‘As you grow bigger, you just have to be transparent. When people know where they’re going, you actually have a good chance of getting there.’
Alinka Rutkowska is the CEO of Leaders Press, a hybrid publishing house and distribution. She helps entrepreneurs create books from scratch, and 130+ of them have become bestsellers! Get to know her story here.
‘It really is about the people you surround yourself with.’
When she was younger, Alinka was a self-proclaimed nerd and had dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur. Her hard work during her teenage years led her to a prestigious business school, and she keeps the same youthful curiosity and thirst for learning now that she runs her own business.
Listen to her entrepreneurial journey, from an exciting internship to working for a big multinational corporation, to starting a company.
See more of Alinka’s work:
Personal website: http://alinkarutkowska.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinkarutkowska/
Leaders Press: https://leaderspress.com/
John: Thank you for tuning in to The Business Sphere, don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode. My guest today is CEO of leaders press, Alinka Rutkowska. Leaders press is a hybrid publishing house and distribution, she helps entrepreneurs create books from scratch and 91 of them have become best sellers. So, thanks for joining me today, Alinka.
Alinka: Well, thank you so much John. Yeah, actually it’s 130 actually more than 130 now so yes.
John: I do apologize. Yeah, so I again it’s always growing right? And there’s always a new milestone that’s achieved with all these authors so I’d love to hear and maybe you from yourself, how did you become who you are? And maybe share with the listeners like your journey, how did you be, you know that starting the pivotal moments? And what got you started to start this company of yours?
Alinka: Okay, so for some context I guess I’ll share that our unique selling preposition is turning entrepreneurs book ideas into bestsellers we get them on the USA today wall street journal bestseller list we did that for more than 130 authors and we also get them into bookstores. So, we have a distribution partnership with one of the largest district, with one of the largest publishing houses in the US so that’s what we do right now. I will share four context purposes that right now we’re multi-million dollar and we, I founded the business 4 years ago so, 4 years ago we were at you know zero. So, it’s pretty exciting to see this grow it’s been we’ve had no funding whatsoever so it was all you know organic growth I think it’s called client fueled growth or there’s some sort of term but basically we you know didn’t take any loans, any funding nothing so you can do this you know from scratch with an idea and just the right set of I think skills and mostly attitude is what you need to make this happen.
So, it hasn’t been so long you know 4 years and I’m very proud of it I know there are people who’ve achieved much more in a much faster period of time but you know I like to mind my own business and so I’m happy you know doing what I’m doing pretty monotonous and or in other words dedicated so like if all I’m focused on is growing leaders press like when you talk to entrepreneurs and you ask them what they’re up to you’ll hear oh this startup that started I’m investing here, I’m investing there, doing this, doing that and then they asked me about you oh yeah I’m just, I’m just growing leaders that’s al that’s all I’m doing and it’s been paying off.
So, how did I get here I have corporate, corporate backgrounds. I worked in multinational corporations and I do have also a business background in terms of education so I did a master’s degree in one of the top universities in Europe, in Europe it’s called Bocconi in Milan and you know that’s that is, I am working within what I studied so that’s exciting cause there’s a lot of people who you know studied 10 years to be a doctor and then decided to be an entrepreneur and do something completely different, fine. I’m sure they you know took something from it but it actually is a natural continuation of what I’ve always been doing but working in the corporate world and having your own business is completely different however, I feel that I learned a lot both at university and in the corporate world but mostly in terms of attitude not so much in terms of skill because you know I don’t, I don’t think I’m using any of those whatever statistics you know advanced statistics that I had in business school I’m doing any of it and when you’re an entrepreneur you know how to surround yourself with the right people you’re gonna have the you know right person do this complicated calculation? For you. All you need to know is how to find that person, that’s what you need to know so I think the attitudes I remember when I first started university and I started in Poland and then I transferred to Italy it was the top a business school in Poland and what they said at the very first lecture and it was the dean of the university he said “We do not grow employees, we grow employers” So, if you’re here you will be an employer and I didn’t think that way at the time I wanted to go into the corporate world so this was not exactly what I, I didn’t buy into it but he was right, yeah.
