Evernote, Purple Cow, Dream It Alive, Business Connectedness with Hela Wozniak-Kay of Sister Snog
Listen Below and Here’s What We Recommended:
Tools & Apps
Evernote – “I’m a Virgo who loves lists. My essential tool of life which includes work, and play, and organising everything else, is Evernote. I’m not quite sure how I possibly existed before Evernote came on the scene. I’m a massive fan of Evernote. You’ve got to get into it, and buy into it. It’s kind of like a sort of effortless solution, and you can share what you’re doing with those that are also on Evernote. I think it’s like a killer app that is just gorgeous, and whatever you want, music, videos, photos. It’s kind of like a sort of seamless snapshot of stored ideas, and information.”
Note from Jo – Steve Dotto has a series of videos about using Evernote.
Note from Jo – I’ve started using it to scan in stuff that I’ve previously kept, like orders of service at weddings or cards that people have sent me and things like that. I just scan them in and then chuck them away, so that I don’t have a load of old bits of paper in the house.
Note from Jo – There was a book called Evernote Essentials, by Brett Kelly. It’s quite a comprehensive book about how to use Evernote.
Dream It Alive – “It’s a place where you can create your own vision boards and dream boards. We all need to dream and we all need to have goals. It’s about writing them down, but you need to turn them into pictures so you can see them. It helps you visualise.”
Pocket – “The other one is Pocket, because yes, you’ll see something, and where do you put … if you just kind of store it in a place that gets lost, you won’t go back to it, but you can build up your Pocket to be those things that you can have a look at.”
Scoop-It – “I do also like, for those that don’t have time to blog, but have an area that’s their subject, whatever it might be, Scoop.It, so you can create your own sort of Scoop and write your own comments on X, Y or Z.”
Rebel Mouse – “This aggregates all your tweets and pins, and it has a snapshot of your social output. You can see what you’re doing, and you get a feeling for who you are and what you’re putting out there. If you don’t like what you see, change it.”
Alpabetizer – “The last one is called the Alphabetizer. If you have a list of things, twenty things, and you’ve got to put them in alphabetical order, then use the alphabetizer, because it’ll do it for you. Well, there you go. I know, that’s totally useless, but someone might need it one day!
Other Resources
Medium Daily Digest – “I really like Medium Daily Digest. Today’s Medium Daily Digest, it had these … It’s kind of eclectic things, because they always set me off. Today’s articles that I liked, one was, “Elevate Yourself with Side Projects,” which I think is a very good thing, because if you’re only doing one thing, and you’re consumed by it … I’ve always got at least six other plates spinning that I’m doing, so it’s not just Sister Snog, or family, or friends. I’ve always got other things that are on the go. I think it’s important, because otherwise, you just become one-dimensional. The other article, it was called, “Collecting Experiences.” How to stay productive even when interrupted, which I thought was very relevant to today. The other one, “Does a ‘Fake It ‘Til You Make It’ Attitude Towards Business Work? Yes.” If you want to be someone, even if you’re not it, behave as if you are, and you will become it.”
Books
One of my favourite books is Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
Music
Disco – “I’m just inspired by all disco music. That’s what I always have on in the background if I’m getting myself into a good frame of mind. That’s me personally, being a disco queen.”
Films
Overcoming Struggle – “I’m quite often inspired by films that have a certain amount of overcoming struggle, that people have got through something, they face something, because running your own business, being an entrepreneur, you do have to sometimes find something in yourself on the days where perhaps, everything isn’t quite rosy and peachy.”
Watching Films to Relax – “I also am definitely a Netflix addict. I might have it on in the background. I do like things that are series, Netflix original, House of Cards, Since Orphan Black, Once Upon A Time. I really like anything that’s got a story that continues. In fact, Once Upon a Time did inspire Once Upon a Dinner Time. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s all about fairy tales. It’s just fantastic and seems to be going on forever.”
Tips
Business Connectedness – “you need to be connected in business, because everybody is connected to each other, and that’s how you’ll get the doors open. They feed me, I feed them, and then quite often we come up with something that is because of both of us. That is my work, so how brilliant is that?”
Planning – The beginning of the week, Monday, I see as a planning day, and a desk day where I generally will not go into London. Mondays are when I will catch up, will make phone calls, will send emails, will plan, maybe it’s just something I’ve got to write, who I’m going to see.”
Magical Connections – “It’s amazing what happens when two people sit down and just talk about whatever is going on in their business.”
Being Focused on the Important Stuff – “I’m never too busy, I’m always doing lots of things”
Cooking to Relax – “Cooking is something that I do.
Morning Gratitude Routine – “I do have a little bit of reflection before I switch the motor on. I’ve kind of got into morning gratitude, so I will, in Evernote, in my notebook that’s called “Gratitudes,” write something that I’m quite thankful for, on a daily basis. I think you can get caught up in other stuff. Seven is the kind of magic number at Sister Snog, so I always write seven gratitudes, nearly always, most days.”
