Part 2: Can You Build a Big Business & a Big Life? An Interview with Seychelle Van Poole

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: TheUPside Podcast
Host: Theresa Flood
Episode: Part 2: Can You Build a Big Business & a Big Life? An Interview with Seychelle Van Poole
Guest: Seychelle Van Poole
Date: February 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Theresa Flood continues her conversation with Seychelle Van Poole, focusing on practical strategies and mindsets for building both a thriving business and a rich, fulfilling personal life. Through tactical advice and real-life stories, Seychelle emphasizes intentionality, boundaries, and the power of community. This part-two discussion is loaded with frameworks and permission-giving insights aimed at entrepreneurs who don’t want to choose between professional and personal success.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "Joy Album": Naming What Matters Most

• Description of the Exercise ([01:19]–[02:46]):

  • To define what a "big life" looks like, Seychelle recommends creating a "Joy Album."
  • Scroll through your phone’s photos from the past year or two, pick those that fill you with joy, and assemble them into a dedicated album.
  • Use these photos to reflect on what and who brings you happiness—this becomes a compass for designing your big life.
  • Quote: “Any photo you look at that kind of gives you a warm feeling or a smile, I want you to heart it, I want you to add it to that album. And all of a sudden you’re going to realize what an abundant experience you have already.” – Seychelle Van Poole [01:52]

• Outcome:

  • Journaling on what you want more of from this album helps clarify your goals and priorities for both life and business.

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2. Reverse Engineering Your Schedule: Life First, Business Second

• Strategy Overview ([02:46]–[05:01]):

  • Instead of giving your best time to business and scraping together what’s left for life, Seychelle advises putting family, friends, experiences, and self-care on your calendar first.
  • Plan out major events 1–2 years in advance—school breaks, vacations, meaningful trips—and treat these as non-negotiable.
  • Only after that do you determine which time blocks are available for business.

• Quote: “So that’s how you start. Because now when you look out and a client asks for an appointment, you already know if you’re going to be in or out of town. ...I’ve very, very, very rarely had a client that was not willing to adjust by a day or two to accommodate.” – Seychelle Van Poole [05:01]

• Key Mindset Shift:

  • Don’t operate out of fear of loss—respect your value and your time.
  • Set boundaries and confidently communicate availability to clients.

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3. Weekly Review & Family Involvement

• Practical Application ([06:31]–[08:15]):

  • Every Sunday, Seychelle reviews 2–3 weeks ahead to integrate work, family, school, and community events.
  • Involve significant others and children in calendar planning, creating space for real priorities.
  • This tight planning increases capacity and focus, making work more productive in less time.

• Example:

  • During COVID, Seychelle started daily morning walks with her husband Nick to align on family and business priorities. Even after normal schedules resumed, this ritual continued by simply moving team meetings back by 30 minutes.
  • Quote: “When you lead from the front of the life that you want to have, it’s actually permission giving for everybody else in your world to realize that they can have that too. And that’s really cool.” – Seychelle Van Poole [09:29]

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4. Communicating the Why: Leadership & Transparency

• Team Buy-In and Storytelling ([10:07]–[11:09]):

  • Clearly communicate the reasoning behind scheduling boundaries to prevent misinterpretation and encourage team alignment.
  • Example: Explaining why meetings start later lets the team understand it’s about making space for family, not laziness.

• Quote: “As a leader, when we communicate clearly and effectively, then everybody gets to buy into that.” – Theresa Flood [10:59]

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5. The Power and Challenge of Saying "No"

• Embracing Boundaries ([12:12]–[14:12]):

  • Seychelle invested a year in therapy learning to say “no,” recognizing that each “no” is a “yes” to something else that matters more.
  • It’s critical to have clarity on your yeses (core values, priorities) to confidently say no, even to appealing opportunities.

