The Unlinear Path to Building a Business You Love (Guest: Maja Holder)

What if building a successful business was never meant to be a straight line?

In this episode of The Aligned Business Show, I’m joined by Maja Holder for an honest and inspiring conversation about the unlinear path of entrepreneurship — and what it really takes to build a business you love while navigating setbacks, identity shifts, and unexpected challenges.

Maja shares her journey from growing up between cultures, to transitioning from “party girl” to fitness enthusiast, to building an agency and eventually creating a business that truly feels aligned with who she is today — all while navigating significant health setbacks along the way.

Her story is a powerful reminder that success rarely looks linear, and that the detours are often part of what shapes a business you can actually sustain and enjoy.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why the entrepreneurial journey is rarely a straight path
• How setbacks can reshape your business in powerful ways
• The identity shifts behind building a business you love
• What it really takes to “make it” on your own terms
• Why persistence looks different when you choose alignment

If you’ve ever felt like your path is too messy, too slow, or not how it “should” look — this conversation will change how you see your journey.

💛 Connect with Maja Holder:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/majamholder/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@majamholder

#BusinessGrowth #EntrepreneurJourney #AlignedBusiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Aligned Business Show. I have the honor of welcoming Maya to today's call where we're going to talk about, well, essentially how business journey is not a linear path and how life can take you in a million different directions and where that leads to and what you learn along the way. So, Maya, won't you tell us a bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Excited to have this conversation. I think it's very important as you go through these journeys to find other creators at different levels and see where they're at as well and you know figure out where those breadcrumbs lead you from where you're looking to go versus where you are. There tends to be a massive gap usually online with the bigger gurus or profiles sometimes, and it's quite hard to figure out how that kind of connects. You know, when you look back, you can't quite realize how all the pieces had connected to get to you to where you are or where you need to be, but it so magically kind of blends. Um I think my story is a little bit warped in the sense that it was very non-typical. I knew I didn't want a full-time job or a typical career from very, very, very young age. I was born and raised out in Hong Kong. My parents are both British. There's always mixed fusion Eastern, you know, Eastern versus Western mix, and I'm very grateful for having that upbringing and perspective from this side of the world. I definitely tell people if they have the opportunity to come out to this city or spend some time here. Your network tends to suddenly be global after a few years just because of the transient nature of everything that it is. So I was lucky enough after dropping out of university, I was able to work freelance for myself within the events modeling and the alcohol industry, eventually teaming up with my sister, branding ourselves as the Howard Sisters. That ended up leading to lots of different other projects and opportunities, um, but also realizing that we were high-functioning alcoholics and didn't quite enjoy the alcohol industry as much as we were, you know, waking up hungover the next day, going, ah, we probably need to actually sign contracts or earn some money with all of this without just doing, you know, handshake deals that people can walk away from. So I think it was a, you know, it was the Wild West. We were able to get away with a lot, and it was a brilliant upbringing. But um, at some point the fitness started kicking in, and we had a few other modeling, dancing friends in the industry that were looking at supplements companies and affiliate marketing. So we had our try at network marketing for a while, which opened our eyes for different paradigms of how to actually earn money, even if you don't own the product. I've always been in this search of how do I keep it moving, even if I'm not necessarily there the whole time. Or for me, the biggest incident was when I basically lost my income in an afternoon. I was 25, shifting from the modeling events and alcohol. I just qualified as a personal trainer. I was like, sweet, during the day I can run fitness classes, and then, you know, during the evening we can run around and build our own things and have that as the balance. Um, and three months after qualifying, uh, I was in London with my sisters, and I stood up after lunch and I had a slip disc in the base of my spine that was pressing on both my sciatic nerves. And I think at that point, well, I don't think at that point anybody, you know, understands how chronic and long-term injuries play out, but that was the start of a six years of a lot of pain and a lot of figuring out what was going on, as nobody could quite tell me what was happening with my body. And again, with this incident, my income got taken off. So I was able to luckily lean on my artwork. I was then doing graphic design for a protein company, so I was like, sweet, I'm fitness adjacent. As soon as I could stand up for longer than half an hour, I was on the floor as an F-45 coach, realized very quickly that I enjoyed the group training and the camaraderie of the fitness industry. But in terms of becoming a great coach, it wasn't my calling. Um, so I moved into martial arts, into fitness. Um, and then eventually my injury came to a head again, and I was taken off the gym floor, and I spent some time developing a uh marketing agency with a business partner of mine. So that kind of was another three years within that era of my life, um, and running around on the hamster wheel of basically taking everything I'd learned from a nine to five and applying it to my own agency and then wondering why I was miserable within my own agency. I remember coming home on the bus one night and bursting into tears after like another six-hour, you know, six-day, twelve-hour whatever day at the office. And I'm going, is this success? Like, is this what it means to mess? Like, I feel like I'm drowning. So I went through all those little hurdles, you know, the nature of trying to scale yourself or build a business and build yourself out, and all that comes with that, you know, adventure and working with different business partners that don't quite have compatible values. That was a big thing I hadn't realized for a long time. I hadn't spent as much time, I guess, going inside. I was allowing other people to still make more of the decisions as we moved forward because I was just happy to be part of the projects and to be creating and storytelling. I realize social media has always been a part of my path, even within the modeling and the events industry. It was my digital portfolio online. That's how I was able to get booked for jobs, that's how I met new people, that's how eventually I branded me and my sister to get, you know, different campaigns or deals or exchange with different brands and everything like that. So the storytelling online and the ability that social media had in terms of building a personal brand, making connections online, it was always in the back of my mind. So even when I was doing F-45, I was the one responsible for doing the stories and you know, not kind of realizing the effect that that was having on the sales and the incoming traffic. And then same with the martial arts, it was always telling the stories and seeing