The Remote Work Revolution: Escape the 9-to-5 and Thrive with Michelle Coulson

The Remote Work Revolution: Escape the 9-to-5 and Thrive with Michelle Coulson

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome to episode 220 of the Business Development Podcast. And today we dive deep into the future of work with Michelle Coulson, founder and CEO of Remote Rebellion. With years of experience as a recruiter in London and Singapore, Michelle has helped countless professionals break free from the traditional office grind to build careers on their own terms.

Is remote work truly the future, or will companies keep dragging employees back to their desks? Stick with us, you're not going to want to miss this episode.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, Business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.

And we couldn't agree more. This is the business development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development, advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners. CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business.

Brought to you by capital business development, Capitalbd.ca. Let's do it. Welcome to the business development podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 220 of the business development podcast. And today it is my extreme pleasure to welcome to the show, Michelle Coulson, a trailblazing entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Remote Rebellion with extensive experience as a recruiter in London and Singapore.

Michelle has dedicated her career to helping people land their ideal remote jobs. Remote Rebellion is her brainchild, a dynamic platform that empowers individuals to break free from the confines of the traditional workspace and embrace the flexibility and freedom of remote employment. Michelle combines her deep understanding of the job market with a passion for empowering individuals to design their dream lives, transforming how people embrace both their careers and their personal lives.

Michelle's journey is a testament to the power of vision and determination. Under her leadership, Remote Rebellion has become a beacon of opportunity to those who seek a better work life balance. Her expertise in navigating the complexities of remote employment have earned her the reputation as a leading voice in the field.

The future of work is remote, offering unprecedented opportunities for personal freedom, productivity, and a global collaboration. And Michelle is here to show us how we can be at the forefront of this revolution. Michelle, it's an absolute honor to have you on the show.

Michelle Coulson: Hello. Thanks for having me. What an introduction.

Kelly Kennedy: I, you know, like we said, when we started this show, this is something that I'm very passionate about because I think I agree. I think it is the future of work. I really do. I think like the idea of the nine to five in the office. It's not dead, but I think, you know, the future really is like, it's expensive for employers to have big offices and to manage all of this infrastructure.

And most employees want to work from home anyway. So it's like, we're in a new, a new balancing world and we're all struggling with how to do it. So I'm really excited to have the show with you today.

Michelle Coulson: Awesome. Like I said, really, really happy to be here. So thank you.

Kelly Kennedy: Very cool. Very cool. You know, I was reading your story and you spent so much time in Bali and I'm really excited to chat with you about that because I think the idea of being able to work from a place like Bali is unreal.

And I think a dream for so many people. But before we get into that, you know, who is Michelle Coulson? How did you end up on this journey?

Michelle Coulson: Oh, I mean, when people ask me that, I usually say there's a, there's a, there's a medium version and a longer version. I'll try and keep it under 90 minutes.

I, I think it really goes back to age 11. My parents decided to attempt to save their marriage and move to Spain. Which was, which was interesting because we bought a business that didn't work out and I, but I think that was a, the kick of. Experiencing a different culture that I think planted some kind of seed and that if you want to do something, just go and do it since then.

I've not lived in the same house for longer than two years, and I'm 37 now. So yeah, pretty like nomadic, even though digital nomadism wasn't a thing. Then I've been nomadic and moving around. So I think that unsettled feeling Is still in me and I, and I, and I think wanting to see, okay, what's, what's out here, what's over there and yeah, I guess that's where it began and fast forward a few years.

I, I, I, I graduated university and I thought, I don't want to get a like. air quotes, real job. I just want to, I want to travel around. I don't, I don't want to grow up yet. I'm not ready. So, so I traveled around a bit and loved it. You know, I did, I did random jobs. I worked in a in the outback in Australia in some road, I was flipping burgers in a great Danes kennels.

I cleaned clean toilets, mobile homes, campsite. Like I did, I did all sorts, but I kind of got frustrated with every time having to save up loads of money back home, going out traveling and going back and having to start all over again. All like, you know, living on my sister's floor pretty much or spare room.

And then I got to my sort of like late twenties and I fell in love. And everything kind of changed. That was like, okay, it's time to grow up now. It's time to get a proper job. He, he was great, but quite materialistic. He's like, okay, we need to save for a house in the burbs. You know, we need to get married.

We got engaged, we did all of the things and that's just like, you know. That's what you do. You in your late twenties, early thirties, you go and do all of those things. You get the promotion, you earn more money. And I was kind of going with the motions of that. And until I realized this is not what I wanted the relationship wasn't giving me what I needed.

And that actually wasn't the life. That I wanted. I was just going along with it because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. So, that relationship ended and I put all of my efforts into, all my energies into my work. I was a recruiter at the time. I'd gone from working on a, on a yacht like as a stewardess to working in recruitment because it was a proper job with good money.

And I liked it, actually. I really enjoyed it and I'm good at it. So it worked out well in the end. It wasn't just some soulless soulless job, which was good. So I did that for a few years and then the pandemic came and suddenly I'm sat in this tiny flat in London looking out of the window, realizing without the distractions, I was super unhappy.

And I. I, I've never, I've never touched wood, had depression before, but I felt like that was where it was going. I was going into a dark place. I was, I was, and then I started to think, okay, what makes me happy? What's, what's, when, when's the time where I've been like the happiest and I put the pieces together and I didn't know the term at the time, but it was essentially around community and it was, it was near the sea.

in and around the ocean. I'm happiest when I'm diving, snorkeling, surfing. And it was March, 2020. I couldn't leave the house, let alone country. I'm like, okay, so how can I do this? And I spoke to my friend in Bali and he was like, yeah, Bali is my happy place. I was like, happy place. And it was, it was like something that was some cheesy film.

