← The Amy Porterfield Show
The Amy Porterfield Show
Business Burnout: My Unexpected Lesson Behind It
00:32:44
More Isn’t Always Better—Here’s Why Knowing Your ‘Enough’ Changes Everything
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:02]
A
Hey there. Welcome to the Amy Porterfield Show. It's okay to say, I just want to stay the same. Last year, I made 300,000. This year, I want to make 300,000. But because I know how to do it the first time, I want to do it easier the second time and work less. That's okay, my friend. And I didn't realize that that was okay. In 2021, I had a really rough year. I've talked about it so many times on the podcast, and I had just moved from Southern California, where I lived my entire life, to Nashville, Tennessee, which at the time felt like a foreign country, and everything went wrong. And I hated it here my first year. Now, if you fast forward to today, I absolutely love it and never want to leave. But that first year was rough. And there was this one very specific moment. I was depressed. I didn't want to get out of bed. I kind of started hating my work. I didn't like what I was working on that year. All my launches didn't do as well as they should have. I was just in a bad place. And there was this moment that Hobie said to me, you know, you could end it all today, meaning you could close down the business. You never have to work again. We could sell this house that we had just bought. For the record, we could sell this house. He said, we could buy a tiny house and live in the woods somewhere in Tennessee. He said I'd be just as happy. And the man is being totally honest. First of all, he met me when I had no money, and second, he's a really simple guy. Hobie is just easy to get along with, easy to be around, and he doesn't need a lot. And so I knew he was being honest. He's like, I'd be happy. Let's sell it all. And I was in no place that I wanted to get rid of my business and sell it all. But I thought that was just an interesting moment, that Hobie is really clear on what matters to him and what his enough is. Like, what does he need? What is enough? That he's going to be happy and still be thriving and living his best life. And for him, it doesn't take much. For me, for the record, I'm a little bit bougier. It's going to take more than a tiny house in the woods in Tennessee. He's going to have to marry another woman. That is not happening. However, I thought it was just a really interesting topic, one that I realized I hadn't thought about ever. What was My enough. If we're thinking just revenue in general, how much money do I need to make to live the life that I want to make? This is a question I have never asked myself until more recently in the last few years. But I feel like there's a theme of the Amy Porterfield show, and that theme is, let me tell you all the things I've done wrong and all the regrets and the things I wish I did differently. So maybe you don't have to make the same mistakes. That's my prayer for you. But also all the things I wish I knew or discovered or was taught earlier on in my business. And here's something I wish I did. I wish in December of every year I would sit down and say, okay, before I put my goals together for the next year in my business, before I run all the numbers and say, okay, this year I made 500k and next year I want to increase by 10% before I do any of that kind of stuff. What is enough for me? What does enough look like? What would make me really happy, feel like I'm thriving, that I'm winning in life, that I'm content, I'm at peace? What does that look like? And it's not just a number. It's also, you know, how you want to experience life. But for you and me, when we talk about business, a huge part of that is how much money do I need to make in order to live the life that I want to live. And it's just nothing that I've never really thought about until a few years ago, but I wish I did. So here's the thing. I'll tell you. I think that you're enough changes every year, most likely. So I think that if I would have done this in 2012, I think that was like the first year that my business really started to work. 2012, what my enough would have been look very different than today. What my enough is, right? I'm just in a very different head. Space, lifestyle, space, physical space, all of that. So I really do think this is a great exercise to do year after year. Maybe it stays the same, likely it changes. But it's such an interesting question to ask, what is your enough? And the truth is, when I started my business, I believe that success meant more on all levels. Bigger launches, consistent hiring, higher revenues every year. Like, God forbid I stay the same or go backwards. The first year I went backwards, I don't remember what year it was. But you know, if you're in business long enough, you're going to Go backwards. However, I didn't realize that, and I had to have a business coach tell me, do you know that businesses don't always go up, up, up? And when I say businesses, I wanted to say real businesses. This is another. This is totally a tangent real fast, but sometimes in my head, I. I think that other people don't think my business is real because it's so different. And now it's not as different, but, like, what I do, if I'm in a room of people with traditional jobs and traditional businesses, and they ask, what do you do? Mine's usually the outlier, kind of weird, kind of different. And then it sometimes doesn't feel like a legit business to people because I don't have a brick and mortar. Like, you can't go in physically and meet with people and network and do all that stuff. And I have employees all over the US and, you know, it's just different. I don't think it's as different now, especially after Covid, but it definitely feels weird. So I was gonna say real