people then walking in. So noticing what happens when you actually, you know, show people what's going on behind the scenes, but in a way that is fun. I think that was something that I always loved about it. And obviously, being in the business, I knew the quirks, I knew the jokes, and and I felt that that, like showing that was a way to increase sales. And it took a lot of time for me to realize what I was actually doing in that sense and how useful that kind of was in the journey of you know, reminding people that there are so many, like there's only a finite amount of industries out there. A lot of us are all doing a same, same but different kind of thing. But when you get to that level of building from your own values, your own perspective, your own, you know, quirks, then you do become your own, your market of one, I guess, in that in that sense, when a lot of these gurus are talking online about you are the niche or you know, the niche is you. A lot of people struggle to figure that out. And I find a lot of the time that's just because we've lost a relationship with ourself and we've gotten lost in the work, and it's how you find that balance of staying inspired by life without getting bogged down by the work, but allowing everything to kind of feed into itself. And I think the last like four or five years now, building my coaching practice on the side of still doing some graphic design and some agency work, it's just been very interesting to witness how that unfolds, I guess. And and just the ongoing content creation is something that I still always keep coming back to. And you know, now technology catching up with what it is. We have the abilities from our phones, from a Wi-Fi connection. I think enough of us have seen this play out too many times that we're no longer able to tell that story of it can't happen for me, unless you also sit there with a mirror and go, Well, you're only just not doing the reps to get it or to try. And I think now we're coming to a very interesting time online, and that's really where the work goes into it. But it's never about sticking with one thing. I think that was a little cycle I got stuck in for a long time, was trying to put myself into the box or figure out my one thing, or my one client, or my one this, or my one that. And you know, so much of it just comes down to having these conversations, testing things, and allowing it to almost like build organically. I look at those like mud houses or something, and you just start like adding layers on side, and eventually it suddenly looks like something you can inhabit. But it it takes a long time for it to kind of start forming, and I think that's the hardest part with all of this, you know. It it is the years of the unfolding of the reps, and so within that, how do we also not isolate ourselves from everything, but at the same time find clients, find peers, you know. I'm not sure how it all still swells together, but it's a few of these little buckets, and then reminding yourself as well that nothing inherently in this life matters unless you make it matter. I think that's been a big part of where the dots have been connecting for me looking backwards, and you know, the just the sheer volume of different industries that I've worked in and fields and the different types of people. And again, it all comes down to there are a hundred million different ways to skin a cat or to build a business or to actually get something to grow. And for me, my biggest focus I've realized is just that skill set of turning content into income. I think it's one of the funnest things you can do online because it's so accessible. And the fact that we all have our own unique stories to tell, the only real problem that we have is we usually can't see our own gold dust and our own, you know, shiny achievements because we just overlook them like it's nothing, because it's been part of our life story. Yet, you know, you look at someone else and you send the praise onto them and go, Oh my gosh, you could do this or it'd be amazing. And so, yeah, I think it's really working on finding those different groups of people, but then also fueling your own internal creativity that it starts to pick up its own momentum as you build. We're we're almost moving into an era of very organic, unfolding businesses. And I think within some of the worlds that you know you and me have connected in, we've seen what is possible and it's absolutely ludicrous. But it, you know, it's the it's the making connections, it's keeping the human first. And, you know, I think one of the reasons why I've trudged very, very slowly through all these steps is because I also refuse to just create shit for the sake of shit sake. Um, which I think in the, you know, in the nature of the world that we're moving into towards AI, that's great. But I feel like with a lot of these just churn out PDFs or publications or this, I feel like there's already been this disconnect of reminding you, you know, reminding yourself as a creator that somebody on the other side is receiving those products and probably needs your help or is looking for this solution. So to exchange, you know, your money for something that then comes back and it's like, well, I already know this, or this wasn't thought out, or this really was clearly, you know, copied and pasted from something that doesn't even, I think there's a lot of distrust that can start to happen within the industries that we're in, but at the same time, there's never been more of an incredible opportunity to, you know, pick something and run with it and see what happens. And I think that's now sort of become my biggest ethos. I mean, I work with, you know, fitness professionals, Hollywood stunt women, physios, people from all over the world. And like that's my life now. And I get to meet more people, I get to build bigger, I get to find, you know, my own kind of strange and weird, and the people that get excited about the things that I get excited about, and we can help each other. And I think we're finally shifting out of that desperation um zone of sales. Well, at least the echo chambers that I've moved into has been where I've noticed that shift has been as well. And it's into like the possibility marketing, but also the silent commitments that you're showing and that you're giving to yourself by showing up and creating this content and going through this process. Like you can't hide those reps from anybody at the end of the day. It's always the same with the fitness analogy. It's like I can't do your push-ups for you. So it's it's you know, it's how how do you help as a coach, but also how do you allow people to build it for themselves so that they're also never dependent on someone else. I think a big goal of mine has always been I never want to be the bottleneck of my clients. You know, if I can see them better off in another container, go, go fly. If I can help them get to where they're going to or bridge that gap, like that's amazing. But I don't need people, you know, working with me or being in my world if it's not serving them or not, you know, being useful. I think I've realized for me a big part of my charts and my design is being useful for people. And so I've had to kind of lean into that a little bit and merge the the big dream picture thinking and then break it down into the steps from where you are and what that next bit is moving towards that. And I feel like that's the puzzle I really enjoy solving with people. And I've just found content to be a surefire way to dig yourself out of these holes, whether you're in a rut physically, professionally, or whatever. It's very confronting and it's it's a lot. But if you go through that process and trust, it's quite incredible how it can change you as a person and how quickly you also learn what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

