#203 Igniting Your Entrepreneurial Spirit with Startup Coach Christine Michaelis

0:00:02 - Mehmet
Hello and welcome back to a new episode of the City Hall Show with Mehmed. Today I'm very pleased to have with me live from Italy. It's not live, it's recorded, but I get used to say that, Christine, thank you very much for being on the show. The way I like to do it, I like the guests to introduce themselves, tell us about what they do. I think it's the better or the best thing you know someone to talk about themselves. So the floor is yours. 

0:00:29 - Christine
Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited and, yeah, I mean you have me live here, even if it's when the people are listening at the recording, so I understand. 

I'm live with you. So, like you just said, I'm Christine. I'm based in Italy now, but I'm originally from Germany. I spent a long time more than wanted maybe even in the UK before I moved to Sweden and then to Italy. So I've been around a bit and my background is actually marketing and advertising and I've done that more than a decade before I decided that it is not fulfilling enough anymore for me. I wanted to do something else that's impacting really people and seeing progress and stuff, and that's how it happened that I became an entrepreneur but I never wanted actually in my own business but we can talk about it a bit later and I call myself now the marketing and creative startup coach and I'm supporting, with my creative startup academy, entrepreneurs mainly service-based solopreneurs in the first three years, with starting out marketing and the health and well-being. More or less. That's me with a unicorn that's called Gavin and that's good. 

0:01:41 - Mehmet
Good, good, good to know all this, and thank you again for being on the show here today, christine. Let's start, actually, by talking a little bit about entrepreneurship. Maybe it's something we discussed here a lot, but I would like always to hear different topics, and the reason is everyone here would she be facing different challenges, and I'm sure, like us, everyone of us also face different challenges. So let's start from here. The basic thing in entrepreneurship is to have an idea, so let's discuss the process of validating a business idea and how to ensure that it has a potential. 

0:02:38 - Christine
Yes, it's a very good question, and so many ideas are not going to be put into practice because, also, people are sometimes hesitant or they don't know, and so many ideas don't even go to the market because they don't have potential or they fail in the first two years or whatever. There's all these kind of statistics. Maybe I would like to give some insight also how to generate some ideas first, because sometimes people say, oh, I really want to start something, but I don't know what, or someone has an idea, but I don't know how. So there's like two scenarios. Maybe. We talk about how to generate ideas and I would say first thing is, if you're brainstorming things, you should empty your head and you should be really think nothing is too crazy and we need to realize that most things already exist in the world in one way or the other, but for sure, the problem that you will solve which is mainly what this is about and we will talk about in a second there's already an alternative, how people solve the problem, but you might be able to solve it better or in a more cost efficient way or anything like that. 

So, creating ideas, I would always look into all the things that really interest you that light up the fire inside you and all the things that you're good at and the skills that you have. So and when I mean by skills, I mean also certifications, software that you know how to use it. I mean practical things. And I always tell people, list everything and then mix and match and see what comes up. Because maybe someone says, oh, the things I really love doing is taking a bath, and that might now sounds a bit strange. Okay, what does it have to do with business idea? And then maybe they say, I'm really good at listening and I really love helping people, so maybe they become the first therapist in a Jacuzzi. You know, you never know. And there's, I mean, so many ideas that you can come up with. And, like I say, when it's at the idea stage, to create the ideas into brainstorm, nothing is too crazy. But how and that's coming back to your question is how do I actually validate that this is probably going to work. 

There's many factors on why it might not work and why it might work, especially if you have things happening in the world that are unexpected. I mean, we had a pandemic that no one expected. Lots of people lost their business, lots of people had to pivot and for lots of people, it was an opportunity. So it's not just up to you and your skills and who you are and how you are and how you handle your business. It's also up to what's happening outside. So these are the first things to acknowledge, of course, to know. Ok, there might be always a chance that it's not working, but this is about taking risks and we can talk about minimizing those risks and also my journey to minimize the risk becoming in an un-turned-out approach, if you want to. So doing your homework is really important before you start. However, I would always say start before you're ready, because sometimes you just start something because they have no fear but what does it mean to feel ready? 

We never, probably, feel ready, and I can always say, if people want children and they want to wait until they're ready, you probably never have to. So that's similar because, in one way or the other, your business is your child in the end, because it's born out of your head instead of other parts, and you need to do your homework. You need to do some market research. It doesn't mean you have to create a 150-page business plan. That you have to do if you want to look for investors and things like that. It's a different thing. But just to check if your idea actually has potential, do your homework by launching minimum viable products to test things, just like steps and things. Get testers. If it's about launching an online course or whatever, get testers in, get feedback and then make it better, and that also already helps you to have testimonials once you launch. Of course, even before that, you need to look into what's already out there. 

