Sabrina Chevannes:
Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of No Bullshit Talks.

I am so pleased to be joined today by Juli Colotti, who is a habit and lifestyle coach.

First of all, I guess I want to delve in straight away.

Juli, thank you first of all for coming on today’s show, and secondly, what is a habit and lifestyle coach exactly?

What do you guys do?

Juli Colotti:
All right, so thank you for having me.

A habit and lifestyle coach, I guess, could be many things.

I think everyone that considers themselves a habit and lifestyle coach kind of has a different approach.

The reason why I put habit in front of lifestyle is because I really work with individuals to help build habits.

Because you can say you’re going to eat healthy, you’re going to get rid of the snacks, you’re going to do this, you’re going to do that.

But if you don’t have the healthy habits and your routine set up properly to do that, then all of that other stuff is never going to happen.

Sabrina Chevannes:
When you say habits, because obviously to most people, when they hear the term habit, you probably think bad habit.

So that’s kind of what’s associated with it.

Obviously there are bad habits people have, like you mentioned about eating healthily, and a bad habit could be snacking, like grabbing the odd chocolate bar here and there when you’re feeling peckish.

I guess that’s a bad habit.

But there are also good habits, and I’m guessing what you do is train people how to lose those bad habits and create good ones, right?

There are so many great things out there about habits, but for some people, they’ve still not heard about this sort of thing and this sort of technique.

Run me through what you actually do to create good habits and get rid of the bad habits.

Is that exactly what you do to help people?

Juli Colotti:
Yes.

So bad habits, a lot of times, like you said, when people think of habits, they think of addictions or eating candy while you’re watching TV, or whatever that might be.

But a bad habit for some people might not be a bad habit for everyone.

Waking up in the morning and brushing your teeth is a habit.

This is not something that people think of. They’re like, “Well, I just brush my teeth.”

Well yes, but everything that you do every day is a habit.

Our routines are built around habits.

We just don’t consider them habits because, like you said, that word is associated with bad things.

But going to work is a habit.

So what I do is we look at somebody’s routine from the second your alarm goes off in the morning, or you wake up if you’re waking up naturally, to the minute you go to bed, and everything that you do between that time.

I call them bookends.

So when you wake up and when you go to bed, everything you do between that time is habits.

Most of the time, if you’re working a 9 to 5 Monday through Friday job, Monday through Friday looks the same, and then Saturday and Sunday look a little different.

Waking up and putting on the coffee pot is a habit.

Then some people sit on the couch and watch the news.

That could be a bad habit for some because, especially nowadays, the news is filled with nothing but not good things, right?

There are crazy things going on in the world.

So instead of watching the news, maybe we need to journal or meditate.

So how do we get from not watching the news to journaling or meditating?

There are things like setting up your environment, like putting your yoga mat out the night before you go to bed in front of the TV.

So the yoga mat is there.

Essentially, you’re walking over that yoga mat, and if you have to walk over something, you’re probably not going to avoid it.

So it’s doing that.

The way that we do that is I need to look at your routine.

I need to know what you do from the minute you wake up to the minute you go to bed.

Then we figure out where those bad habits are from and what we could replace those bad habits with.

Maybe you’re only watching the news 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes, and then we’re slowly getting you to that goal.

It’s saying for this person, their goal is to be less stressed.

Well, to be less stressed, we probably need to stop watching the news because you can’t control the news.

So let’s meditate, let’s journal, let’s get that stress out.

But how do we do that?

Juli Colotti:
And that’s how we do it, by creating new good habits to help us reach our goals.

Because you can set a goal.

Let’s use an easy one.

You want to lose 20 pounds.

Well, going to the gym is one thing, but your schedule already… you know, the number one excuse is, “I don’t have time.”

Well, you do have time.

It’s just how you spend your time.

Most of us waste an average of 20 hours a week in bed looking at our cell phones.

Sabrina Chevannes:
You can say that because that’s how I get up in the morning, and everyone says to me that is such a bad habit.

The first thing you do is look at your phone in the morning.

Do you know what? That was my good habit, and I’m going to be really controversial and say that’s a good habit.

I still love that habit, and everyone says how unhealthy it is.

But you said everyone’s got different requirements, right?

So for me, it’s been a good habit because I love to snooze.

I love to hit that snooze button, and I will snooze for an hour and a half.

That is just unproductive in every form of the way.

It’s unproductive.