True. And a lot of people don't enjoy marketing their business and creating content for two main reasons. I think one, they're really trying to follow a very solid script of how it's supposed to be done that is so far from their own way and creativity. And I really love the part you say about how you've discovered that the most important part throughout your whole journey and where content and and showing up online was a big part of every step was that the more you did it as you, the more you incorporated your views, your interests, your quirks, your uniqueness, your way of seeing things, the more it kind of worked because the right people could could see that. And I think that's why so many people don't enjoy creating content and don't enjoy marketing, because there are so many rules. And I just saw yesterday, I saw a really big um Instagram guru in the lack of a better word, because I don't think she wants to be called that, but you know that we know what we're talking about. She's really good at what you do on Instagram, and she said, you know what, I can I can share hooks, I can share suggestions with you for uh what you post all week, I can give you content ideas, I can tell you what trends are working, but beyond all that, the most important thing is that you do what works for you and that you remember who you are in it. You can't just fill out the blanks of a format and expect it to work if it's if it's dead inside you. And I think with all the advice, with all the like how we see social media being this huge connection piece, free advertisement, basically, if you have a business, there is so many ways to do it. And we kind of disconnect from our own voice and our own truth and how we want to say it. And I really think most people are bored with their own content, but they're just making it because we're supposed to in this quantum measure, you know, five times a day in order to but you have discovered for yourself that's not true. It's not about quantity, it's not about following scripts, it's not about finding that one strategy that works for you. But if we are to dwell a little bit on the content piece and the marketing piece and really advertising yourself and showing who you are and what you stand for, and being able to use that as the bridge between I have something to offer, and there are people out here who needs that. How do we make these two things come together? What have you discovered is the most important thing in that process? Because you seem to have early on, before you even knew what it was, kind of a flare for it.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

