IAM1729 – Nomadic Entrepreneur and Podcast Host Encourages Others to Follow their Calling

Debbie Arcangeles Teaer 00:00

I am a huge believer to do something and then I really believe that the money will follow. For the most part, it's not always all the time. Believe me, I do my share of pitching and all of those things to sponsorships and brands as well, but if you have a niche market, if you have a niche audience, the brands will definitely wanna be a part of that as well.

Intro 00:22

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Hakrless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of.

This is to I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:48

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I appreciate you listening to this episode. And if you've been listening this year, you know that we hit 1600 episodes at the beginning of this year. We're doing something a little bit different where we're repurposing our favorite episodes around certain categories or topics or as I like to call them, the business pillars that we think are going to be extremely impactful for CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and what I like to call the CB nation architects who are looking to level up their organization.

This month we are focused on our greatest asset, talent management and hiring. Think from great resignation to the great renovation. And if you disagree with me, maybe these episodes might be especially for you. Life and especially business has changed. It has forced those that are within organizations who look differently at talent and how it's being managed. When we talk about change, think about it, we have to realize that business as usual is no longer here. And that's evident in attracting and retaining clients, but also in setting up people within organizations to succeed. Think onboarding, think DEI- diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. How it is working from home and even going back into the office.

Things are different. In this month, we are going to explore these topics by featuring CEO hacks and CEO nuggets, but also interviews that focus on these changes and how organizations can make sure they care for and attract the most valuable asset, their people. Sit back and enjoy this special episode of the I AM CEO podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Debbie Arcangeles of The Offbeat Life Podcast. Debbie, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Debbie Arcangeles 02:20

Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to talk to you all.

Gresham Harkless 02:23

Definitely super excited to have you on. What I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Debbie so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

Debbie Arcangeles is a nomadic entrepreneur and the host of the Offbeat Life Podcast. This is a podcast where she interviews individuals who are location independent. She aims to encourage others to follow their true calling and take a chance on themselves. Debbie has been featured in Refinery 29, Forbes, and much more for her expertise in travel.

Debbie, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Debbie Arcangeles 02:50

I am really ready.

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Gresham Harkless 02:52

Awesome. Let's do it. So, to kick everything off, I wanna hear a little bit more about your background and what I call your CEO story. What let you get started.

Debbie Arcangeles 02:58

Yeah, so I went about this in a really long way. I failed several businesses and I am sure if you're an entrepreneur, you know what this is like. I just started grasping different things in the beginning because I was passionate about everything that was in the arts, but everyone told me that it wasn't gonna work because starving artists type thing. Especially because I came from an immigrant family. I'm also an immigrant.

I was just trying to see what was going to stick as they say. So all of my twenties I probably had, I don't know 15, 20 jobs that I started, and then three to four businesses that I failed. I finally said to myself, I need something that's more stable. I am getting older now. I need to do something. So I ended up being a therapist. Even though I enjoyed it in the beginning, I knew that it was not something that I wanted to pursue in the long run. Also the fact that I was literally having panic attacks every four months, it was like clockwork. It was just all the time.

I started to really reevaluate everything. I knew that every time that I was really ultimately happy was when I was talking to people who were location independent, who worked online. They had the freedom to do whatever it is that they wanted to do, and they could also travel whenever they wanted. That was like the double rainbow for me. So then I was speaking to a friend at the time and he introduced me to podcasts and I was like, why can't I do this? I should just do this and interview those people that I really wanted to talk to and really admired.

That's how the podcast started and about six months later, I had sponsors coming to me to pay me to do this.

Gresham Harkless 04:44

Nice.

Debbie Arcangeles 04:44

That's when I realized that I could make a living out of this. So it was kind of like an accident that it actually monetized itself. Then two years later, here I am and I'm doing this full-time and this is my full-time business.

Gresham Harkless 04:57

Nice. A lot of times you just have to try it. A lot of times it will come to fruition.

Debbie Arcangeles 05:00

Yeah, absolutely. I tell all of the people this not just my listeners but also even like my little younger cousins who are just starting out in their life. I say to them, whatever it is that you are really excited and passionate about, it doesn't matter if you feel like it's gonna make money or not, just see where it leads you.

Because honestly, with all of the businesses I failed, all the jobs that I had gone through, even though it was a lot of pain and sorrow and a lot of hard work, it led me to where I am. It made me learn so many different things that actually made me succeed in the long run with my business because without those, I would not know so many things that I know now.

