Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. I'm your host, thomas Helfrich. Welcome back. If this is your first time here, welcome. Hope it's the first of many. We're on a mission to help you cut the tie to whatever it is holding you back so you can become the best version of yourself. And today I'm joined by Corinna Zenig. We were laughing off camera about having German accents, but I don't really have one, Corinna, how are you today?

Speaker 2: 0:24

I'm well. Thanks for asking, Thomas. How are you doing?

Speaker 1: 0:26

I'm delicious. Thank you, I appreciate that. Do you want to take a moment, introduce yourself and what it is you do?

Speaker 2: 0:32

Yeah, absolutely. I run a small data consultancy called the Lazy Analyst let's work more insights and I've been doing that for eight years now. So my imaginary tie was cut a long time back and I've never doing that for eight years now.

Speaker 1: 0:49

So my imaginary tie was cut a long time back and I've never looked back since. Talk about imaginary ties. What I find is every time I look in my pocket there's a brand new tie to cut.

Speaker 2: 0:54

every time I'm like oh Well, thanks for helping me out with that.

Speaker 1: 1:01

It was about time to do it. There's always a tie to cut. Some are monsters, some are miners, but there's always a tie to cut. What's your hook? Why do people work with you?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Yeah, they work with me because I help them unlock growth through data. As simple as that. They don't know what to do with their data. They have data everywhere and I'm just basically the data girl. I come in, clean the mess, organize the data and then present some insights.

Speaker 1: 1:28

Data is a tricky thing because you can. It is tricky because you can see what you want into it and see not what you want into it, and some of it is completely worthless or even harmful. How do you even organize and normalize and get data to a point where it can be leveraged and used?

Speaker 2: 1:45

Well, that's actually the easy part, thomas. That's just processes. I have, like data audits. Running software need to be set up in a way that data is accurate and standardized, like. Those are the things you can just walk through step by step. It is more the getting people to use the data and to even get them to the point where they understand they should invest in data and start cleaning. That's the hard part.

Speaker 1: 2:08

Yeah, I tell people this. My background in AI is like as long as there's people involved, there's going to be people involved, and so if we could just get the humans out of the way, they would be great. It would be so much easier without humans. Can you imagine how pretty this Earth would look without humans? Oh, it'd be gorgeous. The plants not caring, the little wolves and owls going. I'm just going to eat and one day I'll die. There's no planning for retirement or 401ks. Anyway, that will make the cut floor, but this would be an interesting thought.

Speaker 2: 2:38

Well, I'd stick to the Matrix. Not so pretty, but possible.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Maybe. I believe the matrix might be right, but I think it's at a bigger scale, I think. I think you know what a perfect game setup. They can never leave that that little terrarium. Anyway, it's very possible. Uh, you know what? We'll go on a slight tangent the fact that things can be infinitely large and infinitely small. If that, if that was to be true, that means inside your body could be almost a universe.

Speaker 2: 3:08

I suppose there is a universe inside your body say again I suppose there is a universe inside your body, otherwise we would have understood every single thing by now but there has it is.

Speaker 1: 3:18

You're not. I don't think we're meant to. I think we are cockroaches in our own way great visual.

Speaker 2: 3:24

If you think about it right, a cockroach doesn't know anything more than just survival.

Speaker 1: 3:26

That's like cockroaches in her own way. Great visual If you think about it. A cockroach doesn't know anything more than survival. That's the one thing it does know. I doubt it has an opinion of this or that, but the truth of the matter is we're only like a 1% smarter than a chimp. Can you imagine something that was 5% smarter than us, or 100? We would be less than a cockroach Like anyway, so that's not going to make it. This is not going to make the podcast, but from a nerd standpoint, we are so over assessing our value in the world or in the universe. Okay, that being said, let's continue this podcast On your journey. Actually describe your journey a little bit and tell me the one tie you had to cut your journey actually describe your journey a little bit and tell me the one tie you had to cut.