It's that it's that pure excitement for sharing or shifting that switch in your mind in terms of sales and sales actually being part of the service. Because at the end of the day, no matter what it is you're doing, if nobody knows about it, they're gonna go somewhere else. There are people always out there trying to find these solutions, all right? And like, you know, now we're moving into what they all say with the attention economy, and it's about getting attention and trying to be the flashiest or this and that. And I've just I've noticed the the rush on the tactics, they're always short-lived. Like I think, I think it's also because I've had a very quite transparent peek behind the curtain, you know, being in the influencer space, being in the marketing space, being in the business building space. I've had a peek at accounts that have 600,000 followers that can't pay rent. I've had accounts that, you know, have 200 followers that are raking in 50 grand a month. I've seen people who post every day making, you know, hitting their 10K, 20K, 30-day months. I see people posting once a week hitting that. And I think it was just just going along the journeys and collecting all these different frameworks. I feel like I've always wanted to be more of a resource to people. And I feel like that's where my gifts as a coach kind of merge together in terms of seeing all these different models, and then it's almost like bringing in a box of Lego to our playset. And it's like, okay, what are we building? But how do we make it your house and make sure that you like the furniture, you like the interior, you like the things. So you actually want to invite people over. Because the worst thing you can do is when you have an offer or when you're describing something, you don't want people to see it because it's not ready or it's not, you know, quite perfect. So for me, the biggest thing has been honing in the actual writing of the offer or the copy around what are you actually serving people with? Because so many people turn around and go, oh, well, I can make a sale in person. Or if I get them on a call, it's fine. And that's because you've got the person in front of you, you've got a nuanced, you know, opportunity to show your expertise. And so the way I've shifted my view and the way I teach my clients to look at social media or online is you're building your digital portfolio over time to showcase the nuance that you have. You almost have to pretend your clients are coming to you with these issues, and then you know, using that in your content to teach or educate and then show them where they can come for the next step is always a big one. A lot of people just educate, educate, educate, and then nobody knows where to go next, or it doesn't say, actually, I'm available to be hired, and it can be something as simple as that. For me, it's that, it's the getting clear behind what it is you you offer, and that's been the biggest turning points in my clients, just seeing it reflected back to them on paper and going through that troubleshooting so that when they're having these conversations or when they're going about making their content, they don't feel like it's a it's then segue suddenly into, and by the way, now you can book me at here or you know, suddenly into an infomercial kind of segue. It just very naturally goes, if you're struggling with this, send me a message.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

You can see how people they show up as one person when they talk about you know the problem or the desire or whatever they want to help you with and the struggles and stuff, and then you have a completely different person in the call to action part. Like, who did we invite here at the end? What was it? What was that? Everyone's so oh my god, I'm just taking, I am doing a complete change of suit and persona and energy, and here I am offering you this opportunity. And I kind of disconnected from everything. It's so funny to see.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

It is. Yeah, it is, and it is, it is the hardest part, but I think it's also then some of the some of the best, you know, advice or information I started realizing when bringing on my own clients as well, is that you're allowed to fire your own clients. You're allowed to not take people on. I think that's always the hardest part at the beginning when you're in a state where you need to be earning money and you want to be getting the reps in, but at the same time, you've got to be very aware of red flag clients that are coming in from maybe old you know, paradigms or blueprints or or any feelings of unworthiness or anything like that. Like, and it really does get to that point where you have to stand in those roots and it's like, no, I've done the work, these are my prices, this is where I'm setting things at, and work your way up incrementally. And then your only job is to work with the content around you to find those people that are willing to pay that price.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Because again, like I say to my clients half the time, you can usually charge double just by sheer give a damn. Like the amount of you know, coaches or online courses that I see where their only mythology is to get you through. The doors, there's nothing else in the back end, and so it's just a client accumulation thing. Everybody's pissed off in the end, but nobody really knows or really says anything. And so they just sell another cycle and they carry on. And I think it's when, you know, again, it's bridging that gap. I think there's also a big point where, you know, raising your prices, high ticket, all of this sort of stuff, it's quite easy and scary to turn around and go, yes, okay, maybe I do value or I know my value is at this point. And then you get some people that have done a you know two-day course and they think their value is at 1200 bucks an hour and they have no problem charging these amounts. Whereas you get like industry professionals or or people that have been, you know, dedicated to their craft for 15, 20 years, going, Oh, I'm not sure I know enough.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