And that there's probably already competitors direct, indirect if you want. So there's always. If someone tells me there's no competitors, I'm just laughing because it's not true. You have always even an indirect competitor that is solving the same problem that you will solve in another way. But, like I mentioned at the beginning, maybe they do it in another way and maybe you do it in a better way, and that's OK. So for sure, look at your competitors, because that can also give you some insight what works, what doesn't work. It will give you some inspiration on how you can maybe use things they have used in your own way, what platforms to use, what social media to use. So even already, when you do this competitor research, you get so many ideas for also your marketing and your tone of voice and what people are saying. 

That's the next thing. Of course, you need to search for who you want you to be your ideal client, as they say and you need to check out what they're looking for. What kind of questions do they ask? What's already out there? Why are they not happy with another project? Why are they happy with another project? And this way you can really learn a lot. And then the last thing is, of course, an ideal client. I can talk about this for a whole hour, but I won't, but I just going to throw it in there. And the last thing is, of course, looking at the market itself and where the trend is going. Ok, so, if everything is going online and everything is artificial intelligence and all of that, there's probably, for some stuff, not the need anymore in the future and that will increase the risk of not working or not working well enough. 

And then you can also use all of this research that you've done and all the statistics that you actually found out. How many people are there actually potentially that want to buy my product, if that's actually financially sustainable as well? So one thing is OK, this idea will work, but will it work enough for that? What I want to achieve and again, there it's always a question what do you want to achieve with your business? So I'm not talking about the impact socially in the community or something that's always great, it's more for yourself. Ok, how much money do we actually need to pay the bills for the business and for yourself? And do you want to grow that into a bigger company with employees? Do you want to stay a solopreneur? What does that mean, and is there a potential for that? And then you go out with the minimum viable product. So that's a short answer, even though quite long. 

0:09:38 - Mehmet
No, it's actually. You shed a lot of light on the journey, and the reason I love to ask always this question in different ways is because I like to hear the feedback from different thought leaders, from different coaches like yourself, christine, to help entrepreneurs. And the common answer that always come is you need to know your purpose, I mean why you are starting this business or this idea in the first place. And there's no shame of saying, yeah, I want to make money. Right, because everyone wants to make money. 

0:10:17 - Christine
Yes. 

0:10:20 - Mehmet
Yeah, so one of the things that I think we should accept. If you are passionate about the idea and your passion is to live a nice life, a good lifestyle, so pursue that, there's nothing wrong. Now you mentioned something about the risks, right? So can you elaborate a little bit more? And you said like you can share from your own experience as well, so what you can tell us about the risks. 

0:10:50 - Christine
Yes, I mean, we all probably in that space are always interested in all kind of magazines and TV shows that are out there, like Dragon's, den Shark Tank, hülete Lööken, defensen with Country you are they call it like this and a lot of most entrepreneurs I've worked with and I know have seen those episodes, and in there, I think there's always this oh, you have to, you have to give everything up that you're doing and just focus on that, what you want to do, and basically, they want to see you really a lot in debt because you gave up everything in your life and you sold everything and you were almost living on the street to make this work. And then they think that's how you show your passion, and I completely disagree with that, I have to say. I think everything is good your purpose and your passion but you should not put your life at risk by starting a business and you might use up all your savings. I've done that as well. I talk about it in a second and things like that. However, you always should have a backup plan and always set yourself a trial period to see if it actually works and if you figure out it didn't work, in that time adjust and try new or give up on it. There's no shame in giving up on business ideas either and maybe start something else in the future. 

So minimizing risk for me is especially what I mean by that is, with everything that we mentioned for the business idea, but for your personal life and for your existence and be able to pay the bills and to be able to have food. I would start slow, and I'm not a massive fan of a side hassle and burning yourself out, because that's what I went through basically. However, that's maybe how it needs to be at the beginning. You need to have maybe another job whilst you start your business and not just quit everything and then try to make everything work and then you figure out after a year oh, now I can't pay my bills, but I don't have enough clients that will support me. So the way it worked for me, I had a full-time job and actually I was working in a job where I worked minimum 12 hours a day and then I started my own thing. 

