Small But Mighty Episode 7: Lydia Di Francesco on avoiding burnout, finding your niche

For eight years, Lydia Di Francesco, a Stress-Reduced Fat Loss™ Practitioner, has worked in the wellness industry and built a successful business. Like so many business owners, though, she’s had her struggles. In this episode, Lydia shared what she’s learned about narrowing down her target market and the impact burnout had on her both personally and as a business owner.

When you own a business, you have to be intentional about designing your whole life, including the business because it’s never separate (not that work is for corporate workers, for that matter). In this episode, learn how Lydia Di Francesco, a Stress-Reduced Fat Loss™ Practitioner, has taken her lessons learned through these struggles to come out better than ever.

It was no surprise to me to learn Lydia has a marketing background (well, it kind of was—not sure how I missed that little detail given how long we’ve known each other!) When I think of small businesses I’ve followed, Lydia’s marketing has always been consistent, confident, and well done.

Whether it’s business models, discovering her ideal client, or sharing how she burned out (and then recovered), her openness in talking about her business journey with a few different kinds of curves along the way is well worth your time.

Be sure to follow Lydia on her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Full episode transcript:

Karen: Hello. Welcome to The Small But Mighty Biz Stories podcast. I'm here today with Lydia DiFrancesco of Fit + Healthy 365. Hello, Lydia. How are you?

Lydia Di Francesco: Hi, Karen, I'm doing great. How are you?

Karen: I'm good, thank you. It's good to have you on.

Lydia: Thanks for having me.

Karen: Lydia, tell me about yourself and your business. What do you do?

Lydia: Sure. I've been in the wellness industry now for eight-plus years. It's kind of crazy to think about it. Sometimes it feels like I just started and then sometimes it feels like I've been doing it for a long time. It's been eight years in the wellness industry. Right now, I'm working with women as a stress-reduced fat loss practitioner.

Karen: Awesome. That's great. How's that going because I think you just started a new program recently?

Lydia: I did, yes. Basically, a lot of people are curious about how I got started in my business. It all actually happened by accident. I was working in a marketing agency and exercising at GoodLife, participating in their BODYPUMP class, and then one day, there was a sign saying, "Looking for instructors." I had been observing the instructors and noticing patterns and thinking like, "Oh, I think I'd be a good instructor." When this sign came up I thought, "Well, why not? I think it will be fun."

I tried out and I made it and really just loved it and really started falling in love with fitness and helping people, and it really just snowballed from there into teaching more classes. It was very part-time at the beginning. Then the more I got into it, the more I really enjoyed helping people and making a difference in people's lives. It got to a point where I wanted to do more individual work. Group stuff is really fun, but it's hard to really effect a lot of change in a group setting, especially group fitness.

Then I became certified as a personal trainer and got a job working for a company doing personal training, and actually marketing at the same time. It was a good fit at the time. We both realized we had the same things that we wanted, so it was a really great fit for a certain period of time. Then I realized that I had different ambitions and goals and things that I wanted to be doing professionally and that it wasn't really going to work within that company.

So, I chatted with a friend who had her own company and realized that, somewhat naively, how easy it could be.

In a certain sense, it was really—you're laughing because you know—in a certain sense, it was really easy to set up a business and to do it, and in another sense, there was a lot more involved, a lot more expenses that I didn't anticipate, and some more challenges for sure, but it was fairly easy to set up and to really step into my own thing. Honestly, it been--

Karen: What were some of the challenges that you ran into in those early days that caught you off-guard?

Lydia: I would say, definitely, I was-- Some of the financial stuff. Even just the idea of having a website and paying for that, which is, I did have a website before, but even things like then, getting an email, marketing, mailing subscription and other different little minor, like a Vimeo subscription, for example, if I wanted to host videos. Rent, of course. I decided to rent a facility instead of trying to go and buy a whole building and then furnish it and that's a $100,000 project. I did a very low-cost, low-overhead way.

I also, I think, underestimated a bit more of how challenging it would be to get clients, and really just the marketing and establishing myself and that side of things. It was great, not to say that—I've always basically made a profit since I started my business, which is awesome. Some months are leaner than others, at the beginning for sure. It just was all those little unexpected, little things that add up to then a larger expenditure amount.

Also, the idea, again, I think I was a little naive in the whole concept of—especially because in the personal training business, you trade dollars for hours. I get paid when I see clients. I don't get paid when I don't see clients.

[phone rings]

Sorry. It's my sister. You can just edit that bit out. I'll just repeat what I said. Actually, give me a second because I'll tell her not to call me. She's my emergency person, so even when I want to do that-- You know what, I'll just turn my thing on silent. That will be good. Okay. Sorry, I should have done that.

