193 – What Does It Take To Have A Laptop Lifestyle With Yaro Starak

Podcast: Download (Duration: 36:55 — 33.9MB)

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James Schramko and Yaro Starak

This week’s highlights:

01:20 – According to Yaro, the Laptop Lifestyle is ….
01:42 – People would rather do this than work
04:40 – This is a bad motivator
06:00 – Tell us what you need help with
09:26 – Why Yaro started video blogging
10:19 – Are videos ranking in search engines?
13:03 – Adapt the Laptop Lifestyle by …
15:48 – These 2 things are important
18:57 – Why people stay longer with podcasts
25:22 – Do you need to be knowledgeable?
27:27 – The Laptop Lifestyle benchmark
30:50 – Yaro’s parting wisdom
33:33 – What my business model is about

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Transcription:

Alright, this is James and welcome to an out and about episode of SuperFastBusiness.com. Today, I’m out of the office. I’m actually right by the sea, near the Pacific Ocean, down at Manly and I have a special guest with me, his name is Yaro Starak.

James: Welcome, Yaro.

Yaro: Hi James, thanks for having me. I feel very relaxed right now.

James: Yeah, well, I don’t know what could be more relaxed than sitting beside the Pacific Ocean and we’re eating some yoghurt, which I’ll post a picture right near this podcast. They sell the yoghurt weight, which is fascinating. I’ve taken a few people as an experiment and so far, you actually have weighed in at less than anyone I’ve ever taken.

James’ yoghurt

Yaro: Proud of that.

James: And I think, my mum’s weigh in was about twice as much as mine. I think we can easily spot whose “eyes are bigger than their belly” at a place like that.

Yaro: How about your mom?

James: Well, she’s actually quite small. But to her credit, she did eat everything she ordered.

So, we’re talking about The Laptop Lifestyle today, which is one of the reasons we are out and about. The fact is, we were going to be out and about anyway and I thought it would be a good idea to bring the recorder. So, I’d be interested in hearing from you, Yaro, about your ideas around Laptop Lifestyle. What does it actually mean and how does it work?

Yaro: In my recent studies of what people want to change in their life, it’s primarily a dislike for their job; a dislike for having a job, period. So, not wanting to work at all, and then, exchanging that time that they put into their work to do one of two things, and maybe both: Traveling, because that’s a huge one, everyone wants to be somewhere else because they don’t like where they are, or/and some sort of passion that’s in their life which could be their family, could be their loved one, could be a hobby – music, it could be making money, it could be running their business. I’m pretty sure James you would choose that probably as your main passion for a lot of the time and…

James: Well, I do like starting and growing businesses, it’s definitely a passion.

Yaro: Like, you don’t want to spend eight hours playing guitar, do you?

James: Well, I’m not a very good guitar player but I could see if I was a fanatical guitar player, I could easily spend eight hours playing it, like my son. He will play until he falls asleep holding the guitar and he’s so passionate about it and it shines through in the work he’s doing with his band. And same with my daughter with her horses, she would ride two horses every day.

Yaro: So, if they didn’t have to go to school, that’s where they would choose to spend a lot of their time on.

James: But I think, you know what’s interesting, I think they will engineer their lives around their passion because they’re far less indoctrinated into the society that tells us we have to go to school then to university.

Yaro: That’s your fault.

James: It is my fault but you know, I’m very proud of what my kids have been up to. What’s your passion? Is it still inline rollerblading?

Yaro: It’s never been inline rollerblading, I think you just said a double negative right?

James: Is it inline…? Oh okay. I got pulled up before once for saying roller skating apparently…

Yaro: You know what, I’m a roller skater at heart.

James: Are you? I did, in the 70’s.

Yaro: I mean, ultimately, in the rink, that’s what skating is about to me, but it’s not you know, it’s a bit limited. We’re going round and round in circles when we could be skating up and down this lovely bike path that’s in front of us on the ocean here.

James: Well, I just consider it like a runway for guest contributors to our podcast.

Yaro: We’ll just grab people over.

James: So, yeah, we’re actually just eavesdropping. It’s fascinating what people talk about on their walk around where we are here at Manly. I’ve heard a lot of conversations and I’d have to agree, most people appear to be unhappy with their life.