Using a Personal Trainer – “Goodness, me. It’s brilliant. She really is brilliant. It is early days. I haven’t transformed yet. She’s really good because she looks at … It’s not about doing some crazy boot camp training thing, because I don’t wish to be tortured. She’s also helping me … What I love about her is we can train anywhere. I’m kind of helping her understand her business, as well. One of the things is, how to turn your home into a gym. I have exercises now to do on the steps, to do on a chair, even things to pick up around the house. That’s what we’re going to do, and we will do, in due course, some videos of “Turn Your House Into a Gym.” Now there’s no excuses for not doing 20 minutes, and then having a break and doing another 20 minutes.”
Swimming for Exercise – “I was swimming when I was in Greenwich, two or three times a week. An early morning swim, I always wanted to be the first in the pool. That was my kind of … I just want to be first in the pool. I never was, but I still have that. It makes you sort of get up and go.”
Motivational Quote – “I always know you can’t have a rainbow without some rain.”
Life Experience Helps – “Nothing’s ever that bad. It just isn’t. It might feel it for a moment, but I think the longer you’re around, you realise you’ve been there before. You got through it. This happened and sometimes, instead of a bus, a limo comes along.”
To Contact Hela
If you Google Hela Wozniak-Kay, you could find me, or on our website. Our numbers are there. You can ring me, or send me an email.
Sister Snog – keeps me on my toes, as much as hopefully it keeps the members fed with creative spark and interest. If you have something that you’ve created that’s beautiful and wonderful, great business occurs.
http://www.sistersnog.com
Tweet: “You need to be connected in business, because that’s how you’ll get the doors open.” @SisterSnog #powertolivemore
Tweet: “essentially it’s like having your own A-team of grand ambassadors, door openers, and those that you can work with” @sistersnog
Tweet: “I’m never too busy, I’m always doing lots of things” @sistersnog
Read Full Transcript
Jo Dodds: Today I'm interviewing Hela Wozniak-Kay of Sister Snog. Hi, Hela, great to have you with me.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Good morning, and hope you're well.
Jo Dodds: Yes, we were just saying it's nice and sunny outside today, so it's a good day to be doing an interview, albeit the window's closed, so I might be a bit hot in a moment.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: And even though it is Friday the 13th.
Jo Dodds: Ooh I forgot that.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes, so I won't be walking under any ladders today, that's for sure, or crossing strange lines, or walking on the cracks in pavement, so I'm avoiding all things.
Jo Dodds: So will I, now you've warned me.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes, good, good that’s a top tip. Make sure, on Friday the 13th.
Jo Dodds: If you're feeling worried, make sure everyone else is.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes, totally.
Jo Dodds: Lovely. Tell us a bit more about you, apart from that you're superstitious. Who you are, what you do, and where you do it.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: It’s kind of like Cilla Black, isn't it? "What's your name and where did you come from?"
Jo Dodds: I always think that when I say it but nobody's picked that up yet, but every time I say it, it reminds me of Blind Date.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah, and we did love Cilla, she was a great character. The question was, yes, who am I? I am ... Well, I'd say, I describe myself in my job or my role. One of the tribal leaders of a group of Amazonian women, who were all entrepreneurs building empires of various sizes and so that's ... The tribe is called the members of [inaudible 00:01:48]. Are you hearing me mother?
Jo Dodds: Oh, you went. Did you tell me you were going?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes. No, no, obviously I was just teleported for a moment, but I'm back. That's what I do. Yes, I run Sister Snog together with my partner in crime Annie Brook, who's not here at the moment, but I'm working out of the ... the home office which is the East wing of Snog towers.
Jo Dodds: I have just visions now.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Good, that's excellent, because it is a terrific tower, and it has a moat, and all the flowers in the garden are purple.
Jo Dodds: I'm feeling really inadequate now in my little office.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I didn't mean to make you feel that way. Snog Towers is where we hang out, and we cook up our various plans for the business, and make it a special place for our members, and there we’re constantly keeping ourselves on our toes, and having out next idea waiting in the wings. That means that we have to be super productive.
Jo Dodds: Yes, so tell me a bit more about you’re actually doing with your tribe, your Amazonian tribe, what sort of things do you do?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: What do we do? Well we organise a number of events, because people need to interact. We have three events a month. We have one on the first Friday of every month, which is known as the First Friday Lunch. We have a Business Boosting Brainstorming Breakfast, which is difficult to say.
Jo Dodds: I love alliteration.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I love a bit of alliteration. The aim of that is to bring sisters together, and we have different subjects each month. I've actually been doing some work on next week's, which is, the theme is six degrees of separation, which obviously is dear to my heart, because really, my view is that, you need to be connected in business, because everybody is connected to each other, and that's how you'll get the doors open.
We also are into storytelling, so we have another event which alternates between something called, Story Time in a Tea Cup, so the theme is, it's always around afternoon tea or Once Upon a Dinner Time. Those are our three anchor events, but the thing about Sister Snog is those that are members, essentially it's like having your own kind of A-team of grand ambassadors, door openers, collaborators, and those that you can work with, who are also building empires.
On the same theme, have a similar makeup of mindsets, and create magic. Our goal is, and we're nearly there is, 'We shall be closing the door when we become the ‘hot 100’, and then who knows what we'll do. Maybe have a crazy conference, or launch a brand of umbrellas.
