Téa Angelos: Applying “Smart Moves” in Every Aspect of Life

Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And all those topics I just mentioned, we got through those and many more with this conversation with Tia Angelos. Now, Tia is the founder of Smart Women's Society, and it's an online educational company that aims to empower and educate women to get smart about their money, career, wellbeing, love, and everything else. And she also just authored a book called Smart Moves, where she has 130 different topics in there all around wellbeing and elevating, and tips and ideas on how to address each one of them.

Now, I know a lot of that stuff obviously is focused on women, but this conversation I think is relevant to every single person out there. And we dove into, like I said, most of those topics, and we talked about side hustles and how to leverage them, and are they a distraction, or should you go all in? How do you burn the boat so you can stay focused? Because having a plan B kind of distracts you from your plan A. Then we got into financial security and what you could be doing, some easy tactical things you can do to put yourself in a position so if the economy dives or if you're in trouble, you're not going to have to freak out completely. Then we got into negotiations, changing your internal monologue, knowing your why, getting unstuck in your career, imposter syndrome, risk aversion, literally almost every topic you could imagine we dove into for a little bit.

So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did, and it got you to think a little bit, maybe do some few things differently. So let's make it happen. What's happening, Make It Happen family? Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere. No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered. Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around.

They make it easy for people to get on your calendar. And every sales rep has got to have this function locked in. And it's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. Tia, welcome to the Make It Happen Monday podcast. How are you doing today? I'm great. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show, John. Thanks for joining. I think it's going to be an interesting conversation that we can take in a lot of different directions. So we'll see where this one goes because you cover a lot of topics in this book that you got out there, Smart Moves.

But before we do that, why don't we give the audience a little bit of context here and talk us through kind of how you got to where you are right now. And then we can chat about some of the things that we're going to be hitting on from a topic standpoint. Yeah, so I am the founder and CEO of an online education company called Smart Women's Society. So we help women get smarter with their money, their career, their well-being and their love lives. And I recently authored a book with Wiley called Smart Moves that breaks down over 130 different life topics to help women navigate the different seasons of their life. And before starting the company three years ago, I studied a law degree and a commerce degree, so accounting and finance.

And then I worked as a management consultant at a big four before starting SWS as a side hustle and growing it into my full-time business. Nice. Side hustle. Let's talk about that for a minute. Because I think a lot of people, we are in the era of side hustles. I mean, Gary Vaynerchuk out there and everybody else saying, hey, do what you love and then try to build that up. Can I ask you, how did you approach your side hustle? Because the challenge I have when any type of side hustle is, to me, if you're not all in on something, it rarely ends up being successful, right? I don't know if you watch Shark Tank, but one of the questions they ask are, are you full-time on this? And if you're not, the likelihood of investing goes basically to the floor.

They won't do it. So could you just kind of talk a little bit about your decision? Why did you start the side hustle? And then how did you, what was the transition and what made you comfortable that you could take that transition? So I started the side hustle essentially because I enjoyed my full-time job. It was fine, but it was always lacking that purpose piece. It was always lacking that excitement to get out of bed every morning and to do something where I was excited for work every day. And I knew that there was more to work and there was more to life than having a job that you were kind of half-assed about and mediocre about. So I've always been really passionate about breaking down topics, breaking down things into simple steps.

And one day I was sitting on the couch and I said, it'd be cool to do this for different life topics. So I got out my Instagram app, created a new profile and made a post. And I guess it all started from there. There wasn't really much thought behind it or what's going to happen with this. And I guess something for me of my personality is I'm very resilient and I'm very consistent. So I was making free content on social media for eight to nine months before we actually started monetizing it. So it was posting content pretty much every day of the week for nine months for free, not knowing where I was going to head just because I had this enjoyment factor. And it was also during the COVID lockdown.

