In Episode 103 of the Lift As You Climb Podcast,we engage in a conversation with Tobe Brockner, Founder of Katuva, exploring the paradigm shift that shaped Tobe's journey towards time freedom and autonomy.

Key Highlights:

**Empower Plus Program:** Tobe emphasizes the reciprocal nature of empowerment, creating a symbiotic relationship between personal and collective success.

**Strategic Use of Virtual Assistants:** Tobe elaborates on the practical aspects of working with virtual assistants, emphasizing the strategic deployment of virtual support to enhance productivity and create value. The conversation includes insights into training clients to manage VAs effectively, especially when dealing with opposing time zones.

**Time Freedom and Autonomy:** The core theme revolves around the importance of time freedom and autonomy in business. Tobe shares his personal experiences, challenges faced, and the mindset shift required to break free from traditional work models.

**Flexibility and Global Work Dynamics:** The episode explores the need for flexibility in work hours and challenges the outdated 9-to-5 framework. Tobe advocates for a more global and dynamic approach to work, adapting to the diverse needs of clients and team members.

**Leveraging Technology for Collaboration:** The use of collaboration tools like ClickUp and Loom is highlighted, showcasing how technology facilitates seamless communication and fosters a sense of personal connection within remote teams.

**The Choice of Work Schedule:** The episode concludes by emphasizing the power of choice in determining work schedules. The guest and host underscore the importance of creating a business that aligns with personal preferences, fostering a healthy work-life balance.

This insightful episode guides entrepreneurs navigating the evolving landscape of business, offering practical tips and inspiration for those seeking a harmonious blend of success and personal freedom.

https://learn.katuva.com/300-tasks-ebook?am_id=isabel425

https://learn.katuva.com/exploratory-call?am_id=isabel243

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Welcome to the Lift As You Climb podcast, where it's all about the

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journey and the joy of discovering who you are now, deciding who you want

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to become, and embracing your genuine identity, influence, and impact.

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In each episode, we'll explore how life's experiences have prepared us for what

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we choose to do next and how to create our Encore, write our own script, and

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star in the next stage of our lives.

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I'm your host, your Encore strategist, and transformation catalyst, Isabel Alexander.

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Oh, hi, I was just going over my notes from the show.

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This is the third in the series of interviews with Tobe Brockner, where

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we're talking about everything you always wanted to know about virtual assistants,

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but maybe didn't know who to ask.

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And it was so nice to.

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Be reminded that we talked about the correlation between having a virtual

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assistant, having a system and a process for a successful relationship, and Lift

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As You Climb, because they're both about empowering and building success ladders.

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So today we're going to talk about that.

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And we're going to talk about how to defy time.

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We're going to talk about how you successfully reduce your work hours.

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And expand your ability to have more time, free time, quality time to do

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the things you want to do when you and your virtual assistant are in sync.

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So, check it out, and don't forget, if there's someone else that you want

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to empower, share these episodes with them so they'll know all about how to

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have a virtual assistant successfully.

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Okay, see you on the flip side.

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Couldn't be a better alignment, a reminder that the name of this podcast

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is Lift As You Climb, and that's my guiding compass in life, that we, A,

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have a responsibility to become the best version of ourselves, but B, while

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we're building our own success ladders, we can reach back and empower others

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to create their own success ladders.

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And totally coincidental that you have the Empower Plus program but

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empowerment is it's how I roll.

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And I think the more that we do, as I said, to constantly be pushing

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ourselves to be better, and if that means up leveling our skills and our

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capacity by adding the right people to our team, that helps us to create

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more value in the world and for others.

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And I love the fact that, this is reciprocity in its best

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example by doing this together.

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Okay, let's, so we're talking about that this is, it's not just altruistic.

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We're not trying to just make the lives of people in another country

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better, but it makes our lives better.

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And you're a prime example of that, that through your own experience of learning

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how to optimize working with your virtual assistants, you've created more time,

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more freedom, more flexibility in your life, which again is, that's my jam.

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That's what I do for my clients that are, holding so tight to that

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entrepreneurial steering wheel.

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Maybe they've been building a business for 20, 30 more years, and have gotten

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into that habit of this is how it's done.

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And as a result of that with the complexity of the world

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continuing to increase, they have less time, less freedom.

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In fact, they've just blown up pretty much all of the motives for why they

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started a business in the first place.

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We want to create more for ourselves, our families, whoever matters to us.

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Thinking about my own experience here, relating that to the audience;

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I struggled, I'll be very honest, in the beginning with feeling like I

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needed to keep them busy, and needed to match, mirror my, their schedule with

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mine, and of course, that didn't work.

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Could you share a bit of what you, how you train your clients to work with the

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VAs when they're in opposing time zones?

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Yeah,

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There's some different strategies that we use.

