How Lauren Duke Founded PerfectMed by Focusing on Enhancing the Patient Experience

[00:00:00] Lauren: the seasons that we're at in life and business are constantly evolving and changing, and so we have to constantly be reflective and recognize like. Am I doing what I wanna do? Am I enjoying the life that I have?

[00:00:10] Lauren: Am I having the space and the margin that I want? Am I reaching the goals that I want?

[00:00:15] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business Podcast. My name is Hector Sania Esteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is a dear friend, Ms. Lauren Apple, and she is a scaling strategist and also a mother of five. just a wonderful person. And so I am selfishly excited to, bring her here to you listeners today.

[00:00:32] Hector: Lauren, thanks for hanging out.

[00:00:33] Lauren: Thanks, Hector. I'm so excited to be here.

[00:00:36] Hector: So give us the background. We're gonna talk today about scaling, but we're gonna talk about it from the perspective of scaling with a family or for parents who have, more obligations than just the business. take us into a little bit of your background and usually we don't get into like, the personal or family side, but I think that makes, that's actually like.

[00:00:53] Hector: The reason not why you're here, but I think that has so much relevance to the conversation. So give us some of your, your key career highlights and, pit stops along the way. And then, also all the things that you navigate and deal with today.

[00:01:05] Lauren: Absolutely. So about in 2017, I had three kids at that time and I was really trying to find some way to make extra income in my house.

[00:01:15] Lauren: That's kind of how I started my husband was working retail management, and so anybody who's been in retail knows that this. Schedule is like all over the place, right? So there's just is no structure to be able to, like I can show up to work on this consistent schedule. So I did what a lot of people do and I Google searched, how do I make money from home?

[00:01:32] Lauren: And I came across the online business world. I actually started in the virtual assistant world, moved into operations consulting and systems and process building for clients and am now a scaling strategist today. But I got to this place about three years ago that my business had reached exactly where I wanted it to be as far as revenue.

[00:01:50] Lauren: Right. I had been at multiple six figures. I had dreamed about this opportunity, and one day I was sitting at my dinner table with my kids getting interrupted by a client call and I walked away. And when I was coming back from that supposed emergency, that wasn't really an emergency, right, that I stepped away for.

[00:02:05] Lauren: I heard my daughter turn to my husband and say, why is mom always working? And that was like a knife in my heart. Because that's not why I built my business, right? I had built my business so I could have flexibility and I could have freedom, and I could show up for my kids and my family the way I wanted to.

[00:02:22] Lauren: But I had unintentionally gotten my business to this place that I felt trapped by it. And it felt like no matter what I did, following everybody else's advice, I still kept working more hours than I wanted to, and I couldn't continue to get ahead and be able to step back. And so I kind of reverse engineered.

[00:02:39] Lauren: Figured out some systems and processes in my life that I could let go of and I could tweak and I could refine my business in a way that I could continue to make more profit, but also be more available to my family. And so today, that's really what I'm on a mission for is I want CEO parents to recognize that it's possible you can have both profit and presence and it's not as hard as you think.

[00:03:00] Lauren: It's, there are some simple things that we can put into play in order to make it possible for you. And I love to help. Clients and see parents see that success in their life.

[00:03:10] Hector: Yeah, I think there's a couple of sort of trends that it plays on. The first is that obviously parents want to be more present, you know, to their kids, and that is more than even, that's just more than just being there or doing the pickup or being, at the game.

[00:03:24] Hector: Or like, there's so much more that I think parents are, Putting on their shoulders, perhaps, rightfully so. But that's a big, big change. And so the, previous advice, you know, was not always there. And then the second thing is that business is sort of evolving and a lot of that advice was made for people who maybe, you know, there was a bigger separation between work at home.

[00:03:42] Hector: You know, a lot of people were actually leaving the office or leaving to go to the office, so there was that physical separation. but now that line is so murky and so muddy that, People their habits and practices are having to catch up in order to, account for these changes.