Speaker 2: 4:07

I've only had to tie to cut more than one tie because I started as a scientist. I was in academia and I thought this, this is stupid, the way science not science works, but the way you make a living with science. And so I cut that tie. I'm like no, I'm not gonna do this. Then I went into consulting because I was like what should I do somehow business? Well, as a data nerd, consulting takes everyone. And then I was in consulting for years with the Lloyds and I was like this doesn't make sense, like all of this doesn't make sense. And then also so many other things like work-life balance right, that was still before the pandemic 't really can't forget that they could have a better life by being remote and all the good stuff that comes with not going to an office and not having to deal with your management's request and whatever your boss prefers that day that's, uh.

Speaker 1: 4:59

The biggest tie you've got to cut was just getting comfortable with being your own boss. Fair enough.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 5:05

Yeah, that's a tricky one. It really is, because there's no fallback. Now it's you, so any of the excuses you might've made before you're like well, I can't blame my boss.

Speaker 2: 5:16

That's right, and I love it because I can always have a call, have a talk with myself and just make things better, whereas when you're with a boss or management, you can improve. But if they don't agree or they don't want to go that way, then you're in a path that you cannot get over.

Speaker 1: 5:34

I hated that feeling. Yeah, do you have a moment?

Speaker 2: 5:40

Can you describe that moment when you knew I'm out my first year in consulting? I was put on a project as the expert for a particular data software and I had been trained on that software two weeks prior. I mean the smarty pants that I that I am and that I sell myself as I made a work. But I was like, wow, this is how consulting works. I guess you only have to be like an hour in knowledge ahead of the one you're teaching, but I thought it was still a lot of bullshit.

Speaker 1: 6:13

Yeah Well, there's two folds of the equation, right, you have to be 1% smarter than the person ahead of you without them knowing that they just got to know you're further ahead. That's it. And the second half of that, which is that that's how you sell, that's how you deliver. The work is when you sell, the work is to oversell the hell out of your teams, and that's that's the other half of consulting. We're going to solve all these problems.

Speaker 2: 6:39

We need 30 people when AI could have done it by itself. But it also gave me a valuable lesson, and that is you can oversell yourself. If you can, then deliver on it well, there is.

Speaker 1: 6:48

So there's room for that. I agree with you. So if you tell somebody, listen, this is what it should do and I'm going to solve it for you, but you're not going to pay for that learning, but you are going to get the benefit of it, people will buy that. Pretty much all the time they're like, oh, I believe you can solve it, and now they're believing in you and and that is actually good consulting. It's when you sell it that that person already has the answer and you're like stressed out and you're traveling every week to some client that's starting to get the feel that maybe this person doesn't know it and that they can't prove it because they don't know it. Yeah, I've been there. That's no fun. So, since you've been on your own, how's this impacted your life?

Speaker 2: 7:24

it made my life so much better and that is already the simple fact that I can work when I'm the most productive. I'm a night owl. I sleep in the mornings still hard because a lot of meetings happen in the mornings. The world seems to be a morning society, but that just helped my my output so much and just my overall well-being and health that a lot of people, I think, underestimate yeah, and do you find the benefit of you know kind of pick your client, meaning if you don't really like that client you can go find another one yourself?

Speaker 2: 7:56

oh yeah, 100. I had to work on financial clients when I was for the law with the lloyd like banks, big banks, and it was the most boring thing to do. I'm like, how is this helping the world? I don't know, how's this helping me have fun while working?

Speaker 1: 8:14

so when I struggled to actually get into projects that I liked, like e-commerce, like products, something that's tangible to what I enjoy doing and that was one of the major drivers getting out here's a random question If you had $10 million in the bank and you can make 5% money on that, so 500,000 a year, so let's factually say you don't have to work what do you do different?

Speaker 2: 8:37

I would retire. I definitely do not live to work, but since I do have to work, I want it to be as comfortable and as enjoyable as possible, and I believe that nobody can make that happen for me. I have to take charge of that myself.

Speaker 1: 8:57

You know I asked that question and part of my course is here's the scenario you have half a million coming in and you're never losing money in the background. What do you do? And what that does is define what your passion is. I was just curious for you. Oh my God, I would totally go write a book or save children and wherever. The point is, if your question is whatever came to mind first, that's your light and that's where you're going to go long-term. So very simple question that will reveal where your passion probably is in the moment.