Gresham Harkless 05:37

Nice. So I know you touched on it a little bit. I'm super excited about it because I think so many people don't know about this idea of location independence. So could you define that a little bit more about exactly what that means and what you're covering in your podcast?

Debbie Arcangeles 05:47

Yeah, absolutely. So there's a misconception about location independence, meaning that you are constantly traveling, right? You are often in so many different places. So for me, location independence personally, it just means I have freedom. Freedom to work wherever I want, whether it's in one location or new locations every single month. But it's just the freedom of working whenever you want and if you're really lucky whenever you want.

That's what made me really love this lifestyle because I have that freedom. If you have your own business, then you do also have that freedom to work. At night, in the morning, in the middle of the day, you could take a nap or whenever you want. Obviously, it's a lot of work to get to this point as well.

Gresham Harkless 06:31

Yeah, that makes so much sense. But I love the fact that you started to interview the people and then all the sponsors and everything came from looking for you. Because a lot of times when you're following a niche that people are so interested in and they wanna know so much about it, you are like that connector because you allow people to meet you interview those entrepreneurs, but you also have those businesses that wanna connect with that audience as well.

Debbie Arcangeles 06:50

Yeah, it's really true and I am a huge believer to do something and then I really believe that the money will follow. For the most part,  it's not always all the time. Believe me, I do my share of pitching and all of those things to sponsorships and brands as well, but if you have a niche market, if you have a niche audience the brands will definitely wanna be a part of that as well.

Gresham Harkless 07:13

Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of times they want to reach those niche markets and those niche kind of audiences. I think it's one of the most beautiful things about I guess this time and age, is that you can create a niche around whatever topic you want, whether it be a podcast, blog, whatever, and then you can build that tribe so to speak. Then people that wanna reach those businesses and brands will reach out to you and then you can reach out to them as well too.

Debbie Arcangeles 07:34

Yeah.

Gresham Harkless 07:35

Nice. So I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for you personally or for your podcast and your business. But what do you feel sets you apart and makes you unique?

Debbie Arcangeles 07:44

I don't know if it sets me apart, but honestly I call myself a lazy entrepreneur. That's kind of what I call myself. So, I do a lot of outsourcing. Obviously in the beginning believe me, I worked like 16, 20 hours to get to this point. But I only did that because I'm extremely lazy and I don't wanna do everything myself.

I firmly believe that I could not succeed without a team behind me to help me do all of these things. Because honestly, if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you cannot do everything. There are so many different facets to a business that if you wanna do this all on your own, you're not gonna grow very fast.

It's gonna get really overwhelming. I know that because I've done this with three to four other businesses and I felt I'm the only one who could do this. No one else can do this better than me.

Gresham Harkless 08:31

Right.

Debbie Arcangeles 08:32

What I really learned was that you have to kind of let go of certain things with your business, right? So it's like saying to yourself, is it gonna be worth it for me to make sure that I do everything but then never get anything done really and just one or two things? Or can I let these things go? It's not gonna be perfect the way I want it, but it's still gonna get the job done, but it's gonna get me to grow even more.

It's gonna allow me to focus on monetizing my business to create better ideas for my business when I don't have to do this on my own. So at the end of the day, I never feel like being lazy is like actually a bad thing because it actually makes you think better things. So that things will flow a lot faster and smoother because you don't wanna ever do all of these things on your own. So really that's my secret sauce is being a lazy entrepreneur, as I call it.

Gresham Harkless 09:26

I definitely appreciate that. It's so funny that you mentioned that because I think I read an article or something it was years ago, but it talked so much about how I'm not sure if it said lazy, but it's the same concept. It talked about how people like that understand like they only wanna focus on maybe those top-level things, those things that actually move the needle forward and they're willing to delegate or push off other things. They are able to be super-efficient because they wanna make sure that they maximize their time.

Debbie Arcangeles 09:50

Yeah, absolutely. I say this to a lot of people all the time, why are you doing a $10 job when you should be doing a 500-hour job? It's really about valuing yourself and your skills. You can definitely outsource somebody scheduling things on social media.

That's ridiculous. You shouldn't be able to do that. But I say this, once you actually create income from your business because you also don't wanna keep spending money on your business and you have nothing coming in. That's why I say it took a long time and a lot of many hours for me to get to this point.

There are definitely people who have the financing to do that. If you can't afford it, do it. But if you don't, Just bear with it and stick with it as much as you can until you can finally outsource.

