Macpreneur

Using a Mac as a Women's Fitness & Life Coach with Jen Rulon

• Damien Schreurs • Season 6 • Episode 127

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In this episode, you'll learn how Jen Rulon, a 15-time Ironman triathlete is using a Mac to run her fitness & life coaching  business.

Links and video version at https://macpreneur.com/episode127

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MP127 - Using a Mac as a Women's Fitness & Life Coach with Jen Rulon


Teaser

Jen Rulon: I learned that you can take your earbuds and place them on the Mac. There's a magnet on top that, if you need to leave to go to the bathroom, you can take your earbuds off and put them on the Mac, and they stay there. It's amazing.

Nova AI: Welcome to Macpreneur, the show for seasoned solopreneurs looking to streamline their business on a Mac. Unlock the secrets to saving time and money with your host and technology mentor, Damien Schreurs. 


Introduction to Jen Rulon

Damien Schreurs: Hello, hello! Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Jen Rulon. Jen is a 15-time Ironman triathlete and a 20-year triathlon coach.

She empowers women through transformative one-on-one and EmpowerHER group coaching.

Holding a master's degree in kinesiology, she has shared her expertise on TEDx, in Triathlete Magazine, and in Runner's World, and she is the author of the book "Self-Motivation Strategies for Women."

Known for her resilience, Jen competed in the 2017 Ironman World Championship in Kona.

Today, she helps women facing life transitions, such as menopause or rediscovering their purpose, by embracing fitness, mindset, and personal growth.

Jen's coaching blends grit, passion, and empowerment, supporting women on their journey to lasting strength and self-discovery.

Jen, welcome to the show.

Jen Rulon: Thanks for having me, Damien. That's a great introduction. I might have to steal that from you.

Damien Schreurs: Well, thank you for being on the show.


Jen's MacBook Journey

Damien Schreurs: So let's dive right into which Mac you use now to run your coaching and business. Mm

Jen Rulon: I have a MacBook Air. I used to have a MacBook Pro, which I still own, but it died on me when I was in Costa Rica. I live in Costa Rica, so it absolutely died on me. It was the larger MacBook Pro, and I had to go to a place called Pricemart, which is very much like a Costco in the States.

I had to spend some money to get the MacBook Air. Honestly, I love the MacBook Air. It's convenient for travel and allows me to do everything I need. However, the MacBook Pro can hold a lot more data, if that makes sense, compared to the MacBook Air. Yeah,

Damien Schreurs: In the pre-show, we also talked about how your old MacBook Pro had an Intel processor, and now you have the M1. How was the transition, and how do you like the M1 processor?

Jen Rulon: To be honest with you, I don't think I've noticed a significant difference. It's been so long since I've used the MacBook Pro that the transition felt natural to me. I think Apple does a really nice job of making it easy, especially for someone like me who is here to get work done and do things online, right?

I don't see the major differences that a tech person might understand.

Damien Schreurs: Very good. So, before the MacBook Pro, what did you have? When did you get your first Mac, actually?

Jen Rulon: Ooh, I got a desktop, and it was pretty much when I started jenrulon.com. I was already an iPhone user and truly fell in love with it. I think that's how we all feel about it. Then I thought, man, these PCs are sort of junky. I went to the Apple store because I had a friend who worked there in San Antonio, Texas.

I got my first desktop and used it for business expenses. I absolutely loved it. The nice thing about the desktop was that it was very big, simple, and streamlined. I didn’t have to take it everywhere.

That's what I loved about the desktop; when I was away from it, I didn't work. Laptops are a little different these days. 

Damien Schreurs: Yeah.


Adapting to Smaller Screens

Damien Schreurs: And how did you adapt or cope with the smaller screen of the MacBook Pro and now the MacBook Air compared to the old one?

Jen Rulon: Right? Well, I use lots of glasses now, being 53 years old, right? And, you know, I refuse to increase the font right now. I'm like, no, I'm not doing the font. I'm not increasing that. Even on my phone, I refuse to do that. But you're right. I mean, it went from the desktop to the Pro to the Air. And there are times when I'm like, is that what I'm reading?

So I will have to zoom in a little bit, but for the most part, it was an easy transition because I had no choice. You know, I had no choice because that MacBook Pro, I mean, it died. I took it back to Apple, and they did clean it up for me. From what I've gathered living in Costa Rica, I know that the humidity can really affect some of the computers.

So it's good to have a backup now.

Damien Schreurs: And you're also near the beach, so there's also sand.

Jen Rulon: Exactly, exactly, exactly. Yeah.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, but I don't know if you know this: Apple doesn't make any 27-inch desktops anymore, right? The biggest iMac they produce is a 24-inch, but they sell what they call the Studio Display. It's a 27-inch screen almost identical to the old iMac screen, which you can pair with the Mac Mini, the Mac Studio, and also all the MacBooks.

