 I'm excited to be here with Fab Giovanetti. We're Kindred Spirits because we both love to talk about marketing, about productivity. And Fab, it's great to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here with you today. Yeah, so let me kind of share your, I like you sent me your bio and you sent me like an informal part of it, which I really enjoyed. But the formal part is that you're the founder of Creative Impact, which is a collective of hundreds of creatives that are making impact on others and the planet. And I love that you've been, you've impacted a lot of people through your social media, your writings, your website, all of that's linked below. So folks be sure to check out the links there. Your informal bio is that you're Italian with a British sense of humor, a lover of marketing on a mission to help people reclaim their time, which we're gonna talk a lot about today in this interview. You're also a sloth lover, lover of sloths and you're made of 20% pizza. Yes, I love it, I love it. Okay, so this marketing and time is something a lot of people don't realize is actually quite related and that's not a surprise that you kind of talk about both things. So maybe we'll start there. What, why do you think it's important to talk about reclaiming time? What does that really mean to you? That's an excellent question. Well, one of the reasons why I love to talk about reclaiming time and understanding where our time goes is because I call myself a recovering workaholic because I love what I do. And I think a lot of folks watching that might relate to that, when you love what you do, you don't mind doing it a bit more. You don't mind putting in the extra hours or the extra time, but I always came to realize that I would feel that there was, for me to almost bank on, talking about the idea of time being wealth, which in my book, Reclaim Your Time Off, I talk about actually that. If time is also currency right now, we are almost banking it in for that day that comes where we can then take more time to do also the other things that we love. And what I challenged for years, even before I wrote the book, was the idea that why would we keep doing that for tomorrow or next months in 10 years? And then what would happen is, what do you really expect is gonna happen in 10 years or in five, is that a little time fairy coming and be like, you did you. Now it's time for you to chill. It doesn't really happen. I've been, I don't know obviously how long you've been in business, but I've been in business for eight years myself. And the fairy never came. The universe never dropped. Like any of those hints on me, it was myself to actually come to the decision of, I'm gonna manage my time better and start reclaiming that space for myself now and see where my time goes. And being a marketer by trade for the past 10 years, I noticed that when running a business, there's really where a lot of the time can be spent because marketing is relationships and is relationship building. And we all know if we have been in live and we had partners, building relationships take time. And it takes time also when it comes to your customers and your audience. So when you need to be mindful of these things as well, I think. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and as you say, the time fairy never came to say, all right, now you suddenly, it's like you have to be your own time fairy, right? Like you have to be the one. And back to this relationship between marketing and time, I have felt just like you, I've seen this. Like the more, the better you get at marketing, the irony is that the less time you're going to have because the bigger of an audience you're going to have, right? And the more clients you may have, the more products you may be putting out there. But it's like, we all have to learn marketing to get our business on track and then our time becomes increasingly more in demand. So this is related of course to boundaries. And that's something that you love to talk about as well and you have a lot to say about that. So tell me about what you've noticed, maybe we'll say, we'll put it this way. As you have worked with lots of entrepreneurs, lots of business owners, lots of clients on helping them reclaim their time, what have you noticed is a common, I don't know, maybe like setting boundaries is not something I think we learn growing up. I think that's something you kind of increasingly have to learn as an adult. So what have you noticed to be a common kind of pitfall for people or blind spot for people with regards to that? That's an excellent question. And I think we want to know how to set better boundaries and I'm like, that's excellent. That's a really good point and it's catchy. Don't get me wrong. Like that side of things is good, but the problem is a lot of the times, the main problem is in the pitfall is that we don't know where we should put those boundaries. So when I ask a lot of people, okay, you want to set boundaries? Yes, because that means I have more time and I'm like, excellent with whom or how and which areas of your life. And people are like, well, I just want to make sure that I said, you know, I know what people are wanting from me and I'm like, okay, what