John: So, that’s amazing to hear because coming from top business schools globally, Harvard, Stanford where you were it was all about the mind right? Educational prepares you and there’s a lot of unknowns right? Until you’re set into the workforce in the corporate environment to see how you know the rat race and how the day-to-day activities either challenge you or really reflect on why am I doing these tedious tasks when I should be thinking bigger right? So, was there pivotal times and moments throughout that stages of you finishing school to maybe working for a couple of years to then starting your company. What did you learn, maybe share with the audience members some of what you did during those years?
Alinka: I think those years I think there were a couple of moments that were milestones in my life in terms of how I got to where I am and one of them was for sure me being admitted to that university the top business school in Poland. It was a big deal it was very very difficult to get in I studied a lot for 2 years of high school all I did was study to get in there so I was typical nerd you know I didn’t have a social life I didn’t have any friends, I don’t know how beer tasted, no idea. So, I just studied and I got in that was my biggest dream at that time and when I was between the ages of 16 to 18 and I did that and I think that you know I, it put me on a certain trajectory that otherwise I would not have been on and you can get to you can be a highly successful entrepreneur without going to any school any university you don’t need that but for me I think I needed that because I don’t come from entrepreneurial family I don’t have the type of background I was the only one who was really interested in you know business.
So, that was huge just going to that university and the things they were feeding us you know mentally how capable we are how amazing we were that’s what they were telling us I don’t know if they did that in other schools but they were just continually feeding us how we are the ones who will be leading the economy, the banking industry, the politics, the everything, they were saying “You know our people have always ruled our ruling and will rule.” that was I was told I was like “Okay I had no idea just listening to this you know first days of university and that’s what they’re telling us so a little bit of that you know it builds confidence you’re like “Okay, well I am here to to lead something to create something to you know to make a difference.” and then I think the important like the other milestone was that I managed to get on this management program in Italy in Bocconi University because I was also a completely different mindset that I need to have I needed to go abroad not knowing anybody you know creating a life in a new city with a new language and I was able to do that I loved it then the next pivotal moment was when I found an internship and that was in shell I worked in shell you know the oil and yeah in the in Italy and it was huge to get that internship because I remember my friends who where looking for internships they were happy if they got an internship that paid them like a couple of hundred euros which is like a couple hundred dollars and they were happy because it was a big deal those are huge names if you look at the skyscrapers and you know any huge metropolitan area those were the companies that were paying that and I went to shell and they actually paid me actually paid me something that was similar to a starting salary as an internship.
So, I was way above all my friends in terms of the pay grade when I started which when I look at it now I was like what was that I was able to live on that I was like I had a different lifestyle it was just me and I was super excited to be in this multinational corporation that I looked up to had a great boss, learned a lot they wanted me to stay like they wanted me to stay because it was for 6 months and they wanted me to stay for longer and I was looking for something more that would be more stimulating. So, I found a well, one of my friends in shell was in the management program so he was you know the management program or the future leaders of the company where they groom you they have you do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit in the in this country in that country, headquarters you come back and you manage to you know you’re supposed to grow really quickly through the ranks that’s not so I wasn’t in that program I was an intern so he said “If you’re gonna do anything in these multinational companies look for a management program like than.”
So, I believed and I started looking for management programs in multinational companies in Europe because my only thing was I wanted to be in Europe because my parents were in Poland and I never wanted to change the continent but when I but wherever in Europe I was fine, there’s anywhere so I was looking for those and I found this management program in Whirlpool and then there was, there was a test there was a two-day assessment center there were 10 people in that assessment center and two were admitted and I was one of them I couldn’t believe it I was like these guys are smarter than me why are you taking me? And so that was huge to me I couldn’t believe it that I made the cut like I didn’t understand because I could really see how smart those guys were and I don’t think I had that level of intellect that they had I guess I had something else.
