Serenity and Fire with Krista

It’s Not All Cucumber Water: 10 Truths of Owning a Business

• Krista Guagenti

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Owning a business isn’t all spa days and Instagram-worthy moments—it’s long hours, high stakes, and carrying the weight of every decision. In this episode of Serenity and Fire, I’m sharing the real behind-the-scenes of entrepreneurship: the sleepless nights, the constant mental load, the team you carry, the clients you fight for, and the sacrifices you make along the way.

Whether you’re a small business owner, spa owner, aspiring entrepreneur, or just curious about what it really takes to run a successful business, this conversation will give you a raw and honest look at:
 ✨ The hidden pressures of being “always on”
 ✨ How to lead a team while protecting your own sanity
 ✨ Why doubt, sacrifice, and grit are part of the journey
 ✨ The balance between passion and pressure

If you’ve ever wondered what entrepreneurship is really like, or you need encouragement to keep going, this episode is for you. 

And last, but not least, If this episode resonates, share it with a fellow business owner or someone who needs to feel seen today. 💚 

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Serenity and Fire, the podcast where wellness meets grit. I'm your host, krista Guagenti, founder of Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique. Join me as we dive into the intriguing world of biohacking, clean living, cutting-edge spa trends and the hustle, grind and grit of entrepreneurship. From my personal battles with weight management, infertility and a 30-year journey to create and launch my dream business to building a sanctuary for those who have been touched by cancer, I'm here to share real talk, inspire big dreams and spark a passion for holistic living inside each and every one of you. So let's dive in. Welcome back to Serenity and Fire. Today's episode is going to be a little different. It's much more off the cuff, less science-y and biohacking focused, but very real. I really want to talk about the behind the scenes of owning a business. I think what people oftentimes think when they see you know a beautiful spa like Panacea, or they're listening to this very polished podcast, or maybe even looking at our curated social posts and having exceptional experiences when they come into the spa. They don't always see what's behind the scenes when you're running a business and unfortunately, it's not always cucumber, water and candles. So in this episode, for anyone who's building something, carrying a dream or just curious about what it really takes to create something that looks and appears to be effortless on the outside. Definitely lean into this episode, so let's just get into it.

Speaker 1:

Owning a business means that you're always on, even when you're off. Your brain doesn't sleep and it doesn't stop, and for me it's go, go, go 24-7. There's pressures financially, emotionally, creatively, competitively, and most of it isn't even visible to the outside world. But the thing is is when you're a business owner, you don't just carry your paycheck, you carry the paycheck of everyone on your team. You're the one making all of the hard calls, you're the one staying up late, planning, pivoting when things aren't working out. You're worrying when the business isn't maybe going as robustly as you would like it to. And the fact of the matter is is that the business lives and dies with you. That weight, it's invisible to almost everyone.

Speaker 1:

So I thought for today's episode I'd share 10 things that you might not realize are happening behind the scenes when you own a business, and maybe you see yourself in the things that I'm going to share, and maybe you're thinking about dipping your toes into entrepreneurship and possibly owning your own business someday, and maybe you've thought about it for a long time and have held yourself back because you aren't sure what it takes to actually own a business. Or maybe you're just sitting around wondering about all the things that you might not know when it comes to owning a business. And just a little sidebar spoiler alert on that specific topic you'll never know all of the things that you need to know when it comes to owning a business and in my experience, after owning businesses for 15 years, I can honestly say that I learned something new every single day, and every day something new surprises me, and I think that is probably one of the hardest but also one of the most exciting things about being a business owner. It's always a challenge and the question really is are you up for it? Owning a business takes a certain type of person, a certain level of drive, ambition, grit, sacrifice and determination that not everyone possesses or wants to possess. So let's get into those 10 truths. So first, you're always on, even when you're on vacation, when you're trying to take some time off for the weekend, it doesn't matter. You're always thinking about your emails and schedules. You're thinking about marketing concepts. You're thinking about whether or not the books are full.

