Natasa: I am prepared to ignite, absolutely.

John: Natasa is the Ultimate 48 Hour Author and Mumpreneur. With three children under 6, she has built a seven-figure business helping coaches, consultants, speakers and small business owners write their books in just 48 hours. In just the last 13 months, she has helped 55 people become first-time published authors, to skyrocket their credibility and businesses to the next level. Natasa, say what’s up to Fire Nation and share what’s going on in your world right now.

Natasa: Well, I have just come home from a national speaker’s association event and I have had an amazing connection with so many people and people that are my ideal clients if you like, and I did a workshop there which really went off and I’m a busy girl.

John: Definitely busy but you’re busy doing the things that you’re choosing to do and that’s the key Natasa, that’s what we’re so excited about and why we’re really fortunate to have you on the show today because we’re gonna talk about some of those things. But before we get into anything else, I really do wanna dive into the five insights into your mind. I’ll ask five questions and just kinda take your time, take about a minute’ish to answer these five questions, and No. 1 being, ideally, what do the first 80 minutes of your day look like?

Natasa: They’re very hectic because as you said I have three kids under 6 and the youngest being a 4 month old which I’ve been taking around the country in Australia here on my road trips as I’m feeding her still, and it’s very much about getting myself and the kids organized. I’m very blessed to have my husband in the business, and he does take care of a lot of that sort of stuff. But then once that’s sorted out, I check through my social media. I’m really big on social media and my emails and looking at my day ahead as to who do I need to talk to, where do I need to be and get excited for the day.

John: Love it. I just love the kind of barriers you’re breaking down right now Natasa because so many people, and not you Fire Nation of course, but so many people let the excuse of kids or a job or this or that hold them back and you know what? Those are real responsibilities and they’re real time commitments, but it doesn’t have to be the excuse that holds you back, and you’re the perfect example of that Natasa. Now, share with us your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur.

Natasa: Oh, I thought about this and I’m thinking it has to be listening. I’m not very good at listening. My husband is. I’m more of a go out there, take action, do, do, do. I do listen, but I would have to say that’s my biggest weakness if I had to nail it down because yeah, you have to have some weaknesses. Otherwise –

John: Of course and what I’m really honing in on Natasa that I love is that you said your husband, who’s on your team, is a good listener, and that’s so critical because that’s what we need to be doing Fire Nation. As we’re building our teams, identify our weaknesses, find people who have strengths in those weaknesses and bring them on. I mean this isn’t a thing that we need to do at all; don’t have that superhero syndrome, and Natasa, what is your biggest strength?

Natasa: Relationship building. I am a big networker. I love going out to events, running events and maintaining my relationships. They’re all about long term, and I have built my business because of being that people person. I’m very, very consistent. I consistently attend a couple of events every week. I consistently run my webinars, my seminars and retreats obviously, which is the core of our business, and that is how I’ve built my business.

I have never needed to be – I believe there’re two types of marketers out there or sellers, push sellers and pull. And I very much think my business has grown in a pull type of selling approach where people see me. I lead by example, and I build that relationship and show the people that I care and the rest just takes care of itself.

John: Yeah, Natasa, I like to call that magnetic marketing because you’re just like a magnet. You’re drawing people into you by setting the example, by being transparent and honest and genuine and then providing results and value. And Natasa, you have a lot of great habits. You wouldn’t be able to do what you do with three kids under the age of 6 if you didn’t, but what’s a habit that you wish you had?

Natasa: Oh, the ability to switch off between business and relaxation time. So, when we go on holidays, it takes me a few days, sometimes up to a week, to be able to just go I’m not looking at anything. So, if I can do that daily, maybe for five or ten minutes, that would be awesome, but that is still a challenge, but I am working on it so we’ll see how it goes. I’m a mad person.

John: Well, goodness, if it takes you a week to turn off, how long are these holidays you’re taking?

Natasa: Oh, we actually work only nine months out of the year.