I just waste an hour and a half of my time, but I don’t even get good quality sleep.

I’m actually waking up every nine minutes hitting the snooze button, so I’m not even getting good quality sleep.

It’s really stupid, but I would still do that snooze thing.

So what I started to do was grab my phone because my phone is the only thing that wakes me up in the morning.

I will grab my phone, I’ll read the notifications, and that actually makes me open my eyes because at the moment I feel very sleepy.

I look at it, and I’m then inspired because I know what I have to do for the day.

I look at what’s going on and I think, “Okay, great.”

I jump in the shower and work out how to tackle the day, and that’s how my good habit formed.

Every time I look at my phone in the morning, I am pumped and energized and enthused and actually want to tackle the day.

But until I look at my phone, I just want to sleep.

So I want to understand how the one biggest bad habit that most people talk about, which is using a phone in bed, how I can think that’s good.

Am I just completely wrong?

Is that a terrible habit I’ve formed and it’s really unhealthy?

Because to me, it’s changed my life for the positive.

Juli Colotti:
So no, and that just goes to the example of not every habit being bad.

For me, I was laying in bed for 30 minutes on my phone, and it was almost like torture for the simple fact that I was just on my phone and couldn’t get out.

I didn’t want to get out of bed, and I’m just mindlessly scrolling.

So for you, if you’re using it instead of hitting the alarm for an hour and a half and now you’re getting out of bed an hour earlier, that’s different.

But if you’re laying in bed for an hour and a half and you feel… it’s not that it’s a bad habit.

Let me reframe it in a way.

People feel that they don’t have enough time in the day, and we waste a lot of time.

We’re humans.

So if you’re sitting in bed in the morning for an hour and a half on your phone, and that night you’re running around with your head chopped off saying, “I could just use two more hours to get everything done,” you had that time.

Does that make a little bit more sense?

Sabrina Chevannes:
Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I tell you, my phone habit, the habit I’ve created, whether it’s good or bad, we haven’t determined that yet I guess, but my phone habit has created extra time.

Like I said, I’m actually out of bed.

I actually get out of bed and want to do it.

So for me so far, it’s a good habit.

But yeah, I think people always say to me it’s a bad habit because maybe I look at it and get pissed off by something I’ve read on the phone.

But to me, I’m going to get pissed off by reading that anyway, whether it’s at 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. in the morning.

So I feel like I might as well have an extra hour to tackle my way through it.

That’s how I’ve been.

Juli Colotti:
Yeah.

And there are studies that say you shouldn’t be looking at screens first thing in the morning, but that’s not even what I care about.

Most of my clients have kids or they have a job they have to go to, and they’re barely making it out the door with their pants buttoned because they sat in bed for an hour and a half.

That’s a problem.

You could get so much done.

I have one client that actually cleans the house before she goes to work.

So when she gets home in the morning, she can just do nothing.

Dinner is prepped, it’s in the fridge, it’s ready to be cooked, and she’s going to bed and actually sleeping better because she’s not so stressed after work.

A lot of times, you hear people and enormous amounts of people are stressed because of work.

It’s not the norm that people are stressed because of their home life.

But when your home life is just as busy as your job and you’re wasting all of this time doing things you don’t need to be doing, like watching TV…

You don’t need to sit on the couch and watch TV in the morning.

You can vacuum or sweep or write the grocery list and do all this other stuff with the TV on in the background because you just have to listen to the news if you really want to listen to the news.

So we spend a lot of time, and I say we as a general statement, spend a lot of time in the morning.

That’s usually when we waste most of our time.

So if you’re more productive in the morning, which is my plus with my clients…

Juli Colotti:
How to make your morning the most productive time, because the morning before you go to work is really the only time you can control.

Because once you go to work, if you get a phone call saying that Johnny is sick in school and has to be picked up, your time after work is probably done and down the tube or whatever.

So that time in the morning is really the time that we have full control over, even though we really don’t have control over any time.

That’s the time where we can set the day, and if you start the day on the right foot and in the right direction, normally the rest of the day goes that way, minus life events that we can’t control.

So if you’re laying in bed and your phone is actually waking you up, then it is a good habit for you because it took you away from the bad habit of wasting time and hitting the snooze button.

Now I would look at it as how much time are you on the phone.

If it’s only 20 minutes, that’s fine, as long as at the end of the day you’re not like, “Oh my God, I didn’t get anything done,” and you’re not running late to work because you’re getting caught in your phone.

