Shownotes
Feeling burned out or stuck in a business that no longer brings you joy?
Ready to grow without sacrificing what matters most?
In this inaugural episode of "The Business You Really Want," hosts Gwen Bortner and Tonya Kubo tackle the emerging trend of entrepreneurs "burning down" their businesses to start over (or call it quits). Drawing from Gwen's 40 years of cross-industry experience, they offer a fresh perspective on building sustainable success without sacrificing your values or sanity.
Listen for these juicy nuggets:
- 2:41 - The genesis of the podcast and why it's needed now
- 5:45 - The problem with the "burn it down" approach
- 9:45 - Marketing's limitations in solving systemic issues
- 13:36 - The importance of defining success on your own terms
- 18:21 - Real-life examples of misaligned business growth
- 24:32 - The courage required to redefine success
- 27:34 - The value of outside perspective in solving critical business problems
Does this episode hit a little too close to home? Try this:
- Before making drastic changes, identify what success really means for you
- Look beyond your product and marketing to find the root cause of your problems
- Seek outside perspectives, if necessary, to discover alternatives you might not have considered
- Focus on aligning your business with your values and goals
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review.
Check out Episode 2, where Gwen and Tonya cover practical steps to assess and transform your business model.
Have questions? Email Tonya at tonya@everydayeffectiveness.com to potentially have your question featured in a future episode.
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__________
Connect with Gwen:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gwen-bortner/
Connect with Tonya:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyakubo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTonyaKubo
Instagram: https://instagram.com/tonyakubo
Twitter/X: https://x.com/tonyakubo
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@tonyakubo
#podcast #entrepreneurship #businessadvice
Transcripts
Are you feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or uncertain about how
Speaker:to grow your business without sacrificing what really matters most?
Speaker:Welcome to The Business You Really Want, the show for women ready to build
Speaker:a sustainable, fully aligned business.
Speaker:Aligned with what, you ask?
Speaker:You.
Speaker:Your values.
Speaker:Your life.
Speaker:Seriously.
Speaker:It is possible.
Speaker:I'm Tonya Kubo, and along with business advisor extraordinaire Gwynn
Speaker:Bortner, we're here to show you how.
Speaker:is burning your business to the ground the only way to rise from
Speaker:the ashes of unsustainable success?
Speaker:or to avoid financial disaster.
Speaker:Sure, that's one way to escape the oppressive weight of a business you're
Speaker:starting to resent, but we're here to tell you it is not the only way.
Speaker:In fact, the reason that we are here addressing you is to talk about
Speaker:this current trend That we see of business owners publicly admitting
Speaker:to burning out and starting over.
Speaker:My name is Tonya Kubo, and I'm the Chief Marketing and Operations
Speaker:Officer of Everyday Effectiveness.
Speaker:And with me is Gwen Bortner, our founder and CEO, who has, I think we have
Speaker:established a, verifiable boatload of experience in business and operations.
Speaker:And We've been having some conversations privately that we have decided to
Speaker:bring into a public forum because when we're looking at this trend
Speaker:of business owners coming out and talking about how they've blown their
Speaker:businesses to the ground, we're seeing some creeping holes that it doesn't
Speaker:seem like anybody else is discussing.
Speaker:So that's what brings us here today.
Speaker:The podcast that you're listening to is called The Business That You Really Want.
Speaker:And today I want to dig in with you on why this podcast, why now?
Speaker:And to start off with, Gwen, why don't you tell me and tell everybody else because
Speaker:I'm the one who came to you going, Gwen, Gwen, here's another story about this
Speaker:thing and this person and they said this and you have to listen to this podcast.
Speaker:You have to watch this YouTube video.
Speaker:You need to read this blog.
Speaker:You were very sweet and very gracious, I think the first three times.
Speaker:And then by about time five or six, you're like, Tonya,
Speaker:Tonya, we got to say something.
Speaker:Pick up from there, Gwen, and help us understand how the podcast came to be.
Speaker:have been talking about a podcast I think since maybe day three of you working with
Speaker:me, but part of my hesitation is we don't need to just Put more content out there.
Speaker:we don't need to speak into the void.