Jo Dodds: Why umbrellas?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I have this vision of walking down Regent Street and it raining and, as I'm walking down Regent street, walking towards me, are lots of people carrying the Sister Snog umbrella, and then I'll know the brand has really arrived in the centre of London. The umbrellas will be made by a company who have this fabric that changes colour when it rains, so our brand colours are lilac and violet, so they'll all be these colour changing umbrellas, going up Regent Street, so I hope you'll join me come that day?
Jo Dodds: That sounds just amazing. I can't imagine it wouldn't get on telly and everything, it sounds brilliant. Lovely. You're already coming across as somebody who's probably very busy, packs a lot in, and probably gets a lot done, but also that you're not always in your office, because obviously you've got events that you’re going to as well, so tell me a bit about what your working week looks like. Do you have a certain routine, do you have certain ways of getting things done, does it become a bit more fluid, how does it all work for you?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: There isn't a typical day, but there is, if you like, a typical month. We always have to anchor that the events are happening, so there's work to be done before the events, which have to be scheduled in, and then there's work to do after the event, so each event is its own little kind of dot on the calendar.
When we have an event coming, we have to get out the guest list, we have to make sure that everybody is happy. After the events, we buzz up with social media, so that's one aspect. Those dates, I do have to look at my calendar constantly, because I need to make sure that I'm in the right place at the right time.
Our events, generally ... The First Friday Lunches are on the first Friday of the month, so that's always there. The beginning of the week, Monday, I see as a planning day, and a desk day where I generally will not go into London, because it's all very well being out there being busy, but it can catch up on you if you don't sort of manage the monster of things to do.
Mondays are when I will catch up, will make phone calls, will send emails, will plan, maybe it's just something I've got to write, who I'm going to see. Tuesdays, quite often, are a day when I'll go into London, because that's when someone is interested in joining the tribe and becoming a sister, I always have a one hour mutual ... Not an interview, I have a one hour "Taste of Sister Snog," I meet them, they meet me, we can kind of see if the chemistry is right. A "Taste of Sister Snog" lasts one hour. My aim is always to do as many of those that I can on a Tuesday, so that's while I'm in London and focused, I'm using that time, and then I may go into London one other day. If there's kind of an event to go to, I also do organise something that I call, "Sisters Dates," that I actually have dates with my members, because that way I get to know them a little bit more.
It's amazing what happens when two people sit down and just talk about whatever is going on in their business. That's kind of how I am. I'm one of these people who is kind of constantly on the go, so my phone is ... When I'm on the bus, when I'm on the train, when I'm occasionally queuing up at the supermarket, I might just do a little bit of something, send a quick Tweet. I've even kind of written a strange little poem about it when people say I'm too busy. “I'm never too busy, I'm always doing lots of things”, because I kind of find, people who kind of roll their eyeballs and say, "I'm really busy," they're probably not doing very much, they're just being busy.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, that's interesting, you doing sort of little bits in little places if you like, like when you're in the queue, and where or whatever. That's very much the way that I operate, and I think sometimes people then take the view, perhaps you don't have a business, perhaps people in your family that you're addicted to your phone, and you can't stop yourself working.
I always sort of say to them, "Actually it's the opposite way around." If I can use these little bits of time more productively, then I've got more time to spend big chunks of time doing the things I want to do, spending time with my daughter or whatever. You can see why people give you that sort of label. Do you get labelled that, that you don't stop working?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I don't really get the label, people never really had a problem of just how you manage to get the things done that you do, because you're right. I cram in an amazing social life. I'm a… friends are kind of key. I think my oldest friend has just become a grandma which is a bit weird, but we've known each other since we were 10, so I keep up.
I do have one friend who says sometimes I exhaust her, but she likes ... She's definitely the one who does one thing a week as opposed to one thing a day, and in fact I never do one thing a day, I do lots of things. I sort of stand to be individual. You can so easily waste time, I wouldn't say day dreaming is a bad thing, because I love day dreaming. It's very good for you, but wasting the opportunities of being on the bus, and just sitting there and looking out of the window, where I could have done 20 minutes' work.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. Probably that networking piece which is a lot of your business, and it's a lot of stuff that I've done in the past probably is part of it too. I guess it’s our personalities. I always say that I don't think there's a big difference between work life and home life in my situation, because that's how I choose it to be. I was writing something on Facebook today about, I don't agree with this work life balance thing, because I sort of think it's an integrated situation, and you just turn your hand to whatever is needed, or you want to do depending on what's going on. It isn't necessary about it being work or life, and they're two different things. I do think that some of that is possibly about that whole social interaction piece. A lot of what people are doing, I think, sounds like what you’re doing. It's about connecting with people, and that's a social thing as well as a work thing, isn't it?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I mean my sisters' dates are always interesting nights, wonderful places, with people who are actually technically and it's true, my clients, but it's more that. They feed me, I feed them, and then quite often we come up with something that is because of both of us. That is my work, so how brilliant is that?
Those two events, yes, they need organising, everything needs to work, but it's a way where, I can express the most creativity, say, for example, when we have the lunches on the first Friday, there's always a different kind of theme that has a strategic business link, but it's dressed in a big bow, and I need to think about designing that. I would have loved to have been one of those window stylists, for like, Harvey Nichols or Selfridge's. I'm actually doing that on a monthly basis, but for First Friday and it's brilliant because everyone wonders what it's going to look like.