John: Beautiful.

Natasa: So, we take five weeks off. Coming up in May, we’re gonna go to Europe and then over Christmas, we’ll take five/six weeks off and we have heaps of other mini holidays. We like to call them between three and five days.

John: So cool, good for you. Now, you do, as we’ve been talking about, have a lot of cool things going on, but if you had to just break it down for Fire Nation and share us the one thing that has you most fired up today, what is that?

Natasa: My Ultimate 48 Hour Author retreats. I love them. They completely align with my values of doing it fast, fun and helping people get famous. So, I love collaborating, connecting also with other successful entrepreneurs. I happen to be magnetizing other very successful people into my life which is exciting around the collaborative ventures we are going to be having together, but absolutely that’s the people side of me and obviously the retreats, it fulfills me because I get to help people leave their legacy behind and help them build their businesses which is so great to see the looks on their faces.

John: You know I love that you said legacy and that’s what we’re all doing as entrepreneurs, we’re building a legacy. But with legacy comes a history, and we both, as every single person listening here today have a history, and I want you Natasa to take us back in your history to a time that you would consider your worst entrepreneurial moments. But Natasa, I don’t want you to just take us there, I want you to tell us that story and really share with us your lessons learned.

Natasa: It’s actually a little bit personal. It has to do with a moment in time when I was working very, very long hours. I was in a day job as well as building up my business, and there wasn’t much attraction in the first 12 to 18 months and really it took me about two and a half years to get going. And I remember, you know, whining and crying to my husband about not being able to buy my son a toy. At the time, we only had my son, and my mom was buying him clothes and I said to him, “I can’t believe I can’t buy my son even a toy,” and it’s those personal sacrifices. I think that was my worst moment.

It wasn’t so much about the business. I’ve always moved through and yes, we’ve had setbacks and things that didn’t work out, but I think that was the worst because I had to actually sacrifice a bit of time like that quote that they say that, “Entrepreneurs live a few years of their life like most people can so they can live the rest of their life like most people” – oh, it’s the other way around, [inaudible][00:08:15], we’ll switch them around, but yeah, I had to give up those two years to really make the business a success so that now what we enjoy is an absolute wonderful quality lifestyle as well as time together.

John: That is my biggest takeaway. Sometimes you just need to put the work in at the beginning and that can really make all of the difference for you living that life that you want to later on. So, that’s my biggest take away from that Natasa. What do you, and maybe just one sentence sum it up for Fire Nation, what do you wanna share with us?

Natasa: It’s not easy, but it is worth it and I absolutely love what I do and it’s about, you know, if you can help other people get their dreams, your dreams will be taken care of and I’m a big believer of that and that Givers Gain Philosophy.

John: I love the Givers Gain Philosophy and I’ve had a great guest on now twice, Bob Berg, who is the go giver and just that mentality and that philosophy for me just rings so strong for entrepreneurs. And Natasa, what I’d love to do now is kinda take a step back and maybe shift to another story in your life.

And this one’s gonna be just as in the moment as your last one, but it’s gonna be about an epiphany, an ah ha moment that you’ve had at some point in your journey. So, take us to that moment. Tell us that story and then walk us through the steps you took to turn that actual idea, that ah ha moment, into success.

Natasa: Yes, I love this one. I was going to write my second book with someone. We were gonna co write it, and I was sitting with her in my office and we’re planning a weekend away when we were gonna write this book. And we said to each other, like I planned out this itinerary of we’re gonna type for 90 minutes and then we’re gonna have a break for, you know, 15 and then type again.

And as I was sitting there, I had interviewed this social media expert because it was gonna be a book on how to market from the couch because both of us have done amazingly in terms of marketing online and I was thinking about this and the guy who I interviewed. I recorded our interview just like we’re in now, and I ended up transcribing it. When it actually came back, it was pretty much perfect. It was ready to just be stuck into the book, and I realized that why couldn’t we do that to write our book.