That’s what a lot of people do.

They get caught in the phone.

When I was scrolling Facebook when I woke up at 4 a.m., I couldn’t even tell you what I read.

Was it really beneficial?

I couldn’t even see my screen because I’m still so asleep, but it was just that habit of getting that phone and scrolling.

The next thing you know, 25 or 30 minutes have gone by, and now I’m barely making it to work because I lost track of time just scrolling on the screen.

Does that help answer your question a little bit?

Sabrina Chevannes:
I like mine because it’s literally 5 to 10 minutes.

Juli Colotti:
Yeah.

Well, that’s not bad.

That’s not the norm though.

Most people, right, you talk to people and it’s at least 30 minutes.

Sabrina Chevannes:
That’s crazy.

But like I said, it does add up.

What I want to understand is that not everyone’s different?

Some people are really not morning people.

Some people are actually hugely productive in the evening.

I would say that before COVID, my most productive time was between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. because people wouldn’t be messaging me.

I meant that I was a night owl, and I still get normal hours of sleep and I’ll be fine.

I just wake up a little bit later.

I don’t understand all these things like the 5 a.m. club.

You just said you get up at 4:00 a.m.

That’s never going to be good for me.

If I go at 4 a.m., I’m going to be pissed off.

I’m going to be groggy all day and I’m going to be like, “Everyone get out of my way. I had no sleep. I got up at 4 a.m.”

The only time I will happily do that is if I’ve been catching an early flight to somewhere sunny.

Then it’s fine because I’ve got a big reward at the end of doing that.

Otherwise, I’m just not doing it.

I mean, people get up at 4 a.m., they may go to bed really early and still get that eight hours sleep.

That’s just not for me.

I am definitely much more of an evening person.

I think what I don’t like is there is so much stuff out there preaching about how the morning is going to be the most valuable time to you and your most productive time.

But why does it have to be?

Isn’t everyone very different?

Why can’t someone switch it around?

You mentioned kids, but some people have kids and some people don’t have kids.

It’s going to be different for them.

I feel like kids can get sick in the morning just as much as they can in the evening.

So I feel like what if people just want to lie in?

What if people want to get productive early in the evening and then go to bed happy because they’ve been productive and they sleep better?

What’s wrong with doing that as a routine as opposed to the other way around?

Juli Colotti:
There’s nothing wrong with doing that.

The reason why there’s all of this information and I focus on the morning routine is because of who I work with.

But if you were my client and I was working with you, we would just change it.

It’s just the norm, and not everybody fits the norm, which is a good thing.

I hate getting up at 4 a.m., but it’s what I have to do.

I own a personal training studio also, so it’s what I have to do for my career right now.

But if it was up to me, I would sleep till 10:00 and then my day would start whenever.

It’s just the norm.

If you have kids and you’re waking up before anybody else… but you do it the opposite way, which is completely fine.

So what we would do with you is just make your habits around the evening time.

After dinner, we would make sure that you’re setting up those habits to do things and not sit on the couch and have your lie-in then because you just ate and now you want to watch the evening news.

You want to watch whatever sitcom is on TV.

So it would just be a reverse setting, which is completely fine.

Unfortunately, in everything in the world, there is that generalization.

I don’t think anybody is really a morning person.

It’s just like those people that like to run for fun, right?

There are people that love the morning.

I am not one of them either, but I have grown to just accept it because it’s what I have to do.

Like I said, we would just flip-flop everything and make sure that the time you have in the evening, for those four hours, you’re getting done whatever needs to get done.

Whether you’re trying to open up a business, organize your house, get rid of things, or purge a closet, we would just make sure that we’re setting up your habits so we get that done.

Then if you like to have a lie-in in the morning, we would just make sure that you are prepared for the day before you went to bed instead of doing all of that stuff in the morning.

So there are obviously ways to flip-flop.

It’s true.

It’s just the general norm.

It’s just like breakfast.

Everyone says, “Oh, you got to eat breakfast first thing in the morning.”

Well, why can’t you eat eggs for dinner?

Sabrina Chevannes:
I do.

That’s exactly what I do.

I have this thing which is one of my favorite comfort foods, and I’m going to do it now.

I have a baked potato with bacon and eggs.

It’s like my breakfast potato, but I’m having it for dinner.

Juli Colotti:
There’s nothing wrong with that, so defy the odds.

That’s okay.