Actually, there is an iPhone chip inside the monitor, the Studio Display, because it has a built-in webcam with all the latest features that we have now on Macs. So that could be an option, right? You could have a 27-inch screen that you just plug your MacBook Air into when you are at your desk.

When you need to move away, there's just one cable to remove. You can also charge the MacBook Air from the Studio Display, and at the back of it, you have a bunch of ports, so you can even keep peripherals attached to the screen, like a backup disk or stuff like that.

So, that could be an option. There are cheaper alternatives in terms of monitors, but I think it's the best in terms of compatibility. It's a great option when you want more screen real estate but still want to stay in the Apple ecosystem.

Jen Rulon: Uh-huh. That makes sense. Yeah.


Favorite Applications and Tools

Damien Schreurs: So let's switch gears and talk about applications. On your MacBook Air now, which applications do you use the most?

Jen Rulon: A lot of the stuff that I do is online. I don't dive into the apps much. I mean, obviously, I'll use Zoom for my connections with my ladies. I do weekly calls with them. I actually have a VPN, which is very helpful for being in Costa Rica. This way, I can watch some Amazon Prime or Netflix if I want to, that type of thing. So I will do that.

For the most part, I'm trying to think when I do video editing; I do it all on my phone. I either make a video on my phone or do the video editing there, and then I might Airdrop it to my computer and put it on Canva. So it's online. For the most part, I don't use a lot of apps.

I do use what is it called? Fathom, but I don't think that's, and that's an AI note-taker, which is fantastic for my clients, but I believe that's mostly online as well.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, so there’s a local app, the Fathom app, that runs continuously on the Mac. You probably gave it access to your calendar, so it knows when you have Zoom meetings. What is nice about Fathom, because I use it from time to time as well, is that it will pop up in the top right corner a few minutes before the meeting.

And,

Jen Rulon: Yes. Yes.

Damien Schreurs: Actually, starting the Zoom session is very quick. You just click a button, and yeah, there is a local component. There is a Mac app component that lives most of the time in the menu bar at the top. But then Fathom is actually recording the Zoom session, and the recording is online. The summary, the transcriptions, and so on are accessed through the browser, right?

It's easy.

Jen Rulon: Exactly, exactly.

Damien Schreurs: What is nice, and what I discovered, is that Fathom can automatically send an email to the guests, to the other people in the Zoom session, with the link to the recording. Right? I think it's not fully automatic, but it’s because I have the free plan. I don’t know if you pay for it; I have the free plan, and it's not automatic, but there’s just a button to click. I can do that immediately after the meeting. I click the button, and then the other people get a link to the recording.

Jen Rulon: Sure.


Browser Preferences and Challenges

Damien Schreurs: So, since you're using mostly web services, what is your browser of choice then?

Jen Rulon: I use Safari, but I've noticed that on my MacBook Air, I can't open my documents or my downloads. They're on the desktop, and so I don't know; I can't save stuff from Safari. I have to go to Google Chrome to save. Once again, I've just gotten to a point where I'm like, if I have to download something, if I have to go to Canva or DocuSign, then I just go to Google Chrome and do that because I know it downloads to my computer.

So, Damien, I might need your help because I haven't figured it out. I've had this computer for a year and a half now, you know, and I'm just like, I don't have time. I have stuff to do; I have work to do, you know? I just sort of deal with it and put everything in one folder, you know, and then organize that folder, the Jen folder.

But yeah, I don't know what happened. I don't think I have space on the MacBook Air.

Damien Schreurs: I believe it's a setting in Safari where files get downloaded. By default, it should be the Downloads folder. It's possible to tell Safari to ask you every time. It's also possible that it's pointing to a folder that doesn't exist anymore. That means it goes nowhere, right? It can't be saved. And yeah, after the episode, you—

Jen Rulon: Because you're right; it will show in the corner, you know how it shows that it's downloading? It's like, where did it go? And then even when I do screenshots, I have to be like, no, no, no, no. I have to open it and then send it to myself. I'm like, okay, this is just complicated, but once again, I'm not a techie, you know?

And so I've just dealt with it, saying it's fine. I'll figure it out. So, Damien, I might have to contact you off camera. And you're right; now that I think about it, the Downloads folder isn't available, the Desktop folder isn't available, and the Documents folder isn't accessible. It says it's not accessible or something like that.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah.


Aha Moments and Tips

Damien Schreurs: So the next segment is your aha moment, a tip or trick that you discovered recently on your Mac.