So, so I came on board and I was part of that program, I worked in logistics in Italy then I had a project in a factory which was a six sigma, lean six sigma project and become a six sigma black belt so I know all about you know cutting waste and all that stuff had a project in a factory in Italy where they looked at me like a complete alien cause I just had completely different, a different attitude that they had they were afraid of me because I was there to cut cost. So, I wasn’t able to make friends with almost anybody there’s these two guys were the only two that were speaking to me and that I could have you know coffee with or not afraid of me I was, I was miserable there and then I was crying on the phone saying like to the HR the corporate headquarters I was crying on the phone saying “I don’t think I can do this anymore” I remember I feel like an alien I have different hours, different lifestyle I can’t do this and they said “Well, we supposed to tell you this but if you stay strong and last till the end your next project is in Paris.”
And I was like “Oh Paris!” like you know everybody’s dream. I went to Paris I was super excited about going to Paris customer service project the only is that I didn’t really speak good French like I speak 5 languages but French is not one of them and French is a beautiful I mean Paris is a beautiful city but I was not able to connect because the, I was in customer service there was almost all people who were on young people on the phone who spoke fluent French but very little English the only people who spoke English were on the higher levels people with families and it you know I was in 20’s I had completely different lifestyle than people with families. So, again I couldn’t really connect with the reality there, had a lot of friends coming over for the weekend you know that I had previously I was anybody’s best friend when I was in Paris I always had somebody on my couch but yeah was not you know what it would have could have been in my mind I guess if I had spoken French would have been different and I went back to Italy started working in operations so in manufacturing I was responsible for the budget of four factories in Europe and I mean that was really interesting because like the factory directors would call me and ask me if they could have more money for this, if I could cut somewhere else I have explaining to me what machine they need, what it does I had no idea what I was doing I was managing like 20 million dollars of budget for these factories.
To me it was just an excel sheet like I didn’t understand that this number means you know this machine is going to do to produce and you know I was like what, what am I doing? And I mean it was obvious that I was not in the right place their like that was not what I was passionate about and I wanted to get into the six sigma things the cost cutting the lean you know all that stuff but they didn’t really want me to do that they were offering me other jobs which I didn’t wanna do and at the end I managed to basically get them to pay me to leave so they paid me like a year and a half of salary and you know like any wise entrepreneur. What did I do? I spent it all on a trip around the world.
John: Amazing.
Alinka: So, I went to this trip around the world I met, I did a cruise from New Zealand to Australia and I met this very handsome sailor who I am married.
John: Oh wow!
Alinka: Later, so I was good for a while I didn’t really have to do anything cause you know he does well but I just have to do something with myself I couldn’t not do anything so I started with one book, wrote this one book started marketing it was doing really well and then I started sharing with other authors how I was doing it and they seemed to be more interested in the marketing than in the book itself although the book is doing really well and so I started doing more of my own. Starting helping others with their marketing and that went on for years that went on for like 7 years just you know figuring out what I want and in 2017 I went to a mastermind in London with dean Jackson and he yeah, he was like like you’re doing all these things what’s the highest value offer you could, you could offer to your clients and I was like well, if I just help them come up with the idea that was good that helped them stand out and bring in a team to write a book because like I’m not a ghost writer but bring in somebody who could do it and help them with the marketing because the marketing is where I’m really good at and he’s like there you go. So, at that mastermind I thought well okay what would we call it you know who’s the target audience? So you know entrepreneurs, business because that’s what I’ve always loved and how do we call it, what do we call it? And I was like huh! What about leaders, press, lets see let’s go to go daddy and see if it’s free and I’m like it’s free! Nobody’s ever thought about it and Dean was like I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it’s available you know get it right now, so I got it then and you know we got started, so now it’s yeah! we’re renewing 4 years and it was you know a good domain to get because now here we are.
John: That’s such an incredible story because traveling around the world, you know meeting someone but also really understanding what you really wanted to do right? And finding that passion right? Like before I get into those business questions I want to ask you, those years of the six sigma right where you had to go in and proure and try to figure out like cut costs and you know cut people’s job’s livelihoods, people that have been in it for like 20-30 years have families to support, how did it feel, like did you have to do the cut? like did you have to do the firing? Or was it just to acknowledge the process and figure out which division or where do you need to kinda remove some of the overlap?