Speaker 1:

If you're in the service industry, you're thinking about tariffs and like all the things, and how these things affect your business. As a business owner, your mind never really stops and, as I mentioned earlier, the success and the failure of the business really relies on your shoulders, and so, when I look at things at the spa, one of the biggest things that we deal with behind the scenes are uptime with our equipment, and that is one of the biggest headaches for me is when something happens to a piece of equipment that we need for an everyday service, and I've spent a lot of time just running down to the spa and literally getting my toolbox out, pulling things apart, rebuilding equipment so that we have it for client services or making sure that I have a team trained to know how to handle those issues. So you can't just let those things go and hope that the clients won't notice. Somebody has to take care of them, and a lot of times, the only person who knows how to take care of them is you as the owner. Secondly, you carry your team. You carry their rent, their families, their bad days, their good days. You hold it all. I was recently asked what is one thing that you wish you knew before ever owning a business, and my answer to that was I wish I had known that.

Speaker 1:

Having employees is oftentimes like being a parent, and that's because you do a lot of mothering, a lot of nurturing, a lot of coaching. Sometimes the people you hire have had no business training. They've also had no training in social skills. Sometimes they just don't know things, and also sometimes they have personal issues and you take a lot of that on as a business owner, whether you want to or not. I mean, I've had situations where I've had employees who their daycare or their babysitters have fallen through at the last minute. They really need money and obviously we lose money if they're not at the business. You know their children come first and we want them to take care of them, but because they needed to have an income and it was important for them to be at work, I would step in and babysit their kids.

Speaker 1:

Now, that's not something that I like to do on a regular basis or have the time to do. Now, that's not something that I like to do on a regular basis or have the time to do. We've had team members who have had health issues mental health issues, physical health issues, personal issues and there's often a lot of times where you do a lot of coaching, and that can be life coaching, it can be business coaching, it can be all of the above, and there's a fine line between you know what's good for the business and what's good for the employee, and obviously, as a business owner, you want both of those things, and so I spend a lot of time thinking about how can I make the business healthy for my employees. How can I create an environment that they love to come to work to every single day and that doesn't feel like work, environment that they love to come to work to every single day and that doesn't feel like work? I want my team members to love coming to their jobs and to be able to have a place that they can come and maybe forget about all the things that are going on outside of the business and then help them find ways to deal with whatever it is that they're going through. So it is. You do constantly carry everything that your team carries, and then, third, you're the backstop. So if a system fails, a team member quits or a client complains, ultimately, at the end of the day, all of that lands on you.

Speaker 1:

It's important, as a business owner, to make sure that your teams have everything they need to be successful. When you're a business owner like hiring and employing people is always a challenge, and putting good systems in place to make sure that you're bringing people on that connect with your brand and your vision and who are going to champion the business and be cheerleaders for the business, is not a super easy thing, and you can't just snap your fingers and hope that you have an endless amount of qualified candidates knocking down your door. Sometimes you have to go shop for them. You have to recruit them. You know when people quit, especially when you're in a small business. You know it's not like a big corporation where you have 30, 40, 50 people just waiting in the whim to backfill those positions.

Speaker 1:

A lot of times, when you have a small business like ours, if somebody quits, it's a huge burden on the rest of the team, and so you, as the owner, typically have to jump in and fill those spaces until you can get someone else into that position. And when you're really small and you don't have a management team supporting you, that means now you're juggling working the day to day versus spending the time trying to recruit and fill a position that just became vacant. So it's. It's a juggling game, and sometimes it's very, very difficult to manage, but again, all of that falls on you, and that's something that you have to think about when you're looking at owning a business. And having employees can be such a double edged sword they can make or break the business. They can make the business more successful. So there's the burden on the business owner of recognizing this and recognizing it before any damage has occurred, and being able to weed out the bad employees and do everything that you can to retain the good employees, and that's not an easy thing to do either, and so you know keeping employees can be expensive. You want to make sure that you have good benefits for them. You want to make sure that they have a great and beautiful work environment. You want to make sure that they're being challenged and that they have training and support, and you know all the materials that they need in their job to be successful.

