Brainz Magazine Exclusive Interview
Lotta Spjut has a passion and drive to inspire and empower people around the Globe and to use the skills they have, learn new skills, grow themself and become successful entrepreneurs.
She has made hundreds and hundreds of lectures, private and public trainings, always built on empiric knowledge. Only sharing what she has experienced herself and that inspire many people to also do the same. Not to compare with her or anyone else but to get inspired and understand that if she can, they can. Lotta has done it for one person, smaller groups, bigger groups and she has done it for millions of people online. The amount is not important for her, it is what each person gets out from it.
Lotta is a TEDx speaker and she has thousands of people all over the world that she mentors and trains in leadership, personal development and entrepreneurship.
You are, among many things, an Entrepreneur, CEO, TEDx- & Global Speaker, Inspirational Business Coach, Health- & Nutrition Developer, and International trainer. Can you tell us a little about your background story and how you became the successful woman that you are today?
From an early age, I have been told that I was the one taking the “leading role” when needed in different situations and I have always liked to develop myself and learn new things. I believe that is one of the reasons for the choices made in my career so far. I can see that the red line connecting all my choices is to inspire, lead and help other people, build relationships and always be open to developing new skills and knowledge.
Already from high school, I started to work on holidays and weekends, and it gave me not only extra money but also a lot of experiences from different areas. Then I went directly from high school to University and after that, I got my first job in the profession as a teacher. I did my Master’s degree in Didactic and a Bachelor of Education and I also worked as a teacher at the University. For many years I was a board member and chairman of the Swedish Teacher organization. With my degree in personal training and nutrition, for some years, I also worked as a health & nutrition developer on the side of my other profession, consulting private people and companies in these areas.
Many of my interests like health and nutrition has been there since I was young, so it came “natural” to also get the degrees in it. Not because the degrees were important for me but for the acceptance of the professions, it often was at that time. All my professions have been connected to in some way leading and working with people and I wanted to expand my skills and also grow myself. I decided to go for an ICF Pro Executive Coach Certification, and I have coached CEOs and private people in different businesses. 2006 was the year when I for the first time encountered a home-based business and 5 months later, in March 2007 I resigned from my profession as a teacher to work 100% with my own business. Was that an easy decision? Both yes and no. Yes, because I had already set my mind to it, no because of the resistance I got from some people around me. At this time, I learned a very good lesson that I have always brought with me since then. People will always have opinions; I listen to everyone though I only take advice from the people I want to change places with. The ones that have walked the walk before me and have the experience themself, don´t think they know what it is about and give advice out of their own fear.
During my 16 years as an entrepreneur, I found out that there are people with good intentions and people with less good intentions, no matter business and it is the same in life overall. I believe that to become successful in business and in life, we need to face fear and challenges, and we will fall. Like Rocky says: It is not about how many times You get hit and fall, it is about how many times You get up again. I love that one! I have learned to never get disappointed in someone, instead, I get surprised by how people chose to behave. I can never change a person though I can choose how I let my energy get used.
Being a business owner, your own boss, and employee is not for everyone, it is for the ones that chose to and are ready to change their mindset and are ready to grow, and growth hurts. It can be challenging in the beginning because it demands us to step outside our comfort zone.
I believe that one of the reasons that overall, I am respected and have a good reputation as a businessperson is because of my working ethic and knowing my worth. I always put relations first and I have seen how this has come back to me so many times during my business years. It is never worth sacrificing a good relationship before money because You never know when Your path will meet again. With that said, I also know that I am not loved by everyone and that can never be a goal, we can not please everyone without burning ourselves and that will help no one.
Leadership is for me, not about a position, it is for me to show the way, be honest, borrow out my belief in others until they have it themselves, and lead them to the water but not drink for them.
Tell us more about your business "LS Mind Your Buziness" that you have founded? What kind of customers are you targeting and how do you help them?
My passion and drive are to inspire and empower people, especially women to see an opportunity, then dare to explore it and do the best they can with it. LS Mind Your Buziness is about me minding inspiring and helping other people with their business and it also has the meaning of really taking the opportunities around us and minding our own business. And a third meaning is to better focus on our own business than being busy compared with others, so we miss out on our own growth.