And so the way I work with my clients on that is we, especially if you have a somebody that you've seen online or you know, somebody that emulates what it is you're looking to build, most of us have those people in our periphery. We've built our own echo chambers of what that kind of version of success looks like to us. You know, and if you're charging a hundred bucks and you want to be charging a thousand, five hundred per session, it's like, okay, well, instead of suddenly going straight up to that, like increment, build, build, build, like bump it up. As soon as you've got one at that price, bump it up. As soon as you've got one at that price, bump it up. And I think the biggest thing again is just getting back into these circles where you realize that all these different phases of hardship that you've got to kind of bust yourself through at the beginning are all very normal. And the quicker that you can normalize that fear and that um initial content output flywheel, I think then you've sort of broken past phase one. And then you get to move into where you're playing a very different game, and you realize you actually get to control the narrative and look ahead and funnel people in the direction that makes sense for what's unfolding in your life. And especially as personal brands, that's when it actually starts to become real fun. Because then it's not this suddenly, what am I making to get people to buy? It's what am I so excited about that I'm gonna build that I'm now gonna invite people into. And it all just becomes this big momentum, you know, one thing leads into the next, and that's when you look back two, three, four years down the line, and suddenly you have three different strands of offers, two different things, clients from all over the place that have now been seeing your work for four, five, seven years, and that trust has been built by doing those reps and testing and practicing. And yeah, I think again, we like to. I know I have for a very, very, very long time wanted to know the how, how it was all gonna unfold, how it was all gonna come in, how everything's gonna pan out, and it just I keep coming back to just how ridiculous life is and how so much is unfolding that we just can't know. So the next best thing, it's like working on your craft, keeping yourself fit and sane, and then delivering the best possible assets that you can to your ideal clients or the clients that you're delivering with, they're your inner circle. Everything else is kind of access points to that, and that's where your content waterfall starts, you know, panning out, and it just everything does start to become lighter once you've put in three, six, twelve months worth of the reps because now you're doing another cycle again, and you're like, ah, annual. I can think annually, and then it's like, oh, now I can think in you know, five-year increments, and it's like, oh, it's like, how can you keep, I guess, zooming out and reminding yourself that it's this ever-unfolding game that we've got to figure out mini side quests to keep us entertained throughout the journey, you know, and anchor it to your own personality. I think that's the best part about the personal brands. We get to finally anchor it to who we are and what we enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah, and essentially build custom-made businesses. I I've been talking about a line business, and the show is called line business show, but because it's really like when we snark up and talk about human design and we look at our blueprint and we look at who we are. That's really the best word I can find to describe that we are all meant to be on kind of like a track, and it can be messy, it can be, you know, it's not linear, it's not easy. It's so amazing when we look at your journey because this part about not knowing where things are leading. And I do feel like we are taught too early to look at creating a business model and like really trying to figure out how everything comes together, trying to know that what we use our time on in terms of marketing and content creation or being on podcasts or you know, posting in groups or whatever will be worth our time. It's kind of like we need to know what works ahead of actually knowing what works, because we are meant to discover it, especially with manifesting generators and generators. You know, we are here to respond. That's 70% of the population. So if you are here to respond, you need to make a move and then you need to feel and you need to assess. But we're not taught to do that. We are taught to kind of have the plan and you know, have your office suite. And I don't even know what my office suite is, yes, but I think I maybe I've seen two clients in in different areas, and I'm just kind of figuring out how I can do it and what works and what feels right. But we're just like we are taught to have a business before we are allowed to be entrepreneurs and discover what is this thing and what can it lead to. And I really feel like that's a big part about what I love about your journey is it really went up and down and in circles and left and right. And it's like, yes, we're going. No, we're not. But but you didn't make it mean that you were failing. And if you were to look back 10 years and have created a business plan from 10 years ago, it would not involve anything of what you're doing today. But what you're doing today is so much more satisfying, and also what kind of like what life tried to not you over to than what you thought you were doing. So you just kept going and were curious essentially to okay, so where is that where's this road leading me to? And I think we really need that, like time to thousand when we are entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Very much so. I mean, I'm pretty sure I spent a good two years paralyzed in that planning to plan phase where I was almost just future casting different business ideas, but not actually starting on any one of them, because I was almost living it out in my head in terms of okay, well, then this is the plan, then I do that, then it, and then I can, you know, you can see your kind of life flash before your eyes in terms of what that path looks like. And I felt like I was kind of doing that with so many different ones until I kind of realized again that that was back to the teachings of you only have to do one thing. I think something that's going to be helping a lot, you know, over the next five to ten years as well, is just the general shift in terms of how we work full stop, in terms of it also being phases and cyclical and it also being able to grow and evolve. You know, it's I think when you're very much stuck in the environments of the very linear progression of life in terms of one job, one this, one career, li, you know, all of that kind of progression, it can get it can feel very stuck, or you can almost feel like you're trying to fit all of these things into this one thing that doesn't make any sense in any logical, like chronological order. But at the end of the day, life is full and has so many different elements to it that it's like we've just forgotten that all parts can kind of play out in different areas. Everybody's road is different, but at the end of the day, we've got these different archetypes and tendencies. That's why we all work together, you know. We already know from even magazine horoscopes as kids, it's like, yes, technically you could read everything and kind of take a nugget out of it, but when you read yours at a specific point and you feel it, that kind of connection that comes. And you know, looking at when my sister had officially finished the way that she presented the overviews that we now work together on, I was like this close. You know what I mean? Like I was on the way, I was doing all the things, I knew it. It was just still me combating all the shoulds and all the doubt of other things, and and and that's the biggest part that fills the gray area. You're not missing anything, there's nothing else for you to actually learn. Now it's about just doing the reps, doing the practice, talking to the people, finding the clients, putting in the work for a long enough period of time to actually see the results pop out on the other end. And I think it's in that impatience where people find shiny objects or do other things, and why it's so important as well to have that grounding or to at least come back to the roots where it's like, again, whose should is it? You can do this life without the charts. But I've been having this funny conversation that keeps coming up on repeat now in terms of playing life on hard mode and easy mode. And I definitely feel like a lot of the time, especially at the beginning of an entrepreneurial journey, a lot of us create very hard modes without needing to. Yeah. Like in terms of our own bubbles or our own little lone wolf, you know, mentalities that we feel like we have to go through, or realizing that, you know, you feel like you need to push, push, push in order to make it out. Like, and I find there's this like this odd in-between where it's not necessarily a balance, but it's almost like if you can figure out what you can tap into enough to get behind it 110%, the energy and the I guess the resources internally for you to go after that, switch on. Yeah. I think when everything is feeling so heavy from the beginning, and like you said, you're trying to push yourself into a content plan that doesn't make any sense, or because somebody said you had to. It's like, who? Who said and why?