• Quote: “No means yes to something else. And I think explaining what the yes is makes the no...” – Seychelle Van Poole [14:12]

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6. Recognizing and Managing Burnout

• Identifying Burnout ([15:04]–[16:45]):

  • Burnout often manifests after a long stretch of overcommitment, not overnight.
  • Seychelle uses the “hair tie” analogy: you keep stretching (overloading yourself) until you suddenly snap.
  • Regularly review your calendar 2–4 weeks in advance to avoid clustering too many obligations and to counterbalance heavy weeks with lighter ones.

• Quote: “I said yes to too many things that were too far out...and then I wake up, and it’s all this week. It is all this week. I said yes to everything this week.” – Seychelle Van Poole [15:45]

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7. The Importance of Building Together: Community & Support

• Building Your Tribe ([17:00]–[17:48]):

  • Life’s richness is multiplied when shared with the people you love—include your community in your journey.
  • Her Best Life was born from this need for women to connect, grow, and support each other as they build businesses and lives.

• Quote: “Building a big life is so much more fun when you get to do it with the people you love.” – Seychelle Van Poole [17:00]

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Notable Quotes

• Seychelle Van Poole:

  • “You’re literally going to create a separate photo album. And on those hard days, you’re going to go back and look at that.” [01:51]
  • “Nobody died in the process of doing this. … It’s absolutely possible to do that.” [04:17]
  • “If they don’t respect that, if they can’t handle that, then maybe I have somebody else … that would be a great match. And maybe it’s just not my client. And that’s okay too.” [05:01]
  • “When you lead from the front of the life that you want to have, it’s actually permission giving for everybody else in your world to realize that they can have that too.” [09:29]
  • “No means yes to something else.” [14:12]

• Theresa Flood:

  • “As a leader, when we communicate clearly and effectively, then everybody gets to buy into that.” [10:59]
  • “To be able to say no, you do have to have such clarity on what you’re saying yes to.” [14:14]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:34: The “either/or” myth about business success vs. life fulfillment
• 01:19: Creating your Joy Album
• 02:46: Reverse engineering your schedule—life first, then business
• 05:01: Communicating boundaries with clients, practicing abundance
• 06:31: Weekly planning drills and involving family
• 09:01: The power and ripple effect of intentional life-work boundaries
• 10:07: Communicating the “why” behind scheduling decisions
• 12:17: Mastering the art of saying “no”
• 15:04: Burnout, scheduling, and counterbalancing
• 17:00: Building big life and business together; importance of community

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Final Strategic Takeaway

Seychelle’s advice to entrepreneurs in the trenches:

“Building a big life is so much more fun when you get to do it with the people you love … If you have the ability to talk about this and experience this with multiple people instead of just living your big life when everyone else around you isn’t, it’s so much more fun.” [17:00]

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Resources Mentioned:

• herbestlife.com – Community, events, and resources for women seeking to build both big businesses and big lives.
• “Empire Building” Podcast – Seychelle's podcast on business and leadership.

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Tone & Approach:
Warm, practical, and permission-giving. This episode is inspirational but grounded in real, actionable strategies, delivered with humor and sincerity by both host and guest.

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Transcript

[A]

Are you looking to build both a big business and a big life? Welcome to the Upside Podcast. I'm your host, Teresa Flood, and I'm back today with Seychelle Van Pool for part two of this episode. And we are going to get into all of the tactical things to build both a big business and a big life. This is going to be strategic. It's going to be tactical. If you did not hear my first episode with Seychelle, I'm going to encourage you to go back and listen to that one first and then come back to this one for all of the ways that we can put this into play. So say thank you for coming back.

[B]

I'm so excited for this topic today because I think entrepreneurs feel like you have to have one or the other.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You have to. To have the big business. You can't have a life. Or if you want a life, then.

[A]

You'Re going to sacrifice.

[B]

You're going to have to sacrifice your business. You're not, you're not going to be able to do it. And I can tell you now, we've been leading thousands of women across the United States and some even in Europe.

