Build a Life and Business You’ll Love, with Nicole Laino, Business and Energy Coach
About this episode:
Business strategist and energy coach, Nicole Laino joins us on the She Built It™ Experience today. She shares her story of growing up as an actress, working on Wall Street, finding a new career path in a network marketing company, and how is she helping people find their purpose and to make a profit with it. Listen in and enjoy!
Topics Discussed:
How did she create her zone of genius
How working on Wall Street led her to burnout and clinical depression, and what gave her the motivation to overcome the problem
How she blended her organizational and creative skills to create CRM software
Advice on how to convert clients, for someone who has an online business
Three steps to turn your social media into a sales funnel
How to use the law of attraction to grow your business
Nicole’s tips on how to find and live your joy
About Nicole:
Nicole Laino is a startup Founder, Business Strategist & Peak Performance Coach. She's also a Rapid Relief Technique & NLP Practitioner, the host of the Limitless Entrepreneur Podcast, and a self-proclaimed "Type-A Hippie". She helps ambitious women harness their feminine energy and break free from subconscious patterns of perfectionism and over-analyzing so they can sell and serve at their highest level - without burning out. Unlike other mindset coaches who focus only on the energetics of business, Nicole uses her background in corporate, entrepreneurship, and the start-up world to advise her clients on developing their sustainable multiple 6-figure business strategies while opening up to abundance.
Resources:
Click here to read a raw, unedited transcript of this episode:
Melanie Barr: [00:08:40] Thank you so much for joining me today, Nicole. Please tell us more about who you are. [00:08:54][13.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:08:56] Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm Nicole Laino. I am a business strategist, and energy coach. So I like to say that I take I make the world a little bit less woo, and I help you actually apply it to your business. That sort of came about because I am what I call a type of hippie. I am a process-driven female who really, really likes organization, and I have an analytical mind and I love step-by-step processes. However, I'm also very creative. I had a corporate career and I grew up an actress, so I'm very creative and acting is really the study of human behavior, and I love that site. So it's actually my zone of genius to bring these two things together, and it helps to bridge that gap. For the longest time, I had energy coaches and mindset coaches that could help me on a certain part of my journey, and then I had a business coach that could help me on another part of my journey. And I always felt like I had to become that bridge between those two people where I was like, This is really great. This was a breakthrough, but how do I apply it here? How do I make that work here? And I never could really get that answer. I never could really create that synergy there. So that's what I do for my people, and that's what I love to do. It's honestly, it's like my greatest joy in the world is helping people see their purpose, but also have a plan to how to make a profit with it. [00:10:24][88.5]
Melanie Barr: [00:10:25] I know on your site you say, I thought I had to be one way or the other. I thought the path was split. I had to choose to either go the way of process and ambition or personal growth and peace. [00:10:35][10.1]
Nicole Laino: [00:10:36] Yep, that was a realization I had. I was an actor. Then I was a corporate girl. Like, I went literally from one in one end of the spectrum to the other. And then I started to get closer to the middle and I started playing in those spaces and I was like, Wait, I can actually play on both sides of this field and I can make my own field if I start looking at it differently. And that was what opened up a whole world to me. [00:11:06][30.0]
Melanie Barr: [00:11:07] It's really interesting because my background is in corporate to Marriott Hotels, AT&T, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and I'm also a member of Screen Actors Guild. But what was your leap like to become an entrepreneur? [00:11:20][13.6]
Nicole Laino: [00:11:22] The short story is I was working on Wall Street. I burned out. I literally, like went into I was diagnosed clinically depressed, which I still look at and I looked at it then to in the moment, I still was able to look at it, which I think is just sort of how I'm built, but that this is a gift. There's something in this for me. I was offered medication and I was like, No, I believe that I'm supposed to be fully present for this journey and for everything that I'm feeling right now. And the answers somehow lie in me walking this path. So thank you, but I'll do this with therapy and on my own. And that journey led me to taking a leap. I said, I don't know what, what is next, but I know I need to move, and I know that this isn't. This isn't right for me. My soul is calling