So that meant if I had lunch I worked at lunchtime, I worked in the evenings when I came home and I worked on the weekends on my own business to get started with that. And I did that for a while, for more than half a year, before I then had actually. I had some clients, but not enough to pay everything. I lived in the UK then there's maybe some cheaper way countries, of course, to live in but I lived in the UK and it was not enough to pay the bills. So I then moved, was lucky enough to actually find a part-time job where I worked three days a week and then all of a sudden I freed up some days during the week to be able to work on my business. And that job was actually a nine-month maternity cover and I thought, okay, that gives me a deadline of nine months and I can really do this. So that I knew, okay, at the end of the nine months I need to be ready to sustain this business and just do that. And towards the end of the nine months I was really scared because it wasn't, I didn't have enough and I was like, how is that even possible? But it all worked out in the end, just in the last months of that job, when we were leaving that job, it all worked out and I got some new contracts in also with universities and stuff like that, to continue working there with startups, students and things like that. So all of a sudden I did have regular income plus additional income from other clients that were enabled me to do this for time. 

However, it took me one and a half years to get there and I think that's okay. It was a very difficult time. It was very stressful. However, that is what it might take from a financial point of view to get there. I also used up all my savings that I had. It wasn't much anyway in the UK, but that's okay. I did that and there was still time from time to time, times where I wasn't sure will I have enough money to pay the rent next month. But it always worked out and I had a basis at least, and I think that's what I mean by minimizing risk for yourself. And if you have a family, even more so. For me, I was a single person back then it didn't matter, but if you have a family to look after and be part of, then you should even be more aware of that. 

0:15:34 - Mehmet
Yeah, great. So I think now part of what you do, christine, is you help fellow entrepreneurs in this right. 

0:15:42 - Christine
Yeah, exactly. So basically, I have three pillars in my creative startup academy. One is the starting output, because when we're starting out, we're like a sponge. I have not met any entrepreneur that hasn't been like this at the beginning. You try to attend, you try to attend any free webinar. You sign up for every freebie. You try to learn everything because you have to. 

At the beginning, you didn't know about accounting maybe before, or marketing or sales, or creating a product, or thinking about creating a website and social media and all of these things, and we are all eager to learn that and we take it in like a sponge. We soak up everything. However, most of the information is usually at that point. It's okay because everyone will go through that phase and I'm not saying don't do that, but it's useless because you will not need it at that point in time. So I would say you need to focus on one step at a time, what's really important next and this is what I do in my academy with the starting out pillar. 

Then, a year or two in, usually people want to take their marketing a bit more serious and they want to come up with a marketing plan, but they don't have a lot of money or not, maybe too much. Yeah, they have time, but not a lot of money to spend. So I focus really on low and no cost marketing strategies and how they can implement that. And then the last pillar would be the health and well-being pillar, because we're as entrepreneurs, we love what we do and we burn out slowly, without realizing, I think, because it's really difficult to switch off and to separate your personal life from your business life because it all melts into one. But you have to do that and I support people with that as well. 

0:17:31 - Mehmet
That's great. Now, while you know, preparing for the episode, I went, you know, through your biography and I found out because I, you know, before jumping to something else regarding, you know, moving to the marketing and to the mental health and all this well-being, so you wrote a book about productivity formula. Can you share the formula with us? 

0:17:57 - Christine
Yes, of course, more than happy to do that, so, like you just mentioned. So the productivity formula is one of the formulas that I developed, actually because I'm a bit obsessed with writing books. I wrote about 20 books and I love working with acronyms and I never wanted to write anything about productivity. I have to tell you because there's so many books out there that are so good that I thought there's no point in me writing something about productivity that, on the other hand, everyone that I worked with and everyone that knows me said Christine, you are the most productive person that we know, so we need you to write something about productivity. So so many people said that, so I did, and the productivity formula, like I just mentioned, is based on an acronym and the acronym is called output. Okay, and it stands for it's six steps, therefore. 

So the O is for observing yourself, because you need to actually know how you're working and what you're doing at the moment, what distracting you at the moment, and so on. Before you actually can improve anything, before you become more productive, you have to observe yourself and see what's happening. The second step, the U in output, is unbox your motivation. So you need to know what actually motivates you to to get there and to keep going and to not procrastinate, even with the tasks that you don't like, and there are tasks every single entrepreneur that you don't like, and some of them you might be able to outsource. Some of them you're not. The the T in output is tackle your distractions. So, again, you will have of the was actually distracting you. Now you need to look into how can you minimize those distractions, and that means maybe simple things like putting your phone in airplane mode. Maybe use an online app that blocks you from going on to social media, because we all know, once we're in the real or short trap, we're there and or on youtube and you see one kitten video, even though you wanted to check something on business, you are trapped and they're made for that. So, but you need to be aware of those. 