[A]

Um, which to learn more about that.

[B]

Her best life.com herbestlife.com yes, we've been, we've been really leading from the front on the mission of how do you have a big business and an even bigger life in the process. So today I'm excited. We're going to go through some key tactics to build that out, because I think it's so permission giving when you have a framework to make that happen.

[A]

Yes. So, okay, let's dive right into it. Let's talk about your Joy album.

[B]

Yes. So to have a big life, you got to know what your big life looks like.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And so what I, we always encourage is one of the first exercises we do at Her Best life is to create your Joy album. And it's literally, I want you to go take your phone and I want you to schedule 10 minutes of time and I want you to scroll back on your photos through your phone and look at everything over the last year or two. Because sometimes we're so quick to take pictures and move on that we forget all the joy. I was even just in the last 12 months putting together for you all the different places we've traveled.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I had to go back through my photos.

[A]

It's a long list.

[B]

It's a long list. I had to go back through my photos because I was like, oh, wait, we did go here. Oh, my gosh. Oh, we did go there. We. Life happens so fast. And so go create a joy album. You're literally going to create a separate photo album. And on those hard days, you're going to go back and look at that. But also, when you're defining what you want your big life to look like, you need to know the people that are going to be in there, the things you were doing that brought you joy. Any photo you look at that kind of gives you a warm feeling or a smile, I want you to heart it, I want you to add it to that album. And all of a sudden you're going to realize what an abundant experience you have already. And so now it becomes the question of the journaling exercises, what do I want more of out of this album? And oftentimes, what we find it's, I want more time with the people that are in here.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I want more experiences with the people in here, and I need more money to make that happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's really what that looks like. Right?

[A]

The part three is typically clean.

[B]

Yeah, it is. But now we have clarity around why we're building the business, what the goal of the business is, and now we get to define what we're willing to give the business in order to make that happen. So let's talk tactically about, like, how you break that out. Yeah. So with your business, Oftentimes what I did for a very long time was I would say, well, these are my work hours. And then I have to give to my family time this amount, or I have to give to vacations this amount. And I want you to reverse engineer that. I want you to start with a white sheet of paper. And if you have kids, school schedule's probably gonna go on that first. And then I want you to go in and start taking a look at the experiences you wanna have with the people that you wanna have. So that means, like, are there trips that you need to be planning for over the next year? We always look at it at least one to two years out. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So right now I have. We're recording in early 2026. I have summer camp schedule booked out. We have working from northern Michigan from June through end of July on the calendar.

[A]

I love that. Hold down on that. You are living in Michigan now and you're all summer. All summer.

[B]

All summer for eight weeks and running our team, by the way, in Dallas. That will do the high point of our season.

[A]

Would that have ever seemed possible eight years ago?

[B]

No. No. I mean, we bought the Lake House in 2021. And even then it felt tremendously scary.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, you know, nobody died in the process of doing this. I started running our team on Zoom, and it's been amazing, so it's absolutely possible to do that. But I think you start asking yourself, like, what are the experiences? What's the time off I want to have? What are the people that I want to enter? What are the date nights I need to have? And start listing those out. Involve the people that are important on that and put that on your calendar first. Like, non negotiable. Must go on the calendar. So that's how you start. Because now when you look out and a client asks for an appointment, you already know if you're going to be in or out of town. You already know if you're going to be at a date night or not. Right. I've very, very, very rarely had a client that was not willing to adjust by a day or two to accommodate.

[A]

And most of the time, I think we're just afraid to ask. Oh, we're afraid to set that boundary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And it's because we're coming from the fear of loss instead of the abundance of value. And if they're talking to you, they're already engaged and interested in wanting to work with you. So if I said to you, Teresa, like, hey, I already have an appointment on Thursday evening, but I could do Wednesday, or if you want to do a lunch appointment, I could do Friday lunch. Would either of those work for you? Like, if I call my doctor's office, like, they're gonna tell me when they're available.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And I could say, well, I would, like, this week. And they're gonna be like, okay, this week we have these options.