out for something different. And luckily, my husband was like, I agree, and we packed up, left New York, moved out to Los Angeles, and I was like, I'm going to go back to the only thing that I know is connected to me and my soul, and that's acting. I don't know what that looks like, but I'm just going to go do something with that and connect to who I am through that process. And this is one of those things where when they say leap and the net will appear, the leap was just saying something new and being open to all of the ways that that could be delivered to me and having kind of a loose idea of what I wanted to create. What did I want? Was it the acting career? I wanted something that made me feel alive again. I wanted something that could exercise my creativity. I wanted to make money. I wanted to feel unlimited. I wanted to use my gifts. Those were that was like the loose outline that I had for what I wanted to create. And when you have that loose outline, I was able to be open to seeing when those opportunities dropped in. So I got an opportunity. I joined a network marketing company that was the first I call it the gateway drug. And within a few months, I recognized that I saw a way to blend all of my skills and gifts took my project management background from corporate what I did there and my knowledge of software, and I built a software for entrepreneurs doing work like network marketing and other personal sales and personal branding. I built a software, a CRM for those people. I project managed it. I bootstrapped the entire software program. I put it out to market and did all of that work. I didn't code it myself, but I put it out and birthed it out into the world. So that was the first step and that started the trajectory from there. So that software led to me working with people and helping to train them on the system. And then as I trained them on the system, I was like, You actually need more help with running the business side and started to ask good questions and give them some advice from there. And that's how coaching evolved from there. So it was all very organic, albeit a winding road that I don't think anyone could have planned. [00:14:52][210.3]
Melanie Barr: [00:14:54] Yes. Isn't it interesting when we need to make a shift or a leap sometime, the world helps us make that leap for us and nudges us in the right direction. And it had to take so much strength to say I'm not going to take medication, I'm just going to do this on my own. [00:15:11][17.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:15:13] Thank you for saying that I at the time, I think I just, I knew and when we're in and this is what I teach and this is what I now, I put out into the world because it's been profound for me and it is something that some of us do naturally that at times I could really tap into my knowing, my deep, deep knowing. And that is a moment. There are certain times in my life where I'm like, Nope, I just knew, that was a moment where I was offered the medication and it was just an immediate no. I was like, No, I don't see this situation as dire. I mean, I was not suicidal. I was not in any way like I wasn't thinking about hurting myself. You know that there are people in those positions, and I don't mean to make light of that. That was not the case for me. There was something about me where I said, I know this is a moment I'm moving through. And for me to move through it, I feel like medication almost be hitting pause. And I don't want to do that. I know this is a moment in time. And I can do what I want with it. So I had help it professional help through every step of that journey, which allowed me, I think, to have that strength and knowing that I would come out on the other side of it, not just OK, but better. [00:16:36][82.9]
Melanie Barr: [00:16:38] Going back to your CRM and the fact that you enjoy process, what advice do you have for someone who has an online business for how they can convert clients? [00:16:47][8.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:16:49] Relationships are key, if you're building a business online. What I try to instill in my people and I and I, I bring everybody back to is if you're rooted in your message, if you're rooted in how you help people and then you're out there cultivating relationships, either that's speaking with people alive or putting out content online or putting up a website with great SEO. Either way, being able to communicate what you do and how you help is going to be essential like that. But that is the whole game. That’s key to conversion is being able to communicate your message and who you are and what you do in a powerful way quickly and in a way that speaks to the results and change that people want to make and want to get for themselves. [00:17:47][57.8]