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I think, for me, Personally my biggest strategy is to discard

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the antiquated 9 to 5 model.

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I don't really subscribe to that work framework anymore.

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You go to work, you punch your clock at 9 and you come home at 5 and you're done.

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I don't buy into that anymore; essentially instituted by Henry

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Ford as an employee benefit.

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He built his factories and said, Hey, instead of working from 8am until

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10pm every day, which was customary, that's what people were doing, they

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were just being worked to death.

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He said, you're only gonna have to work for me from nine to five.

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And that became the norm.

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But that was a hundred years ago.

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We don't have to be bound by those things anymore.

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Just

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On that topic, since you introduced us, because I

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think this is a fun fact that everybody may not be aware of.

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Henry was a pretty smart man.

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Wow.

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Not only did he realize that he could retain, attract, keep the

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best workers by treating them more humanely and giving them, a scheduled

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working hour that allowed them to see their family and get some rest, but

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he also created his own marketplace by giving them the weekends off.

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He reduced their working hours, he paid them more, he gave them

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weekends off, and now that they had weekends off and a little disposable

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income, they could buy a car.

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It

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Goes back to, what you were saying is that it's not

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necessarily altruistic always.

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A lot of times it's pragmatic.

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You treat your clients right because it's the right thing to

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do, but it's also good business.

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It pays, to be honest, to have integrity.

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So even if you don't believe in any of that, you should do it

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anyway because it's pragmatic.

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It makes the most sense for you to get ahead in life and in business.

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Going back to the how do we manage the times?

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So in our time zone, mountain time zone right now and this will change as

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springtime rolls around, but right now we are 14 hours behind the Philippines.

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What we try to do, some of our clients, they have to have VAs

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who work what would be the virtual assistant's graveyard shift.

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They work overnight, but it's date U.

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S.

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daytime hours.

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And there's a variety of reasons for that.

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They have to answer customer service phone calls, or they have to file reports at a

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certain time, various things like that.

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I try my best to discourage clients from requiring graveyard shift work,

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just because there are so many studies that show how detrimental it is to

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mental health and how doing it for long periods of time the circadian

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rhythm is just gets totally messed up when you flip that script.

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We try to discourage clients from doing that, if possible.

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Most of the time, most people don't care.

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They don't need, if somebody's going to be creating social media

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content, what difference does it make if it's at 3pm or 3am?

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It doesn't matter.

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As long as it gets created and posted and scheduled, it's fine.

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And most clients are like that, and they have that sort

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of mentality and that mindset.

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What we try to do is we build in some sort of overlap.

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For me 5 p.

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m., my time, Mountain Time, is the start time for a lot of our VAs, which is 7 a.

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m., Filipino time, the next morning.

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My Monday evening at 5 p.

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m., my VAs are just waking up Tuesday morning at 7 a.

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m.

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and getting going.

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And so I build in that little bit of overlap at the end of my

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workday, where during the day, as I've gone along, I've been taking

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notes of different initiatives.

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Just yesterday is a great example.

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Valentine's Day is coming.

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I'm not sure when this is going to be released, but Valentine's Day is

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coming up, and we are running an ad.

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I had an idea for a Facebook ad and it was a picture of a man and a woman at

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dinner and obviously in love and then there was a Cupid above shooting an

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arrow into the woman and we labeled the man as you, the woman as your business,

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and Cupid as your VA and the tagline was fall in love with your business again.

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So I had this idea.

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I'm not a graphic designer, I don't know how to create any of that stuff, but I

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jotted it down, I made a note, and so when my graphic designer, Ivan, logged on

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and my marketing manager, Gellie is her name, when they logged on at 5pm, they

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check in with me on Skype, they say, Hey, we're logging on now, and I sent them that

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note, and I said, this is an idea I have.

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Ivan went to work on it.

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I woke up the next morning with a batch of draft content, really

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clever, funny, cute ads that were all this riff on that original idea.

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The first one was my original idea of what it was.

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And then the other three or four or five were Ivan's creative brain sort of way.

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What if we do this?

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And what if we make, instead of the Cupid, it's the flowers are your VA

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and he's handing them to whatever.

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So we came up with this and we worked together that way, but we had that overlap

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where I was able to explain the concept to him, get the idea and pitch it off to him.

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Just last night, we have a client who he needed a marketing flyer to hand

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to his, the presidents of franchises.

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We have this pretty big opportunity right now where we can get VAs placed into

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these franchises and this could mean ultimately hundreds of VAs placed for us.

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So we're in a time crunch.

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I got to get this marketing flyer done.

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Ivan logs on, I had already written the copy for it during the day, send it over

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to him, said, Hey let's work on this.

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My copy was three pages long.

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I was like, I need you to fit this on one page.