You just have to figure out… and that’s one of the things that I think is different about my program.

I don’t do a group program where I’m lumping everybody into a morning routine.

We work one-on-one, and we figure out your routine before we put everybody into the group.

So there is a group program, but we figure out what is working for you.

A habit is a habit.

It just depends on what habit you’re forming.

How you form those habits is the same for everybody.

It’s just what you’re doing and when you’re doing it that is different.

If we’re focusing on making your evening time block more beneficial than your morning time block, that’s completely fine.

But there are probably some things that you can fine-tune in the morning to give yourself some more time if you are stressed and running around trying to get things figured out because every minute counts.

There might be things that you can do that save you some time and get you to feel less stressed in the morning instead of running around.

So to answer your question, long story short, it’s really just the norm.

Most people are going to work in the morning and they’re getting up and doing things, but most of those people are laying in bed wasting time.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Yeah, I think that’s it.

I did flip it.

I know that I’m rubbish in the morning.

I’m groggy and really tired, so I’m not really productive in the morning.

Actually, I do do that, like you were saying about your client who exercises and cleans the house before she goes to work in the morning.

No, I do that on the way in after work because I’ve still got more energy after work, and I even find it therapeutic.

I eat my dinner and then clean the house.

That’s what I do.

Then I’ll prepare everything and get everything ready for the next day because I know in the morning I’m going to suck.

I’m going to want to shower, brush my teeth, and just leave the house.

That’s what I want to do in the morning.

So I flip it and do everything in the evening.

I think that’s okay.

It’s not been a… that’s just my life.

I think I’m going to be fine with that.

But I think for me…

Sabrina Chevannes:
I also read a book called *Atomic Habits* by James Clear.

Have you read that book?

Juli Colotti:
Yeah.

That book changed my life.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Oh, really?

You actually rate the book?

Yeah, okay, so that’s a good thing to hear because I love the book.

I think it’s fantastic.

It’s also sort of changed my life.

I’ve read it twice in the last year and a half.

I read it in a book club as well, and I’ve put that on it twice.

I think it’s so amazing.

It’s so good to hear from someone who is actually a habit coach that it is a legit book, because for my cynicism, I almost do believe there is a lot of crap out there.

We read *The 5 AM Club* in the book club, and sorry to say, we don’t agree with the 5:00 a.m. bit, but the topic habits, I think it’s fantastic.

So I want to hear about that.

How did it change your life?

Juli Colotti:
So during COVID and the shutdown, I lost my routine.

I lost everything.

I was teaching gym classes in my living room, and I was really like, “If it doesn’t get done today, we’ll just get it tomorrow because I’m not going anywhere tomorrow either.”

But then I was a mess.

I was near rock bottom, completely stressed out because I wasn’t getting anything done.

So then I was like, “Something needs to change.”

I realized that I was out of my habits, out of my routine.

So I was like, “Okay, let’s get back to doing that.”

Then when I read that book, I’m like, “Well, that all makes sense of why that happened,” because your habits and routine are so key.

His teaching is how I teach my clients.

We start small, and then we do all that.

We prime your environment, which is key.

I mentioned that about putting out the yoga mat so you’re stepping over it if you want to meditate.

That’s from his book.

Flossing your teeth and celebrating, you need to celebrate your habits.

If you go to the dentist and they tell you you need to floss more, and you floss one tooth, you need to celebrate that.

As silly as it sounds, it is life-changing.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Yeah, I do think that’s…

I underwent knee surgery not so long ago, and obviously that was an ordeal.

Getting back my range of movement in my knee was really hard, and I’m still going through it.

I can be honest, I’m definitely still struggling.

But that book really helped me get into a routine with the physio and getting on the bike and stuff.

It was all the bits about just getting your gym clothes.

I actually bought nice gym clothes as well.

I went and bought nice new gym clothes.

I’m like, “I’m going to wear this nice cute outfit.”

Then I was like, “Okay, I’ll put the outfit on.”

I had this on and I was like, “Well, if I’m in this gym outfit, I might as well get to the gym.”

Then I decided I was only going to do five minutes a day in the gym, and that was it.

Obviously, again, I did five minutes a day, and then I slowly went for a longer time as I did more.

It turned into a habit, and his method did help.

His method is slowly but surely strengthening my knee and getting me back into shape.

It’s incredible.

So I totally vouch for it.

If you’re teaching the *Atomic Habits* method, then, oh my God, your clients are going to be having the best transformation of their lives.