I was looking off into the distance. It's like, that's my happy place. Yeah. And it was surfing and I'm like, right. Okay. There's a lockdown. I can't go anywhere. But I thought I need to get out of London. I need to get out of London. I just felt trapped. So I hopped in my van and I drove down to the southwest coast of the UK and I moved there.

I didn't know anybody. I got stopped by the police on the way and they're like, what are you doing? It's a pandemic. You can't move. I, I taught my way around it. I was in sales, you know, I figured it out. So I moved on there and I loved being in the ocean every day. I absolutely loved it. I really was just.

so much happier. And then it got cold. Then the winter came. I'm like, screw this. The UK coast is not a place I want to be. And that voice of my friend of Bali's is happy place came. So I was still working. Luckily, I was really fortunate to still be working in recruitment. I liked my job. I like the company, the people I work with.

But I loved having this freedom of waking up, going walking on the beach, you know, just actually watching the sunset rather than like just going to the pub after work. It was a different kind of like outdoor life. So that kind of planted the seed for me. So as soon as I could, I booked a flight to Bali and I said to my boss, Hey, I'll come back as soon as the office opens up again, because obviously everything was shut down.

And that was April 2021. And about two months later, I was living the best life ever in Bali. I was, I was working my eight hours a day for the, for the company, but I was actually getting to live as well. And this was like a, I was like, wow, you can have it all. I can earn decent money. I can do what I like.

And I can actually have a life outside of work. So when my boss called and said, okay, the office is opening again. Now you need to come back to London. I was holding onto like, so whatever pillar there was at the side, I'm like, hell no, there's no way I'm going back. Yeah. So I tried debating with him and it was, I'd actually implemented.

A hybrid policy a few years back, like in 2017, cause I was hiring developers. And back then they had all of the power of like, what are you going to give me? That was a different market then. So we had to offer them kind of remote work. So I said to him, Hey, we've been working remotely for the past 18 months.

Why can't I continue to do this? And it was a company policy BS reason basically. And I was like, that's, that's not good enough for me. I need a real reason. And he couldn't give me one. And so I quit. And that's when I was like, huh, okay, I'm going to find a remote job. I didn't know what that looked like, but I knew I would find a way.

And I struggled.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah,

yeah. Walk me through like that process. Like, obviously. That's during the pandemic. You're in it, right? Mm-hmm . You would think that everybody would be still working remotely at that time. Like why was it so hard?

Michelle Coulson: In April 21, you mean?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Michelle Coulson: Because when I was speaking to these companies that they were starting to do the return to office, so they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you can be remote, but remote uk, I'm.

What difference does it make if I can work those hours? And it was almost like a does not compute how dare you live outside the norms of, of society. How like, like, are you just going to sit on a beach and drink coconuts all day? Like it was this,

I think there's a mixture of jealousy of just not understanding of ignorance and of just not wanting to look outside the norms.

So. Companies would say, yeah, maybe remote, but you need to come back. We're, we're, we're getting people back to the office. So it was really hard.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow. Wow. I could totally see that. I could totally see someone sitting in an office building thinking, Michelle's just sitting on a beach in Bali living the best life.

Like we're not going to support that.

You're right. There's definitely bias in there for sure.

Michelle Coulson: I think that's what really gave me the idea though, like for remote rebellion, because I was like, what, like I'm, I've been in recruitment for seven years. I'm good at what I do. I have a really good network. I know the business. I know how to sell a market myself as a recruiter and I'm struggling.

How, how are other people doing? And this was 2021 when the market was really good as well, especially for recruiters. So I was like, wow, if I'm finding it this hard, other people are going to find it. even harder, I imagine that don't have this recruitment experience that don't have the network and don't have the know how.

And that's where the light bulb moment was like, people don't just need resume reviews. They need a lot more. They need to learn how the market works in the remote world and how to actually, how to hire remotely. Because I was, I ended up getting two freelance. gigs, helping two startups to hire remotely.

So I was doing consults and consulting with them, but also I was helping my friends on the side say, here's some great boards that you should find remote work. Here's how you should do your CV. Here's how to interview. So I was like, people need more support just the same way people need. We don't need, but it helps when people have personal trainers, they get to their goal a lot faster.

So that's, that's where remote rebellion the brainchild came from.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Like first off, what an amazing journey that you've been on and what an amazing cause that you're fighting for. Like, I love both of them and I'm really excited. Like I said, to chat with you about it today. But I just want to spend some time because like I said, we haven't had a remote work expert at this point.

We've had over 200 episodes and we have not had a remote work expert. So on a certain level, I get that it's not necessarily new for people since COVID, but it's a new idea from that standpoint. And so, you know, talk to me though, what. What was it about COVID? Are things different like it is that world coming back where people are just going to go back to the office?

I get that. That's what a lot of companies are pushing for. Do you think they're going to get it?

Michelle Coulson: No, because I think the people that are pushing for it are going to die out soon. Give it give it another 15 years. They'll have retired. Or gone on to new things. And I honestly, I know that sounds quite blunt and a bit direct, but it generally seems to be of a certain demographic of people that are pushing for that.

And yeah, things are changing. I, I, I usually like give the analogy of back in World War Two, World War Two ended and you know, women have been taking the place of some of the typical male roles in the factories in the other places. And the men came back from war and I can, as I can imagine, it would have been right.

Okay. Back in the kitchen. Now we're in like, we're back now. And it was like no, we've been, we've been doing pretty well so far. And the whole world changed because of that. But I mean, like centuries later, so it's not, sorry, decades later, decades later. And we're still. We're still fighting some, some changes.