Speaker 1:

And when it comes to client complaints, that's always the worst. I feel like I lose the most sleep whenever a client isn't happy, because it's our mission to make sure that we're delivering an exceptional client experience for everyone who comes through our doors, and when that doesn't happen. It's just like, it's like a stab in the gut for me. And you know I and I know my managers and my directors and my team if they're affected by it. We all lose sleep over those kinds of things. And so figuring out how do we do better? Did we do something wrong? And if we did, how do we correct for that? And how do we make it up to the client. We always try to do everything right, but even when you have the best intentions, sometimes things go awry. We have to be strong enough to be able to admit to those failures and do whatever we need to do to make it right for the client. And then also, on the flip side, having the back of the business and your employees when a client is in the wrong Because, even though I grew up in the customer service industry and started working in restaurants when I was 12 and under the philosophy of the customer is always right, sometimes the customer actually is not. And so, finding the right way to educate the client, explain the situation, do whatever we still can for them without, you know, giving away the business those are all tough decisions that a business owner has to make.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so moving on to the fourth truth. You make the hard calls that no one claps for. So again, hiring, firing, even saying no to ideas that maybe you love because they're not sustainable for the business, I will say firing is one of the worst things that an employer or a manager will ever have to do in their jobs. I can tell you that we never want to have to do that and we will bend over backwards to make sure that we're developing our team in every way possible so that it doesn't ever have to come to that. But unfortunately, the saying you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink does also exist with employees too.

Speaker 1:

And despite all of the things that you do in an interview process to make sure that you're getting the right people in the right places, sometimes we miss the mark and in those instances, if we make those hiring decisions, like I said, we're going to do everything we can to develop them and get them up to the level that we need them to be and to the level of the rest of their team. But at the end of the day, if they're not making the mark and not putting the effort forward, then it does become a very tough decision to have to let someone go. So making sure you have systems in place to one, develop them, two, to encourage them, and three, to put them into disciplinary and developmental action, are all super critical. Those are never fun things to have to do. Developing is fun, like it's always fun to train people and help make them stronger and give them the tools that they need to be successful. But when you have to put someone into disciplinary action or put them on an improvement plan, that's never a fun thing to do and, quite honestly, as the owner or the manager who's managing a performance improvement plan, it's a lot of work on our part. But I do feel, as a business owner, that we should always make every effort possible to bring that team member to where we need them to be, and so it does create a burden on us, but I feel like it's one that's worth it, because there have been instances where we've had really great team members turn completely around. It isn't very common. Typically, you know, a leopard doesn't change its spots, but we feel good about putting every effort forth and I think, as a business owner, that's something that you definitely need to keep in mind.

Speaker 1:

And the fifth truth you feel alone. So even though you're surrounded by people your team clients, leadership can definitely feel very isolating. There's such a fine line between being an employer or a leader and or a leader and becoming friends with the people that you employ, or even you know people that are clients. I mean, I'm the first person to become friends with clients. I have tons of clients who I've built long-lasting relationships with. But then there's also the flip side of that. Then you make friends with someone and they try to take advantage of your kindness and your business, and then that puts you in a difficult situation when it comes to employees. That's hard because you want to get to know your employees personally and you want to know about what's going on in their lives, but also, at the same time, hanging out with them, going to bars, treating them like your besties is just never advisable. And that's hard because, again, it limits how close you really can get to your team members. And then the sixth truth is you wear a million hats, and especially when you're starting a business from the ground up, you're the CEO, you're the therapist, you're the marketing person, you're the administrator, the janitor, the strategist, the fixer, like all the things.

Speaker 1:

When I opened my first business. I literally started that business out of the basement of my house. I did all of the marketing. I did all of the canvassing, all of the bookkeeping, the sales, all of the installations. We did high-end custom window coverings. So I was in the van with the toolbox carrying the ladder in, using the hammer drill, using all of the tools drilling into concrete and brick and cast iron and all the things. You know, when you are first starting out a business, you are the person especially if you're not someone who's fortunate enough to have a ton of money just sitting around where you can hire a bunch of people to do all of these things for you right out of the gate. So a lot of businesses start the same way that mine did, and then you build from there and then eventually I was able to hire an assistant, and then from there, eventually, some sales people and some installers, and you know, then I've progressed through my businesses and fortunately now at Panacea I'm grateful to be able to have a super amazing management and leadership team to help support me so I'm able to delegate a lot of the things that in my previous businesses I would have had to do all on my own. But, that said, I can tell you, even when I started Panacea, for at least a year, I was working 18, 20, 22 hours a day to build this business.