So there wasn't much else that I could be doing except being at home, which I always think if it would be different, if it wasn't during the pandemic and I didn't have all that spare time, but yeah, I was just doing it consistently. And it was a very slow bird at the beginning, just growing the community, growing our audience, growing our followers. But I just had it as kind of an outlet from my job, like a creative kind of passion outlet. So it started there. And then I think the pandemic really helped the speed of growth as people were kind of trying to figure out their lives, re-evaluating their careers, re-evaluating their finances and their well-being. So we grew a lot quicker than I anticipated.

And I think for a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people that I've spoken to, there never is a perfect time to go full-time from a side hustle to a business. There never is a morning that you wake up and you decide that you're ready to make that jump. And I'm quite risk adverse. So I initially dropped down to part-time with my work and my work was very supportive. And then I was actually called up to do jury duty for six weeks. And it was the last week I was coming to the end of that. And I just woke up and I said, I can't go back to my job. And I ended up quitting that Monday. And I think definitely when you put two feet in, you're not one foot out, one foot in. I think you actually speed up your growth because you know now you're fully committed to it.

When you're kind of still working a full-time job, doing something as a side hustle, you're still not committing a hundred percent to it and accelerating that growth. So I found that ever since I have taken it full-time, it has been more stressful, a lot harder. But because you are fully committed to something, you see that rapid growth and a lot of learning and a lot of transition. You're kind of the burn the boats, right? Like you don't, you don't have an option to go back. And that's kind of what happened to me verbally, not inadvertently. It was very abruptly as a matter of fact, but I, when I got fired from, well, the company went under and they fired everybody on the spot. And when everybody else was freaking out about getting, you know, oh, I don't have life insurance anymore.

I was like, oh, I need to be a salary because I can't pay my bills anymore. I looked over at this opportunity. I was like, that guy just walked away from what used to be a $3 million business. Well, the client list everybody loves is a revenue stream that's already there. Nobody gets to start a business like that. So I remember going, hey, uh, what are you going to do with that training? And he basically said, I don't know, what do you think I should do? And I went through, like, it was chaos, right? Getting the business set up and I was going to be a reset, all this stuff. But then all of a sudden I woke up one day and I realized I was a hundred percent commission rep. I had always been risk adverse to your point.

I mean, I think my risk profile is higher, uh, but it's, it's, I'm not the ultimate risk taker. And so I, I always felt in sales, I needed, for instance, like that, that base salary, right? Just, just in case. Yeah. But, you know, I'm a pretty self-motivated person, but if you need motivation, realize that if you don't get up in the morning, you ain't getting paid, period. There's no parachute there for you, nothing. So I do believe, let me ask you that, did you, with your side hustle, did you apply it to your existing job or did you do it totally separate? Totally separate. So I was working as a management consulting, working on projects on clients, and I was working for a very big company as well.

And then the side hustle was completely separate doing it at night and on weekends. So yeah, very separate. Okay. Cause the, I think like the best case scenario is when you can actually develop something within a business on somebody else's dime, that is your side hustle. Cause you're now super passionate about it and it's going to drive results. And then you split off when you know you can do this on your own, but kind of curious what your journey would look like there. Um, all right. So let's, let's talk about some of the stuff that's in the book and sounds like you cover a million different topics. Let's start with the financial piece though. Cause I'm, I, I, I think that those are, a lot of this is universal as far as the need is concerned and the application is concerned.

And what's happening right now in the market, I mean, stocks down this, you know, your company can't count on as far as any of those things. So how do you coach people through how to be more financially secure, if you will, so that as we go through the ups and downs, they don't have to streak out. Yeah, I think definitely the first step is actually being very aware of your financial situation. A lot of people that I interact with and I speak with in our community actually just have no idea where their finances is sitting. They kind of take a blind eye to it and don't want to come face to face with it. So definitely first step is taking stock of how much money comes in every month on average, especially if you've got a fluctuating income, how much you're spending on average each month, what kind of debts and what bills that you have and any other kind of assets that you're, that you have or are working towards.