Speaker:You know, let's, let's make sure that we're really saying something that
Speaker:actually is a value that, that is, is useful to, to the listeners and something
Speaker:that they can, can do something with.
Speaker:And as you were bringing all of these examples of.
Speaker:People burning down their businesses and then, rising from the ashes.
Speaker:And of course this didn't surprise you at all.
Speaker:Cause it's often my answer to most things is like, yep, that
Speaker:was an operations problem.
Speaker:They didn't need to go there.
Speaker:That was an operations problem.
Speaker:And so as we were talking about that, what I know we got to and, It's been
Speaker:happening more and more, as we've been working together, and you all quite
Speaker:honestly helped me see it, is, I have this depth and breadth and wealth
Speaker:of experience of practically nearly
Speaker:40 years of experience, but also, about 40 plus.
Speaker:Industries of completely different industries,
Speaker:all of it in that operations world, I've seen so many things.
Speaker:And what I'm seeing with all of these is like, these were avoidable problems.
Speaker:We didn't have to let it get to the point that we absolutely
Speaker:need to burn the business down.
Speaker:And even when it was at that point, burning it clear down.
Speaker:Rarely is the answer.
Speaker:I've seen many times people will burn their business down and when they build
Speaker:it up, they build up basically the same thing, which they then need to burn down.
Speaker:And they, and, and so it it becomes, you know, kind of that, you know,
Speaker:definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again,
Speaker:expecting to get a different result.
Speaker:A lot of times it's tweaks.
Speaker:And the thing is, is that really outstanding entrepreneurs.
Speaker:Typically, now this is a giant generalization, which I don't like
Speaker:to do, but you know, here we go, typically are really thoughtful and,
Speaker:very intentional about what they do with their product and their marketing,
Speaker:because that's where they're starting and that's, what's got them excited.
Speaker:And they've got lots of energy around that.
Speaker:And whenever there's a problem, they look at their product.
Speaker:And their marketing because that's what got them success.
Speaker:So that must be also where the fix is, but rarely once
Speaker:they've got a level of success.
Speaker:Is that actually the problem anymore?
Speaker:It may feel like a problem because it may not be delivering the same way,
Speaker:but it's usually not the problem.
Speaker:The problem is the place that has been built behind the scenes,
Speaker:mostly in a reactionary mode.
Speaker:Oh, I need to have an accounting system.
Speaker:Oh, well, I'll just buy this.
Speaker:Oh, I need to have this.
Speaker:Oh, I need to buy that.
Speaker:Oh, I need to hire a person.
Speaker:Okay, here's my hiring.
Speaker:and so it's all reactionary.
Speaker:And often they've made the best choice they have based on the
Speaker:information that they've got.
Speaker:And so no one thinks to look back there because it's like,
Speaker:well, how else would I do it?
Speaker:This is the only way that makes sense.
Speaker:This is the only way that I can do it.
Speaker:And back to someone who has a giant toolbox can say, Oh, no,
Speaker:no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker:There, there are like eight different ways to do this.
Speaker:And I know this seems the most intuitive, natural way to do it, but
Speaker:that's obviously not aligning with what you need out of this business.
Speaker:And so that's what I saw with almost every one of these conversations
Speaker:of burning down the business was.
Speaker:They didn't know that there were other choices and they felt like the only way
Speaker:To get to other choices was to start clear back, you know, practically at
Speaker:ground zero or sometimes at ground zero.
Speaker:And the problem that I've seen historically over, you know, literally
Speaker:decades is often when someone burns the business down, all they do is
Speaker:grow it back to the same level and functionally have the same problems.
Speaker:And so then they burn it down again, where if they really wanted to go
Speaker:more, not saying that's the right answer, because it's not always the
Speaker:right answer, but if they want more.
Speaker:We need to change things and it needs to be done differently, but
Speaker:they keep putting the same processes and systems and behaviors in place.
Speaker:And so, you know, it's kind of that whole definition of insanity.
Speaker:They keep doing the same thing, expecting to get different, different results.
Speaker:But the reality was.
Speaker:No, this needs to be discussed because what I am truly afraid of is that some
Speaker:of these people are saying, so I burned out my business and I'm starting again.
