In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Susan Ramson, mentor and publisher of the online course “How to Find Fulfilling Work.” Susan shares a personal story about adopting four children from Siberia, emphasizing the importance of approaching others with curiosity and an open mind rather than making assumptions. She explains why she and her husband chose adoption, describing it as a win‑win solution for their desire to become parents. Susan then offers career advice, highlighting that modern professionals can—and should—cultivate multiple skills and brands, citing examples like Tim Ferriss, Thomas Jefferson, and Pat Flynn. She stresses the need to communicate the most relevant skills to a target audience while not letting a single‑skill focus limit opportunities. Her core business advice is to invest in oneself—both professionally and personally—rather than relying on employers or under‑funding a venture. When asked what she would tell her younger self, she advises against seeking all the answers or being right, encouraging curiosity, openness to failure, and experimentation. Regarding happiness, Susan advocates balancing logical reasoning with intuition, trusting gut feelings, and entering a flow state. She recommends the book The Fifth Agreement by Don Miguel Ruiz for its lessons on compassion and not taking things personally. Her favorite quote is from the 14th‑century mystic Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all matter of things shall be well,” which she interprets as a reminder to maintain hope and a long‑term perspective. The episode concludes with Susan directing listeners to her website, satisfyingventures.com, for more resources.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Susan Ramson with us. She is a mentor and publisher of the online course How to Find Fulfilling Work. She helps people find meaningful work that inspires them to contribute positively to the world. So welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Of course, grateful to have you here. We'll jump right into the first one, Susan. The first question I have for you is is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Okay. All right. So I have 4 kids and they're all adopted from Siberia. We adopted them all at the same time. And I guess especially in the beginning when they didn't speak any English, I was trying to anticipate what they were thinking and what their motivations were when they did certain things rather than Well, we couldn't communicate, so it was really hard to figure out why they did some things. And, you know, our brains are kind of wired to operate in defensive mode. So sometimes, and thank goodness they had patience with me, I would go to like, you know, the worst possible outcome or the worst possible thing just to prepare myself for the worst. And here's like, for an example, this is a isn't a terrible thing. But they, they weren't able to save any money. Like, if they got money or if they earned money, they would spend it right away. And, you know, and in a lot of households, that's something you don't want your kids to do. You want them to learn how to save. But if I had been able to actually open my mind and think about why they might be doing that, I would have known that orphanage, if you had anything of value, you, you would lose it right away, somebody would steal it. So my kids grew up basically, you know, living in the moment, certainly when it came to money, they would spend it as soon as they got it. And so it's sort of like a sideways, sideways example. But what it helped me do is, in this instance, I recognized what was going on. So I started opening my mind more and more to not anticipating or judging their motivations, but rather listening with an open mind and being very curious about the things they would do and why they would do them. And a lot of the times, there were reasons I never even could imagine. So I try to take that now into my life with anybody I meet or anything I do, to have that curiosity and open mind and just kind of not coming up with my own answers, letting them communicate to me their answers.
Now, just before we go to the next one, I'm just curious, what prompted you in adopting these 4 children?
Oh, well, my husband and I, we couldn't have children of our own and we wanted to. And, you know, time was marching on and I was— I'm older than my husband, so I I didn't want to get too old and have kids. And we had our own business at the time. So we thought, well, maybe school age, what a school age child will be good. And someone that didn't have a home, we needed a family. They need the family. Win-win, right? Yeah. And we started with one and we didn't care what country or anything, but the school age kids were mostly coming from Russia at the time. And then we ended up with 4 because there was another brother or sister with the first one, then there was another one, then there was another one and another one. So we were like, oh, what the heck, we'll take all 4 and we're just gonna wing it. And we all winged it together.
That is awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
Yeah.
The next one I have for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Okay. This is something I think that's changed over the years. So I'll say that right now, I think it's important for people to know that we have many talents and interests and we actually are good at a lot of them. And it's okay to have multiple professional skills. So in the old days, we used to, you know, have one job or one thing that we were really good at, stayed at that job forever and ever until we retired. And, you know, business isn't like that anymore. Corporations aren't like that anymore. And so We tend to develop a number of skills throughout our life that we can actually do as our professional jobs, or we can be in business to do those things. And for a long time, I struggled with— I had 31 different professional jobs. They're each different from the other one that I got paid for throughout my life. And so when it came time to starting my own business, or even looking for a job, it was kind of hard to narrow down to just one thing to be known for, for example, or to promote myself for. And so I struggled with that for a long time and it actually held me back from doing a lot of things. Now I just, you know, recognize that it's okay. It's okay. Tim Ferriss does it. Thomas Jefferson did it. He was a architect, a statesman, a lawyer. He was a number of things. And people like Pat Flynn, you know, he's known for being the Smart Passive Income guru, but he also has an expertise in food trucking that he brands for those people. So I think it's just important that when you're doing your communication to your target audience, you stick with the things that, you know, matter to them. But it is okay to have multiple brands or multiple focuses. And I'm not a brand expert, so maybe some marketing people will be cringing right now, but I think you can do it. You just have to be careful how you do it and don't let it hold you back. Go for it.