So definitely step number one is sit down and take stock of what's going on, where your finances are at the moment. And with that, I always recommend tracking your spending on a daily basis. I think a lot of people get to the end of the month and they realize that they're hustling for that last few days before they receive another paycheck. Or if you've got a fluctuating income, that panic starts coming in when you don't know when your next income is going to come in. So definitely recommend tracking your spending and you can do that manually with a spreadsheet tool like we have our budgeting tool. You can use an app to do that, whatever works for you. So that's step number one, figuring out where you are, tracking your spending so you know what's going out.

And then especially with cost of living now, a really important thing to do is review your bills and see if you can get a better deal. Because a lot of people just kind of get into a routine of paying their essential bills and don't take a step back and go, can I negotiate a better rate? Is there a better offer out there that I can reduce my electricity bill or get a better deal on my mobile phone? And that's a big thing that can save a lot of money for a lot of people. And another one as well is canceling unused subscriptions. I'm sure there are so many, and I see it every single day, of payments that come out automatically out of people's bank accounts. They have no idea what it's for. So really taking that holistic view and reviewing your bank statements, reviewing where you're at and kind of streamlining where you are is really helpful, especially in the current climate that we're in.

And of course, you touched on it before, but building up that emergency fund, whether you're self-employed, whether you have full-time stable employment, or you have a fluctuating income if you work a sales job, it's so, so important to have that emergency fund that you have on the side in case of any income loss, in case of any job loss, in case of any family emergency, emergency that comes up. And it's that peace of mind that you really can't beat. Yeah. It's, you bring up an interesting point with the negotiations with vendors. What's hysterical to me is that we are such a sales culture here in the US that, you know, you'd think that everything would be pretty obvious of, this is a point of something I can negotiate on, but it's not.

I think a lot of sales professionals are really good at, are okay at selling stuff, but they're actually terrible at buying things. I know I am, quite frankly. Like, I think I have empathy for sales reps, which is why I don't usually negotiate as long as I think it's reasonable. So I'm like, ah, I don't want to screw this out of the commission. Sure, fine, whatever. Whereas my wife, my wife will grind into the bone and be like, all right, no, this is what I'm paying. So I actually let her negotiate for me on top of everything else. But negotiating with vendors is an interesting call because the, you know, those are people who know you, they want to keep you, right? As long as you have options, right?

When you go into a negotiations or you talk about negotiations, what's your approach to it? Is it, is it the, is it the win-win? Is it a, you know, walk away line approach? Is it, do you coach at all on how to have that conversation, for instance, with your vendor or when you're in a deal? Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's a very case by case basis, what you're negotiating on, depending if it's a bill or if it's a salary for a new job. But I always say my step number one is it never hurts to negotiate. The worst that they can say is no, and then you know where you stand. So as much as possible, you could negotiate pretty much everything. And then you might get a no 90% of the time, but that one yes is a great outcome.

So my first step and my biggest tip with negotiation is arm yourself with as much research as possible given the circumstances. But learn what other competitor offers are, learn what's competitive in the market and coming from a very fact-based perspective as opposed to an emotional, I deserve this perspective is way more powerful in a negotiation. I think as well, silence is very powerful. When you kind of say something, let that silence go and people naturally want to fill that awkward pause. So I find that silence is really powerful. And to your point as well, I think everyone should have kind of then baseline of when you say no and you walk away. I think never go into a negotiation kind of accepting whatever they're going to give you in the end.

If it doesn't need that minimum that you want to pay or that you want to accept, then be willing to walk away. I talked about that forever. The walkaway line. You know, if you don't know it, my experience is we all have it. Some of us define it. Some of us don't. When you don't define it, it'll find you. Because as you're going through the negotiations, if you've given up too much, there is a point where you start feeling like this isn't fair anymore. And I promise you, like once you start feeling this is not fair anymore, that's your walkaway line. And you have resentment towards that decision. You don't want to get to a point where you accept something, you're unhappy towards it. You have resentment and it's forever on your mind as not being happy.

