What makes anyone walk away from the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect income, all the things they worked so hard to achieve… and reboot their lives?
How did our guest handle the journey from rock bottom to conquering the peaks of corporate and material success, just to realize she still hasn’t fulfilled her life’s purpose?
This episode is going to be in-your-faze and brutally honest — just like our remarkable guest: Chief kicker of shins and an amazing entrepreneur, professional coach, speaker, business strategy consultant, author, half of The Shut Up Show (a podcast and blog with Phil Gerbyshak), and the founder and president of Xiong Consulting LLC – Berni Xiong.
Berni Xiong
Married With A Baby At 16, To a 6-Figure Monthly Salary?!
Yes, that’s the first part of today’s amazing story: The ultimate misfit, making it big in the corporate. There’s no doubt that leaving high-school at the age of 16 to have a baby is not exactly the run-of-the-mill beginning to an inspirational story of success, definitely not in corporate America.
Still (listen to the interview to find out how), Berni reached an enterprising career that went on for 12 years, working as a corporate sales executive and managing a multi-million territory for Fortune 500 companies. She wore designer clothes, lived in a penthouse overlooking Lake Michigan, earned a six-figure monthly salary and spent a lot of time in airports and luxury hotels.
It might sound like an amazing life (well, actually, if you follow my podcast, I doubt if you’ll think that living in airports for the sake of your company is that amazing), but underneath it all, she felt unfulfilled. Growing sick and tired of having a job that sucked the life out of her – finally, in 2008, she had enough. Waving goodbye to her corporate job and lifestyle, she embarked on a different and scary path – a solo coaching business led by a fulfilled misfit.
Today, Berni works with small business owners and solopreneurs, helping them work out their fears and help them become leaders in their chosen industries. Apart from that, after finding her life’s purpose and her voice, she set off to do good sh*t by joining forces with other inspiring entrepreneurs, making a difference in this world through charitable and philanthropic deeds.
To reinforce her voice of inspiration, she writes on her blog and newsletter (Your Life Spark Weekly) about love, life, relationships, career, how to brave through the other side of fear, how to talk out the fears out loud in a safe place like writing, how to make sense of what you’re going through so you can do something about it and more. And by 2013, she co-founded and launched a successful podcast “The Shut Up Show” with Phil Gerbyshak to share more and inspire more.
Shut Up and Make Things Happen!
Berni has finally arrived.
With many things in store for 2014, including her podcast, her online community and an upcoming book, Berni is on a winning streak. But as she shares in today’s interview, the more important thing is that Berni finally found WHO she is, and in that, her purpose in this world.
This episode is truly jam-packed, brimming and over-flowing with life-altering revelations, practical advice, unconventional wisdom and stuff you are surely going to take into your own lives. Click play, and tune in to the latest Inspiring Innovation episode.
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Stay awesome,
Meron
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Being a mother of four is already a great feat. Being a mother of four AND managing a multi-million dollars business – now, that’s inspiring!
Join us in the 43rd episode of Inspiring Innovation Podcast, where Nellie Akalp, founder and CEO of CorpNet, shares her jaw-dropping story of finding an untreated pain in the market, answering it in an innovative way, and making millions in the process, while changing the lives of her customers.
Back in 1997, Nellie and her husband Phil noticed the hardship entrepreneurs were facing from the legal point of view when starting a business: The cost, effort, knowledge and time required for incorporating and protecting their personal assets and lives was exponential. So Nellie and Phil started an online business to help entrepreneurs with their legal filing.
It was just a single-page website at the time, but soon the business went through the roof. Fast forward to 2005, the business empire ‘Intuit’ bought their business for 20 million dollars. Not a bad return on the initial investment of $100 — their first domain!
Nellie Akalp – Co-Founder and CEO of CorpNet
Signing a non-compete agreement, the Akalps retired and focused on their family. But the long experience with the filing industry, combined with Nellie’s passion to helping entrepreneurs, had drawn her back into business and by 2009, with a similar concept as their first company, they created CorpNet.
What is CorpNet?
It’s an online legal document filing service that assists entrepreneurs in starting their own business (or managing their existing one) by getting through all the paperwork – from choosing a business name to establishing a business structure, incorporating or starting an LLC, etc.
Known for it’s customer-centric philosophy, CorpNet offers a range of free, value-added tools (such as their Free Business Structure Wizard) to help new and existing business owners with their planning and filing, as well as cost-effective services to start, protect and manage a business, as low as $49 + state fees. That’s pennies compared to how much attorneys charge over here! 🙂
Work-Life Balance
Through CorpNet, Nellie helped form a whopping 100,000 companies and LLCs across the United States. She’s a hard worker, no doubts about that. Naturally, we talked a bit about what it takes to be a mom and have a successful career at the same time.
