From Passion Projects to Global Adventures with Laura Berg

0:02Who's ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like DTC Pod. Today, we'll be breaking down passion projects and global adventures. To drop these value bombs, I brought to Laura Berg and the EO Fire Studios. Laura founded My Smart Hands, a baby sign language company, and authored two books, The Baby Signing Bible and Thriving Life. She's also a professor in the Professional Writing and Communications Program at Humber College. In today's foundation, we'll talk about aha moments.

0:38We'll talk about passion and projects. We'll talk about finding balance in your entrepreneurial life and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Laura and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business.

1:15Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Laura, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, everybody? So I think the one thing I would say that I would disagree, most people would disagree with is to become an entrepreneur, you have to sweat 24-7, work, work, work, nose to the grindstone, but that's a choice that you make. So you don't necessarily have to do that in order to be successful because you need to figure out what your definition of success is. What is your definition of success, Fire Nation?

1:56Think about that, know that, live that, breathe that. And we're talking about passion projects. We're talking about global adventures. And I want to start with your aha moment, Laura. Talk to us about the moment you had the idea to found My Smart Hands. It was sort of a means to an ends. I had my daughter and as soon as I had her, I wanted to stay at home. I didn't want to go back to work, but I live in a big city and we have to have two incomes. So I was trying to figure out a way to still make money. And I started teaching baby sign language classes for other moms just out of my living room.

2:35And I really never intended on becoming an entrepreneur. I was going to go back to teaching after my daughter went to school and I fell in love with being an entrepreneur. So it's kind of this crazy fluke. Fire Nation, sometimes flukes come out of necessity. And it's kind of what I want to move into next. I mean, it obviously didn't just have you say, you know, I'm going to do this. And then all of a sudden, boom, you're having success. I mean, let's talk about the breakthrough moment. When did you actually know you were going to succeed? You're like, you know what? This just might work. Yeah, it's funny, that breakthrough moment, because when I first started my business, I thought I was going to put up flyers in my neighborhood and people were just going to register for classes.

3:18I had this sort of false sense of what being in business was going to look like, and it didn't happen for me. And I was really frustrated. It was really depressing. And it wasn't until I posted a video on YouTube just introducing people to the concept of baby sign language. And then people started emailing me and asking me if they could be an instructor for my program. And I just thought, program? I don't have a program. I'm just a stay-at-home mom running classes out of my living room. And it was at that point where I thought, this little idea could be bigger than me if I brought in other teachers.

3:56and it kind of just snowballed from there. And it actually led to you eventually writing two books, but they're very different books. So I would like to kind of take each one one step at a time here and tell us more about these two books and then tell us why. I wanted to write a book about baby sign language because I had this business and I thought what better way to be the expert in the field than to write a book about it. And I thought that would give me credibility in my business, which it did. And so I wrote a book just about how to sign with your baby for parents that they could use. And that was very successful.

4:36And then years later, I had gone through a lot in my life. And I kept running into people who had similar experiences that I had, and just didn't know how to move past them. And I did a lot of work on myself in order to get to the point where I am now. So I decided to go back to school. I got my psychotherapy degree in order to write my second book, which is a self-help book. And I wanted it to be based on the experiences that I had growing up and through relationships and what have you, my own personal experience, but I also wanted to come at it from an educated standpoint. So my second book is completely different.

5:22It's called Thriving Life. And it's basically my experience and how I overcame certain things that I know other people struggle with. Fire Nation, I really hope you're understanding that when you're going through this process and you're struggling, you're having challenges, this can be a time where you talk about them, you write about them, you share your journey. We like to call this the hero's journey. And a lot of people don't understand that they're the hero of this journey. Share the good, share the bad, share what you're learning, share what you're struggling with, the obstacles, the challenges, people will connect with that.

5:54And that is real content. And, you know, this kind of moves forward into where a lot of people simply took a pause on their life during COVID. But you actually went back to school to get your MA. Tell us more about that decision. Yeah. So, of course, a lot of people had hard time during COVID. And because the way my business is, is it's moms and babies taking mummy and me classes. Obviously, that all came to a grinding halt. And I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do moving forward with my life. Because, you know, a lot of times when you become an entrepreneur, it's not that you get disenchanted with your business, but you want different challenges.

6:37And so the beauty of COVID is that it allowed people to go back to school in a virtual environment, which was really not as prevalent before COVID. I always wanted to get my master's and I just thought I couldn't afford the time where I would, you know, take off work or take away from my family. But during COVID, it allowed me to go back to school because of the virtual environment. And I did that and I got my MA and became a professor after that. What would you say was your scariest moment during that process? I had the biggest imposter syndrome feeling, like thinking, I'm not smart enough. What am I thinking?

7:27How can I do this? It's two years. I hadn't been in school for quite a while. And I think everybody has that imposter's feeling at some point. We don't talk about it very much. Fire Nation, you need to realize one thing when you're going through this entrepreneurial journey. You are a human being. Guess what? That sounds obvious. But what's obvious isn't always how you're going to look at yourself. You're a human. You have emotions. You have fears. You have doubts. You have this imposter feeling that will overcome you because that's what it means to be a human being is to have those emotions. Just like you have elation, joy, excitement, all those things.

8:08This is part of the emotional rollercoaster that every human who has ever walked on this earth has experienced and always will. So just understand it, embrace it, and try your best to enjoy it. And we have a lot more to talk about around this topic when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges, especially now. It seems like everyone is working with smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky-high expectations, and that can make growing a business feel pretty painful. Thankfully, HubSpot can help. HubSpot just announced dozens of major product updates that'll make impossible growth feel impossibly easy, like Breeze, a suite of new AI-powered tools that deliver personalized insights to level up your work, plus AI agents designed to automate your work for you.