So I think, yeah, it's so important to have that walkaway non-bowel line. Well, then let's transition to that. How do you get people to walk away from that emotion? Forget about that sale for a second. But that does, I mean, sale is a brutal, brutal profession. And if you held on to those losses, you're not going to last very long on this. So from a mental standpoint, what are some of the pieces of advice you have to build that resilience, if you will? Yeah, I think, as I said before, basing it on as many facts as possible and trying to take that emotion out of it. I think a lot of people see negotiation as an argument when really it's not. It's a presentation of facts. It's a discussion between two people to get the best possible outcome for both parties.

So I think when you change your mindset towards negotiation as a conversation instead of an argument, that can really help. And as well as that, I think knowing that if it doesn't work this time, there's always another opportunity. There's always another vendor you can go to. There's another job that you can find. You're never, it's never the end of the world if the negotiation doesn't work in your favor. Yeah, because I, the negotiations, I mean, I'm always about negotiations start from the beginning, right? From the minute you and I are talking, like there were an important negotiation. If you think about negotiation that it starts at the end, you've already lost, right? In pricing, you've already lost.

So I think that the mental component of sales is really hard in business, entrepreneurship, everything else. I mean, like you said, you know, we went from a nice, cushy, not cushy, but you know, big company that was paying the bills. Now, I'm a hundred percent commission rep here. And I don't know about you, but there's really good days as an entrepreneur. There's really bad days. Bad days usually outlay them, but the good ones tend to even out. So again, mentally, what are some of the characteristics you work on with people to help them manage that stress, feel confident that they're moving in the right direction, not second guess the decision that they just made, but some of the tools that you have to address those things.

Yeah, I think mindset is such a big piece to that. And I think something that I'm still kind of working through and learning is developing that resilience mindset and when you have had a whole week of bad days or a fortnight of bad days and maintaining that consistency and pushing through that is such a challenge. And I don't think that even three years now into the business that I'm still struggling with. So I think learning how to kind of talk back to that self-talk and that self-doubt in your head and repeating kind of phrases that if you're saying in your head, I'm not good enough for this and then actually saying back in your head, I'm learning, I'm working on it, I'm developing new skills.

And I think actively speaking back to the negative self-talk that you have is a really good skill to develop because it's so easy to kind of spiral down into negative thoughts that we don't think about. And then I think practically is building up that emergency fund, especially if you do have inconsistent income, having that safety net for lower months or lower periods that you're still okay and you can cover your bills and you don't have that added financial stress. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's, that's bite a lot of people right now is they thought this gravy train was going to last forever. Now they're looking at it going, maybe I should have saved a few bucks. What are some of the other highlights or things that you work on people that really makes a difference?

I think a big one is, and this is very topical, is people finding how to get unstuck from their career. And a lot of people email us, message us, and they say, I'm not enjoying my job or my job is fine, but I don't know what to do. I just feel stuck. I have no motivation. And I think that is a very, very common thing that I've been finding with a lot of people. So with that, I've been there, felt stuck. We're in a weird spot though, you know, with the economy and everything else. And so if I'm, if I feel stuck, but I'm scared too, because I don't know if I want to do that side hustle thing medical, no, you know, this doesn't feel right. Ultimately, if it doesn't feel right, it ain't going to be, my experience is it really isn't going to get right.

So you might buy yourself some time by convincing yourself, but so again, how would you evaluate your career being stuck? If you, if you, if you have that feeling, what is a, what is a framework or a structure I could use to figure out how do I approach this to fear? If I'm just bored right now and I can actually do something with my existing, or I really have to call this what it is and do something different. So step number one is getting really, really honest with yourself and reflecting on those reasons why you feel stuck. Grab out a notepad, write out everything that bothers you about that job, everything that makes you feel bored, makes you feel frustrated. Is it someone in your team that is frustrating and annoys you?

Is it the actual work? Is it the clients that you're dealing with? I think getting it all out on paper and being super transparent and super honest with yourself is definitely step one, because a lot of people like to complain about their situations, but they don't like to reflect on what's causing them to feel that way and what's causing them to feel that stuck feeling. So that's definitely step number one. And then step number two, I always say is consider what options you have for doing something new or changing jobs. So the easiest kind of low hanging fruit is always, can you try a different project? Can you work on a different client? Can you try a different team if you work in a larger organization?