The P in output is program your mind, and that's all about having the right mindset for being productive, thinking about goal setting and thinking, okay, do I actually need to do that? Don't I have to do that because I'm a massive fan of to-do lists, but I actually have three lists. I have a to-do list that will never be empty. As an entrepreneur, to-do list is never empty, but then I create a today list that will be empty at the end of the day, but I also am a massive fan of having a not to-do list. 

Things that you really don't have to do, simple ask yourself the question what happens if I don't do this? And if the answer is nothing will happen, I would actually cross it off the list. If it doesn't make any difference to you or to your business, why do it? Then? The you an output is utilize the tools, and they are actually in the book. I go into a lot of tools that you can use, some some lists that I created, templates, as well as apps that you can use. And then the T and sorry, the T is about to be continued, and in that we actually look into how you can actually ensure you're staying productive, how can you create habits out of things and how can you stay motivated for the things that you're doing, and that's basically the productivity formula. In short. 

0:21:50 - Mehmet
I loved it and you know you, you, I can say you grouped them in a very, you know, sequential and you know, logical way. And regarding you know, just as a comment about you know you said this is what these apps and social media are supposed to do. So my advice, if someone is curious how these apps and you know websites and social media works, to read the book hooked by near early. Yeah, so, so the book hooked will explain to you exactly how these applications are designed, so you'll understand why, why, why you come back to the rabbit hole. I would say, yeah, so it's great. Now just one thing you we talked about entrepreneurs, right? 

and now we are seeing more solopreneurs, so first, are these guys tasks more difficult than entrepreneurs, and why are we seeing more and more people going solo? 

0:23:05 - Christine
yeah, good question and I completely agree that the the term there was startups and entrepreneurs that always had a co-founder and always build companies where they get investment and stuff like, and it goes more and more into solopreneurs. I think one of the reasons is that it's easier. It is easier to set up your own thing when you're by yourself. That doesn't keep you from collaborating and it doesn't keep you from outsourcing. Going all online during the pandemic also has helped, I think, a lot with that, and also this globalization that everyone doesn't like has, of course, good things that come with it, and that means you find people. Well, the bad thing is you find too many people that can help you with something that you can outsource to, and then it might be really difficult to to to know who to choose, because you, you will read something, you will hear something, you will sign up to something because there was ads, and you get bombarded with these things and subconsciously you think, okay, I'm going to go with that person. Personally, I only always go by recommendation when I outsource something. So being a solopreneur from a legal perspective and also from a productivity level and from getting things done it will be much easier than being in the team because it's you who makes the decision. It's your way. If you start working with other people, then it will be all much longer. And also there I speak from experience. I love collaborating with people. I've done live trainings together with people I wrote, I'm co-writing a book with someone at the moment, but I can see how it takes at least three or four times longer than it would take when I do it. 

And I think some people also shy away from employing people, which I understand, because there's a whole lot of texts and reasons and responsibility behind it that a lot of people shy away from. 

And again, you don't necessarily have to because you can outsource. Okay, I have a strategic person I work with, I have a digital agency that I work with, I have a VA that I work with and I have someone else that's supporting me with my LinkedIn, for example. So I'm outsourcing to four different things, but for me it's the same thing, even though I have a company so registered like, say, it's a limited company, but it's in countries called in a different way. I would probably not want to employ people and grow in that kind of way. I don't mind outsourcing things and having community managers and things like that. But I wouldn't want to outsource things just to keep it simple from a legal perspective, but also to keep it simple from processes. And I think if you have processes in place and proper briefings and guidelines for everyone and you start getting used to each other with the other person, then it becomes easy and you are acting like a team from the same company but you're not actually. 

0:26:16 - Mehmet
Yeah, from experience I say some people they like independence, right, and they don't like to be sharing their destiny with other people. Maybe Couple of feedbacks I received from friends who did that. Another one is, as you said, some people they say I don't like to manage people or, in a sense, that they are directly reporting to me and establishing, as you said, these processes. The other thing which I also I agree with you on, it's like the pandemic showed people like, yeah, I can do the things the way I want, the time I want, and if I have, let's say, 10 clients per quarter, that's more than enough for me and this is the lifestyle that I want to live. 