Alinka: I didn’t do any firing and I don’t think my project contributed to firing but that’s what the people thought, they were working around me like this person is going to get us fired what I had to do was like you know find where there was some idle time that could have been shrunk or just you know things that are not that efficiently in the factory it’s maybe more like managing their flow of what should be first, what should be next, who should come and when, yeah. So, they’re just looking how that connects to what I’m doing right now I think, I’ve always been very mindful of cost you know of what we’re spending and you know now our costs are large because we have a team of 30 and you know big marketing machine behind us but even though there are 30 people and we have like 2 COO’s, 2 sales officer, chief business officer.
I’m still the CFO, I don’t like the job necessarily I don’t like the financials, I’m the creative person but I do them because I think it’s very important for me to have a really strong grip on what’s going on you know, what we’re spending money on and you know I think being able to live like on a small budget when I was an intern by myself without any extra money because the moment I got the internship I stopped asking my parents for money and I was able to save and go on vacations and go visit my parents and you know do all the stuff I wanted to do.
It really teaches you to manage, manage your budget okay? You have a small budget but you manage it and so as the budget was becoming bigger and bigger you know both personally and now there’s a company finances I think that taught me to manage me to manage it plus I was managing the 20 million for the factories. So that also taught me manage the finance because I think is very important because I’ve heard so many, so many horror stories of you know business partner that you know took all the money or was spending like the owner had no idea where the money was going like I find that crazy how can you not know that? How can you not keep it you know keep track of all that? And you know being able to create this scratch. So, you know zero zero really really with zero so you know sell the first thing upfront the first service upfront do it you know and then grow like that so you can do it because you know I did it and many others have done it as well.
John: That’s amazing to hear, so let’s go back to that around the world vacation or trip right? How long was it? And was it a cruise or did you actually stay at all 7 continents and stay at different places?
Alinka: So, I started in New Zealand, Australia, and then I went to Asia then I went to Europe, and then I went to America, North America. So, I sort of I skipped Africa in that and in South America so, I did that sort of loop.
John: Okay cool, and were there memorable moments along the way that you can think of that are like bucket list kinda places because again I’m a big added bucket list kinda person, love travelling. Would you share with the audience member some favorable, memorable moments that you would all, maybe go back to now that you’ve seen a lot in the world.
Alinka: I don’t know this is like a super private moment I’ve never actually shared anywhere but I think it gave me a lot of self-confidence. So, when I met my husband and he wasn’t my husband at the time yet so I’ve known him for a short time. I remember we were in this jacuzzi on the ship, on the cruise ship at night so you know the stars you could see the stars and in you’re in the water and there is nobody because it was light and we just had a chat and started trying to figure out you know where this might be going and I wasn’t you know I just loved the corporate world I didn’t have a business yet.
So, it was you know all these possibilities in front of me, all this potential, I also wanted the family as I was trying to you know without scaring him away because you tell a guy you want a family he runs away without sort of figuring out what you know, what I got here because I also didn’t wanna waste time like if he didn’t want a family I was out because I knew I wanted one. I was 29, 29 at the time 28, 29 so I already knew that. That’s the reason I left the previous guy see what? After 2 years he couldn’t, he couldn’t even you know had a conversation about family I was like you know what I’m out.
John: Yeah.
Alinka: So, I remember he said something like he gave me an indication that he also wanted a family and that I don’t need to be stressing out about finances cause he’s fine, he’s he’s doing okay. So, that was something that was it’s a huge mental comfort huge huge mental comfort that I don’t actually you know need to worry about it cause my baby my needs are secure so to speak but you know when you look at the Maslow’s pyramid of needs, okay you know you’re fed, you’re slept well, you have a roof you have a roof, you have friends, so you have you know close relationship and then what? Like you want the next thing like you want the self-actualization part.
So, you want to do something, you want to do something and so it can go in many directions but you know I just always felt this, I’ve always been drawn to business. It was like a magnet so, so I you know figured figure it all out and now I’m the one that can tell him you don’t need to worry.
John: It’s a great right? A role reversal right?
Alinka: Yeah.