I think so.

I think that’s really cool and it’s amazing.

So not only did this book change your life and get you back into a routine, but now you’ve opened up Fitness.

You’ve opened up your own gym, right?

You’re running your own gym and you’re a personal fitness trainer.

How did that go from feeling like you had no routines to now actually running personal fitness training?

Juli Colotti:
Well, we opened this five and a half years ago.

So during the lockdown, we were all very virtual.

But when I read that book and I was going through everything in lockdown, all of my clients were going through it too.

I’m like, “What’s missing?”

Coming to the gym and all of that is great, but if your life is in chaos, what matters?

You’re not going to lose weight because you’re stressed and all this other stuff.

So I realized, especially after reading that book, what that missing piece was.

I just kind of did a test run with some clients, and they got amazing results.

I was like, “There’s something to this.”

So I just went off, and I was like, “Let’s see if we can do this.”

That opened up my own brand and I started coaching people on this.

They don’t need to be my fitness clients.

They can be anywhere in the world.

I focus on people that are looking for success, so entrepreneurs or people that are looking for that promotion, and they’re pretty executive level.

Because everybody owns a business, and it’s called your own life.

We need to be in control of that.

Without that, there’s so much stress and so many other things that are going wrong with our life.

Once we get control of our routine and our habits, all that other stuff will fall into place.

Sabrina Chevannes:
So how do you want a business connect then in that way?

How does all this habit forming correlate to the health and fitness kind of stuff?

Obviously, I guess a lot of the habits that people want to form most of the time are around losing weight and all that kind of stuff and productivity.

But what combination have you seen between your fitness clients and the habit-forming for clients?

Juli Colotti:
The clients that are in the gym that are also my habit lifestyle coaching clients, just getting control of taking care of themselves and putting themselves first.

Getting rid of the clutter in their house and having them look forward to going home after a workout.

They’re actually meal prepping, so that’s a big one, getting into the habit of meal prepping.

But also, I train a lot of teachers, so getting them to de-stress.

Also, the habit of transition.

So you’re transitioning from career person to mom, to friend, and all of that, and being able to give you that time in your routine to transition from work to home life is huge.

That’s a big habit that people don’t think about.

You’re going in and you’re still with the stress from work, and now it’s going into home.

If you’re carrying so much stress around, there’s all these hormones and stuff.

You’re not going to lose weight, and all this other stuff is going to happen.

Then you’re going to have medical problems, and it’s just a big domino effect.

So getting stress levels under control through your habits and routine is key.

Sabrina Chevannes:
So is that the biggest complaint that most people say, that they’re too stressed and they want to reduce the stress in their life?

Do you say the most common thing is…

Juli Colotti:
A single time.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Okay.

It’s a very much correlated, right?

This stress because they have no time, and it’s a vicious cycle.

But is that then, you said, mainly to do with work, and you said that you mainly work with entrepreneurs.

Is this because they’re all kind of running their own business?

They work really, really hard.

Is that a common thing that really busy business owners are stressed and they have no time because of work and their business, etc.?

Is that kind of the main concern?

Juli Colotti:
Yep.

Entrepreneurs and moms are my two biggest clients.

Even if they’re a stay-at-home mom, you would be surprised how unproductive stay-at-home moms are because they’re not self-motivating.

Sabrina Chevannes:
And why is that?

Just because they feel like they’ve got to look after their kids full-time and they feel there’s nothing?

What’s the reason that they don’t feel motivated?

Juli Colotti:
A lot of times, especially if the kids are at school, it’s, “I’ll clean the house tomorrow,” and tomorrow never comes.

Or it does, but then there’s another tomorrow.

So it’s not necessarily feeling unproductive, but not feeling fulfilled that you’re doing enough.

It’s getting moms that stay home to get a hobby, to go volunteer, to do all these other things.

Then it actually brings more happiness because they’re doing things.

They’re not just staying home and watching soap operas all day.

Sabrina Chevannes:
That’s interesting because it’s like they actually do have time, from what it sounds like, but they don’t feel like they have a purpose.

Then you find them that purpose, the hobby and the volunteering, which actually takes up more time, and suddenly they find themselves having more time spare.

It’s like a very strange paradoxical situation, right?

It’s like you said, it’s nothing to do with time.

It’s how well you use it.

I mean, I’m definitely a very busy entrepreneur.