Gresham Harkless 10:33

Nice. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Debbie Arcangeles 10:42

Okay. I am a huge list person. I love creating lists. I love creating to-do list and I have to say that one of the things that I use is Evernote and then another one is to do. Those two things are really incredible. So if you're an entrepreneur, you're a CEO, I said SEO because I've been working on that a lot.

Gresham Harkless 11:03

I didn't even notice, I work with SEO and I didn't hear it.

Debbie Arcangeles 11:07

That just proved my point. There are so many things in my head that are going on, right? So if I don't have a to-do list, I can't remember anything. So I have Evernote to help me, To Do to help me. I have Trello for outsourcing tasks for my assistant. So that's just really in order for me to understand what's happening with my business because this is another thing.

If you have assistance and you have all of those tasks that are being done, you also need to make sure that they're getting done right. Because you just don't wanna pay somebody and you don't know what's happening. So I have my own task list. Which I do with Evernote. I have Trello for the people that I outsource, so I look at that every single week, whether it's getting done what we need to do, or all of those things.

So really that's for me, it helps me really get things done. Now, the book How to Win Friends and Influence People was a huge book for me. Just dealing with clients, dealing with people in general, whether you have a business or not. I feel like everybody should read that book. It's an incredible book and obviously Tim Ferriss Four Hour Work Week and it's like everybody's go-to, it's like the Bible to do all of this stuff.

Yeah, so those are my go-to's for sure.

Gresham Harkless 12:15

Nice. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Debbie Arcangeles 12:25

I think every failure that you have is gonna help you so never be afraid to fail. I think you should embrace it because you learned so much from it. And honestly, if I didn't fail as much as I have, I would not have learned as much as I have. I think that's one of the huge advantages that I had when I started this current company I have now is because I failed so much.

When all of those different struggles that came my way happened, I already knew how to handle them because I failed so much. I already knew what was gonna happen. Okay. If A, B, and C happen, oh, that already happened to me, so this is what I'm gonna do. So I would say never be afraid of it. I think I've spoken to too many people that said, I'm really afraid to fail. I don't know what if this happened, and I say, let it happen.

Gresham Harkless 13:08

Nice. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different CEOs on this show.

So Debbie, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Debbie Arcangeles 13:17

I think I touched up on this a little bit in the beginning. I think for me it's just freedom, right? I think there are a lot of entrepreneurs out there that are like myself who are not really okay with just being told what to do, right? You are a little bit different than other people. You step outside of the box. You are an individual thinker. You want that freedom to be able to think for yourself to create something that you really love and see it come to life.

For me, a CEO is someone who is able to do that, who is able to create something and has that type of, I don't know, it's just like you have that fire within you to create something and just see it work. And to have that freedom, to be able to have that freedom to say what and how. I think it's really exciting to be able to do that.

Gresham Harkless 14:08

Yeah, absolutely. You have the paintbrush in your hand. You can paint whatever picture that you want. And I love, and I expected nothing less than you to say the word freedom especially with the location of independence. It's just so you know, beautiful that you have the opportunity with all these technologies and all these things that we have on our fingertips to be able to paint that picture, create our own life, and do it in the way that you want.

So I appreciate that definition. I appreciate you of course, for doing it even more.

Debbie Arcangeles 14:31

Oh, thank you.

Gresham Harkless 14:33

You're welcome. So Debbie, thank you so much. I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you wanna let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you. Find out about all the awesome things you're doing and subscribe to the podcast.

Debbie Arcangeles 14:47

Oh yeah, sure. Thank you so much. So, I really believe that if you wanna do it, you should go for it. Never be afraid of failure. Never be afraid of fear itself. I think that's a horrible way to live anyways, right? You may as well just stay in your house if you don't want anything bad to happen, which I don't think it will, you're gonna be okay.

If you wanna learn more about being location independent, or if you wanna know how to be a location-independent entrepreneur, digital nomad, or remote worker, make sure to check out my website. It's called theoffbeatlife.com. You're gonna find my podcast there. I have a ton of resources for you to look at as well, and I'm also on Instagram and again, theoffbeatlife.

Gresham Harkless 15:28

Awesome, Awesome, awesome. And we'll have those links in that information, in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. But thank you so much and I appreciate the call to action. If you have something that's on your mind that you wanna start, just do it. Sometimes we build up failure in our minds and it's not half as bad as sometimes we think it's going to be.

So try it and then you just have a learning lesson. So thank you so much again, Debbie, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Debbie Arcangeles 15:49

Thank you so much.

Outro 15:50

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast, powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co.

This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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