What To Do When You Feel Like Burning Down Or Quitting Your Business

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[00:00:16] Lauren: This is The Biz Doctor Podcast. And I’m your host, Lauren Goldstein.

Welcome back to the show. In today’s episode, I [00:00:30] wanna talk about something that was sparked during a recent conversation I had with a friend who told me that she burned down her seven figure business and walked away because she couldn’t do it. I hinted at this episode in our last episode when I went on my soapbox about building a business around your life, not the other way around.

So indulge me for a moment to refresh that conversation. I want this to be a moment of permission for you to have whatever business you want to have, whether it’s a lifestyle business, or a seven figure business. There’s no cookie cutter [00:01:00] perfect business except the one you want to have. So if you’re slogging it out, feeling burned out and asking yourself if it’s all worth it.

The answer is it’s a hundred percent worth it. But you need to be crystal clear on the life your business is creating and fitting into. We are not put on this planet to eat, sleep, work, and die. We are here to make an impact and live. So promise me you’ll build a business around your life, not the other way around.

Okay, now that we got that outta the way, let’s talk about burnout and how to mitigate that [00:01:30] risk. Now, this might shock you, but sadly, I’ve seen this happen more times than not with business owners who get burned out and then either unintentionally or intentionally burn down their business. My goal with today’s episode is to help you not do that and fight the flames before your business or you goes up and smoke.

Let me set the stage. You’ve built the business, you’ve the proven product and customer process. You might even have a team, but you feel like you’re drowning. Like you spend most of your days putting out fires or [00:02:00] chasing your tail instead of doing what you love and are good at, which coincidentally is why you started your business in the first place.

So instead of progress in your business, you feel like you’re in a hamster wheel of. Sound familiar? Well, that’s when the thoughts start creeping in. Why am I doing this? Am I ever going to get out from under this business? Do I have the right teeth? Heck, do I even know what I’m really doing? Or am I just faking it?

Hello, imposter syndrome. Gosh, I really need a vacation, but I can’t actually take one because then [00:02:30] the business would stop. Or worse, I would be even more behind than when I got back. What if I just quit it all and go live in a cabin in the woods without internet or any version? Trust me, I have been there and so have my clients.

The good news is I know how to stop this spiral. So let’s take a peek at three simple things you can do to stop the smoldering. The first thing I suggest, like on who wants to be a millionaire, use one of your lifelines and phone a friend. This [00:03:00] may seem like something too simple, but go with me for a minute.

How easy is it to compare your behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight? Especially with social media today, how easy is it for you to feel like you are the only entrepreneur or business owner who’s struggling like you? How easy is it to get sucked in the darkness because you can’t see the light?

Pretty easy, huh? That is why this is such a valuable tool to have at your arsenal. So get some perspective and a [00:03:30] reminder that you’re not alone on this entrepreneurial rollercoaster. The benefit to this beside realizing that you’re not alone is oftentimes all you need is a sounding board or someone to pull you out of the forest.

You can see the trees. The bonus to this is that if you have a network that is more successful than you, more often than not, they can support you with some pretty great guidance and insight to help you stop banging your head against the wall. Truly, I cannot stress this enough. This is not the time to go [00:04:00] in solo or lock yourself in your office and just figure it out when you’re getting frustrated with your business or starting to resent your clients, or even considering burning it all to the ground, honestly, put up a smoke signal, do something and get out of your office.

Get out of your head and go talk to somebody because it really is going to help. Get back on track, and I can’t remember who said it was probably Einstein or something that said you can’t solve a problem with the [00:04:30] same thinking that got you into it. So if you’re struggling with your business, go talk to a friend.

Which also leads me to point number two. Take a beat and a page out of the Seal Team book where they say Slow is fast and fast, smooth. A lot of times when I see my clients or even myself back in the day who are on the verge of burning it all to the ground, it came down to one word overwhelm. This is why this phrase is a soothing bomb on the burns of your business and your psyche.

In our Western [00:05:00] culture, we are awarded for hustling or burning the candle at both ends for seeing who can sacrifice the. Ugh. Well, I’m here to tell you that that kind of move fast pedal to the metal mentality might work for a split second, but it isn’t sustainable and it isn’t healthy. The only thing it guarantees is burnout, resentment, and toxicity.

So when the flames are fast approaching, take a beat, slow down and recognize that oftentimes the thing you and your business need most is white space [00:05:30] and time slowing down. To think things through helps you actually go fast in the long run. You just have to have a bit more patience and learn the art of delayed gratification.

