Designing your business to match your RICH life

Welcome to the Empowered Edupreneur Podcast. My name is Michelle Smit, and I am an ex-teacher turned online business coach for Edupreneurs, the owner of Digiteach and a six-figure entrepreneur. I am in love with empowering educators, just like you to create freedom filled online businesses and lives they love.

If you are looking to uplevel your skills, your finances, your mindset, and change the trajectory of your life as an educator. Then you are in the right place. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of business and mindset development to help unlock the infinite potential within you to play bigger with your life and go after your dreams.

We are going to have so much fun together. So thank you so much for pushing play today. Now let's dive in.

Hello, hello, I hope you are doing so fabulously. Welcome back to my podcast. I'm happy to be chatting with you again today. So today's podcast is on something that I have been thinking about for the last week or two. It actually was inspired after I purchased an audio book which is called. Let me just double check that I got the name right, so I don't screw it up.

I will teach you to be rich. And it's written by Ramit Sethi and it's actually really cool. I listened to a podcast of his and then I bought his book and it's a really cool book because he basically helps you financially set yourself up using investing and just smart financial management and stuff.

So he just helps the ordinary person manage their finances, which I think is such a key thing. It's a skill to make money and it's a skill to manage money at the same time. But he speaks about this rich life and he speaks about designing your rich life. And I have just been thinking a lot about my rich life and what that looks like for me. 

And I posted a little post on Instagram and I shared a bit about my rich life and yeah, people resonated with it quite a bit. And then I just thought it'd be so cool to speak about this topic on a podcast because I think it's actually so important.

We, especially those who are building businesses, we start our business for the reason of giving us what we want. And then we get I think a little bit detoured and fall off track and start going down paths that aren't necessarily what we want. And I think it's always really important to just know. What is your rich life?

What does that look like for you in detail? And basically build your business around that to facilitate that. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. So I'm going to be talking about living your life by design, not default. What is our unique rich life, unique to us. Because everyone's going to have a different vision of that choosing the business model to support that.

Now that's important. And living your rich life now in the present moment. And that is a challenge in itself, but I think with a perspective shift, very, very doable for everyone. So what do I mean by living your life by design, not default? And I think this is a really important one because I think most people on this earth live, well not most people.

That's probably a little bit of an exaggeration. A lot of people on this planet live their lives by default. It is just laid out for them they go to school and then they go get the medical degree or the law degree or whatever degree it is and then they do that thing and then they get the job and then they do the thing and it's all kind of laid out and, and it's all societal conditioning that lays it out at the end of the day.

And a lot of people aren't necessarily that happy in their lives and they're not living the life. That's what they want to live. And so I'm a big fan of designing your life. So not falling into the default pattern of what should be, but literally asking the question, is this what I want? If not, what is it that I want?

And I'm going to design my life around that regardless of what people think and do and whatever. For example kids. I'm getting to a point where I should potentially be thinking about having kids. Do I want to have kids? I don't really know. I'm not sure about that. I haven't woken up one day and felt the calling for it.

And I can see myself without kids. And so, is that what I want to fall into just because that's the norm and that's the natural progression of life? Or is that the default way? And I'm would rather design my life the way I want it. And so I I'm a big advocate for designing your life. So that's what I'm saying.

And I believe. In order to live our rich life, we have to design our life how we want to live it. The other thing that I want to talk about is your rich life, everyone thinks rich immediately connects to money, opulence, fancy jet planes, fancy cars, Gucci bags, a million shoes, material objects, like lots of opulence.

And money, lots and lots of money. And I guess rich and money they're connected, right? I understand why people think that. But it's so much more than that. And it could have nothing to do with actual material stuff. So let me give you an example. I shared what my rich life was on Instagram and I shared a picture of me and my cats, as you know, I've recently adopted Ragdolls in case you didn't know, and that was always a dream of mine to adopt Ragdolls.

And I have just done it. I've had them for about two months and my life has infinitely, infinitely got richer. I cannot even tell you the joy that I feel every day. From just having these amazing animals in my life and their energy in my life. And just looking at them just brings me joy. And that is an example of living your rich life.