Speaker:It's like, yeah, and you're going right down the exact same path.
Speaker:I see that so much.
Speaker:And what you identified for me, when we started working together was I see things
Speaker:so differently than a lot of people.
Speaker:And because it's in my head, I don't see it as different.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:perfectly normal to me that this, this is the thing.
Speaker:And as you've made me more aware, I've become more conscious of.
Speaker:I really think about a lot of the things that people are talking about
Speaker:on the internet and in the world of operations and in lots of different
Speaker:environments in a very different way, often contrary to what is, you know,
Speaker:the information that everyone says, Oh, you know, this is best practice.
Speaker:And it's like, I'm not actually convinced that's true.
Speaker:and so that was really the basis for us starting, the business you really
Speaker:want, because We know, because we've seen it with our own clients, that you
Speaker:really can build the business that you really, really want, but you probably
Speaker:don't have all the information and tools, because most of us only know
Speaker:the way that we've been doing it.
Speaker:That's the way we do it, right?
Speaker:and often we don't think there's alternatives, but, the example I use all
Speaker:the time is my toolbox is really big.
Speaker:I not only have, a hammer and a screwdriver and a wrench, but I
Speaker:have multiple hammers and multiple screwdrivers and multiple wrenches.
Speaker:And I understand how they all are designed to use.
Speaker:And I also know how they can be used, which may be different than their
Speaker:original purpose and when that's actually going to provide value.
Speaker:And that's what we're trying to do with this podcast is to start revealing new
Speaker:ways of thinking, alternative ideas, providing options that some people
Speaker:may have never even heard of before.
Speaker:And rarely does that mean that you have to change your product or your marketing,
Speaker:but it often has to change the way that you do the business, the way the
Speaker:business runs, the way the engine that's driving the business often has to change.
Speaker:And I often have ideas and statements that when I say them, people will say to me.
Speaker:No one has ever said that to me before.
Speaker:And so I want to say the things that no one's ever said to you before.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, you know, it's funny, because as you're talking about the operations
Speaker:side, as a marketing professional, I love it because I know that there are
Speaker:a lot of things that marketing is great for solving, and then there's a lot of
Speaker:problems that marketing will make worse.
Speaker:And
Speaker:We marketing professionals just like to act.
Speaker:We like to act.
Speaker:Like, we can solve everything.
Speaker:Like, world peace, we got it.
Speaker:End of hunger, we got that too.
Speaker:Third world countries getting electricity and freedom?
Speaker:Yeah, we can do it.
Speaker:And we can't.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Because some problems are systemic and they're structures.
Speaker:And so I love the fact that I was able to see these examples
Speaker:and then unpack them with you.
Speaker:And I feel like these are great things to unpack for our listeners,
Speaker:because as you said, it's going to provide fresh perspective.
Speaker:It's gonna, you know, hopefully make people think about something
Speaker:they haven't thought about before because nobody's ever mentioned it.
Speaker:So back to setting the stage for the conversation.
Speaker:You know, I noticed some big shifts in online business about two years ago.
Speaker:And what I would, you know, post pandemic as everybody was coming out
Speaker:of the pandemic, cause All of business, all of the world really did experience
Speaker:a major shift with the pandemic.
Speaker:And that wasn't about anybody being good at business, bad at business.
Speaker:That was about the world coming to a standstill.
Speaker:So as people came out of the pandemic, we saw all sorts of weirdness going on.
Speaker:And I always talk about how, you know, I'm really old in internet
Speaker:years because I've been at this online thing since 2007 one of the things
Speaker:that I had noticed were some of those really, like, big name influencers.
Speaker:And I always say, you know, they weren't people I knew as in we were friends, but
Speaker:I watched them on YouTube, I followed them on Instagram, I gave them hearts.
Speaker:Like, I felt like I knew a lot about them, even though as somebody who
Speaker:does marketing for a living can tell you that I know that not everything
Speaker:on social media is the truth.
Speaker:But what I started to see were people.