Karen: It's all good.

Lydia: What was I saying? I was talking about--

Karen: Expenses?

Lydia: Yes, the dollars for hours. Another thing that I didn't really factor in was the idea of the trading dollars for hours. I went to it thinking that when I calculate how many clients I can have and how much I'll make, it was like, "Oh, I'll make the same amount of money." Not realizing, again, the expenses. Also, I realized, I was like, "Oh, I'll be working less hours," except, no, not really. [laughs]

That definitely was a little bit of, not a surprise, but it's just something that I wasn't expecting. Again, because obviously, there's more involved in especially the marketing side, getting the clients, and even just all the other little admin type of things that—and the projects that I wanted to take on and all that kind of stuff, which is all really great—but it meant that I wasn't necessarily working any less hours. Initially, I was making less dollars than I was when I was in a job.

However, it was 100% worth it. I'm in a super great place now, loving what I'm doing. Things are flowing really nicely. Definitely lots of ups and downs over the years. It's actually really funny when I look back because part of the reason why I wanted to leave the J-O-B was that I didn't feel like I was growing when I was in that position. I had bosses that were not really providing good leadership and good mentorship and I just didn't feel like I was supported in that sense. Well, let me tell you if anybody is out there listening and wants to do some personal development, just start a business because…

Karen: It's true.

Lydia: …I could not even imagine the amount of personal growth that I have undergone in the last eight years essentially, or six years, I think it's been, that I've actually been on my own 100% full-time. It's been remarkable, again, totally worth it. Not always easy, but I certainly got what I asked for in terms of personal development.

Karen: It's a lot more fulfilling, too, when you're the one that's steering in the direction you want to go and you're making all of those executive decisions knowing that you're following your values, your beliefs and how you want to design, not just your business but your life.

Lydia: Yes. That was a big thing for me, was the flexibility of scheduling and working when I want to work and taking vacations when I wanted to take vacations. I still love that aspect. I've gotten a lot better with boundaries and structuring my time and being really good and also, learning about myself too, and what I like and what I don't like in terms of how I work and when I work and times of the day when it's better for me to be doing certain work tasks.

For example, afternoons are not really ideal for me to be doing a lot of thinking, creation work because I'm a little bit more in a lull in the afternoon and just with the way my circadian rhythm works. Mornings are a very hyperactive time for me, so that's a really great time for me to be doing some creation. Just you learn along the way. It's just been an interesting ride for sure.

Karen: Yes, it's funny because one of the things that I like about having my own business and being able to decide when and how I work is being able to figure those things out about myself and give myself the flexibility to say nine to five isn't the right time for me, but I can work—for me, I actually have some of my best creative energy late into the night. I'm a bit of a night owl.

Lydia: Oh, yes, not me.

Karen: I've trained myself to be more of an early bird, so I have to be careful because sometimes that energy goes into the evening and then I have to get up early the next day.

Lydia: I know. I don't work in the evenings. I've been really good about this the whole time I've been in my own business, I don't work on weekends. Pretty much. I never train clients on weekends. I'll do some business admin or marketing stuff, like social media, that kind of thing on the weekends but minimally. A lot of times I do try to not work on the weekends.

Again, there's that flexibility that we talked about where I had my niece come visit me for a week and so maybe—I don't even remember now if I did end up working on the weekend or not, I might have, but during the week I wasn't doing much work. I was doing the bare minimum of client sessions and client appointments and that sort of thing, and a bit of other stuff that I needed to do. Then the rest of the time was with her. Which is amazing. I love that I have that flexibility, which means that maybe I do have to work on the weekend.

One of the things I noticed the most, actually this year, I would say it was the most evident, was that I've really designed a life that I don't need to escape from. That's been really awesome. Generally, I don't like winters. I always go away down South and oftentimes it feels like I really, really need to get away. I need the break, I need the sun whatever and this past year, it wasn't like that. I definitely enjoyed going away, but it wasn't that same urgency feeling about it.

I've had times where in previous years, last year I think when I went away and I actually did some work on my trip because I totally wanted to. I didn't do it because I felt like I was forced to or that I needed to. It was just more like, I really am enjoying this, and I had some inspirations of whatever. I did do some work and again, it's nice that the obligation doesn't always feel like it's there, which is a great thing.

Karen: For sure. You were talking about your business story and you left the J-O-B and then you started your business, it hit those challenges. How has your business evolved since you got started?

Lydia: Wow. That's a big loaded question in the sense that it's evolved actually quite a bit which is really, really fun. I know we've known each other now quite a long time and I think we even met probably when I first was starting out in my business.

Karen: You were still in your job actually, when we met.

Lydia: I was. That's right! Yes, I was.