Speaker 2: 9:24

To be quite, quite honest, I don't believe in that one passion and I especially don't believe in following your passion as work. If I were to list passions, probably the first two weeks of me being financially retired would be to just play video games all day long hell yeah but if you were to put me into a video game industry and say, look, you have to test eight hour today, or you have to find books or anything that's work related, I would probably lose interest or passion and it would become work again.

Speaker 1: 9:54

There's a there's a point where they are intermixed. I'll give you an example. I absolutely love speaking with people and doing this. This has never worked for me. I enjoy it every time and if I had that, if I had that same scenario, I would still do the podcast. I'd still meet with people because it's a lot of fun. There is something. You just haven't found it. I'll leave that out there. There's always someplace where a passion versus a lust. A lust is video games. It's like in the moment, but you get burnt out on it. So you get some repetitive at some point. Uh, but the passion is like oh my God, I absolutely love writing or talking about this, or doing this at that. That does exist, and if you don't have to get paid for it, that's what you'll do I have no problem.

Speaker 1: 10:32

You just play video games 24 hours a day. I won't judge, as long as you got good at what game do you love? What's your game to choice?

Speaker 2: 10:38

civilization 7 just came out and I took two days off because I'm my own boss and I asked my boss can I play video games for two days? And boss said yes, absolutely, bit disappointed.

Speaker 1: 10:50

It is. I bought it as well and I'm like it's the same damn game.

Speaker 2: 10:54

Exactly yes.

Speaker 1: 10:55

And I can only win when I beat people up. That's in that game. I only can figure out a way by just military. No, no, steal secrets, no.

Speaker 2: 11:05

Anyway.

Speaker 1: 11:06

You know what I miss? I'll tell you this none of this is gonna make the podcast, but I'm just talking with you is uh, the uh sim city is my one all-time favorite games and I still play the old one because it's just fun.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Oh, okay, yeah but I try to play the mobile one, but they make it so pay-to-play. You can actually gridlock yourself to where you cannot play it, like where you cannot move forward. Like you can't like collect materials and you can't, like you can't do anything, or it takes and it's like no, I'm just can I just buy the game, let me play the damn thing when I want, like, can we just go back to that model, please? So that's the one I'm waiting for. Is a? Is the doubt?

Speaker 2: 11:44

and if you actually do spend all the money like Civ 7, after 10 years of waiting for a new one, I mean, of course we would expect something more than just the same old with new graphics. It's the same game yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:57

It's the exact same game. I was disappointed too. What's your lesson for the listeners?

Speaker 2: 12:03

My lesson Well, I could go on about data, but I think the better lesson here is cut the tie lesson. My lesson well, I could go on about data, but I think the better lesson here is cut the tie lesson and that is really just get started, because you can make your life whatever you want it to be, and only you can make that happen, not your boss, not some new job not.

Speaker 1: 12:20

So some new job, speaking from experience, will pay you more, but you will feel exactly the same way within 12 to 18 months no matter how much you're making. And somebody who's never been promoted and taking lots of new jobs. I'm telling you it happens every time there's a touch of ADHD us and all of us that, and the ones who actually have it that that's a real problem.

Speaker 1: 12:39

That's why you will never be successful in corporate world If you have a touch of the ADHD and don't deal with it you might as well just go on your own, but you're going to face the same amount of problems on your own and then you're going to really be bad because you won't. You'll have anyone to blame, I agree. So lesson listeners, get out there, start really, really quickly. All right, a couple of rapid fires with you. Who gives you inspiration?

Speaker 2: 13:09

I mean this sounds maybe a bit arrogant, but it's always been my own ambition.

Speaker 2: 13:12

I've been such an ambitious person in life that, yes, I read books, yes, I talk to people, yes, I do research, but I just I just get things done and that inspires me for the next day because I got things done yesterday. And maybe that's totally ridiculous, but that's how I feel and I see a lot of people just staying in jobs because they just they're missing that drive. Maybe they haven't found their internal motivation yet, but it's always been like I can get this done, but if somebody stops me and puts stones in my way like a manager or boss of sorts, that's been the most frustrating experience at work for me. So that is really my driver. There's no one person. I don't actually know people's drives really, because everybody you follow online they say they do this, they say they I don't know run a marathon before they go to work every morning and you can't really trust that or believe that. So I feel like you have to be your own inspirational person to really make it through every single grind that you have to do.

