EP 158: Are You Building Your Dream Business… or Someone Else’s?

What if the business you're working so hard to grow isn’t actually yours—but a version of success you’ve unknowingly inherited from social media, mentors, or industry noise?

It happens quietly.
You start chasing the seven-figure year, the group program launch, the sold-out mastermind…
But pause for a moment: Did you ever stop to ask if those dreams are actually yours?

In this episode, I invite you to step off the hamster wheel of comparison and get radically honest about the business you're building.

Because the truth is:
⚡ You can run a wildly successful business without scaling to the masses.
⚡ You can create deep impact without craving the spotlight.
⚡ And you can define success on your terms—rooted in what nourishes you, not what impresses the algorithm.

What You’ll Take Away:
✔️ How social media subtly pulls you into chasing goals that don’t belong to you.
✔️ The emotional cost of building a business that looks good—but doesn’t feel good.
✔️ How to reconnect with your unique version of success, so your business finally feels like home.

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RESOURCES:

If this resonated with you, here’s how we can go deeper together:

✨ Soul-Led Success Academy – A program designed to help you build a business that aligns with your energy, desires, and values - Join the Waitlist

✨ 1:1 Mentorship – Private coaching to help you design an aligned, spacious business model and work through subconscious blocks.

✨ The Aligned Offer System – A mini-course to help you create offers that match your version of success.

💌 Explore all my offers above or DM me on Instagram (@jessica.read.ilc) and let’s talk about building the business that’s truly meant for you.

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to Resourced with Jessica Raid. This is the podcast for visionary entrepreneurs who are here to build a thriving business and a luminous life, fully resourced from the inside out. Here, we unlock the magic of inner alignment. emotional mastery and energetic strategies so you can lead with clarity, confidence and ease. This is your space to shed what no longer serves you, embody your highest potential and expand into the next evolution of your business and soul's work. You are meant for more and it all starts here.