[00:03:56] Lauren: Yeah, and I think like you and I are probably on the same generation. I actually don't know your age, but I'm assuming we're kind of in the same generational boat. And our generation is more like, Hey, we want our way. We make money to actually feed into our lifestyle, right? We're like our parents were like, Hey, this is to provide for my family and that's our purpose.

[00:04:14] Lauren: And so, you know, people have stepped up in a different way and are showing up in a different way, in the way that they work and the way that they run their businesses and the way they wanna live their lives. But. Our advice and our coaching and the things that are out there don't always feed into those constraints that we wanna have in our life, and we do have in our life.

[00:04:32] Hector: Yeah. before we get into some of the tactics or some of the, you know, some of the specifics, what I, what I love about what you provide with your community and for your clients is just like, it's very actionable and there's some very, like, do these types of things and, it will work.

[00:04:44] Hector: but I think even before that, there are probably some mindsets or person perspectives that are probably helpful or even critical. the way I like to frame it is, are there any. Sort of mistakes. maybe, like, wrong paradigms, ways that people think that are sort of holding them back from experiencing this sort of, you know, harmony, between their business and their life.

[00:05:05] Lauren: I think one thing that we see a lot, and probably everybody would raise their hand to in social media world is like we see people's highlight reels, right? We see them where they have reached a certain pinnacle or place, and we compare where we're at right now. And I think a lot of times people project certain things online or in their videos or in their advice that say, Hey, look where I'm at and where I've gotten, and you can have this lifestyle too.

[00:05:28] Lauren: But a lot of times that lifestyle that they've created has come from. Some sacrifices and choices that they've made leading up to that. And so we think that we can have everything that somebody else has or do it the way somebody else did it, and it's gonna work automatically for us. And, and I'll tell you what, if you're a parent, you know, know every kid is the same, right?

[00:05:46] Lauren: And so all parenting advice, like, I think most parents today, like in reality, take parenting as knowing, well, it's not always gonna work for you. Because every kid's different, every situation's different. My first kid's different from my fourth kid and all of those things, and so we have to handle them in different ways.

[00:06:01] Lauren: Well, I don't think we do that in our business. We think that, you know, there's a cookie cutter, one step magic bullet that's gonna get us where we wanna go, and that's not the way it is. I think when I work with clients, my favorite thing is to help them recognize like, Hey, there is this real opportunity right here that's gonna work for you.

[00:06:18] Lauren: It doesn't work for everybody. There's not one, you know, customized 12 step plan to get where you wanna go. That works for everybody. But because your lifestyle looks like this, or your family looks like this, or your business looks like this, you can make this small tweak and remove friction in your life or save more hours in your life or make more profit in your business without having to add any more hours to your life.

[00:06:39] Hector: Yeah, there's this, it's sort of become a meme. I think it started out as a real story, but you know, a guy, a high level, entrepreneur, business owner was talking about how he's got his routine and he's working out 6:00 AM and he's, you know, doing this and doing this and then, Somehow his wife gets on the thread and it's like, yeah, and she's the one who's packing all the lunches and she's making dinner and, breakfast and, and she's, you know, there's this whole sort of trope, and it's not a trope, this whole adage of, you know, the behind every successful person is like, you know, a successful partner, right?

[00:07:05] Hector: I don't think it's man or woman sort of thing there, but that there are some sacrifices or there are. Things like, we don't always see the full picture. And so my sort of, and perhaps it's a, a, a flawed paradigm or flawed mindset, is that, do you feel like we have to sacrifice one or the other, or is it like in your experience, you know, are there ways to sort of have our cake and, eat it too?

[00:07:27] Lauren: I don't think that you have to sacrifice one or the other, but I do think there's compromises you have to make, right? And so there needs to be things in your life where you choose this as a priority. Over this, there's always a decision to be made, and I think a lot of times we don't think through our decisions because we're not clear on what we want and what we want out of life.