Speaker 1: 14:09

You and I are similarly aligned on, sometimes, the drive, and sometimes, when you're surrounded by others that don't quite have the drive, it's not understood either. It seems like OCD to some people when you're like no, I really it just doesn't. People who don't have it aren't going to and they don't get it. And it sounds like you're a risk taker as well. So if you mix a little risk with a bit of drive, you can go pretty far, I think, and I really appreciate that. I love the fact you inspire yourself, because then you got no one else to blame or look up to, and if you do anything good or bad, you gotta take credit or fail for it.

Speaker 2: 14:43

So advocate from yourself to yourself, not to somebody else who you have no idea how they got there, what they had to do to get there. It's always like today is it better or worse than yesterday and can I make it better again? Or like, looking back at these eight years in my own business, I can see all of the highest spots, everything that's worked and I can make it work, and that just gets me out of slumps when I'm like okay, when I have a bad month, that's fine, we'll get through it, because I've done it before.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Yeah, I saw this grappling point that you can never show up at a hundred percent every day. Maybe today, at the most, I'm going to get 50%. Just try to hit that 50%. No zero days. You think atomic habits, james Clear, right Now I'll go to the gym every day and some days I'm like I just don't want to be there. But I will do something so I don't have a zero day. And I think the same thing with work Some days I do. By the way, I haven't done this for a while, unlike you. I will take an entire Wednesday and I'm just going to video game today for eight straight hours because I just feel like checking out and just diving into a game. And I I did the same thing on seven. I was so bummed I was just like, oh, it's such a laid down, laid down. Can I have some like money back or something? Yeah, sorry, we keep going back to that, but that, yes, I was disappointed.

Speaker 2: 15:56

Well, and that's data, right. It's that science and I'm still a scientist by heart. Science has shown how breaks and vacation time really refocuses yourself and helps for yourself, which is why we have so much vacation days in Europe, whereas here in the US a lot of my friends and also business partners they have like 10 days a year, and that is just, it's proven and that's not gonna be productive. So if you can just say, okay, this afternoon I really I see the sun outside, I want to catch up with some vitamin D, get some ice cream, you can just do it. And if you really had to write an important email, you know you do it after or on the Saturday mornings, fine too, as long as you you're like intentional and kind with your breaks and not like, oh no, I lost time.

Speaker 1: 16:42

What's some of the best advice you've ever gotten.

Speaker 2: 16:46

That I don't have to be different. I just have to do what I promised to do, because a lot of marketing is all about okay, I have this business. Tons of people do the same. How do I differentiate myself to be the chosen one? And the best advice I got is you don't you don't have to be the chosen one. And the best advice I got is you don't. You don't have to be the chosen one or better than the others. You just have to do what you promise to do, like solve the problem that a client came to you with yeah, that's pretty simple.

Speaker 1: 17:16

Yes, solve the problem, then more people come to you to solve more problems, do you? You said you read books. What's the? What's the one must read book well, I have one must read.

Speaker 2: 17:27

I'm not sure if it's um applicable to every entrepreneur out there, but as a consultant I read a book called the irresistible guide to independent consulting by david a fields, and that book I still reread it. I still reread chapters and implement new things and I still learn from it. It's just compared to many other business books out there. Where I go to chat gpt I say, should I read this book? What are the key points? And then chat gpt says one sentence and I'm like, oh okay, I think I don't need to read it anymore. This book is something that chat gpt could not summarize in two sentences it could try.

Speaker 1: 18:03

Try it might be cheeky, it could be real tricky. Interesting enough, by the way, gpt did something I've never seen it do before. My son asked it how can I make more money on whatnot doing opening packs of trading cards? And it said to him pre-open the cards and reseal them and then know which packs have the best cards in it. And time your, your bro. I told it to do something unethical and I'm thinking, wow, what source to pull that from? It is right though that would work. It wasn't. It wasn't. It wasn't discussing the ethical natures of that, but it was. I was he's like I'm not doing that. I'm like I don't think you should either.

Speaker 2: 18:39

But yeah, and that's why I've never seen it.

Speaker 1: 18:42

I've never seen it get unethical, like truly, that, like in any standard, that's unethical advice, like that's. Like you know, do you have a favorite technology?