businesses don't always go up, up, up with their revenue, but let's. Let's take that out, because all of us have a real business. That is just a weird little glitch in my brain sometimes. But my point being, it's not normal to always go up, up, up in revenue. But I think thought that it was until I had a year that I went backwards and then felt like a loser and then had to be told, this is business. Welcome to entrepreneurship. This happens. And so that was good for me to know. But for many, many years, I thought success again looked like just more of everything, always growing. The problem is, as my business continued to grow, grow, grow, and I made more and more revenue and the team got bigger and bigger, I felt more disconnected from the business. And I think that it had to do with this question of, like, what am I doing all of this for? Because at the time when the first time I made, like, a lot of money, I was giving to the causes I cared about. I was generous with my friends and family. We had paid off our house. We didn't have any debt. And so all of that was true. And that's a very privileged place to be. I totally understand. I worked really hard for it, but I know that especially right now is not the norm, and I'm very aware of that. But I'm talking just years ago, I was in that situation and was making more money than I needed to make in order to have that lifestyle. Because Hobie and I are really good at investing and saving, so we weren't spending crazy or anything like that. But my point being is that I was killing myself at one point. Like we all have those seasons, right? That I was hustling and working too hard and, and adding so many people to the business where it got bloated. There was like a point that this is terrible to say, but one moment in time a while back, someone was hired and I didn't know who they were. Like their name had popped up in a Slack channel and I had to take a moment like, who is this? Talk about being disconnected. Now. You could look at it one way and say, oh my gosh, Amy, it's so, so great that you have such a strong leadership team that they could do the hiring and they take the initiative and they run with it. I agree. I'm very fortunate in that respect. However, to literally not know that someone had just started and couldn't even remember what position they were hired for. This is years and years ago. That is not good. And that is like a great example of me being disconnected. And it just comes back to that question of what am I doing this all for? Why am I hustling this hard? I have what I want and need. So I wish someone stopped me for a second and said, whoa, whoa, whoa, what is your enough? What does that look like? What do you want to do in this world? What do you want to make possible? And it's not all about the money, for sure. And I wish someone said, you don't always have to grow. I wish someone told me and this is what I'm going to tell you, like, come a little closer. If you're multitasking, come back to me. It's okay to say, I just want to stay the same. Last year I made 300,000. This year I want to make 300,000. But because I know how to do it the first time, I want to do it easier the second time and work less. That's okay, my friend. And I didn't realize that that was okay. I know that might sound silly to some, but I didn't. And the thing is, I've experienced both slow and fast growth through the years. And I want to say something about fast growth, like 30% growth in just one year. And we're talking like I was already at the multi million dollar mark. So that's a lot of growth and it was exciting and of course it boosts my ego and I felt like I was moving in the right direction. But I want to say this Fast growth at that level is not all it's cut out to be. I have a Mastermind member, and we were talking about this where sometimes it could lead to making hasty financial decisions, spending money where you shouldn't spend it, hiring way too fast. I did that in 2019. I hired like, I felt like eight or nine people at once. The crazy thing is most of them are still with me, thank God, because that was a wild time. But. But I was miserable having all those new people and having to train them and make sure they're okay. It was just too much, too fast. And then I feel like I got to a business bloat. I just had too much going on, too many people on the team and kind of lost sight of what was important. And I have two friends that have talked about this before. I don't remember if I talked to them personally about it or heard them talk about it on Social, but Jenna Kutcher and Natalie Ellis, both of these women, they've talked about their insights around enough. And I know that both of them, at one point or another, in their own words, have said it's okay to not want to always grow year after year. And the great thing about Jenna and Natalie is I think they both have really simple lives. Like, they care deeply about their families and boundaries around their work and are living life on their terms and doing it their way. And I love that. And it's. I feel like I'm there now, but it took me a lot longer to get there than these women who are younger than me. And I see it in them now. And I think, good for you that you're there much sooner than I got there. I think I'm a really slow learner, and so I see that it's possible. And even if you're younger in your business, meaning your business hasn't been around as long or. Or you are younger, like in your 30s or wherever, you can make these rules right now. No matter how much money you're making, no matter where you are in your journey, you can tell yourself what is enough. And maybe you're not even close to what is enough for you, and that that's a different conversation that you're going to have, Right? Or maybe you realize I'm making more money than I really need