I mean I'm even thinking I must actually say how I do that, because it's always important to do things also on a budget. If you've got a million pounds you can do anything, but if you've got 10 pounds per table, how do you creatively do something? Sister Snog keeps me on my toes, as much as hopefully it keeps the members fed with creative spark and interest. If you have something that you've created that's beautiful and wonderful, great business occurs. Sometimes you do the same as well, because the creative spark feeds ... The work feeds the life, and the life feeds the work I suppose.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, and I do think you're a really good example of somebody doing the things that they really want to do, and it happens to be a business in there as well, but it's about as you say sort of the bits that you really enjoy forming most of your time, which is great. Tell me about how you actually make sure you get stuff done, do you have a to do list or do you use particular tools for that?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I do. I'm a Virgo who loves lists. My essential tool of life which includes work, and play, and organising everything else, is Evernote. I'm not quite sure how I possibly existed before Evernote came on the scene. I used to have loads of notebooks, everywhere I would be writing, and then one moment it will get all messy, and I then I wouldn't know what I've written, and then I have one here, and one there, and my bag was full of books.
Now, I have Evernote, and it's not just a place to put your notes or to do your to do list. You can just kind of ... It's a library, it's my library where I can put all sorts of things. I'm always learning new sort of ... It's things about work, well I can do that, and now I can put that there, and I can store this. I am a massive fan of Evernote, and I don't know, I can understand ... You've got to get into it, and buy into it. Then it's kind of like a sort of effortless solution, and you can share what you're doing with those that are also on Evernote. I think it's like a killer app that is just gorgeous, and whatever you want, music, videos, photos. It's kind of like a sort of seamless snapshot of stored ideas, and information.
Jo Dodds: I agree, I'm a big Evernote fan.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Hurrah!
Jo Dodds: In fact, I'm looking at it.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: [crosstalk 00:16:49] for Evernote.
Jo Dodds: In fact I'm looking at it as we speak, because that's where I keep my list of questions.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: We're both Evernote fans. At some stage, I do feel I might go on a course somewhere to find out a bit ... Because you can get into bad habits, I think, with anything, so maybe some eureka moments or some shortcuts I'm missing out on, but for now, I think it's about two years I've been using it, I think it's great.
Jo Dodds: I can offer up a couple of resources for that, I think Steve Dotto has a series of Evernote videos. It's a great name isn't it? D-O-T-T-O. He's quite fun to watch, and he has a series of videos about using Evernote. In fact, I listened to a Blab I think it was, that he did with a couple of other productivity people a little while ago, where they talked about, if you're new to Evernote, the thing to do is start with a few specific notebooks, for a specific reason.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes.
Jo Dodds: As you say, you have to get into it, because to begin with, you just forget to use it. Once you've started using it, you never stop using it sort of thing. It was about picking some things that would work really well, so he gave some examples of things like, measurements for things. One of the things he gave, although I can't imagine my husband ever doing this, was having your wife's measurements in your Evernote
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Just in case.
Jo Dodds: When you’re out and about ... My brother in law does this, he regularly buys clothes for his wife when he's in America and stuff. He probably knows just what to get anyway. If you didn't know that, write all the stuff down, have it in your Evernote. When you're somewhere and you've got your phone available, you see something, you can check, make sure you've got the right size or whatever, so I thought that was quite interesting.
It's also things like taking pictures of stuff that you've got for insurance purposes that you don’t realise that you needed to do that until you had a burglary and lost everything, so take a loads of pictures and just stick them into Evernote. I've started using it to scan in stuff that I've previously kept. Like orders of service at weddings or cards that people have sent me and things like that. I just scan them in and then chuck them away, so that I don't have a load of old bits of paper in the house, but I've actually kept the information, so I can read the stuff in the future, but it's just hidden away on Evernote, and actually not taking up any space in my house, which I think is a good tip.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: It's interesting you've said that, because since we've moved to Hove, I still have some boxes, and I used to be a bit of a ... I'm not a hoarder, but I was a collector of cards, that went back to I can't even tell you how far back. All these bunches of cards, and some key birthdays, yes I’ll keep my 40th or my 50th, but do I really need all those Christmas cards? Then I used to kind of file the ones that went, that my friends have sent me. My friend Sarah, I file everything that she'd ever sent me. At the end of it, I mean this is really quite bizarre. I just thought, "I need to do something with them, and that's exactly what I'm going to do."
Jo Dodds: Yeah, there you go!
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah, hoorah!
Jo Dodds: If I just did what I said rather than have the piles, I'd be brilliant, but I know I'm going to do it, and I've done it with some of them. I just have piles I haven't got to yet. Yeah, it works really well as a way of de-cluttering, so yeah there you go, top tip. I'm trying to think who the other guy was. There was a book, some like Evernote essentials, by somebody who I think was called something like Bradley, but I'll look it up and put it in the show notes, and it's quite a comprehensive book about how to use Evernote, that I read when I first started using it, so he's certainly worth a read as well.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah, okay that's good. I shall be seeking out Mr. Dotto first, because I like him already.
