Interviewer: Fire nation in the house. Jolly Dumas here and I am fired up to bring our featured guest today, Racheal Cook. Racheal, are you prepared to ignite?

Interviewee: I’m on fire, John. Let’s do it.

Interviewer: Yes! Racheal is a green smoothie enthusiast, restorative yoga advocate and business strategist who wants to live in a world where heart centered entrepreneurs have the mentorship and tools they need to bring their world changing ideas to life. Racheal, give fire nation just a little insight. So share more about your personally and expand upon the biz.

Interviewee: Okay. My name is Racheal. I am a mom of three kids under the age of five and I’ve been running my business, the Yogipreneur.com for the past six years. Biggest fun fact is that is this year I was actually at the point where I was able to let my husband quit his job after 10 years in the classroom so that he could come on board with me. So that’s pretty amazing that I’m at the point where I can let my husband leave his job and come work with me in my business.

So we’ve been helping yogi-hearted entrepreneurs learn the ins and outs of business from a more yogic perspective for the past years reaching over 10,000 yogis around the world and it’s been absolutely an incredible journey.

Interviewer: I mean Racheal did it feel to allow your hubby to stop the grind, just to be like baby, I got you. I got this. You don’t have to do that anymore.

Interviewee: It’s pretty amazing Jon, especially when for almost ten years, teachers have one of the hardest jobs on the planet and he was working in kind of an inner city type of school system. So he was leaving at like 5:00a.m, not coming back until late in the evening because he’d been there dealing with kids and families and school administration. So the relief and joy on his face made it so worth and I hear from my male counterparts all the time, they’re always pumped when they get to say, yeah, my wife could quit her job and I’m just excited because you don’t really hear many women saying well, my husband quit his.

Interviewer: That is amazing and I can just kind of see a lot of the female listeners right just kind of scheming right now, like what is it that I’m going to do that’s going to make this happen? I love just precedent that you’re setting Racheal and it’s really going to be a great theme throughout this entire interview and the reality is we’re both kind of bursting with energy right now. There’s a lot of happiness is going on in this conversation, but I want to squash that right now.

I’m going to take that. I’m going to pop rainbow balloon that we’ve been blowing up here because it’s not always amazing. We face massive struggles, massive obstacles in our journey and I want our listeners to know that that’s part of the game as well. So Racheal, take us to your worst entrepreneurial moment. Take us to that moment in time and tell us that story.

Interviewee: This is actually the moment that kick started my entrepreneurial journey because I think like many people who are type A, over achievers, super ambitious, we are always told that we have to chase this version of success, right? So I finished my MBA and was recruited into one of the biggest financial planning companies in the US to be a financial planner for small business owners and entrepreneurs and I spent several years building up this really successful and very lucrative financial planning process, but it got the point for me where I was really young.

I’m one of the probably youngest MBAs many people have ever met because I was 23 when I graduated with my MBA. So by 25, I had a lot more experience than most people our age, but I was getting frustrated and getting to the point of burnout. Like I said, I’m married and we’ve been together since we were 18.

So at 25, I was getting really annoyed and honestly completely heartbroken that I was spending more time with these people I was surrounding myself with in this office for 80 hours a week than my new husband and we’re sitting there talking about we want to start a family. We want to travel and see the world. There were all these dreams that we had for this life that we wanted to create together and it wasn’t happening. I was working all the time and while I had money in the bank, I just felt so emotionally depleted.

I didn’t feel like I was living a rich life. I felt like I was living someone else’s crazy life. So it really got to the point where, like I said, I was on the road to burnout. Well, burnout hit and it hit hard. I had adrenal fatigue. I started experiencing anxiety that literally had me afraid to get in my car and drive to work or to see my clients because I was having these panic attacks.

So after I got to the point where I was literally hitting this wall, I started looking up and looking at the people who were doing this type of work and I realized that the people who were 10 or 20 years ahead of me were incredibly unhappy. They were incredibly unhealthy. They were eating at their desk, eating on the go. They were not spending time with their family. They were not spending time with friends.

They had no life at all, like zero and what basically they were doing was waiting for someday to appear for them to finally live the life that they wanted. They were basically renting away the best year of their life until that someday, until retirement or whatever it is and there was never a point where anything was enough. It was – they were making great money. These were people who drove BMWs and had the nicest houses and all of – they had all the things, but they were so unhappy and I realized this is not the ladder that – or the place that I want to lean my ladder against.

This isn’t what I want to do with my life. I don’t want to be here. So I ended up after literally having 10 panic attacks in 10 weeks, I ended up on a yoga mat. I kind of pressed pause on my career and said I’ve got to figure this out.

I’ve got to figure out what do I really want and I had to give myself permission to want what I wanted which was to spend time with my husband, to have a family and we wanted to start our family pretty soon, to live a really beautiful, rich life, and so it was getting on that yoga mat that was the first step for me. It allowed me to heal myself physically. It allowed me to heal myself in a natural way.