Karen: That long ago.

Lydia: Oh my gosh. That's amazing. It's been that long. Basically, like I said, so I started out after I left the job. I was doing personal training, just personal training in person in studio one-on-one. Then after a little while, I was like, "I want to be able to work remotely or work from wherever, whenever kind of thing." That long ago, probably five years ago, I created a program called the 15-minute workout club and I had filmed myself doing online workout videos. It was, I'll say, mildly successful in the sense that I didn't lose money doing it.

I realized that because of that type of business model being low costs, $20 to $50 max for a membership, it was basically a membership site that I would need to have 300 plus members to make it really profitable and really bring in a good income. Honestly just, I realized it wasn't the right thing for me. Again, that's where I talked about learning a lot about myself. I learned that that type of model where all I did was produce stuff and then give it to people but then I wasn't knowing if anybody was using it or what they were doing on the other end. That's my fault because I didn't build any interactive stuff, but a lot of those membership sites don't.

I realized that that actually made me not motivated to create more workout videos. Because I was like, "I don't even know if anyone's using these ones that I'm already doing. Why do I want to do more? I don't know if anybody's making…" It made me realize that as an extroverted person, I need some people interaction. I can't just produce something and not know if anybody's using it. I also learned about myself that I like to know that what I'm doing is making a difference and that it's benefiting somebody. I don't have any sorts of problems working hard and creating something for somebody, but I want them to know that they're actually using it, that they're doing it and that it works.

Karen: I was actually a member of that back in the day.

Lydia: The way that I had created that business model did not work for me. My mom loves it. I know there were lots of people that enjoyed it which is fantastic. The other problem with that model was at the time it was becoming very popular to do that sort of thing and there were other companies and businesses that had a lot more financial backing behind it, that really could do like high-quality production value, mass marketing. Because, really, to get even 300 members, you're probably looking at at least 10,000 leads or people interest-- You know what I mean? Then it's a numbers game.

Karen: Absolutely.

Lydia: It just wasn't the right thing for me. Then I was like, "Okay, well maybe the whole working remotely isn't for me." I was initially shifting more towards from the in-person towards online. I let the in-person slide. Then I had to shift back to the in-person because I was like from a business perspective, in-person personal training was the most amount of dollars for my time. Then I was then shifting back into that to get more clients there.

At that time I also was moving into a bit more of learning about nutrition. I was having more experience with more clients and interactions with people, so I was really starting to notice that fitness was only one component of a person's well-being and that nutrition was important and that stress was important and that working aspect of things was very important and that there was even social supports and that sort of thing was all really, really important.

I started to branch a little bit wider outside of just fitness and the literal, let's lift weights. I still do have personal training clients. That's part of what I do now, but I really was branching out  more to like an overarching wellness thing. I started doing webinars. Now, the webinars, at the time was workshops when we could see each other in person. I created some workshops and used my network to go into businesses and present the workshops and really discovered that I liked doing that.

That's still definitely a component of my business. It's now since COVID shifted into webinars which we can talk about that pivot that in a sec. Then in the last little while, things all came together with some mentors of mine who are some friends that I've known now—we've been in a business coaching group for a few years and they teach a system called stress-reduced fat loss.

It's all about looking at the root causes of stress in someone and then using nutrition and vitamins and supplements and lifestyle protocols to heal the person's body. It really was so awesome. It just fit with my philosophy about wellness and about how to approach things. Because I've always really thought that the way, especially the medical system works is it's very reactive, it's not proactive, it's a lot of band-aid solutions, it's a lot of, "Oh, just take this pill and you'll be okay."

If you have constipation or diarrhea, I don't even know what they are, but I know that there's medication or pills you can take that like fixes it, but it doesn't actually fix it it's just masking the root issue. When I discovered these guys and what they, how they taught, and how they worked with clients, I was like, "Yes, this completely fits with what I believe and how I want to help people." Once COVID hits, the timing was just such that basically they were doing a new intake for their mentorship program of teaching other practitioners how to do what they do, which is really awesome that they're sharing their knowledge.

Karen: That's great.

Lydia: Their mission is to help the most amount of people possible. They do that by their own clients, but then also training other people to use the same methodology which is fantastic because now I can help a ton more people that they would never be able to help. That's really, really great. That's been, I would say, the biggest shift just in the last number of months that has been amazing. My clients are just seeing such good results. I work primarily with women in their 40s and 50s, who are in that perimenopause or menopause stage of life where they've gained some belly fat or just overall fat. It's not going away. The things that they used to do, aren't working, they're bloated, they're tired. Their sleep is crap. They just feel not like themselves.

