Prioritising wellbeing as an entrepreneur

prioritising your wellbeing as entrepreneur

Prioritising your wellbeing as entrepreneur

This month’s expert interview is with Kayla Kurin, who I met in Barcelona last year when we were both speaking at the 7in7 Digital Nomad conference. We’re continuing on the topic of wellbeing, as not only is Kayla a yoga instructor who works with people who are living with chronic illness but she also chose to become an entrepreneur – and a location-independent one, at that – precisely to make better choices for herself and her health.

Kayla touches on a number of points that really fit with what I’ve been sharing around prioritising your wellbeing and doing this in the broadest sense: considering the environment in which you’ll thrive, finding work that will inspire you, and creating the freedom and flexibility that you want and need. (If you’re interested in how to put wellbeing first, get the free wellbeing strategy guide that talks through these different levels of wellbeing.)

You can watch the full interview with Kayla below or read on for an abridged version.

Prioritising wellbeing as an entrepreneur

Kayla KurinWhat does ‘success’ mean to you?

I think that success to me means freedom – and I often think of that in terms of my chronic illness. When I was really ill, I went through phases of being mostly bedbound through to being able to get through the day and do normal things. It wasn’t fun, I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do, I couldn’t do the sports I loved. I had no idea what would happen with my career, if I would be able to live independently or anything like that. I think that made me really, really value freedom, especially now that I’m in recovery and I get to do all these amazing things that I really love. I’m very aware of how I almost didn’t do all those things and how many people are not able to do those things that they love and that they’re passionate about.

What are the specific challenges that you and your clients have faced with chronic illness?

I suffered specifically from chronic fatigue syndrome, which is a very, very, debilitating fatigue. It can also cause a lot of pain, and it’s not just physical fatigue, it’s also brain fog. So I was in university at the time, and I just remember sometimes trying to write papers and I would write a sentence and then realise, “That didn’t make any sense.” I’d try again and I could spend an hour trying to write a sentence that would make sense.

I now work with people with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia and Lyme disease, and a few others. The symptoms vary, but basically there is unexplained and extreme pain or fatigue, where nobody knows what caused it or how to make it better.

Stress plays a key role in every single illness in my opinion, and I think that’s one of the reasons yoga and meditation are so effective; it really helps you find a way to manage stress. For me, that was important when I was thinking about what I could do, as I wanted to do something that wasn’t going to be a very high-intensity career. I remember I went backpacking, and then I moved to London and I was looking at normal jobs and realised, “I can’t read one more posting that says, ‘thrives in a fast-paced environment’! I’m not going to thrive in a fast-paced environment.”

I knew that I needed something that was going to be better suited to me, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to find that in London – so I decided to start my own business. I had had in my head that I wanted to be a yoga teacher but I didn’t have my credentials yet so I started freelancing to pay for the yoga teacher training. It was a difficult decision because I didn’t know if I would be able to start my own business; I didn’t really know at that point how I would find clients and things like that. So that part was hard, but choosing to not work for someone else was pretty easy! At university, I had run my own business and I had always liked the idea of it. It was something I had thought I might do in the future, and so it just happened sooner than expected.

What’s it like to run your own business while managing your chronic illness?

I have made a lot of decisions in business because of my health. For example, I never use the word ‘hustle’. I like to take things slow and wait until I find clients or students that are a right fit for me. I’m not very aggressive in my business acquisition because that can be very draining and takes a lot of time and energy. I’m happier to just go slow and wait to find the right fit. It can still be stressful, though, because you’re responsible for everything.

When I was launching my online course for the first time, I was in Greece and there was a freak snowstorm. The power went out as I was uploading these huge files to YouTube – people were starting to email me asking, “Is it up yet? Is it uploaded? We’re looking for it!” That was very stressful. I had to call my boyfriend who was back in London, “Can you access these through my computer and upload them for me?” So there definitely can be stressful things that I wouldn’t necessarily have to deal with if I was just working for someone else. Overall, though, it lets me have a lot more freedom. If I need to take a Wednesday off, I can do that without asking anyone. I can schedule meetings and stuff like that in times that work for me.