Right. So it's taken us quite a while and I think the same is going to be maybe it, not the extreme level, but something similar in the remote workspace that a lot of people were like, okay, back to normal now that we've had the COVID let's go back to this and a lot of people are like, Whoa, why? This was working really well.

Yes. There's, there's, there's things and challenges that we need to overcome. That doesn't mean we should just scrap it just because there's challenges.

Kelly Kennedy: I agree. I agree completely. See, I've actually fought for it on both sides. I'm an interest and case on this because I was an office worker for many, many, many years, like 10 years of my business development career.

I spent working in an office with colleagues. And I really loved that. I really did. Honestly, COVID was such a kick in the teeth for me because I loved working with my colleagues. I love being able to just like, You know, take two offices down and get something done with a snap of my fingers, right? Like I was at the time I was, I was head of business development.

I was also head of operations. So I needed things done quickly and I understood it from both sides. And so for me, when COVID came and suddenly I had to work from home, I really struggled with it. Initially, Michelle, I'm one of those cases who was like, at first, not a good candidate at all. I, I really struggled to work from home.

Because home was my happy place. Home was my, like my home away from work. Right? Like I was really able to turn it off and I did, and I hate to admit it because probably for about three or four months working from home, I was probably one of the least productive people on planet earth. And I'm not afraid to admit it because I struggled with it.

But I got better because when I eventually I went out on my own, I started my own business development firm and I had to figure my shit out. It was like sink or swim, Kelly. It's time to figure your shit out. Like you're working from home. This is the new world and you need to figure it out. And I kid you not, Michelle, I locked myself in my basement away from electronics, away from my family, away from my pets.

And I just went to work and it took me. Months and I, I really mean this. It took me months to get good at working from home, but since then, I've worked from home primarily ever since to the highest productivity levels I've ever worked in my life.

Michelle Coulson: Wow. That's interesting. You had such a, such a real struggle with it at the beginning and now you're even better.

That, that speaks volumes.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, it's really interesting. It's an interesting shift. And so, like I said, I can, I can make the argument from both sides, right? Like I liked working in an office. I liked having that easy access to my colleagues to get things done quickly. But I'll tell you what, once I started working on my own and.

Like my own productivity levels went way up because it felt like at that point it all fell on me and I had to figure it out and so I just worked really flipping hard and since then, like, I pretty much owe this podcast to working from home. I owe my business to working from home. You know, my clients owe a lot of my success to working from home.

I think I only have one client right now that I do a day a week at their office and I enjoy that day. I really do. I love that day a week at the office, but I'll tell you what, I'm equally productive on my four days from home.

Michelle Coulson: Yep. And, and I always, I think people's like a surprised actually when I say that the job I had before I started my business, I loved that office environment.

I loved the, I mean, I hired most of the people, so of course I liked them, you know, I really loved hanging out with them. So, cause I was in, I was doing in house recruitment at that time. So I love the people I work with. It was a great environment. We play video games. We'd like, we did Nerf gun wars. It was a good environment.

So I'm not anti populist. I, I, would I replace the freedom I have now to work from my sister's place and see my nephews or go and work from the beach after kite surfing for the morning? Like hell no, absolutely not. Like yes, the office environment was good for me, but also, like you said, take out the productivity part, which that is obviously important.

The happier we are as individuals, the more productive we are without a doubt.

Kelly Kennedy: Like, I love your aspect of the way that you look at it. I think for me, I've struggled with the idea of doing fun things at work, like, and I get it's not exactly the same thing. I don't know why I don't, I think maybe it's just the employee that's baked into the, into this blood, you know, like I've been an employee for so long that like the idea of like working from a beach, as cool as that sounds, it's like, Oh.

Am I really working then? Like, I don't know. I really struggled with it. I think in my entire time, and this is funny because I, mean? I operate my own business development firm. It's my company. And I think I've spent one week ever. And we're talking four years at this point, one week ever working from a hotel room.

Other than that, I've worked primarily from home and I bust my ass. And it's like, I think I struggle with that, like mind shift as amazing as it would be to work from some beautiful island paradise. I don't know if I could, I don't, it just feels wrong. It doesn't feel like work, you know what I mean? Maybe that's what it has to be, but I'm so struggling with this, if you can't tell.

Michelle Coulson: Do you maybe, do you want me to have a word with your boss and maybe give, tell him?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, please do. Please do. I need some permission, I think.

Michelle Coulson: Maybe that's what it is. You need to, you need to separate the two personalities and like. Kelly, it's okay to do this.

Kelly Kennedy: It's amazing. It's like we live in this, this like freedom place, but we're still in our own jails.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah. I mean, I just, I mean, two days ago, a day away today, Monday. Yesterday I, no, two days ago, I was working from a yacht in Menorca in the Balearics and like, it was, it was crazy, you know, like it was, you can do it as well, but there was Starlink on board, which is better wifi than sometimes you get in the UK.

So, yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh my gosh. Yeah. It sounds amazing. It sounds amazing. But like, talk to me about. The moment where I guess you had the opportunity to go to Bali and do that. I really think you're unique. I really do. I think you are unique in this. I don't think there's a lot of people who would make your choice who could maybe even like morally or like internally like it is a mental struggle.

I think. To be like, you know what? I can work from a beautiful place. I can enjoy my work day. And don't get me wrong. I enjoy my work days, but sure. Of course I would enjoy them a lot more from the beach, but I don't know. It's, it's an interesting struggle that I have fought with. And I know that a lot of entrepreneurs fight with on a daily basis.

Talk about it. What was it that you told yourself? Like, what was that thing, that freeing moment? I think that might be the lesson today. How do we free ourselves from, from that? That trap that we've grown up in?

Michelle Coulson: I think, just to clarify, I very rarely work physically from the beach. But for me, having close proximity where I can smell or hear or know that the ocean is close brings me some kind of comfort.