Jo Dodds: He's a bit mad. This very busy, some may say frenetic life that you have, what about the end of the day? what do you do to sort of finish work, or do you finish work? Do you just, like I said, just keep going, and things will meld into one? How does it work at the end of the day?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I kind of like to do what I want to do, so I may stay at work one evening, but what I also like to do ... We're into having family meals, so cooking is something that I love, and we're definitely, what's the recipe, who's making it? That is one of my relaxations, is to make gorgeous food that look gorgeous, because I cannot just sort of plate it up without it having a sense of style about it.
Jo Dodds: Why am I not surprised?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: That's kind of something that I like, and I keep thinking, I saw someone doing it on Instagram the other day. I like to do things in a round, so I always arrange things in a round. I was thinking, "Oh, maybe I should sort of like [inaudible 00:22:13] those." I do put some of those on Instagram, because I also love photographs and photography, as a pure iPhone amateur, capturing the moment at the moment.
Yes, cooking is something that I do. I also am definitely a Netflix addict. I might have it on in the background. I do like things that are series, Netflix original, House of Cards, Since Orphan Black, Once Upon a Time. I really like anything that's got a story that continues. In fact, Once Upon a Time did inspire Once Upon a Dinner Time. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all about fairy tales. It's just fantastic and seems to be going on forever.
Jo Dodds: Right.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I think it’s going to go on for another ten years, I hope. I like stories about people. I don't actually have a telly, so everything is on iPlayer or Netflix. I like to choose what I watch when I watch it. That's something.
I love going to the pictures, and being in Brighton, there is so much going on. We could be out at some kooky, gorgeous performance, or dance, or theatre, or comedy. Anything that's live, that I love as well. Entertainment is really important, and I think businesses should think about, are they entertaining their audiences, i.e. their clients and their world. A lot of them are not. A lot of them are.
Jo Dodds: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. At the very end of all that, how do you switch off? How do you make your brain go to sleep so that you can go to sleep? That's one thing I struggle with.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I have to say, I put my head on the pillow and go.
Jo Dodds: Oh, no. You're not one of those annoying people like my daughter and my husband, are you?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah. I don't have some sort of crazy or any sort of ritual at night. Once I'm in bed, I'm out. I'm a very, very early bird, so I do sometimes wake up very early, particularly in the spring, the summer, and the autumn. Maybe not quite so much in the winter. I'm up and at ‘em, and like to have a little bit of my time in the morning. It's kind of like that, "Morning Has Broken," Cat Stevens’ song.
Jo Dodds: You’re not going to start singing are you?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Well, no, but I did have a choir but that’s another story. I do have a little bit of reflection before I switch the motor on. I've kind of got into morning gratitude, so I will, in Evernote, in my notebook that's called "Gratitudes," write something that I'm quite thankful for, on a daily basis. I think you can get caught up in other stuff. Seven is the kind of magic number at Sister Snog, so I always write seven gratitudes, nearly always, most days.
Jo Dodds: Cor.. Seven, that sounds like a lot. Do you end up having to talk about you’re ...
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I am.
Jo Dodds: Grateful for, I don't know, a glass of water. I don't know. Does it come flowing?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: No, it flows. I could probably do fourteen, but then that would just be too many. Seven is good. Seven's like, one for every day of the week, but then ... I don't know. There's something about the number seven. Seven wonders, seven dwarfs.
Jo Dodds: Yes, oh, I do seven too.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Seven seas.
Jo Dodds: My birthday's on the seventh, so I've always said that having seven as my lucky number is acceptable, because my birthday is the seventh. Little Doddsy's birthday is also the seventh, so she has seven as her lucky number, too.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Wow. Do you know, there was this study last year, and it was published in Metro, about what was the luckiest number. It did come out that it was seven, and I can't tell you how many people sent me a link or sent me a hard copy of that article, because people know that seven is the number. So you're in the seven. Hurrah!
Jo Dodds: Yes, exactly.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: It's not the seventh month, though, is it?
Jo Dodds: No, no, no. It's the sixth month. It's the seventh of June. It would have been extra whatever, wouldn't it?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Well, nearly. So, ooh, next month.
Jo Dodds: Yeah.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah, lovely. I'll try and remember that.
Jo Dodds: What about keeping healthy and how you look after yourself? You've talked about some of your sort of rituals, if you like, around [inaudible 00:27:27], are there other things that ... You've talked about food. Obviously you like cooking, so that will help as well.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I like cooking, yeah. Well, I have ...
Jo Dodds: Are there [inaudible 00:27:38] yourself?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Just recently got a personal trainer.
Jo Dodds: Ooh, get you!
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I know. Goodness, me. It's brilliant. She really is brilliant. It is early days. I haven't transformed yet. She's really good because she looks at ... It's not about doing some crazy boot camp training thing, because I don't wish to be tortured. She's also helping me ... What I love about her is we can train anywhere. I'm kind of helping her understand her business, as well. One of the things is, how to turn your home into a gym. I have exercises now to do on the steps, to do on a chair, even things to pick up around the house. That's what we're going to do, and we will do, in due course, some videos of "Turn Your House into a Gym." Now there's no excuses for not doing 20 minutes, and then having a break and doing another 20 minutes.