So why go into the corporate and raise money for the company and do this? So, yeah, it depends. There's no right or wrong answer. I would say here, in my opinion, 100%. Now let's just give a little bit to marketing, right. So and this is something honestly Christian I started to see more and more and in my opinion, it's for the good. But again, I like to ask the experts here, and I'm asking you about the concept of low and no-cost marketing strategies and how you have seen them effective for startups. 

0:27:51 - Christine
Yeah, very good question, and I think they can be very effective. It always depends on the person and what that person is doing, or that startup, or that solopreneur, let's say, let's call them an entrepreneur, and I include everyone also freelancers and things like that. So, yeah, first thing, of course, a lot of people don't have a lot of money, and that means even and I put that in air quotes for everyone that's just listening but not seeing just 500 euros, pounds, dollars a month, whatever is maybe too much, especially if you're in the first three years, because what you do first is you try to get money in to cover all the costs and maybe to grow a bit and maybe to outsource something, maybe to buy a new software that makes things easier, and for that kind of reason, and then you might think about marketing. So for most people also, marketing is not the first thing on their list, but it should be, I think, because what marketing is is telling people what you're doing, and if you're not telling people what you're doing, no one will know and no one will buy what you're offering. So I think that's the first thing to get clear in the head. 

A lot of people shy away from marketing rightly so, because it's a big topic that you not just learn like in accounting. You understand how accounting keeps in works. It's something that constantly evolves, that needs an innovative mind and you try over and over new things and you need to set goals and then you need to test and you need to adjust. So there's also a lot of work involved and that's also why people won't do so much when it comes to if it costs money or not, or if it costs just a little bit of money but not too much. I would think you can have pretty much the same impact, again depending a bit on what that person is offering. However, generically speaking, I would say if you spend time on things and do it well, you can have the same impact than when you put money into that. Now I have tested that myself with all kinds of things, because marketing is always a bit trial and error. Of course, you should minimize again the risk there and do your market research and go where your target audience is and actually use things that you are comfortable with using first and get something right before you move on to the next thing. 

So what I see often is people just spend a lot of money also on ads on social media, for example. Oh yeah, if I just boost a post for five to 10 euros, then it tells me I get 3,000 views. Okay, but what's happening after that? So first thing is, of course, having all the backup setup, the user journey. What do the people that see you on social media if we stick with that medium? What should they do and how? How will you take on their journey afterwards? Because there's no point boosting a post and then there's nothing to do for them and there's nothing nowhere to go for them, and then and so on. 

However, there's so many things where you can find cost effective alternatives also. So, if we're talking about email marketing, a lot of times this, okay, this is free, but only for so many emails or only for so many subscribers, and then all of a sudden, the costs explode and you and you and still there might not convert all, but all of a sudden you have 2000 subscribers and all of a sudden you have a lot of costs that you have. So I'm a massive fan of finding software deals or software where you can buy lifetime access and without basically any limitations, and then you go into that. So that's something that I always recommend. If you're looking at the software kind of bit, the number one thing every single person, in my opinion, needs to do if they want to have their own business, if they're an entrepreneur. 

The one thing if someone would ask me that they should do is networking. 

Because they say your network is your net worth. 

But it's really true, it's overused, but I throw it in there anyway, and for so many reasons support for yourself, ideas for yourself, bouncing off ideas, maybe a shoulder to cry on, because we all know if you're not born in an entrepreneurial family, your family or friends that are not entrepreneurs will not understand your challenges. 

But fellow entrepreneurs will and it's also good to be true and ask for help and see what they say or maybe just shout and cry. But also, of course, for finding collaborating partners for other projects that you might want to do together, to tap into their network, plus, of course, in the end, for referrals or finding clients. So that would be my number one thing. And that doesn't necessarily you don't necessarily have to pay. There's, obviously working events that you can pay for and there's networking groups that you can be part of. That you pay for an annual fee, but that's minimal compared to what you would have to spend on Facebook Instagram ads, for example. You don't even have to start less than 600 a month and that probably doesn't get you anywhere, because people buy from people that they know and that they trust, especially if you're coaching, consulting or offering any service-based businesses. People need to get to know you. 