Yaro: Yeah, so that is the Laptop Lifestyle. So in my case, to answer your question, I love writing and actually like writing to my blog. Ideally, if I had my dream business, which I’m working towards to be honest, it’s all that back-end stuff – all that product selling, funnel development that you have to do in the information marketing business, I want that to be a tuned machine that never needs any more tuning, which might be a bit of a pipe dream; well, at least I’ll get it to a point where it’s…

James: You want to automate it.

Yaro: Fairly automated, so that every time I do something like this or write a blog post or do a video, it goes to some people – read this, listen to this, like what I say and what I do, go back to my site and enter that machine. And some of them become customers and I make a living, but I have the luxury of just exploring my creativity just for the sake of the interest; no need to directly do it for money. Like I don’t have to do it for money. It does make me money…

James: Well generally that’s like a really horrible motive for having to do something, for the money. When I encounter a student who wants me to help them grow their business, if they’re too desperate or only interested in what they need to make their money, I know they’re not really focused on solving customer’s problems, and generally and quite often, it’s not aligned with the passion either and they hate it.

Yaro: I kind of tie that into even if we go back here, it’s the reason why… I’m not sure I want to get into this subject matter, but I think it’s the reason why we have a lot of religions in the world, is a sense of desperation. When things are really bad in your life, you do look for outside powers and when you…

James: Yeah. Well I think people want to be comforted. Feeling that there’s something out there watching over them and stuff.

Yaro: Okay, so in Australia, we have a lot of our basic needs met but we might not like what we need to do to make a living or maybe we don’t make very much money when it’s very tight, so that’s the desperation that sets in. It’s nice to have the luxury of a lack of pressure to decide what you actually want to do with your life because that can be a big decision and you don’t want to make it with a “money monkey” on your back saying “You’ve got to earn this amount!” So, to do something you don’t like…

James: It’s kind of like that saying you know, people are buying things with money they don’t have to impress people they don’t like and stuff.

Yaro: Yeah.

James: So, alright, we’ve sort of touched on how you might make money from this Laptop Lifestyle. You might want to drive traffic to something and it’s like my site at SuperFastBusiness.com. I publish content most days and there’s a Products button on that site and the Products button leads to a problem solver, which is “Help me, my website is crap” or “I need more traffic” or “I want to learn about Internet marketing”. And they click on those things and they end up at a product, and that’s how that site works. In your case, have you considered publishing a book, if you love writing so much?

Yaro: I have. As most published authors will know, it’s not the best path to a large income.

James: Isn’t the by-product really about becoming more of an authority and getting bigger speaking gigs and higher conversions?

Yaro: Yeah, I don’t want my book to be a “lead generator” purely. Again, it’s like the motivation behind the book.

James: You want to do it as a creative artist.

Yaro: I want, I’ll write a book that touches people and I don’t need to make money from it, I don’t need to get clients from it. In fact, probably when I hit my 40’s, I will go…

James: That’s a while yet still?

Yaro: About seven years. So, I will then sit down and go “What do I actually want to write a book about?” because I don’t write fiction, I don’t write dialogue right now, I write a blog and I teach and I tell stories from my own life and other people’s lives but it’s not, you know… For me, the closest example I think I can find of the perfect execution of a book is Tim Ferriss with “The 4-hour Work Week” because that put him on the map as a super famous kind of person in his market as well as beyond his market. Bestseller status, it’s on the bookshelf, every bookshelf I go to. He doesn’t sell anything on the back of it though. You know, he makes, he has a blog and he has money.

James: Well, I think he also works in the startup world and makes investments.

Yaro: That’s how he makes his money now, yeah.

James: I’ve had the good pleasure of almost being run over by him and witnessing him smash a car into a tree.

Yaro: Oh, really? When was that?

James: It was at a military training camp we went to for a bit of fun in the United States. He’s a fun guy, I’ve got a picture of him somewhere. But, I think this is an interesting topic. A lot of people think they’re going to get rich making a book and as someone said, I don’t know, I’d love to attribute this quote, “most people think they’ve got a book in them and that’s exactly where it should stay”.

Yaro: Ouch! Ouch James! Crushing hopes and dreams.

James: I’m not talking about you Yaro, of course. I do have some fond memories of when I still had a job and I was listening to your podcasts, so you’ve been doing this audio thing for a long time.