I have made hundreds and hundreds of lectures, private and public training, built on empiric knowledge. Only sharing what I have experienced myself and I am very grateful that it inspires many people to also do the same. Not to compare with me or anyone else but to get inspired and understand that if I can, they can too. Many of us are very good at comparing ourselves with others. That kills our own ability to grow. Whom are we comparing with? Always someone that has started their journey long before us and we will always end up as the “looser”. When we instead start to get inspired by other people and learn from what they have done, we move forward. The only person we should compare with, is ourselves, to become a little bit better and more knowledgeable every day to grow.
Most people want a change in their lives and not everyone is ready or willing, though many are and these people I love to support so they see their potential and grow, step by step to successful entrepreneurs. I have people contacting me, saying thank You for changing my life, though it is not me that change their life, it is themselves. I opened their mind to see, take and do something with the opportunities around them and if they do not have belief in themselves when they start, I borrow out my belief in them.
Has there been any particular event/time in your career that has been significant to you?
There have been many! I believe that everything happens for a reason, and we learn from everything.
Choosing to walk our own way and not following “the masses” or what other people think is the "right" way can be a challenge. People have told me that “It is impossible” or “You are crazy” making the choices I have done. Leaving, in many people’s eyes, a good and secured profession for the unsecured life of having my own business. I know that comments like this are most often based on fear, fear that something “bad” will happen to me, or fear because they could not see themselves doing it and it is tough stepping outside our comfort zone. Fear is something that stops many people from developing themselves, and it is something I have promised myself that will never stop me. I don’t want to be the person that later regrets not doing it when I had the chance. I rather do it and if it does not get the result I wanted, at least I know and I learned something from it. And I am so grateful to myself today, that I made the decision to leave the “secured” life and started my own business because I have with that decision learned, explored and most of all got the freedom that I value very high.
I was chasing the balance many people speak about for many years and it just made me feel bad and gave me often bad consciousness. When I accepted that there is no 100% equal balance between home and work, it became so much easier. I have chosen to be a business owner and when I am happy and I can work without feeling bad about it, my family feels that, and support me in it. Working from home has many privileges and some challenges. Time management has been very important and useful for me, and I am still working on that one.
It is easier to focus on the “failures”, even if these are many times lesser than the successes. I have made choices that later show up to be less good ones. People are sometimes fast to judge from that, no matter how many good choices have been made before. I do my best not to fall into doing that to others. I rather see “failures” as experiences to learn from and as I said earlier, a part of being successful is to overcome the needed experiences to grow.
I have so many years of university and education, though the biggest professional awards and accolades are not when I got all the diplomas, certificates, degrees, or many awards from different companies I worked with. It has been the achievement of knowledge and experience that I did not only get in school or university but from me being open to opportunities and stepping outside my comfort zone. It is about achieving a state in my life where I can help others achieve the same as most people want, freedom, and sharing that in my TEDx talk, was fantastic.
When I look back at my last 27 business years, I could probably have made some different choices to avoid some less good experiences. At the same time, I believe that these choices have also been the reason for another better choice and experience. empower people to step out from their comfort zone and see, grab and do something with the opportunities around them. Having the possibility to have a work/business that works for and together with You and not the opposite, is for me the key to freedom and the ultimate achievement in professional and personal life because this freedom makes me the captain of my life and achieving my biggest why in business and life, my daughters and family.
We should not look for easy because nothing worth having comes easy, though I have learned a lot from both good and less good experiences, and I am still learning.
You were born in Seoul and raised in Sweden but work a lot with global customers, how is the Swedish market different from the global one?
When I started my business 16 years ago, I worked mostly with the Swedish market. When the internet came with the possibility to meet online, a whole new world opened up with so many new opportunities. I was able to interact with people across the globe and my business market expanded globally.
