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2025-05-06 The Automated Entrepreneur transcript

[00:00:00]

LINDA:

Hi. So I'd like to welcome all of you here today. This is our inaugural meeting under the new branding of this group. Some of you may have been members before. I was given the opportunity to take over this group because the former owner just had so many irons in the fire that she needed to lighten up some of her schedule.

Some of you are completely new to the group, and that is excellent. We definitely welcome you.

So this is the May 6th, 2025 meeting of The Automated Entrepreneur. In this group, we will be talking about so many kinds of automation, not just AI. Although AI is finding its way filtering into almost everything now, which is great because all of our tools are becoming more and more powerful.

[00:01:04]

The reason this group exists is because most of us, when we started our businesses, if we have one yet, we didn't do it so that we could become overwhelmed and working harder than ever. We were trying to get our message out and build freedom into our lives, and hopefully some income that would roll in a more automated and passive way.

These are the kinds of things we'll be talking about here. I'll just give you a tiny blurb about me. I have over 30 years in brick-and-mortar businesses. After that I went into coaching, public speaking and training.

[00:01:50]

So in all the years, there were so many times where I worked 100-hour work weeks. There were even times where I pulled all-nighters trying to get customer work out the door to meet the demands. I've been overworked, I've been stressed out, I've been burned out, and all of the experiences with people and tech and workloads and all of that have just caused me to have such a healthy respect for the value of streamlining, simplifying, and automating wherever possible.

And that is getting more and more easy to do every single day because of the amazing tools that we have. I think you might agree with me, that if we want to be in business, it's not about hustle. And automation isn't about turning you into a robot. It's about helping you build a business that's going to give you your life back.

[00:02:51]

That's what we're after. And automation is one of the most powerful tools that will help you to get your life back.

But the key is to do it with intention, not chasing every new shiny app. Not chasing tech for tech's sake, but using it in ways that serve you. Finding tools that work with the way that you think and the way that your workflows go, and implementing those so that your life and your work flow can get a whole lot saner for you.

I do want to let you know how our normal work flow in these meetings will go because we're meeting in the middle of a workday. And I know people have many things going on, a lot of obligations. Our normal plan will be to aim for an hour and, I know that some folks will typically have to jump off because of another meeting or another obligation, and that is absolutely okay.

[00:03:56]

My goal will be in a typical meeting to cover the main points and the goodness that you want to be able to take away with you… to get those kinds of things covered by say, quarter till. That way if you have to bug out, you will not have missed all the goodness. And then if we end up where some people would need to stick around for a few minutes after the top of the hour for some questions, for some Q&A, we can do a little bit of that too.

Or if everybody is off and running at the top of the hour, that is absolutely fine.

What I'd love to do right now is, if anybody here feels comfortable and wants to come on mic, just introduce yourself briefly. Give us an idea what you do and share in a few words what your thoughts and reaction to automation are.

[00:04:54]

Are your thoughts that it's positive, that it's negative, that it's overwhelming, that you're stuck, that you think it's the best thing ever. Just share a little word and help us get to know you a little better. Would anybody like to go first?

I can. Okay. Thanks Mary.

[00:05:15]

MARY:

Hi, so I'm collating paperwork right now.

I'm a paralegal , trying to work my husband into retiring. He is, but it's still an effort. But my goal is to be a health… I wrote down my elevator speech. Let's see if I can do this. I help people, seniors and their loved ones with healthcare decisions, financial matters, and placement decisions to keep the senior living their best life… And that's rough. I had it written down, but I don't have it written down right here, but I'm working at it and so I need social media to get clients. So I've gotten some on my own just by reputation, but need to do more.

[00:05:57]

LINDA:

Excellent. Yeah. And each thing that you do in a set it and forget it and do the work once and get things rolling…

Each of those will get a little bit better for you as you go.

[00:06:09]

MARY:

I can't do that as far as the actual work that I do. But, marketing, that's the whole thing that I'm looking for is the marketing portion of it.

[00:06:18]

LINDA:

Sure. And even just to throw this out there, like templates. You don't have to recreate each thing starting from scratch. You'll have some letters that you can start with and modify some procedures, checklists. All those things are forms of streamlining and automation for you.