Melanie Barr: [00:17:49] And you say quickly, I mean, our attention span with tech and social these days. Not very. Not very long. [00:17:55][5.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:17:57] Well, and that can come from, you know, again, it's really having a deep sense of knowing who you are and what you offer. And putting in in a way that's not you giving a sales pitch. It's really how can I make them curious from the first couple of words? So there are certain things with me, like when I say that I'm a type, a hippie, people are sort of self-identifying. They either get that and they say, Oh, me too. Or that sounds like something that I want to hear more about. Or they're going, Nope, that's not me, and that's OK. I want people to be bucketing themselves and choosing the paths for themselves so that I'm only ending up talking to people at the end who really resonate with who I am and what I do. And that's the work that comes from time of understanding. The person you talking to is key. You don't need to know their eye color. You don't need to know their favorite bedtime story to read their kid. But you do need to know what makes them tick. Only so you understand what it is about you and what you do that relates to them. [00:19:09][71.7]
Melanie Barr: [00:19:10] And what's going to resonate with them? And you say that as I'm sitting here and what could technically be defined as like a bellbottom gene? Literally. [00:19:22][11.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:19:23] And so and that's like, that's like, I know what my person roughly looks like. It's not exactly, but I know [00:19:32][9.1]
Melanie Barr: [00:19:32] Your avatar [00:19:37][4.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:19:38] And I know what she wants. So I can choose the story I tell carefully. And that one story could change everything about how she sees our relationship, the steps that we could take together, her purpose, her possibilities, and how can I do it in a way that's not pressing the fear button, but leaning more into her desires of what she wants to create, because that's going to create a whole lot more possibility for both of us if they're leaning that way rather than running away from something. [00:20:19][40.4]
Melanie Barr: [00:20:19] Right. And how to help her get there. [00:20:21][1.1]
Nicole Laino: [00:20:22] Exactly, someone once said to me, people don't, they don't buy. They don't buy programs. They're not buying into your process. What's going to sell them is ultimately that they believe you understand their problem better than they do. And if you can show them, then if you understand that that calculation they're making in their mind is if she understands it to this degree, then she must understand the way out because she's found her way out, so maybe she can show me. [00:20:56][34.2]
Melanie Barr: [00:20:57] So true. We are all thinking about how we can gain more clients and sell more products. You mentioned three steps for returning social media into a sales funnel. What are those three steps? [00:21:08][11.5]
Nicole Laino: [00:21:10] Well, it's understanding the different stages that your people are at. So understanding that your social media can be used as a sales funnel. If you're thinking about, well, there are people who are just coming in there like just coming into your world, just coming into the, you know, you're enduring their awareness. So you've got to introduce yourself, you have to and it doesn't have to be like this. Hi, my name is Nicole, and I live coffee in the mornings and this and that, like, you can do it that way. And that's fine. But but don't feel like you have to fit somebody else's mold. The more personality you can show, certainly at that stage, is going to again help people self-identify because stop trying to please every single person and get every single person to follow you and follow you down this path because that's a losing game you are not going to, that's not going to happen. They're not all going to like you. They're not all going to follow you. Your goal is to get the right people to resonate with a certain part of you so that they come on the rest of the journey. The next part is that you're using it as a nurturing tool that you're actually deepening their connection with you, those people that are warming up. There are some people that are at the middle stage with you. They are warm leads. They are already bought into like, OK, there's something about her that I sort of dig that I sort of jive with. OK, now show me what you can do. I like the outside of the car. It looks nice, but let me see how it performs. So let's go take this for a test drive. Show me a little bit. Teach me something. Give me a little bit of insight into who you are at a deeper level. And then the third piece is that third step of the process is you got to go ask, You got to get out there and you've got to ask for the sale and that and normally what happens is we have people leaning hard on one of these areas. Maybe you're selling all the time, but you're not telling them why you're selling from a place of just kind of throwing things up there, but you're not positioning yourself in the sale in a way that speaks to the ideal person, I call it an aligned client that's out there waiting for you to present your solution. If you if they have a problem, they're looking for the solution. They are whether they know they are or not. So your job is to keep presenting it, but presenting it like a solution and not just another thing for them to buy it. [00:23:34][143.7]