A lot of times they feel like, "Well, that's life, this is my this is my future." It's not, and there's things that you can do through nutrition and through taking good vitamins and getting sleep like sleep is one of the biggest things I work on with the women. It's interesting because part of working on the personal training side, I really do enjoy it still, but a lot of times it felt like, or at a certain point, it felt like I was as my, actually my business coach put it really well.

She said it almost was like, I was pushing, trying to push a boulder up a Hill. It felt hard and challenging and not easy and flowing. Now, what I'm doing feels like I'm in such alignment with where I'm supposed to be in life right now. That doesn't mean that in five years from now, or three years from now, or 10 years from now that I'm going to be doing the same exact thing, probably not because I'm constantly evolving and growing as a person.

That's how I can help people. It really just feels like I'm in such alignment and flow. It's such a difference in how I work. Things just-- it's not that work isn't hard, but it feels easy or easier. Clients are more easily coming in. I have an easier time speaking to my clients. I know a bit more I've now niche down and done what I'm sure you talk to with your clients about marketing and niching into who is your ideal clients. Finally, I've done it, Karen and it works.

If anybody on the call or on this podcast is listening and works with Karen or is thinking about working with Karen and she's ever recommended to you to identify your ideal client, get on it because it really does work and it really does make a difference. It's not that I didn't know that I worked in marketing. I knew it, but for some reason there was a block about me figuring out who that ideal client was.

Karen: I think a lot of business owners struggle with that. It's so common. I'm sure you see that when you talk to your friends.

Lydia: Totally. Oh, absolutely. For whatever reason, I was able to now finally pinpoint a clientele that I want to work with, that I know that I can help. That's made all the difference for sure. That's been part of the flow, I think is really pinpointing who I want to work with, who I like working with, and embracing that abundance mindset, where I don't have to worry that I'm excluding people. There's enough people who have these problems that need my help.

Yes, I can help other people, absolutely but there's specific subset of clients that I want to work with. Like for example, I don't generally work with moms of younger children. I don't understand them. I don't relate to them. I do not have children. I'm very close to 40, myself, but I'm still in super great shape. I'm good, but I feel like I'm 30, you know what I mean? I don't relate to that mom thing. I've never wanted to attract that client. I don't actually speak to that client.

Karen: That's really the whole point of figuring out your niche is to be able to speak directly to those people that you want to help. It makes such a difference when you're marketing to not try and include everyone. I actually had a business coach who might be the same coach as yours, who used to say when-- because my former business partner and I were working with her and she used to say, you're swimming in the ocean, you need to find a puddle.

Lydia: Interesting, yes I love it.

Karen: It was all about--

Lydia: Or like a pond or something.

Karen: Oh, no, a pond was too big. She wanted it to be so specific and I talk with my clients about that, but even as a marketer as you said, I know the value of it, but it is hard to really narrow down and decide. You forget that just because you're targeting a certain audience, it doesn't mean you're not ever going to have clients that don't fit that audience.

Lydia: Yes. I think for me, it was being okay with the idea of "excluding people" I've always been, and this stems from like some childhood stuff where I was bullied and I didn't have friends. I became a person who always made sure people were included. I've always been that type of person. I had to get over that because it was very hard for me to talk to that specific audience. Then I felt like I was excluding the others and it honestly would just took a lot of like personal work on that side. It was a lot of mindset. It wasn't about business strategy or that I couldn't actually do it.

I was stuck in my mind. Once I got, and it took a while, but once I got over that block and was able to be okay with that, then that's when I was really able to move forward in discovering and actually pinpointing my ideal clients. It's for sure—it's I would say and I am in, I've been in a number of business mastermind groups, I would say it's probably one of the hardest things that a business owner has to do.

Karen: Absolutely.

Lydia: Once you do it, you're like, "Why didn't I do this earlier?"

Karen: It really makes things so much easier. Sometimes you just don't know who do I want to work with?

Lydia: That right, that is absolutely true. For me, that's part of the case was I really didn't know. It took a lot of trying different things and also just time growth, different stuff again. I always did have a sense even before like when in the last couple of years, I would say I was getting closer to a sense of who I wanted to work with. It was just a little bit harder to articulate from a personal training standpoint, but now with the stress-reduced fat loss coaching, I have also more clear cut results that I can offer. I can literally tell people and guarantee that I can help them sleep better. I can help them lose body fat and lose inches and have more energy and reduce joint pain and just feel better overall.

I know that sounds generic, but I can't even tell you how many of my clients are like, "I just feel so much better." One of my clients was like, "I don't even remember what I felt like and it was three weeks ago." It's a bit more concrete than the personal training, which is like, I mean, I can get you strong for life, unless you had a specific goal, it's a lot harder. With what I'm doing now, it's a bit of an easier thing to sell.