Now, it was an investment to get these ragdolls. And, but that defeats the purpose. I could have had any cats. And I could have picked up cats from the street. And would have felt the same joy because it's the animal, right? It has nothing to do with how much they cost. And last year, I picked a cat up off the street and adopted him, Yoda.

And now my mom looks after him because it was in South Africa where I found him on the street. And I'm obsessed with that cat. And he brings me so much joy. And I'm going to go see him in a couple of days. And I'm so excited. And it doesn't have to be about money, for me, my rich life is just being surrounded by animals, and especially cats, because I'm definitely a cat person. 

Having slow mornings, that would be a rich life for me. Waking up slowly, having my cats on the bed, cuddling Mike, us cuddling the cats. Just a slow morning, easing into the day. And doing some exercise in the morning. Just setting myself up for a good day. Whatever I want to do in that morning to make myself feel good.

And then the main thing for me is actually having the freedom to choose what I want to do with my day, having options, having choices. Do I feel like doing this? Do I feel like doing that? Just designing my day based on what I want and how I want to do it. And business as well, like building out a business that allows for that freedom of choice.

My rich life is having an empty schedule. I don't like a full schedule. You'll look at my schedule and I have a lot of space in it. Because I've designed it that way. You'll look at my business model and you'll see, I don't offer a lot of one-on-one. And I do that because that doesn't serve me in my rich life.

 I don't want to be doing calls all day, every day. I love my coaching clients, but I can't have many of them at the same time because I give so much energetically that it does burn me out. And I'm an introvert at the end of the day. I need a lot of downtime to recuperate with. I need connection. I need human connection. I need relationships. 

They're the most important thing to me. But I need downtime. I know this about myself. And so I designed my day based on that. I design it at the end of the day, everything I design. And I guess that's what it looks like to me. The rich life looks like just having choices, having freedom, having the ability to fly home to my family.

That's another thing. I started my business because I moved to the Netherlands and my family is in South Africa. And I really just wanted to be able to fly home whenever I wanted. And I've designed it so I can now. So I fly home and I continue working. And that's been a dream of mine.

And that for me is incredibly rich and abundant in itself. Next week Tuesday, I'm flying to South Africa. I'm going to spend a month of my family and really good quality time with them where I'm not on a million calls. And for me, that's my rich life. Flying my family over to visit me. Being able to do that makes me feel very rich and abundant.

Obviously that is an investment and this does require money. But let me give you an example of stuff that doesn't require money. For me surrounding myself with crystals makes me feel abundant and that I'm living the life that I should be living. I just feel energetically good about that.

It makes me feel like I enjoy my environment, making better food choices, having healthy food in my fridge. That makes me feel good and rich in itself. And food is food. I just choose the healthier options. Like more greenery, more vegetables. And running a bath, just running a bath and having a bubble bath for me, that is rich in itself.

It's abundant. It makes me feel good. It raises my energy. It raises my frequency. It brings me into a state of joy. So that's an example of what my unique rich life looks like and what I want it to be. Also, part of that vision is living by the ocean. I don't live by the ocean currently. It's very much in our manifestation at the moment to move to Portugal.

We've been starting that process for I would say properly a couple of months now, but we're getting that going. And so I'm hoping we manifest that next year. I'm not sure, but that's been really big for us. We want to live by the ocean. We want to take our cats for walks on the beach.

We're at leash training them. So we're going to have adventure cats. We're going to go adventuring with them and it's going to be amazing. So nature and being by the ocean is very important for me. And so all of this stuff is stuff that I've had to design. It's stuff that I've had to work at. It's stuff that I have really had to, I could have just gone by default and just bought a house in the Netherlands, stayed in the Netherlands because that was the easier option, but no.

We don't really feel like that's aligned and we are designing our life. Not falling into whatever easy default pattern there is. And so yeah, that is my unique rich life. So I want to ask you, what is your unique rich life? And I've asked my sister this question. I asked a friend last week this question, and it's a good question to ask yourself.