Now I wanna actually share a story with you that will drive this point home. I know these episodes are very digestible and short and I don’t share a lot of behind the scenes, but I’m gonna take a minute to peel back the. Let me take you back to 2017. We were having [00:06:00] a record breaking year, hitting our first 40,000 plus months, and it was just on an upward trajectory.

So from the outside we were crushing it, winning awards, happy clients, more than enough free cash in the bank, but on the inside of the business, we were on the verge of explosion. When I say we, I say mostly me. I was not sleeping well. I was burning the candle at both ends, which meant working most weekends.

The team was maxed out and stressed out, and things were starting to slip through the cracks. [00:06:30] My business and myself was about to catch fire, but I didn’t know it until it was too late. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there. Um, there’s more to the story, but just a small caveat. As a service provider, I think it’s very easy for us to fall in this trap because we’re generally the expert delivering the service.

So take this story with, um, the warning that it is, so you can make sure that if you start seeing these signs, you can , you can put the flames [00:07:00] out before it. I remember I was sitting at my desk at 2:00 AM sobbing. I was exhausted and I was over it. We were growing too fast and I was losing it. So at 2:00 AM I quit.

I looked at our client load and when everyone wrapped up, I said, we would never repeat this mistake again. What I didn’t realize in this moment, because I didn’t take step number one and phone a friend before I decided to burn it down. Was that this is actually pretty normal for business owners. We all get to a point where [00:07:30] something’s gotta change.

I was just too close to see it. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees and in that moment I really couldn’t do it for myself. What I do for my clients objectively without emotions, triage and diagnosed so that we had a solid plan to get back to hemostasis. Cause let’s be honest, a growing, thriving business is what we.

But what I realized in this moment, many moons ago, was that because I was the sole service provider, I was maxed [00:08:00] out and we didn’t have a contingency plan. So in hindsight, I would’ve done things much differently. Instead of quitting, I would’ve phoned a friend, taken a deep breath, and then gotten hyper present to what matters today, which is strategy three that I’m gonna talk about in a few seconds.

The reason I really wanna share this story is, I see this roller coaster happen a lot where we’re grinding, we’re chief everything officers just to get everything going in the beginning, and [00:08:30] then we kind of get stuck in that grind and then all of a sudden we’re wearing too many hats and providing for our clients and, and, and, and, and.

So instead of taking moments to be proactive in our business instead of reactive, we just keep going. We put our head down and we’re like, if I just work more, if I just hire the next team member, if I just, just, just, just, it’ll be fine. And while that’s kind of true, sure, adding a team member systems, et cetera, can make it better.

But if you don’t address the actual bottleneck and what’s causing you [00:09:00] to feel so overwhelmed and feel like you wanna burn it down, or in my case, you’re just so over it because you’re so exhausted. Then it doesn’t matter how many team members or systems you have, eventually something’s gonna break and that something is probably going to be you.

So one of my mentors told me that the only conversation that matters is the one right now. And in this context, which she was speaking about, a conversation that was happening between my ears that was a limiting belief. But this [00:09:30] phrase relates to everything because life is. So again, the reason I share that whole story is to give you the context to lead us into this third point tool number three on how not to burn down your business is by getting present.

See, the funny thing about life is that most often if we have anger, it’s because we’re looking at the past. When we have anxiety, we’re looking at the future and surprise, the only time we have the ability to affect change and be happy is the present. [00:10:00] Innovation, change process, et cetera. They only happen now once this moment passes.

It is in the past fretting about the future, expends valuable time and energy that we can’t get back. It’s not to say you shouldn’t have a plan for your business’s future and goals. That is not what I’m saying at all. . You definitely should. That is about being a proactive business owner. This is more to say that when the shit hits the fan, focus up and get present cuz that is the only thing you can control.

So if we [00:10:30] go back to the story I shared before about when I quit and literally burned down my business, if I had taken a breath and actually said, okay, what we’re doing now is not working. Found a friend took that. Made a proactive plan. I would’ve seen that there was a very simple, easy way out, but I couldn’t see it in the moment because I was so exhausted.

This is my, perhaps biggest tip [00:11:00] is that when you are overwhelmed and really considering like, why am I doing this? Is it worth it? Any of those phrases that I mentioned at the. . Get outta your office. Get outta your head. Some of my favorite ways to get present are going for a walk, making a cup of tea, sitting on my porch in the sun for 10 minutes.

Heck, even a quick power nap or shower, ugh, showers. Sometimes my best thoughts come in the shower, and I don’t know what it is about just being in the shower that makes all [00:11:30] life’s troubles kinda wash away, even if it’s for those only 10 or 15. Sometimes all we need to get re-present is to step away from the screen.