Also teaching yoga, even though it’s different than doing my own practice, always leaves me feeling really good and calm and energised afterwards.

What are the strategies that you have found to be effective in managing your illness?

I do yoga and I do a lot of meditation as well. There are yoga/meditation techniques that don’t involve movement, which can be helpful for if you’re travelling, if you’re stuck on a long train or flight, or if you’re too ill to move that day. I’m also very mindful of what I eat and the kind of environments that I expose myself to. So London, again, was very, very hard for me, because of the pollution and the number of people that were there. Barcelona was a much better fit for me because there was such easy access to nature, it’s not quite as busy, it’s a bit easier to get fresh fruit and vegetables. So it’s important to really think about your environment, where you are and how those external factors can impact your health.

As for whether you can do this in a traditional desk job, I think it really depends on the person. If you have an office job that you hate and a boss that’s not very accommodating that would be very difficult. I’m a really big believer in the idea that doing something that you’re passionate about, that brings you joy, is going to be beneficial for your health, no matter what. So if you have a more traditional job in an office but one that you really love, then I think that it can work. You might just have to search for the right team environment so that people are accommodating for you, and maybe there are flex days where you can work from home; or, at least, people understand what you’re going through.

What’s one step that people can take to manage their health?

I think it would be to find one thing to do mindfully – it could be yoga and meditation, but it could be anything, like eating, showering, washing the dishes… – just do one thing today for at least two minutes where you’re really paying attention to what’s going on in your body, and inside you, and just see how that feels to be really aware. Starting with that awareness was integral for me to understand what made me feel better and what made me feel worse, and what was really going on. It helped me understand how all my systems were interconnected, how it wasn’t just one thing. So I’d say just take a few moments today to do something mindfully.

To help you get started, Kayla has a set of free videos available via subscription on her website. Videos include yoga for better sleep, yoga for chronic illness, and yoga for stress: find the videos here >>

Kayla has a book on yoga for chronic pain, the companion book to a mini-online course that she runs – 10 minutes for 10 days at 10 dollars – and the first in a series of four. You can find the course on her website and follow Aroga Yoga on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

4 Responses

  1. Its great to find posts from other people who have chronic illnesses that have made a success of their own business. I am so used to hearing and reading that being self-employed and running your own business is much harder and more stressful than “ordinary employment” and health wise I just cannot do ordinary employment because of the unpredictable symptoms meaning I have no idea whether I will be able to get out bed next week let alone leave the house for some scheduled job.

    1. Glad to hear that it was reassuring. I know the social media image of the ‘hustling’ entrepreneur paints one picture of entrepreneurship but it is absolutely possible and, I’d say, necessary, for us all to build a sustainable business and a balanced life that allows us to manage our specific goals and parameters. Thanks Estelle for sharing!

  2. I agree on seeing so much that says that running a business takes more energy than a regular job, because I too can’t do a regular job.
    I’m in the process of researching people who make it work as entrepreneurs without the ‘hustle’, and how they navigate brainfog, deadlines, time management.
    What I love about business is that capacity to schedule things according to energy levels and capacity in any given moment. The hard part is that if I have a flare that has me out for 3 days, the systems I’d need to put in place to help me play catch-up and take care of clients/responsibilities. Passive income is also something I’m looking into – because in my case work time will be limited so to know I have income even during the times I need to rest is important. Learning these things, and having faith though I’ve seen my health fail in perplexing ways so many times… is an act of will and necessity. I have so much to offer too, and in my good moments I’m eager to pour from my full cup. I just never know when the spout will close and when it will open again… energy-wise. ?
    Articles and people like this give me hope.