John: It also is about the comfort right? Because people have to be at the right stage at the right time right? For you to make a decisive decision and it’s the same thing with business when you’re trying to scale too fast, hire too quickly, are you ready for the amount of burden, expense load, do you have systems, processes? Do you have lead flow, funnels? Do you have things ready for you to position yourself right? Same with in life and it’s great that you’re mentioning this because you know your past relationship they weren’t just ready and you knew in your mind, in your body, you’re you know you’re educated you know what you’re capable of who you wanna align yourself with right? And it’s more like figuring out who that partner is, where you wanna live, how you wanna go about the next 5, 10, 20 rest of your life is so critical and I talk about this all the time on my podcast.
It’s like life is all about the relationships and experiences that you make the most out of and if you’re able to figure things out, be decisive along the way and pick and choose how you want to live, be in control of it and you were in a good space because you you pick and choose your destination, able to travel pick and choose who you wanna be with freaking chose you know your next kinda next career move and now you’re in full control of your destiny and people forget how hard it was for you to get started. You were educated, top of your class and you got some experience work experience to give you insights on what you wanted to ultimately do but people don’t see that they only see you as the CEO of this company now right? They don’t talk about the last 10, 20 years of the struggle to get there.
Alinka: Yeah now, those years I didn’t get out of the house and just study like the nerds that I was.
John: But it’s great because it’s the time commitment that people have to go and put themselves through and I always look at leaders, CEO’s or corporate leaders that it’s like sports athletes there’s no Messi, Ronaldo or whoever it is like there’s no Lebron James, there’s no athlete Tiger Woods if they didn’t start doing it 20 years prior, 30 years prior and they would be working on their art, habits, nutritionist, training for good 10,12 hour days where their friends were out partying, drinking, doing these things they were out doing what they knew they wanted to do right? And get better right?
Alinka: Yeah.
John: So, that’s the same thing as entrepreneurs.
Alinka: Yeah, and I just started horseback riding 6 months ago. I got extremely passionate about it and I go everyday and I was reading this book The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler and he was you know talking about athletes you know just to what you’re saying that you know you go and look their performance like you look at the for, so for horseback riding you look at them jumping the fences and how spectacular that looks and the whole thing takes like a minute and a half you know two minutes jumping 8 fences and but you don’t think about like the hours of just going in circles and just you know perfect position and focusing on how to you know your seat and how you hold your hand and where you look and all those things it’s just a glamorous you know two minutes and to get to those glamorous two minutes there’s years and years, and years of almost torture sometimes but you know the passion is so big that you’ll do it, you do it because you love it.
John: It’s the same thing as olympic athletes, those are olympians I mean the sacrifice they put themselves through at that young age to then have that last 10 seconds of their life career right? It’s amazing, but people don’t see that right? It’s the same thing with business, same thing with, people have time they can do whatever they want with their time, but you can choose and if you’re fortunate enough to live in the first world country you can dictate how you wanna live. Unfortunately, if you’re you know less privileged or you’re not in a country that allows for it and you know maslow’s law you know needs if you can only survive shelter, food then it’s unfortunate right? But we’re so fortunate to be in the position of you know choice, really.
Alinka: Yeah, there’s also the concept of return on time right? So, you only have so much how are you gonna spend it to get what type of return so like I think about my like I told somebody like I go horseback riding everyday and they’re like, so how much time did it take you out of your day? I’m like 2 hours and how are you able to do things in your work wise? Like, I have a team of people so, I don’t to be doing like if there’s activities level 1 to level 5, level 5 being the highest mentally highest level then I’ll just offload all the other activities that I don’t need to be doing to my team I can free up 2 hours out of my day and I know that I’m doing there is also it gives me all kinds of things like first of all total reset from the business all I’m focusing on is my seat and when I’m looking and where I’m and you know I’m there 100 percent, I’m not on the horse thinking “Ah you know what’s gonna be the next email marketing you know newsletter that I’m going to send out.