jess_2_03-03-2025_141756: 0:47

What if that business that you have been working so hard to build, the one that you are burning yourself out to scale, the one that you are pouring your heart into every single day, What if it is then, what if the business that you are working so hard to build, the one that you are burning yourself out to scale, the one that you are pouring your heart into every single day, is not worth it. Isn't even yours. What if it is just a reflection of the version of success that you have been sold on social media? Interesting thought, isn't it? Today we are pausing the noise and we are going to peel back the layers in this really juicy conversation. We are going to ask ourselves the question that almost no one is going to ask you to stop and consider. And that is whose dream. Are you really building welcome to resource with Jessica Reed? This is the space where we untangle your deepest truths from the noise, where we build businesses that feel like home, not just a highlight reel, because let's be honest, we are bombarded daily with polished curated versions of what business success. It's supposed to look like we are constantly fed that it's the six figure launches. It's the million dollar business. It's the book deal. It's the TEDx stage. It's the multi six figure mastermind. It's the hundreds of thousands of followers. And without realizing it, so many of us start shaping our office and shaping our goals and our timelines, and even our identities to fit into someone else's blueprint. But is this what you really want? Or is this just what you thought you had to want to be taken seriously? In this episode, we are getting radically honest, okay? We are unpacking how social media subtly seduces you into building someone else's dream, how to know if your goals are truly aligned. Or if they're adopted, why success is meaningless. If it costs you your joy, your health, your peace, your values, and how to define your own version of success, whether that's a global impact, whether that's a deep presence with your family or both, or whether that is quietly making magic behind the scenes, impacting lives that way, because that is no less version of success. Okay. You can be highly successful and intentionally unknown. You can make incredible money without craving the spotlight and you can lead from power without performing for visibility. And I think particularly In this age of social media, if you are a coach, if you are someone who is mentoring, is healing, and you're following the advice of the traditional business coaches who are assuming that you want that. Level that they are offering, and it seems to be the only level of support you can get for your business. I want you to know that if that is not your version of success, that is okay. If traveling the world with your family and working 10 hours a week is not your version of success, that's okay. If your version of success doesn't involve having a team underneath you, that's okay. If your version of success doesn't involve having multi six figure months, that's okay. This is something so deeply personal that you get to determine and that is the beautiful thing about what you are doing. I want the million dollar business. That is a goal. That is something that I am working towards. I don't necessarily want other things that people who have a million dollar business say have to come hand in hand because I don't agree with that. Now, if we haven't met, my name is Jessica Read. I am an intuitive business mentor. I'm also an, Alternative therapist and I know what it feels like to get caught in the current of someone else's definition of success to realize that you're chasing all the things that you thought that you wanted only to discover that they never actually really belong to you. I have spent years walking a path of shedding old goals that were not mine, dismantling businesses that look great on the outside but drain me from the inside. And now I am building something that feels spacious and so deep and successful because it is mine and it is my version of success. So this is your invitation to come back to your own gold. Whose version of success are you measuring yourself against today? When we are constantly exposed to images of what success looks like, our nervous system starts to normalize it. We don't even realize that we've internalized beliefs like, if I'm not scaling to seven figures, I'm behind. If I'm not the go to authority name in my niche, then I'm irrelevant. If I'm not fully booked out, then I'm failing. Whose timeline is that? Whose metrics are those? This unconscious comparison trap, it keeps you in business models, in pricing, in structures, in marketing strategies that don't even feel good, but you feel like they are necessary because you feel like you have to keep up. And despite what that six figure business coach or seven figure business coach is telling you, you do not have to build business in one certain way. Okay. Yes, their system might be amazing. I'm sure it is. Their funnel is probably absolutely amazing, but there are other ways to do this. There are ways that you can align with your own version of success, and that is what I want you to become really, aware of from this whole conversation today. Now, once you just start to look at, are you sacrificing what matters to you for goals that were never actually yours? Because I see this all the time, women working around the clock to grow teams that they never actually wanted. Okay? Creators chasing virality when actually what they crave is intimacy. But they see other people being successful and that's how it happens, so therefore that must be the right way, right? I see mothers sacrificing presence with their families for a business model that demands more than they actually have to give. And then it burns them out. Not because they're not capable, but because they're carrying the weight of a dream that isn't theirs. So the result is resentment, it is fatigue, and it is disconnection from the business and from the gift that you offer that you once loved because it is no longer feeling aligned. And you no longer have a business that holds you in a way that you can deliver it in an aligned way. So this is where I want you to get really, clear for yourself on what your version of success could look like. Okay. Maybe you need to explore my foundations course. As you work through this, you don't need to be everything to everyone. To be successful. What if your dream is to run a business that supports you quietly from behind the scenes? Serve a handful of deeply aligned clients in an intimate high touch container to create enough income to feel abundant while having time to actually enjoy your life. You are allowed. To opt out of the race. Okay. If you choose to, you are also allowed to be the woman who is going for the book deal for the million followers for the virality for, the million dollar business, you can be that woman too. But the point is, that you get to choose. You are allowed to choose depth over scale. You are allowed to choose scale. You are allowed to value peace over prestige and your success. It doesn't have to be loud. It doesn't have to be performative, it just has to feel true for you. So I truly hope, this is my short sharp one today, but I truly hope that as you, next time you open up your social media, won't you just start to notice The people who you are following the, big names in business who are telling you the way of the world, because that's been their experience in how they have built their businesses and what they have created and you're looking at that and you're thinking, oh hey. She's built a seven figure business, but over the last 10 years, she's worked 50 hours a week, and she's launched a book, and she's spoken as a TEDx speaker, and she's been on 700, 000 podcasts, and her podcast has a million subscribers. Like, when you're looking at all of these things, please know that it is okay if you don't want your life and business to look the same. It is okay if you do want it to look the same, but it is also okay if you don't, because what I want you to take from this conversation today is that, that beautiful business that you are building as a vehicle to the life that you get to live, to the values that drive your way of being, that gets to be unique to you. You define what a successful business looks like, not what your business coach is telling you. You get to define that. Okay, I truly believe this gets to be a personal journey. And if your goals that you are chasing, if they are someone else's dream and they are not yours, then you are going to constantly hit roadblocks because your internal world is not aligned and your internal desires are not aligned with what you are consciously going for. So I want you to start looking at the goals. And these are our reflection questions for today. I love to leave you with something to actually integrate to go and do to think about where in my business am I chasing a goal that I don't even want. I want you to really think about that. What is driving that? I need to be seen in a certain way, a desire to be perceived, a belief that you have to have those things in order to be successful. What would my dream business look like if no one was watching? Even if there's a small part of you that goes, Oh, is that possible? What would your dream business look like if no one was watching? And what version of success feels like home to you? I want you to really reflect on those questions and then as you start to wonder how do I then become the woman who is brave enough, bold enough to own what my version of success is that maybe doesn't align with society's version that maybe doesn't even align with my husband's version that doesn't align with those business coaches. The coaches version as you start to allow yourself to step out of that mold, believe in yourself, do that comes from that deep inner work that comes from you aligning your internal beliefs and your nervous system with what you want to create. And that is the kind of work that we do together. We do that in my private containers. We will be doing that in the soul led success Academy to go and check out the resources that I have, a look at the offerings, the ways that we can work together because this is what we do. We collaborate our internal well to match our external desires and they need to be unique to you. So you don't have to chase the dream that someone else has sold you. Don't get caught up in that hype. Get motivated but don't get caught up in that hype if it's not your dream. You get to build the one that your soul came here to live. Let others go viral if that's not your goal. Let it go. Let others build empires. If that is not your goal, let it go. If it is your goal, build the damn empire. You build what is real for you. And that is the most successful thing that you'll ever do. If this episode landed with you, then come over and say hi on Instagram and let me know, are you aligned with the version of success that you are building in your business right now? Or have you been building someone else's dream? Can't wait to chat and I will see you next week.

14:38

Thank you for tuning into Resource with Jessica Reid. If today's episode spoke to you, I'd love for you to share it with another soul led entrepreneur who is also ready to rise. Make sure to subscribe, leave a review and stay connected because when you are deeply resourced, you become unstoppable. Until next time, my friend, stay resourced, stay radiant, and trust in the magic that is you.