Is it possible to really make family a priority? Is it possible to create a balance between family life, love life, and career?
As a mother of four, Nellie had many insights to share, including handling the possibility of her own kids becoming entrepreneurs someday. But what will she do if they choose to become junior entrepreneurs instead of completing their formal education? You’ll have to tune in to find out!
Episode Highlights
Nellie’s amazing entrepreneurial story.
WHY do entrepreneurs need to care about incorporating or starting LLC’s.
The real cost of starting an LLC in the US – it’s not what you think it is!
How to protect yourself and your family from any lawsuits or debt accumulated by your business.
How to handle competition in a saturated market.
How to differentiate yourself – when competing against your old company!
Nellie’s 6-steps process to starting a business.
Tips for starting a business with your significant other, and tips for work-life balance.
Nellie’s views on educating young entrepreneurs, and the importance of formal education.
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Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
“Since I was a teenager, I always wanted to change the world. I wanted to make it a better place. And I’m doing that, in a very concrete and real way for the families that are benefiting from our work. And that is the most incredible feeling in the world.” –Elaine Taylor-Klaus
In episode 42 of Inspiring Innovation Podcast, we are joined by Elaine Taylor-Klaus, co-founder of ImpactADHD, a professional certified coach, parent coach, a writer, speaker, educator and above all – a mom.
In this honest and eye-opening interview, Elaine shares how she went through the first ten years of raising children with undiagnosed ADHD, and the pain and stress that it created – the hardships in school and social contact and how it bled into the family’s daily life. How it affected everyone’s happiness inside the Taylor-Klaus home, and the helplessness that she felt, going from doctor to doctor, therapist to therapist, trying to find an answer that will balance her home.
How did her passion for understanding ADHD get started?
Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Once her children have been diagnosed with ADHD, Elaine was determined to become a therapist:
“As god is my witness, no parent should ever have to go through alone what I went through in those first ten years” —Elaine Taylor-Klaus
Being a full-time mother of 3, she couldn’t find any program that fit her schedule. Then, she discovered coaching, and in that – her life’s calling.
Together with her co-founder, Diane Dempster, they founded ImpactADHD, where they focus on training and coaching parents on how to raise kids with ADHD or other behavioral problems the right, and empowering way.
Discover. Learn. Be inspired.
Take away tons of golden entrepreneurship lessons from today’s episode, including:
When should you say no to customers and niche down?
How to start charging money and feel GOOD about it?
How to handle failure and the fear of it?
How to make a huge change in your life and profession to follow your inner calling?
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
“If you don’t take that step, you’re never going to be able to do it.”
In the 42nd episode of the Inspiring Innovation Podcast, we are joined by Cahill Puil, an entrepreneur and a fitness buff, who shares with us his eCommerce success story — from the initial idea, to making it a life changing reality that’s making an approximate $250,000 in annual revenue.
But before anything else, what’s the product?
LapDawg is a mini laptop table that is adjustable and can be used on a couch, on your bed or when you are lying down somewhere. It is designed to keep your laptop in a specific angle that will help you use it even when you’re forced to lie down while you’re sick and have to check your emails or even watch a movie.
“We came up with an idea from a situation. I think that’s the way most ideas happen.”
Cahill Puil
Cahill talks about how they did the research online through various websites, looking for a product similar to what they had in mind, finding none with all the specifics they wanted and eventually going to the Canton Fair in China, the biggest trade fair in the world, to find a manufacturer that can make their idea for LapDawg into a reality.
During the interview, he shares the process of creating a product from the ground up. He talks about how long LapDawg had been running, how long it took from an idea to become a tangible product, and the meticulous process it goes through before the product is ready to hit the market.
He also went on to share what he learned regarding manufacturing and how finally putting the product out in the market actually scared him.
“It’s okay to not know. It’s okay to be a little bit scared and nervous about it”
Just like most entrepreneurs that are beset with fears, Cahill shares his experience in overcoming his fears in launching a new product into the market, as well as the pains and efforts he took in making sure the product is as he and his partners thought it would be.
He pointed out the importance of knowing your product from the inside out and testing it, which will help market it with confidence. He also added that it’s alright to diversify and not to limit yourself to just one niche once you’ve already figured out the process of going from idea to manufacturing it.
Overestimate. Diversify. Reassess. Test.
By travelling numerous times to China and the South East, outsourcing and importing products for his e-commerce project and small businesses, Cahill and his partners have accumulated quite an extensive knowledge in manufacturing and project management. They learned how to create safe and realistic expectations — expecting 4-12 months in order to break-even before profiting — and having a very conservative estimate to alleviate disappointments and frustrations.
Listen to today’s episode for the full story – only on Inspiring Innovation; your backstage pass to success.