Speaker:These professionals coming out and admitting that what they had been
Speaker:sharing on social media wasn't true, that things were hard, you know, that
Speaker:when they said they were having a tough day, that tough day actually meant that
Speaker:revenue was down 10 K for the week, that when they said they were having, you
Speaker:know, a hard time with staffing, it was because they had to 15 team members.
Speaker:And, I think it's important for us to both say, but for me to say on
Speaker:our behalf, that I have a lot of respect for the courage it takes to
Speaker:say these things out loud in public.
Speaker:To admit, I grew this big team, and I had to lay them all off because
Speaker:either I recognized that I didn't want to, To have a team that payroll
Speaker:got to be too much that, you know, business got to be too unstable.
Speaker:I was bad leader, whatever the reason is.
Speaker:I know for some people it was merely they were tight.
Speaker:They were content creators.
Speaker:They were just tired of feeding the content machine.
Speaker:I have a lot of respect for that.
Speaker:I also don't like positioning When, when one person does a thing, it's
Speaker:like, Hmm, that's interesting.
Speaker:I'm so sad that happened to them.
Speaker:When three people do a thing, suddenly it feels like a trend.
Speaker:And when three people do a thing, they talk about in the same way and they
Speaker:have the same solution, which is I had to burn my business to the ground
Speaker:and build it up, then that starts to sound like the only way out and that's
Speaker:the part that I think is, that made me go from seriously, Gwen, does the
Speaker:world really need another podcast to.
Speaker:Oh my gosh, Gwen.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Not only do you need this podcast, but we need this podcast together because there's
Speaker:a lot that we can unpack with each other.
Speaker:Mm
Speaker:And that really is the key to the whole thing is, we each bring our
Speaker:perspective into the conversation.
Speaker:And you often are the one that helps me say.
Speaker:Oh, not everybody sees that?
Speaker:because you ask really great questions.
Speaker:And so then I Try to provide equally great answers.
Speaker:I'm not sure I always win on that, but, um, but that, that, that's the
Speaker:piece of, of being able to look at it from a very different perspective and
Speaker:say, yeah, that is an alternative.
Speaker:And it's not necessarily, it's not about right or wrong.
Speaker:Cause I, I really dislike the, well, that's the wrong way to do it.
Speaker:Because no, that's not necessarily true.
Speaker:That, that is a way to do it.
Speaker:Um, but there are possibly other ways and.
Speaker:Would any of these other ways have served you, them, whoever,
Speaker:better, is always my question.
Speaker:the first question I have for you is, so you, you say that
Speaker:burning it down is an approach.
Speaker:And I think you've said sometimes that On occasion, that
Speaker:really is what you should do.
Speaker:That makes the most sense.
Speaker:It's the cheapest, fastest solution.
Speaker:But in several cases, it's not.
Speaker:So I would like you to share with me and everybody who's watching or
Speaker:listening, what are the limitations or drawbacks of the burn it down approach
Speaker:when you encounter what I will call overwhelming business challenges?
Speaker:So a lot of times the problem with burning it down is you're not
Speaker:actually understanding what the root cause of the overwhelm was,
Speaker:which means you're likely to recreate that scenario in a similar, sometimes
Speaker:almost, identical, but sometimes a very subtle, but actually, Similar way.
Speaker:And so if you're not really understanding what caused it, how did you get there?
Speaker:What were those pieces?
Speaker:then the big challenge is all of a sudden you burn it down, you build it up.
Speaker:and there's a point it's like.
Speaker:Wait a second.
Speaker:This is feeling familiar in a not very happy way, right?
Speaker:and so then what's your solution?
Speaker:Well, the only solution you have is to burn it down and start over.
Speaker:And so we get into this loop of not ever actually getting to the new answer.
Speaker:But I think that happens because, most entrepreneurs are very visionary.
Speaker:They're very intentional about how they think about their marketing and
Speaker:their product, and they have lots of energy, and excitement toward that.
Speaker:But the operations, all of the engine running the business behind the
Speaker:scenes, is created as a reaction.
Speaker:As almost an afterthought, right?
Speaker:Oh, we need to have an accounting system.
Speaker:Okay, we're going to use this.
Speaker:Oh, we need to have a CRM.