    1. Hi Vanessa, I’m all about making it work without the hustle! And, as you say, running your own business is a great way (the best way, I think) to be able to manage your own time and energy. Diversifying your income streams and creating more passive products as well can really make it work for you as well.
      So glad Kayla’s example gives you more hope as well!
      If you’d like to join a community where we’re working on building a business without the hustle, I’d love to have you come over to the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onestepoutside

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

You might also be interested in these articles

“Everything you’ve ever
wanted is one step outside
your comfort zone.”

Book a free consultation

Get on the phone with Anna to discuss your unique goals and situation to determine the best programme for you, so you can start taking action towards creating the business and lifestyle you desire.

Explore a broader definition of success

Download this free assessment to consider what ‘success’ means to you across different areas of your life, evaluate where you are today, and prioritise the right goals to get you to where you want to be.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Explore a broader definition of success

Download this free assessment to consider what ‘success’ means to you across different areas of your life, evaluate where you are today, and prioritise the right goals to get you to where you want to be.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Outside of the 9 to 5

Anna continues the journey in her new book, where she details what’s needed to sustain your initial escape from the 9 to 5 in a guide to designing and building a profitable business that gives you more freedom, flexibility and fulfilment.

We will use and protect your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how One Step Outside uses and protects any information that you give One Step Outside when you use this website (https://onestepoutside.com/).

One Step Outside is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

One Step Outside may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What information we collect and why

We only ever collect the information that we need in order to serve you.

Generally, this just means collecting your first name and email address that you enter, for example, when you request a resource, register for a webinar, or submit a message via a contact form.

If you are a paying customer, we also collect your billing information including your last name and your postal address.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Contact forms

We use Gravity Forms to allow you to contact us via the website. We will use the information you submit for the sole purpose of that specific form and will explicitly ask you to provide your consent to allow us to do so.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Advertising and Analytics

Google

We use Google Analytics to track and optimise performance on this site as well as embedding video content from YouTube, and this means that your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes the URL of the page that you’re visiting and your IP address. Google may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. Apps that use Google advertising services also share information with Google, such as the name of the app and a unique identifier for advertising.

Google uses the information shared by sites and apps to deliver our services, maintain and improve them, develop new services, measure the effectiveness of advertising, protect against fraud and abuse and personalise content and ads that you see on Google and on our partners’ sites and apps. See their Privacy Policy to learn more about how they process data for each of these purposes, and their Advertising page for more about Google ads, how your information is used in the context of advertising and how long Google stores this information.

Facebook

We use the conversion tracking and custom audiences via the Facebook pixel on our website. This allows user behaviour to be tracked after they have been redirected to our website by clicking on a Facebook ad and enables us to measure the effectiveness of our Facebook ads. The data collected in this way is anonymous to us, i.e. we do not see the personal data of individual users. However, this data is stored and processed by Facebook, who may link this information to your Facebook account and also use it for its own promotional purposes, in accordance with Facebook’s Data Usage Policy https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/.

You can allow Facebook and its partners to place ads on and off Facebook. A cookie may also be stored on your computer for these purposes. You can revoke your permission directly on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/?entry_product=ad_settings_screen. For more guidance on opting out you can also consult http://www.aboutads.info/choices.

Who we share your data with

We use a number of third parties to provide us with services which are necessary to run our business or to assist us with running our business and who process your information for us on our behalf. These include a hosting and email provider (Siteground), mailing list provider (GetResponse), and a payment provider (Stripe).

Your information will be shared with these service providers only where necessary to enable us to run our business.

How long we maintain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website, we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

The main reason for collecting this information is to be able to send you resources, updates and, sometimes, information and products and services, as well as for internal record keeping.

The rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

How we protect your data

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that lets you access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential and we ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Initially created on 18th November 2016, it was last updated on 23rd May 2018 to be compliant with GDPR.

Contact information

If you have any questions or concerns related to your privacy, you can get in touch here >>