Sweden has been and still is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to innovations, like Bluetooth, Spotify, Skype, Candycrush, and many more. During the last two decades, a lot has happened in the technology space. I believe that many of us in Sweden and also other countries are a bit “sceptical” and careful when it comes to new innovations, we need to see some use for it over time to apply to it. That doesn´t need to be a bad thing at all, though it can take a longer time for some people to see the opportunities in it. Today many people in Sweden have applied to changes and are open to learning more about the opportunities coming with technology.
Today, with the latest business project I am part of, I am very much connected to the Swedish market again and even if I continue to work globally too, I am very excited to work in my “home” market again.
Despite your success, your career has taken many unexpected turns, what is it that has driven you through all this? What inspires you?
My success has not come over one night. It is an ongoing process that is filled with joy, happiness, laughter, love, and also sacrifices, saying no to funny things, bad conscious for people I love, people judging me, and more challenges. As I earlier said, challenges and overcoming them are part of growth. It drives and empowers me to see people grow and to grow myself every day.
One of my biggest strengths is believing in myself and in other people, even before they have their own beliefs. I believe in building good relations before anything else like money or positions. Relations are sustainable, and money and positions can disappear. I don´t let fear stop me, I do it anyway even if I haven´t done it before and I have no experience with it. Either it will be a success, or it will be a new experience to learn from. Everyone with healthy legs walks as adults, if we stopped as kids because we fell so many times learning to walk, everyone should crawl today, and we don´t.
I say, “Everything goes (in Swedish it means the same as the word walk) except babies and they will learn”.
I don´t believe in failure, I believe in doing the best I can and if it works out, great, and if it is not, I am an experience richer. To stand up for what I believe in and of course, also care about and listen to other people, still only follow the ones that I know have done what I want to do or learn.
To be stubborn, can be both a good thing and can also be challenging sometimes, though giving up on something I believe in, is not an option for me. It has kept me staying with a not-so-good decision too long, but then I also learned a lot from that.
Most often I choose not to be disappointed in people, I get “surprised” how people choose to act. Being surprised instead of disappointed, leave no room for losing my own energy. Many people, including myself when I was young, think it is important to be liked by everyone and especially women can have a hard time saying no to all different tasks asked of them. I learned that I cannot be liked by everyone and I accept that. Pleasing everyone will not make me or anyone else happy. And sometimes I need to say no, even to good things to get the best things. Good is great´s worse enemy. To keep away from negative people and choosing not to put my energy into them, is a choice I have. It doesn´t mean that I am arrogant, though I choose to focus on solutions (most of the time even if I am also human and sometimes I need to remind myself), and what I focus on always grows.
I get inspired by so many different people, animals, and even situations. One day it can be a message in a group chat that inspires, another day my daughter telling me about her day, another time an inspirational speaker or a video of animals. When we are open to learning and growing, we have so many things to get inspired by and inspiration comes in different messages depending on what we “need”.
My business over the last decades has allowed me to travel a lot and I have spent many days abroad working and exploring new countries and continents and that has inspired me to continue to do what I am doing, sharing my knowledge and passion for personal growth and inspire and empower people, especially women to step out from their comfort zone and see, grab and do something with the opportunities around them. Having the possibility to have a work/business that works for and together with me and not the opposite, is for me the key to freedom and the ultimate achievement in professional and personal life because this freedom makes me the captain of my life and achieving my biggest why in business and life, my daughters and family.
Among other things, you have invested time to learn about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology - and are developing knowledge in the NFT- and Web 3.0 markets. This is quite a new market for many and, for newbies, kinda hard to understand. What is it about this market that attracts you and can you, a little briefly, tell us how it works?
Imagine you had the opportunity to be part of Facebook's corporate financial benefits from its start. Web 3.0 creates these opportunities, for the average person to position themselves and benefit from an opportunity that was only for a few people before. I am so, so excited about Web 3.0 and the opportunities it creates! To be able to choose to be part of it is fantastic! Every day is a new learning day in this industry, and everyone that gives themselves the time to explore and learn now will be very early and early here, meaning many more benefits. The longer we wait, the more “expensive” it will be.
One “myth” people might have, is that crypto and blockchain is too difficult to understand, irrelevant to everyday users, or a trend that will pass. Seeing the numbers about Web 3.0 and it is simple math to understand that Web 3.0 is here to stay.