expectations are you setting? Oh, yeah, you're right. Because we think, and that's the problem, let me explain a bit better because people might be like, okay, tell me more. The problem is we all have different expectations. I'll give you an example. And right before I was publishing the book, Reclaim Your Time Off, what happened was, I realized that I was falling into my own trap when a client of mine, they were more talking and she said to me, wow, you never respond to emails on a weekend. You never check your emails on a weekend. I was like, yeah, that's literally our role. That's to me is unnatural. I literally cannot keep it off. And she was like, well, you know, it's something that I would do a lot and I really struggle with. And, you know, she emailed me by mistake once in a week and I was responding on Monday and it was fine because there wasn't an expectation that, but it also made me reflect again. And I was like, wait a second. I almost forgot that actually the way that for me is normal to communicate, to interact with people is not the same for other people around me. And once we do that and we realize that maybe it's work, maybe it's personal life, maybe it's relationships. God, it can even be family for what knows. Once we understand which areas can be some of our blind spots, then we can go back and say, okay, are there any expectations set? Are there any, I'm gonna use a strong word, rules that we set between ourselves and others. Do people know when we're available or not? And a lot of the time, once you go back to the area, I line that and then look at the expectations that you're set or lack to set, then you will learn something. And it also helps being a bit kind of with people. Again, she thought that working on weekends or responding to him on weekends is the norm. For me, it wasn't. So being able to communicate that means that she knows when I'm around and she knows when I'm not. And that can work for any client, team members, even family. If you have some time that you're really dedicated to some stuff where you don't want any distraction, don't assume that people will know just because you give them the evil eye. Actually tell them, like, I'm gonna go in this room or I'm gonna do this thing. And for this hour, don't disturb me or please try to get the children away from me. Whatever that might be. I don't know if it's a big thing, but I think it's a big thing. Yeah, totally, totally. I love those examples. I think, well, I tend to have a lot of very kind and generous people in my audience. And you probably do as well. People who really care. And if we are kind, generous, caring people, we tend to have a harder time with boundaries because boundaries feel like not being nice. We don't wanna be seen as not nice. We don't wanna feel like we're not good people, nice people. And so, I don't know, maybe you could tell us a bit about your perspective on this. How can nice people set boundaries and still be nice people? I don't know. That's kind of a left field question, but I'm curious what your perspective is on that. It's not left field. It's a spot on. And actually, I'm first of all, I'm gonna redirect you to another person. So my friend, Chloe Brotheridge in the book, which is this bad guy reclaiming time off. Sorry, I'm checking it because it's one of those things. But she talks specifically about actually stress and confidence and boundaries. So again, I asked her to actually tell us a bit more about this. So I recommend to check out, she's called Chloe Brotheridge's work. She's excellent. She wrote three books herself. And first book is the anxiety solution. Now, I talk about her because she talks a lot about the root of the people pleasing, sort of feeling that might come across as well and that might come up. So I don't wanna touch on that as much because it's not my area of expertise. And it goes a lot into the confidence and a lot into the mindset. However, I'm gonna give you the most matter-of-fact answer to this. Especially if you're kind, especially if you're a giving person, I'm gonna give them myself. You remember you cannot give from an empty cup. So especially if you want to be helping others, if you want to be supporting others, you cannot give anything if you're nothing less in the tank. And when we remember that we're like, oh, wait, this is what literally, the cycles of energies are. This is literally what, you can even say karma is if you wanna go that way, you give and then you get, and then you're following that cycle. It means that you need to look at yourself first in order to be able to look after other people. This is obviously the matter-of-fact element. One more thing that I also wanna say is that get uncomfortable with saying no a bit more, especially when it feels that that no is the right thing right now because you're protecting energy, you don't have time. Just get comfortable because the fear of the response of other people is what prevents us from actually saying no from a healthy place. So once you say no to something that doesn't feel right or you don't have capacity for, most times people will be like, okay, fine. Can I come back to you later? Sure, great, see you later. And once you like, okay, wait