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- Hi and welcome to Smartfem and Friends,
and with me today
is amazing thought leader Michelle Villalobos.
Michelle, thank you for being here today.
And for those of you who don't know,
Michelle works with celebrities and influencers
and thought leaders from all over the country,
actually all over the world. - Over the world, yeah.
- So we're gonna jump right in
and we're gonna be talking
about creating a lifestyle business
because I have been watching you from afar
for the last three years.
Walk me through a day of the life
and how you decided to create a lifestyle business.
So the reason and the way
that I decided to create one
was because I did it all wrong initially.
So I created the opposite of a lifestyle business
for the first seven and 1/2 years of my business.
What I did was I kind of did what a lot of people do,
which is I worked harder and harder
and longer and longer hours
because I was exchanging time for money.
So I was selling my expertise,
my coaching, my consulting,
and every project that I landed,
first of all, I had to do a lot of work to get the project,
and then I had to do a lot of work to deliver it.
And so, seven and 1/2 years in,
I just couldn't do it anymore,
I was exhausted, tired, miserable.
And quite honestly,
to some degree, even broke
because my revenues were so up and down all the time.
There was no stability in the business.
So even if I made a lot of money,
I always felt like I was catching up.
- A hamster wheel.
- Oh yeah, exactly.
Exactly, so what I like to say,
I was monetizing my time and my effort,
not my magic.
And so, it took that big breakdown,
which happened in 2014,
for me to wake up to the fact that my model was a problem,
my business model,
was designed to keep me enslaved really,
to constantly working.
And I realized I wanted a new model,
and then I broke through,
I created a new business model,
which tripled, almost quadrupled my revenues in a year.
And more importantly,
it created stable monthly recurring revenues,
and that was the big breakthrough for me.
Was, oh, now I know what's coming six months,
eight, 10 months down the line,
and I can relax and I can create.
- And I find this
with so many small business owners and entrepreneurs,
they don't really create a business,
they create a job for themselves.
- Yes, ma'am.
- And they go broke,
they get burnout,
and sometimes it even affects their health.
- It did mine,
I mean, that was what woke me up.
Ultimately what happened was in 2014,
I got a health diagnosis,
two serious diagnoses at the same time,
and that was the wake up call.
Really what happened was I decided
to focus my attention on my health,
and my business dried up.
So then I had my health breakdown
and then I had my business breakdown
a couple months later,
and it was like, oh,
I see what's going on here,
I can never take my foot off the gas in this business
because it's a job.
- Right, it's totally a job.
So what did you do to transform your mind and your mindset
to go from paycheck player to entrepreneur,
to, you know what, lifestyle executive.
- Yeah, well, first off,
I got a mentor.
I mean, that was the big thing that shifted everything,
was that I met someone who saw what I saw,
which was your business model is broken,
and who had the expertise
to show me a new model
that was much more aligned with my personality.
So there's two elements,
I call it work and play everyday.
- Love that.
- On the one side is work that feels like play
so that while you're working,
it doesn't feel like you're working.
So that's element one.
And then the second element of work and play everyday
is while you're playing,
your business is still working without you.
So those are the two components that I didn't have.
Work didn't feel like play in the original business,
and while I was playing,
the business was stopped.
So those are the two things to look at.
Number one, first thing's first,
aligning the business model
so that you're doing the things
that are easy, graceful, fun, joyful, energy rich.
And then, two,
creating a model that still generates revenues
without you constantly having to be at the wheel of it,
driving the revenues.
- So passive income.
- It's not exactly passive.
- Or maybe just multiple income streams.
- That too.
So there's a few elements of it.
Passive is one piece,
but I wouldn't call my income streams totally passive.
For example, what I call the big back end,
the big back end
is where you have monthly recurring revenue.
So my big back end is I have clients
that I work with in a group,
and one on one sometimes on top of that,
but most of the work happens in a group,
and they commit for a whole year
and they pay,
most of them pay monthly.
So it's passive in the sense
that I'm not calling anybody up like,
"Hey, where's your payment?"
It's happening automatically,
but I am delivering value for that revenue,
it's not completely automated.
But we're doing most of that in a group format.
- And there's nothing worse,
being an entrepreneur,
than chasing money.
- Yes.
- We've been there, right?
- Oh, girl, yeah.
- We have been there,
but that's kind of the hole
that we see so many entrepreneurs in.
And one of the big problems I see with women especially
is they don't wanna own their work.
- Yeah.
