None of Your Business

Raise your hand if you feel like you’ve been around some “scammy” business coaches. You see red flags all over their social media profile, you have seen them gaslight some of their clients, and like an occasional shooting star, you see some of their posts don’t make sense. (Surprise! They are lying.) Though there are a TON of wonderful, qualified, good-intention business coaches around, it’s sad t...

April Dawn, as a consultant that focuses on multi six figure launches, has a ton of super busy days. To most people, this would mean high stress, high pressure, long hours in front of the computer, and maybe sleep and fitness coming in last.  Not for April. She has wonderfully weaved fun, wellness, and healthy habits into her busy days.  Learn how she does it…  How to not overdo “play” and get bac...

What is it really like to shift careers? When you’re “older”? After a decade of commitment to one career? Maybe eight years of college education? And a lifetime of parents and society’s expectations? In this podcast episode, I sit with Chemical Engineer turned full time content marketer and entrepreneur, Farrah Garcia. After spending years working in a petrochemical plant, she made the bold decisi...

As a business girlie, beauty girlie, fitness girlie, fashion girlie….I’ve made a lot of bad money decisions that continue to haunt me. I mean, I’ve processed most of them in therapy and I’ve gotten wiser over the years, but sometimes, it annoys me thinking about them!  Years and years of being in the social media eye did not help, too. In this episode, I’ve distilled some of the most common bad mo...

As a former competitive poker player and pretty much a very “F it, let’s do it!” kind of person sometimes, I needed to know how to properly calculate risk. Over the years, I’ve had wins and made mistakes, and I reflected on this topic so I can share my best advice for you.  So grab a warm drink (or a spritzy cold one) and enjoy this episode about how to lessen risks in life and business. Then let...

Just in the past year, I’ve traveled to seven countries. Add maybe four more for layovers.  I recently got hit with a surprise trip back to the Philippines, where I had to travel over 30 hours to stay there for a few weeks. And get this – it was super easy.  I don’t get jetlagged (yep, never in my life) and I learned a few things along the way so that I can keep my diet and business in order even...

Have you ever thought about starting a speaking career or hitting up stages to grow your business? You’re in for a treat! Veteran educator, emcee, and standup comedian Adam Palmeter sits with me today to talk about how to prep for public speaking, how to grow a “creative” career without going broke, surprising ways to build up your confidence, key benefits for entrepreneurs as they nurture their s...

It’s pretty straightforward: we had a great conversation about 10 Uncanny Ways to Find Great Hires.  Last week I sat with the Founder of BarbellJobs.com, hiring expert and business broker Sebastian Gast. We talked about some of our best hires, our “creative” ways in finding them, secret green flags to look out for, and we also dispelled some myths and discussed nuances about hiring.  (Side note: l...

This is a special encore podcast episode sponsored by Social Media Pro, home to the world’s best social media certification courses. In this episode we talked about weaving humor in your marketing. We discussed… How to be funny but still be on the “safe side” of things  3 surprising moneymaking benefits to making someone laugh What really brings engagement in your posts (not HUMOR per se…) Why hum...

In business, we always make that mistake of mismanaging money. Whether it’s a misguided purchase or just poor projection, a lot of us struggle to really “get this right”. If you are one of us, then this podcast is for you. Eric is a digital marketing strategist who supports two families in Peru and USA, and is open about sharing his tips on frugality and money management on social media. His recen...

As of today, my podcast is two years old.  It’s one of the things that has immensely ROI’d many, many times over, because I sought the help of experts before starting, and I also learned from my mistakes along the way. I’ve had a lot of opportunities directly from the podcast… from hot leads, to profitable affiliate partnerships,  Some highlights…  Top 5 best benefits of a well-done podcast  4 Poi...

What if your personal life and socialization can be as organized and as efficient as your business life?  This can now stop being just a fantasy as we sit with Kieran for today’s episode about systematizing one’s personal life.  Kieran Browning is an efficiency consultant who has been spending the last 4 years helping entrepreneurs, especially mompreneurs, streamline their systems and processes to...