a second. Nobody screamed at me, nobody was angry at me and actually getting used to see the response can teach us that at the end of the day, life is made of choices. And when we are able to be confident and firm in our response either way, people will appreciate that and accept that. So we'll say these two things from my perspective is definitely get comfortable with saying no and living in that fear that will come up at first even before you say it. And also remember that you cannot give from an empty cap. Cap, not cap. And when you learn how to do that, then you will see why putting yourself first can be a priority in order to give to others. Beautiful, yeah. You know, it's interesting because I think a lot of givers do find joy or let me back up a little bit. This actually relates to creativity and like working on our business because it's usually easier to take care of someone else's needs and demands and wants than it is to buckle down and write that blog post or sales page or send that kind of email to a potential referral source or whatever it is or that potential client. It's like, oh, hey, my family member needs me. Oh, my client just emailed me or oh, my friend texted me and wants to talk, right? And so I'm gonna be a nice person. I'm a generous person. So they wanna talk right now? Sure, I'm gonna go and talk with them or they need help right now. Sure, oh, hey, I'm enjoying this connection. Let me just hang out a little bit longer. So how do you deal with that in your life or maybe you have worked with people on this? It's that maybe some people call it resistance, right? The resistance of doing our work and just kind of using other people's demands as an excuse to say, well, I'm a good person and it's fine even though my business, right? So what do you think about that? Well, to be honest, when I work with people, especially from working on a one-to-one perspective or with our members in the collective, I always start digging a bit more into the questions. Now I'm gonna bring my marketing background which is completely left field right now because it's a very practical exercise that you do when it comes to discovering marketing messages, which is something you would do for any brand, well, especially for startups or kind of like more traditional companies. It's called the brand ladder method and it bases on the way that we make decisions in life. And then literally if you're a coach and you don't know this, this is also potentially some of the things that you've learned to come back from this because it's a very simple emotional method. And it's all about asking the simple question. Actually, George, can you guess the question? Really, it would be, you know. Well, the simple question could be, who am I? Well, quite the best stage. What's that? If that is the stage that we're at, that might be a bit too much. Yeah, a bit too much. But I mean, another question might be, well, I mean, we're talking about branding. It's like how, what persona is impactful to the audience? Something like that. But anyway, I'd love to know what you were thinking. The question that you would ask for the brand laddering method, regardless of what you're trying to discover about your customers and or about yourself, and this is where I'm bringing it in, is why? Literally why? You're okay, thanks, Fab. Okay, cool. So let's say you're resisting to actually put you work in or let you're resisting to work on a sales page. That's a big one. Why? Because I want to help other people. Okay. But we stop and you say, okay, let's go back. But why do you want to help other people instead of working on your sales page? Because, and then that could be the second step, because working on my sales page makes me feel uncomfortable. And why is that? So I would say go back to the why. And the first reason that you are probably focusing your attention on something else is because it's either too uncomfortable or it's bringing up something or there's something beneath that. So if you really go deep down to that, obviously you do it also because you're a good person, but as humans, we're trying to seek pleasure and avoid pain. And you'll be like, Fab, sales pages are not that scary. But for a lot of people, it could be putting yourself out there or pricing yourself. I was gonna say it is scary. It is scary, right? Because it's like brilliantly said, we go towards pleasure, we avoid pain, we avoid rejection, we avoid the pain that people didn't buy, the pain of silence, the pain of the response. But yeah, keep going, absolutely. And that's literally that to be honest. It's that simple question of why, which the reason why, again, they do it when it comes to marketing messaging is because when you ask people the reason for something and you ask them the simple question of why, back enough, enough times, you will get to the proof of the matter. You will really be able to see that. So it's great to be wanting to be giving, but I also find that because these things, again, as you said, if you're generous and kind, it also makes you feel important. It gives you some love back and it's pleasurable. But then there are the focuses, the important things, the priorities, that there must be something there