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Just a year ago I met Jared at Pat Flynn’s meetup in Vegas. A year later – he hosts the podcasting sensation, ‘Starve The Doubts‘, where he already featured amazing guests (like Seth Godin) and now – he’s an NMX speaker!
The Answers!
What are the must-read books for entrepreneurs in 2014?
Srini: I recommend Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries by Peter Sims. It’s all about how doing small things can lead to bigger things; taking affordable loses (things that won’t bankrupt you or leave you destitute) approach to the risk and innovation. Anybody who does creative work should have this book in their arsenal.
Meron: I recommend The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business In Any Field of Mike Michalowicz, which tells the concept of kicking out the ‘best practice’ – of trying to get tons of customers, and realizing that you don’t need tons; you just need the right customers that are like you. You want only the customers that you understand, and understand you. That’s how you make a business that makes you happy and not just makes you money.
What podcasts should an entrepreneur follow in 2014?
Srini: I recommend Off Camera by Sam Jones; Jones interviews comedians, musicians, filmmakers and people like Tony Hawk and Stacy Peralta — a bizarre mix of people you don’t typically find in the online world.
Meron: Mixergy, a must-listen podcast for any entrepreneur.
What’s one thing that really worked for you in 2013, that entrepreneurs should try in order to make 2014 work for them?
Jared: First is the simple act of doing. Go ahead and take that step because no one wins by sitting on the sidelines; you have to get in the game. You may not have all the answers but just thinking about your current job or business, you didn’t have the answers when you first started that. You were either mentored or asked questions to people who knew and you learned. As you learned, you get to be competent; you’ll figure things out and you shift and pivot along the way.
Second, Consider being the “noticer“. If you can first notice other people, there’s a likelihood that those people will begin to notice what you’re doing, and the law of reciprocity will eventually kick in. So, for people who are trying to build an audience or trying to grow their brand, consider ways that you can notice your prospect first and that will have a powerful opportunity to build up into a rapport-building relationship which can then grow to be a client or customer.
David: Get a business coach or get someone to mentor you, especially if you feel a bit stuck, not quite sure, you’ve been trying and been going at it for awhile, but things haven’t been quite fallen into place, I think sometimes you need a bit of outside perspective that can help get you on track.
Srini: Write a thousand words a day. It’s done wonders for me. Don’t think of it as a task or a to-do, think of it as a habit. To learn how to form this habit – check out The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg [we go through Srini’s habit cue, routine and reward loop in the episode – MB].
The thousand words don’t have to be good. By creating all these crap, you’ll be able to find gold.
Meron: Figuring out who’s your avatar, who are you really talking to. This helped me immensely realize what I can offer them and what do they really need. Once I did that, the resonance multiplied by a huge factor.
What’s the one thing you’ll focus on in 2014?
Srini: The Instigator Experience, the conference we’re doing that will make a lasting impact and complete other things.
Meron: Shipping. I need to stop worrying about if things will do well or not – just ship and find out. The focus is going to be to get things out the door.
Jared: Shipping, too. I have a product launch coming out and I wanted to do more meet-ups. I see the power of meeting face-to-face and at this point in the game for me — I’m just new and don’t have a massive audience yet — that just makes sense to continue to do that: Strategic alignment with key people just like Inspiring Innovation — bringing people together and learning from them, he’s going to do that as well.
David: The plan is to focus on the App market, create bigger apps and games, and also pre-empt some adjacent services which will be offered to app developers.
Final words…
Srini: Really, at the end of the day, it just boils down to your tolerance for risk. The more you keep upping the ante and the more you keep trying bigger things, the more interesting outcomes you’ll get. The other thing you have to realize is it’s not just about winning, but also learning. If you do something and it doesn’t work and you learn and develop a skill that you can lead on to something else, that can be tremendously useful.
Jared: Read ‘Little Bets’, read ‘Flourish’ and listen to ‘Mixergy’!
David: A lot of people are focused on finding their passion and can be paralyzing sometimes. It’s great to find something you are passionate about – if you manage to.
I think it’s better to focus on doing and seizing opportunities that you see. Sometimes passion comes later; you can find passion in what you’re doing. If you really want to leave your job and start a business, then just start even if it’s not perfect. That might give you the opportunity to leave your job and later down the track, do something that you’re really passionate about once you already have the funds and can do that more easily.
Meron: This quote: “I won’t let anybody walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” –Gandhi
Look, you hear these podcasts, read these books and blogs, have all these inspiration and then someone close to you — friends or family or whatever — somebody just crushes your confidence. If you want 2014 to be amazing, you really need to resist that.
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If you haven’t already, I would love if you could be awesome and take a minute to leave a quick rating and review of the podcast on iTunes by clicking on the link below! It’s the most amazing way to help the show grow and reach more people!
Disclosure: Please note that some of the links above are affiliate links. There is no additional cost to you, and I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.