Why couldn’t we speak out our expertise and get it transcribed therefore shortcutting the process tenfold? And that was the moment when we did that. We went away on this weekend, what was gonna be really hard work and it ended up being three hours each of speaking, which was I’ve delivered the next book and that became ultimately The Ultimate 48 Hour Author System and way of doing it.

So, I realized that if I can do this for myself, I can, with templates and a system and obviously dissecting it for people, I can try and encourage them to do it and therefore get their books done in 48 hours and become authors. So, that was my biggest ah ha moment. That obviously led us to our seven-figure business.

John: Wow, I mean Fire Nation; I just love how this ah ha moment materialized. And for me, what this really says, what I really want you Fire Nation to be absorbing is it takes actually living in that moment in time. It takes actually doing that thing that you’re passionate about and putting those ideas down and maybe scratching them back off because they’re just not gonna work but still being in that moment and living in that.

And there’s a great book, I’ve mentioned it a few times because it’s been so impactful to me as of late, and it’s called The Idea Machine and that’s by Claudia Altucher where you sit down and you write ten ideas every single day. And that is where these ah ha moments come from, not just out of the sky to nowhere but from doing the work as Steven Pressfield would say.

So, Natasa, that’s what I’m really getting out of what you’re sharing, but again, I want you to do the same thing for right here which you did for the worst moment story, kinda sum up for Fire Nation the one takeaway in one sentence that you really wanna make sure that we take away.

Natasa: Okay. So, for this one, I think if you can look back on what you have achieved yourself, so what’s within you because I often say to my authors, you know, look at what do other people actually see in you that they want for themselves? That’s one question to ask yourself. And actually what have you achieved and overcome for yourself because you may be able to turn that into an amazing business as I have. And I keep looking at that, and I’m very intuitive nowadays to figure out what people want from me because there are certain things that I’m doing well.

Like a lot of my mumpreneurs want to ask me questions as to how I juggle family and business and they’re consistently being gravitated towards me. Now, I haven’t even gotten onto that program and system for these guys, but I have already got a couple of other things that I can put out there when I choose to and [inaudible][00:13:25] because there’re more skills, but I think also stay focused. I think there’s not a lack of ideas in this world. I think there’s a lack of focus.

John: Well, you know one of my favorite words Natasa is focus. Follow one course until success. I just love that acronym. And hey, I found that quote that you were struggling with a little there. “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”

Natasa: Yay, that’s it –

[Crosstalk]

John: Boom, that’s the one Fire Nation, yes. So, Natasa, I’m not letting you go anywhere girl because we have some great questions coming up for you in the lightning rounds, but before we get there, let’s take a minute to thank our sponsors. Natasa, welcome to the lightning round where you get to share incredible resources and mind blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Natasa: Yes, let’s go.

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

Natasa: I think myself. A lot of people are in their own way of their own success and also, not holding me back, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know until you have that defining moment in your life to really push through and go, you know, I don’t have to live this way and I can step up and create those choices.

John: I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I love that because Fire Nation, sometimes ignorance can be bliss, but sometimes ignorance can just be ignorance. So, Natasa, what is the best advice you’ve ever received?

Natasa: It was from my very first mentor and about 30 months into my journey and he said to me, “Nat, don’t be too pressured on anything.” And it was at the time when we rebranded from my original brand, which was a total flop into the first [inaudible][00:15:25] business. And since he said that to me, it always rings in my mind when I keep doing the same thing over and over so don’t be too pressured and anything changes. If it’s not working, let it go even if you’ve put in a lot of hours into it, just get on and try something different.

John: Yeah, it’s a quote I love going back to every now and then is that sometimes the only way to get out of a hole is to stop digging, you know, our most precious resource Fire Nation is time so when you feel, your intuition, your gut is telling you you might not be going down the right path, take a step back, really identify, am I going down the path I wanna be going? Ask trusted advisors if this is what they think you should be doing and if it’s not, don’t be afraid to adjust and to pivot. It’s a wide world out there. And Nat, what is a personal habit that you do have that you believe contributes to your success?