So I might work from a co working space that looks no different than your average office. But yet, I know 10 minutes walk away, I'm, I'm near the beach. So that's what it's not necessarily being at the beach and working, but knowing I can just scroll, scroll, stroll and do that, you know? But what was it for me?

I think I've always been a, I tend to act before I think which can be a good thing in some ways, but sometimes can be a bit dangerous. But for me, it was just like. I'm not happy where I am. I need to move. And my friend said, this is a happy place. So I'm going to give that a go. And it really was that simple to me.

And I'm in a place of privilege in that once I don't have rich parents to fall back on or a partner that can support me, I have this safety net of having a loving family that if, excuse my French hit the fan, I've got my, my nephew's playroom with a mattress on the floor, food on the table. I, I, that, and that's a safety net that I think it would, I'd be doing a disservice to people.

This sounds a bit preachy, but almost like doing a disservice to people who don't have that safety net, that they will be homeless if they took all the risks that I did or that, you know, their kids would go without or whatever. But I've got this safety net that if everything went wrong, I lost my house, I couldn't pay my mortgage, whatever.

I've got a roof over my head and I've got food on the table. So why, why would I not go for that when I was miserable in my first instance?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, like in, in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways you could, so why not? I like, I love that. I love that. And I, and I do think that it does take a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, I think is the right word for it to be able to be like, you know what, screw it.

There's some risk here, but you know what? I got to find out, I got to find out so much of entrepreneurialism is. Yeah, there's a risk, but I got to find out exactly like there's no way we would be a 220 episodes if I never was just like, look, yeah, I suck in the beginning, but I got to find out, I got to find out if I can do this, because even when I started this show, I just loved podcasts.

I always have, I probably listened to two shows every single day, bar none. We listened to them at bedtime. We listened to them at work sometimes, right? Like we're listening in the car, like we're always listening. And so I was like, Okay, I have no experience in podcasting. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but I got to find out.

I'll figure it out. And I did. And I've, I've never looked back. I love the whole trip of the whole adventure that is the business development podcast. Up to this point, I got to meet so many amazing people like you, you know, in London, like I would, I would never like our paths would probably never cross without a show like this.

And so. So many neat doors and so many amazing people I've gotten to meet at this point, you know, it's well over 100 guest interviews by the time your show comes out. And yeah, it's like so much of it is you just got to find out, but I think one of the struggles that we're all dealing with, whether we're employees, whether we're business owners.

Is the like work life balance, there is no balance. We're all out of balance and I've talked about it on the show a thousand times. Like, I've talked with people who've sold their businesses for 419 million dollars. And, you know, they struggled with that sale. They struggled with the balance and I think they still struggle with balance.

I've talked to people who've lost their whole families for their businesses. Who've lost marriage after marriage after marriage. Who've lost relationships with their kids.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: The whole like work life balance. It doesn't matter how rich you are. There's a struggle. There's a big struggle there. You know, and I can see what you're doing as trying to rectify this a little bit, trying to say you can enjoy your life at work.

There can be balance. But my gosh, I'll tell you as entrepreneurs, I struggle with it. And almost everybody I've talked to on this show has struggled with it. And it sounds like you're finding it. Can we talk about work life balance?

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, no go on. I had the most, like, it's embarrassing to admit this, but I had the most naive ideal of self employment, whatever you want to call it.

Like, I think I started Remote Rebellion thinking, oh, it's a lifestyle business. I'll just do a little bit of this on the side and I'll do a little bit of that. I'll do, I'll work two hours a day and I'll just like sit in a hammock and I'll, I'll get the money buddies come rolling in. I was so naive, like I really was.

I'm like, my friend jokes that. You quit the nine to five to work 24 seven and I was like, yeah so for the first six months I didn't really take it too serious and I just did a little bit here that, and then I was like, something went off in me. I was like, this could be big and I could really make some changes here.

So that's when I started really hustling. So I've kind of gone in this path of like, chill, chill, chill, like, you know. Just enjoying life, but not really doing much in the work side to full on. I, again, you mentioned before, locking yourself in, in the basement and getting work done, I was the same, but then I always had this sense of dread because I'm, I'm telling people to live their life and that, that.

Life should come first before work and I'm not living it because I'm working all the time. And this is beautiful sea out there. I've not surfed in weeks. I've not done this. And then the guilt of why did you set out to do this? What was the purpose of you setting up this business? It wasn't to become a millionaire.

If that happened, great. That wasn't the purpose. The purpose was to help people. And so I had the freedom to work wherever I wanted as well. And to help people have, you know, get that freedom. So. I've definitely, but it's been three years now, and I've definitely gone through the roller coaster. I did a silent retreat this year in February, and I honestly feel like that has given me so much perspective.

I don't know if I've got so much more balance, but my mindset is a little bit better, and I'm still got a way to go. I'm not, I'm not cured by the way, so don't be looking for some work life balance because it's not there. I feel like my mindset is better in that. I don't have the guilt as much I, and I, it's still there, but I used to get the FOMO of not living properly enough and then the not working hard enough when I'm living or whatever, however you want to do it.

So I feel like I'm giving myself a break now that when I'm, when I'm doing fun stuff, not work, even though I love what I do, you kind of have to separate the two, you know, if I'm sitting, I'm just chilling with my family members and I'm not really doing work. That's, that's okay that I'm not working and when I'm working, that's okay I'm working and I'm missing out on certain things because everything that you do is a choice, right?

You're choosing not to do something else by doing this thing.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. And I think the challenge that I have faced is that like guilt, that like feeling if I'm having fun. That I'm not doing what I need to be doing to grow my business or that I'm not delivering the things that I should be doing for my, for my listeners or for my clients.