I have lots of visual proof as well. I know we're on a podcast, so people can't see, but I have before and after photos of my clients' bodies and within the photo image, I always include symptoms as well, because it's not always, or just about the looks it's about the feelings and the sleeping better and the more energy. One of my clients, for example, today, we were chatting about how she's realized in the last week or so that she doesn't crave for coffee or feel like she needs her coffee anymore.

We've talked about how she's going to experiment, not drinking coffee in the morning, or just having a decaf, like iced coffee and to see how her body reacts, because it could be because we've healed her body or in the healing process, she has a lot more energy. She's sleeping better that she doesn't actually need the caffeine to wake her up.

Karen: Interesting. Very interesting.

Lydia: I talk about those things as well. There's a lot of it-- from the marketing side, it's a lot easier to market because I have some concrete, actual things and I basically can guarantee that people will get results because I've done it with all my clients. It works. it's pretty awesome. It's really great. I just am in such a good space. I'll say this though. I was it a year ago? Possibly. I almost quit my business maybe two years ago, at least for sure. Within the past two years, I was really, really close to quitting my business.

Karen: I remember having a conversation with you a while back and there was a hint of that.

Lydia: Yes, I think it was two years ago in like February, March-ish. I also had two burnouts within two years.

Karen: Yes, I remember that.

Lydia: That was mostly because I wasn't taking enough care of myself. As I'm sure you are, I'm a very giving, caring person. I do a lot of things for a lot of people which I am happy to because I can, because I don't have kids. I have more bandwidth to help others. And I love what I was doing. And I do love what I do now. It was easy to just work, not like not necessarily harder just long hours, let's say, which meant that I wasn't having time for self-care in any capacity. I don't believe self-care is just bubble baths. Even in terms of like hobbies, I realized I didn't have any hobbies.

I fixed that and started doing crafting and really tapping into like a creative side that I didn't realize was there. That's been great. I will admit it is honestly a challenge to make time for myself because it just is. It's always that remind now that I've had two burnouts I'm like, "I am not having another one. This is not happening." But it's honestly I'm happy that I did, not that I could regret it because it just happened, but it was great learning for me. It's very helpful in the clients that I work with because a lot of them do come to me very close to burnout. I can understand, and I know what it's like, I know how long the recovery takes AKA like a year. For sure.

Karen: Yes, it's not a quick thing. Let's talk about that a little bit.

Lydia: Yes, for sure.

Karen: Because I was going to ask you, what were some of the things that you did that helped you get over that burnout? Because I know it's such a huge problem right now because this world is fast paced. There's a lot of demands. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to deliver and some of it sure is economic in nature because we're trying to bring in revenue or income, but some of it is just taking on too much, like you were saying, because I know you do a lot of volunteer work.

Lydia: I sure do, yes. A lot of things to talk about. Let me say from the economic side, my, I think it was my second burnout. I basically for like three months did the bare minimum and it did not impact my bottom line. That was a big eyeopener that was like, Oh, so I can work smarter and not harder and still make the same or more money. That was huge, huge, huge. That was really honestly like a really, really good realization. Now, my goal is to always ask: what is the least amount of work that I can do to make the most amount of money?

That's honestly like my goal in life and with my business. Other than like helping people, of course, obviously, but from a financial side, that is what I want to be doing. I want to work the least amount or the less hard and like most bang for my buck, so to speak. I realized that I could do it without having to necessarily work 12 hours a day because I wasn't. I literally was having two-hour naps on my couch every single day for months, months, and months. Nobody knew because I still maintain the social media presence. I did the bare minimum on social, what I would consider for me the bare minimum on social media, but I still posted probably every day or close to every day, still maintain a presence. I was 100% committed to my clients.

That did not falter at all. I just did the other additional bare minimum marketing and admin work that needed to get done. I realized that it's possible. That was one of the big learnings from the financial side, just because you brought that up in terms of the recovery side of things, a lot of it was just resting and then realizing what brought it on and what was I going to have to do to make it not come back? Which was, for me, I realized that as much as I talk about taking care of yourself, I wasn't doing it in a way that was helpful for me. I didn't have those hobbies. I didn't have fun. I didn't laugh often enough. Even things, for example, it's gone a little bit down recently, but I don't feel like I need it.

Again, it's also like you have to pay it's a lot of it was self-awareness I feel like finding this backtrack for one quick sec, before we get back to my point.

I feel like a lot of people are going through life, very unaware of their own selves. That is almost like step number one, no matter where you are in your journey, no matter if you're doing well, or if you're close to burnout or if you're in a burnout being aware of your own self of your own needs of your own things that you like and things that serve you and things that bring you joy and energy and happiness, that is step number one, for sure.

