The POWR Method Part 2: Why Successful Businesses Are Built During Your Period

What if the phase you've been pushing through is actually the most important one for your business?

If you've ever:

• Felt guilty for resting even though you're exhausted
• Launched something new without reflecting on what you just did
• Recreated the same patterns over and over because the newness felt productive
• Pushed through your period like it was any other week
• Built something out of performance instead of building something true to you

In this episode, I'm breaking down the R in POWR: Rest. This is your menstrual phase — and yes, I'm literally going through it right now, which is why we're starting here instead of with P.

Here's what I want you to know: Rest isn't something you earn after you've checked every box. Rest is productive. It's strategic. And it's what keeps you from waking up four years later realizing you built something you didn't even want.

During this phase, your superpower is rest and reflection. Your hormones are stable, your emotions are clear, and you're most connected to your intuition. You physically cannot lie to yourself. Which makes this the perfect time to get honest about what's working, what's not, and what patterns you keep repeating because they feel familiar — not because they work.

In this episode:

• The 3 things I do during my menstrual phase to support my body and my business
• Why I rescheduled a coffee meeting (and told her I was on my period)
• How reflection prevents you from recreating the wheel every single time
• The difference between shiny object syndrome and actual growth
• Why balancing the feminine (creativity) with the masculine (execution) starts with rest
• How to set intentions from your soul, not your mind
• The connection between your menstrual phase and the new moon cycle

This episode is for you if:

• You're a solopreneur, business owner, or busy woman who's wired for burnout
• You keep charging ahead without ever stopping to reflect on what you just did
• You feel guilty resting even when your body is screaming for it
• You want to build a business that supports you through every season of life — not one built out of performance
• You're ready to stop forcing productivity and start working WITH your body's natural rhythm

"Rest isn't earned. It's productive. This is what keeps me in the game."

Spring Savings Special: 50% off my 90-minute health intensive session. A focused deep-dive into one specific question. We'll uncover what's been holding you back and use The Female Framework to give you a clear plan moving forward that actually supports your body. Ends April 30th! Send me a DM or email me at hello@carlyschade.com to claim. 

☕️ Stay bold, stay balanced, stay thriving 

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Carly): Hi everyone. Carly here. And I have a quick reminder before we get started. So I have a spring special running right now and it is 50% off my 90 minute health intensive sessions. So if you are someone who has been doing everything right, you're following everything that you were taught growing up, you are listening to that super fit woman on Instagram, right? You're doing everything society is telling you to do, but you, but you still feel exhausted.

0:00:31 - (Carly): Maybe you're creatively drained in your own business or your life, or you just feel like your body is out of whack, like it's working against you. A session like this is perfect for you because truthfully, most women don't need more discipline. Okay? The sheer amount of things that you have accomplished in your life, let alone on like a daily basis, right? We know women carry this mental load. She trust me, it's not a discipline problem.

0:01:00 - (Carly): What it is, is just generic advice. A generic diet, a one size fits all workout plan built by a dude who's trying to get really ripped. Right? Like, women need to understand how their body works, what it needs during each phase of their cycle, and why that 6am workout might be making you more tired, not less. Okay? So in one of my 90 minute sessions, we're gonna figure out your plan together, okay? We're gonna look at what you've already tried, why it didn't work, and you're gonna get a personalized plan, right? Maybe your goal is focusing on nutrition, gaining muscle, right? We'll look at what to eat and when.

0:01:41 - (Carly): Maybe we need to adjust your workouts based on your cycle. Right? Everything I do has the female framework in mind. And we're really gonna look though at your body because while there's a female framework, we all have our own bio, okay? What works for you and what works for me may not work for someone else. So luckily I have both the lived experience and the formal schooling to figure out what your body is looking for. Right? Your body is always talking to you. We just need, together need to uncover the symptoms, what it's trying to tell you.

0:02:13 - (Carly): So after this session, you are going to leave with clarity, direction and a simple roadmap that you can actually follow. Okay? It's not more overwhelm. It's really just guidance designed by a woman for your body. Okay? It's not about just doing more blindly. It's about doing what actually works. Think working smarter, not harder. So right now it is 50% off, just $150. You can claim it anytime in April and you can schedule Anytime in April or May. So if you're like, April's almost over, Carly, as long as you book it before the end of the month in April to get that discount, we can schedule it when it works for your timeline.

0:02:52 - (Carly): So send me an email DM me or the link is in the show notes as well. Okay, let's get into the episode today. Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I'm your host, Carly Cha, and I'm here to uncover how good life can get. Okay, so last week I introduced the new miniseries inside my podcast called the Power Method. P O W R. And so this is a framework that aligns your cycle with your business.

