314: The Dark Side of Having a Lifestyle Business

Many entrepreneurs find themselves caught between the dream of freedom and the reality of a demanding business. If you're feeling this tension, you're not alone. Many business owners aspire to create a lifestyle that allows for both success and personal fulfillment, yet find themselves working longer hours with less satisfaction.

This episode of the Superabound podcast explores the unexpected challenges that arise when you finally achieve the lifestyle business you've been striving for.

You will discover:

• The importance of aligning your business with your long-term life vision
• How to leverage AI and other tools to create a truly efficient and fulfilling lifestyle business
• Ways to celebrate and fully enjoy the fruits of your entrepreneurial labor
• How to recognize and overcome the guilt that often comes with having more freedom in your business
• Strategies for embracing spaciousness in your schedule without immediately filling it with more work

Join us for personal experiences and practical advice on creating a lucrative lifestyle business that allows you to thrive both professionally and personally. It's time to redefine success on your own terms and learn how to fully embrace the freedom you've worked so hard to achieve.

We also share about the upcoming Lucrative Lifestyle Business Mastermind, starting in January 2025, which will help you create the time and freedom you want from your business.

Learn more and apply for the mastermind here

Full transcript:

Erin Aquin  0:01  
Steve, welcome to the Superabound podcast with master coaches, Erin Aquin and Steve Haase, where spiritually minded entrepreneurs learn to build a generous business without sacrificing what matters most. You are listening to episode 314 the dark side of having a lifestyle business.

Steve Haase  0:22  
Should we play some ominous music?

Erin Aquin  0:24  
I really just want to have a big mask on and tell people I'm their father. Okay, so we have been talking recently a lot about why lifestyle businesses are amazing, and we know that they get sort of a bad reputation for being, like, scammy or like, not serious, like you only care about your weekends and your time off. That is not at all how we see things. Actually, we just recorded an interview, which you will hear soon. And I was reflecting on how when you have a thriving and successful lifestyle business, it really affords you a lot of spaciousness so you can show up more fully for your clients, for your team, when you are not feeling graspy and desperate and stressed and overloaded, you have a very attractive business that people want to be part of. And so I think having a lifestyle business, even that's not how you've set it up, or that's not exactly what it looks like. The philosophy of a lifestyle business is a beautiful and wonderful thing. And yes, so how is there a dark side? And yes,

Steve Haase  1:51  
and this idea is attributed to Erin. I'm not going to steal it as my own in any way. She was the one who came up with it. And so we are going to pull on this thread, because it's awesome. It's really fun. What starts to happen is you've created this thing that is outside the norm. The norm is as an adult, in your prime, working years, your prime earning years, you should be out earning. Some people even experience this, you know, if they're a stay at home parent, they're like, oh gosh, I you know, you kind of have to get over a certain guilt of doing the thing that your heart is calling you to do if you choose a job that's earning less than your full potential. Same thing, you kind of have to get over that guilt of, gosh, I should be earning twice this. You know, I'm underemployed whatever it might be if you chose that path. And so there's a similar thing that happens in a lifestyle business, because once it's successful and you have that time to invest in yourself, invest in your relationships, invest in your family, your community. It can feel wrong,

Erin Aquin  3:08  
yeah, the reason you're attributing this idea to me is because I literally had to get coached on it the other day with one of my coaches. Because what's been sort of happening for me is, you know, I'm like a self investment advocate. I think that people should have businesses and lives where they get to do the things that not just tend their inner flame, but help you thrive. You know, I I wish that more entrepreneurs had time to really sit with their vision every day. The other day, I got up, hung out with the family for a while. I had time to do my spiritual practice, which is a little bit longer these days than than it has been. I took a sauna workout. I did a workout. I did my workout kind of midday, just because I wanted something to split up the day. But then I sat down to work, and within about two hours, I had done everything that I had planned to do. And this is not because I am just, I am pretty fast with my work, you know, I I'm not in a don't have a lot of static about anything I'm working on. I had some coaching calls, and then I had some some marketing work to do for our new audiobook, which is out on Audible. And all the places that you can listen to audiobooks Superabound Is there. That's a long time. Well, I will complain and commiserate about that project another time, but if you ask for the audiobook, it exists now for you. And I think it was like noon, and I was like, Okay, I've done my work for today, but I. Okay, I like, I don't really know what else to do. I've not only done my work, but I've, like, taken care of myself. I was gonna, I knew I was gonna do a workout, and I sat down, and I got coached by one of my friends and colleagues, Jenny Shamas, and I just was like, Yeah, something's weird. I just like, not feeling as engaged, I don't know. I'm not feeling like I'm I there's nothing going on. And we really came to this place where I realized that now we're at a point where we have really integrated a lot of AI into our business that I co collaborate with, that I bounce a lot of ideas off of, that I use to support me, and it has drastically reduced the amount of time that it takes me to get most of my tasks done. Not only that, we've been running a business for years. We've got a pretty well oiled machine going, and now we have a book and an audio book out in the world that is doing a lot of the marketing that I was doing all by my lonesome, posting millions of times a day on social media a few years ago. So we kind of had this engine running, and our clients are being taken care of, and new folks are coming into our world. We are basic. I had this moment where I was like, I am running a lifestyle business, and it's so uncomfortable, and it's interesting, because we are getting ready right now to to start teaching our lucrative Lifestyle Business Mastermind, which begins In January. And I just thought, like, I have to talk about this part, because so much of what happens is people will find these little ways to reduce how much time things take to like AI is just such a good example of that. But then immediately they will fill that time back up with something because so many of us entrepreneurs are used to being busy, we want to feel accomplished, like I get like, My heart soars when I get to coach someone. It's like, the most exciting part of my day. But if most of my day is now spending a little bit of time doing that and then doing all of the business of being a CEO and not getting that sort of relationship feedback from people in the world, I can have a day that was very productive and very lucrative, but to me, it feels like I didn't really do anything, like I was lazy and so I want to talk about this, because I know some of you are still at a stage in your business where you are doing everything yourself, which we can help you with. With our mastermind, we will help you find the AI tool stack to to help you the tech stack to help you get back more time, but learning how not to just immediately fill that with more work or start a new project is and can be a challenge.