Speaker:Oh, we're going to use this.
Speaker:and so things just get happening along the way.
Speaker:And when, they get to this point of overwhelm, they assume that all of
Speaker:these decisions that they made back here in the behind the scenes part
Speaker:of the business, the non customer facing side, which is what I consider
Speaker:operations, anything that's not.
Speaker:You know, customer facing, uh, they, they think, well, but this is my only option.
Speaker:This is what I have to do.
Speaker:And unless you've been around lots of different examples, there just
Speaker:doesn't seem like there's any other, uh, other choice, but someone like
Speaker:myself, who's seen lots of things can say, yeah, what if we did it this way?
Speaker:And often, That gets us to where we're getting into the root
Speaker:of what the actual problem is.
Speaker:And now we aren't having to completely start from scratch again.
Speaker:We're able to come up with an alternative way where we're going
Speaker:to make, a twist and, and, you know, the world is calling it a pivot, but
Speaker:it's not even necessarily a pivot.
Speaker:Sometimes it's a systems change.
Speaker:Sometimes it's a slightly different approach.
Speaker:It's not necessarily a pivot in the way, you know, that people have been,
Speaker:been using it, uh, particularly, you know, in the last couple of years.
Speaker:And it's been around for the last four or five years.
Speaker:But it's a way to start thinking differently and to see, what if there
Speaker:are some alternatives on how we do this?
Speaker:And as I've listened to some of these podcasts, there's many times
Speaker:where I can hear, it's like, Oh, first off, we never had to get there.
Speaker:You know, we're following some predetermined path.
Speaker:And then when they start talking about how they're undoing it and burning
Speaker:it down, it's like, yeah, we didn't actually have to do that either.
Speaker:Now, it's not that you don't have to make some major changes, usually you
Speaker:do, but it doesn't necessarily mean taking it clear down to the ground.
Speaker:Yeah, well, and what that reminds me of is because one creator, that I had listened
Speaker:to, one of the first that had come out.
Speaker:she had talked about how she was actually embarrassed.
Speaker:She took a step back because she had gotten embarrassed because she was
Speaker:very transparent with her community, with her audience, and she had laid
Speaker:off her staff like three times.
Speaker:So she'd laid off the staff, built it back up over say a year to 18 months, laid
Speaker:everybody off again, rinse and repeat.
Speaker:she talked about how, she was a bad leader.
Speaker:she was hiring all these people to scale out a business that she'd
Speaker:never stopped to think about whether she actually wanted to run that
Speaker:business that she was building toward.
Speaker:And in her specific case, she was also building it out in a way that
Speaker:she was just trusting people who said, well, this is how you have to do it.
Speaker:And so she couldn't even answer to herself why she was doing things
Speaker:the way that she was doing them.
Speaker:So when things got hard, There was nothing to convince herself
Speaker:to do anything differently.
Speaker:And it had caught my attention because I was having a private conversation with
Speaker:a business owner who had taken two years off and was coming back and, was talking
Speaker:to me about how they were rebuilding.
Speaker:And I said, well, you know, last I heard you had this really successful agency
Speaker:and what led you to shut down the agency?
Speaker:And she said, you know what?
Speaker:It was a successful agency until it wasn't.
Speaker:And the problem was, I was doing the agency and I was
Speaker:doing all the strategy, right?
Speaker:And then I had a couple of people who would just help with
Speaker:project management sort of stuff.
Speaker:And that worked fine, but I'd taken this course or signed onto a program, whatever
Speaker:it was, I don't remember it specifically.
Speaker:And she said, and they were telling me how I really needed to
Speaker:do was a group coaching program.
Speaker:but I didn't have time for that.
Speaker:So then they said, well, you just need to hire all these coaches.
Speaker:And she's like, and that's where I got in over my head because first of
Speaker:all, I liked working with my clients and I was no longer doing that.
Speaker:And second, I was having to sell to make payroll because I had to, before
Speaker:I could be excited about a cohort of eight or a cohort of 16, whatever I had,
Speaker:but now I had to have eight in order to break even for that coach's salary.
Speaker:And then I had to have 16 if I wanted to bring home any money.