[00:07:44] Lauren: And so I find that's a lot of times where our business ends up because we're just making unintentioned. You know, not deliberate decisions that are based off of what it's gonna determine for our lifestyle and our time and our margin and our presence. And then we end up in this place that's so far off from where we thought we were gonna be because we didn't make those pre decisions, you know?

[00:08:04] Lauren: And so I think, yes, you can have your cake and eat it too, but you need to know what cake you want and you need to know how often you wanna have that cake. And you need to know like, are there seasons where you're okay not having that cake and seasons where you can have more of that cake? Does that make sense?

[00:08:19] Hector: Yeah, I think the seasonality part is really important. especially with kids or young kids or I imagine, you know, even as they get older, there are like literal, you know, soccer seasons that, that now come in the way. And so being able to see that how it's gonna be is not how it's going to be forever.

[00:08:34] Hector: you know, I think is, is a really huge thing. Let's get into, I'm, I'm curious for you. You know, I've, also realized that, as parents, and I'm a single parent, and so my, I had this realization a couple weeks ago that like, oh, my margin for error, or like my room to like to dilly dally or my, like, room for distraction is so much smaller now because I just don't have, I don't have that extra.

[00:08:56] Hector: Time or space or, or like whatever. And so I think that also, there are a lot of people who are having. kids while they already had a business and, and to sort of see that the way that they did things pre-kids and the way that they do things post kids, are probably not gonna stay the same.

[00:09:12] Hector: And, and I know for me there was like initially an unwillingness to give up and compromise on some of these things in order to have, you know what I said I want

[00:09:22] Lauren: right. Yeah. and you wanna get into some of the tactics of how you can make that possible.

[00:09:28] Hector: Sure. Yeah. So, so I'd love to know, for you, when you think about some of these things, is it a framework?

[00:09:33] Hector: Is it a order of operations? Are there sort of pillars? Is it like, you know, do this step before this step? You know, how do you look at sort of putting this sort of thing together?

[00:09:42] Lauren: I think everybody, like you said, is in a different season. They have different things going on. Like me right now, no one has ever talked to me in my life about having teenagers and toddlers at the same time.

[00:09:51] Lauren: They're kind of the same, but they're also chaotic in very different ways, and their schedules are opposite of each other. Right. So it just like it. Causes even more chaos and friction. But like I think the biggest thing is for me is there's no one answer. So you really have to discover where is the biggest bottleneck in your life right now?

[00:10:10] Lauren: Like, what is holding you back that's causing the most chaotic and most chaos? Right? Because I know when you. Solve that. It brings more freedom and energy to be able to solve the other, you know, smaller symptoms. And so a lot of times we look at symptoms and we try to solve those symptoms. Like my system's a mess, and so I'm gonna pay somebody who's gonna overhaul my HubSpot.

[00:10:30] Lauren: And in reality, that's not really the. Actual problem, root problem of what's going on in your life, that's not gonna save you 10 hours a week. That's not gonna allow you to show up to your kids' soccer games. That's not gonna help you have more margin in your day-to-day life. It's just gonna be another thing that you spend money on and can potentially cause a little bit more streamlined processes, but it's not the root problem that you're getting to.

[00:10:52] Lauren: And so the biggest thing is first, the diagnosis of what is the root problem that's in the way. Maybe we have a team that isn't working. Cohesively and we have loyalty and we don't wanna let go of people or we don't know how to, to work around that. Maybe we don't even know. What our schedule is, and we're super reactive, right?

[00:11:09] Lauren: Everything is just like based off of urgency or who's pinging us or what email comes in or message comes in. And so we don't have any structure into our, our focus of what we're getting. And then a big thing that I see for people is planning. Without a plan, you're gonna fail. So the biggest thing in order to create more profited margin in your business, in your life is to have a plan in place.

[00:11:30] Lauren: Know where you're going, know what you're doing. You're not gonna show up on Monday morning and say, okay, well now what am I gonna work on today? You already planned on Sunday afternoon, right? The main things that need to happen this week, you got them prepped. You laid out your clothes for your workout.