0:33:18 - Mehmet
Right. Right, I see this mistake a lot where people actually I did it. I did it also a couple of months back, although, like I knew it was wrong. So I relied a little bit on LinkedIn ads, for example, and Google ads, and I knew that I said, okay, maybe things changed, but it didn't. And the best thing that worked with me is, as you said, like networking, and I think and this would be my other question to you, what about also trying to build a personal brand? How important is that? 

0:34:01 - Christine
Extremely important, because, so I mean, if you are not a personal brand, and what does it mean actually? Again, this big term and people, I need to build a brand. I'm not met all Starbucks we're not talking about. We're talking about being consistent in the message that you put out there and being authentic and your true self. And that means you have to know who you are and I brought another book about that, of course, but there is you need to figure out who you are. 

What's important to you, what are your values? Because I mean, again, these personal values and business values. They overlap, especially if you're a solopreneur. They're probably even the same, apart from maybe one or two that are more important for business, like professionalism, that are not so important in private life. But you need to figure all that out. 

Once you know this, figure out your tone of voice. What kind of words do you actually use when you communicate? What words don't you use when you want to communicate? And that's for everything. That's when you're talking to people, that's when you're a guest on a podcast, that's in everything you write in your blog or on social media. 

Whatever you want to do New newsletter make sure you align that with that, because people don't know who you are, people don't know how you work, people don't know what you stand for and what's important to you. 

So you have to tell them with everything that you do, and then there comes this visual component in there. So that's all the underlying things that you need to prepare and then you put the visual identity. They call that together where you need a consistency again, because you want that they see something that you put on social media and just by the visual that you're having they connect it with you. So if every post looks different and you use different colors and the different font and different message everywhere, then it's confusing for people and you can't build up this reputation and this loyalty of people as well. So these are just some of the benefits of building a brand. But building a brand, let me tell you, happens with or without you, because people will make up an opinion about you. People will talk about you in a specific way, will feel about you in a specific way, even if you don't put something out there. So I would say build your personal brand so that people say what you want them to say about you, rather than they making something up. 

0:36:32 - Mehmet
Great advice. I would say Now, what does your take or what's your opinion on some of the how marketing is? Where is it going? What are some of the trends or you are seeing, especially because I focus in my show on startups and even small, medium businesses and entrepreneurs so far? So where are things heading? 

0:36:56 - Christine
Well, I think things are heading into two ways because, of course, of artificial intelligence. There's a lot of development in there and it can make it much easier for people to to put things out there, let's say, and everyone can do everything, even people that weren't good writers. Maybe they use now chat GPT to write something, and that's okay and there's nothing wrong with that. The thing that doesn't work if you just go by that, is that you will not create your brand if you don't know how to use it correctly and to use your tone of voice and things like that. So I think there will be a bit of a mixture of people just don't know properly how to use it and just think, oh, that's great, I don't have to worry about that anymore, and things go out and again wasting probably a lot of money and time without properly thinking about things. 

Versus, okay, we want to humanize things, we want to humanize technology and be still human in our marketing. So that's the other end. And how do we use also the technologies Doesn't mean we don't use the technology, but we need to still be authentic and still be ourself, and that fight for that kind of end. And then there's these ones that, well, I don't know, I just use it and I don't care too much, but don't probably see too many results. So I think people will do much more because it becomes easier, and that means more blog posts, linkedin articles, linkedin newsletter, writing, books maybe. I mean so many people have written already with artificial intelligence. Again, that's okay, and I mean I'm not here to discuss any intellectual property or anything like that. For now, however, I think there will be a flood, more of things going out, and so it becomes even more important to be authentic and personal, to get through. 

0:38:58 - Mehmet
Yeah, 100%, and I liked your approach about there's nothing wrong of using the technology. I use it, I don't hide it. Yeah, the trick here and you touch base on it is you need to know how to use it and you need to know how to leverage it. It's not like just to give you guys a hint. So if you're listening or watching, I don't go to Chagypia and say, hey, write me a LinkedIn post that goes viral, because if I say something like this, it's gonna give me something no sense. Or, for example, I don't go and say, write me a blog post about why startups should have mentors. I need to give some context right and we discussed this before. So, and it's a tool similar to like the computer is a tool, your smartphone is a tool like and it's becoming a tool. And from marketing perspective again, and this is to your point you need the mind always right so to make the thing work. So if you use it just for the sake of using it, you will not get, probably, good results. 

0:40:08 - Christine
So it's all about knowing how to use it. I think that's good ego. Garbage in, garbage out. So if you put garbage in, you get garbage out. If you put good stuff in, you get good stuff out. 