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Because there is nothing wrong with it. Like I I remember, I think it was a year ago, a year and a half, I joined um some sort of container where there it was about content. And I remember I sat through one teaching and I left because that one teaching was a woman with four kids, stay-at-home mom, asking the provider of this course community. So what happens when I create four pieces of content every day, and I kind of max what I can reach with that. That was kind of his idea that if you were posting two times a day, at some time you would plateau, you couldn't, it was like it, it was you had taken those two posts to the max and you couldn't reach more people, it couldn't grow beyond that point. So you needed to post three times, and then you needed to post four times. And at that time, he was experimenting with posting 10 times a day. And it was just like B-roll things, mainly, of course, but still, and and I remember when he said to her, Yeah, but then you just create more. And I was like, I'm out, I'm out. You are telling a mom of four kids, small kids, stay at home, that she needs to, in order to grow her business, create more and more. And when are we stopping? What when when is the when is the when is it like, okay, so 10 is the maximum? No, because if you want to be reach more beyond the point of 10 posts of data, you need to go to 11. And I just saw this one spitting out AI content, dated 150 a day. So what are we doing? Because for some, it's working, it's definitely working. Like it's not hard for me to create content. I could probably create seven pieces of content a day because I have so many ideas, but do I want to? And do I want to feel like I have to do it the days where my energy is off? Do I want to rely on it so heavily that it becomes a truth in my business that if I do not create seven pieces of content every day, I will not make a sale? And what if you're a protector? Or what if you're in a period where you can't do that in your life? So really seeing the advice for what it is and understanding why does it work? And why does it work for them? And who am I? And if I want to take anything from that, what is it I can take from it and just run with it, but in my way, because we are so different.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

One of the biggest things I wish more people understood about the online world is that as much as it's very loud at the moment, that things are, you know, make money in two weeks or seven days or 30 days or you know, whatever, like, and yes, there is that possibility to be able to do that. Technically, you can. I've seen people do it, I've seen, you know, many people do it multiple times over and over again. But it's that sustainability over a long period of time. And again, reminding yourself when you give yourself a longer time horizon, you actually allow yourself to get good, I guess, and get better. And so I think, you know, even within this industry, something that not a lot of people talk about is even if you can't fully quit your full-time job, you know, to start and be 100% in your business, like how do you add those increments up and do the best bang for your buck with what you've got, you know, to make sure that you are getting yourself out there the best that you can, but without burning yourself at both ends, that then everything else just fizzles out in the middle anyway, because that's kind of then we're playing the wrong race again, we're playing the wrong game again. It's like the goal isn't to then build yourself into a new machine that you hate even more, no, but then it's one of your own building, which is where a lot more of the burnout starts to come in with a lot of these creators. It's so I think being able to set yourself these different challenges or get yourself out of a rut to remind yourself that it's doable, but then remind yourself what is sustainable.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