The other thing is, swimming. Since I've moved here, I haven't really got into it, but I was swimming when I was in Greenwich, two or three times a week. There is a pool maybe ten minutes away. An early morning swim, and when I was swimming in the Leisure Centre ... Well, it was in Lewisham, near Greenwich, I always wanted to be the first in the pool. That was my kind of ... I just want to be first in the pool. I never was, but I still have that. It makes you sort of get up and go.
Those are the things ... I also need perhaps, to get back into this. I did once learn how to rollerblade. I do have the rollerblades, and I can see myself rollerblading along the sea front.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, that sounds like a very trendy thing to do for Hove. I reckon, as you live a bit more provincially now, you might make it into the swimming pool first thing, if you try really hard.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I'd might do, yeah. I'm hoping to. I'll let you know when I've done it.
Jo Dodds: Exactly. What about learning and improving yourself? I imagine, again, through your personality, you probably do that on a regular basis. What sort of things do you do?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah, well, I can get a bit distracted by certain things. I really like Medium Daily Digest. Today's Medium Daily Digest, it had these ... It's kind of eclectic things, because they always set me off. Today's articles that I liked, one was, "Elevate Yourself with Side Projects," which I think is a very good thing, because if you're only doing one thing, and you're consumed by it ... I've always got at least six other plates spinning that I'm doing, so it's not just Sister Snog, or family, or friends. I've always got other things that are on the go. I think it's important, because otherwise, you just become one-dimensional. The other article, it was called, "Collecting Experiences." How to stay productive even when interrupted, which I thought was very relevant to today. The other one, "Does a 'Fake It 'Til You Make It' Attitude Towards Business Work? Yes." If you want to be someone, even if you're not it, behave as if you are, and you will become it. Those were my one, two, three, four, yeah. Hold on. One, two, three, four. Four daily reads for today.
I do read a lot of books. The only thing is when I put one down, and I don't pick another one up immediately. It might take me another few weeks. I need to have a book on the go. I've read everything that there is. If someone says Anthony Robbins, I've read him, and someone says, Dawn French, yes, I've read. I haven't read "War and Peace," but I did watch the drama which, so good.
Jo Dodds: My Father in Law read "War and Peace" a couple of years ago. He got right into this reading about history, and he persevered and he read it. I think he was a bit put out when they put the programme out, because it could have saved him a bit of time and effort.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Having gone through that. I mean, maybe one day I will read it, because some of the greats do need to be read. I have read quite a lot because I did English A-level, and so I've always liked and admired ... I also like diaries. I like people's lives, just to know how they lived and what they did, and how they got through the various days. Reading, seeing, social media. You could just consume it all day if you wanted to. I am a consumer, and I am a bit of a curator in that I like to put things together. Pinterest, for example. I do have a bit of a guilty pleasure. I can lose myself there.
I think it's important to be a creator, as well. Writing is important. Your own voice, and your opinions, getting those out. That's it. One of my favourite books is "Purple Cow."
Jo Dodds: By Seth Godin. Yes.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: That's what we kind of are at Sister Snog. We are a ‘purple cow brand’, and our aim is to always be remarkable.
Jo Dodds: Yes, yeah. Just to get back to that, you said Medium Daily Digest. Is that a newsletter list or something?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah. I mean, it's just one of these that you sign up for. I really like it because ... I mean some of them, when you get them, just don't look very nice. It's always intelligent. It's like liquorice allsorts. There's such a mish mash of different subjects, and the writing is just really good.
Jo Dodds: [inaudible 00:34:16]
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Give that the thumbs up, and I'm sure you could write for them. I keep thinking I want to, but I haven't got there yet.
Jo Dodds: I'll go and have a look.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: We can have a race.
Jo Dodds: I definitely won't be getting in the swimming pool before you, so we'll just go for this.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: We'll do that one.
Jo Dodds: On two points. One, I don't really like getting wet, and two, I don't get up early. Apart from that, I'd be brilliant.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Apart from that, yeah, yeah. There you go.
Jo Dodds: You talked a bit about Netflix. Are there any particular films or music you recommend for inspiration or learning or anything?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Not necessarily. I mean, music, I'm just inspired by all disco music. That's what I always have on in the background if I'm getting myself into a good frame of mind. That's me personally, being a disco queen. Interestingly, a few weeks ago ... The thing about Sister Snog is, sisters also do become friends in business. It's not that you have to be, but there seems to be a general gravitating that people have similar interests. One of the sisters is celebrating her 50th, and invited people to celebrate with her at the Rivoli Ballroom, for a '70s evening that was fantastic, and everybody was really dressed up in '70s gear. I think if you have a common life ... I like that.
Films that inspire me. I'm quite often inspired by films that have a certain amount of overcoming struggle, that people have got through something, they face something, because running your own business, being an entrepreneur, you do have to sometimes find something in yourself on the days where perhaps, everything isn't quite rosy and peachy.
Jo Dodds: That's a really good link into the next question, which is, what about if things don't go right? So if you have one of those days where it's not so great, you might watch one of those ...