I was able to get off any sort of anxiety medication and all the things that people want to put you on when you have burnout, and it kind of put me on this path of things started to happen that I didn’t plan for and the biggest thing was I realized while I was on my yoga mat and I was really focused on living this gorgeous life, people started coming into that life and saying, hey, you have all this business background. I’m sitting here running this yoga studio and I’m actually kind of struggling with it.

I don’t understand how I can build a community or how I can get more people in the door or what do I really need to be doing, and so just by taking care of myself and living this life that I wanted for myself, the right things started to happen. The right people started to come into my life and I realized that what came easily to me which is the business and the marketing and the strategy was actually not in the wheelhouse of most yoga teachers or studio owners or holistic healthcare entrepreneurs. So that’s how the Yogipreneur ended up being born because they literally came to me and said, hey, we know you have this background. Could you help us out with this?

Interviewer: So Racheal, there’s a lot of things that I want to just touch upon for Fire Nation because you brought up so many good points as you’re going throughout this tough time in your life. Number one, I know there are a lot of listeners that are resonating with your story and they’re saying, hey, that’s me. That’s me right now. I’m driving a BMW to work or I’m just stuck in a job that I just oh, it’s killing me softly every single day and there’s a quote that I want you to think about Fire Nation.

As your climbing whatever ladder it is and whatever career it is, whatever ladder you’re climbing right now, think about the reality is that when you get to the top, are you going to like the view because Racheal as you were saying you were looking at people that were close to the top of the ladder or were already there and they weren’t liking the view. They weren’t any happier than they were where you were still climbing that ladder from the bottom and that’s huge.

So you have to look ahead Fire Nation, see where people that are on the same path but years ahead, are they happy? Because, and you said this, and I love this as well someday and I love calling it someday-ial. We’re not in denial. We’re in someday-ial. Someday I’ll take that trip to Fiji. Someday I’ll go to Rome and see the Coliseum, someday-ial – but – and again another powerful phrase you said you’re renting the best days of your life away right now Fire Nation.

It’s not fun to see the Coliseum in a walker. It’s fun to see it when you can run around and jump off some of the ruins if they let you touch them. I mean that’s when you want to see these things, not during the latter years of your life, during the best days of your life. That’s when you want it.

So there’s so much we can talk about Racheal and so many value bombs you’re dropping, but I want to shift now because I want to go to another story in your journey and this story is going to be you’re a-ha moment, an epiphany that you’ve had, a lightbulb that went on and you’ve had a bunch, Racheal, but take us to one. Tell us one story of that lightbulb moment that you think will really impact Fire Nation.

Interviewee: Okay. I love this because as I’ve been growing this business, like I said, I’ve got three small children under the age of five. In fact, my twins are about to turn five in a few weeks and I have my youngest who’s about to be two soon. So it’s been a busy time having little ones while I’m growing this business and what’s complicated that situation is both of my pregnancies were extremely high risk, as in I was on bed rest for the majority of them.

I actually had a home healthcare aide come into give me what’s called a Zofran pump because I had a condition called hyperemesis which is like the worst morning sickness on the planet that’s 24/7 for months on end. So I think most women at that point are just like I have to give up. I can’t do this. I can’t build a business when I have really – the odds are stacked against. I have too much going on and what I realized really quickly was for me, I didn’t have that option.

My husband was a teacher. Living off a teaching salary is very difficult, just a single salary for a teacher is about $40,000 a year and you can’t raise kids on that. You can’t live very easily on that. So it wasn’t an option for me to just be like oh, I’ll just put this on pause for a while and come back to it. The mommy track wasn’t an option. I had to make it work and for me, the best way I made it work was I stopped making it so hard.

I stopped complicating everything and I think this is something that a lot of people, especially people starting online businesses which is the business model I follow. I have an online teaching and coaching business and I think a lot of people starting these businesses are so inundated with all the things that think they have to do. So they think they have to do all the social media and all the podcasting and all the blog posting and all the interviews and this and this and this, and then they have to create all these other programs and do all these types of things. It’s so overwhelming and it’s so incredibly taxing.

Interviewer: It’s paralyzing.

Interviewee: It’s paralyzing and really at the end of the day, it’s hard to get momentum if you’re just pushing one thing here and then turning around and pushing one thing here. You just can’t grow. So what I did is I uncomplicated. I focused on one strategy which was literally to write a newsletter every single week and then I only focused on one other strategy which was my core program, filling that and running it, and then filling it again and then running it again. I didn’t create a million other things.