Yeah, I agree. And I think really what it is too is it's like one at a time maybe. And then once you have it up and running, then you can shift. And I'd also say whatever that quote is, I do like that one quote That's like, if you chase two rabbits, you'll catch none, but if you chase one, or whatever, whatever that quote is. So I agree with you. I just think that also along with it, you do, I think it's better to stick to one focus and then get it up and running, build the systems, get the business going. And then once it's running, then shift the focus and you could totally run like four businesses at once, you know, but you gotta focus on one at a time, I think, to get them there.
Yeah, I agree with that 100%.
So then the next one I have for you is, what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
Okay. Well, I think what I've learned over the years is it's really, really important to invest in yourself professionally and personally, for that matter. So invest in yourself as the leader, the visionary, or the primary operator of your business, your job, in your life. And sometimes this happens a lot, I think, when we're in jobs and we don't invest in our professions at all. Like we expect our companies to do the investing in us. And then when we have businesses, especially when we're in startup mode, we don't invest in ourselves because we're going crazy, you know, trying to do too many things. And as a matter of fact, we don't invest enough in our businesses before we start them. So we go in, a lot of times underfunded already, and then we struggle for a while. So I think even if we're working at a job or we're in a business, it's really our responsibility to invest in ourselves professionally. And so, because that lets us, you know, learn new things, get some new perspective, consider some new experiences, and it actually gives us the ability to come out with, more wider, deeper, more possibilities. And that lets us be a better contributor to our companies and, you know, a wiser business owner.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Ah, don't focus on having all the answers or even think you can have all the answers. And don't focus on having to be right. I think this, this type of a focus causes you to come to situations with a closed mind because you think you already know what the best way is. So rather than doing that, if you had the perspective of curiosity and not having— and actually also being open to some failure, which is hard, especially when you're younger too. To be willing to do that. Do some experiments if you have the, the leeway to do them. I've been lucky to have that in my, my different jobs. In some corporations especially, I've been really lucky to be able to do that. So it gives you a way to, to come up with more possibilities if you're doing it that way.
And kind of going a little bit down a different path, but in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Okay, okay. So I'm, I'm 58 right now, so I'm not, I'm not like really, really old, but I'm also not really, really young. And what I've learned, um, what I've learned is that approaching everything from strictly a logical place, a place of reason without the intuitive side as well. It's sort of like a two-dimensional life. So I've learned how to trust my intuition more and to actually kind of sit back a little bit and watch as things just happen. And it helps me to get into flow. I can recognize when that's going to happen, and I can sort of like use your gut. Everybody says to do that. I mean, maybe you're not going to do it 100%, but I don't think we do it enough. And, you know, I think that's it. I think when you're in that mode, then you can— you're more present and you can just see more possibilities pop up that way.
Definitely. And I'm excited for your answer on this next one. So what is— it's usually tough for a lot of people.
What is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned Best book I've read is all the books I read, because I usually find something in all of them. But I'll go with the one I've lent out the most, recommended the most, and that is The Fifth Agreement by Don Miguel Ruiz and his son Don José. And I think somebody else worked on that book. Janet Mills, I think. So Don Miguel Ruiz also wrote a book called The Four Agreements that this one was based on. But this book helped me open my mind to have more compassion for people and to stop, like I said before, anticipating what I think they're thinking. And it also— the, like, really big thing it did for me was it taught me how not to be personally offended. And when you can get to that place, I'm pretty much there now, it rarely happens anymore. It's such a place of peace to be at, 'cause you have more confidence and you just know that when people say or do things that it's actually just coming from their own experience, it might have nothing to do with you at all. So that's the second agreement. Don't take anything personally. Every mind is a world. And I highly recommend that, at least even if you just read that chapter.
Yeah, I agree. And actually, a few others on the show have said that as well. And what I like about it too is it says like, don't take it personally, whether it's like a good or bad thing.
Yeah, right.
Which is like an interesting kind of concept, because I think when most people hear that, they think like, oh, just don't take it personally if it's negative. But it's actually— the book says not to take it personally if it's a positive or negative remark.
Yeah.
So the next one I have for you is, what is your favorite quote and why?
Okay, let's see. There's a quote that I love. It just keeps popping into my head at the right time. And it's from Julian of Norwich, who was actually a woman, a woman mystic from the 1300s. And she said something along these lines, and then TSO re-quoted her. But what she said was, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all matter of things shall be well." So I like this quote because when something is not well, or we perceive it as not being well, it sort of gives us, you know, this hopeful anticipation that good, serene things are yet to come. And it puts us in a state of— puts me anyway in a state of trust that if I just wait a minute or a few days or a few months, I'm going to see with 20/20 hindsight that all is really well. And there are outcomes that I could have never anticipated if I was just focused on, you know, a very short timeframe of maybe, you know, some point in time when things are not going so great. So, you know, and in all my years, I have just seen this happen over and over again that, you know, we allow ourselves to experience a little bit of pain because that's just the human condition. We're not going to be able to avoid it all. That we can, we can be sure, I think that we can be sure that it's going to be all right. And we just have to have a sort of a longer-term view and we will be astonished at how great things can actually turn out.
Yes, I agree. And thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and/or connect with you online?
Okay, probably the best place for now is satisfyingventures.com. Satisfying Ventures, my company name, that was to remind me that I shouldn't do anything that wasn't going to be a satisfying venture. Uh, so that would probably be the best place for now.
Perfect. Thanks again for hopping on.
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