0:40:18 - Mehmet
Good one. Yeah, yeah, exactly 100%. Now let's move to the final part, and this is something I care about a lot. I was talking in previous episode to Joe from Australia and we touched this on it, but not from that perspective, but I mentioned that I believe this is something important and it's the health and wellbeing. So, by nature, entrepreneurs they are hyper, they worry a lot, they have a lot of things to do at the same time. So what do you recommend for their health and wellbeing in general and any also hints that you can give to us today? 

0:41:10 - Christine
Yes, of course, I think also to really briefly. I mean again, I can talk about this in an hour, but to briefly share my story why this is a third pillar that I took in because I was close to burnout. I was also a few years back, that was, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and all of this made me really reprioritize everything in my life and reprioritize life actually rather than work, and I was working so much. Now, long story short, it turned out not to be a brain tumor, but three months in that took to find out that it wasn't and it still shook up my world and I really think the universe that it did, because I have achieved a very good life, work, life balance for myself. There's a few things that I would say and that actually led me to my search for happiness in life and again to another book, the happiness formula, where I put all these learnings in as well. But so the key things is for me, for wellbeing, let's say the pillars, if you wanted to say and mindfulness is a great tool, obviously mindfulness and start getting meditating and things like that. 

But if we talk about some pillars, one thing is find out what happiness means to you Do more things that make you happy, and it doesn't mean joy. There's a difference between joy and happiness. So joy is more a fleeting experience in a thing. Happiness is more a foundational, overall contentment in life. So find out more about what makes you happy and do more of it and do less of the things that don't make you happy. Set boundaries for yourself and for others is another thing. I think that plays a massive role in your health and wellbeing. Being able to say no, which a lot of people don't do, especially in the first year, because they are afraid of missing out. So and that is not only works or clients that are difficult to work with until you get through that it also means no to some marketing activities. You don't have to do it all at once. It means saying no to not doing all the tasks if you don't have to have that. Not to do this. Create healthy habits and get rid of bad habits would be another pillar, in my opinion. And healthy habits means healthy food, having maybe a morning routine, do some meditation, do some exercise, but all in a balanced way because you don't wanna cram too much in, because that way you get stressed and overwhelmed again. 

Another thing is gratitude. I mean, there's so much science behind that Gratitude really works. I would say, start with a gratitude journey where you write down three things you're grateful for that day, in the morning or in the evening, and it sets the tone for the day, or you finish the day on a good note. Kindness has been shown to be a really good contributor to your overall health and wellbeing. So being kind to yourself again saying no, doing good things for yourself, but also being kind to others and then investing into experiences rather than investing into things, has been shown to increase your happiness and to increase your overall mental wellbeing, because you create long lasting experiences rather than just buying a new shiny thing that you then forget about, and that effect wraps off quite fast. And then the last one would be social connections. So do things with others, share your experiences with others and just help others with kindness. Yeah, so these would be, with us. 

0:44:58 - Mehmet
let's say you know you covered all, christine, I would say. And these things are at least I can say from my perspective. Majority of them are tested and I can guarantee you guys the results of it, especially the mindfulness and the gratitude. I started late, I know, but there's nothing. 

0:45:22 - Christine
Never too late. 

0:45:23 - Mehmet
Never too late. Yeah, I get to know about this late. That is never too late, actually, and it's same. You know like it put you in a better position, especially if I'm talking to entrepreneurs and sharing my experience. If you're about to have a big decision or maybe you're passing tough times, nothing can you know at least for me can beat what mindfulness did. So it was very helpful for me to take some major decisions and changing the way I look at life and the universe and all these things. 

So guys, I know like you are maybe, if you are younger than me or now, excited you have this idea, but slow down, because you need this. You need to avoid burnouts, same as what Christine mentioned. You don't need to be in trouble. You need to be healthy. Actually, you need to be healthy so you can, you know, excel in whatever you're trying to build, whether it's a business, say, small, big, start up, solopreneur, whatever you are trying to do. So you need this to be healthy. You need also this to be healthy so, yeah, so amazing insights, christine. 

You know, like I love when I see you know people have this combination of knowledge and they share it. So you shared that with us today. Now what is your? You know, if you want to advise younger entrepreneurs or startup founders, what do you tell them? 

