Welcome to the Lou Blakely Show (now the Online Course Creator Show)

Welcome to the very first episode of The Lou Blakely Show.

In this introductory episode, I wanted to start off by giving you some insight into my background and why I've created a podcast all about creating online courses and other digital products.

Listen in, to hear:

• Who I am and what brought me here to be doing the work I'm doing
• Why I created this podcast, and why I named it after myself
• My philosophy when it comes to creating success with digital products and launching
• What it takes to grow a successful digital product business
• What you can expect from this podcast

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Thanks for listening, and keep an eye out for future episodes if you're serious about creating a freedom-fuelled business with online courses and other digital products.

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Full transcript here:

Welcome to The Lou Blakely Show. This is episode 1. I am so excited to be here. This is the very first episode of this podcast that has been on my mind for a very, very long time. I'm recording this on January the 1st 2022. And I feel like it's just a great way to kick off the year and finally be moving forward on a project and taking action, which I know many of you can probably relate to.

So in today's episode, since it's the first one, it's going to be a little bit different. I feel like to kick things off I need to give you some context. So this episode is about who I am and what brought me here, why I've created this podcast and why I named it what I did. Also, I want to chat about my philosophy when it comes to digital products and launching and what it takes to grow a successful digital product business. And of course what you can expect from this podcast and future episodes.

So, hi, I'm Lou otherwise known as Louise. I am a Kiwi living in sunny, Brisbane and Australia. I'm a mother of one 15 year old boy, and I also have two step sons. Uh, so I'm surrounded by boys. I also grow up with all brothers, so I find that quite interesting and also funny that I only work with women. So you can read between the lines there. So I've been a digital marketer for over 10 years now. I studied marketing at uni and then worked in corporate. And I really started to get attracted to digital. I just loved how data driven digital marketing could be and how you could really create any business you wanted to at all on the internet. So at that point, I branched out into digital over 10 years ago. And I was really attracted by that whole work from wherever vibe, which was all the rage back then, because it was quite new. And I think it's still all the rage for good reason.

Right?

We all want that freedom of being able to work from wherever we want whenever we want. So I've done a huge amount of work with startups companies on an international scale specifically, really in the area of online advertising. And also I've done lots of work with small online business owners. So I started my business and 2013 and it quickly turned into a small agency and started growing really fast. So one of the things that I was helping people with, amongst many areas of marketing, because I was not super niche, was creating and launching digital products. So that's something that I have been helping people do for quite a long time.

Anyway, I was running this agency and things were humming along business was great. However in 2017, I hit burnout on what I consider to be an extreme level. It showed up as complete exhaustion and unable to get out of bed a lot of days with no reason why. Constantly getting sick, picking up every bug, that was going around, constant trips to the doctor. There was never any explanation or diagnosis. Finally, after many trips to the doctor, I got told I had chronic fatigue syndrome and there was nothing they could do about it. I really didn't want to buy into that diagnosis at the time, but it's certainly explained how I felt.

I don't really want to talk about this topic too much on this first episode, because I think it is a huge story in itself. So I will do an episode on in the future fully on burnout and how I recovered. However through this experience, which I consider to be a life-changing experience, I realised I was not fulfilled in the work I was doing. So while I was making great money, I was selling my soul in exchange.

I had left my corporate job with one boss to then end up with multiple bosses. And up until that point, I had no boundaries and was a constant people pleaser. I was also really unconscious of that fact, but I had no idea. And I find this situation is really common for female service providers. So I would do anything that anyone asked of me. I felt like I had 10 different bosses who all wanted their pound of flesh. And I was scared to lose them. So I would do whatever they asked. Now, this is something I would never repeat. I mean never, I don't care what the reward for me is giving up my health in becoming exhausted. Like nothing can be exchanged for that. So because of my burnout, I started to close my business down, or put it on the back burner. And then that time I moved from New Zealand to Australia and took almost a year off. But also I've got my life coaching certification back in New Zealand, and I decided I no longer wanted to offer done for you agency style services anymore. And I would only coach and mentor from here on in.

So you can say I've got on a path back to fulfilment and true purpose. I learned over this time through this experience of burning out how to biohack my health, and now sitting here today have mostly recovered. So I still get the occasional flare up. But, you know, my energy is I think at an all time high, which has amazing.

I got more aligned and decided to follow my dreams. I learned the connection between health and mindset and business and did a lot of personal development work, which contributed hugely to my healing. So through this process, I've learned that I need to be in full alignment and living my own dream rather than someone else's.

So having those 10 clients who wanted their piece of flesh from me, for example, it just was not in alignment with what I wanted for myself. And I also learned that the connection between mindset and health is undoubtable.