Speaker 1:

I'm just one of those people who is determined to make whatever I do be successful, and I believe that if you go into business ownership with that mindset and you're comfortable with knowing that maybe some days that'll mean a couple of hours and other days it will mean 20 hours, then your business will be successful If you're willing to put the time and energy and effort into doing whatever it takes to make sure that that happens. That's where owning and building a business can definitely feel lonely, because you're, you know, isolating friendships, you're isolating family, you're spending all of your time making sure that this new baby of yours is super successful. And that leads us to our seventh truth, which is dealing with doubt. So, no matter how far you've come, imposter syndrome always creeps in. I can personally speak to that because I feel this every single day. I felt this in all of my businesses and it doesn't matter how successful we are. There's always more that you can do. You see someone whose Instagram page is better. You see a podcaster who's better. You see TikTok videos from another business that went viral and you haven't done that, or you see a really amazing marketing plan that just went wildly successful with another business.

Speaker 1:

The thing about owning a business is that you can only do so much and you only have so much bandwidth, and so you have to get really super comfortable with knowing that you're doing the best that you possibly can and that these other things will eventually come over time. You cannot possibly start a business and expect to be doing everything from day one. It just is not possible. And so that imposter syndrome does creep in, because you kind of start to feel like, well, I should be doing this, or I should be doing that, or look how successful they are. And you know that's just something that you deal with as a business owner. So when we look at the eighth truth, the fact of the matter is is that you miss out on a lot personally. That can be birthdays, family dinners, even just downtime with your significant other, and sometimes there are events that you just can't make it to. You have to be okay with that as a business owner. I know you know with us, we're in the hospitality industry and so we're open seven days a week.

Speaker 1:

Holidays are big times for us, especially Christmas, mother's Day, valentine's, and so those are all occasions when it's kind of all hands on deck. You know, there just are a lot of critical events in your life and with your friends and with your family that unfortunately, you do end up sacrificing. And I think, as a business owner, you just have to realize that balance is very difficult to achieve. You're not always going to have full focus on your family and full focus on your job. It's just not possible to do. And so there are different times in your life and in your career and in your business where some things are more important than others and some things take precedence over others. But as long as you're being very intentional and very focused in whatever it is that you're in at that moment, I think that it makes those times valuable.

Speaker 1:

And you know, I always talk to like my director who works for me now. She is so fantastic and she has twin girls and when she came to me and said that she wanted to interview for the director position, we talked a lot about balance and we talked about the time she would be sacrificing away from her family and one of the things that she shared with me that I thought was so interesting is that, you know, she grew up with a parent who was around all of the time. For her, she felt like she needed a bigger role model who was working towards goals and success and achieving things, and so for her, it was very important for her to be able to show to her girls that you can be a mom and also have a successful career, and so we talk about this a lot and she is like the most amazing mom ever. Every moment that she has with her family and her kids. She's super intentional and super focused while she's with them, and so you know that's that's really important. Don't get me wrong. The job creeps in. She gets text messages, she gets Slack messages, and you know there's things that she does have to respond to, but she takes care of them, and then she makes sure that the moments that she has with her girls are super meaningful.

Speaker 1:

So, that said, those are some of the sacrifices that you make. I have another employee who left on maternity leave and decided to be a stay-at-home mom and she's considered coming back, and we would love to have her come back, but she also was really enjoying being around for her daughter's first moments, and so I told her. I said you have to figure out if and when you're going to be okay with missing some of those things like will you miss their first word, will you miss their first step? And if you're not okay with that, then be having a career and being a working mom. Maybe isn't the right thing for you right now and at some point maybe again it will be. So you have to understand those sacrifices when you're a business owner and the ninth truth is you can't afford to fall apart. Even when things are super overwhelming which is a lot you're expected to hold it together.