[A]

Or if we're booking in six months.

[B]

I'll see you in nine months. Right. Like, we're literally treating ourselves like we are desperate in that they get to call all the shots. They're coming to us because we have value and a reason to be there. And so we need to treat ourselves that way, and we need to treat our time that way, too. And I find if. If they don't respect that, if they can't handle that, then maybe I have somebody else that I could give them to go do business with that. That would be a great match. And maybe it's just not my client. Yeah. And that's okay, too.

[A]

Well, it's so good when I think you hit it on the head when you said, it's the difference between coming from a fear of loss. Yes. And from a place of value coming from an abundant mentality. And when we're in lack, then we have to hang on to everything out.

[B]

Of fear of losing your little like clouds are just going down the drapes, right?

[A]

Yeah, it's not a great place to be. Okay, so we're gonna get on our calendar everything that represents that we wanna have. Family, friends, experiences, all of that goes on there. Merse. And then what happens?

[B]

Then you've gotta figure out what time during the day you're willing to give to the business. And so this gets then into the micro. So every week what I do is I look out, like on Sunday I look out two to three weeks of scheduling. I look at what are the school activities we need to be doing, what are the parent activities we need to be helping with, what's the community activity. All of that I'm looking at and then I'm back ending my schedule to say, okay, where are the time slots available for me to like not, not lazily work to get after it? Like, I mean, when I'm calling, I'm, I'm like calling 70 to 80 people, like in a chunk of time, you know, like, or if I'm doing appointments, like today I'm up with you. I'm going to be doing a content day. I have a listing appointment. Like we, I'm scheduling it strategically and being really, really, really focused with my time. And I'm blocking it out very intentionally and putting the priorities at the top. And I think, I know that sounds silly to do, but it's really hard to keep that. And so I think when you can kind of keep an hour or two each week to review and correct it. If we needed to reschedule something two weeks out, you're not gonna have a problem, right? If I'm forgetting about the appointment or rescheduling the night before, that's much more difficult for people to adjust and they feel like you're not respecting their time. So I know we're talking a lot about the organizational side of it, but it's actually what allows you to have the bigger life aspect of that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so really get purposeful once a week. Involve the family. Like Gwen and I sit down with her school calendar, mine, and I literally draw it out because I can then see it and erase it and move it around.

[A]

So when you started really living your life, very time locked, very intentional, do you feel like your capacity has increased? Meaning are you able to do more and less time because all work expands to fill the time allowed?

[B]

I do think, I do think that I Also think when you become a parent, you're like, what did I do with my time before kids?

[A]

That's also bad. I had so many more hours and.

[B]

I feel like I did so much less.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So I think becoming a parent forces that. But even if you don't have kids or your kids have left the house, I think, I think being really clear of, like, this is the time, I'm gonna love it. I'll give you an example. During COVID and homeschooling and all of that, Nick and I started taking a walk every morning together because we had to review what in the world is happening today.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like just on the same page. Yeah. And so we would take a 30 minute walk with a dog and we would distribute it. And then all of a sudden the world started opening back up. And that was such, like, an amazing time for the two of us to talk about goals and priorities and where we're at and how the day is looking and just to feel connected. Right. That I didn't want to give that back up. So you know what we did? We just moved all of our meetings back by 30 minutes with the team. And you know what? No one died. What? That was amazing.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

But I was terrified. Yeah. Of asking the team about that. It's ridiculous. Like, you're the leader, Seychelle. But I was so scared of asking for that time. And you know what that actually allowed the rest of our team was they get to do breakfast with their kids. They get to take their kids to school. They get the gym workout in. They go get their cup of coffee and have a minute with their significant other. Bet. Like, yeah. It allowed everyone. When you lead from the front of the life that you want to have, it's actually permission giving for everybody else in your world to realize that they can have that too. And that's really cool. It's really cool. So defining that makes a big difference. And then I think the third, like, the third aspect of that then is to make sure you're communicating it.

