Starting Over After 10 Years in Business (My Honest Truth)

This episode wasn’t planned — it insisted on being shared.

What started as quiet reflections on a contemplative morning became the most raw, vulnerable episode I’ve ever recorded.

After 10 years as an entrepreneur, I found myself reflecting on the highs, the heartbreak, the pressure, the lessons, and the cost of chasing success in ways that pulled me further from myself.

From incredible wins to painful setbacks. Hundreds of thousands invested. Hard lessons learned. Trying strategies that didn’t fit. Looking outside myself for answers.

In this deeply honest episode of The Aligned Business Show, I share reflections on what happens when success stops feeling aligned — and what it means to begin again.

In this episode, we explore:

• The pressure many entrepreneurs put on themselves to succeed
• Why constantly chasing the “right” strategy can leave you disconnected
• What 10 years in business taught me about growth and alignment
• The courage it takes to start again — differently

Excuse the sniffles and trembling voice — this one is deeply real.

If this episode gives you a “holy sh*t… that’s exactly what I’ve been doing” moment, I’d love to hear from you. I’m only a DM away.

If this episode gives you a “holy sh*t… that’s exactly what I’ve been doing” moment, I want you to know this:

You don’t have to navigate this journey alone.

The Aligned Business Community was created for entrepreneurs who are done forcing growth, chasing strategies that don’t fit, or trying to build success in isolation.

It’s a space for support, honest conversations, aligned business growth, and walking this path alongside others who get it.

Join The Aligned Business Community: https://vickigylling.systeme.io/alignedbusinesscommunity

#WomenInBusiness #Entrepreneurship #AlignedBusiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am 43 years old, almost, and I'm starting over. It's not like a big crisis happened or anything. I've been losing my job, particularly I'm self-employed. I've been for almost 10 years. This month is actually gonna be my 10-year anniversary as a solo entrepreneur. What a fucking ride it's been. It's like got a million loops. I've had the biggest ups, the most mind-blowing. I can't believe this is happening moments. And I've had some pretty pretty tough faults from high up. The ones you really don't understand you walked away from. Broken? Maybe not. Scarred. Definitely. Part of me is sad. The very human I don't understand. Or I only understand what I can see, what I can feel, what I can touch. That part, that part feels like 10 years, it's a long time. No? I've served a lot of clients. I've made a lot of money in those 10 years. Just not nowhere near what I imagined. And I guess that's always the thing, you know. We wanted to go faster. Everything we really want that isn't here. We wanted to go faster. Can't wait. So excited. Like kids before Christmas Eve with a birthday, right? My oldest just turned 13. I made the decision, you know? Because of him and his brother to be an entrepreneur. So they would not tell working parents that we would never see them. And there's no regrets. Not a single one. It's given us so much time, so much presence. We never have to worry about our children being sick and who had to call in and not show up for work. We never had to send them off to daycare or later school if they really had an off day. So no regrets. So why am I starting over? I always tell my clients when they kind of feel like something is dead in their business. Because even if you bring it back to life, it will never be viable. And that's kind of what I feel like I've been doing with my business this past year. And I realized something. When I started my business, I knew nothing. I didn't I didn't know how you actually build a business. I didn't even know what I wanted to truly offer. You know? It wasn't a deep desire or dream to be a solo entrepreneur. I later found out it's written all over my design and chart and everything. Written in the stars. But it was never a desire. But because I didn't know anything, I of course looked for people who knew who could help me. That's what most people do, right? And I found them. Except the way I was taught business wasn't really a way that felt right. No, it was. It was actually just more hustle. The same doubts, the same insecurities, the same fear, the same patterns that you would have in your corporate job would just be brought into your business. It was very manipulative. It was very persuasive. I invested so much money in coaches and programs to learn, and I felt myself a million miles from my truth, myself. And out of everything, I think that's what hurts the most. Not the insane amount of money I spend on something that never lived up to what it promised, not seeing the worst in people not falling for really good marketing and sales tactics. I mean, I have my moments where I think, God, what could I have used that money for instead? But I know they'll come back. You know, they have come back. Maybe not tenfold yet in terms of money, but definitely in the sense and a clear feeling of how I want to do business and how I don't want to do business. But something happens when you keep learning from others, and something happens when you kind of keep looking towards those further ahead. Because on one side they've done it, their proof that's amazing, and they will inevitably have discovered things you can use, so you don't have to discover everything on your own. But what I've just realized very recently is that what will end up happening in most cases is that you listen to them so hard from where they are now, and the experience they have and the steps they've taken, and you look at what they are doing right now, and you try to implement that. I allowed myself to experiment, I allowed myself to discover. There was no pressure of a brand, of a business I had to live up to. There was no right steps or order, there was nothing where every move I made had to kind of fit together and click together. It wasn't calculated, it wasn't structured, it wasn't well planned, and part of that eventually became the downfall. But I miss it. I've put so much pressure on myself to do it right because this time I was smarter. This time I knew what not to do. This time I had so much more business knowledge. It didn't even occur to me that that could be bad, that it could be something that would almost equally fuck me up as much as not knowing did. After rediscovering myself. I haven't given myself the time to be an entrepreneur and just imagine, invent, test, try, discover, play, have fun. Everything has always felt like it had to fit into this greater plan because that was what everyone further ahead was doing, you know, the funnels, the pathways, and everything. So I'm starting over. And even despite the sad phrase, I'm actually so relieved and happy and excited about this. Because I may not have started because I wanted to be a solo entrepreneur, because I wanted to have my own business. But I sure as hell want that now. But I want my business, the real one, the true one for me. I want the one that I love waking up to every day. I love showing up in, the one that feels like an extension of me, the one that allows me room to grow and breathe, the one that can hold that not everything I do has to be the greatest success, the one where even failures are the greatest assets. And I can't build that with the added pressure of having to live up to a business, a brand, a very like set structure of what everything has to be and look like and how it has to work together. So I'm starting over. Why not? I mean, why not?