It's a good question to ask friends, family, because It's a nice introspective question. What does your rich life look like? Do you know what your rich life looks like? What brings you joy? What really feeds your soul? If it's Gucci bags and flying first class and eating extremely amazing, fine dining cuisine and all of that. Amazing, then that's your rich life.

Maybe it's got nothing to do with that. Maybe it's having your own farm and having your own animals on the farm and looking after livestock and real animals and growing your own vegetables in your own garden and your own fruit or whatever it is. Creating a sustainable living for yourself, a self sustainable living.

Maybe that is your rich life or just living in a little log cabin in the mountains away from all the people and all the hecticness of the world and just reading books all day. Whatever it looks like to you. What is that? And really dig deep on the thing that brings your soul joy. That feeds you, that really feeds you. And that's what you want to bring more of into your life. That's what you want to design your life around. The more you can do stuff that brings you joy that makes you feel good the more you raise your frequency. And you raise your vibration and as a result of raising your vibration, the more good stuff you will attract. 

So what's your rich life? Think about it. And think about it in detail. Where do you want to live? Maybe you're living in the place that is already your rich life. Maybe you've got this beautiful home that you're very happy with. And what are your mornings look like? What are your weekends look like?

What are the relationships around you look like? What kind of people do you have in your life? What kind of people do you spend time with? What does your business look like? What does your business feel like? What is waking up in the morning feel like to you? What is your night look like? Where do you go?

What do you do with your free time? All of these questions. What is the life you want to create? And I think once you ask yourself those questions and you get clear on all of that, it's much easier to now know, okay. I know how to create my business to lead me to that.

I call it your North star vision, which is almost leading you towards your rich life. And based on that, you can then say. All right, I want to build a business that gives me that, that facilitates me living my rich life, whatever that looks like. 

All right. So now let me talk to you about choosing the business model to support that. For example, you love one-on-one connection, and you really enjoy one-on-one connection and you enjoy calls. You're an extrovert and doing calls is your thing it energizes you. And it's a part of your business. It's a part of your business that you really love. Then you would prioritize a lot of one-on-one in your business.

You would have one-on-one offers. You would have different one-on-one offers. Obviously that means you're trading your time for money, but for some people, if it's a high enough price point and they don't have to do a gazillion one-on-one, so say you just have to do a couple a day, then it's fine. As long as you've got the right price point. But maybe that's the business model that fulfils what you want your schedule to look like.

You want to have four calls a day and your primary revenue is those one-on-one packages that are selling. And that's the model. Or perhaps you are not a fan of the one-on-one so much, and you prefer groups. You prefer being in groups of people having because of that co creation of a group with everyone's contributions in the group, almost like mastermind kind of vibe. Where you have everyone's energy in it. Maybe that's your style. And you want to wake up in the day and you want to have maybe one group call a day and, and you don't want to have other calls and you want to have more flexibility in the day and not be connected to your computer doing calls.

Then you're looking at more of a digital course based, group program based, business model, which is the one that I have. And that is the model that ultimately reduces you trading your time for money. And instead you are now trading value for money and you package stuff into curriculum.

People then purchase curriculum and then you can have group calls just to facilitate them going through the curriculum or yeah, one-on-one even. You could even sell a few one-on-ones at a higher price point. Which that might be the business model what's going to lead you to the life you want, whatever your schedule looks like.

That business model, I feel is more scalable and it's less attached to your time. And so, you can have a greater amount of income and impact based on it. Because it just defies the time limit. So for me, it's a no brainer if freedom is something that you really value. For me, my rich life involves freedom.

It involves choices. I need choices of who I want to work with, where I want to work with them. I want to be able to wake up in the morning. If I feel like just wearing my pyjama pants, I can do that and I can have one call a day and then the rest I'll be doing all my other things.

And that's what it is for me. So I know this, I know what my rich life is. I've been very clear on what my rich life is for years and I've developed and I've built my business to facilitate the life that I want to live. I haven't said, okay, this is my life. I haven't said this is my business.

