“It is never too late to recalculate.”
– Karen Jacobson (The GPS Girl)

Meet Karen Jacobsen! Karen is the voice of GPS in Australia! That’s right! It’s her voice giving you directions on the road. And now she’s extended that voice to be a GPS for your life journey. Isn’t that awesome?

So Karen and I were both speakers on the national circuit, and I had the fortune of interviewing her to share a bit about her story as an entrepreneur, and share some of her key tips that will be useful to you.

Whether you want to start your business or grow your business, Karen’s takeaways will help you clarify what you love, follow your heart, and earn more money doing what you love. Period.

I have summarized the key takeaways from the interview. Enjoy! 😊

1. It’s Not How Much Money You Make. It’s About Why You Want to Make That Money

We’ve all heard of the statement, “No pain no gain.” You hear it in the coaching and professional fitness industry. It’s all about how hard you try and how much work you put in. If you don’t work 18 hours a day, you’re not an entrepreneur! You’re a hobbyist!

Nothing could be further form the truth.

Because it’s about quality of life, not just quantity of work nor is it about just making more money. Because your work and your money are there to support your life. A lot of people say they want a million dollars. But when you ask them, “Why do you want that?” Their answer will be things like, I want to spend more time with my family, I want to work on my art/photography, I want to travel the world, I want to contribute to causes I believe in.

And then you ask them “Why?” again. And ultimately, they will say so they can be happy.

Karen’s advice, which I agree with, is to look at the things in your life and on a daily basis, that bring you the most happiness. Then follow that. It’s that simple.

2. Your Emotions Will Tell You What To Do

Karen is big on using your emotions as an indicator. She calls it her emotional indicator. Following from the previous paragraph, she talks a lot about looking and identifying the things in your life that make you happy.

Then what? Well, after you list them, you are going to start to notice how much you are doing that is making you happy versus how much you are doing that isn’t. This is great news! Because it’ll help you re-calculate and re-route.

If you are feeling frustrated, angry or dissatisfied, then take it as feedback (not failure), so you can re-calculate. Karen recommends you use these to stop and ask yourself, “Oh, actually, maybe it’s time to recalculate.”

Karen refers to this as your inner GPS.

We all have it, and we all know when we’re doing what’s right for us. We all know when we’re not. We listen to other people and what they think is great for us, and not what we know is great for us. Then we listen to them, and then how many times does that happen, and then it turns out that, “Oh, actually I was right.”

It’s all about bringing awareness to your experience and trusting the voice from within.

3. You Know What You Want to Do. You Know What You Love.

When Karen asks people, “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” Many people answer with, “I don’t know.” It’s the same when I first ask people what they love or what it is they want.

But the truth is, people do know. It’s just that there’s so much noise and negative influx that it can be hard to admit what you really want and love. Especially if your peers might not agree or like it. But the thing is there are plenty of mentors in the world who have done what you want to do. You need to connect with them and learn from them.

We know what we love and want to do with our lives from a very young age. For example, Karen knew she wanted to be a professional singer and move to America as a child. She was inspired by Olivia Newton-John when she was age 7, watching Olivia perform on TV. The question you can answer to yourself is this:

What Did You Always Dream of Becoming As a Child?

Or as Karen puts it, you must listen to your inner GPS.

4. If You Want Your Live Your Dreams, Write Them Down

Many people spend time thinking about their dreams. But the first step to making them come real is to write them down.

For Karen, this worked out beautifully. Having set her sight on her dreams, when she first arrived in the US, an agent contacted her, looking for a native AUSTRALIAN female voiceover artist!

But here’s the thing—she got the job and all she was told to do was create a text-to-speech voice recording of over fifty hours, which was going to be the basis of their system. She was never told it was for GPS.

Karen recorded for four hours a day, from 9am – 1pm. And three weeks later, a friend of hers contacted her out of the blue and here’s the transcript:

“Karen, it’s Nadia. My husband and I, we’re driving from Maine back to New York City after the holiday. “I bought my husband one of those new GPS thingos.”

She then turned to her husband and said, “Put it on the Australian voice.’ So, he put it on the Australian voice and said, “Oh my God, Karen, it’s you. It’s your voice in the GPS!” She then said, “I turned to my husband and I said, oh no, I bought you Karen Jacobson for Christmas.'”

Karen’s voice has now ended up on billions of devices worldwide! Isn’t that AMAZING? 😊

I hear this all the time. When people focus on what they love and put their life first, and build a career or business that supports that, magical things happen! You don’t have to worry necessarily about how they will happen. But they will.

Here’s your homework: write down what you love and write down exactly how you want your life to be. Simple!

Choose Gratitude Create Freedom

Steve Napolitan