8:56Sounds pretty great, right? And Breeze Intelligence, which gives you the richest, most comprehensive picture of your prospects and customers, allowing you to serve them at a whole new level. Add to all this, re-imagine marketing and content hubs with new ways to create breakthrough content, updated features to generate better leads, and support to help up-level your marketing and revenue forecast. And you've got HubSpot's all-on-one customer platform. Get ready for growth without the growing pains. Visit hubspot.com slash spotlight to see all the updates. Laura, we're back, and I want to talk about how your experience, specifically as an entrepreneur, influenced your approach to teaching.

9:36I found it interesting that you said something earlier about how we should share our failures, we should share our successes. And I could not agree with you more. The idea of sharing your failures is very important because sometimes people just look at successful people and think that they have an easy time of it. And that's not always the case. And so I sort of translate that into my teaching where I talk to my kids about mental health issues, about insecurities. I try to relate to them as a real person and not somebody who's their professor and they can't sort of relate to. And Fire Nation, when you are actually going through this process of becoming an entrepreneur, you do really need to realize that, hey, I'm going to have these ups.

10:28I'm going to have these downs. And I don't need to keep this in a bottle. I need to hide this from individuals because people like to work with people they know, like, and trust. And you can't trust somebody that seems like they're in this garden tower like Rapunzel, untouchable. People connect with those who have shared experiences, struggles, obstacles, challenges, share it all, share the good, share the bad. And I will say this is pretty interesting is that you believe that being an entrepreneur actually allowed you to pursue passion projects. I think a lot of people might think the opposite, but speak to this.

11:05How did being an entrepreneur allow you to pursue passion projects that you have? Yeah. So that comes back to in the beginning where, you know being an entrepreneur you have to have your nose to the grindstone and work 24-7 and that is the case if you choose that but I like my business could be so much bigger make so much more money but I didn't want that for my life what I wanted was to set myself up so that I could spend time with my kids I could volunteer in their classes I could go on vacation and I could just really do things that I love. I love building things. I love home renovations. And so when you have a nine to five job, you have to ask permission to take time off.

11:53I didn't want that for my life. And so I set up my business to allow me to live the best life that I wanted to live, which is time with my loved ones and time for myself. Let's speak directly to aspiring entrepreneurs who are looking for a similar balance in their lives that you're talking about, what advice do you have for these individuals? I think the biggest piece of advice I have would be to define what happiness or what success is to you. Because I think sometimes we grow up with the idea of what success looks like. And because we were told, you know, your parents told you what success looked like, your teachers told you, movies told you, but success is different for each person.

12:44So for me, I'm successful because I'm able to live the life that I can live, which is going on vacation and spending time with my family. Do I make tons and tons of money? No, but I make enough money to live the life that I want to live. So that is my definition of success. And I think you have to figure out what yours is and what you want your life to look like. Because if you're spending so much time slaving away your work that you don't have time to enjoy your life, then what is the point? It really reminds me of this quote unquote joke that I've heard over the years where there's these people, they're standing, they're chatting, they're at this networking event, and then in walks this multi-multi-billionaire, one of the richest people in the world.

13:34and one of the guys kind of nudges his friend and was like, you know what? Like that guy has just made more money since he walked in the door than you'll ever make in your life. And the guy looks at the billionaire and says, you know what? That's true, but I'll have one thing that he'll never have. And the friend's like, what? Enough. Fire Nation, sometimes there are people out there who will never find that golden word of enough. And you need to know what that is for you so that you can say, you know what? Enough. Like I'm at where I want to be. I'm ready to hit cruise control. Maybe I want to enjoy friends, relationship, family, hobbies, fill in the blank.

14:13Like, do you have an understanding for you what enough is? Now, Laura, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about passion projects. We talked about the books that you've written, about your aha moments, some advice you had for entrepreneurs. What is the one thing out of everything that we talked about here today that you really want to make sure we get, we walk away with? Mistakes happen, bad things happen, and you can't let those bad things take you down because it's a learning experience. So if you think of things that happen in your career, your life that you consider bad, take that label away and turn it around as maybe that experience I just had is preventing me from making a worse experience down the road.

15:05So it was actually good that it happened. So I think that's a very, very strong point that you need as an entrepreneur is that bad things will happen and that's okay. And I want to just add to that a phrase that I love, Fire Nation. This too shall pass. And guess what? When you have bad, horrible, depressing times, say that to yourself. but also when you're at the highest of the highs, you're elated, you need to realize this too shall pass. Hopefully that helps you enjoy that moment a little more because you're not gonna stay that high forever. That's just not how life works. So Laura, if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, wants to learn more from you, what is your call to action for Fire Nation today?

15:48They can always check out my website at mysmarthands.com or my speaker website at lauraberginc.com. Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with LB and JLD today. So keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Laura, L-A-U-R-A. In the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. And Laura, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you. Hey, Fire Nation. A huge thank you to our sponsors and Laura for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation.

16:30Successful entrepreneurs are productive. They're disciplined. They're focused. That is why I created the Mastery Journal so that you can be productive, disciplined, and focused in 100 days. Step by step, visit themasteryjournal.com. And I will catch you there or on the flip side. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolf and Nathan Lanz, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier. AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented.

17:06The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts.

17:22Thank you.