And and it's that is the biggest thing. And then over time, ideally building in buffers so that on the days where you're sick, you can't show up, or it's really, really down, either, again, ideally, it does only take 10-15 minutes to do something if you're on that cadence. But if not, you've already built up enough of a repertoire to just kind of repost something or slot something in, or you know, do a two-second voice note that you know reminds people that you're also human and get sick. And I think you can the whole thing starts to become quite meta when you look at it like that. Like as long as you're sticking to the truth and building it in with the story, there's actually not much that people won't kind of like listen to. And it's that continuously showing up and continuously doing life. Like the fact that that by default gives you credibility online over time, and it's a free platform. Yeah, like I think yeah, it just it it blows my mind. Like, so much of this is what you make of it, and the way that you create and the way that you do everything, and it's like I think it's looking at your marketing as a creative service and as a way for you to genuinely tell your story. Like your content does the work for you, and I think that's what a lot of people overlook. It's the leverage that's built over time, it's the same as you know, when you train consistently over many, many, many years. Eating a hamburger and having a shitty food weekend isn't gonna make you, you know, put on 10 kilos. But because you've been doing it consistently and being able to step back and realize within all those, there's phases.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

High days, low days, same as when you're athletes, same as when you're training. The recovery is just as important as the training sessions. You can't go too hard, otherwise you will burn out. But you know, some days you have more energy, so push. Some days you have less energy, so take it off. Like, and finding ways to give yourself grace in the in-between and realize we're all just kind of moving forward.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah. And when we can do it at the pace that is not forced, and also where we don't stall and wait forever, but actually move at the pace, saying yes to the journey, saying yes to the calling, daring to go and take a step, even though it feels scary. But I really feel like what you're talking about here is like the heart of creating a business where you can lean back and see the highs and the lows and the different cycles and all the things, and know that it's not only okay and normal, but that is your most amazing, profound building blocks when you when you dare to move with life and and build with what you have and who you are. There are so many rules that we kind of, especially early on in our entrepreneurship, listen too much to. And it really strays us away from that path where we can find our own way and have that long-term vision and discover, but who am I in this game? And and it's okay to have days where I can't show up the way I would want to, but it should be like that, right? The way I would want to, not I think I have to. And I think too many are still locked on to that. I think I have to, I think I have to, I think it's necessary, I think I need to. I've chosen this.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

What else are we gonna do? And what else would I rather be doing? And reminding yourself that like the commitment to the process doesn't cut you off from every ever having to change anything. It's actually the commitment to the process and the commitment to actually letting people in and genuinely serving people and the unattachment to the results and what's coming on the other side. Like they always say that as soon as you forget about the money, then it comes in. As soon as you and it's so hard when you're sitting in it sometimes and you're trying to build from a place where you're fed up of the life that you're in. You want something else, but you want it now. And there's also that, you know, um, lag effect that life has in terms of getting, you know, manifestation or anything that you want to move forward. But then when you look back, sometimes once you've made the decision, you can look back very quickly and go, oh, actually, that just happened in the last, you know, however many months. When you truly decide, the universe works in very mysterious ways to help. And I think something that I've always been very grateful for, again, being raised out in Asia and being around traditional Chinese medicines and energy healing, like just having that awareness of essential oils, of the mystic, of spirit, of your own intuition, of there being more senses than just the logical mind and being around musicians and artists and entrepreneurs and creators who have built lives that look, you know, nothing like what it's supposed to on paper. It's like that is the world that we live in. And when everything feels very dark and very black and white, like it feels very counterintuitive to slow down when all you want to do is speed up and run out of it. But I remember it took me two years after my agency to stop getting mild panic attacks from my WhatsApp messages coming through. Like even retraining my nervous system away from my phone. Like we, you know, it's it's on us. We do, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. We all we're all working with, you know, natural gifts that we have innately available and that are out there. We are ridiculous beings. I mean, we see it with art. You can change the value of something by drawing on it, and then it's five, ten, hundred X the price. Like, we have that ability to think things and bring it into reality. And I just, for me, that's just the I don't know, I think it's now become like how fun can it get? Like, I feel like we're even in the generation that will have even more ideas and have more knowledge and more understanding because we can bridge that gap between the online and the offline. Yeah, we know that what the online world does and what it's capable of, and that's great, but we also know the value of true human connections, and you can build those online. You just but it takes time, it takes relationships. And again, people are always in this now, now, now rush. Why isn't it here now? And I still do it with my fitness. I start training and I'm like next week, I'm like, where am I at? Am I fit yet?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Like what I discovered, at least, and and what is like the holy grail of truth for me in the second run of rebuilding a business is if it's only about the goal, I know for sure I can get there. I also know for sure that if I get there in a way that isn't right for me, I will not enjoy it. I will not be proud. I will not feel the level of gratitude and awe and holy shit, I did this. And I will not have had all the amazing experiences along the way that I could have if I had done it the right way. So it's more about the journey than reaching the goal. For some level, I think it will always be partly ego or partly mind. Like I think this will make me happy. I think this is what I want. I think there is so much more beyond that, but we haven't, you know, we haven't gotten the possibility. Like so we can't see it. Exactly. If I just chase that, that I think will make me happy. I just close off every door for what can make me even more happy or in ways that could be so much better for me. So for me, every day it's about the journey. And I really feel like the biggest shift has also been like I feel in the first years of business, at least, you can be quicker. I was maybe not that quick for the first year. We all have to go at our own pace. Exactly. And some of us are just turtles. Um I feel that there is a lot of focus on getting, like, I I need to get clients, I need to get views, I need to get collaborations, I need to get people to come, I need to get money. And that's a very closed-off repelling energy. And what I like to do, and how I like to see it, like you said, if you forget about the money, if you forget about the things you need to have, you need to get, those will come as a byproduct. If you focus on what I can give, why do I do this? Why do I get up in the morning? Why do I post? Because if you just post to get views, odds are you're gonna fail because you are gonna have posts that doesn't get views. If you're just posting to the clients, well, either way, you maybe you get it and you can say, hey, I win, or you won't, and then you lose. But if you post something because there is a message that wants to come through, or you generally want somebody to know something, you want to provide a missing piece for someone, or you wanna you wanna share this, you wanna be like what I love about social media, and I think that's that's the the main thing I have on my Instagram, is like it's not how do you make money and following these things. It's it's it's the quiet, slow-brained content of getting back to nature and somebody adding a positive quote or something for the day. So, what can I give? Because when we give, we are in a completely different energy. Not to say that you can't say yes to what comes, like don't undersell yourself, don't give everything away for free. But when we focus on giving rather than getting, that's a completely different setup. And that is also when it becomes more fun. Because if there is no rule for like success criteria for today, like I have to make this amount of money, I have to sign this amount of clients, or else I'm not good enough, and I can just focus on what really wants to come through me, then I can't fail. Like today will inevitably be a good day where I work on my business and I discover things and I attract things that are more aligned to me than just chasing a goal and not uh going to bed before I can crust that up today's to-do list, you know?