They're kind of easier options that you could potentially dip your toes in without having a complete 180 change in your career. So are there any ways that you can test different things? I think is a great strategy. And then after that, I guess it is looking for new roles. If you're really, truly unhappy, we spend over 90,000 hours of our life at work. So you need to be doing something that you can at least tolerate or bear instead of being bored or hating your life every morning when you wake up having to go to work. So I think it is really important to know at what point you do need a change, you do need a new job. So being able to recognize that is really important. And then from a personal perspective, I also think it's important to try and find joy and fun outside of work until you can find something new, whether that be having a hobby that you do after work, catching up with friends midweek for a dinner, whatever that is, finding ways outside of work that you can get that sense of fulfillment is also really important.

The joy factor, that's like the work-life balance that I hear people talk about all the time, all the work-life. My position is there is no work-life balance. Or if you search it, if you search for it, it's actually a pretty depressing thing at the end of the day because you sleep about a third of your life, you work about a third of your life. So with the whole mentality of work-life balance, you're telling me that you only really work, I'm sorry, you really only live a third of your life. And that's, to me, it's about work-life integration. So let's talk about the Simon Sinek why here for a second. Because I think that's, for me, at least it was over the past two years of recentering on my why, recentering on my values, helped me get out of the rut that I was in.

So where are you on that level of kind of focus of you, yourself, and there's the business as well, but you, yourself, why do you get out of bed? Why, you know, what are your core values to make decisions based off of? I think for me, and running an education business, a very digital community-led business, my whole why and my decisions come down to how can we better serve our community? How can we create new products, create new tools, have new projects that better help people to live better lives? So all my decisions within the business and my self-fulfillment from my work comes from have I been helping people? Do I get messages from people saying, thank you for these tips? Thank you for this.

It's changed my life. And I think that's kind of my metric for that. But going back to that work-life balance, work-life integration, I think something that's really important to note, especially if you run your own business or you're in sales-based roles is you will have seasons. There will be some seasons that are very work-intensive, busy seasons. And I think you need to lean into those seasons. And then you will have seasons where perhaps it's not as a heavy load at work and you're focusing more on a hobby or a personal endeavor. So I think really learning how to just go with those emotions, there will be periods where you might be dedicating most of your time to work. And I think that's okay.

Yeah. Yeah. There's almost this anti-hustle culture that has appeared where that, and that's one of the things that quite frankly concerns me a little bit about what's happening right now is the work ethic component to it or the how many options do I have? I have infinite options now. And so I get bored pretty quick, the role and I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore. Let me go do that. Right. And then all of a sudden, five days later, I have six, you know, names on my resume. I don't necessarily know if that matters anymore, not much anymore, but to kind of older school recruiters and stuff like that, they see that. So where, where's that balance, I guess, not work-life balance, but where's the balance of doing something you're passionate about, but so you don't get burned out.

Cause I, I know myself included entrepreneurs specifically get overwhelmed and have issues. It's almost like your body, you know, you want to take care of your body before it forces you to. So how do you take care of yourself as an entrepreneur to handle these highs and lows that are so significant and sometimes so smashed together to stay resilient and keep moving forward? But I think that is a massive challenge and something that I've definitely struggled with because when you are building your own business and it is kind of all on you at the end of the day, I think the tricky thing is knowing when to stop, take a break and take that step back. And I think something that I've had to learn because I've been burned out, I've been creatively burnt out and creatively burnt out is probably the worst one that you can have because you can't even create new things and new ideas for your business when you can't even think creatively.

And I think something that I've really learned is that rest is productive as well. Looking after yourself is productive as well. It is so important and you can't be your best and give your best if you are not allowing yourself to rest and look after yourself. So having that mentality change around rest and knowing that burnout isn't a badge of honor, it's not something to be proud of and setting those boundaries, saying no more to things that even if they're revenue generating, if you do not have the capacity for them, learning when to say no and be confident in that decision is so important. And yeah, I'm a big boundary setter now. I say no a lot more to opportunities that previously I would have said yes to everything.