I need to fit my life around my business and try figure that out. I've been like, okay, this is my life that I want. I'm going to build a business that leads me to it, that allows me to live that life. So it's a bit of a change of thinking. So instead of you thinking. That I'm just going to build this business around my life.

Instead of thinking I'm going to build my life around my business. I'm going to just fit my life in around my business and try make it work like that. Swap it and be like I'm going to build this business to fit. My life, but in order to do that, you need to know what you want your life to look like.

And some of this rich life stuff might be very big things. So moving houses to go to another house. For me, I'm wanting to go to Portugal. That's not something that happens in a second. It takes time. These things that we really want. Some of them do take a bit of time to manifest in the 3d world.

But that's just the nature of the game. It still is important to know what it is you want, even if they're big things. And to move in the direction of those things and to create the business model or create the business that allows you to have what it is you want. For example, you want more freedom, you don't want to do one-on-ones. You then need to take your knowledge, go for a course based group program based business model.

You need to take your knowledge, build out a curriculum, build out a core offer, and learn to launch that core offer a couple of times a year. And figure out selling it that way. And figure out how to have big enough launches that allow you to live the life that you want to live. And it doesn't have to be launches, it can be also evergreen. So you can eventually set your course on evergreen and be making sales all the time.

That's the next step in that business model. Where you're not actively selling the thing. You've set up sales process that's selling it for you and you're just delivering on the product. What richer thing could you ever want? And so that's the business model that we go for.

And then you've also got the membership kind of model. It's a little bit lower cost, and you have many people coming into your world. And you have maybe hundreds of students coming into your membership at a lower cost per month. And that means you have to keep creating new content for that membership, and that's also an option.

It's very scalable. But it's a little bit of a different look of a business model because it's a bit more low ticket. It means you're going to have a higher quantity of students. That means you might have more need for customer support. There's things to think about. Whereas if you wanted to go for the higher ticket group coaching program model. That means you're going to have less customers at a higher price point delivering on maybe a deeper promise or a deeper service. 

Solving a bigger pain point, just because of the price point, giving a bigger transformation ultimately. But you're not going to have the maybe hundreds of students, you'll maybe have a couple of students every month. Or 20, 30 students every launch or whatever it is, a hundred students every launch at most maybe.

So it just depends what feels good to you in your business model and what's going to get you to living the life that you want to live. For me, I love the mid ticket. I wouldn't say it's high ticket, the mid ticket course or group program structure. I don't want to have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students.

I just find that doesn't feel good to me. I rather have 30 students in a cohort and really just working with them closely for three months. And I really enjoy building relationships with people like that and having close contact with people for three months in a group capacity at this moment.

 I've designed my business based on what feels good to me. And I want you to think of it as well like that. And the next thing that I want to talk about is living your rich life now. Now, as I mentioned, some of the rich life things that you're going to write down or you're going to think about are going to be things that you don't have right now.

For example, I'm not in Portugal right now, so I'm not living that beach life yet. It's coming though. It's coming. Have certainty in your manifestation that it's just a matter of time before it unfolds. But what I would say is just try live your rich life now and bring it to your present moment in some way.

So if your rich life looks like having a slow morning, can you not start now with that? Can you not have a slow morning now? And people will have excuses about why they can't and obviously if you have kids, I don't think it's maybe even possible if you have young children. But say you don't have young children.

Can you start just intending or setting that intention for having a slow morning now and actually doing it. Like tomorrow, make sure you have a slow morning. Just prioritize a slow morning and then start living the thing you want now. Start doing the things you want now, because that's going to bring you in a state of more joy. You're going to feel rich as a result of it. Doesn't have to do with money in your bank account.

It has to do with how you feel. So what can you do in your day now, that's going to let you live your rich life. Maybe it is going for a walk with your animals and your kids in the park, going and feeding the ducks. Maybe that's makes you feel good. Something that's nice for you.

Go and do the thing. Go and do the thing that brings you joy. That makes you feel rich. Instead of saying, oh, and this is what we always do. I'm going to go live my rich life when I get this thing. When I make more money. When I have 10 sales in my business. Maybe your rich life looks like outsourcing a lot of the work you don't want to do in your business.