Speaker:I made myself sick.
Speaker:I got an ulcer.
Speaker:I had to tap out and now I've realized I just want to be a solopreneur.
Speaker:in both of those cases, what I kept hearing is either I hire bad people, or
Speaker:I don't know how to hire good people, or I'm not cut out to lead people.
Speaker:And what you helped me to realize, and I want you to talk a little bit about this.
Speaker:and then I'm going to lead that up to my next question is that, well, that depends
Speaker:on whether you are actually reconsidering or at least reimagining who you're
Speaker:hiring, what roles you're hiring, right?
Speaker:There's a difference between I have to hire people and this
Speaker:is the exact position I need.
Speaker:This is what it fills.
Speaker:You know, can you finish that?
Speaker:Cause obviously my brain is a little foggy on memory here.
Speaker:Well, and the first thing that struck me, and then I'll get to, I'll actually answer
Speaker:the question that you asked at the end.
Speaker:But the first thing that struck me is What is the business you really want?
Speaker:Not the business that the world is telling you you're supposed to have.
Speaker:Not the business that your family wants you to have.
Speaker:Society wants you to have.
Speaker:The culture says you're supposed to have.
Speaker:You know, fill in the, all of the should, shoulds and who's.
Speaker:Um, but what actually defines real success for you?
Speaker:That's not going to look the same to everybody, but when you get really
Speaker:clear on that, that's when you can start designing the engine that's driving
Speaker:your business, which is how I think about, the backside of the business,
Speaker:the operation side of the business.
Speaker:You can design that to be fully aligned with the piece that you really want.
Speaker:And then that makes you answer all of these other questions differently.
Speaker:Because maybe what, even if you're outstanding at managing people,
Speaker:maybe you're at a point it's like, I don't want to manage people.
Speaker:And so I'm going to keep the business smaller so I don't have to manage a team.
Speaker:or I really want to grow a business in a way.
Speaker:And so in that case, I am going to need to manage people.
Speaker:Do I have all the right skills?
Speaker:What are the exact right roles that I need to hire to be able to create this business
Speaker:that I really want, not the business that people say that we have to have.
Speaker:as you were talking, it reminded me of, one of the classic things you
Speaker:hear people say all the time is, Oh, well, that's low level work.
Speaker:You shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker:You're laughing because you know what I'm going to say.
Speaker:Um, to some degree.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:But is it low level work that you really love?
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Are you giving up all the things that you love in the business
Speaker:to create somebody else's definition of success?
Speaker:Well, that doesn't seem fairly successful to me, if you're
Speaker:actually not happy with anything that you're doing in the business.
Speaker:And so to me, that's where this becomes the bigger question.
Speaker:It's not about, you know, who you hire, do you hire, when you hire, but it's what
Speaker:really is going to define success for you.
Speaker:And based on that, then let's make choices that align with that.
Speaker:So you can feel successful and still really enjoy and be aligned with
Speaker:yourself and the business and not just doing it because people say,
Speaker:that's what success looks like,
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And I think that's so important.
Speaker:It also takes a boatload of courage.
Speaker:I mean, it
Speaker:Oh yes,
Speaker:Because I'm thinking of a lot of people who reach this point.
Speaker:They're sitting in rooms that they paid a lot of money to be in.
Speaker:Whether it's, a 10, 000 coaching program, 25, 000 coaching program, to
Speaker:sit in those rooms and hear everybody else say, like, I'm gonna hit 10
Speaker:million this year, or I'm gonna expand my staff to 20, and to sit there and
Speaker:confidently say, that's not my dream.
Speaker:My goal this year is to maintain my expenses and increase my profitability
Speaker:by five percent, or my goal is actually to keep the revenue the same as last
Speaker:year, but to take an extra two weeks off.
Speaker:that's not easy to do in this bigger is better culture.
Speaker:Oh yeah, right.
Speaker:And the bigger is better culture is part of the problem,
Speaker:but also not understanding.
Speaker:What all the bigger that goes with the better or not better
Speaker:part of the culture, right?
Speaker:I mean, everyone's like, oh, bigger is better.
Speaker:It's like, yeah, bigger is bigger.