0:47:05 - Christine
Well, do your homework before you start, but start before you're ready. So the two things that we already mentioned, and do it for as long as you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it anymore, you will start to burn out and you will start being less motivated and your business will fail. So do it for as long as you enjoy it. And then it's never too late or never wrong to change an idea. Let go of an idea and start a new, and that's what I also do with mine. I say I do this for as long as I like it. Who knows, at some point maybe I say I don't like it anymore and I do something else which is completely fine. 

Yes. 

0:47:47 - Mehmet
Right. 

0:47:48 - Christine
Exactly. People sometimes think, no, I had this, now Do this for the rest of my life. No, you don't. It's your life. You decide, and these days it's the easiest ever possible to change what you're doing. 

0:48:00 - Mehmet
Because you know and just to to agree with you here, christine, like guys, think about it we always evolve in our life. So you know you are not the same when you were like two years old. You are not the same when you were 10. You are not the same when you are 15, you know, and all this. So it's normal. And because you know every phase of life comes with its own, I would say you know passions that you have or purpose that you think about. Of course you know from my experience, when you read certain age, you know of course things start to more stabilize and you know more what you need. 

0:48:34 - Christine
Yeah, and what you want and what you don't want. 

0:48:38 - Mehmet
Yeah. So keep experiencing. This is what I think. I love what you said, christine. So keep experiencing until you find really you know your real passion. Because and I'm saying this to maybe it's very, very younger generations who are still maybe in college or even in school and I know what you are saying because I was there before I say, okay, I want to do this, and you find out you know what. You walk in it two years, three years and you say it sucks, I don't want to do it, yeah. So, christine, where can people find more about you and your services? 

0:49:13 - Christine
So I think the easiest is to go creativestartupacademycom all one word, and you find all my links to my LinkedIn Feel free to connect with me there and all my social media, but also, obviously, everything that I do Lots of free stuff as well, so I'm about giving. I love giving and kindness, so this I developed lots of free things for people and resources to use. 

0:49:34 - Mehmet
That's great. I'll put that in the links. And my very last legacy question I'm going to get now, after 180, I think, I'm not sure. Oh, it will be maybe 200. I'm not sure what's the number of this episode to be, but anyway, is there anything that you wished, I asked you and how you would answer that? 

0:50:00 - Christine
No, I think we covered pretty much everything. No, no, no, this. There's so many things I could talk about and I can say oh, you can also do this and that, but I absolutely enjoyed that conversation. 

0:50:12 - Mehmet
So no, no, Same here, by the way, one of my guests. He answered very smartly. He said you ask everything, but you know, if there anything else, let's do another episode. I said yeah, of course that's true. Yeah, it was a very, very nice answer. You know, and, by the way, people think you know that I do this to. You know, to put pressure or to make it like exciting. No, no, no, it's just like a way to just finish where we me and the guest we love together. 

I really enjoyed today's conversation. I think you shared a lot of slides on the three pillars that you cover about, starting about marketing, and you know, for me, recently I'm talking more about it and people asking why well-being, mental health in a show called the CTO show and they said, guys, it doesn't matter. 

Yeah, and technical people, specifically technical people, I mean people who works in technology, in startups they want more of this and we've seen last year what happened with the layoffs and unfortunately, it's still happening. So we need to get to this and we need to educate people on being prepared for such situations and not to find out all of a sudden. Okay, you know like we have all these issues. Get prepared, guys. And this is what all the show is about is to cover anything related to startups, entrepreneurs and, of course, technology in general, and this is why I'm bringing you know more and more thought leaders like Christine who can cover these topics, because I don't have that experience same as she has. So I hope you find it, you know, useful and I hope you enjoyed it also as well. So, as usual, this is how I end my episode. If you have any question, any feedback about this episode or the show, don't hesitate, reach out to me. You can reach me by email. You can reach me by all my social media handles. Mainly, linkedin is where I am and you can see it here in the frame, and if you are interested to be a guest on the show, same as Christine was guest today, don't be shy. 

My guests are like global, from all over the world. I'm in a place around the globe, so time zones is not a difference really. You know, I record with people who are on the west coast in the US, I record with people who are in New Zealand, so and I'm in the middle. Luckily, I can afford this because I'm in Dubai. So don't hesitate if you want to reach out, if you have an inspiring story, you have inspiring technology, you have anything related to, as I was saying, to entrepreneurship, startups and the tech. Reach out to me. I would love to hear from you and spread it across the world and, as usual, I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much and see you again in the next episode. Thank you, bye-bye. 

0:53:00 - Christine
Thank you. 

Transcribed by https://hello.podium.page/?via=mehmet