- And I have been guilty of that,
oh love what I do,
I'd give it away for free,
you probably are or going broke.
Can we talk about that for a minute?
- Well, and it's not doing a service usually
to the person that we're delivering to.
People, when they pay,
they pay attention.
I don't know what that comes from,
but I've heard it and it's true.
When someone invests in my program,
the very fact that they're investing in it
calls them to a higher standard, right?
And so, when we give things away for free,
we're not valuing it,
but neither are they,
and then they're not as committed,
they're not as engaged, the client.
So really business is an exchange of value,
and it's an exchange of energy.
And when we don't receive,
then we are doing both sides
of the transaction a disservice.
- So Michelle, we hear work, life balance,
that's never worked for me.
I prefer work, life integration.
What works for you?
- I say the same thing, integration,
work and play everyday.
Work that feels like play,
and while you're playing,
your business is working.
That's how I see it.
I'm building models that allow me
to be who I truly am in work
and allow me to play, that's integration.
I don't have a separation really between work and play.
My work is fun,
I enjoy my clients,
I enjoy the things we do together.
And because of that,
there's integration naturally,
and there are boundaries too, right?
Like I don't take client calls on the weekends
or after six PM,
there are boundaries.
And if I do have to take a client call on a weekend,
like I did have a client text me earlier,
she's in trouble with something,
I'm there, and it feels very energy rich for me to do that.
But from a place of ownership and boundaries
and energy richness,
you know how they say your cup runneth over, right?
- Yes.
- I'm not giving from the depths of my well,
as Rumi says,
I'm giving from the overflow,
and that makes a big difference.
- So walk us through a day in the life with Michelle.
- Well, it depends on which day,
Mondays are my admin catch up team day.
Fridays are my fun creative writing creation day,
and then usually Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
are the days where I'm leading my clients as a team.
I'm doing group calls,
I'm doing some coaching calls,
and then Saturdays and Sundays are off,
and then sometimes it's completely different.
I'm taking three weeks off starting Wednesday
to work on my book,
to finish my book, right?
So, and I design my life around what I wanna create,
what I wanna experience.
- That is amazing.
What do you think is the biggest thing
that holds people back
from really going after what they want?
- I would say there are so many things,
and one of them is lack of clarity, of vision.
Not knowing what it looks like
in its most expanded, exciting form.
And because they're operating
from a very limited short-term perspective,
it's not all that exciting.
I just know how to get through this day
or this week or this month or this year
versus having clear vision,
like, oh, I know what I'm creating,
I have a vision for what this looks like in three years,
five years, even 10 years.
I feel like that helps call people forward
and helps you,
because it's not all rainbows and unicorns,
there are times where we've gotta work hard
and we've gotta hunker down.
And if we know that what we're building toward
is something bigger and bolder and more exciting,
I think that can help, that clarity.
- Clarity, and also,
we hear the word purpose a lot.
Can we talk a little bit about purpose.
What's your purpose?
And how do people find their purpose?
- Well, it's funny,
I love to talk about purpose
because I felt for the longest time like I didn't have one.
And I remember relating to people who did have a purpose
as you're so lucky,
you figured out what you're here to do.
I wish I could find my purpose.
And when I had a breakthrough a few years ago
where like, wait a second,
what if you don't find your purpose,
what if you just choose it?
What if you just say--
- That takes a lot of pressure off.
- Yeah, you're not waiting for it to show up
and you're tripping over it like a rock.
It's not some lucky thing or some circumstance
that drops it in your lap,
what if you just chose it?
You can choose one today
and then choose a different one tomorrow.
- Wow, what's your purpose?
- Mine is to activate superstars to uplift humanity.
- And Michelle, how can our viewing audience
find out about you
and find out about how they
can actually create their own purpose?
- Yeah, well, one way would be
to check out my YouTube channel
because it's got tons of videos
about finding your meaning and purpose,
your calling in life.
And then my website is superstaractivator.com,
and there's so much there
that there's a lot of free stuff, free resources.
I do webinars and I give away a lot of stuff for free,
and also offer opportunities
if people wanna work with me personally.
- So for those of you that wanna work and play
and have fun everyday,
you're gonna wanna check out Michelle.
Again, it doesn't have to be this hard.
Hire a mentor and really enjoy the journey.
It is a journey,
and, yes, it's work,
but it can be really rewarding.
- Absolutely, 100% agree,
thank you, Lea.
- Thank you for coming.
- This has been Lea Woodford with Smartfem and Friends,
thanks for watching.
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