to, and I'd rather work less, take more time away from the business, love my life. And that's okay if I don't make as much money as I have in the past because I figured out my enough, and I'm good with that. So here's the shift I experienced and I want to offer to you right now as well, which might be you again, you might be much earlier in your entrepreneurial journey than I personally was. And I love that for you, slowing down, getting intentional, and focusing on enough right now can give you clarity, freedom, and a business that feels tailor made to you and your family. And that's what's most important. You can decide right now. So here's my question for you. Have you ever hit a big milestone in your business only to feel like it wasn't enough? Have you ever done that? Something happened in your business that, if you're really being honest, 99 of people that are building businesses that haven't had your success would kill for what you just experienced. You made $50,000 in a launch. They're like, I make that in a year. So, yeah, I'd love to have that. But for you, it just. It wasn't enough. And I want to talk about what enough looks like. And I believe that knowing you're enough, like, if I told you my enough, I was going to. I was actually going to. Okay, if I'm being really honest, I started this episode by sharing with you what my enough was. And I was going on and on. And then I thought, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what my enough is. One, this episode really isn't about me. It's about you. And two, you probably would judge me for what my enough looks like, or maybe you wouldn't, but that's another thing. We can't judge each other for what their enough is. Whether you think my enough, like, I want more than I should or I want less than I should, or somewhere in between. Like, it doesn't matter what my enough is. What matters is yours. And once you know, you'll start operating from a place of clarity and peace. I know that I am operating from a place of clarity and peace because I'm very aware what my enough is. And I'll give you a little hint. It's much less than I thought that I needed to make. And. And I actually made some changes to my revenue projections in December of 2024, knowing that my enough didn't need to be as big as I thought it did, which allowed me more space, time to breathe, allowed me to not overtax my team. Like, a lot of shifts were made when I figured out what my enough was. And I hope that is the same for you. And again, I'm aware that your enough might be. Let's pretend you're making 200k in your business and your enough is 500k and you're not there yet. I love a good challenge. That's okay too. Again, it's yours and yours alone. You don't even need to share it. I encourage you not to, but we got to get clear on it. This matters because the online business world has glorified infinite growth over the years. But we've seen how this leads to burnout and frustration and never feeling satisfied. So my goal for this episode is to give you permission to build a business that fuels peace of mind, creativity, and the life you actually want to live. And I want you to walk away from this episode with a clear path to defining and building your enough. You likely won't know on this episode. I've got some exercises. Of course I do. Right? But I'm going to go through these exercises and then I want you to get to work. And if you want to DM me some insight once you've done this work, I would love to hear it. You all know I'm just at Amy Porterfield on Instagram, right? Get into my DMs. I want to hear it. Okay, so the thing is, without defining enough, the pressure to constantly grow can have real consequences. So let me just give you some stats. The National Institute of Mental health reports that 72% of entrepreneurs struggle with mental health challenges like depression or substance abuse. 72% of entrepreneurs. I fall in that with my depression. Now, I just want to say that my depression started back in high school, so it's not like this business caused it all, but I'm sure it didn't help it right during my stressful seasons and all of that. Also, a recent Forbes report found that 42% of small business owners experienced burnout in the last month. 42% of small business owners burnout in the last month. And the Founder Report revealed recently that over 50% of entrepreneurs battle anxiety. And 27 report. This is the one that makes me so sad. Loneliness. 27% of entrepreneurs report loneliness and. And 50% anxiety. So these numbers are real. I've. I've experienced them so I could talk firsthand about some of this. And so that's why over the last few years, as I've gotten older, and again, I wish I did this when I was younger, my mental health is everything because I realized it doesn't just affect me, it affects Hobie, my family, my team. And so I started to choose taking care of myself physically and mentally over grinding in the business years ago. And it shows if you look at me, I look different, but more so than that, I feel different and I show up different. And I've gotten so much feedback over the last two years of how I seem different in a good way. And I appreciate that good feedback. If you've ever given it to me, I so appreciate it because I've been working hard on that. And so I'm not coming to you saying I haven't done the work or I don't continue to do the work. I don't like to talk about things where if I'm struggling with it in the moment and I don't have anything to offer, I tend not to talk about it. I always talk about that in a way where you either have the oozy scabs or the scars. And when it's a scab, when it's still kind of, this is so gross to say like infected. It's, it's, it's working its way out, I tend not to talk about it. But when it becomes a scar where I have lessons learned and I can think