Melanie Barr: [00:23:36] So true about resonating with someone and showing them who you really are and you're motivating me, I've taken a step back from social, you know how we go through ebbs and flows. Sometimes we love doing it and other times I just said to someone, I'd been too busy living life to actually post I have eight-year-old twins, at the end of the day, I'm like, Oh, I really should post something kind of personal about me that needs to be written in my voice. And I think, Oh, I'll do that tomorrow. But, this conversation is motivating me again to want to go back. But you're right, it's it's about showing your authentic self and being who you are, because I truly think that that will attract the right people to you. [00:24:13][36.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:24:14] That's the thing to like. And I was just saying this to someone that I had a decent record with this morning where we were talking about the quantity and feeling like I should be posting. I should be more consistent. And if you focus on consistency in one area, I want you to let go of the quantity and the posting every day and how much you're posting, and instead focus on consistency in who you're showing up has and the level of power that you bring to it. Because the impact is so much greater because first of all if you're posting every day and you're phoning it in, people are going to start tuning you out. [00:25:10][55.8]
Melanie Barr: [00:25:10] So that's why at times I just step away because, whatever I put out is not going to be my best energy, It's a little bit feeding the beast, but we also, I think, need to understand, OK, I need to just step away for a day or two until I feel like I want to show my energy and myself again [00:25:28][18.1]
Nicole Laino: [00:25:29] And the focus that I have shifted completely. And I'm all about taking the breaks because you'll come back fresher and where you've actually been able to formulate some thoughts and really think about how do I want to show up? What is it that I want to share? How do I want people to react? And there are so many ways, Tony Robbins says, ‘’The quality of life his art is determined by the quality of questions that you ask.’’ And so when we when we ask a question or when we put up a wall, I haven't posted in this long, so I need to post now. Or we could say instead, I sit there and I say, Well, am I being visible? Am I showing my worth somewhere? It doesn't have to be on social media all the time. So if that's not where my energy is best spent, if I'm like, You know what? I'm having a really great time connecting with people in person or because sometimes we're not looking at all the other things that we're doing and we're focused on the social media. We're focused on that aspect. And don't get me wrong, social media is a chance to scale and have your message seen by a lot of people. And I, I run my business with it, of course, but I also I do other things that sometimes if I'm just focused on the social media part, if I'm only looking at that, it doesn't seem like I'm doing much. But when I look around, I'm like, Oh, I'm actually doing a ton, I'm doing summits, I am speaking in people's groups, I'm networking, I'm having meetings with people, people are referring me and I'm having calls with people or taking up more of my time. It's also resulting in greater revenue. And I use social media then as a different tool. It's not the way that I'm getting all of my message out there and my only window of visibility. It's one of many and I get to shift and I get to do what feels fun and good to me at the time. And you get so much more juice out of the fruit when you're working that way. [00:27:53][143.5]
Melanie Barr: [00:27:53] That's so true. And it's go with the social media and the platforms that bring you joy and that resonate with you because that's where you're going to want to show up the most. That's where you're going to want to be the most present. [00:28:03][9.7]
Nicole Laino: [00:28:05] Exactly. [00:28:26][21.3]
Melanie Barr: [00:28:27] Where do you think the law of attraction gets it wrong? [00:28:31][4.0]
Nicole Laino: [00:28:34] So the law of attraction, I love the law of Attraction, and it does work, but normally I believe it's overly simplified the law of attraction for anyone who doesn't, who doesn't, who isn't like super well versed in it, but the law of attraction in its simplest form, what is, is that good thoughts bring good things, bad thoughts bring bad things that we are attracting all the time or either attracting what we don't want or what we want. Now that is absolutely true. We are manifesting all the time. We are attracting all the time and we are attracting things that we don't want and things that we want. So it is better to be aligned with the things that we want. However, that can end up being forced that can end up we don't attract with our thoughts actually working, attracting