Yaro: You know what? I started exactly like what we are doing right now.

James: Exactly, back wheel turns full circle.

Yaro: My first podcast was sitting, talking to a device like we are doing right now, sitting on the edge of the Brisbane River, talking about something to do with Internet marketing.

James: So, if you had to rate Brisbane River versus the Pacific Ocean…

Yaro: That’s not fair! It’s like comparing a bathtub to a swimming pool, you know.

James: Overseas listeners probably aren’t appreciating our extreme humor here. So, your podcasts, I remember listening to those from my office, I’d listen to them on my laptop. Do you still podcast?

Yaro: Of course I do.

James: You do, but you’ve also started video blogging now and you’ve got a Yaro.tv? Y-A-R-O.TV, I’ll do the plug for you, how’s that?

Yaro: Yes, thank you, thank you.

James: How is that? Is that courteous? And…

Yaro: SuperFastBusiness.com!

James: So, tell me why have you started doing videos?

Yaro: Well, you know what James, I’ve had a YouTube channel since 2007 so it doesn’t, I haven’t actually just started doing videos.

James: But you’ve, I mean, we’ve all done a few videos, and then not done them, and then started again. I actually started three years before last year when I started again in earnest. And, I think I wasn’t ready for it.

Yaro: I’ll be honest, I think this technology has gotten a lot better. Like I did a bunch of videos in 2008 when I travelled around the world. But that was with a Vado, pre-HD, so it wasn’t the… it’s a little handycam thing and it’s blurry, the audio’s not great. Now, you know your iPhone 5 does amazing quality video and you’ve got that with you wherever you go so there’s no excuse for technology, but I think personally, the reason why I’m doing more video: search engines, YouTube videos are ranking ridiculously well and you kind of get left behind, I think, in that area if you don’t..

James: So you think it’s important for business owners to pay attention to?

Yaro: I think that, and I think especially if you’re a personal branding person, so you are the brand. There’s a connection that you can only get with visual.

James: I see. I mean, I remember watching your stand-up desk video. And I went out and bought one because it was just that final trigger.

Yaro: Ikea.

James: It’s sort of like you get punished if you buy something from Ikea because then you have to spend a week assembling it, unless you’ve got kids. My daughter can assemble anything from Ikea, luckily. Now I’ve managed to find the stand-up desk of all stand-up desks. It had a stainless steel top which I use as a whiteboard.

Yaro: Ready-built too, isn’t it?

James: Pre-built and it was the last of the line and it was on floor clearance. So i literally picked it up, put it in my car and it was half-priced.

Yaro: Nice

James: It was like the ultimate.

Yaro: And you can see a video of that stand-up desk on Yaro.tv. Actually some more plug ins here.

James: There you go. You can see what I’ve got written, did we catch a script of…

Yaro: I did…I did a B roll.

James: B roll of what’s written on my stand up desk I’m sure. In fact I would say that.. Well, the graphic though has been responsible for me making a lot of money.

Yaro: Ah, an Easter egg hint there?

James: A little Easter egg hint. You can’t buy that sort of curiosity, Yaro. So, you’ve got the audios you’re doing, you’ve got videos and you still blog regularly at your blog which is called…

Yaro: Entrepreneurs-Journey. But I tell people to Google “Yaro,” that’s a much easier way to find it. Y-A… James can spell it.

James: I can’t spell it and it’s hyphenated.

Yaro: Y-A-R-O. I’m Madonna, Oprah, Rihanna, whatever you want, I’m Yaro.

James: Getting down with Yaro. So, before soon we’ll be busting out a few beats. What sort of tips have you got for someone who is in a job, listening to this, thinking, “Ok, Yaro, you sound pretty famous, and you get to travel and…”

Yaro: …sound famous?

James: Well, you just said you’re like… Rihanna.

Yaro: Ok.

James: Ok, so this is your own positioning here, this is your own fault. Look at that paddle board, isn’t that amazing?

Yaro: Yeah, great for an audio content, isn’t it?

James: It is, yeah.

Yaro: Look at that amazing paddle board.

James: Amazing, yeah… but the thing is, we’re reaching people who can’t watch a video or read something right now. Probably they’re walking the dog or walking on the beach. That’s the cool thing about audio.

Yaro: I hope you’re doing that right now.