to just love every minute of life. And even if things go cuckoo crazy, it's like, okay, well, that's just what happens. So thank you all so much for being here. Thanks, Trevor, for joining. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Jesus, Terri. And again, feel free to reach out to me personally. I'm going to just put my email here. If you want to do that, I'd love to hear from you. And I really hope that you sign up for a time to chat with me personally. I'd love to hear what you would like to accomplish working for yourself and really creating the life and business that you dream of. That's just what I'm all about. So thank you so much, and I will talk to you again very soon. Bye for now, everybody.