[00:06:41]

MARY:

Yes. Yes. Excellent. That part too. So thank you. I was so proud of myself. I did that elevator speech from my course that I'm taking and no, I don't have it in front of me because I'm trying to do that.

[00:06:54]

LINDA:

It's okay. And the more you use it, the more second nature it'll be. And you'll be constantly refining it. Good on you! You're putting yourself out there.

[00:07:00]

MARY:

I am. I really am!

[00:07:05]

LINDA:

Okay. Okay. Anybody else like to introduce themselves?

[00:07:09]

MJ:

This is MJ, can you hear me?

LINDA:

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Thank you for putting on your microphone.

[00:07:15]

MJ:

I took my lunch break and I'm now sitting in the car. Zoom won't let me turn my camera on or I would do that and show me in the car. I've been a solopreneur for like you 30 years and reverted back to what I actually did my work in for my graduate, which was AI and cognitive psychology.

So I'm in the process actually right now of… I don't know if anyone's familiar with Obsidian… (I'm sorry I was out of breath. I hurried because it's raining to get to the car.) But Obsidian is a free tool that you can make pretty much what you want by what all the plugins are. So I'm in the process of automating my solopreneur business using AI to set up the structure and functions I need within Obsidian to do that.

And so between that and a nonprofit that's very similar. I was absolutely fascinated, Linda, by your title.

[00:08:18]

LINDA:

Oh, thank you.

[00:08:20]

MARY:

Weren't the graphics great too? I thought that was amazing!

[00:08:24]

LINDA:

Thank you for that. Thank you. And I did use AI to help me come up with that image of the guy in the hammock. And then I used tools in Canva and we're… in this group we're just going to be really candid about what we're learning, what we're using, and how we can help to advance one another.

So I did use some tools in Canva to add the bling to it and to dress it up and honestly to even increase the resolution because the image that AI gave me with the concept had very low resolution and would've never been satisfactory at all on any kind of a digital billboard, so to speak, because quality images are key if you're going to do marketing -- it adds to your credibility. I was thrilled to be able to make all of that happen and get something that help to convey in a moment what I'm trying to do here.

And what was funny was, I showed that image to some people recently. One of the people said, “I want to be the guy in the hammock!”

So that told me that I hit the nail on the head.

But MJ, when you talked about Level 5 [before the recording started], what is that? I'm familiar with the idea of being Level 4 at doing something. What is that… Unconsciously Competent, I think is the Level 4. Is Level 5 something beyond that or is it a whole different concept?

[00:10:04]

MJ:

This is a whole different concept.

This is something I've created. Just tiny bit of background... I'm a specialist in how you design systems to make them easy to learn and use. That's what I did for 30 years and went into Fortune 500's and government agencies all on site. So Covid totally killed my business, totally killed my reference -- I worked only by reference referral -- killed my referral net, everything. So I have totally reinvented myself since Covid to go back to what I did in the AI in my dissertation, because when I did it back way back then AI was into what they call an AI winter [a quiet period for artificial intelligence research and development]. So I kept watching, waiting for it to wear its big boy pants.

[00:10:50]

So it was worth going back into, and it is now has since 2017. So in the process of reinventing myself, because my specialty is how people think and how to design systems, that's what I've done. And so one of the things is there's five levels. It's Entry and Explorer, Enthusiast, Expert, and Emergent.

[00:11:18]

Those are the levels that you interact with an AI with. So for instance, the first level, which you think of AI as a thing. So when you go to your phone and you say, Hey Alexa, and you give it just a question or an answer, it gives you an answer. So that's the level one interaction.

You can use any level of any action with any of the AIs. It's not like you graduate out of one. So I still interact with visual at level one and maybe level two, which is you begin to explore. So level three, you start collaborating with it. You switch from thinking of it as a tool for level two to where you interact with it as a collaborator at level three. At level four, you actually teach it to become a partner. And then at level five you learn how to use it as a mentor.

And so I heard what you were interacting between level four and level five, where as an expert you partner with it and then you take it to where at level four, it amplifies your intelligence and at level five it will augment your creativity.

[00:12:31]

That's a long answer, but that's why I chimed in, because what you are doing is… I've done two webinars now to teach people as I work this out because I don't want anybody left behind. I want everybody to understand how to use AIs to achieve their goals more effectively and efficiently.