with the feelings that are created by those thoughts. So if you think have a thought like I have a million dollars and you believe that thought and it makes you feel like you can fly and like your energy, just expended a million times and you've just become bigger energetically than do that all day. But most of us, the thought of I have a million dollars says, No, you're not. And then if you maybe, you're in debt, maybe you don't have any money in the bank, maybe you only have a little bit of money in the bank and you don't know how the next round of cash is coming. The truth is that money is probably more connected to fear, and you feel the gap between where you are and the million dollars more than you feel the million dollars. That feeling is what you should be concentrating on. And you want to just you want to edge your feelings up, not your thoughts. You can choose a better thought because it leads to a better feeling. But the end result should be the feeling. And that's what we should be focusing on. So that's what needs to be dealt with first. Then you can start laying good thoughts on, then you can start focusing on the law of attraction. Until then, you need to clear out and clean the energy around the way that you feel about things that trigger you. And that's the easiest way to do it is to pay attention to the things in your life that trigger you. That triggers are gifts. So a bad thing that happens. I'm paying way more attention to the bad thing in a way that I would say to my people, I say, come at every challenge with curiosity instead of criticism. And instead of why did this happen, it's why did this happen? Hmm. If you can come to it from that place, you will find answers. Things will be opened up to you because that creates space that creates openness for an answer to come through when we're and angry and we lean into the thing that triggered us. You end up in a fight-flight or freeze. And that's how a pattern is able to continue because we're not able to access a better answer. You can access the better thought that attracts something better. [00:33:44][310.1]
Melanie Barr: [00:33:44] Mm-Hmm. When we believe in abundance and we just allow ourselves and we give ourselves permission to let go of negative feelings, if we put down those goals and the things that we really want, it frees our mind to help us get there, to help us get to the things that we truly want. [00:34:04][19.5]
Nicole Laino: [00:34:05] Yeah. Hundred percent. And I will say that that the other thing with the law of attraction, just because it was brought up and we talk about like letting things go as long as we're really letting it go and we're not pushing it down because if we're ignoring if we're doing the like, it's not worth getting angry. It isn't worth it. The energy that that would take. They're not worth it. The truth is, is that you are really angry. And so it's acceptance of it and not making the anger mean anything, not making the anger mean because maybe we were told that being angry was not a good thing, but it's not really looked at as a, you know, a positive trait in our society. That to be angry is a good thing, but it is something that fuels us. It is something that can sometimes for us into action. So look at it again with curiosity and not criticism. Don't stuff it away because you just compound it that way. Sit with it. See what it has to offer you. It came with a message. Every trigger is delivered as a message to us to let us know something that needs to be truly released. So let go of and released from our energy, because if we don't release it, it's just going to come back. It's just going to come back over and over and over again. Like Carl Young said, When a situation is not made conscious, it appears in our life as fate. But when a situation is not made conscious. So when we subconsciously feel something and we don't face it, it will just keep coming back to show us. It's like it's pointing to a wound that needs to be healed. So where do we need to heal? [00:35:59][114.0]
Melanie Barr: [00:36:00] You're so right. I always give myself a certain amount of time to marinate on something. Depending on how large or small it is, I'll say, OK, I'm giving myself this time to marinate on it. And then at this time, I'm going to let it go because then you're right, you're not shoving things down, you're giving yourself time to process and to heal and to work through whatever it is, whatever experience you're thinking through. [00:36:23][23.2]
Nicole Laino: [00:36:24] Exactly. If you are human a chance to to feel all the things that it's supposed to feel. Let it go through the feeling cycle of the emotion and then allow it to go and then choose better.[00:37:16][51.6]
Melanie Barr: [00:37:18] What is one thing that your business has done for you or taught you and your clients that you didn't realize would happen? [00:37:23][4.9]