[00:11:44] Lauren: You put some bullet points down on an outline for that, social media posts that you were gonna create on Monday morning, right? So you're prepping and planning for what is ahead, and that helps you make the right decisions. It helps you establish the right things. It helps you know where you're going, and then you can get there much faster.

[00:12:00] Hector: Yeah, I'm still shocked when I talk to, a lot of times it's parents, you know, that I'm interacting with, for kids' play dates or whatever that like, don't run their life outta Google Calendar. Like I just, I like that's so, that's so built into my like world that if it's not in the Google calendar, like it's not gonna happen.

[00:12:17] Hector: And if it's in there, it's much more likely to happen. And you know, with now I've got. Practices and baseball games and, you know, we have a cheer thing tonight and so there's so many more. things to account for, especially as the kids get older, that seems to be like outside of the business.

[00:12:32] Hector: like, I find myself, like, I feel like I'm running like two organizations and I guess I am, but I think that it sort of takes that, mindset and even energy and intention to be able to have both things running effectively.

[00:12:41] Lauren: For sure. And one thing usually suffers if we're not intentional about it, right?

[00:12:46] Lauren: And so it's determining what are those things that are gonna suffer and not suffer. but yeah, kudos for you doing all the Girl Dad things that you do.

[00:12:54] Hector: Yes. one of the things that I'm curious about though, that you, sort of hovered around is like energy and I'm, you know, energy management and I'm wondering how much that.

[00:13:03] Hector: Plays into your world. 'cause there are some times where I've got the plan, I've got the things to do, it's just like I'm so tapped or I'm so fresh, or like I'm, my, my energy is just not in the right place for me to execute upon. these things. Does that ever come up when you're working with your clients?

[00:13:19] Lauren: All the time. I mean, your energy is everything, right? Your sleep, the way that you're eating, the what you have time for. I'll tell you, I probably haven't slept in 13 years ever since my daughter was growing. My second one, she just like could never sleep and my whole body got off the, the cycle. But there's some days that are harder than others, right?

[00:13:36] Lauren: And so that's why we. Build in buffers. You know, I always try to build in buffers around travel. I try to build in buffers around holidays and vacation times. I build in buffers around every quarter and every year and every month, having, you know, a week buffer in my calendar every quarter so that I can catch up on the things that need to be caught up on.

[00:13:55] Lauren: And that includes in your life too, right? Like Sundays sometimes are the buffer for me to catch up on laundry. We have five kids, seven people in our house. We literally, if we don't do a load of laundry every single day, get behind. So sometimes it's like six laundry baskets that I'm folding on Sundays to get caught up.

[00:14:12] Lauren: And that's kind of my buffer is I have hours allotted on Sunday afternoon that it's just me listening to an audiobook or doing whatever and catching up on laundry while my husband is with the kids, keeping the toddler from unfolding everything that I've folded right at home. And so having that intentional buffer lets you plan for the unexpected, you know, kids.

[00:14:30] Lauren: Being sick, school, getting canceled, having, you know, online schooling or a client calling and needing something last minute, or, you know, all of the things that can kind of disrupt our life as business owners and parents.

[00:14:43] Hector: What it seems like, and my question was is, you know, is more of the work done at home or is more of the work done, in the business, if you will?

[00:14:51] Hector: and I could sort of guess the answer, but it seems like there's work to be done on both sides. So it, it seems like you can't have one without the other sort of thing.

[00:14:59] Lauren: Yeah, I agree. there are some people that are like, have home a lot more figured out than their business and vice versa.

[00:15:04] Lauren: Some people that are more, you know, they're more focused on their business and they have that figured out and they get home or they walk out of their office and their house is a disaster and they don't know who's doing what. And a lot of that has to do with, you know, even your support, what your lifestyle looks like.

[00:15:18] Lauren: You know how many kids you have, what's going on. And so everything is a little bit different in everybody's situation There. But I think that there's always room. I've never met a client that there wasn't room on both sides to find opportunity to streamline or to create systems or to create more boundaries, to be able to improve your lifestyle or improve your business.