And this also leads me to something that I’ve alluded to on other episodes, but your business eventually, maybe in this moment, you’re like, it needs me for everything, which is my life school, to have no business owner I work with ever utter those words again. I want you to have true [00:12:00] entrepreneurial freedom.

But sometimes what our business eats most is for us to just step away. And sometimes that step away is a day, an hour, a minute a week. But before you burn it down, take a beat. Take a beat. So to bring us to a close, a gentle reminder that being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. It is a challenging rollercoaster of emotions, and you are doing a great.[00:12:30] 

I wish there was a playbook. Yes, people have read or rather wrote books upon books about how to be a successful entrepreneur, but I kind of feel like this must be what it’s like to be president. No one can prepare for you for it, except for when you’re actually sitting in the seat and you’re like, okay, well I guess this is how, how it’s gonna be.

There’s also no place on earth that makes your demons and dragons flare up more than entrepreneurship. That is why I lovingly call it personal development with a paycheck, but take heart. [00:13:00] It won’t always be like this, and you are most definitely not alone. So these burnout flareups, if you will, they will come and go.

There are days even today where I’m just like, oh my goodness, what am I doing? But when I get present and I take a step back, I realize that there’s really nothing else that I would rather be doing in this whole entire world than serving my clients and helping them have true entrepreneurial freedom and making a [00:13:30] difference and just having so much fun solving problems with my clients.

And here’s a little fun thing, cuz I also do see this happens sometimes too. Sometimes the burning down of businesses doesn’t just happen when you’re overwhelmed. Sometimes it happens when you’re bored and you think this can’t possibly be working because I’m so bored. I have so much white space and things to do.

Remember this, when your business gets boring, that is [00:14:00] not the right time to mix things up and set it a flame, celebrate the calm. I was actually at a dinner very recently with an entrepreneur of a very successful, um, multi seven figure business in Denver, and he was lamenting to me about how boring it is and he is thinking about selling or this and that and mixing things up.

I’m a big proponent of not giving unsolicited advice, so I gave, I gave him a, a little smile across the table and I said, would you be [00:14:30] open to a different perspective on you being bored in your business? He said, absolutely. And I said, That is actually the perfect place for your business to be. You want it to be boring because that means it’s consistent, predictable.

It’s running like a well-oiled machine, which means that you now have space and time to do whatever the heck you want, whether that’s to reinvest in the business, grow the business, hint, hint, scale the business, take a vacation, start a new [00:15:00] business. Whatever you want, you want it to be boring. And he actually just sent me an email this morning and.

You know, I’ve been listening to your podcast and keep just thinking about the conversation we had and how much that changed my mindset and now how much I enjoy the white space in my business. And I just, that made my day. So to bring it again, full circle here, you’re not alone. So many entrepreneurs have this moment where they seriously consider burning [00:15:30] down their business, or they’re on the verge of burnout.

So just pay attention. Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself grace and know that this is unfortunately part of the entrepreneurial rollercoaster, but what goes down must go up laws of physics, right? And in fact, if you’re ever feeling alone, send up a flare. I’ll be your lifeline. Send me a message anytime at it’s Lauren Goldstein.

I will gladly sit [00:16:00] with you in the darkness to help you get back to. . And again, if the flames are approaching your office door, phone a friend. Take a beat and get present. I promise. What seems like an emergency or an insurmountable mountain will look a lot different after a walk around the block, a hot shower, some food, or heck, even a good night’s sleep.

You’ve got this. Don’t forget how amazing and capable you really are cuz the world needs your gift. So that’s it for this week’s [00:16:30] episode. I know this was a bit of a doozy, but I’d love to hear from you your biggest takeaways. Again, if you need support or a friend, connect with me online. Send me a dm, tag me on Instagram, and it’s Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn or wherever you hang out on the interweb.

Thanks again for listening, and I will see you in the next episode.[00:17:00] 

Thanks for listening to The Biz Doctor Podcast. You’re probably wondering what your next steps are. Hmm. So here are some options for you

no matter what. Head to the show notes or to my website at Golden Key Partnership dot. That’s where you’ll find links to do a diagnostic deep dive with me and my team. This deep dive will help us [00:17:30] identify what is really holding you and your business back for more profitability, impact and sustainable growth.

After that. Register for our next workshop. Ooh, I host them often, and it’s a great way to interact with me in a virtual room and get your questions answered. All of that info is on our website@goldenkeypartnership.com.

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