No, and also the other extreme, I know that’s not extreme but I do some other crazy things like going into, swimming in the cold sea in winter I see your book Wim Hof method so I studied that and all you do when you do you survive, so you can’t think about you know how am I going to respond to this potential clients? NO! Are you thinking about you know how not to die so, this is great for the system for the body, as you do that there’s a complete shock for the system, it’s all health coming in and in the art of the impossible, Steven Cutler says that “you need to be doing sports like that for peak performance” because you can’t be sitting in front of your computer for 12 hours a day like from eight to eight, like after 4 hours, like what are you actually doing, like what is you performance level, like you need to go out do something, rest and then you can come back and you know perform again. So I think that’s also important and I see a lot of entrepreneurs who are doing really well are have some sort of sports routine in their lives.
John: That’s amazing! And I’ll just give/share this with the audience members. I just picked up rock climbing with my son but it gives me something to strive for right? Like these rocks and grip and strength and the way you kind of mentally prepare yourself, It’s incredible, it’s like eventually I want to do and I was talking to a friend that just did a ultra marathon, you know 15hours back-to-back marathons I mean it’s, that’s what stimulates and challenges humans and you got to stretch yourself. Yes you got to prepare, yes you gotta you know train and make sure your health is there, sleep, wellness everything is optimally running it’s the same thing with business, for you to perform at peak you better have time to really think about the most important tasks that you should be responsible for, everything else should be offloaded, so just like the decisions that you have for level five and upwards right? That’s what you should really worry about, everything else could be given to any of the team members right? Like marketing, email funnels, drip campaigns, social media, hook lines. You don’t, you shouldn’t be doing it, you should actually only be looking at like mergers, acquisition, big partnerships, you know mastermind with other types of people that are at your level right? So it’s great that your talking about this because a lot of business owners will never get to that level because they’re thinking too small.
Alinka: Yeah I think it’s a good exercise when you’re just starting out if we have people in the audience who are you know just starting out or thinking about starting to hire virtual assistant from day one and if not from day one from day two once you’ve you know made your first sale , have an assistant because that really teaches you this discipline of, hey I don’t actually need to do this, my time will be better spent coming up with the next marketing campaign or you know whatever to grow the business and you know I started with one assistant and one writer, that’s how we started so I had you know a team of two or you know three with myself now we have a team of thirty. So it and it’s like didn’t all just happen like that was just you know okay we sold more, we perform we know we did a good job, another client so now we need another writer and another editor, now we need another designer, and another marketing person and now we needed somebody else to sell because I can’t take all the sales calls and I just grew like that.
John: And that’s a smart way of growing a business right? People try to grow and sale too fast they think they can do everything and carry all this load and energy and it’s great that you mentioned at the beginning that your focus and energy is on this business, people lose focus because they’re doing so many things all the time and therefore their not clear on what their most important thing is that they should really focus on, so if you’re running a business it’s great to really be intentional focused on what your goals are for this company for a period of time, give it time right? Give it three, five, ten years right? Like no one’s an overnight success in a year, two years. There could be anonymities where one in a billion may strike it rich right? Like VC, startup or you meet someone you know that is of close ties to you or whatever but really the odds are so slim.
Alinka: Yeah agreed.
John: So tell us you know, I know we’re gonna go back to the business right? Last four years but the seven years of getting to the point where you met Dean Jackson and maybe it was a mastermind group or just to think differently, what was the seven years like versus the last four years?
Alinka: I think the seven years was you know me trying to figure out what I really wanted to do when I grew up, I had the luxury to do something that I’m passionate about so, so that’s what I did, I just thought yeah let me do what I love doing, I loved writing books and I loved you know marketing and all that and so I was trying to find a way to monetize that and just keep learning, you know a lot of virtual summits at the time I was consuming so learned something here, learned something there, somebody at the virtual summit spoke about a membership site so I got their software and created a membership site, so it really is when you look at it about the people that you surround yourself with and you know, and just, I like to learn so I think learn something and implement it, test it, it might not work like I’m not so scientific like you need to A B test this too, I don’t always A B test I’m just gonna throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks okay?