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes. Have I had them? Of course I have. I've had loads. I'm not sure I'd necessarily watch some struggle film. I think I might watch Miranda, or something, or a sort of 1960s like the St Trinian’s things where life was a bit simpler, and there were no phones. If things haven't gone right, I'm a great one of living for the moment and the day. Sometimes, if things do happen, and sometimes the worst thing in the world feels like it's happened, but it's not, really. I've just accept that that was it, that was the day, and tomorrow's another day. I'm quite philosophical. I might cry.
Jo Dodds: That's an option.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I'll ring up Annie, who's my business partner, because we never not have fun and share and laugh on the phone. I mean, I don’t wear my troubles on my sleeve. I kind of am a bit more private. I'm quite accepting, and I always know you can't have a rainbow without some rain.
Jo Dodds: Oh, I like that. Yeah, that's true.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I know. There you go.
Jo Dodds: Profound.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: My poignant, profound thought of the day.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, I think it is true, isn't it? If everything was wonderful all the time, you probably wouldn't appreciate it, so I guess that sometimes, the more challenging times help you to appreciate the other times. It's funny, there was something on Facebook today about somebody talking about happiness. I can't quite remember what they'd said. I talked about it before, I think, which was that I went to an event a little while ago while they had somebody talking about how to be happier, and I spent the whole of her talk vaguely offended that she would be assuming that I wasn't happy, and that I wanted to be happier. It got in the way of my appreciation of what she was saying, because I just was completely offended, because I thought, "Well, I am happy, and I don't need you to tell me how to be happier, because I'm happy, thank you."
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah. It's a funny thing, isn't it? Happiness, and sadness. In life and in days, you have to have it all. You have to be happy. You don't have to be miserable. That's not a great trait. Sometimes, people have clouds and they need to work out how to shift them. Nothing's ever that bad. It just isn't. It might feel it for a moment, but I think the longer you're around, you realise you've been there before. You got through it. This happened and sometimes, instead of a bus, a limo comes along.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, exactly. I think, as you say, as you get older you sort of recognise those clouds for what they are, and you tend to know where they've come from, or at least that they're going to go. We talk about some of the things you might do to make them feel not so bad, sort of things. You do learn how to manage those things better, I think, as you get older. I certainly feel like I have.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Definitely.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, yeah.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Definitely, definitely.
Jo Dodds: On a day when you end the say knowing that you've had the chance to live more, and I talk about that being about being able to do the stuff that you want to do, rather than necessarily should do, or you feel you ought to do, that sort of thing. What will you have done? What does that day look like?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I think that that day will have been filled with people. It won't have been a solitary day. It will have been ... I got up, got on the train, had a nice chat with someone who was, perhaps, a stranger, got into town. I think in London, it can be in Brighton, but I still see London as [inaudible 00:40:36] go somewhere different. I kind of filled it with magic, with people. People give me the magic, I think. Also, I'll have found ... I'll have snuck off and found some amazing gorgeous bargain in somewhere, and I'll be coming home with one or two bags, and I'll have eaten well. I'll just kind of feel like I'm in a Netflix movie. That's how I'll feel.
Jo Dodds: I was going to say, you're the first person who said that they'll have done some shopping, but you're also the first person to say you'll feel like you've been in a Netflix movie. Both of those, kudos!
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Create your own film. I would like, for the record, Goldie Hawn to play me.
Jo Dodds: You see I was thinking, what's that ... Audrey Hepburn, I was thinking. I was imagining that sort of …
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Ah, yeah.
Jo Dodds: City life type thing. Yeah, I can go for Goldie Hawn as well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Goldie Hawn, yes, yes, definitely. Definitely a bit of Goldie Hawn. I always think we should all know who's going to play us when a film's made about our lives. I'll leave you to get back to me on that one.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, do you know what? I'm going to post that in my group today, as well, because I think that's a great question for everybody to have a think about. Yeah, definitely. We'll have a think about that very one.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yeah. Goldie Hawn.
Jo Dodds: I always used to be, when I had short hair and I was much younger, I always get used to compared to ... Oh, what's her name? The one who was married to Bruce Willis. She was in Ghost.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Oh, Demi Moore.
Jo Dodds: Demi Moore, because my haircut was like hers around the Ghost time. I used to take that as a big compliment, but I'm not sure I know anything about who she is, or whether that would go ... I'd quite like somebody like ... I'm not very good at remembering names. Congeniality woman, what's her name? Miss Congeniality. Sandra Bullock.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Oh, Sandra Bullock, yes.
Jo Dodds: A bit feisty, a bit funny.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I can see a bit of ... Yeah, she's got that kind of look.
Jo Dodds: Bit slapstick.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Combination of the two. I think that's ... Yeah. I like that. I like that. Find out who people want to be. I had this crazy idea the other day, and I think I'm going to do it, for the Sister Snog Facebook group, and do "Which of these is a sister?" and have a sister, and then two other kind of celebrities who look similar to them, and you've got to sort of say which one is a sister of Sister Snog. There we go.
Jo Dodds: There you go. This has taken, this conversation has taken a whole new route to the one where I imagined it would be by now.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: None of it is anything I've written down, as well.
Jo Dodds: That's brilliant.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: [inaudible 00:43:41] any use of anybody listening at all.
Jo Dodds: I'm sure it has been, and it's been really ...
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Can I just mention ...
Jo Dodds: Sorry.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Can I just mention an app that I wanted to say, or two apps, about productivity?