I would definitely say that.

I work silly hours a week sometimes, a lot less than I used to.

I used to kind of do that whole burnout thing, and all ideas.

I can’t do that anymore.

I’m definitely more sensible about it.

I would still like to cut down my workload, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes you feel like it’s a necessary evil to do.

What advice would you give to most small business owners and entrepreneurs out there who do feel that pressure?

I feel like there is that pressure when you’re self-employed.

You don’t have a consistent paycheck coming in, right?

You’re not consistently going to get X amount a month that you can budget with.

Some months may go great, some months may be awful.

Then you have those peaks and troughs, and the peaks and troughs financially lead to peaks and troughs emotionally and mentally and all that kind of stuff.

What advice would you offer those people who are suffering through that and not sure how to handle the stress and the workload and everything?

Juli Colotti:
I think the best piece of advice is to make sure you’re planning your day.

Because if you’re not planning your day, you have… we have more time than we think we do.

If you’re planning your day and using your time wisely, you’ll start to figure out how long certain tasks take.

Then if you know there’s not money coming in, you might have extra time to figure out how to bring money in.

A lot of times, it’s hard to get money in the door because you don’t have time for marketing.

You don’t have time for the important things because you wasted time scrolling Facebook and doing all of these other things which really aren’t important.

It’s the power of learning to say no to others and focusing on that to-do list and doing what you need to do to move your business forward.

Sabrina Chevannes:
How granular do you get in planning your day?

Because I feel like every business owner does plan to some extent, but the plans go out the window.

You’ll sit down and be like, “Okay, here’s my to-do list.”

That’s it.

It seems to get longer and longer every day as well.

You don’t get to check off as many things as you add to that list.

It grows, and then you plan your day to some extent, then a client calls an emergency.

You always prioritize your clients because you think they’re the ones paying, and that’s what pays the bills.

You always prioritize things that make money.

So how granular do you get, and how strict do you have to get to sticking to that plan?

Juli Colotti:
So I cross off my to-do list every day.

Sabrina Chevannes:
You do?

You never have…

Juli Colotti:
When you talk about client emergencies, is it really an emergency or is it an emergency to them?

Is it something that really can wait?

So I only check my email certain times a day.

I only check my phone certain times a day, and that blocks me from distractions.

I have office hours where you can contact me or you can contact me before and during this time as well.

I’ll answer you, but that’s the other thing.

Everybody always has an emergency, but it’s only an emergency to them.

It takes a long time to do that.

I’ve been in business for six years, and I’ve been doing this beforehand.

So it takes a lot of training to understand that and to be at that level.

Juli Colotti:
I also do the same called a brain dump, where I take everything out on Sunday nights of what needs to be done in that week.

The first couple of times I did it, I planned way too much, and I started to get better.

Now I have my whole day scheduled, and I’m done at 4:00, and then there’s nothing left on the list I have.

Then tomorrow, I have stuff to do because I know how long certain tasks take.

Unless a client is calling me five times in a row and it’s a true emergency, most emergencies are not true emergencies.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I agree with that.

Most emergencies are like they think it’s the end of the world, but it’s not.

But I don’t think I’ve ever crossed everything off my to-do list.

My to-do list definitely grows quicker than I can get through it, 100%.

I’ve never crossed everything off my to-do list.

For example, even today, my emergencies that people call me up with, I had three clients call the office over five times.

Their sites went down or someone had done something drastic, and then there’s a staffing issue.

There’s always stuff that goes on that I feel like I need to deal with.

The thought of only checking my emails a couple of times a day would give me more anxiety.

I think because when I get to the emails, like I’ll go into a meeting for an hour and I’ll come out and there are 75 emails on my phone.

Honestly, that gives me more anxiety because I’m like, “Okay, so if I only check that once every six hours, how many emails would I have a day that I need to answer?”

It would freak me out more.

So I don’t know.

I feel like not everyone could do that because that would definitely give me more anxiety.

I’d rather just sit down, do all those emails, and then know it’s done and get on with it.

But I don’t think I could actually sit there and say, “Okay, I’m only going to answer my emails between two different slots a day, and that’s it.”

I couldn’t do it.

I feel like that’s more stressful, the thought of it.

Juli Colotti:
Yes or no.

I mean, it takes… it’s not something that gets switched over overnight.

But there are processes to go through.

How many of those emails are actually important?

How many of them are coupons and all this other stuff?