That was where I started was, "Okay, now this is burner number two. What the heck? What did I not learn from my first burnout? How do I make it so it doesn't happen again. That was the big piece was, oh shoot, I am working too late. Part of that was because my husband works long hours and was never home until like 9:00 PM, which meant that it was very easy for me to keep working as a business owner. There's always something to do. Always there is never a lack of things to do. It's very easy husband's not home.

I've never been a huge TV person. It's not like I would gravitate necessarily towards like binging out on three hours of TV a night. Then because I didn't have any of those like activity, hobby things, and I liked my job, I was like, "I'll just work." It wasn't even a conscious decision.

I just did it because, I was enjoying it or I'm like, "Oh, I really want to finish this sales page or this blog or this whatever. That was step number one, "I need to be better at stopping, working at a certain point and finding something to do to fill my time. Getting some hobbies, taking up knitting again, teaching myself, crochet, teaching myself, macrame, those types of things. Through that I realized that, "Oh, this creative stuff is actually very re-energizing," and that's a whole other story, but I always had this belief that I never was a creative person and I do therapy and that helped with that, but it's even been more like, "Okay, yes, I know the creative stuff is good. I'm creative and it really helps." There was that.

From there, it was more about paying attention to and realizing what the signs were of when I was then going back to my old behaviors. For me, for example, the signs-- a very clear sign for me was that I felt like I had nothing to say. I post a lot on social media. There is an endless amount of wellness topics and things to talk about. It's not like there's a lack of things to talk about, but when I was not even like, again, before I realized I was feeling burnt out, how it would manifest was that I would feel like I had nothing to say.

I would try and think about what I want to post about on social media, and I would literally have nothing. That was a sign of, when I start to notice that I'm feeling this way—ding, ding, ding—I need to be like, where am I spending my time? Am I spending time on myself? Am I getting laughter and in my day? Am I seeing friends? Am I doing hobbies? Am I just working too many hours?

Karen: And that gets triggered as soon as you don't have anything to say.

Lydia: That was a trigger. Yes. Then I'm like, "Oh, okay." For me, it's not going to be the same for everybody, of course. Everybody will have different things that trigger them. Fatigue for sure is one, if you're feeling tired a lot, you want to have—you feel like you want to take a nap every day. Of course, that could be food-related, like you're eating too heavy of a lunch or too many carbs at lunch with proteins or fats. You'll get that 2:00 PM, 3:00 PM hitting the wall. That's a different story but that's more, I would call it energy lull versus fatigue. Fatigue is different. I think you understand the difference and hopefully the listeners do understand the difference.

There's also, I would say another sign would be hard to get up in the morning for me. That's one of that was one of the things I wasn't like necessarily excited about my day or looking forward to my day. Again, these things were things that would happen with nothing else changing, like everything in life staying—this is obviously pre-COVID, and I think it would still be the same now but everything in life staying constant and then slowly I'm feeling these things. I'm less excited to get up, I'm less whatever and nothing's changed. Nothing is, you know what mean? Again, it's all about observation and that self-awareness.

While I'm giving these examples, they are just examples. If you're feeling this way, then you must be burnt out, maybe definitely—fatigue for sure. Maybe a little bit of having trouble getting up in the night or in the morning are common things. For everybody it's different. For some people, it could be food related, either eating too much, feeling like they want to eat a lot or not eating enough could be a trigger for some people.

It really is, honestly, so individual that not having a voice thing is weird. To me anyway, it's a strange trigger but it for me, I noticed that that's what it was.

Honestly, my best advice is really just looking to yourself and pay attention. Imagine yourself as an observer of you and of your body and of your thoughts and what are the trends? What are the common patterns? What are you seeing? And then what does that mean and how do you fix it? If it's the trigger of like, "I'm not taking enough time for myself," then it's the paying attention to it. When you do see the trigger. That's also the other piece too is when you notice it's happening, don't just notice it and be like, "Well, that sucks."

You have to take action to make sure you don't continue down that path. Again, I will be very honest. It would be very easy for me to go into another burnout, maybe a little less now because—no, it still would. For sure. Again, only because I really love what I do. It's easy for me to just work and not take the time for myself. For certain type of personality, it's always going to be a proactive conscious effort to set those boundaries for yourself, to make sure that you're doing the things that fuel you. Also acknowledging that that's how it's going to be is important as well.

Karen: It's interesting that you brought this up—the amount of work—because somebody just today shared some research today that 81% of business owners are working nights and 89% work weekends.