Right? Like, and it really does start to become this crazy trap and it's funny because I, you know, I mean, I recently had basically a life, a work life coach come on here. Lasse Joergensen, amazing conversation. He actually lives locally. So I did a session with him and it was funny because when we delved real deep, yeah.

My biggest value is freedom, and I've always looked at money as the path to freedom. I've never looked at it as, Oh, I can buy a Ferrari. I've looked at it as if I have enough money, I can do whatever I want. But ironically, starting my own business, I thought the same as you. Like, yeah, I'll be able to work two or three days a week and I'll have all this freedom.

And that never happened and like, don't get me wrong. I love running my own company. I love doing this podcast, but you're absolutely right. I work at bare minimum 12 hour days every single day, except for maybe like the odd Saturday, Sunday, and I don't feel bad about it. I really love this show. I love building my company.

I love helping my clients, but. It definitely didn't pan out the way that I had thought and it's, it's, it's turned out differently and amazing in other ways. And so, but I guess here's the thing, the things I used to love to do, for instance, I used to love going motorcycle riding or fishing or like trips and things like that.

I found that I wasn't able to enjoy them as much when I, when I started, when I went out on my entrepreneurial journey, because it did start to feel like, oh, like this is amazing and you're having fun, but you're wasting time.

Michelle Coulson: Oh, wow. Okay.

Kelly Kennedy: And I've struggled with that. I've really struggled with that. And I've talked about it on this show plenty of times.

I've talked with many entrepreneurs who said the exact same thing, the things they used to enjoy, they could no longer find joy in or they had to reprogram back to enjoying that time and being able to turn off. But I know for entrepreneurs, especially, I know you're not alone in this. Turning off is hard, if not impossible at times.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah. Yeah, it really isn't. There's a few things that I think have helped me along the way. Like you love podcasts. I don't know if you've, you've ever listened to the happiness podcast or the happiness lab.

Kelly Kennedy: No, but I really should.

Michelle Coulson: Move in during the pandemic. When I said I was going into a spiral of like depression.

The moving coast and this podcast that the happiness lab, it saved me honestly. It's so it's, it's so she's called Laurie Santos and she's a Yale professor. And she basically talks about the science of happiness. And one of the episodes I think you'd really like if I find out, I'll send it to you.

She talks about speaking to future her and they have this like AI where you can speak to the future you and future you isn't giving you a hard time on all of the work you're not doing. They're saying, Hey, you need to chill more. You need to spend more time with your family. And it's interesting to have that conversation with older you.

Kelly Kennedy: No kidding. That actually sounds very valuable, like from a weird place.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Because I do think so much of like what we're doing now. We're thinking we're helping future us, right? Like we're as entrepreneurs. We're killing ourselves in the present for a better future. Every single one of us. And you know, I've talked to so many at this point, Michelle.

It blows my mind. There is, there is like the same line almost every time. And it's that. I had to sacrifice to gain balance. That seems to be like the trend of the show up to 220 episodes is that most of them got there. You know, I've, like I said, I've interviewed some amazing people, some incredibly financially well off people who.

Struggled, struggled, struggled, struggled, and now all they do is preach work life balance, and I love it, but I hate it at the same time. There's, there's a part of me that's like, okay, amazing, I get it. Now you have the ability to work four hours a day, and you do, and that's great, because I think there's a lot of people who even once they're successful would not do that.

They would just keep on truckin But there are a lot of them, and I've had the pleasure of interviewing a ton of them who are like, you know what, yes, I have now cut it back to four hours. But, and they advocate for it, which is great, I agree. But what they're missing is, but I still had to do my 10 and to my 10 years of suffering to get that right, like

telling people not to struggle now when they're young, I think is a disservice.

Because I don't think that there is an easy button. I don't think you get to balance without earning it. And I don't know, maybe that's just me. Maybe there is a better way. You know, I've talked to so many people that that seems to be the case.

Michelle Coulson: I guess it depends on what your goals are. So I've definitely taken my foot off the pedal now, and I've hired A really great team of freelancers that, you know, if I step my foot off, they can kind of run itself.

So I, like I took those 10 days for this retreat and I didn't touch my laptop once and I came back and the, the, the virtual office had not burned down and I'm like, Oh, I advise everyone if maybe if a silent retreat isn't your thing, but actually switching everything off and not accessing anything for one week, 10 days, seeing what happens.

I think that. That is the way forward to be like, I can, if I need to. And then that, that feeling of not, you don't feel as trapped because freedom, like, like you said, is, is my biggest value as well. How can you truly be free when you feel trapped that you have to do this, or you have to check that email or you have to be on, like, you're still like a slave to your own work, right?

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Totally. And I think that that's in, in a lot of ways, like we advocate for entrepreneurship on this show, but that is a bit of the entrepreneurship curse, isn't it? Is that most of us head into entrepreneurship because we're great at something. And we're like, you know what? I can build a company on this.

I can change the world. And then hell, I'll learn some freedom at the same time. Like, well, and you know what they do. But there is no easy button. There is no fast tracking through the hard work.

Michelle Coulson: You either get there really slowly and you do that work life balance and do the four hours a day and expect that those results are going to be slow or you go fast and like you said, make some sacrifices along the way, whether that's relationships, your health, like your time, your family.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh boy. Yeah, and I would say unfortunately, I've struggled with every single one of those things, right? Like, I am a huge entrepreneurship advocate. I hop on here and I tell people all the time when you are ready, go do your own thing. Start your business. It will be one of the greatest things you've ever done.

No question. But I am. I'm not beyond saying that it's not going to be easy. There's going to be struggle. There's going to be times you wake up at two in the morning. My boss, my old boss. When I started my company, he goes, Kelly, he's like, you'll know you're an entrepreneur when you wake up at two in the morning and you are scared shitless.