Steve Haase  8:12  
It really requires a shift in how you see yourself and what you see the purpose of your business as being in our world, the default is to keep growing forever. And in the conversation we had about financial wellness, which is out next week, yeah, it's coming up, the one of the big ideas was, zoom out. What do you want for your life 20 years from now, 3040, 50 years from now, and that moment of zooming out is what can kind of break the trance of you have to do it this way, right? Whether it's got to keep growing your business, no matter what, you must be bigger. You must be, you know, more powerful. You must own the world. Like that. What I want 20 years from now? Like, do I want to keep growing, or am I happy at a certain level? So knowing that for yourself and kind of writing it down in your decision log, we talk a lot about the decision log, so that you have a place that you can go back to when you have that free afternoon, that free day, and remind yourself this is what I meant to build. This is the reward, because often we'll spend years, if not decades, in kind of hamster wheel mode. You just run non stop, and when you get to a place where you can stop, it's often a shock to the system, like you don't even know what to do. You often hear, you know, people who retire, or, you know, leave the military or have some kind of drastic life change, they're lost. Like, what? What's this even all about? And so how? Having that ability to appreciate the fruits of what you created and use them for the purposes that they're meant right. Your past self said, I want this lifestyle business so that my future self can enjoy my life. Recognizing that commitment and honoring all that hard work over time will help you gain the fruits of that, of all that work,

Erin Aquin  10:26  
yeah, and if you're at a place like I was the other day, of feeling a little bit of discomfort, like it's so weird to say, I finally dialed in all of my systems, I have a very organized business that not only allows me to get my work done before noon, but to do it without skipping my spiritual practice, my meditation, getting a sauna in, and then what I did after that was go and do a nice, long workout, my well being and my business and my clients were all taken care of before my kids got home from school.

Steve Haase  11:05  
I mean, is that not the dream? Doesn't everyone want to just have enough work?

Erin Aquin  11:10  
Okay, yes, but on paper, that's the dream. But it feels weird, because there is a part of me who used to be so busy while making not much money, actually, so busy. And thinks about all of my friends who have nine to five jobs, and, you know, they the weekends are just like, gone in an instant. For them, there was like, a little bit of guilt, like, I, even though I'm such an advocate for all the self investment things, I was just like, be really, like, brazen to go on social media today and be like, here's my day as an entrepreneur. I took a sauna and did a workout and helped a client or two, and, you know, ai me and AI just did, did all of our social media for the next two weeks, and now we're going getting ready for a vacation. When this podcast comes out, we are on vacation like it. There is a level of discomfort, like even my own discomfort in sharing that for my clients, for my the people who follow me are generally interested in having more of that space and freedom in their life, and yet my blockage was about like, Ooh, I don't want to say that to people. I don't want people to think I'm not serious, or that I don't work hard, or any of those things. But the question was like, why I don't think it's necessarily true that I would be a better coach, a better business owner. Oh, I read a business book. That is one thing I also did in that before noon, I also spent some time reading and studying, because that's one thing I do like to do when I have a spacious a more spacious day, which is not my every day, but there was, like that bit of guilt, and I'm like, No, this is not something to be ashamed of. This is proof that what we teach is working. This is proof that what we do is working. And I don't have to be involved in every single little minute of it, for it to be working, I literally had to sit there and be like, I spent two years with Steve writing a book. I spent the better part of the last month editing the audiobook, which was a painful project for me. I used to be an audio engineer. I knew it was going to be tough, but, like, it really required. Steve really wanted it. Our clients really wanted it. A lot of people asked for it, but yeah, he heard me whine a lot, and if you're listening to this and not watching it, he's just smiling at me. He's not going to say anything that gets him in trouble, but I had to, like remind myself that I have created. We have created with our community a way where this could be celebrated, and now we're going to teach it.