And those are huge numbers. But not surprising because your business is like your baby. I know that I don't work nights nearly as much but I definitely have been working on weekends and there are going to be those times in your business life where you compromise and you do expand your boundaries but it isn't sustainable.

You have to make sure that you're clear that for this period of time I'm working on this thing. That was actually my initial response to it well, I know right now I have a big push that I'm doing. I'm working really hard to accomplish a few things but then once I've accomplished that, I'm going to pull back because that's not the life that I want. I don't want to always be on the grind.

Lydia: Yes. My business coach has a really—I'm not into hockey or I guess it's sports in general. I am sports but he's really great analogy that he uses to describe exactly what you just said. He describes it as there's the off season, there's the training season, there's regular season and then there's the playoffs, right? You're not always in the playoffs but that is that period of time in a business where yes, you do have to push hard. You do have to work those long hours, but like you said, it's a limited period of time and then maybe you go back to the regular season or you go back to off season or you go back to training season or whatever. There are those it works. There are and there should be those ebbs and flows of energy output because if you're always operating in the playoffs, that is definitely not sustainable.

Karen: No.

Lydia: It goes back to what I said about working smarter not harder, right? It's figuring out what is the minimal amount of effort to get the maximum results, right? It's yes. Again, fully acknowledging sometimes you're in the playoffs for sure. Then when you're not in the playoffs, it's how can I be working smarter and getting this done in a way where I don't have to wait to do that play off amount of energy and that whole hustle concept like I'm very much against the hustle.

Karen: Me too.

Lydia: We know the guy who talks about that and I am not…

Karen: Yes, don't follow that guy.

Lydia: No.

And he looks like he's 50-something like it's just anyway—that’s beside the point.

No, I'm all about really just being smart about how I work and again, I had it proven to myself that it's possible that I don't have to work so much hustle to still have very good income coming in and impact as well. Huge impact.

Now, like I had mentioned about doing the webinars and so even that's been a great shift where I'm now working with companies and I'm able to just over the three, let's say the three months of COVID from April, May, June, I probably reached up to 500 employees through my webinars.

Karen: Amazing.

Lydia: To me, not to be braggy, but that makes me really proud in the sense of that I was able to help close to 500 people with managing their stress and with how to eat well and with how to move their bodies more in the configuration of their home desk and all that stuff. I don't think I would have been able to do that as much or in as much volume if we were still meeting in person which is actually been one of the big positives about COVID.

Well, and companies also weren't as interested, I think kudos to the companies who did step up to the plate and were like, "Our employees are suffering, this is a very stressful time. We're in a pandemic. We need to support our employees," and they hired me to help their staff with some stress management techniques and other workshops.

Again, that's been also one of the things where I have a minimal amount of time and effort into the workshop but I get a good return. It's finding those things as well. Again, it could goes back to what I was saying about the 15-minute workout club where it was just totally different business model with smaller amounts of income. You need larger amounts of people. It's a very, very good business model if you want to do it that way, but I don't. Again, that goes back to the learning what you like and how you want to do things and what works for you in life in business.

Karen: I know what you mean because with your 15-minute workout club, there wasn't a connection with the people in the club. We're seeing you on the videos but there's a disconnect there. It's not a two-way conversation or interaction. I've had that experience myself in working with clients where I was hired to do a thing and then I do the thing and then I give it to them and they don't use it. It breaks my heart when the work I have is a dust collector.

I also understand that the damage that does to a business, because, you said it earlier, you did a lot of work on marketing your business, and I'm actually making that pivot now because I didn't realize you had worked in marketing prior. That explains how good your marketing has been, because you really had a solid foundation going into starting your own business on the value of marketing and what steps to take with it. What's interesting to me is that for you to drop down to the bare minimum and have zero impact to your revenue, that's really telling about the power and the effectiveness of the marketing that you did.

Lydia: Yes. Also is how my business model was structured, which is monthly payments per client. I don't think—actually, you know what, I think I did get new clients and that—yes, I did. I did get new clients during that time period and that's also part of when I realized, well, yes, definitely how important marketing is, but that, again, the like minimum effort for maximum results, I think I posted one post. I mean, I posted more than one post, but like I posted a very specific one post and from that post I think I got two clients and it was easy. I was like, wait a minute. Why am I working so hard? What am I doing wrong here? Again, that was when I was going really hard into like—and again, I would say it was a mild burnout.

I wasn't like completely on the floor incapable of doing anything. I caught it in time. I still, like I said, I really was honestly sleeping like two hours in the afternoon every day. Again, I saw like, "Oh, I put one really good quality, very specific post and I got clients. The end. So, it really shows the power of marketing and doing good marketing, not just marketing, which is crappy or splattering words on a page and hoping for the best. That also really showed me that made a difference too.