0:03:42 - (Carly): And as a result you experience greater creativity, increased output with less input and sustainable energy leading to sustainable success. So personally, right? As a high achieving, high capacity, high functioning woman, very wired for burnout, being a solopreneur can certainly come with its challenges. And if I am not careful, then I can very quickly fall back into my old ways. Fortunately, this framework exists and it's a tool that I constantly use to guide myself back to the new me, right? The one who wants to build a business that supports my body, my creativity, right? It's a body led structure to how I run my business, to how I plan out my monthly tasks, and even how I schedule my personal life.

0:04:34 - (Carly): So again last week I introduced the Power Method, people. P O W R. Now remember, your menstrual cycle has four phases. Your follicular, your ovulation, your luteal and your menstrual. And in previous episodes I share more about what's happening on like a physiological level, regards to your health, like as nutrition, mood, digestion, all of that with each phase. But more than just our health, each of these four phases has its own superpower that can be applied to business as well.

0:05:10 - (Carly): So four phases, four letters, P O, W, R. And when you ditch this top down to do list approach, right, Apply this new framework and intentionally plan tasks based on what your body is primed for, not just what is the first written on your to do list. Then suddenly things get easier, more enjoyable and more successful. So what does power stand for? The P stands for plan. That's your follicular phase, right? Your internal spring that begins right after your bleed.

0:05:47 - (Carly): The O stands for outward. This is your ovulation phase, your internal summer. The W stands for work and that's your luteal phase, your internal fall. And the R stands for rest, your menstrual phase or your internal Winter. So, for the next four weeks, I'm going to share some of the ways that I apply this framework in my own business so that you can try it for yourself. You can see the practical application.

0:06:15 - (Carly): And, of course, these superpowers don't just apply to business. Okay? So whether you're a busy mom figuring out the family calendar or an adventurous woman that is his life has been defined by the word busy, you can apply these same principles to your personal life. So, naturally, you might think that we're going to start with P, since that's the first letter, but I'm actually going to start with R today, because.

0:06:40 - (Carly): Plot twist, I'm on my period. And side note, if you are new here, get used to the fact that you'll pretty much always know where I'm at in my cycle. It's just what we do here, it's all about the female framework, right? So anyway, we're starting with R, because this is a circle, your cycle is a circle. So there's really no real beginning or end anyway, so R it is. Let's dive in. The R in power represents your menstrual phase, and this is the phase that represents the start of a new cycle. Okay? And it begins on day one of your cycle, AKA the very first day that you start bleeding is day one of your cycle and the beginning of your menstrual phase.

0:07:23 - (Carly): And so your unique superpower here is rest and reflection, hence the R. So when it comes to planning my schedule and my tasks, right. What do I do in my business? In this particular phase, the R phase, I'm going to share three strategies. So the very first thing I do, when it comes to my business and my tasks and figuring out my schedule and my calendar and my planning, the very first thing I do, I rest.

0:07:57 - (Carly): Okay? I keep my calendar as light as possible. My body is inflamed. I'm shedding my uterine lining, and I've just worked my butt off for the last 30 days. It's time to recoup. Okay? And before you even say it, I can all hear you guys. Okay, Carly, I can't just cancel my entire life because my period is here. I'm not saying you should. Okay? I still have weekly client calls. I show up for my clarity calls.

0:08:26 - (Carly): You know, I have committed to sharing these very podcasts and these emails with you every week. Right? We all have things that we've committed to, but the truth is, we also all have wiggle room. Okay, Is there a social event that you can skip? A doctor's appointment. You can reschedule a meeting. That can maybe happen next week instead. Because here's my very, very real time example that just happened, like, two days ago.

0:08:54 - (Carly): So a woman that I met at a networking event reached out to me last week and wanted to meet for coffee this weekend. At first, I agreed, right? The very quick to say yes, eager to please. My mind jumped, and my body was forced along for the ride. But as the date got closer, my energy got lower and my period was coming, and I just really didn't feel like being social. So I asked her to reschedule. And yes, I told her why. Because here we talk about periods, and she was totally fine with it.

0:09:26 - (Carly): Okay? Because again, you have wiggle room. You just don't want to disappoint people if you think that you truly do not have a single ounce of time or flexibility in your schedule. It's not really that, okay, you are afraid of disappointing someone. There's definitely some people pleasers going on, right? But your body deserves to come first. And honestly, this ends up paying off in the long run because this was a business meeting, right? She wanted to kind of know what I did. Maybe she would become a client, maybe a collaboration.

0:10:01 - (Carly): Who knows what could come from this coffee date, right? That's the beauty of life. So why would I not want to make a good first impression? Why would I not want to be excited to go? And why would I not set myself up for success by aligning this meeting with my energy and my superpower? And as a business owner, I have the power to do that. I get to be in charge of my schedule. Okay? So that's number one.

0:10:31 - (Carly): Number two, during the R phase, I reflect. I carve out some time to think about the last month. Did I launch something? How did it go? Did I test a new social media strategy? What resonated with my audience? What didn't, right? This one, this part, this reflection has been a game changer. As someone who has been a hustler all of her life, I'm really, really good at charging ahead, okay? But this is how we end up exhausting ourselves and headed straight to burnout.