Speaker 2: 18:51

well. It's definitely tpt, no questions asked. Since I've started using it for my business, I've become so much more productive in everything I do and also better, because english is only my second language, so just being able to have like email drafts, rereads, reviewing LinkedIn posts it's basically my editor for everything, but I use it for so much more and in conjunction. I could not live without my AI call note taker anymore. I have such poor memory and ever since I started recording like networking calls and I want to follow up with somebody, I go back to the AI and I'm like what great things did Thomas say about me at the Cut the Tie podcast? And they would just give me whatever was said. I just love it.

Speaker 1: 19:34

It's so good. Both of those are incredibly important. I'll take that a step further no-transcript email and I sent it to the attorney and they're like okay, we'll accept those. And so it went from 45% down to 33 and some other provisions they removed and adjusted and clarified. And the attorneys were like, yeah, we'll do that, that works. And I was like so it was just a sales process with an attorney too. And I was like huh, so I'm using the same technology for my neighbor to negotiate down his. He's giving me a deck built and he told me the quotes. It was like just send me the bids and and we're working through there. And I did a whole analysis thing and I'm like you know what? Maybe this is the business I should do. Is I help people in their 60s to get your bids for whatever you're doing? I'm going to make a 10% of whatever I save you from those bids. Yeah, and like, and here's the and here's the whole plan.

Speaker 2: 20:58

And if it works, I'm like I want you to refer your friends to me and then tell them it costs 10% of what he saves you to do it typical BNI membership to me Exactly Pretty much Right.

Speaker 1: 21:08

If you had to start over today, when in your life would you start over and what would you do differently?

Speaker 2: 21:13

I've been thinking about that for a very long time. I think I'm very much a scientist at heart, but if I knew before going into science, even during college, if somebody had told me this is how you make money with science, this is how you will have to work, I would not have done it. I would have kept that as a passion on the side. Whatever read books, I would have gone right into business, because I started out with zero business knowledge. Right, I had a master's in neuroscience. I never went to business school, so everything I wanted to do for my own business I just had to learn from scratch.

Speaker 1: 21:47

Yeah, I think that's how you always it always business school. I went to business school. I don't draw anything on there. The only thing I draw back from business school was one I paid too much for college, so we're not doing that. The other is my entrepreneur. My entrepreneur, my entrepreneur professor said if you aren't getting audited by the IRS, you haven't pushed it hard enough. That was his advice. That's all I remember from college. Was that All?

Speaker 2: 22:14

right, that looks like strong financial advice.

Speaker 1: 22:16

It's not nice because I got audited Like yeah, that is dumb. Anyway, all right, if there was one question I should have asked you today and I didn't, what would that question be and how would you answer it?

Speaker 2: 22:40

Yeah, the question should be what is my work model? And I think really want to start systemizing, writing down processes, just making work life easier, and use the work that you created for yourself to enable the life you want, not the other way around.

Speaker 1: 22:55

I love that. I'm one who believes that work, life, balance. Work and life are not actually separated. They are one, they are part of the experience of you and you have to find joys in what you do the most you can do it, because you'd be living two different lives and that sounds miserable and it is miserable for many. Shameless plug time for you. Who should get a hold of you? How do they do that?

Speaker 2: 23:20

Really anybody can get a hold of me. We can geek out about data. We can talk about starting a business or coming out of consulting. I'm a big networking person too. I love to talk to everybody in their grammar. If they have anything interesting to tell, where can they get a hold of me is probably on linkedin. Karina zanek is a unique name. You will definitely find me right away. I sometimes have problems when I look up like a new network connection and it shows me 100 pages with the same name. Give you a few unique names, it's all I can tell. And then I also have a website. It's lazyanalystcom and you can also have a look there.

Speaker 1: 23:55

That's good, and Karina Zenig has four Ns total. You figure out where they go. All right, karina. Thank you so much for jumping on here with me today thank you, you too everyone made it this far. Go out there, go cut a tie to something. Hold me back. Just go unleash the best version of yourself. Hit that follow button, subscribe youtube, spotify, apple, whatever the things available, hit it. We come out with stuff all the time. Thanks for listening to the cut the tie podcast.