more clearly and I could add value, that's when I tend to talk about it. So with this topic, I think I've come a long way and so that's why I want to talk about it with you today because I wish I came a long way 10 years ago. So I want to give you three very specific questions that you can ask yourself to help you define your personal enough. I'm going to put these in the show notes so I'm going to make sure that you can go to my show notes amyporterfield.com for forward SL10 just the number 10. You could just go there and I've listed these questions for you. But because I really actually want you to do the work, I think this could make a difference. So here's the first question. If you had one less work day per week, what would you do with that time? So let's say, you know, I work a four day work week. So on day five, what would you do? If you had every Friday off, what would you do? So for me, I tend to use it as a day to get a facial or get my eyebrows waxed or get a massage with Hobie or just spend time with Hobie. So it's usually self care or Hobie time for me. Remember I don't have kids at home anymore, so I live a very different life. I'm very aware of that. So you're enough should include space for these priorities, not just revenue goals. So time with Hobie and taking care of myself. That should be part of my enough and being able to make time for that. So, again, if you had one less workday, how would you spend that time? Here's another one. What's one thing you would stop doing in your business today if there were zero consequences? This is an important one, because you're enough should be built around what fuels you, not what drains you. So many of my students have done things, created courses and memberships and opportunities that at the end of the day, they really didn't want to do. They just thought it sounded good, they should do it. It will make them money. But they could have created a course that they absolutely loved, but they were too scared that it wasn't going to be as good, so they went with the safe thing. So, again, what would you absolutely stop doing if there were zero consequences? I feel like your answer to that question, if you're being brutally honest, is paramount to you figuring out you're enough. Also, if your business doubled overnight, so your revenue doubled, what would change? Would your life actually change in the ways that matter most now for many of you, because you're still growing your business? The answer is yes. Yes, Amy. My life would totally change if I went from $200,000 to $400,000. It would change. And I think that's true, especially if you have debt and you want to pay it off or you've got expenses that are really important for you to take care of. I get that. But I do want to say if year after year, you did this exercise, Remember every December, you sit in front of a cozy fire, you grab some cocoa, you get a big fluffy blanket, and you get cozy and you ask some of these questions, and you could probably expand on them through chat GPT and make them better. But if you said, would my life double, like right now, if you doubled my revenue, would my life dramatically change? It could. I could choose to do things differently. But would I want to? No. No, I wouldn't. It wouldn't. I would save more money, and I would invest more money and I'd give more money, but things wouldn't dramatically change for me. And I think. I think that's important for you to keep asking this question. And when the answer is no, my lifestyle really wouldn't change, you have found your enough, at least this year until that changes. You know, Hobie and I are building a home. We bought 70 acres a year ago in Leapers Fork. It's right outside of Franklin, Tennessee, and it's expensive, and we've saved a lot and we've planned for it, but I still need to come up with some money for this. And so I feel like I'm in a season that my enough might look a little bit different now. But once it's paid for and I feel good about it, then my enough changes. So I'm giving you permission. I want to encourage you that, yeah, year after year it might change, but let's be honest and let's evaluate and give yourself an opportunity to say, I'm good and I'm going to take some time away from this business. I'm good. Okay, so now I want to make this even more actionable. So I'm going to help you understand what it looks like to calculate your enough revenue. Okay, so here's the first question. What's the revenue number that funds your ideal life? So to find your true enough number, I want you to break it down step by step. So number one, start with your ideal monthly take home pay. This is what you personally need to live comfortably. So it's what I call my distribution. So if my business makes a certain amount of money, if you look at profit, well, I got to take some of that profit and pay my taxes. But once I pay my taxes, my distribution, my take home, that's what I'm talking about for you as well. So I want you to consider your mortgage or your rent, your utilities, your groceries, your personal spending. I want you to think about savings and investments and retirement contributions, lifestyle costs like travel or child care or self care or just maybe debt that you want to pay off, maybe some expenses you see coming down the road, whatever that might be. So let's get clear on, ideally, how much money do you want to take home or you do you need to take home? I want it to be want. Need is one thing, but I also want you to enjoy your life. So I want you to have enough money to feel really good. I remember when I was just starting out, Hobie and I lived in this tiny little condo in Carlsbad. And we would go to our friend's house and for some reason they all seem to have way more money than us. I don't know if, if they truly did or just felt like that or maybe