0:11:03 - (Carly): Because especially when it comes to business, you just kind of end up recreating the wheel every single time instead of refining what you've done. That's the power of reflection. And this is something that I like to call shiny object syndrome. And don't worry, most of us have this, right? That new idea, that new rebrand, the new class, right? It's all exciting, right? That newness gives Our brain a dopamine hit, and it makes us feel productive.

0:11:31 - (Carly): But truthfully, we're just recreating the wheel every single time. And the difference between a business that grows and one that stays stuck. Consistency. There's so much power in staying with it, in following through. This is where we have to balance the feminine, the creativity, the newness, the ideas with the masculine, the execution, the doing. And that balance starts with reflection, refinement.

0:12:05 - (Carly): And I get why so many of us skip this phase. Honestly, it's pretty vulnerable, right? Like, we have to look at ourselves. We have to face our patterns. We have to realistically look at how we spent our time. When I first started my business, using this framework, right? This. This is exactly how I was able to recognize the patterns that I brought with me from my old job. I was doing the same thing, just disguised as a solopreneur, right?

0:12:35 - (Carly): And during this phase, the R phase, the menstrual phase, this is really the best time to have these kind of honest conversations with yourself because you physically cannot lie to yourself. Which brings me to my final point. The final thing that I do in my R phase, I set an intention, okay? During this phase, we aren't as influenced by this, like, massive dip and change in our hormones, right? During this phase, we're steady.

0:13:07 - (Carly): And as a result, our emotions are steady. And you are most connected to your intuition, your truest, most authentic self. It's impossible to lie to yourself, which makes it an incredible time to check in and ask yourself a question. So I told you we changed the order because I'm going through it right now. Okay? So what did that look like for me? Saturday morning, I set an intention for my business.

0:13:36 - (Carly): So some of you know that I am going through a rebrand, but I don't want to force it. Rebrand up level, Whatever. There's a new phase coming. But again, I want this new version to be something that can evolve with me, something that really is the foundation where I don't have to recreate the wheel again, right? What is this big, scary dream? And can this rebrand hold all these ideas I have for myself?

0:14:05 - (Carly): So I set my intention by asking myself these two questions. Number one, what does my soul want me to know about my business? And number two, why did I start my business? And then I wait, okay? I don't force this answer. I don't think it over, right? I simply wait. I rest, I support my body, and I allow the answer to come when it wants. Because the soul lives in the body. If something is really loud, you're overthinking it.

0:14:43 - (Carly): That's the mind, but the body, the soul, it delivers its messages quietly, usually only when we've slowed down enough to actually hear them. Right. What does my soul want me to know about my business? Not the mind. So one more layer that I want to add to this, because this podcast is a bit of a junction, right? Where soul meets science. And so I want to share. I think this is important when we understand why each phase, P O W R, has this specific superpower. Why we're primed for this is also because we are a reflection of the energy of the moon.

0:15:25 - (Carly): Right? So my bleed coincides with the moon. And in ancient times, before birth control, before hormonal disruptors, before artificial light, most women did, too. It's called a white moon cycle. And if yours doesn't line up, that's totally fine. That's not the point. But the energy behind it is the same. And so during a new moon, the sky was dark, people couldn't see. It wasn't a time for festivals, for celebrations, travel, or work.

0:15:53 - (Carly): The moon was resting, and so were you. So there you have it. The R of power, the menstrual phase, the three things that I do to support my body and my business, and this phase in particular. The rest, the one that we often think that we don't need, the one that we think that we can bypass, is actually the phase that keeps me from falling back into my old patterns. It's arguably one of the most important.

0:16:24 - (Carly): It keeps me from building something out of performance instead of building something true to me, right? Something aligned with my highest self, a business that supports me through every season of life. And this is exactly how I stay in the game, because rest is not earned, but you realize that is actually productive. It's helping me stay on track to align my business to my goals and prevent me from just going at it blindly, waking up four years later and realizing that what I built wasn't what I wanted.

0:16:59 - (Carly): And the best part is this whole thing. I'm talking about five days. That's the length of my bleed. Five days to build an aligned business to keep you on track, to reorient your compass, to rest and reflect and set an intention. And after that, we move on to the next phase. So next week's episode, we're going to pop back up to the top of power and talk about P with the planning phase. And this aligns with your follicular phase and all the creativity that comes with our internal spring.

0:17:36 - (Carly): So if you are a solopreneur a business owner or just a busy ass woman? I hope you found some gold here and maybe even reflect on the fact that there is another way to do business, one where your body leads the charge. So share this with a friend who might resonate with this, who you know could maybe use a new framework for how they're running their business. If you love what you hear, please leave a Review subscribe and like a good cup of coffee my friends, stay bold, stay balanced and I will see you next week.