I'm a lot stricter now, especially on weekends around my phone usage and social media usage. And I think it's really important because taking that time to step away and have a break allows you to come back with a fresher outlook, fresher ideas, and it ultimately benefits you in the business. I found that here in my house because we built, I was saying earlier, we built the attic and everything else. So now my house is my office. This is what I do. I go downstairs to get lunch every once in a while. But usually I'm here from 5.30 until 6 o'clock at night when I have to go eat dinner with my daughter and wife and then back up here around 8.49 o'clock until 4 o'clock in the morning. And when I find physically and mentally, if I do three, four, five days of those in a row without taking a break outside my house, because now my house is my work.

And I think that's a big challenge that a lot of people are faced with right now is I work, I live, so I feel like I'm almost working all the time. Do you have the mentality of change your environment, leave, change, dress differently when you're working? Does all that stuff help? Yes, absolutely. And I work fully from home or remotely as well. My team is remote. So for me, I think it's really important to get out to a cafe once a week and work from there or to mix it up and to go see people during the week, even if it's for a networking coffee or something like that. And breaking up your day, I think, is really important as opposed to just sitting at the computer for 12 hours a day, five days a week, six days a week, whatever it is, because you get in that kind of rut, as I like to say.

And yeah, I think it's really important to shake up your week and have different components outside of the house, outside of the office. And yeah, I think it keeps you fresh and keeps you moving. Let's shift gears here a minute, because I'm curious, your Instagram, the Smart Women's Society, you said it was a side hustle for you, and it was slow, authentic, you know, you just posting content A or you're seeing the day on LinkedIn, which is impressive because most people give up after like a month, and they don't see results. How did you, where did the, where did the growth growth come from, right? Because there's the grind growth that you do all that stuff, and then you start to see that hockey stick.

Where was that for you with your following, and why do you think it happened? I think a big thing that helped for us was people sharing our content, and it reaching their followers, and then it was kind of a snowball effect that people were sharing, other people were seeing it, and following us, and they were sharing things, and it kind of just built our organic traction on Instagram. TikTok also definitely helped. We jumped on TikTok in 2020 when it was really an early app, and we kind of got on that early early movers kind of run where we were taking advantage of the algorithm when it was still quite new, really getting a lot of traffic from TikTok that we could grow our community, redirect to our website, redirect to Instagram.

And yeah, I think it's about being consistent and just trying lots of new things. If a content wasn't working, I would try a different way of presenting it, a different way of presenting a video, and I think it's being really adaptable and testing a lot of different things to learn what your audience likes, as opposed to assuming what they like. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's sales, right? And ultimately, that's sales, where a lot of times you walk into a situation, you put your solution, but if you don't ask them questions, if you don't engage, you don't really know what they really want. Okay. So with Smart Women's Society, talk to me about the details of that here for a second. I mean, you talked about how you own, why you started it, but what is it?

And let me ask you this, as a part of this is, what are you most proud of as part of it? So online education. So we create different courses, different products and tools, like our wealth building dashboard, which is our best-selling budgeting tool, and people can grab those, work through them at their own time. We also create a lot of different content, a lot of content across our social media platform. I think we create over 100 pieces of content a week, which is quite a lot on every social media platform. And as well as that, we partner with different brands to create content, create products and yeah, deliver. At the end of the day, it's all about delivering value and useful tips to our community.

So as I said, I'm very passionate about our community and that purpose-led piece. And yeah, what makes me proud is when I get an email, when I get a DM from someone saying, I negotiated a new job and I got $30,000 more, or I'm now on track to buy my first home, or I'm your self-care tips have really helped me navigate burnout and stuff like that. So I think the, what I'm proud of and what I get that satisfaction of is knowing that the company has helped people. And I think that, yeah, that purpose-led piece is really impactful. What's up, everybody? I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heap.