[00:15:38] Hector: I had a, a group of friends that, you know, they're very, you know, successful, ran high power businesses and they ended up all like hiring a house manager because they needed someone to be able to do that stuff, and keep that organized. 'cause they, they weren't gonna do it, so they needed to sort of delegate it.

[00:15:55] Hector: And I, I know it's interesting that you sort of come from that world of delegating and outsourcing because it seems like so much of the magic is sort of. Leveraging support or leveraging the team and people around you so that you're not having to do all the things.

[00:16:10] Lauren: I love that you say that because we are actually opening up a new offering pretty soon here for a virtual life manager, somebody who can come in and actually run your household plan.

[00:16:21] Lauren: All of the parties and the house cleaning and the grocery list, and you know, meal prep and all of those things for you because you know that was something that used to be reserved for the wealthy. They had a house manager that like took on the energy, the mental bandwidth of running your household because it does, when you have lots of things going on and responsibilities, you have a mental energy and bandwidth that you bring with you.

[00:16:42] Lauren: And so when I'm, you know, walking into a podcast interview, I'm also thinking about the school pickup that I have or making sure that I have dinner prepped and there's some meat that's unfrozen that we can cook for dinner tonight before my kids get off of school. Right? You have that mental bandwidth that you're doing on both sides and you know, you need to be able to have.

[00:17:00] Lauren: Space to kind of relieve that. And there is not a single person I've met, especially as you get older. I hit 40 this year and it feels like my brain is a million times slower than it used to be. My body is a lot more AER than it was. It was like, is this the magic number? You hit 40 and all of a sudden your life is falling apart.

[00:17:17] Lauren: But I can't remember all the things that I used to be able to remember. I can't keep up with all the things that I used to be able to keep up with. Right. And so. There's things I have to take off of my plate. There's compromises I have to make my family, no matter how much I believe in saving the earth, uses paper plates a lot so that we're not doing dishes right?

[00:17:34] Lauren: Because that's just one of the choices that I've made. Like this prevents me from having to do three loads of dishes a day, that we have paper plates at our house, right? And so you have to make those choices in order to, you know, make compromises and decisions so that you can have that lifestyle that you want, you can continue to run the business that you wanna run.

[00:17:52] Hector: Yeah. are there any other sort of favorite hacks or changes or adjustments that, I was telling, a mutual friend that I started uploading my. Little league group chat into AI because there's so much going on and there's so many things in there that I needed to sort of just get some distally, you know, get some help going through and organizing that.

[00:18:13] Hector: Are there any other sort of, maybe they're smaller you, things like that, or even larger things that you think can make a big difference?

[00:18:20] Lauren: I mean, I think there's all, there's so much AI nowadays that makes a huge difference, and I think that's something that, like, even as parents, we haven't tapped into, one of my favorite things, like even as a mom is my son wanted a bedtime story every night, and I didn't wanna read like a long story to put him to bed because it just prolonged the process, right?

[00:18:38] Lauren: So I started creating small adventure stories on chat GPT for my son. The Monster truck story named Frank and him and Frank went on an adventure and it brought him into it, and it actually captured all these, I was like, I should publish these books as a children's book for my son and have it get illustrated.

[00:18:55] Lauren: So, but I mean, there's so many ways to help simplify things with AI today. There's actually, and I'll, I'll send you the link because I don't remember it exactly off the top of my head, but there is an AI out there that takes PDFs of calendars and creates them into calendar events. So all those school PDFs that you get of the school schedule.

[00:19:12] Lauren: Plug it in and you got your whole school schedule on your calendar. and we have three different schools that we navigate right now. And so that saved like tons of time being able to do that.

[00:19:21] Hector: I did the same, I take pictures of the baseball games and I give it to my Gemini, which is hooked up to my Google calendar, and I'm just like, create events for all these and boom, we actually show up on time.