Karen: Posting for the sake of posting doesn't work.

Lydia: Right. Which has always been my philosophy. I have a mailing list and if you look at my track record of broadcast to my mailing list, sometimes it's regular and then there… I think actually, yes. You know what? I think if I recall I didn't mail my mailing list from March till I think it was August.

Karen: Wow.

Lydia: I just, honestly, like I said, I really honestly felt like I didn't have anything to say that was valuable and so I just did not, because I didn't want to be that person that's just mailing emails for no reason that aren't saying anything of value and quality and people are going to unsubscribe. That's really always been my philosophy, even social media posts, I can really try and have them be purposeful. If I'm posting and I don't, but like if I'm posting my lunch, it's because I'm educating on the food not just like, "Hey, look at my pretty lunch."

Even if I'm sharing something personal about myself then I always pivot in the post to share now whether there's a lesson that you can take away or that the reader can take away from it, because I always want to be teaching people always want to lead with value and that's been one of the key things for me. I think I know that it's appreciated because I get not often, but I do get emails back from people or comments randomly when I bumped into people, "Oh, I really like your posts, they're always so good or your newsletters always have good things to say," and I'm like, "Thank you. It's because I make sure that what I am saying is actually valuable and it's not just like, oh, it's Monday at 4:00 PM I better send that email with nothing to say.” No.

Karen: It's not worth it.

Lydia: No. Not at all.

Karen: I've really enjoyed this conversation. We could probably go on for a long, long time.

Lydia: I think so, I can tell. I’ve got lots of learning through lots of challenges and failures.

Karen: You'll have to come on and tell more stories. How can people find you?

Lydia: People can find me on my website fithealthy365.com. I am active on Instagram and Facebook again, @fithealthy365, and the Instagram is fithealthy365. I am actually, I just announced that when this podcast releases, I will be on the radio—CHIN Radio Ottawa 97.9 FM, or download the app. You can stream it live every Saturday at 10:15, I have a wellness segment called Fit and Healthy with Lydia. I'll be sharing tips and strategies and really cutting through the clutter.

There's so much information out there, people don't know what to listen to and so I'm going to tell everybody the truth and the straight goods and what to do, and really a lot of focus on action steps and giving people real information that they can implement, not just theory about what they should or shouldn't be doing, so that's a new thing. Yes, but I'm always available by DM on my social medias or I can find my email for my website and I'm very approachable so don't be shy.

Karen: Well, congratulations for the new gig.

Lydia: Thank you.

Karen: I'm going to say so when Lydia made this announcement, she did a little bit of a teaser and posted that screenshot of her phone.

Lydia: Yes, for people listening I had the CHIN app downloaded on my phone and so what I did was I took a screenshot of the page on my phone that had that app and I was like, "Exciting announcement coming, there's a hint on this page." Some people were actually pretty close and then some people used a bunch-- it was actually really funny, some people use a bunch of the different icons and made, I'll have a little story about what I was going to be doing, which is very amusing to me.

Karen: Some of the responses were very funny. I didn't reply, but I did guess correctly.

Lydia: Did you guess it right?

Karen: I did.

Lydia: Good job. You should have replied.

Karen: I know. I was like I don't want to look dumb, but yes, I saw the radio app. I was like, "I bet she's going to be on radio."

Lydia: You know what? That's actually for people who are curious about their marketing, that's a very good example of lurking and that you saw my post you wanted to guess, but you didn't, there's a lot of lurkers. Other business owners listening to this podcast, sometimes you have to just trust that people are seeing your content. Obviously, the analytics will tell you a little bit about that, but there's a lot, a lot of lurkers, I would say there's like 90% or even more lurkers and like the less little small percent of people that will actually comment.

That is also another learning lesson of don't give up. Make sure obviously like the content is good and that it is resonating with people, and you'll know that from comments and you'll know that from clients coming in, but a lot of times you do have to keep going even though it seems like there's crickets out there.

Karen: The lurkers will actually surprise you. You'll hear from them—like this conversation, you'll hear from them and you'll be like, "Oh, I didn't even know you were paying attention." It's always a delight for you as the business owner when than happen.

Lydia: Yes. I wish there were less lurkers, but I understand. I know I do lurking to, so we all do it. It's a thing, but yes. It's very exciting, but yes. Thanks for the chat. It was so great to talk to you. Of course, I would be happy to come back anytime you want. We can talk about I'm sure I have more lessons to share with people. It's amazing how many lessons you can acquire in six years.

Karen: No kidding. It's been a great ride for you, and I hope it continues to go really well.

Lydia: Thank you so much for having me.

Karen: All right. Well, thanks for being on and I will talk with you later.

Lydia: Absolutely.