Steve Haase  14:20  
And you know it, there's the old joke, I left a job working 40 hours a week for someone else to have a job working 80 hours a week for myself. And you don't want that, like when you start your own business, the goal is not to work twice as hard as you did just to say, Well, I'm my own boss. There might be moments that require that extra level of effort. There have been many early mornings and late nights in the course of our business. There have been days when I was working on Saturdays or even working on Sundays. This is not the every week that we're describing. Here, but with your intention on creating a lucrative lifestyle business, you can take those steps to put it into place, but if you just say, Hey, I'm going to work for myself, it's going to be amazing. You're going to be the subject of that joke, right? You are going to be the person working 80 hours a week for yourself, because you're the boss, but you're also the employee. So that sucks. You never want to just be the overworked, harried employee if you are the boss. So what we're going to walk people through, and what we are constantly working on for ourselves, is, how do you create that lucrative business that allows you to live the lifestyle that you want, that is working in the space that you want. It's not just, you know, invest in these types of assets and follow our blueprint and you'll be, you know, making money while you sleep kind of thing. It's actually, how do you have the impact that you want, using your unique powers and passion for you know, for your work, to create the business that you want so and of course, in this new world, because it is a new world, we are going to be using the tools of AI as your superpower, like it really is a whole new branch of it should be in everybody's business. So you can learn more about that program and apply to join us at besuperabound.com/mastermind, and that's kicking off with a very small group in January, and we're keeping it small so that everybody can have that attention and hands on support. There's going to be some hands on work in terms of business reviews that we do with each person, helping you kind of track the lanterns that you want to light, and having that smart accountability that we talk about towards making progress that is meaningful to you, taking those little steps that turn you from being busy, being overworked, you know, perhaps on the path to burnout, to actually having that time and space and control and freedom that we all really want?

Erin Aquin  17:22  
Yeah, I I think that even though we're, you know, we call this the dark side of having a lifestyle business, the dark side really is only about, I mean, if you're overworking, it's about not utilizing the tools that are available if you don't have the systems dialed in that allow you to be a little more free and do the things that are exciting for you and your business that can be part of the dark side, and we're going to help you with that in the mastermind. But the other part is really about not finding yourself in that discomfort that I was experiencing, and then immediately going and trying to fill that time up with a new project or new shiny thing. It's going to be about holding the discomfort of maybe having more space and time than others in your industry, maybe not identifying so much with your personality, with the harried entrepreneur, so busy, so stressed, like you might have to actually go through a transformation of who you believe you are and how you talk about yourself and your life. Because the whole point of this, we said, it's a lucrative Lifestyle Business Mastermind. We want it to be thriving and profitable for you. We're going to do everything we can from our side to meet you and help you do that. But we also want you to be able to enjoy what you created. The fact that I could go enjoy the sauna that I always wanted went back when, if you listen to the book, when you heard about my terrible burnout and pain cycle, I went through my dream was to have a sauna so that if anything like that ever happened, I would have a tool that could help me, and I have that tool now. So the fact that I can go and do that feels like ultimate success to me, and now my job is to let myself enjoy it, and I want to help all of you who may be in that transition, in your own work, in your own business, do that as well with this mastermind. Yeah,

Steve Haase  19:36  
we often say that business is a spiritual practice, and what you were just sharing really brought that to mind for me, that changing from the harried, overworked, serious entrepreneur into right, quote, unquote, definitely,

Erin Aquin  19:53  
quote, not, not really serious, just like a hot mess, I was a hot mess. It's fine, it's not serious, not serious. It's

Steve Haase  20:00  
but shifting from that to someone who has systems in place, who is intentional about what they spend their time on, and who therefore has that time is a process of change and transformation. But when you get to that point where you're not just working all the time, there will be a moment of discomfort in the silence, not just in the optionality of, well, what am I going to use all this wonderful time for? But also, uh oh, it's just me and me, right? A lot of people have that moment. If you've ever been on a long meditation retreat of of what am I going to do? It's just me and my mind. This is part of it, too. When you create that space and that freedom, who are you when you when you aren't the overworked person at the center of it all? Yeah, but you've got some freedom. We're

Erin Aquin  20:51  
gonna help you find out.

Steve Haase  20:55  
So thank you for listening. We will link to the mastermind in the show notes, and if you want to learn more about it and apply it's at besuperabound.com/mastermind, we'll see you next time