I know it is a new market for many people and especially when it comes to technology and many words that we have no clue what they mean, we tend to stop listening or think that we are not able to grab it. I have been there myself and I have never been really interested in technology, though I am old enough to have been part of the last decades’ innovations when it comes to technology, and I know that either I apply to the innovations early or when I need to do it. Waiting until I need to do it also means I will lose out on many of the opportunities the innovations bring. The evolution of technology moves faster and faster. What took 10 years to develop 20 years ago takes maybe 1 year or less today.
When I first heard of cryptocurrency was back in 2015. I got a cartoon video sent to me and I understood nothing. Something called digital money was “flying” in the air, bitcoin was mentioned, future payments and there were no banks connected. I did what most people do when they want to check something, I Googled and the things that I read about cryptocurrency were not like today, mainly positive reading, it was the total opposite. Bitcoin was dangerous, connected to criminal activity, something to stay away from, and it would probably not stay long. Google is amazing, though it is a search engine, and not everything written there is validated as a research engine, I did understand that.
There were parts that caught my attention. About the evolution of money and also the evolution of technology.
Most people have a smartphone today and we spend hours doing everything from keeping in contact with others, running our financial errands, shopping, reading newspapers, watching movies, listening to music, studying, playing games, communicating globally, approving signatures, and many, many more things. Imagine a day without the internet, any company and any store would not have the possibility to run their business and most homes would be without any communication. We have adapted, whether we believed in or liked the idea from the beginning.
1990 was the decade when the internet entered, and we had computers as heavy and big as big stones. Even experts in the field told that the internet would never be any hit because who should need it? This was when the Web 1.0 area started. This was about “read-only” and information economy. We could see Netscape, Yahoo and later Google enter the market. The mobiles were as big as heavy and all we could do was send some text messages on a grey screen and of course call people.
Then internet entered Web 2.0 which was about interacting and creating in a platform economy. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Skype were introduced and there were corporations behind making a lot of profit. Imagine that you were one of the early adopters and had the opportunity to be part of that profit today.
Today the internet is evolving with the emergence of Web 3.0. We see blockchain-based platforms like OpenSea (NFT marketplace) and cryptocurrencies with their own ecosystem. In earlier versions of the internet where most financial benefit went to corporations (e.g., Google and Facebook), Web 3.0 offers digital ownership and token economy, meaning more power and earning potential to users, the “average” person that chose to apply and learn how to use resources and tools like cryptocurrency and NFTs.
The evolution of currency has also gone through technical development, going from trading goods to gold, metal coins, paper money (first backed up by gold and now without anything backing it up) to plastic cards, to online payments and cryptocurrency. Not too long ago people were very sceptical to pay with a plastic card because cash was king. Today in many countries like Sweden, You can hardly use cash in many stores. In 2021 it was 300 million people, only 3,9% of the world’s population that is in some way using cryptocurrency. That numbers will probably increase a lot. With Web 3.0 and blockchain technology, if digital payment solutions and cryptocurrency will follow the speed that information has done with the internet, we will see many more users within 10 years and I believe we will all wish that we were one of the early adopters because the opportunities are open for everyone.
We also need to remind ourselves that when something is new and revolutionary, many of us don´t feel confident and comfortable. That is normal, still being a visionary means daring to step out from the comfort zone, position yourself in the forefront, and welcome the opportunities that come with change. We need to remind ourselves that everyone is a beginner at the start, and I encourage everyone to apply how small kids do when they learn how to walk. They continue until they take their first step and then they keep going. No one will learn this for You. If you want to be a little better at something, You need to take action and repeat it over and over again until it feels comfortable.
The world has undergone a pandemic that has had catastrophic consequences for many. We are all looking for the light in the tunnel and are trying to look ahead. Do you think there is anything positive that can come with post-covid? Can it increase or open up opportunities for people?
With all crises, opportunities are born. Last 2,5 years we have all faced a situation that many of us have not experienced before, the global pandemic. Many people lost the works that they thought were "secured" and their financial situation drastically changed.