And I remember waking up at two in the morning, like being totally scared about just running through my brain. And I was like, ah, I made it. It was a trigger moment.

Michelle Coulson: It's actually the, the, the irony of like, Of how much of your, your self, if we're honest, your self worth and your identity is wrapped up in your business.

I mean, I even have my logo tattooed on my hand, you know, and the irony of it is it means it's a Roman symbol for freedom, you know, like it's,

yeah, there you go.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, and actually, we're so tied to it. Like I said, I had an interview recently with a gentleman who sold his business for over 400, 000, 000 and struggled with it because he lost a part of himself when he sold the company and had to deal with that loss. Just like losing a person actually.

He suffered a whole bunch because he ended up losing, I believe, a marriage of a mother and the business all within like eight weeks. So incredibly tragic, like incredibly tragic story. Amazing story. Tragic story. But he did mention specifically the loss of the business was a loss of identity. Even though he had benefited financially greatly from that sale, he lost a part of himself because he tied so much of himself to the organization.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, I can relate to that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Like, I do find it weird. Like I find it weird to think that like, you know, if I was to sell the podcast or if I was to sell my company, you're right, like I would lose a piece of what I identify with and like really a big part of your life. Like it, it's, it is like losing another, another family member or a person if you lose your company, regardless of how it happens.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, sure.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, one of the things that I wanted to chat about with you is in this new world. Like, what do you think the future of work looks like? We talked about it briefly before we started the show, but I mentioned that I think one of the challenges that I've seen and I've had, I've sat in a lot of boardrooms of a lot of people who are advocating for bringing employees back to work.

We're saying we want our employees back to the office because we're feeling like we're getting a loss of productivity. We're having a hard time holding them accountable from home. We don't know where they are. We don't know what they're doing. And I've and I, I get it. I get it from like from like a management standpoint when your KPIs are tied to your employees delivering and you feeling like you might not have control because you don't understand how they're doing it.

How do we do this better? Because I think you're right. I think working from home and remote work is the future. But I think right now we're still struggling and we talked about this before this isn't necessarily an area of expertise for you, but I think it is something that we have to consider in spitball here because I do think that there's a fear that when everybody works from home will get less done.

But it's like, like I said, from my experience when it was me and I had to, I had to like, you know, shit hit the fan and I had to figure it out. I didn't just figure it out. I excelled. I had better productivity than I ever had being able to do it on my own terms. How do we do that, though? Like, how do we get, how do you think we can improve that for everybody?

Because I do think that that's the fight. And you know, you're fighting that fight every day when you're trying to place somebody remotely. Employers are struggling with how to manage people working from home. Can we just speak to that for a second? Because I get it from, if you own a business, and me and you both own businesses, And it sounds like you've been able to outsource some of the work and that's worked well for you.

I think the companies that have employees are struggling with how do we manage KPIs. And I get it's just a little different and it doesn't really just come down to we have to hold our employees more accountable maybe than we have in the past?

Michelle Coulson: I think the two big reasons or major reasons that Companies or individuals want the return to office is fear and ego.

It's the, generally speaking, the big wigs. They want to have this fancy office. They want to say, these are my minions working with me. This is, I want to see where they are. I want to see what they're doing. And it's the fear that they can't control them. And the question they should be asking themselves is why do you need that much control?

Why are you hiring people that need that much? Babysitting, why aren't you hiring people who are autonomous, who are self starters, who can figure stuff out themselves? And why don't you have leaders that encourage them to think for themselves and to be able to not babysit and micromanage people. And that's the biggest challenge.

It's not, how do we, how do we have, how do we manage people better remotely is, is more the, the, the challenge here, not about the remote or not remote. It's generally having a better leadership team. And there's large organizations like Atlassian like Zapier, like GoDaddy, the, not GoDaddy I've forgotten the name.

But anyway, there's loads of like 1, 000 plus organizations that do this and do them fully distributed around the world. So they really need to be looking inside themselves. It's, and it's, it's, it's a little bit similar to. If you're going out, like, why do I keep meeting these dickheads? Why do I keep going in the dating pool?

And all I'm getting is like these dicks. Well, maybe, maybe there's something's wrong with you. Have a look in the mirror and see like what's going on there. And it's, I think that's, that's the thing here. It's not. If people are so called less productive working from home, which is BS, I, I think there's a bigger conspiracy at play with the real estate giants planting this kind of information because there's not as much being spent on real estate.

That's the whole topic in itself. Why are they not productive? Why, why are these people not happy? Are you trying to manage them the same way you were when they were in office? Are you trying to hire in the same way? Things need to be done differently because you adapt to a different environment.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

It's like, it's a, it's a culture change. Like the whole corporate culture is changing. And I think what it was is. It was a forced culture change and I get that almost all culture change on a certain level is forced. Like, I feel like most things do not happen without a pretty big catalyst to kick them off.

But I think you're right. I do agree. I think what you're dealing with is an old paradigm, old management. Most of the management at the companies has not changed. And so We're kind of dealing with that weird in between where they're not sure how to navigate things outside of an office environment. And so it would be more comfortable if people would just come back to what they understand.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, exactly. I actually, I don't think necessarily the future of work is remote. The future of work is choice. If you want to have a WeWork space where people can go to because people like old Kelly or past Kelly was just like, I want to be around people. I want to be able to, you know, speak to people in person.