I didn’t focus on trying to add more to the mix. I had one thing that I was focused on and so those periods where I was sick, I was still able to grow my business and I was still able to take care of my family and it all comes down to uncomplicating and just being able to focus on one thing at a time and then know that you can add onto that later, but if you have one solid thing that people know you for, they come to trust you and that’s the other piece of this for me was I saw a lot of people, especially people who consider themselves heart-centered, they’re a little bit more intuitive, a little bit more woo, woo, free flowing and what they’re not known is being consistent and I was consistent.

It was Thursday at 8 am, you’re going to get a newsletter from me. You’re going to hear from me and I figured out a way to make that happen and so over and over again, I would hear from these people. They’re like I don’t know how you produce so much stuff and I’m like I just keep at it. This is it. This is the plan. We’re working the plan and it makes such a huge difference.

Interviewer: There’s so many value bombs in here, again, Racheal, and I kind of want to talk about a couple things, but first do you know what my favorite acronym in the world for the word focus is?

Interviewee: I’ve heard it, but I’ll let you say it again.

Interviewer: No, I’m going to let you say it if you know it. I’m putting you on the spot, girl.

Interviewee: Oh, darn. I can’t remember it off the top of my head now. Dang it.

Interviewer: See you tried to get away with it. I wouldn’t let you. Follow – I’ll let you say it, Jon. I’ll let you say it. Follow one course until success and that’s what you did and your course was one newsletter every Thursday and you’re right. You were in a world that wasn’t that consistent, that wasn’t their focus of being consistent and that’s exactly what stood entrepreneur on fire apart, Racheal. Nobody was willing to do a daily show, to maintain that consistency and most people would do like a once every so often show.

You never knew when that next show was coming out and for you, you built up a loyal audience with that consistency. You built up a fan base to know, like and trust that you were going to deliver content and when you said you were, and that Fire Nation is how you build your tribe by going one inch wide and one mile deep. Racheal was not trying to go one mile wide and one inch deep on a million different things.

She dominated one area, made that her cornerstone, her foundation, and she built a thriving business off of it. So what is going to be your one thing and Racheal we’re moving into the 60 second questions and I challenge my guests. So I’m challenging you to keep it at 60 seconds or less. Ideally, what do you do in the first 60 minutes of your day?

Interviewee: Oh, the first 60 minutes of my day are actually the most laid back time in my entire day and that’s because, especially with little children, I hear from a lot of moms, whether you have a business or you’re just a working or you’re a stay at home mom, those first 60 minutes trying to get everybody going can be some of the most stressful, tear your hair out times in your family, right?

Well, what I realized really quickly was it didn’t have to be that way. We could design our mornings to be simple and so one of the biggest things I do first I make sure I wake up a half hour before my children so I have a half hour to take care of myself, to do whatever I need to do and for me that’s usually a little bit of meditation, a little bit of personal care stuff and really just give myself a little bit of time to wake up, and then when my kids are up, we keep it so simple, Jon. We know that every morning, everyone’s having oatmeal and I’m having my bullet proof coffee and then when it’s time to go out the door, their book bags were packed yesterday. So there’s no stress.

There’s no thing to worry about. There’s no like somebody turning the car around, saying Mom, I forgot my folder. It’s done. We have it. So I think that’s the biggest thing I do is just uncomplicated it, give myself space, get up before the kids so that I have some time for myself.

Interviewer: And Racheal this is your ideal morning and that’s why I love this question. So that was beautiful and what I want you to really pull out of this, Fire Nation, is that she’s setting up schedules and plans so she’s not just having to recreate the wheel every single morning, like okay, what do I have today? No, the plans are in place and Racheal, what is your biggest strength as an entrepreneur?

Interviewee: My biggest strength is uncomplicating things. It’s really easy to overcomplicate pretty much everything in your business, in your life. It’s really easy to overcomplicate your marketing strategy. It’s easy to overcomplicate your launches. It’s easy to overcomplicate your programs and your services. What I’m really good at is stripping things down to Zen like simplicity and making it as easy as possible to take consistent, inspired action.

Interviewer: KISS, Fire Nation, Keep it super simple. Racheal, what’s your biggest weakness?

Interviewee: My biggest weakness is saying no.

Interviewer: There’s a quote by Derek Severs that I’ve adopted by the way for 2015. If it’s not a heck yes, it’s a no. If you’re not fired up about it, Fire Nation, then it needs to be a no and that’s not always the beginning of your journey. I said yes to a lot of things getting my business off the ground that I would never say yes to know and that’s what you do when you put in the time and the effort, but when you’ve reached a certain level like Racheal has, things need to take priority and you need to start saying no. You need to start saying no.

Interviewee: I have to tell you in the last year, we grew my business dramatically in the last year and I was just getting off the phone with a girlfriend and I said I feel like I went through P90X of saying no in the last quarter of last year. All I was saying to people was like, thank you, but no.

Interviewer: Yeah. There’s always another telesummit, believe me.

Interviewee: Yeah, exactly.