And I have a lot of ideas, I might have ten ideas, nine will suck but one will be great and that one will take you to whatever level that you want and then just focus on that one thing that works, so those seven years, yeah I mean, yeah they got me to where I am now because that’s when I, I started listening to the I love marketing podcast pretty early on, I was extremely attracted to that mindset and you know the whole idea of genius network where you need to have a million dollar company to even get in, I was like “oh my God” like, when might that happen if ever you know and so as soon as I got there I immediately signed up and I remember I you know, I went through their processes before and I was like yeah I mean, I don’t meet the requirements Oh no! Thanks! But I think having something to aspire to and you know if you want to be for example ingenious network or if you want to let’s say, whatever your goal is and you know skip it about business, if you want to have a seven figure business hangout with people who do and if you can’t hangout with them in person read their books, because they like to share what they’ve done and how they’ve done it, love your bookshelf behind you, I mean if you read all those books then you’re already on the right track, you read but not only read, read and implement, read and implement, read and implement and then like maybe I don’t know 20% of it will stick but then that’s the 20% that becomes you and it becomes that high performance you, you don’t need to agree with everything in those books but you know if just one idea clicks and then becomes your life like it gets you there.
So, I see the Wim Hof method behind you like I have on my phone the Wim Hof app likes my charts for breathing , so I do this every morning as part of my routine and I mean I heard about this on genius network I heard about Wim Hof there because it’s about you know we talk about health, wealth, and ELF the business being easy, lucrative and fun, plug for genius network by the way, but it’s just that the surrounding yourself with people that you want to be like, and so okay, Wim Hof wrote the whole book and it’s amazing and I’m maybe I’m not gonna close myself in a you know container of Ice cubes for two hours okay because you know that’s maybe not my level but I do the breathing exercise every morning and I do the cold swimming and cold showers and it’s part of my DNA right now but I picked it up from somebody right?
So, I picked this up, I picked up you know qigong, I picked up whatever mind movies so I watched these movies that I created two minute movie that you know has all my affirmations, everything that I want and yeah, and you’re, just the mindset like the mindset of you don’t need to be you know doing those hero hours like in the silicon valley I hear, Oh yesterday I worked 16 hours and I didn’t even eat “yay! Well done, no! I mean I don’t think that’s you know well done, I think well done is, if you have time for your business but also your family and your health and you sleep that’s important and you’re able to organize your life like that, then I think you know well done, you know, you know when your happy and satisfied and that’s when you can say “well done”.
John: Yeah I think lifestyle right? Is a huge component of what you wanna mode your life to want to look like, so look at people’s life in general, who do you want to be like in 20, 30, 40 years and get to know those people, find out those tips and tricks, and it’s great that I think genius network is Joe Polish right? And finding out like if those are the people like you, like your tribe right? Your community and they are great successful business owners or they think differently and they’re very health conscious and they push themselves and their people to be similar to them then go gravitate towards them. If you wanna gravitate towards marathon runners? Go gravitate towards them because they’re gonna have a different lifestyle, eating, and exercising and whatever it is right?
If you wanna be an educator, go gravitate towards book clubs and people that you wanna see yourself like and this is life in general if you wanna be the best parent right? Or you’re the best aunt, uncle, or whatever it maybe go find people that you wanna be liked and books are great, audio podcasts are great, video YouTube videos are great. There’s abundant amount of communities online now and you can be a part of joining them right? It’s like a movement and the micro communities not just the larger one’s there’s always a community of people like-minded with the hobbies, activities, interests that you have. You just have to go out there and put yourself out there, a lot of people are afraid they’re reserved, they’re extra you know introverts not extroverts, they’re introverts of being judged right? Scared of what people think.
When you get to the mindset and you’re much more you know more mature and comfortable with who you are then you don’t care what other people think, you live your life the way you want to live and that’s a good state to be in right? So it sounds like you’ve gotten to that stage, what is and maybe share with the listeners like a little bit about your business, what your focus are on, what projects you’re working on and what’s your horizon, what’s in the next phase of your business.