Speaker 1:

For me, I feel like, as a business owner owner, you have to walk the walk and talk the talk. I also feel like you should know how to do Everything there is to do in your business so that you can be a role model for your team. Just like when I mentioned earlier about equipment failing and me grabbing the toolbox and tearing the equipment apart, like there is nothing in my business that I I can't do, with the exception of doing nail services. I am not certified to do nail services, but I know everything that's in all of our protocols. I know all the products that we use, I can definitely counsel and advise. But aside from that, everything else that we do in the spa I'm able to do and I've always operated like that in all of my businesses.

Speaker 1:

When I had my design business, like I said, I could do all of the installs. I could do all of the sales, the marketing, the books, everything. And I think that's important from a hiring perspective too, because people are human and sometimes they try to get away with things and as a business owner, when you've done the job and you've been in their shoes, you can kind of call them on their BS but also help, coach and guide them and teach them and show them how to do whatever it is that you want them to do. You're juggling 80 million things, I can tell you, in the spa. It can be handling broken down equipment, to interviewing potential new employees, to having a meeting with my marketing person, to meeting with providers that are going to come in and do seminars, to planning special events. I mean it's just literally all over the place. And you do, as a business owner, have to have that kind of mind that can be in a million different places at one time and still juggle all of the balls without dropping them, and even though if inside you're feeling super overwhelmed, you can't show that to your teams, because if you fall apart, then they fall apart.

Speaker 1:

Okay, now the 10th truth is, the fact of the matter is is that, despite all of those things, you love the business and you love what you do, because this is your dream and you wouldn't trade it for anything. But that doesn't mean that it's easy and I can tell you, panacea has been a dream of mine for over 35 years and I would not take back one single second of it. I love everything about it. I love everything that we do. I love how we make clients feel. I love that we've created a culture where my team loves coming to work. We have a beautiful space I mean, I feel like who wouldn't love coming to work there? And what we do for clients and the community is second to none. So all of those heavy things are definitely outweighed by all of the positivity and the passion and the enthusiasm and the amazing stories that we hear from clients and from my team members.

Speaker 1:

So if you're listening and you found that you're in the season of life and your career, remember that no matter what path you choose. You're building something or you're leading something, and whatever that is, I want you to know first, you're not weak for being tired. Second, you're not failing if it feels hard. And third, you're not alone. The most beautiful things are often built in the shadows, long before anyone claps, and this is where the fire gets forged. This is the serenity and fire of business ownership, the peace and the pressure, the velvet glove and the iron fist.

Speaker 1:

So the question is is this for you? Does all this get you super excited? Or do you hear this and think more power to you, crazy people? There's nothing wrong with wanting to come to work, do a great job, have passion for what you do and not take your work home with you. Or maybe you do take your work home with you because that's part of your job, but you don't want the pressure of paying the bills, keeping the lights on, answering to the banks and or your investors, dealing with hiring, firing and all of the other things that I previously mentioned. And again, that's perfectly okay if that's how you feel. Business owners like me need people like you to help keep our businesses running, so keep on killing it out there, no matter which path you choose.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for spending time with me in this episode today. If it resonated with you, share it with a fellow friend, entrepreneur, or tag someone who needs to feel seen today. And please share your thoughts and follow-up questions with me on social. And if you're local or you're just following along from afar, know that everything you see at Panacea or you hear here on Serenity and Fire is built from grit, grace, determination, love and passion. Okay, that's it for today's episode. Remember, if you want to start biohacking your way to better health, start at Panacea Luxury Spa Boutique. You'll save 10% on a hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatment or a whole body LED light bed therapy treatment when you book your first service using the code Serenity10. And don't forget to leave us a review and hit subscribe to the Serenity and Fire show wherever you get your podcasts. This helps us reach more people like you and helps us spread the great word of health and wellness to the masses. Until next time, keep balancing serenity with fire. I'm Krista Guageni and I'll talk to you in our next episode.