they were all in debt. I have no clue. It doesn't matter because I would show up at their house and I would think, I have never worked harder in my life because we all know the first few years of business, right? You're working way more than you did in your 9 to 5. And I was busting my butt and I really didn't have much to show for it yet. And so that felt frustrating. So I don't want you in a place that you're like, I'm making just what I need. No, what's the number of. What do you want? Because I think that's a good way to look at it. And if you're not there yet, then you can use this episode as a challenge to, okay, how am I going to get there? And then when you get there, you're going to reevaluate. So this episode might just be like, totally do something fully different for you and you realize you're enough is much more than you're making, and you're going to find a way to get there. I love it. I'm excited for you. Use this episode as you need. Okay, next you're going to factor in business expenses and payroll. So what does it actually cost to run your business sustainably? This one's a little trickier. Do your very best. I remember the first year I created a budget. It was a joke. It's really hard. But if you look at how much you're paying for contractors or team members, and if you do bonus them, what would that look like? Software tools, marketing, ads, investment in growth. If you want to join that mastermind or a coaching program or whatever it is, which I highly recommend you do, invest in that way, obviously you got to put taxes aside, so whatever that looks like. But now we're going to look at expenses and including just everything you could think of. And then from there, you're going to calculate your minimum sustainable revenue. So you're going to add up your personal and your business expenses. So, example, if you realize, you know What, I need $12,000 a month to live the life that I want to live personally. So this is your personal expenses. So I need $12,000 a month. And then you look at your business and you think, Well, I need $16,000 a month to make sure that I'm paying for my business or growing my business in the way that I want to. So that's 28k a month that you're going to need to bring in. So that's the kind of math that I want you to do. And I want you to ask yourself, if I earned this consistently, could I maintain it without burning out? So if I earned this consistently, can I maintain this without burning out? And if the answer is no, you're going to adjust maybe your pricing, your offers, or your team structure so you're enough is truly sustainable. So if you increase prices, you don't have to sell as many units. If you rework your team and with AI, that is more possible today than ever, if you rework how you're using team members, contractors, whatever it might be, you might be able to spend less. So that's going to ease up on your pressure as well. So there's things that you can do to play around with this. But I always say that you have to know, you have to know your numbers so you can make smart decisions. And I think that part is just so incredibly important. Now, that was a little bit like back of a napkin kind of math that I just took you through. I didn't get like super detailed and dig into everything, but I'd like to give you just like a starting point and then you can finesse it and change it around as you see fit. But I like to get you started and I think those questions to ask and kind of running some numbers, I think that's a really good place to start. So with that, I wanted to create an episode for you today where you walk away with the tools to define you're enough. You're enough in time and revenue and success, so your business truly supports your life. So here are your action items. You're going to answer those three questions. I'll put them in the show notes. You're going to run the numbers because we're going to at least do a little back of napkin kind of math and you can get the number formula I gave you in the questions@amiporterfield.com 10. Just the number 10. But before I let you go, here's what I want you to remember. You don't have to play by someone else's rules. You sure as heck don't have to play by mine. I have my own rules and I talk about what they look like in my own business. But your version of success doesn't have to look like anyone else's, including mine. Define what truly matters to you and build from there. More isn't always better. Aligned is better. Peace of mind is better. A thriving family and personal life is better. Growth for growth's sake can lead to burnout. But knowing you're enough allows you to scale intentionally and sustainably. Because you know I'm all about growth. I want you to grow your business if you want to grow your business, and many of you do, but on your terms. So there you have it. I. I want to invite you to share this episode with a friend of yours that you're like, ooh, I feel like where they're at in their journey, they would get a lot of value from this message of figuring out you're enough early on. So I figured if each one of you who are listening would share it with one more person, I think it would allow for so many people building businesses to do it on their terms and to eliminate some of the overwhelm, depression anxiety that comes with chasing something that you don't even know why you're chasing it anymore. And I promise you, if you don't do this, you likely will find yourself there one day. I did, and luckily I figured out, wait a second, this ain't gonna work for me. And I was able to figure out how to find my enough. And now I do it every single December. So again, enough isn't about settling. It's not about playing small. It's about building a business that finally works for you. Thanks for tuning in, my friend. I cannot wait to see you next week.