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He Skypes me and goes, Hey, can we talk?

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I don't know if I can do this the way you want it.

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So we jump on Zoom.

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go through it, we eliminated some things, moved around, he was able

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to create it, and then he worked on it that evening, sent it over to

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me about eight o'clock last night.

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I took a quick little look at it while I was watching Breaking Bad

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and sipping on some bourbon, didn't really bother me that he was sending

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me work, this looks great, send it off!

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And he finalized it and I was able to send it over to the client.

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They're leaving out of town tomorrow and they can take it with them.

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So now, I'm able to get this done because of that overlap.

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And by being a little bit flexible, like I don't, I harp on autonomy and free

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time, but I'm also realistic about it.

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You have to carve out the time.

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You have a team.

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This isn't a Ronco teal rotisserie oven, you set it and forget it.

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These are human beings that are dynamic and have things pop up and you need

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to be able to respond, but you don't have to be a slave to it either.

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And so you just have to work out that balance.

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And I generally will get up I should be ashamed to say, but I'm not, I don't care.

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I don't apologize to anybody for this.

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I get up nine, 10, 11 o'clock sometimes in the morning, cause I work from around

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noon until nine or ten at night, I'm on call, even though I'm not necessarily

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working, I'm communicating with my VAs.

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My life's a little bit different because we have a team.

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We have six internal VAs at Katuva but we also have all of the VAs

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for our clients that necessarily need support and attention.

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Tobe, I think Henry Ford would agree with us.

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It's not a nine to five world anymore.

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It's a very global world and it's a dynamic world where

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we are using technology.

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We're working with people everywhere around the world.

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And our clients like mine are also around the world.

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Isn't that really, again, why we are in business because we

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get to set our own schedule.

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And if I want to, as I have recently taken off and gone to Bali for a month.

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I automatically have a different time zone.

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So my nine to five over there would be different anyway.

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So when an idea like your inspiration, by the way, we are for everybody listening,

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we are recording this the week before Valentine's in the United States,

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and it will air around Valentine's.

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But what you've shared here, It's so beautifully evergreen for everybody,

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Tobe, because this is the reality, the world is changing, and if we want to

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be successful and enjoy our business, and feel like we've got the impact

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that we want, then being creative, letting go of the old paradigms,

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finding different ways to achieve different results is what it's about.

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That's why I so wholeheartedly recommend VAs because you can do this.

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I, like you, like I'm an early bird, I'm up between 4 and 5am, so it's nice.

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I touch base with my VA that is the new addition on my team now who's taking

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care of my bookkeeping and finance stuff because she works a split shift and that's

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her choice, because of her lifestyle.

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My other VA, who is almost a full time person because of her family and

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other employees, she chooses to work a later shift in the Philippines.

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So, we cross over for about four hours a day, which gives us a different kind

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of working relationship, and thanks to, what you've set us up to work with, I'm

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now getting more fluent with ClickUp.

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Loom is another tool that you introduced me to, which I love because

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when I have something that I don't want to, or it's not convenient for

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me to Create a long form document.

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I simply share the screen of a tab that I'm looking at on whether it's

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Drive or Dropbox or Chrome and create a little video where I can say exactly

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what I want to, to my team members.

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That saves me a great deal of time and I feel it also creates

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more of a personal connection.

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And of course, because of all of this, we also have follow up, so if there's

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ever any question about I, I don't know, did I do that correctly they

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don't have to wait till the next day to talk to me, they just rewind the video,

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and oh yeah that's what she meant.

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Bravo, there's lots to do differently.

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And whether that means you choose to work when the sun is up or down

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or on different days than Monday to Friday, it's all optional.

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I hope you thought that was another great and resourceful interview with Tobe

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and that you're already thinking about how this information is transforming

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your life and business for the better.

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I'd also like to say thank you so much to the VAs on Tobe's team and mine,

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and all the others out there waiting to help you have one great whole life.

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So stay tuned for upcoming episodes and more information, and of course,

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be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes, and to like,

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follow, and share with everyone else.

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Thank you for spending this time with me.

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I hope our conversation added value to your day and expanded your

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vision for your legacy and impact.

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Please join me in increasing my impact and expanding my reach to even more

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people by sharing this episode on social media, with friends, and leaving a review

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on Apple iTunes, Spotify, Or channel of choice to catch all the latest from me.

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Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

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Connect with me and others in our community Facebook group, the Lift

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As You Climb Movement, where you can engage, be inspired by and grow

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with a tribe of like-minded people.

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As I evolve as a podcaster and spokeswoman for collaboration and

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economic empowerment, your input and feedback are especially important.

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To me, I welcome your suggestions and questions to hello@theencorecatalyst.com.

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Until we meet again, please remember your success may be the foundation

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for someone else's to together we can raise success ladders around the world.