[00:12:51]

LINDA:

You're so right and I'm actually in a mentorship right now where I'm learning to do all of that. And , I'm well on my way to level five. And shortly after I implement a few more steps, I will actually have a tribe of mentors that can guide me. My AI already is very aware of who I serve, what my values are, my approach, my vision for what I seek to do in the world, how I seek to help certain types of people with certain types of problems. And it is already an incredible sounding board creative partner, and I am so excited to get into what I'm calling my tribe of mentors very shortly, maybe as soon as next week.

[00:13:39]

I've had a few irons in the fire this week getting ready for this event. And as we'll discuss as we talk about automation in all things, the goal is to get a system set up and then let it continue to serve you.

So there is a little bit of heavy lifting in the beginning as you get it set up, but then, it's on a roll. People in business like to talk about getting a flywheel spinning or getting a locomotive train started to roll. You have the weight, you have the inertia. It takes effort to get it rolling, but once it's going, it can be nearly unstoppable. And that's what we all want to see in our personal lives and our businesses, just let some of these things roll. Some of you may be old enough to remember the old television marketer, Ron Popeil. Anybody remember him? He was the guy that said, "Set it and forget it."

[00:14:35]

Set it and forget it. And that's what a lot of our automation is… you set up an email autoresponder, get it rolling. Then when people opt in to your funnel page, your opt-in page, your registration page -- your autoresponder and your other mechanisms can take it from there.

[00:14:57]

I'm sure some of the people that registered for this meetup, some of them did it at two in the morning or any time of the day or night. So these systems will serve us as we get them going. AI's an incredible tool and it's going to be baked into more and more things as we go.

[00:15:15]

But I don't want to dwell solely on AI because some people are more entry level. And really there are so many places where we can begin to streamline and begin to make our lives smoother and easier, short of going very high tech. So there's something for everyone in all of this.

Ada, I see that you joined us.

We were all in the middle of talking. Would you like to come out and introduce yourself?

If you're multitasking, that's okay.

[00:15:55]

ADA:

I’m really just listening because I’m very much a beginner with AI.

[00:16:08]

LINDA:

AI will be mentioned in the course of many things that we talk about, but there will be non-AI as well. Are you a person who has a business or is looking to start something where you want to get your message out into the world?

[00:16:25]

ADA:

Yes, ma'am. So I don't have one yet, but I really want to start. I'm just trying to get my other ducks in a row so that I can be able to do that.

[00:16:49]

LINDA:

Did you ask if we're meeting again? Yeah, our next meeting is on Tuesday, May 20th.

ADA:

Okay. So I'll probably chime in more then.

LINDA:

Oh, that's perfect. But feel free to just hang out and listen today. That's absolutely fine.

[00:17:09]

MJ:

I think I did hear you say that you are starting a business.

Is that correct? Or you have one?

[00:17:20]

LINDA:

Ah, she put something in the chat. She'd like to start a business. Yeah, I heard that part, but I didn't know if she had specified the nature of the business. But you know what, this will be a great place for you, Ada, to just find out what's possible. Things that can be applied to what you're going to do.

And you may get some tools that will help you even in your brainstorming and your ideation of what you'd like to do, and how you'd like to put it out there. So just think of this as an incubator.

And David, would you like to just share a tiny bit about yourself, and what brought you here, and what you're into these days?

[00:18:21]

DAVID:

Hi too, everyone. I'm just a student right now. I'm trying to learn and play with agents, and trying to find ideas here and there to develop small apps and open source… that's it.

LINDA:

That's gonna keep you off the streets a good bit, I think! That's a lot of stuff!

DAVID:

Yeah, that's true. It requires a lot of time to keep up to date.

[00:19:02]

LINDA:

It does! So this is great, just getting a chance to hear everybody's voice and find out who's who. Alice had to jump off. I think she may have been running errands and just wasn't able to maintain the connection.

Wanted to bring up the idea of --- why does automation matter to us? A lot of us are solopreneurs. We're doing all of it! We're doing the client work, the marketing, the admin. In David's case, the research and development. The follow-ups, if there's billing, developing content, whatever it is that we're trying to do here in the world… We're wearing all the hats and it is a lot!