So then about a year ago, I recognized that I was still helping people with lots of things with an online marketing. So from online courses to SEO, to Facebook ads, to e-commerce, I had quite a few e-commerce clients. So I really started to see that I was still trying to do too much and spread myself too thin and that I needed to narrow my focus. So for me, it was finally time to niche. Now I'm not saying you need to have a perfect time to niche, I was always quite resistant to the niche thing. I'm a manifesting generator. So if you know, human design you'll know that we don't really like to box ourselves in too much. But I really knew that I was just spreading myself too thin and I was trying to keep up with a huge area of marketing, which required constant upskilling.

So I just knew I couldn't keep doing so much and I recognised the area  I loved the most was actually helping women create and build the freedom based businesses through digital products. So that was a year ago now that I made that decision and that's really what finds me here today.

I now mostly work with service providers who are done with their agency style done-for-you model that I also used to work in. And they now want to transition into a business model that is more about creating and scaling up digital products.

I also run a second business. When we left New Zealand, we kept our house there and turned it into an Airbnb property. And I run that from afar. So the only help I've got in New Zealand is the cleaner. I do all the management from here and yes, it is totally possible to run an Airbnb from another country. Now that's something that I'll maybe do an episode on in the future, but for now I'll be focusing more on digital products.

So now I'm going to chat a little bit about why I named this podcast after myself. So I feel like this is a bit of a big story for me. So I wanted to start a podcast for a long time. And the naming thing to be honest has really held me back. I asked in masterminds and what not. And all the feedback I got was that since I had a personal brand, it made sense to name it after myself.

But as I'm sure you can relate the imposter syndrome was real. And for a long time, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. However, in the last few months of 2021, I actually took some time off and really allowed myself just to figure out what I wanted to do without any outside influence.

And I just knew I had to bite the bullet. I still hadn't thought of a name that was worthy, but I really wanted a podcast. So here I am. And why Lou, rather than Louise. Let's just say that Lou is my alter ego. She's brave. She moves fast. She does what she says she's going to do. And she doesn't stand in her own way.

So it's a reminder to myself to be all of these things that she represents to me.

So what's my philosophy about launching and digital products that may be different from other experts or people experienced in this area. I believe that strategy is important. Definitely, but so is mindset energetics and embodying the person you want to become.

Because to have success with digital products, you need to be grounded and understand exactly where you're going to get there. So I'm also a trained life coach and this work has meant that I can integrate all of the knowledge about digital marketing with [00:10:00] all of the personal development work that allowed me to recover from that severe burnout and create a life that truly lights me up.

So this is my work really, to empower women to believe in themselves. To help them truly step into their worth. So that they can then use the strategies to create the business and the life of their dreams entirely by design. So first it's about worthiness, self-love and energetics. Then the strategy.

Because without the energetic stuff as the basis, the strategies won't get you long-term success. So, if you want to hear from a real person who has overcome a boatload of trauma and burnout and has created a life now that means I'm happy and content on another level that I actually didn't think was possible, this is the place for you.

And while I am very strategic and data driven, if you want to hear from someone with a perfect life, always an A grade student, top of the class and a type A personality, I'm just not that. I'm a rebel who quit uni at 19 to travel the world and came home four years later with a travel baby from Costa Rica. So I don't follow the rules and I feel like too many rules stifle us because I know that they can really stifle me. I believe in the full picture. And a really holistic approach to business and to life. I do not endorse creating a booming business at the expense of the rest of your life in the search for true happiness or fulfillment..because I know you won't find it there. I don't want you to build a business that results in burnout, or losses and other areas of your life.

I want you to have both an epic business and a life that lights you up. And I want the same for all of us, for me, and for you. I also believe that a digital product business is the best business model for women. It gives you freedom to be around your kids. If you've got kids, you want to be around them and say then see them grow up. And I have been very privileged that I have seen so much of my own son's upbringing. I remember when I was back in corporate, I was dropping him off at daycare at 7:30 AM and picking him up around 6:00 PM. And ever since I have started my online business, I have spent so much time with him, which is amazing. That's a gift that I'm always going to be grateful for.

Also creating digital products means that you can travel and do all the fun stuff you want to do along the way, even while you're working building your business, which is really appealing to me. You don't have to deal with either a boss or multiple clients who think that your boss.

So nothing compares as far as I'm concerned to a freedom-based business model, which is why I'm so passionate about it.

So that's it from me for episode one. So now that you've learned all about me and what this podcast will be about, I hope you stick around for another episode. If you're a service provider, I think that next episode will be a goodie for you. While you're at it, I'd love it if you could subscribe to The Lou Blakely show because it's going to help other people find me.

Thanks for being here! See you next time.