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Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. The one thing you had mentioned earlier about COVID and how it had people reassess a lot of stuff. That's the one thing I hope a lot of people did do was reassess what their why is, what their values are, what makes them happy. Have you ever seen the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney? I haven't. Oh, you got to watch it. He's a traveling consultant who is usually called to come in and fire people, right? So when there's mass layoffs, he comes in, he sits with the person and she's the guy who delivers it.

And through the part of the movie, this woman comes in younger. She's trying to automate it all through this type of, and this was well before Zoom sessions in COVID, by the way, because now that's probably the norm. Well, she'll tweet is probably the norm about how you get fired these days. But what was interesting, she tried to automate all this stuff. And while she was doing that, he was taking on her, taking her own calls, meetings to sit next to him to see how this was done. And he fired the, she fired this one guy and he got all pissed off. And he was like, what the, you know, I got a wife and kids. And she's like, and then he goes, George steps in and goes, can I ask you something? I see you were a chef in your early career.

How much did they pay you to give up on your dream with the job that he had? He's like, who was the first one to pay you to give up on that dream? And you see him sit there and he's like, 32,000 a year. He goes, I see guys like you sit in this role for their entire lives, never feeling joy, never feeling happiness because they're stuck in a rut and they feel like they don't have any other. He's like, this is your chance, actually. Go do what you love now when you see him. And I think a lot of that was when you get fired. Have you ever been fired by the way? No, I haven't. When something like that happens, a lot of times it's the best thing that could ever happen to you because it forces you to start going back to burn the boat.

Like, okay, I don't have an option. I don't have that salary anymore. So it's the passion piece of it. It's challenging though because somebody like you and me, we can follow it because we've figured it out for a while. But a 22-year-old kid, how do you find your passion when you're younger? Because I don't think you know what you're passionate about. Yeah, and I think it is hard and people way beyond their 20s still haven't found their passion and I think it's about trying a lot of different things. I know some people innately know what their passion is and know what their dream job is and that's amazing if you do. I'm very jealous if you do. But I think otherwise it's about testing a lot of different things, trying a lot of different things, a really great activity that you can do is head down to your local bookstore, navigate through all the different aisles and see what you naturally gravitate towards.

And those kind of topics are potential leads of things that you're passionate about, areas that you could explore because we naturally gravitate towards certain things that we're interested in. So that is a really powerful activity that you can do to kind of help you have a starting point and then from there, it's how can you test different things? It might not be quitting your job to try a different job every six months, but it could be, can I take an online course? Can I start a bit of a side hustle? Can I go to a class to learn more about this? And I think, yeah, testing out different things and seeing when naturally you get excited and you feel passion and yeah, pursuing those. Yeah, I wish that was the mentality that colleges took, at least here in the States, because you know, you have to pick a major at 18 years old.

You have to pick something that you want to do for the rest of your life at 18 years old. That's ridiculous. I think, I think college should be the experimental ground. Try a bunch of stuff. Who cares? Go live on your friend's scout. Take those risks. When you said you were risk adverse, most entrepreneurs aren't. So, explain to me that. Maybe I'm not risk adverse. Maybe. I guess that, I guess risk is on a spectrum, I guess, based on how much risk there is. But I would definitely say that I'm always testing things. I'm always trying new things. So, in that way, definitely, I do take risks and I like testing new things to see what works in the business. But I guess my risk aversion came from being scared to take that jump, to take the business full-time and take it to the next level.

And I guess a lot of that probably came to mindset of, can I make this work? Can I figure this out? And I think what really helped me overcome that limiting belief was, what was the worst that could happen? I could always go back to my job. I could always find another job and really working through that risk aversion, if you want to call it, if you want to call it, limiting beliefs and challenging those limiting beliefs, I think was really helpful. And yeah. I love that. Actually, that's how I make my decisions these days is by asking myself, you know, what's the worst case scenario, right? If I make this move, if I do this thing, what is the absolute worst case scenario? And if I'm okay with that, I'm doing, I'm absolutely doing a thousand percent.