[00:19:49]

But the truth is, your time is your most precious resource, and it's actually the only thing you do have. You can't create more of it and you can't get back the time that has already passed by. In order to make the most of our time, we need to work smarter, not harder. And automation is what's going to enable you to do that and keep the ball rolling even when you're resting.

[00:20:20]

So many people who have developed systems that work and passive or recurring income. They are so grateful that they went to the effort to get that happening… because then when life happens, if there's an illness or some kind of a big change in your life or even a natural disaster that happens in your area, or even if it's just that you want to go on vacation -- the ability to have your message continue to go out, people continue to find you, people continue to opt in, buy, register, whatever the thing is that you want and need them to do. That can happen 24/7/365. And it's a fabulous thing about the day and age we live in right now -- that can be a central part of our business model.

[00:21:17]

The question that I have for you is, where do you feel like time is getting away from you in your business or your endeavors right now? Or what is a task that you wish would just happen on its own without you having to be the person making it happen manually every dang time? Anybody have any tasks like that you just wish could happen on their own?

Yeah, go ahead, MJ.

[00:21:50]

MJ:

Mine's not so much the current automation. There's a lot of those in terms of those routine tasks. But what I want to find is an AI to help me organize my documents in my files. I have so many that I don't even remember having created. And now that I'm reinventing myself, I need to go back and figure out what all is back in there.

[00:22:21]

LINDA:

Yeah. Documents are challenging. Nomenclature systems and file trees, directories can help, but you just end up with such a huge raft of stuff. This is me just sharing something that I use:

[00:22:37]

It's not as helpful for documents specifically the way that you're thinking, but for trying to keep control of vast amounts of intellectual property, ideas quotes, factoids, pieces of information. I'm a big user of Evernote. I can't speak to Obsidian. I'm aware that it exists and I know that there are people who are huge fans of it, but I've never used that. But what I can say about a tool like Evernote is that the search tool itself is incredibly powerful. You can search based on the title of the note. You can search based on the content of the note. Every single word of every note is indexed, so it's searchable. Also, they have a tagging system that can be incredibly robust. And what I've even done, if there's a document that I don't want to lose, I will upload the word doc or the PDF into an Evernote note and apply all of my tags and other descriptors to it so that I can pull up something in a heartbeat.

So I don't know if that could be an augment to some of the things that you're doing, MJ.

[00:24:00]

MJ:

It's actually what I'm doing in Obsidian. Yeah. I looked at Evernote and Notion, and of all of them, and I prefer Obsidian because of the plugins.

You can actually make it into what you want. Versus the others that are pre-fixed.

[00:24:24]

LINDA:

Yeah and the key with any of the tools that we talk about or learn about in our own travels… the key is to find the one that you resonate with that works well with the way your brain thinks and the way you like to organize things.

And sometimes for me, I mean you might laugh at this, but sometimes things that offer endless customization I steer away from, because I could make that my full-time job. I could go down that rabbit hole and never come out. And that's why I am not a big Notion user and why I haven't looked into Obsidian.

So I'm going in my world strictly for the functionality of being able to store the thing and find the thing and not fiddle because I know how I am... I'm so visually oriented that I will fiddle, I won't get anything else done!

[00:25:15]

MJ:

Oh, I understand completely. Back a couple of years ago when I started on it, it was easy to go down the rabbit holes, but I got a little more disciplined in how I work with it now.

[00:25:25]

LINDA:

Yeah, that's excellent. I just wanted to double check. And Ada says she's thinking of starting a small grassroots business, selling items that she already owns or previously purchased.

And that paper and information is a big one. Yeah. Small notes and tidbits of paper. That's one thing where Evernote and or whatever note system you prefer is great because I can collect quotations. I can tag them based on the content. And it becomes an incredibly valuable tool for me when I'm teaching, coaching or speaking, I can pull up like the perfect quote from things that I have found in the past, stumbled upon that were real gems and not feel like I lost them or like I have to have a post-it note on my wall forever more, lest I lose it.

[00:26:24]

Having a trusted place to store items… this is one form of automation and streamlining -- having a trusted place to put things that you don't want to lose so that you know you can retrieve them at the time that you need them.

And this is all working smarter, not harder. I love that.

Let me just take a quick look at my notes here. If you did more in the way of automation than you're currently doing, what impact do you think that would have in your life? What would change, hopefully for the better in the next year or two, or in the next 10 years?