Natasa: Without a doubt, my consistency, without a doubt. I turn up time and time again and do the work and take those small steps. I know that you cannot build a huge building overnight so it’s about putting those bricks down one at a time and going out there, meeting that one person at a time and taking the time to be able to connect with them properly so the relationships, the small steps and the consistent action over a period of time.

John: It’s huge Fire Nation. You need to build that foundation just like Nat said, one brick at a time. And that’s why I love recommending the book The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson because it really dives into detail about how just doing the little things right but consistently every single day will give you over time the slight edge that ends up being this massive, massive lead and just awesomeness down the road. And Nat, do you have an Internet resource like Evernote that you can share with our listeners?

Natasa: Well, mine is actually a little bit – something that I use for my social media is Word Swag. It’s on mobile devices and it creates little backgrounds where you can put wording over, your own little quotes, as well as you can with your pictures. I love to post pictures of my family and put little sayings onto them, but also you can do that with your events.

So, if you’re running anything that you wanna promote, you can type over it and create just a little nice image that I use on social media. It gets a lot of – attracts like when people are scrolling through their fades, these images actually make them stop because I’ve seen my interaction increase a lot. When I do make a hot deal or an offer as I do on every Tuesday through our very popular Facebook group, it makes my hot offers go like hotcakes. So, it’s called the Word Swag.

John: Very cool. And Nat, if you could recommend one book for our listeners, what would it be and why?

Natasa: Well, what do you think I’m gonna recommend? Ultimate 48 Hour Author obviously would be my book that I would recommend, but the one that really got me started on this journey, and it still so relevant to me today, is by an Australian author Terry Hawkins, which is spelled with a Y, Terry, and she actually lives over in the U.S. at the moment. She’s built her amazing global business, and that book is called There are Two Times in Life, NOW & TOO LATE. And I just love that one. It’s a very simple book, very easy to read but so many lessons and that’s been my all time favorite.

John: Ultimate 48 Hour Author and There are Two Times in Life, NOW & TOO LATE. And Fire Nation, I know 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 Natasa, this next question is the last of the lightning 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 taken care of, but all you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Natasa: All right, this is an interesting one. I would set up an event via Eventbrite, which doesn’t cost anything so that people can buy tickets to come along to my event. Then I would hire a venue and I would then go along to as many networking events as possible to get people to come along to my half-day event. And then I would sell, as a result of that, my retreats that I run which is a very successful strategy for me. That’s how usually they eventuate and yeah, $500.00 would cover the attendance at the networking as well as the hire of a semi-decent room.

John: Love it. I mean Fire Nation, this is what happens when you put one foot in front of the other, take action, create content and create offers. I mean this is the process to take. And Natasa, I want to end this interview the same way that we started … on fire. So, share one parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you and then we’ll say goodbye.

Natasa: Well, I’d love to connect with you and actually give you a gift which is a copy of my Ultimate 48 Hour Author book that I just recommended, and I have set it up for you guys at ultimate48hourauthor.com.au and it is forward slash I think fire as you guys are used to getting those links. I absolutely would love to connect with anyone, Facebook, LinkedIn, look me up; say hello and I’d love to stay in touch. It’s been an absolute pleasure and just do the work.

John: Do the work. And Fire Nation, you know this. You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You’ve been hanging out with Nat D and JL D today so keep up the heat and head over to eofire.com, just type Natasa, that’s N – A – T – A – S – A in the search bar. Her show notes page will pop right up.

And Natasa I wanna thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today and for your great gift, ultimate48hourauthor.com.au/fire. So, go check that out. That’s gonna be waiting for you as well on the show notes, obviously at eofire.com, so really exciting stuff, the free book for you as being a listener of Entrepreneur on Fire, and Natasa, Fire Nation salutes you and we’ll catch you on the flipside.

Natasa: Thanks John.