If I'm not okay with that, that worst case scenario, I might have to rethink and say, okay, let me take a slightly different approach to this. Cool. One more topic. What's one more thing in the book that you're getting asked about a lot and you think is the most important, one of the more important things to address? Oh, I think another big topic that a lot of people struggle with either being in their career or being self-employed or working in sales, like a lot of your listeners are, is that imposter syndrome piece. And I think that something that's important to realize is that every single person on this earth experiences imposter syndrome. It could be the biggest Hollywood star. You could be the leader of your field, the top expert, but imposter syndrome hits everyone.

It faces everyone. And I think learning how to deal with that and be okay and comfortable with pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. Learning new skills is such an important thing that you need to work on. Yeah. I actually learned something about myself where I was having a, we had a full blown podcast on imposter syndrome because I have it and it's real. Like, I, I don't know if it was because I, I know I always wasn't the smartest kid in the room, that type of thing. I didn't graduate that speech degree or anything like that. So anytime I see somebody with a pedigree, if you will, I don't know, should I be here? Then like five minutes in to the conversation, I'm like, oh, wait a minute.

But what I learned is you, one of the reasons you have imposter syndrome is because that's actually a good, because of me, they're moving up in your career, in your life and everything. Because what happens is once you reach that next level, whatever that level is, you've never been there before. And so you kind of have, you're like, shit, I never been, I don't know what I'm talking about. Okay. But then you figure it out and then you get to the next level. So actually, imposter syndrome is, is a good sign for people who are driven and successful. Um, but to your point, I think we all have it, um, I think more than others, some more than others. Mine's definitely on the further and the right scale of like, do I even, should I even show up to this?

Yeah, absolutely. And something, and a phrase that I love and I always say is, if you weren't ready for it, you wouldn't have the opportunity. And I think that is so powerful to repeat yourself and convince yourself of that, that you are worthy. It's not luck. You've worked hard for this to have that opportunity and you are worthy of good things. And I think it comes down to that. And yeah, your voice and your perspective is unique and really understanding that. And as you said, like moving to the next level, like a video game, you need to be overcoming new challenges, learning new skills. And yeah, reframing to view life or view business as a game, essentially that you're working up the levels, I think is a really powerful reframing.

Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. I think we all, we all have pieces that we need to work on. It sounds like your book has a lot of answers in those 130 topics that you're putting out there. So congrats. When did it launch, by the way? Um, it launched first of March here in Australia and it launched last week in the States. Awesome. Well, hopefully we can get some more people to check it out. So tell people where they can find out a little bit more information about you, about the book and everything else. And then we'll wrap it up. So you can purchase the book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You can check out Smart Women's Society at smartwomenssociety.com and also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, any other social media platform at Smart Women's Society.

Love it. Perfect. And, uh, you can also put a little on, uh, on LinkedIn. I'm sure you got some on your LinkedIn profile, but we're, we're like third connect. So I gotta, we gotta get connected. Um, is that a way that you like people to engage with you as well? Yeah, absolutely. Love meeting new people on LinkedIn. Perfect. So we'll put this all in the show notes, but for those listening, uh, it's Tia, T-E-I-A, Angelos. T-E-A, with an accent on the E. Yeah, with a, with a little tilted accent on the E. And then Angelos, A-N-G-E-L-O-S. So Tia, thank you so much for going on on the, on the show today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. And everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and got a few things to think about, um, to, to change your mental state or financial state or any of that stuff.

That's, uh, that's maybe ailing you right now, or you deal with some posture syndrome. Uh, so look, like I say, I always, uh, if you always podcast, out there makes somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad you think your day went or, uh, you think it's going, if you make somebody smile today, you know, you had a good day. The world needs a lot more of that right now. So thank you all very much. And I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests. We're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads. And I can't thank you enough to keep the momentum going.

If you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it. In return, I will answer any question that you have on Instagram. Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM, and I will get right back to you. I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year, and I'm actually going to be delivering training to the masses. I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month with our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join. And it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs.

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