[A]

The why. Yeah.

[B]

And so if I just said, well, we're going to start all of our meetings 30 minutes later, the team probably would have said, fine. But them understanding why that was important makes them. If they call me within the time spot, they know I'm on a walk with Nick. It's. I'm so sorry I'm calling you during your, like, family time. Or I'm, you know, I'm gonna be taking my kid to school at that time too. Let's start at this time it gave everybody permission to allow us to have a life and a business at the same time.

[A]

Well, and everybody would have told their own story around why it was being moved back. So somebody might have said, well, Seychelle's getting lazy. She's just sleeping in. Somebody else would have said, family is, you know, her, whatever is more important than the team. She's less like, yes. It leaves all of this opportunity for everybody to tell their own story around it. But as a leader, when we communicate clearly and effectively that everybody gets to buy into that.

[B]

Exactly. And come along.

[A]

And come along, they get that benefit of all of that too, because it's a strategic decision.

[B]

And when you're doing that with your health, you're doing that with your family, you're doing that with. If it's your faith.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Or your wealth, your. Your people around you love it, actually. And I used to be so afraid to talk about anything other than business because I was like, well, they won't think I'm serious. They won't think that I'm working hard. And I think it's actually quite the opposite. When they see you having a rich, abundant life, they actually want to talk about how they can have their rich, abundant life too. Yeah.

[A]

And be that leader is not about the leader having a big life, knowing about everybody.

[B]

It is.

[A]

You create opportunity for getting to have that same experience.

[B]

It is. And that is a huge part of it. We can't just go off on this journey by ourselves and enjoy the riches of it and not share it with everybody.

[A]

Yes. So good.

[B]

Yeah. So I think that's a huge part of it. And then you build, you build your habit stack, you build your passive income and your active income around that. Right. And you start going on that wealth building and income building journey. But you're very clear on what that needs to look like in order to then get to that perfect life, whatever it is that you imagine that you uniquely get to have.

[A]

Yeah. So what do you say no to now that you used to say yes to?

[B]

I did an entire year of therapy around the word no. Teresa. I'm gonna gotta be honest. That was a real hard word for me.

[A]

Word Seychelles.

[B]

It is a short but powerful word. Powerful word. Yes. My therapist, I call her my thera coach one day was like, I want you to say no to me. And I was like, what? It's like, this is ridiculous. Yeah. She's like, no. Say no. And I was like, no. And she was like, how did that deal? I was like, awful. She goes, do it again. And I was like, no. She was like, how did that deal? I was like, not good. Not good at all. She goes, do it again. For an hour and a half, we went back and forth with the word no. I'm not even kidding you. And she was, we're. Say it till you can like say it comfortably and it doesn't leave like a pit in your stomach.

[A]

Where was this in your. So 2020 is really when you're between.

[B]

2020 is when it fell apart. 2022, end of 22 is when my dad passed away. And this would have been October of 23. So I was.

[A]

Okay. So pretty far along in the process before you really started to embrace the power of no.

[B]

I didn't feel like I had the ability to say no. There was so much happening to me.

[A]

Because of the responsibility, because of this.

[B]

Ability that then I didn't even realize that that was an option. I mean, obviously I knew I know what I understand. You understand it? Yes. Yeah. And so I had to really learn what that word meant for me. And you know what? Like, I had a good friend who's having a conference and he's like, you have got to come out. We'd love to have you come speak. It's going to be amazing. And I was like, it is going to be amazing. And I want to give you so many words of encouragement. I am in a season right now with my daughter where I want to be home and as present as possible with her because she's in sixth grade and she thinks I'm cool right now, probably won't in the near future. So I'm saying no to everything that's non essential right now. And you know what he said was that's fantastic. Like, yeah, it's no means yes to something else. And I think explaining what the yes is makes the no. And not everybody deserves the explanation. But for somebody you care about.