If you grew up in a poor family, one thing that you might not know is that you may have been operating on a scarcity mindset.  Join me and Andy as we talk about our childhood and all the times our parents emphasized how important it was to save money, how money is scarce, and how we need to work hard and be cheap all the time.  As we grew older and became entrepreneurs, we started to look at money...

There were many times in my life when I needed to put my game face on because I gotta pay a huge amount of debt.  My biggest, most challenging story with debt happened when I lost my dad at 22.  He spent two months in the ICU, and his meds were costing us at least $800 a day.  My mom worked hard day and night to care for him, I went out and made as much money as I could, and we borrowed from so ma...

What do corporate people really think of remote work? And how different is it from us, entrepreneurs? I was always curious about this, so I thoughtfully threatened— I mean, convinced!-- my husband, the ultimate retired corporate guy to tell me about his experience.  The remote work culture blew up during the pandemic big time, and in this episode, we talked about the emotional journey that went wi...

As an outsourcing professional, one of the things that I always get asked about is delegation! Many people struggle with it, and oftentimes it is what's in the way before they get to their dream revenue, their goals, their ideal life. Whether you are thinking of how to start properly delegating, or wanting to get better in it as a boss, this podcast is for you. Follow me on Instagram for more happ...

Unless you have a career in fashion, we solely participate in fashion as consumers. Clothes and accessories are things that we buy. And that’s it.  In this episode, I sit down with Jesse Boga, a journalism-trainer writer who has extensive work in news and lifestyle media, PR, and science communication.  We talked about… What is sustainability in fashion, and how it differs in terms of shared reali...

I've always wanted to share a lot of the behind the scenes of my life, so here's a start! Check out this neat list of 15 of my favorite items and purchases under $100. They're absolutely life changing -- at least for me!    (Teaser: They're mostly health and productivity stuff!)   If you have any item that springs to mind, please let me know so I can get em for myself too. Also, if you know anyone...

Breakups are such a b*tch! Especially when you're running a business. Today I sat with Eliza Vi to talk about this^. She's a Mexican Medicine Woman, Sacred Intimacy Coach and a Feminine and Masculine Energetics expert. She leads a movement of powerful women who choose to defy all odds against them and strive to live a deeply fulfilling life of abundance in love, connection and wealth. In this epis...

After his viral Shark Tank stint -- with Marc Cuban calling him a charlatan and Mr. Wonderful dropping the F bombs pretty hard -- all the hate came rolling for Maneesh Sethi, Founder of Pavlok.  (Pavlok is a wearable device company that helps people eliminate bad habits and form positive ones.)   People were emailing him hate messages, messaging him on social media, calling their home phone, and s...

"It's lonely at the top" "Entrepreneurship is not sexy" "This is so hard that's why people don't do it!" These are just some of the most common thoughts that people have about entrepreneurship. And painfully, I admit they're all true! However, you may be wondering, why do we, entrepreneurs, keep doing this business thing? How do we deal with all of its ugly parts? Sit with me and Alex Snider, a we...

A lot of people come to me with problems.    I don't know; maybe I look like I have solutions. That's not true though, I still fumble life sometimes.  However, over my years of experience as the eldest child of an Asian family, a corporate event planner, and a consultant, I've found a handful of ways to solve problems better.    Get your notebook out or maybe go for a thoughtful walk with this pod...

Hear ye, hear ye! My money mistakes are here for you to feast on!  Sharing my best money mistakes in my last 15 years in business, and the stories and lessons that came with it.  Guaranteed you'll learn a thing or two, and if you have something to share, shoot me a message, I'd appreciate it! :)  Follow me on Instagram for positive money adventures, led by life design: @karlastefan. 

As I navigate through the decision of being a mom, I realized that a lot of women may have the same questions, fears, feelings, and musings! So I decided to invite my supermom bossbabe friend, Lauren Gordon to talk about this topic.  She had 3 kids back-to-back, ran her business fulltime, and moved to a foreign country while at it! She successfully runs a multi six figure coaching business and gen...

As the year is starting, let’s talk about what I would do if I was truly starting over.  I talk about some mistakes that I’ve made in the past, some time wasters, some opportunities I missed out on, and some things I could have done better.  No regrets here, just all lessons. Hope you like it! Over fifteen years in business, over thirty countries visited, over a dozen heartaches, over  here’s some...