Jo Dodds: I'm glad you're saying that, because I thought, "I didn't ask if she had any more apps," and now we've gone to nearly the end of the interview. I don't know if it would be like, inappropriate to ask. I was thinking about asking you. Please, Hela, tell me, are there any apps that you would recommend?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Well, I'm not sure that it is actually an app, but there's something called Dream It Alive.
Jo Dodds: Ooh, not heard of that one. What's that ...
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Well, Dream It Alive, it kind of ... It's a place where you can just create your own sort of vision boards and dream boards. They declare dreams and make them come alive, because we all need to dream and we all need to have goals. It's about writing them down, but you need to turn them into pictures so you can see them. Whether it's a house or whether it's ... I keep pins, and I've announced it, we'd love to have Sister Snog kind of in New York, so, Dream Board with Empire State, yellow taxis, Macy's bag, lots of pictures. Have a look at Dream It Aline. You do create dream boards, and I like vision boards. It helps you visualise.
The other one is Pocket, because yes, you'll see something, and where do you put ... if you just kind of store it in a place that gets lost, you won't go back to it, but you can build up your Pocket to be those things that you can have a look at.
Jo Dodds: You mean articles online, don't you? I love Pocket.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I do also like, for those that don't have time to blog, but have an area that's their subject, whatever it might be, Scoop.It, so you can create your own sort of Scoop and write your own comments on X, Y or Z. Writing a blog does take time and research, and thoughts. I really like Scoop.It, and I love Rebel Mouse as well.
Jo Dodds: What was that last one? Rebel Mouse?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Rebel Mouse, yes.
Jo Dodds: Mouth, not mouse.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: As in, who ate my cheese?
Jo Dodds: Oh, it was mouse, okay. Yeah, yeah. What does that do?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Rebel Mouse kind of aggregates all your kind of tweets and pins, and it has a snapshot of your social output. Have a little look at Rebel Mouse. It does it for you, you just register, and if you're on Instagram, Pinterest ... You can see what you're doing, and you get a feeling for who you are and what you're putting out there. If you don't like what you see, change it.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, that sounds brilliant. I've not come across that. I'll have a look at that. Dream It Alive, I've got a short course about vision boarding on my website. I'm not sure if that's one of the ones I recommend. I'll go and check that one out and add that in. I absolutely love Pocket. I live by Pocket. I always have something to read. I always say to people, "Do you open loads of tabs on your computer of things that you intend to read later, and then you don't, and you shut your computer down and you've lost them all again?" That's where Pocket comes in really handy, because you can just add them straight to Pocket, and you don't have to keep them open, do you?
Hela Wozniak-Kay: They’ll never come back.
Jo Dodds: No, exactly. Scoop.it, I do get their emails. I clearly registered a while ago, but I haven't actually gone in and scooped anything for a long, long time, so I might have another look at that, and Rebel Mouse sounds great. I'm going to definitely check that out later.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Rebel Mouse is great. On the Sister Snog site, the last tab is called Social Snog, and if you go on there, to the left, I've kind of embedded my Rebel Mouse. Because you can also say which of the posts are things, so I rotate it and have different sisters’ post, so it always refreshes. You can put 25 different kind of posts in.
The last one, which may help those, is called the Alphabetizer. If you have a list of things, you know, twenty things, and you've got to put them in alphabetical order, then use the alphabetizer, because it'll do it for you.
Jo Dodds: Well, there you go.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I know, that's totally useless, but someone might need it one day. [inaudible 00:48:38] logging like, your disco hits of the '70s, for example.
Jo Dodds: Exactly. I was thinking that very thing.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: I knew you were.
Jo Dodds: Again, you've produced a very good segue into the last question, which is about how people can find out more about you and connect with you.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Well, I'm ubiquitous. I'm not really. Obviously, I'm a great fan of social media. I do sort of have moments where I'm there more than not, but yes. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram. The sort of the key ones are there. LinkedIn. Although I only link with people that I kind of have met, so I really have a bit of a policy not to link with strangers, because they could be stalking me on Friday the 13th, which is scary, there. If you Google Hela Wozniak-Kay, you could find me, or on our website. Our numbers are there. You can ring me, or send me an email.
I always like to hear from people who want to talk to me, unless they're a nutter. If you're a nutter, please don't get in touch.
Jo Dodds: Yeah, I can't imagine if anyone Googles you, they're going to come up with anybody but you, so you probably are ubiquitous, in effect.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: Yes. It's really good, because me and Annie are yin and yang. There is only one Hela Wozniak-Kay, but unfortunately, Annie is Annie Brook, and we have so many kinds of see-saw differences, even down to our names. I'm the soul of Sister Snog, and Annie's the heart. She keeps the beat and I kind of look after that sort of strange stuff that you can't quite bottle. It gives it its own flavour.
Jo Dodds: Hopefully. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed that, and even just that last line, I just think sounds so perfect. Thank you.
Hela Wozniak-Kay: It's been brilliant. Have a marvellous day, and don't walk under any ladders or step on those cracks in the pavement.
ing
The post Hela Wozniak-Kay on Show #22: Evernote, Purple Cow, Dream It Alive, Business Connectedness appeared first on Use your POWER to Live More.
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