Speaker:And better is better.
Speaker:And those aren't necessarily the same things.
Speaker:and your definition of better and my definition of better may not be the same.
Speaker:We probably have similar definitions of bigger, but better is so subjective.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What really is better?
Speaker:And, and I am back to.
Speaker:You know, I'm kind of harping on it, but really it's the, it's the title of
Speaker:the podcast, what do you really want?
Speaker:And getting comfortable with knowing what you want and why that
Speaker:actually is successful for you.
Speaker:Keeping in mind that that doesn't have to be your answer forever.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:doesn't even have to be your answer for, three or four years.
Speaker:That might only be the answer for this year.
Speaker:Next year can have a different answer.
Speaker:and, and so for me, this is really that key element of
Speaker:before we burn down the business,
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:were we actually having the success that we wanted?
Speaker:Mm
Speaker:Or was it the success that somebody else wanted for us?
Speaker:And therefore we've got no joy left in the business.
Speaker:So that's when you need access to someone who has more than one hammer.
Speaker:that's really what it is, and that's where I find most of my clients
Speaker:get the most value is when I share something, it's like, yeah, I would
Speaker:have never even thought of that.
Speaker:They just don't have the knowledge, experience, whatever, that
Speaker:that would even occur to them.
Speaker:As a possibility.
Speaker:And that's where outside conversations really provide value and why, quite
Speaker:honestly, we're doing the podcast.
Speaker:So you hear someone's like, wow, I didn't even know that was a possibility.
Speaker:That would have never occurred to me.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:okay.
Speaker:I, like, I think that's it.
Speaker:That's the mic drop right there.
Speaker:so,
Speaker:that really is what this is about.
Speaker:It's about, if I can summarize, if that's okay, this is about getting really clear
Speaker:on what you want, why you want it, and opening your eyes to the possibility.
Speaker:That that's possible without sacrificing your values, your sleep, your health,
Speaker:whatever those priorities are for you.
Speaker:Yeah, our purpose for the podcast is to serve business owners.
Speaker:And help them see that there are options that they may not even know exist
Speaker:because they're not typical.
Speaker:They're not common wisdom.
Speaker:They're not, quote unquote best practices.
Speaker:That one always makes me nervous.
Speaker:and part of the reason that they can't figure it out is because they
Speaker:just don't have the basis for, for
Speaker:figuring it out.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I mean,
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:This just came to me.
Speaker:It's like, how would you know to tie a shoe in a bow if you've never
Speaker:ever seen a shoe tied in a bow,
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:So, I really where we landed here because I, I feel like we've
Speaker:laid a solid foundation of what listeners can expect moving forward.
Speaker:And you know, we've talked about those limitations and drawbacks
Speaker:of the burn it down approach.
Speaker:I think if you take nothing else from this episode, it's that even if you
Speaker:feel like you are underwater with your business, you are physically
Speaker:exhausted, you are burned out, burning it down is not the only answer.
Speaker:Now, it may be the best answer for you, and that's okay, we support you.
Speaker:But it's not the only answer.
Speaker:There are some other options out there.
Speaker:You just need to be aware that they exist, and that's part of what we'll be doing.
Speaker:Now, in future episodes, we're going to talk a little bit more about the different
Speaker:functions that make up operations, because I think that's important,
Speaker:You as a listener or viewer have an opportunity to speak
Speaker:into our future episodes.
Speaker:So if you have questions about your business and you're looking
Speaker:for a fresh perspective, I would love to get an email from you.
Speaker:And you can email me directly, like, it doesn't go through a customer
Speaker:service line or anything like that, we don't have a ticketing system,
Speaker:we're real low key around here.
Speaker:You can
Speaker:just email Tonya at everydayeffectiveness.
Speaker:com, that's T O N Y A.
Speaker:It'll be written correctly in the show notes, I
Speaker:hope.
Speaker:But, Tonya at everydayeffectiveness.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:I'll make sure you get an answer.
Speaker:Whatever your question is, I will hunt down an answer for you if it's within
Speaker:my power or Gwen's power, and we might even make it a focus of a future episode.
Speaker:I