Some people want and need that, and that's fine. I'm not anti office. I'm anti choice because some people really cannot deal with being in an office with people. Want to want to fight Titan to week. And so people physically not do it because they have disabilities, their carers, their parents, whatever. So for, for all of those so called downsides of managing a fully distributed team, there's so many more benefits that I, I mean, I can talk to, but having access rather than having access to your local town or city, access to however many billion people there are in the world, like surely that's worth it for that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. Like I said, I think you're dealing with maybe the culture has not caught up yet. And so Understand like it feels sometimes I think like understanding how to do that or how to hire somebody from a different country can feel like a really challenging task, especially for an employer who thinks, well, well, I could maybe find somebody locally in my own city and they can come and work at my office, right?

Can we speak to that though? Like, how do we change that paradigm? What is the benefit to a company? When they hire remotely, when they hire remote work and change to that model.

Michelle Coulson: Well, rewind a little bit before the actual hiring side. It is, it's actually can be used as a really great way to promote your business.

Because especially if you're a work from anywhere organization, because there's so few companies that are doing, I think there's less than 16 percent of companies are remote and even fewer are work from anywhere. So having that as an attraction. Using that as almost, almost a PR tool, we are a work from anywhere company, people are searching stuff like Atlassian, for example, if people are searching work from anywhere, they're probably going to be one of the first that comes up, Oh, I've never heard of Atlassian, what do they do?

They go in and they start searching. So not only you were able to attract more and more talent, you're able to use that as a marketing tool as well. So that's, that's one benefit. You're going to get your name out there a lot easier. And secondly, you, it's. You can hire someone in at least half the time if it's a fully remote role compared to an onsite or hybrid role.

So the time to hire is much faster. We all know how much it costs to hire people as well. So there's a cost saving, not to mention the office, the lack of office costs, and you're going to get access to that wide talent pool. And then. You've got access to people that are in different time zones as well.

When people see that as a downside, it's actually a real benefit, especially if you've got customers around the world, you've got someone in, in, in different time zones that can deal with those customers at different times. Or if you've got people that are morning people and they are maybe in Europe, for example, they can be actually on the same time zone as you, but they're working where their brain is most optimum.

So you're getting the most out of people rather than accepting everyone's way on this nine to five trade.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. I, like I said, I think what it does is it requires people to have to shift their frame of mind, right? Like, I think a lot of companies have not thought this through, especially if before they were work from the office.

We have multiple locations around the country or around the world, and we have people in those locations working at the office, it's going to take. A shift of consciousness, right? Like a new, like you said, the new generation, it's going to take the new generation to come in and say, you know what? I think we can maybe do this better.

And I am. I am 100. First off, everybody. I am 100 percent for working from home, but I am also 100%. For productivity. And so for me, if I was to hire work from home, one of the things that I think would be important to me is that the employees understand that, like, I'm totally cool with this, but I also expect a certain level of performance because we have to deliver.

We have to deliver for our clients, for our company, for ourselves. And so I think that working from home Works great, but I think it also does require a certain level of understanding of expectations, communication of expectations and holding people to expectations. What are your thoughts on that?

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, you're completely right.

And that communication piece, it's like, it's really generic to bandit and say communication is good. Like, you know, But actually, like you said, setting those expectations of how we're going to communicate as well. Like, for example, I, I prefer to have everything in notion that we're managing with our teams.

I don't want you to be repeating stuff on Slack that you've already got in notion. I don't want you to be responding yes to something and emoji is fine. So actually understanding how people prefer to work asynchronously and a guideline of how, of the kind of hours that they're going to be online. So you can, you can.

You can work with that as well. I think that's super important to set that very tone from the beginning. And what I do with my team, I say to them, I don't care when you work as long as the work gets done. And if you're not going to be available for 48 hours, just let me know ahead of time. And literally that's the freedom, like you work where you want, when you want, and you know what I get in return from those people.

Appreciation. They appreciate that. I'm not on their backs. I'm not like, where were you at? 901. And also like respect. And I've got one person that I'm working with at the minute and she got to two young girls and she absolutely loves that. She can just say to me, I'm not gonna be working this afternoon because it's my daughter's birthday and I want to make a cake for her.

You know, she's asking him. For my, my permission, she's telling me this is more important. I'm doing this. And I know she's going to wake up at whatever time to make sure she gets her work done the next day. I don't need to be there to manage her and look over her. And that's with all of my team. They, that mutual respect is so important.

And when I say to them, Hey, I'm canceling this meeting because I'm not feeling well, they're like, you rest up, you do well. You know, they, they, they want to do well. And it's, it's about having that mutual understanding and respect.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. I I had the pleasure of interviewing Liz Ryan from Human Workplace and we chatted about that and about how like, it's really about bringing humanity back to work that's going to be essentially.

You know the catalyst for a better future for all of us right like there's a huge shift happening and like her book Reinvention Roadmap was really just talking about like we get we get put into these buckets but the reality is we're good at so many different things but many of us never. Explore what those are and kind of this new world is allowing us to say, you know what, like, even if you are, you know, working in in recruitment, the reality is you could be good at five or 10 other things.

Why not explore them to?

Michelle Coulson: Exactly and and actually having people who are working all of my team freelancers, some of them part time, some of them full time and the majority of working on other things as well. And so many employers Transcribed Don't want people to have side hustles. They don't want, cause they want you to be obsessed with just their business.

And that's so unrealistic. Think about how, and if entrepreneurs are expecting people to be entrepreneurial, self starters and, and, and manage their time, they're going to be entrepreneurial and doing some other side stuff as well. And that's a benefit. So rather than having the team have to feel like they hide that, why not celebrate and say, how's it going with your side hustle?

How's it going with the VC funding that you're getting? And actually, it's, it's so powerful to get that from people because you, you get someone almost that is an entrepreneur themselves and they, they really want your business to do well as well. Like, so I think these companies who are dismissing people with side hustles or got their own stuff going on or don't fit into this box, they're stupid because they're missing out on really good people.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to chat with you about that because earlier you had mentioned that you use. Freelancers or at least you, some of your, some of your staff are freelancers. And I wanted to chat with you about that. Like, has your experience been really great working with these people?