[00:19:31] Hector: it's sort of amazing. I am curious, you know, for you, you are able to draw from so much experience, you know, and all the, the different things that you've done and, and the different ways that you have been able to help people. Are there any, favorite stories or favorite, you know, ahas or, or maybe we might even call 'em, transformations that you think sort of emulate when someone takes these ideas by the reins and, and runs with them?

[00:19:54] Lauren: Yeah, I mean, I have so many in my own personal life just being able to like. Not work on Friday afternoons. My older teens are off of school on Fridays and I really started to feel guilty that I was like working while they were home and not actually spending time with them. And so now, like they sleep in.

[00:20:09] Lauren: So I have till about noon usually, to do some work. I do some planning, but I don't usually have calls on Fridays and I'm, I hang out with my teenagers, we. I play pickleball, we watch tv, those kind of things. And then I stopped working weekends. It was crazy because I was working weekends all the time and it actually was like hard to not work weekends.

[00:20:27] Lauren: But now because I've made that transition, like when I am like, oh, I have time on the weekend, I want to do this, it's really hard for me to do it, to get into that mindset because I've created that like margin and buffer in my life, to be able to not work weekends. And so that has just been huge for me.

[00:20:42] Lauren: Being able to outsource things in my own family, like housekeeper, like, having somebody come and do some landscaping for us or prep things for us. And then also outsourcing on my team if there is something I don't enjoy doing. My first step is. Can I get somebody else to do this because I don't wanna do it and it takes my energy and it's too hard for me to do it.

[00:21:01] Lauren: And so, my husband laughs at me because I'm like, can we have somebody start our garden for us this year so I don't have to do that? And he's like, no, we can do it. but I would love to have somebody else do that. So I don't to start it. but you know, in my. Life with parents and clients that I've worked with.

[00:21:15] Lauren: I've seen, you know, I have a CEO client that I helped coach for a while and she was three years from retirement, working 70 hours a week and was really bottle capped on not even being able to take her daily walks as she wanted. She struggled with her own self care, like even washing her face at night and having like an evening routine to get ready for bed.

[00:21:33] Lauren: It seems simple, but she really struggled with that and we boiled it down to there were some things in her life on her team. That she had no boundaries and no expectations set up. And so we had to rework her expectations with her team. She was about to let go of two team members.

[00:21:47] Lauren: And we saved those relationships and they're actually some of her best employees right now that work with her. And then she also was just reactive in her schedule. Clients would text her or call her and she would stop whatever she was doing. So then she always felt like she was making up early in the morning or late at night work to get done.

[00:22:03] Lauren: That had to get done on the timelines. And so we really helped her create some buffers and, and boundaries in her schedule so that she didn't feel guilty about saying, oh, I can't talk right now. Let's put it on the calendar for tomorrow, or whatever that looks like. But she had really clear like, this is a no call time.

[00:22:19] Lauren: This is a focus time. I'm turning off my chat. Turning off my notifications and I'm getting the things done that I need to get done. And so now she has like a weekly date with her husband. She gets to do community activities. She's spending time with her grandkids and she can see that roadmap now too in three years retiring and being able to step away from her business, but still bringing in profit from it.

[00:22:40] Hector: Yeah, I think it's a great reminder that so many entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs for the freedom and then they have to be, you know, becoming. I imprisoned, chained down by their business and, not realizing that if they were to make some changes, if they were to adjust, or maybe even it's, it's not even changes, but hold some boundaries, like you said, that they could start to see some of the things that they actually wanted to get out of it.

[00:23:01] Lauren: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's what I call the success trap. I use it all the time in my language, like we've reached success, but we're trapped by it. And it seems like you just wanna burn it down, but you can't or you don't want to because this is, you enjoy what you do and you have a gift to give to the world, and you need to bring in finances for your family.

[00:23:18] Lauren: And so. It is possible, but it seems like it's not. and again, that boundary is a huge thing. Those decisions are a huge frame thing. Knowing what you want and what you don't want, what you're willing to say yes to and no to is probably one of the biggest levers people can push in order to be able to free up their time.