Interviewer: Racheal, what is the one habit that you wish you had?

Interviewee: The one habit I wish I had would probably be the desire to get up and do a vigorous workout, but I’m a restorative yogi which is basically yoga where you’re taking a nap. It’s the best thing ever. I used to be a power yogi before I had children and it’s funny. All of the ambitious type A traits of myself really were in play when I was really into power yoga and being the best at yoga. The winning at the yoga was kind of the focus, but now that I’m a mom and I need that kind of relaxation time and me space, I kind of want to sit there and be supported.

Interviewer: I love it. What is the one thing, Racheal, of all the things that you have going on right now that has you most fired up?

Interviewee: It’s actually my fired up and focused challenge.

Interviewer: Fitting.

Interviewee: Yeah, exactly. I run a challenge that I kicked off last year and I run it several times a year called the fired up and focused challenge and essentially, it’s a productivity and CEO mindset challenge, but really what it does is allow people to understand how they can use mindfulness as a practice in their business to create more ease and less stress.

Interviewer: Love this Racheal, love the branding of it and we are not going to let you go because we’re about to enter the lightening round, but before we do to thank your sponsors. Racheal, welcome to the lightening round where you get to share incredible resources and mind blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Interviewee: I’ll do my best.

Interviewer: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Interviewee: The biggest thing holding me back was the fact that my dad is an entrepreneur and very successful at what he does and I’m nothing like him. He’s very outgoing and very charming. He’s one of those guys who just can charm the pants off anybody and I’m very introverted. I was very much a book worm growing up so I always equated being an entrepreneur with somebody who had to be like really good with working a room and always being on. I realized pretty quickly that I could just be me and find a business that fit my personality and that’s what I’ve been able to do.

Interviewer: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Interviewee: Listen to your intuition. She’s your best business advisor.

Interviewer: Share one your personal habits that you do have Racheal that you believe contribute to your success.

Interviewee: Single touching, single minded focus. I do not multitask anymore. It was a hard habit to break, but I now am able to sit down and get into action really quickly without a lot of distractions.

Interviewer: And what’s really interesting, too, is that word multitask is so misused. It’s impossible for even computers to multitask, let alone humans. Whenever we’re doing something, we think we’re doing two things at once, we’re really skipping back and forth, giving very limited, not focus of what we need to either or. So do you have an internet resource, Racheal, like Ever Note, that you can share with our listeners?

Interviewee: My favorite would be Simplero.com which is an all in one marketing platform specifically designed for online teaching and coaching businesses. I moved to it about 18 months again and it has completely changed my business.

Interviewer: I love that. If you could recommend one book for our listeners, what would it be and why?

Interviewee: The Desire Map by Danielle LaPorte and the biggest reason for that is like I’ve said before, I am naturally a very type A, ambitious overachiever type of person which means traditional goal setting was really easy for me. If I set a goal, I was going to crush it and I was going to get whatever the thing was that I wanted, but often the thing that I wanted wasn’t going to actually give me fulfillment. It wasn’t actually what I needed. So The Desire Map kind of took the practice I’d created for myself a level deeper because it gave me permission to really tune into what I want to experience.

Interviewer: Well, Fire Nation, I know that you love audio. So I teamed up with Audible and if you haven’t already, you can get an amazing audio book for free at eofirebook.com and Racheal is the last of the lightening round, but it’s a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world identical to earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter is taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500. What would you do in the next seven days?

Interviewee: This question is so hard because honestly, Jon, the first thing that I would do is cry that my kids aren’t with me because they’re literally a part of me.

Interviewer: Of course. I hear you.

Interviewee: So if I woke up and that part of my brain was erased, honestly I would probably take my journal, like an actual pen and paper journal, and just observe, just listen. I would find my people. I would explore the world around me and maybe in the last little bit, I’d start writing about it and start seeing how I could serve people.

Interviewer: Serve people, build relationships and just be present, Fire Nation. There’s a lot of things within that and Racheal, you’re all about the fire brand. I love it. You’ve been on fire today and thank you for that, but I want to end on fire. So give us this killer parting piece of guidance then share the best way that we can connect with you then we’ll say goodbye.

Interviewee: Okay. My biggest piece of advice would be to design a life that you love and then build a business that allows you to support it and where you can find me is two places, either at the yogipreneur.com where I teach yogis the ins and outs of heart-centered online business or more recently you can follow me over onto rachealcook.com where I’ll be sharing a little bit more personal insights about my own journey exploring this world of creating a business and a life I love.

Interviewer: Well, Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people that you spend the most time with and you have been hanging out with Racheal and JLD today. So keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com. Just type Racheal in the search bar. Her show page will pop up with the links to everything that we’ve talked about today and oh so much more. Racheal, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today and for that girl, we salute and we’ll catch you on the flip side.

Interviewee: Thanks, Jon.