Alinka: Well, you know I’m pretty monotonous, focusing and growing the business and working with more entrepreneurs to turn their book ideas into best sellers getting them on the best-selling list, getting them into bookstores that’s what’s exciting for me and just growing so we’ve been doubling, now it’s a multi-million business that we’re doubling. So, you know potentially the numbers are larger might be more difficult but also we have systems so we know what works right now so we can just you know double that and we know the business will grow. I also don’t think it’s a because I’ve been in a mastermind with people that were 10xing in 1 year and I thought that was crazy and also just looking at the agenda because that guys shared his agenda I’m like “When do you do, like when do you eat? When do you see your family?”
It was just you know crazy agenda but he was connecting. So, I think it’s important to have goals that are you know smart the smart goals, the smart that stands for specific measurable, achievable is it?
John: Actual result and
Alinka: And time bound
John: Yeah.
Alinka: So, anyway you know it’s important to have those goals like you can’t start with a dollar and say you know “I’m going to be a millionaire next week. I mean it might might happen in some reasons, in some way but you have to you it has to be realistic, that’s the “r” it has to be realistic you have to know that you can actually do that. So, like if you do the breathing exercise and you’re able to hold your breath for 1 minute today you can probably hold it for 1 minute and 5 seconds tomorrow.
John: Yeah.
Alinka: Probably not for 3 minutes tomorrow so you know that’s also important so when I, as I grow my business when I set goals these are goals that are deployed throughout the team and if the goal is to double the revenue then you know the guys doing the outreach and social media they’re gonna double that the guys are doing the sales calls are gonna double that so we might need another guy or another 2 guys here, there or increase the you know whatever the systems we’re using and it’s all doable so we, everybody’s on board like everybody’s rowing in the same direction knowing where we going. So, you know you can’t keep it a secret anymore because when you are just starting, I’m not gonna reveal the numbers, I don’t want people to know what we’re making you can’t be like that anymore you know you as you grow bigger it has to be transparent and when people know where they’re all going then you actually have a good chance of getting there.
John: And I love that fact that you’re being as vulnerable, like not vulnerable like letting people in on your goals, your team and they all have to be in alignment right? Because with you as the leader and you are putting together these goals and metrics, collaborating and making sure that people are on the same page at the right time and making sure that they are clear on what they’re accountable for their KPI’s, their metrics, their you know results are dictated when everyone else is moving along the lines and this is the systems and processes that you’ve been harvesting over years and I’ve been running my agency 8 years. So, I kinda get it but early stages when you’re just starting off like you’re doing everything and not even knowing what you’re doing right or wrong right?
So, it gets easier as the years progress as you become more aware of what challenges are gonna be faced and the people that you bring in your team is so critical to the success that you’re gonna be having right? So, making sure you put the right people at the right spots at the right time, right? And you know when you start learning that as opposed to do everything to save a couple of dollars, it’s not gonna be a couple of dollars because you’re gonna lose sleep at night, you’re stressed, you hate what you do and all these other ripple effects will happen because then you’re treating your staff and your client horrible because you you know have all this tension right?
Alinka: Yeah.
John: I love that, so how can people get a hold of you, reach out to you if they have any questions?
Alinka: The best place is to go to leaderspress.com then you can see what we do. There’s a book for everybody who’s interested called “outsource your book” so when you go to the website it’s gonna pop up and you can get the pdf and the audiobook if you want to listen to it because I guess listeners like our listeners like to listen. So just go to leaderspress.com, get yourself the book there’s my email there as well, so you can contact me about anything and I think that’s the best way to keep in touch.
John: And I loved your story Alinka, I love your energy, I love what you’re doing and if I’m you know I’m gonna I usually travel as well so I’m gonna hit you up with some other tips and you know where should I go next in my bucket list, so I love that. But if you ever in Canada not West Coast but in the middle of Toronto hit me up, I will take you out I’ll show you around but I really wanna thank you and ultra grateful for your time to be on the show and I know you’re gonna be an ultra success here in North America and with all the efforts and the partnerships that you’ve been able to gain traction on. So, I love what you’re doing and again thank you Alinka for your time.
Alinka: Thank you, John. Likewise, and it’s been a pleasure.
John: Thank you.