Can anybody envision the glorious outcome that you might see in your own life if you started doing more with automation? What would be better?

[00:27:19]

MJ:

A lot less stress and a lot more money.

[00:27:23]

LINDA:

Preach it!

The stress that we go through is just maddening. Our minds just swirl round and round because we have so many things to get done. And we just dither instead of accomplishing because we're just so overwhelmed. Overwhelm, I would say, is the primary enemy in the things that I help people with.

And I actually have an Instagram page that I'll be posting more content on. I've let it sit for a bit, but I'm going to be posting more as we go forward. My Instagram handle is UnderwhelmYourTechOverwhelm.

We'll be putting stuff there as time goes on.

[00:28:12]

Can anybody think of some low hanging fruit like a certain area in your world where you think you could start automating? And it could be something like automated calendar booking, setting up a simple email welcome series, or a nurture series. Getting involved in things like Zapier and webhooks that would grab things that happen in one part of your tech and put them into triggered actions in another part of your tech.

[00:28:49]

It could be setting up a social posting schedule, or repurposing content. And we've talked about idea capture already. This is something that I'm really keen on, which is using the voice function in various apps, getting a transcript of the ideas that I'm just spitballing, and then working with the transcript to either refine it or to turn it into content or repurpose it.

So what would be one low hanging fruit, small system thing that you think you'd like to implement first to start changing your world?

Anybody have something that it's been on your radar, and you're like, “Oh, I totally need to start doing that!”

[00:29:40]

LINDA:

So for me… I would say repurposing content is big. I can make one piece of content, maybe a longer form video, then break it up into several pieces of content. So for one piece of thinking and coming up with an idea and expressing it, I can get multiple hits of content that could help spread my message... I'll just throw that one out as one idea that I'm going to be doing more with.

Anybody else?

[00:30:20]

MJ is going back to work, so she will only be able to listen. It was great getting to hear a little bit from MJ while she was on break. Ada asked about the learning curve for Evernote. It's actually a very low learning curve. Now, you can grow into a complete maven with it, but you could start doing really simple things.

[00:30:46]

Ada mentioned getting good at AI would be a big deal for her. And honestly, it's one of those things that the more you do it, the better you get. Initially you just feel overwhelmed. You have the blank screen and the screen says, how can I help you today? What's on your mind today? And you're just flat-footed.

[00:31:06]

But once you learn how to converse with it, you can interact with it and tweak the results. Don't settle for the first thing that comes back -- keep refining it. And really, it's just you’ve got to start and just keep doing it. Your skills just grow so much more quickly than you thought possible when you were first looking through that window and wondering how you were ever going to get started.

[00:31:40]

Let's just go ahead and anchor this before we go. Because I know we're at the top of the hour and even though we had a casual slow rolling start as everyone found us and got logged in, I do want to try to respect everyone's time.

What's something that surprised or helped you today, like one Aha or one shift in your thinking? And also, what's one thing that you'll commit to starting to do in the way of automation that you'll start doing intentionally between now and our next meeting on May 20th?

Anybody want to pop out?

[00:32:26]

LINDA:

For me, what I'm implementing is my progress toward being Level 5 on MJ’s score level. I'm going to continue helping my AI to understand me better and better. And I'm going to keep asking it more and more deep questions and asking for more guidance and more collaboration.

I just feel like I'm on the brink of amazing things.

[00:32:50]

Mary said work on some form letters and information forms.

Yes, there will be a recording and I'll be sharing that. I'll send it out via email.

[00:33:00]

Ada said, One thing regarding AI is to make a decision not to put my head in the sand about it so much and keep at it, trying to learn.

Absolutely. Little tiny steps, and you will be amazed at how far you come. For sure. Anybody else have something that they want to commit to diving in a little more strongly on between now and May 20th?

David, I guess you're just gonna keep on writing your code for AI agents.

[00:33:36]

So I want to encourage you, every day as you're living your life, look for things that you find that you are repeating and having to start over from scratch on. And just be aware of it. You don't have to rebuild your entire life all at once, but as you start to see, you can't unsee.

And then you can just gradually choose the items that you can learn about or implement, and it'll start getting more and more streamlined as you go further.