Michelle Coulson: Yeah. Do you know what I've, I've, I've made a couple of hires that maybe didn't work out, but I always take people on as freelancers in contract, but I don't see them as freelancers and they don't really see it as a freelance gig.

Like, so it's, I think it's more of a, it's a, it's on paper. Freelancing. However, the, the way that we work together and the length that we work together, it's, it's not a kind of like do this project and then onto the next that they're more, they're more like a full time employee. But just not on, on paper.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the reason I ask is I actually see that just from like my own understanding of entrepreneurs, I actually see that as potentially the future of work, like genuinely, because I do think that freelancers too. It's their, it's their reputation and their business, and they're willing to probably put in just that little bit extra effort and sure you pay a little bit more for that, but I think it all works itself out in the wash by the time you factor out, you know, employment benefits and all sorts of things to go along with employees, but you know, I really do think I think that a good portion of future work is going to be freelance work because I think that I think you're going to get amazing work out of it and good value.

Michelle Coulson: And you can't be stagnating when you're also when you're always moving or was looking for the next thing, right?

Like, so I think a lot of if you if you've ever worked in an organization where people have worked there for 20 years or something and they're just kind of going through the motions, right? There's I spoke to someone who said. What did they say? They said, after seven years, you should get rid of the person who is working at your company.

And he's like, anything after seven years and they're not innovating, they should either be moved into a different role or they should, they should leave the business. I was like, Ooh, I sort of took a back and I'm not sure if I agree with it, but I thought that was quite interesting that he had that perspective.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously, I've worked at a lot of different organizations, and I think I can attest to that. I really do. I think, yeah, I think by the time people and I would maybe even move that down, I might even move that down to five years. And I really, I don't necessarily think you lose those people.

But I think that People need to be challenged to grow. I know that I've never grown. And if I wasn't challenged, right? Like at this point in my life, I try to take on as many scary things as possible because I know that if I don't do that, I'm not going to grow. Where do I grow? I grow in adversity.

Michelle Coulson: Yeah. Agreed.

Kelly Kennedy: Michelle, I want you to take us into Remote Rebellion. I love the name by the way. I love the website. You did a great job on your website. And yeah, talk to us. What is remote rebellion?

Michelle Coulson: So what is remote rebellion? So in a nutshell, remote rebellion is a holistic program to help people, individuals get remote work.

And only recently, it's probably why you're not seeing it on the website is to connect. Startups with remote talent, with the best remote talent. So I, I've, I got a little bit disillusioned with the recruitment business. And that's why I just for three years, really focused on the job seeker and the individual.

But over the last kind of year or so, I was like. Why am I not connecting the two? I'm great at actually consulting with startups and helping them to hire. So why can't I do the two? So that's where I am now. It's essentially the Tinder of remote work.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. And talk to me, who are your ideal clients?

Are you talking worldwide startups?

Michelle Coulson: Global startups who are hiring remotely.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay, is it only startups that you're chasing, or could this be for any organization?

Michelle Coulson: I mean, in theory, it could be any, but for me, I am very impatient. And when you get to like larger organizations, there's so much red tape and bureaucracy, and you gotta wait, and I'm just not that patient.

So with startups, they're scrappy, they haven't got Ship figured out. Yeah, I like that kind of like, let's unpick the mess and let's, let's find different ways of doing it rather than this is the process. We must do this and I'm not saying all big organizations are like that, but yeah, it's typically, typically startups or scale ups I want to work with.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing. Do you offer like any, any other services consulting or things along those lines?

Michelle Coulson: Yeah, it's something I've done on the side. It's not something at the moment I'm doing with Remote Rebellion, but. It seems to be part of what I'm doing without having the title of consultant at the minute.

So when I'm working with the people who are looking to hire and they've maybe not got a job out of, they've not got a process in place. So I guess, yeah, I'm doing the consulting, just not calling it that.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. Amazing. Amazing. And one of the things that I wanted to chat with you about is we're talking to a lot of entrepreneurs.

I think we've made a pretty big impact today. I think we made some pretty compelling reasons why remote work is the future and why we should maybe be considering it. But you know, you also launched your own company and that takes a lot of bravery. That takes a ton of bravery. You just went off the valley and worked like you've done some pretty wild, amazing things.

And I just want to say. If we're talking to entrepreneurs today, they're on the fence. They haven't made that leap yet. They're afraid. What piece of advice might you give them to just take that jump?

Michelle Coulson: Look at what the, what's the worst that can happen. That's, that's the thing I would say to people. What is the worst that could happen?

And even if I could lose my house, I could lose my job. I could do, okay, are you going to be, can you get that house back? Can you earn some more money? Can you do like, think about it, like think about it deep and, or what can happen if I don't do this? Am I going to be happy living this life? Looking back in 20 years, I never went and tried this.

So that would be my biggest advice, like what is the worst that can happen?

Kelly Kennedy: Hmm. That is awesome. I love it, Michelle. That takes us to the end of our show today. If people want to get ahold of you, Michelle, they want to hire some remote workers. They want to consult with you. What's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Michelle Coulson: So either Michelle@remoterebellion.com, they can message me on LinkedIn. That's generally where I'm, I am the most active or on Instagram, Remote Rebellion.

Kelly Kennedy: And I'll make sure that we have all those links on the shows for anyone who's listening. Until next time, Michelle, it's been an absolute honor having you on today.

We will catch you on the flip side.

Michelle Coulson: Thank you!

Outro: This has been the business development podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020, his passion and his specialization.

Is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development Specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.