When someone does not need an opportunity, they are most often not open to seeing it or grabbing it. With the global pandemic, more and more people had the time and need to open their minds and eyes to new opportunities. Together with the rapid speed of technology, people started to see the benefits of working from home. Business owners and employees even saw that they could save money by using the technology and bringing the office home. This is not a trend, it is something I believe will grow even bigger, also when the pandemic is over.
I have worked from home with my business for many years, so it was nothing new for me. Using my mobile phone as my office, working from anywhere with anyone at the times I chose was suddenly something that became a "must" with the pandemic. My business really exploded during this period, and I can see how the future, after the pandemic has given many people an opportunity to start their own business, part-time or full-time.
What would you like to achieve for yourself and your business in the future?
My passion for entrepreneurship and the possibilities within web 3.0 are so exciting. I have so many ideas and still so many goals to work for. Sometimes I wished I could have a turn-off button on ideas.
According to Greyscale Research Report, Web 3.0 has the potential to be a $10+ trillion industry in 2026 and today only 19% are women in the space. This means that a lot of women will lose out on a multi-trillion opportunity. I will together with many other women change this to a more equal number.
Personally, I will keep educating myself and keep up with the opportunities offered in the industry of Web 3.0 and be in forefront of helping people to explore and learn. We are all very early and I will for sure position myself for the future. It is new for us all and the opportunities are equal for everyone, though my passion is to inspire and empower more women to dare to explore Web 3.0. I will do my part to increase the number of women positioning themselves, that is my mission, and I am very excited about it!
"Give a woman a dollar, and she can put it to good use. Teach her about how money really works, and she can change the world."- Linda Davis Taylor
So, what’s the next big goal or project for Lotta and how can someone get in contact with you?
Right now I am so excited about all the amazing opportunities I have around me.
Within my global online business, I am connected to the biggest online industries, and I see how we are also moving into Web 3.0 here. My goal here is to keep educating and inspiring more global entrepreneurs to grow themselves personally and within their businesses also taking the opportunities offered to them through applying time to learn about what is- and how to with Web 3.0.
When I encountered NFTs (Non-Fungible Token) for the first time in June-21, I could never imagine the opportunities within them. It was not until Feb- 22 that I found communities with women in NFTs and how many women-led projects there are. A new world opened, and I directly felt that I want to learn more, use my experience, and help more women to see these opportunities. Every woman can be their own boss in Web 3.0 and to reach that, first and foremost we need the fundamentals, simple education, and spaces where everyone can learn step by step and feel that they can ask any questions without feeling uncomfortable.
There are many amazing women that are taking the lead and have started communities with the mission to increase the number of women in the space. Randi Zuckerberg and Debbie Soon are founders of groupHUG, a creator accelerator that offers mentorship, and a network of industry leaders in technology and the arts. Thousands of women are in their community to explore and learn. BFF with Brit Morin and Jaimie Smidt as founders is another women-led community that was started collaboratively by over 50 leaders across industries with a mission to help women and non-binary people get educated, connected, and financially rewarded in crypto and web3.
So we are on the right way, though most of the movement has so far been outside Sweden and Scandinavia. There will be a lot of hard work, overcoming challenges, people question the project and web 3.0 and that is normal. As I already said many times, anything that is new for us creates fear. We either face it or run. In this case, facing it by exploring it and learning can open up amazing opportunities, run means, You lose the opportunity now and will probably enter when You need to apply because it is part of the technology evolution, same as with the internet.
When I feel that I have given people the option to see, explore and learn about the opportunities, it is in each one’s decision what will be their next step.
For everyone that is curious and maybe doesn´t know where to start, feel free to reach out. You are not alone, and I invite each and one to our community to see and feel it for yourself. You can always stay silent in the communities and watch how the communities are working. Remember Artur Ash’s quote: “Start where you are, use what You have and Do what You can”.
And if you still hesitate, ask yourself, Why should You be one of the women missing out on the multi-trillion opportunity already calculated for Web 3.0? I believe that Your answer will be your why.
Read more from Lotta here!