[00:23:34] Hector: Yeah, you've talked about it a little bit. I'm curious if there are, there's so many changes happening in the world, whether it's technology or economics or, you know, geopolitical. We're recording this in the midst of, you know, conflicts that are going on. is there something worth paying attention to that you think, is there a signal amidst all the noise that you think is worth paying attention to?

[00:23:54] Hector: Especially with regards to sort of what we talked about today in terms of parents and, having a family while also running a business?

[00:24:00] Lauren: I am of the opinion in my own personal life and the way that I coach other people is like to pay more attention to yourself and your own flags and your own energies and your own, you know, like.

[00:24:10] Lauren: Recognizing your stress levels and stuff as a marker for what to do next as opposed to the world because the world's constantly changing. Everybody's gonna have a different opinion or something that they're saying is coming. And a lot of times those things can bring anxiety or worry or make us spend energy or mental bandwidth on things that aren't even relevant to our lives.

[00:24:29] Lauren: And so I think like if you pay attention to your life. And you have a consistent reflective period, whether that's weekly or monthly. And you look back because like you said at the very beginning of this conversation, everything's constantly changing, right? Like newborn season doesn't last forever.

[00:24:44] Lauren: Toddler season doesn't last forever. Our business, you know, startup doesn't last forever. the seasons that we're at in life and business are constantly evolving and changing, and so we have to constantly be reflective and recognize like. Am I doing what I wanna do? Am I enjoying the life that I have?

[00:25:00] Lauren: Am I having the space and the margin that I want? Am I reaching the goals that I want? And even reflecting on our goals, like sometimes we say, oh, I wanna hit seven figures, but do you really need seven figures? Is that really gonna give you the lifestyle that you want? Have you done the math? Have you looked at what you actually want to see happen in your family and in your life?

[00:25:17] Lauren: And done the math to figure out if that's what you want. Because a lot of times it's a lot less. Maybe you only need to reach seven 50 k. Your business in order to fund your business and the lifestyle the way that you want it, right? It doesn't have to be this like random goal that somebody else has or that you thought would be cool.

[00:25:33] Lauren: Writing a book might not be the next thing for you. going on a podcast should be for everybody. plug Hector and his help and support for that, but. you just need to reflect consistently because your dreams and your goals and your priorities should shift as your life shifts and your priorities, should align with that.

[00:25:51] Hector: This has been such a jam packed conversation. I've got, two more questions for you, Lauren. The first is if people want to get more connected with you, find out about what you're up to. where's the best place for people to go?

[00:26:01] Lauren: Yeah, they can check me out on my website systems to scale.org or a YouTube channel systems to scale.

[00:26:07] Lauren: Also, if you are tuning in and you're like, Hey, I resonate, I want to know how I can build more profit and margin in my life, you can take our free diagnostic profit and present diagnostic@systemsscale.org slash diagnostic, and there it's gonna tell you what most coaches aren't gonna tell you.

[00:26:24] Lauren: It's not just gonna tell you why you're overwhelmed or what the next step is. It's gonna tell you. What problem you're trying to solve that isn't the right problem to solve and the advice that you followed has been trying to solve the wrong problem and you can figure out the next right step for you to be able to create that profit and that presence in your life.

[00:26:42] Lauren: so if you go to, that takes about five minutes, you can get connected to everything that we do here,

[00:26:47] Hector: and we'll link that up for you listeners in the show notes as always. And my last question for you, Lauren, is, in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:26:55] Lauren: That is a loaded question. Hector Secret to scaling a business is I think actually as we've processed this in here, is knowing what you want, what do you want out of life, and then setting up some anchors and some rhythms in your life that make sure that you're making the decisions that lead that direction.

[00:27:13] Lauren: And so your business can go wherever you want it to. Go's. Totally possible in today's world, but your life can also lead wherever you want it to go. And so knowing exactly the time and the freedom that you want, knowing the people that are important to you and how you wanna show up in your home and your family, is going to help you scale in the way that is going to give you the life that you want.