[00:34:10]

I'll be sharing some things that are go-to in my world. I have things that save me thousands and thousands of keystrokes on a weekly basis. And I can zoom from one app into another in just literally a second. It's a huge contributor to my productivity and it also keeps me from getting waylaid if I'm on the trail of a great idea .

[00:34:30]

Things like that, we'll continue to discuss and show you and as I'm fond of saying, “Take what you like and leave the rest.” Something may change your world and something else may not be that appealing to you. That's very cool. There are so many options out there that we'll all be well taken care of.

So just go ahead and remember to start one of the things in the time between now and when we get back together on Tuesday, May 20th at 1:00 PM Eastern. We'll meet the first and third Tuesday of every month.

The good thing about that spacing is, it won't be turning around so quickly that you haven't had time to implement, but you also won't be forgetting and losing momentum. It'll be enough to just keep your head in the game.

[00:35:30]

And if you run into any friction or any issues at all, feel free to reach out to me.

You can always hit reply on any of my emails and it'll get back to my inbox. Or you can go ahead and just add me as a contact and just start a fresh conversation that's not related to whatever my email was and I will get back to you. I just want to thank you all for showing up for yourself today.

We've got a hand raised. Go ahead Ada.

[00:36:04]

ADA:

So you're hearing me better now… What would be a reasonable thing for someone that's really brand new to just say, this is what I'll try to do -- a reasonable small step, like for ChatGPT, or Canva… I've never used any of them yet.

[00:36:24]

LINDA:

Yeah. Let me ask you this… What is the next thing that you feel like you want to accomplish? What's the next step in developing your business idea for outreach or for content, or thoughts on how you want to structure business? What's the next thing?

[00:36:43]

ADA:

Okay, so I'm just starting small because I already have some items, some inventory, and I can also help to bring a little income. That doesn't mean that's where I'll end up, forever.

But right now, I'm going to see about reactivating Facebook. I'm not social media active, but I know that's important for business to start and put some items on there this weekend.

There's someone that I know who, on the side, she does some of that on the marketplace. She said that's probably the best place for me to start, and then later on I can go to the other known sites. But just for someone who's just learning, that's probably simpler and she still gets sales there.

[00:37:27]

So that'll probably be just be where I'll start. And then I may branch off to others down the line. I just need to take the pictures. And I guess probably, maybe a little bit of descriptions. That's probably some areas where I need some help, since I'm new to it, is maybe AI.

Other than that, it's my personal self organizing. Just for everything business and just demands of life, my calendaring and things like that. And papers, lots of papers and info and this here and there.

[00:38:05]

LINDA:

And calendaring is just: organizing your own personal schedule, or customer appointments, or...?

[00:38:15]

ADA:

At this point, I don't have customers.

But it's the back load of things. Some of us have more paper and stuff than others.

[00:38:25]

LINDA:

Oh, paper is just the nemesis for sure! There's no doubt about it.

Basically it's like when you're trying to organize your house -- pick a room and start there. So it's -- decide one thing that could put you on the way to monetization, like going ahead and reopening your Facebook account, or starting to snap some photos of items that you're ready to list.

[00:38:54]

You could begin to write some nice captions, describing them. And you could even use something like chat GPT to help you with the captions.

I don't know if it'll do this… you might be able to upload the photo and say, write me a description of this.

Or you may write a very basic description, like.... “This is a beautiful purple blouse with blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Drop that description into ChatGPT or another AI and say, make this sound a lot more interesting and appealing as sales copy for an item I'm going to sell online. And it may give you a few little improvements that make what you started with even better.

[00:39:52]

ADA:

Yeah, it makes sense. So I'll try to see if I can figure out how to do some of that but you know how that goes…

[00:40:02]

LINDA:

Yeah. But the reason that I picked that is it’s taking you toward your dream. We could have you clean up the pile of papers in your back bedroom, but what is that really going to do for advancing your life?

Let's start with something where you can start getting some traction, get some wins, start feeling like, “Oh my gosh, I could totally do this!” And then go from strength to strength and success to success.

[00:40:28]

ADA:

Very true. It's like you do some organization, but you don't have to organize everything. Like you said, it's just enough to be able to be on top of what you need to do.

And I understand that you have the focus on monetization because yeah, that's a good idea.