Jen Rulon: Yeah, yeah. I was on TikTok because Instagram and TikTok have been my choices for social media recently, and TikTok has been blowing up. It's been fantastic. I learned that you could take your earbuds and put them on the Mac. There's a magnet on top that, if you have to leave to go to the bathroom, you can take your earbuds off and put them on the Mac, and they stay there. It's amazing.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah. That's a neat trick because—

Jen Rulon: Yeah.

Damien Schreurs: For me, they're either in my ears or in the AirPods case.

Jen Rulon: In the case.

Damien Schreurs: As soon as I put them somewhere else, I'm definitely going to lose them.

Jen Rulon: Right. Right. Yeah. But there have been times when I'm going from podcast to podcast or a client call to a podcast, then back to a client call. If I have to do something, I'd rather just take the earbuds out because they've been in my ears for, you know, two or three hours. I just pop them out, and then it's time to charge.

It would be nice if they charged at that time too, on that magnet strip. Maybe that's the next thing, Apple: start charging the earbuds on that magnet strip.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, that would be cool.

Jen Rulon: Yeah.

Damien Schreurs: So we're almost at the end of the show.


Jen's Wishlist for Apple

Damien Schreurs: And if you were in charge of the Mac division at Apple, what would be your first priority? What would you ask your team to do?

Jen Rulon: I mean, I'm not sponsored by Apple or Mac, but they do a great job for people like me, you know? First of all, I have to give them props for that. And if they want to send me a new Mac or MacBook, that's great. However, I feel like a lot of the apps that I use are a little bit harder to use on MacBooks. I’m going to say it: Word and Excel. So I usually go to Google Docs to do all of that stuff, which, in reality, is a little bit easier, you know? I understand Apple has its own version; I'm just so used to the Microsoft Word version.

You know, that type of thing. It would be nice if there were some resources available to help me, but maybe it's just because I haven't educated myself on the Mac.

Damien Schreurs: Yeah. Yeah. Numbers.

Jen Rulon: And stuff like that. It's probably that. So, how can my team educate those people who are so used to Word and Excel spreadsheets, like Microsoft? How can we make it easier and quicker to navigate through the web or each computer, you know?

Damien Schreurs: Yeah, it's a completely different paradigm. The interfaces of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are different. It's a little bit like the Office suite—Excel, Word, and PowerPoint—where the interface looks the same; it's just the color that changes. For Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, it's the same concept, but it’s a totally different kind of user interface compared to the Office suite. The issue we have now with those tools is that to share documents or collaborate with others, they need to have an Apple device and an Apple account, because it's through iCloud that everything syncs and so on. So, yeah, that would be one of my things, or one of the items on my wishlist: that they would be able to do more cross-platform sharing.

Jen Rulon: Yes.

Damien Schreurs: This is why I think you are using Google Docs and Google Sheets, because it's much easier to collaborate with people all around the world.

They just need a browser, and that's it. Technically, it's also possible to edit a Keynote document or Pages document via a browser, through the web version of iCloud. But again, people need to know that; they still need to have an Apple account, even if it's a free one. And it's not as user-friendly as using a desktop application.

Jen Rulon: It's a lot easier for me to share. I do a lot of writing for magazines and different mediums, so it's a lot easier for me to share what I want with my marketing team. I can just send them a link instead of sending the whole document, which could mess up the formatting and fonts. So, it's a lot easier for me to send a Google document versus a Word or Pages document because not everybody has those two.

Damien Schreurs: Very good. Thank you very much, Jen.


Where to Find Jen Online

Damien Schreurs: Where can people find you online?

Jen Rulon: Of course, you can visit my website, jenrulon.com. It is nice and fresh for the 2025 season, and it was way overdue. You can also find me on Instagram at Coach Jen Rulon, R-U-L-O-N, and I'm on TikTok as well. You can search for Coach Jen Rulon there. I'm also on Facebook, but I'm definitely not as active.

Damien Schreurs: Well, thank you, Jen. It was really nice to discover how you use your Mac.

Jen Rulon: Thank you, Damien. I appreciate it.

Damien Schreurs: My pleasure.


Applying to be a guest too

Damien Schreurs: So, if you would like to share how you're using your Mac to run your solopreneur business, like Jen, it's simple. 

Just visit macpreneur.com/apply. 

If you are already on Podmatch, just click the button, and you will land on the show profile. 

Otherwise, fill out the application form, and I will get back to you within a few days.

Once again, it's macpreneur.com/apply.


Outro

Damien Schreurs: If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a fellow solopreneur and tag Jen and me on Instagram.

Until next time, I'm Damien Schreurs, wishing you a great day!

Nova AI: Thank you for listening to the Macpreneur Podcast. If you've enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with a friend right now.