Nicole Laino: [00:37:25] My clients woke me up to so much. They sort of have shown me my path. I honestly, I thought that I would teach more business. I didn't think I would be in the finding your purpose area like I started out with process. I started out with just let me show you the process here. This is how you figure out your niche. I had a very step-by-step process and it was my clients. And that journey that showed me what else was needed, that there was so much in need developing myself so that they could, that they could expand in other ways. And that has become much more of what I teach. The process is all still there. But that's not usually where you need help. It's like we implement some things and then it's more of a crisis of, well, how can I, how can you put it out there? How can I say the thing in power? How can I tweak my message in a way that connects with people and usually there's something daring that we have to accept about ourselves? So I didn't see that coming. I thought I was going to be a very black and white. Here's what you do kind of teacher. And I teach like human design and tapping and NLP and all of these ways of like rewiring your brain did not see that coming. [00:39:08][103.3]
Melanie Barr: [00:39:09] That has to be fun for you. [00:39:11][2.2]
Nicole Laino: [00:39:12] It's super fun. I love it. And I, I love that transformation as much greater and is much more far-reaching because that touches every aspect of your life. That's my favorite thing that I've heard multiple people that gave separate testimonials totally independent of each other where they all said the same thing. Several people were just like working with Nicole, didn't change. Didn't just change my business. It changed my life. It changed my relationship with my husband, changed my relationship with my kids. It changed and that, I can't ask for a better have a better review than that. [00:39:47][34.9]
Melanie Barr: [00:39:48] That's great. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. What is one tip that you can leave with us today about how you find and live your joy. [00:39:58][10.1]
Nicole Laino: [00:40:01] So in the morning, I choose my first thought. And. As I've started, as I've done this over the years, those thoughts just get better and better. They start off with again, we can be tuned in to what we don't want or what we want. We can be tuned into lack or we continue to find abundance. Tune in to frustration or happiness. Every single thought has two ways to go as it has two paths and we get to choose them, and you can start with your very first thought. So it can be as you lay in bed and the alarm goes off, it can be. I don't want to wake up yet. I'm so tired. I can't believe it's time already that frustration and why you need us that can sometimes find us in the morning. Or it can be, I don't want to get up yet because I'm so comfy in this bed is so cozy and all this pillow and I can lean into the things that I do like and the things that I do get joy from. And, you know, like, Oh, my dog is snuggling next to me, and it starts out with those simple thoughts of just what's happening now. And then they start to bloom and grow where my I no longer have to effort that and you get new thoughts. And one that popped up the other day was just came to me as I laid in bed. The first thought I had was, I wonder what gifts will be revealed to me today. And when you can wake up with that kind of thought, anything feels possible through the day. And it's so easy to be joyful because I'm almost I'm expecting things to unfold. I'm expecting great things. And when you start expecting great things, you're finding it in the smallest things. So that is that that would be that an actionable tip that you can just start with that first thought of the day. Choose it, don't let it choose you until you've cultivated such a practice around it. The ones that choose you turn out to be ones that are more beautiful than you could have come up with on your own. Mm-Hmm. [00:42:14][133.6]
Melanie Barr: [00:42:15] So true. One thing I've started doing is I'll email myself three things I'm grateful for at night right before I go to bed. And then when I wake up, it's my inbox first thing in the morning. So it's just that little reminder, right? It's how we can start the day in the right frame of mind. [00:42:31][16.0]
Nicole Laino: [00:42:32] I love that. That's a great tip. I'm going to steal that. [00:42:35][2.6]
Melanie Barr: [00:42:35] Yeah, I just did a podcast on it. Thank you so much for joining me today. Can you tell our listeners how and where they can reach out to you, how they can connect with you and find you? [00:42:47][12.1]
Nicole Laino: [00:42:48] Thank you. This was so fun and if you're still listening, thank you so much. Thank you for still being here. You can find me on Instagram at Nicole Laino official. I'm also the host of the Limitless Entrepreneur Podcast. So if you want going to hear a little bit longer form of me and interviews with some awesome people, you can join us over there, and then you can find me on Facebook. Nicole Laino LaBarbera is my Facebook personal. I like to just connect with people as friends rather than the business page. So come on over, say hi, send me a message. Say I heard you on Melanie's podcast. [00:43:21][33.0]