[00:40:47]

LINDA:

Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard of a book called The One Thing.

[00:40:55]

ADA:

Oh, I have that book by Gary Keller. I need to read it more though. It's one thing… and another thing to apply it!

[00:41:00]

LINDA:

If the only thing you know is the key sentence from that book -- and actually implement it -- you can change your life. And that is: “What is the one thing that I could do today, such that by doing it, everything else becomes irrelevant or unnecessary or easier?”

[00:41:17]

ADA:

Oh, that's so good. That is so good, right? Yeah. Everything else would become easier. Yeah. I need to remind myself of that. Like several times a day.

[00:41:28]

LINDA:

All of us need to keep to the main thing. We're so prone to distraction, and you are part of the human race, as we all are. But yeah, let's all work on keeping the main thing and keep picking the one main thing that will move the ball down the field, as they say.

[00:41:47]

I pick my Big 3 every day, but have one be the most important. If you get 3 things that move the needle toward your important goal….

Let's put this into some numbers. If you pick 3 things every day -- and you actually freaking do them, okay? And you commit to doing that 5 days a week... like all the weekdays... you have accomplished 15 major things that are going to move you toward your dreams and your goals.

If you commit to doing that 7 days a week, that is 21 important, noticeable, meaningful things that can move you toward your goal. Why would we not all implement that?

[00:42:34]

ADA:

Yeah, that's true! Get started!

[00:42:39]

LINDA:

I'll throw out one more thing. If you can find an accountability partner, that is huge! And they don't have to know everything about what you do… like you might sell used items online and I might run a pet shop.

I don't have to know everything about the items you're reclaiming. You don't have to know anything about fish and aquariums. You know what I mean? But if I tell you when you and I talk together and I say, my Big 3 today are this, and this, and you tell me what yours are, my only job with you is to hold your feet to the fire and say, Did you do them?

I don't have to know what's involved. You know what I mean? Same thing. So find anybody that you can commit to connecting with. It can be via text. Phone calls can be another rabbit hole where they can go on and on, but you could do a quick text every day. Tell them, These were my things from yesterday -- I did them.

[00:43:42]

ADA:

Yeah, that is very true. I am working on that with accountability, I'm starting to re-up, connecting again. I'm working on that for a number of things. But yeah. That can be very helpful if you get the right person.

So you said you will be getting the replay?

[00:43:56]

LINDA:

Yeah. If you went to the page that ended in /meetup, the one that's in the chat there. [ ]

That puts you on my email list for this group so I can keep you in the loop on all the things.

00:44:10]

ADA:

Is the focus for a while going to be on AI to help us get better and better at it and automating things and applying the business... ?

[00:44:18]

LINDA:

That's only one part of the iceberg. There are so many things as part of trying to grow your business and automate. There are many things! As time goes on, your business model may need some of them and maybe not others, but in general, people in business need to be building an email list. How are you going to do that? We're going to talk about that.

If people need to schedule an appointment with you, do you want to be fooling around, going back and forth? Is Thursday good for you? Oh, is Friday morning better? Oh, is Monday night better? That will make you go crazy fast. We want to automate our calendars.

ADA:

So automate your calendar.

LINDA:

Oh my word! Yeah. So many things!

[00:45:00]

ADA:

Okay. Because this is my first time coming to the group, so it just happens today that AI was the topic. Okay.

[00:45:08]

LINDA:

Yeah, we were all just getting to know one another and that topic kind of came to the fore, but it is only one of the tools in the toolbox, for sure.

[00:45:17]

ADA:

Wonderful. Wonderful. Awesome. So glad I came here, and I'll be back and I'll also look at the other link. Thank you so much!

[00:45:26]

LINDA:

Oh, absolutely. So glad to have all of you here! Was there anybody else that had another question or comment before we sign off?

[00:45:35]

Okay if everybody is cool, then I will just thank you again for carving out the time to come and hang out today, and thank you for showing up and honoring yourself, your goals, your commitments. Because often we are the biggest liars to our own selves. We make a commitment. We don't show up. We don't do what is best for our own selves.

So good on you for being here, and I truly look forward to seeing you again when we reconvene on May 20th. And I'll be getting the replay out to you shortly once I have a chance to retrieve the recording. Thank you so much. Have a great day, and we'll see you soon.

Bye.