So there are different ways.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I wish.

I mean, 75 emails are all emails from clients, so from people that I need to respond to.

They’re not actually newsletters or anything.

That’s a different folder.

This is the stuff that I have to actually answer.

This is why it would worry me.

Also, I’ve tried the whole… I went to take days off now.

I try to be good.

I try to put an out-of-office reply on and just not check my emails.

Like the four days I’ve taken off, and I’ll come back and there are emails going, “Sorry, it applies. Therefore, we’re giving this business to someone else.”

That makes me really upset.

I feel like I’ve missed out on the opportunity, and I’m like, “Had I replied to that, I would have won like a 20 grand business, but now I just lost that and now my business is suffering.”

That’s how I feel.

I think that again, maybe FOMO, maybe, I don’t know.

But that causes me more anxiety.

Sometimes I just would rather check my email on holiday, make sure I’m not missing anything, and then actually have a better holiday.

Everyone else says it’s really unhealthy.

But I don’t know.

I feel like I just need a virtual assistant.

Juli Colotti:
Oh, I’ve tried that.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I mean, I’ve tried training people as assistants for months.

No one can answer emails.

Everyone speaks to me.

It’s really annoying.

I don’t think it’s very difficult when they’re not generic inquiries.

They’re very specific.

I’ve been looking for eight years for someone who can answer very specific questions.

We’ve got someone now who was hired to do admin work, and she’s taking a lot of stuff off my plate, which is great.

But she’s still struggling to answer.

She still doesn’t know what to say.

Every day she’ll still ask me, “Is this the right thing to say? What do I do?”

She doesn’t know, and bless her, she’s trying.

She’s come a long way, and she definitely saves me lots of time, but there are some things that only certain people can answer in the business.

That’s why people want to speak to me.

I don’t know, I just feel like everyone’s a little bit different.

My issue is that a lot of people say there’s one size fits all with these sorts of de-stressing approaches.

I think that everyone is a very different person.

That’s what I’ve discovered.

I’m backwards a lot of the time.

I’ll eat breakfast at night, and I’ll be doing stuff at 2:00 in the morning instead of getting up at 5:00 in the morning.

So I’ve been trying to do stuff to…

How would you deal with someone who is as weird as me, who doesn’t conform to normality?

Where do I start?

I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I’m sure there are a lot of other crazy business owners out there who do feel the anxiety of not replying to emails.

I feel like maybe you’re right.

Maybe it’s to do the James Clear method of doing small bits and checking them less, and getting there slowly.

Maybe eventually I’ll be able to check it twice a day or even once a day.

Maybe I need to just give it time.

But what other options do I have to be able to handle this kind of anxiety that I have by not doing my work?

It’s the opposite.

Juli Colotti:
Cool.

A lot of that is more so how you set up your business and the parameters you set with your clients.

But having too much on your to-do list is not planning properly.

Planning takes time to learn.

We do a whole six-week program on planning and how to plan properly, so you’re not over-planning.

But a lot of the things that you’re talking about specifically, if you really took the time, what you did essentially was wasting more time to look at those emails.

Are they really important, or can you lay out better client relationship guidelines of what needs to be emailed?

Is there a better system for that?

So some of those things are different than what I do.

That’s just like general business coaching advice.

But having more stuff on your to-do list than you can get done is because there are other distractions in your life that we just need to prioritize and figure all of that out.

It’s not a flip the switch, as most people would like it to be.

We would have to take a real deep dive into your routine and what you’re planning.

Can some of those things be handed off to somebody else?

Especially if that is the main thing you’re in all of that.

So it’s not an easy answer.

Let’s put it that way.

Sabrina Chevannes:
That is exactly the main thing, the delegation thing.

I know you mentioned the virtual assistant because, for example, I hate the book *The 4-Hour Work Week*, which I have vowed to reread again because I’m going to give him some credit because I actually do like a lot of Tim Ferriss’s work.

But *The 4-Hour Work Week*, essentially summed up in one sentence, is get a virtual assistant and it will give you lots of time.

I’ve tried this for years and years and years.

Every time I feel swamped, I sit down and write down all the tasks I could potentially delegate.

I’ve done that, then tried to create job descriptions and tried to hire someone to do those tasks.

That’s exactly what I feel would be the sensible thing to do because then you delegate it to someone, and you’ve got more time for yourself, and you’ve got fewer things on your to-do list.

But the problem is it’s very difficult to find people to do those tasks.