that is stopping you from following that. The last thing I'm gonna say, which I took a lot about also in the book, is that we tend to focus more when it comes to what we're doing and prioritizing. And what's urgent, then what's important. The problem is, there's always gonna be the little things that are more urgent. I'm gonna do quotation marks here. Then the most important thing you can do today, which is sending that email to follow up on a client or to ask somebody to work with you or to send a book proposal, whatever that is. So it's a similar process. Like we focus a lot on what is urgent and sometimes we need to focus on what's important to get us closer to what we wanna get, especially if you're uncomfortable because we're building that muscle, as you mentioned, rejection is a big one as well. And kind of trying to work past that. It's up-leveling literally at its finest. Yeah, yeah. Well, speaking of time, our time has flown by really fast. And I want to make sure people know about the book again. So you have it right there, that's great. You wanna hold it up and show us again the book. Yay, reclaim your time off. Okay, excellent. Yeah, reclaim your time off. Okay, so, and then the other thing I want you to talk about a little bit is that you have an accelerator program. First of all, what is an accelerator? And this one is a concise one. It's six weeks, right? So tell us anything you like about that. Oh, thank you so much. Well, when it comes to the accelerator, what it is a way for us to take some of the things that I teach when it comes to creative impact and the work that I do, in this case is accelerators about building and validating digital products and promoting them, I should say. So we go through the different steps. So actually understanding what is that you wanna do when it comes to scaling from a one-to-one perspective to any digital product. So think about courses, programs again, but also memberships, all stuff that we have done in the past eight years. And I'll just give you the framework. And usually that will come as a course, but with the accelerator every single week, we're gonna check in, go through the content together, being able to review and look at what you're already thinking about or what you're creating and get the tailored feedback. It's my favorite way to work aside from one-to-one because it really allows me to work with more people following something that we know works and we've seen the results, but in a group environment, which I think it just gets people more accountable as well. Yeah, yeah, fabulous. And what kind of person should consider joining this accelerator program? Tell us about who it's for, maybe who it's not for, any ideas there. That's perfect. So when it comes to the people that it's for, I would say that because of the examples that we use, I work and creative impact mainly, we work with creatives and experts that wanna make a positive impact in the world, just to give you the widest spectrum of the people that you find in the group usually. So the nutritionists, the coaches, again, the experts, the personal trainers, you name them, there's a plethora of people that we have, we've got hundreds of people in a collective. Who is not for, I would say, is people that have any, that would be my suggestion to be honest, people that haven't started even working with clients when I want to on a basis and they've not understood exactly what their method is or what their framework is or what type of work they want to do. I would say that probably you don't wanna jump on into this. First, you wanna focus on really understanding what your clients want. But if you already have worked on this for a while, if you either have an idea bubbling or you already know exactly what you wanna build, basically I can teach all the mistakes that I made and make sure that you don't make them. Because again, the good thing about starting really early, eight years ago, is that we tried a lot of things and we really learned and put the studies in to make sure that your students, your clients, will go through the best possible digital product ever. Nice, nice. Well, as we conclude this conversation, is there one kind of send-off encouragement or tip that you'd like to share with those who are watching? Can I use a very, very well-used quote just because I like it, it's one of my favorite ones. I think it's a good reminder. If we say this to ourselves, I think every day, kind of helps. The usual, life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it. So remember, your thoughts and your mind have got so much way into the way that you live your life. You can focus on the sunshine or you can focus on the fact that it's too hot. Just remember this, that wherever you put your focus on, that grows. And if you make it the positive, if you make it the abundant things, if you make it the wins, that can only be a good thing. Brilliant, that's a great way for us to finish up. So thank you so much, Fab, for the work that you do and how you do it and the community that you foster. And folks, there are links below that take you to Fab's social media, website, book, et cetera. So check it out. Thanks so much, Fab. Thank you so much for having me.