[A]

Right, Right.

[B]

I think it makes a difference.

[A]

And to be able to say no, you do have to have such clarity on what you're saying yes to.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Because really that no is because of a yes to something else.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's not just no, I'm not going to do anything. It's a, I'm choosing this because of core values, because of season, because of alignment.

[B]

Well, and sometimes it's a, I'm saying yes to a bubble bath sitting around in my PJs because that is what my body needs right now. Right, right. That is perfectly okay too. But it's being clear on what you're willing to give Your time to. And that's why I love planning out the travel schedule so far in advance, because you can then really, really realize, like, oh, I'm gonna be in this part of the country at this time. Well, then I could say yes to this person then.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or I've got this month that's lighter. I could say yes then if it's really important. But if it's not, you already know where your time has gone, and it's okay. You can just say no.

[A]

So burnout.

[B]

Yeah. How do. It's real.

[A]

Adjust. When you feel yourself getting to a place of burnout, what are the signs that you go, okay, something is out of alignment. I'm not tapping into the energy that I know that I need to be in.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How do you recognize that before you're at a place where you're waiting to burn it down? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, I think that's burnout. When somebody burns their business to the ground, it's the symptom of a long burnout process. And, like, I describe how I get burned out as I'm like a hair tie. If any of you guys have long hair. Right. You're like a little rubber band.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

My burnout goes. I'm stretching. I'm stretching, I'm stretching. And then all of a sudden, I snap. Like, it's not a.

[A]

No warning.

[B]

No warning. And I'm not snapping at other people. My body just snaps. Yeah. I get sick. I get really, like, just overwhelmed. And when I go back and look at how I have created that for myself, it's. I said yes to too many things that were too far out because it's not an immediate. So it was easy to say yes out in air. And then I wake up, and I'm like, it's all this week. It is all this week. I said yes to everything this week. And so I think by being able to take a look at your calendar two, three, four weeks out, you can physically see how that burnout could happen. Or if you have one week that you're like, I just. Man, I committed to all these things, and I'm gonna honor my commitments. And this week is going to be hard, but I can move all these things next week to make it easier on myself than counterbalance counterbalancing. Yeah.

[A]

Well, I think that's so good because we oftentimes look. Look at our schedule or our lives in such a vacuum.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And we don't see how yesterday plays into today and today plays into tomorrow, and it's all interconnected.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And so key on that.

[B]

Yeah. Okay.

[A]

Leave the audience with one last piece of strategic advice about building a business, big business and big life at the same time. What would you say to the person?

[B]

Gosh, in the trenches, I would say building a big life is so much more fun when you get to do it with the people you love. And so if you have the ability to talk about this and experience this with multiple people instead of just living your big life when everyone else around you isn't, it's so much more fun. It's so much more fun.

[A]

And that's really where her best life came out of.

[B]

That is. Yeah.

[A]

Creating circles of women who are on this journey together and creating those tribes.

[B]

Yeah. And it's amazing to see around the country how many women are still together and still stay in touch and still travel to see each other through curating that connection and fostering connectivity.

[A]

You've done an amazing job with you.

[B]

It's been a real. It's a passion project of ours, for sure. It's been a real gift to get to give.

[A]

Well, if you're listening and you think I resonate with that, or you have someone in your life that you think resonates with that. Herbestlife.com.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is where to go for that. Be sure to tap into her. Your podcast.

[B]

Yes. Empire building.

[A]

You can find it on all the platforms.

[B]

Yeah. And come, come join us along for the ride. It's so much more fun when you get to do it together.

[A]

Yes. Thank you for being with me today.

[B]

Thanks, Theresa, for investing in us. You're amazing. I appreciate you.

[A]

Appreciate you. All right, everybody, thank you for tuning in. As always, when you invest in your personal growth every single day, it will yield you great returns. Keep living on the inside.