Whilst I’ve learned to delegate a lot of things, a lot of things can’t be delegated.

I’ve spoken to other people who do what I do as well, and they are doing more than I am, which is kind of crazy actually because I feel like no one else can do it.

Maybe the problem out there is that people don’t trust other people to do their work.

At the moment, it’s even harder because I think that the whole Great Resignation thing, there’s a lack of talent out there, so we’re struggling to find the right sort of talent to help them.

But I know that I would love to have more time.

I would love to have people doing this work, but every time I’ve tried to delegate it to someone, it’s not been done properly.

Then I end up wasting time because I have to explain to them how it’s done again, and I have to do it myself anyway.

Actually, this is the problem.

My delegation has actually cost me way more time in the past because people can’t do the work.

I think that’s the problem.

I’ve tried all these things, and it’s backfired.

That’s why a lot of entrepreneurs end up just doing it themselves because they feel like, “I’ll do this myself. I know it will be done properly. I won’t be disappointed, and actually, it’s quicker.”

I think there’s that weird kind of problem that people feel like they’re in, where they feel like they can’t get out of it.

It’s like a catch-22 situation.

If we did have someone to help us, I think people would snap that up.

But where do these people exist?

We’ve got to find all these people.

I wish they were there.

I guess the people who are talented and can do it are just not affordable either.

So these are extra problems.

I guess that’s what causes people stress.

Juli Colotti:
Yeah.

That’s a whole different conversation.

But yeah, there’s a lot to it.

It depends on what you do, what you’re an entrepreneur doing, and all of that stuff.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Tell me about one of your greatest success stories.

I want to hear that.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I want to have a nice positive, inspirational story to take away because I feel like I’m bringing all my anxiety to this now and, oh God, there’s too much to do.

This is exactly what you’ve got to get out of me.

So I want to have a nice inspiring story of one of your successful clients.

Juli Colotti:
One of my clients is a first-grade teacher, and she was walked all over by her family.

She was full of stress and never felt like she had time for herself.

She was coming to the gym and wasn’t getting results.

So we sat down and went over her routine and realized there was no transition from teacher to mom and wife.

She was always running around because she had no plan, but still felt like she never got anything done.

She was always saying yes to other people.

She was on all of these organizations that didn’t fulfill her.

We really got down to what she wanted, and what she wanted was more time at home.

So we just created habits to get her to have more time at home, and she gave up things that didn’t fulfill her.

Since then, she’s lost 30 pounds, she’s able to say no to the family that is toxic in her life, and they have actually realized what they were doing and they have changed.

So she actually bettered her relationship with her family because she was able to get rid of stress and stand up for herself.

Just by simply looking at things that were bad habits for her because they were causing her stress, like volunteering, which is great, but it wasn’t fulfilling to her.

Sabrina Chevannes:
That’s beautiful.

You’ve just changed someone’s life so much for the better.

That’s incredible.

Also, just fixing family relationships as well.

I think that’s wonderful.

I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize.

The fact that you were able to help the family realize that they were being toxic towards her, I love that.

I’m so glad I asked you for a nice story.

That’s made me feel so much better.

But I would like to allow my listeners to be able to be inspired by you as well.

So where can people get in touch with you if they want to be able to get rid of their bad habits and form some good ones?

Sabrina Chevannes:
What’s the best way to get in touch?

Juli Colotti:
So you can go to my website, it’s JMC Lifestyle dot com, and on there are all of my connects to social.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Which social channels can we find you on?

Juli Colotti:
Facebook and Instagram.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Facebook and Instagram, okay.

So I’ll put it on the show notes where we can find you and where people can hit you up to perhaps get some better advice and to be not as stressed as me as an entrepreneur, that’s for sure, and juggling too many things.

I know that’s what my problem is really, is that I need to get better at saying no for sure because I end up just saying yes to everything and I have a million things to do.

Those things can be done in our world, but it’s so difficult to say no.

It’s really hard.

So I think that’s got to be one of my things.

If anything, I need to learn how to say no more.

I think that’s definitely something I have to try.

But thank you so much, Juli, for your wisdom today.

You’ve been amazing, and thank you for the inspiring story.

Thanks everyone for listening, and if you like the show, please do remember to hit subscribe and leave a review.

It will really, really help us, and I will massively appreciate it.

But until next week, I will see you all, and thank you for tuning in to No Bullshit Talks.