Maybe you're so tired of running Facebook ads and your rich life looks like, outsourcing your Facebook ads or getting someone to manage your Instagram. Maybe that's something in your business that's makes you feel rich. Now, instead of waiting till the end of time to do that, if you're making some money, go and outsource something now.

That's what I did. I got a virtual assistant. Really in the beginning of my early days of my business within a year or so, because my rich life does not look like me writing emails for two hours every day, which I was doing. And I didn't have a lot of money, but for me, investing in that virtual assistant, and I still have her years later, thank the heavens. Was a step in the direction of me living the life that I want.

And I was like, I'm not going to wait till I make more money to do this because I'm actually losing money by writing emails all day. I could be selling stuff instead. I could have more energy to sell and make more money. So that's what I'm saying. In your business, what can you do now? It might not be at a point where you can outsource, but maybe you can start outsourcing some stuff.

Maybe this is a little permission slip for you to go do that. And in your life, I'm sure there's things that you can do today that will make you feel like you are living the life that you want to live. Treat yourself to do it. Let yourself go there. Let yourself have that slow morning, go and have a nap in the middle of the day.

If that's your rich life. If having an afternoon nap feels abundant and makes you feel good. Go and do that. Live your rich life now. Not tomorrow, not next week. Now is all we've got. Go and enjoy the meals that you want to eat now. This moment is all we've got at the end of it.

And if you keep saying, oh, I'm going to design my life when I get this thing. When I feel better. And I used to do this with exercise where I'm like, oh, I'll exercise when I do this thing. And I'm like, no. That's never going to happen. Now is all we've got. You've just got this moment.

So, I'm just cuddling my cats, having slow mornings, going and doing exercise in the mornings. Really feeling into what do I feel like doing today? And I'm at a point where I'm very grateful to have my business that allows me to do that. Honestly, it wasn't always like this. But I remember in the first year or two of building my business, I remember meditating a lot and visualizing a lot and doing things to raise my frequency.

That made me feel abundant that wasn't attached to my bank account because, I didn't have money. I had to put myself in a state of abundance before I had abundance and that's how it works, right? And I would just do little things to make myself feel that I was living that rich life.

And now I'm a little bit more blessed. I literally am living the life that I dreamed of. I just need to get to the beach. That's the only thing. That manifestation is taking some time, but it's okay. Everything unfolds as it needs to unfold. We can't put a timeline on these things. So if you're also in a situation where you want to move houses or you want to do something and it just hasn't happened yet. Don't stop working at it.

Don't give up. That manifestation just needs a little bit of time to come to fruition in this world. It's all an energy thing as well. What I can say now is just go prioritize your joy. Raise your energy design your life. Don't just fall into default patterns that aren't making you happy. You get to design your life, how you want to design it.

 If that means traveling the world and working online, you do that. If that means not having kids and going climbing mountains and doing crazy adventure things. Go and do that thing. 

Yeah, I thought this was just a really cool topic and it's something that I hope has made you think. I think if we can have that awareness around what it is that we really want our life to look like in our relationships, our spiritual life, our health and fitness.

 Look at all areas of your life, our work, our business. It's really possible to design your life. And I I've been doing it for years now and it's worth it. It is really worth it. It's not easy. It's not the easy path. But it's a hundred percent worth it. 

All right. So I hope you love this episode. It was wonderful to chat to you today.

Remember I'm doing that giveaway. You can win a business coaching session with me if you share my podcast and all of the things. So that is just a little reminder. Otherwise, I hope you have an amazing week and I'll chat to you again next week. 

Bye. 

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I am beyond excited to announce that the doors to my live Educators Income Booster Bootcamp are officially open. 

If you are looking to escape the time for money teaching treadmill as a teacher or teaching business owner and create a course or group program that can scale your income and impact for years to come, then this is the Bootcamp for you.

You can grab your ticket for just 37 euros on my website at digiteach.biz. Doors close soon. And I won't be running this live for a couple of months. So don't wait. 

I appreciate you so much and I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. In the meantime, go create a business and life you love.