SPEAKER_02 46:04

Yeah, but I think I think that everything that you've described, that's that's that level one of entry for playing this game. It's like how quickly can you realize that it's not about you? Where when you're doing these aligned businesses, it's it's solving these little pe puzzle pieces. And when you put them in the right order, people just go through and it's a yes. So it's that it's that shifting away from exactly like you said, what do I need to say to get somebody to give me money and shift it into how much can I just put out so that they understand that this is where they go and this is my value? And it all lines up because I am what I say I do, and I do what I say that I am, and I help my clients do what I say that I help them do. So yeah, I don't know. It's it's a it's a very interesting game that we embark on by doing this, but I I genuinely can't see myself playing any other game, and there's nothing quite like how quickly, like I said, this journey allows you to level up as long as you keep putting on your gloves and just going for another punch and getting back in the ring and showing up and finding friends as well. Like honestly, that's been the biggest thing for me is finding people online that also geek out about this stuff so that it can it actually is sustainable because it is, it's a long-term game.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

If there is anything you want to to say to sum it up to anyone in business, anyone from starting this adventure or being in it or having you know gone through years and reps and still feel like they are not actually on the track they need to be on, what do you want to say to them? Are you putting in the reps?

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Because I think as much as I used to think I was, I was very busy being busy for a very long time and very busy posting. Not necessarily just for the sake of posting, I was thinking I was doing it, but without asking for a sale, without actually telling them where to go next. I think at the end of the day, so much of this is build on the back end after people are starting to say yes. You know, like if you have an idea or you have a way to bring people into your world, whether that's a workshop, a free session, or this or that, again, start with free if you want to, you know, get the pressure off. Like put on a workshop, pick a topic, link it to something that you can sell that's specific at the end of it. And it's like just keep testing that. I have something to say, these are the people that it can help with, here's a sale afterwards. And if you can start practicing that, and again, start free if you're too nervous, and then start with a low-ticket one or a paid one or a you know, but just that process of here's something, here's how I can help, here are your next steps. And honestly, I feel like that's that's the game. You can have as many ideas and they can all be brilliant, but until you put it out, until you actually see the numbers that are showing up, these are little nuggets that build over time. And the quicker that you can get into building these nuggets and inviting people to work with and to sell to, like, that's you're on your way. Like, how do you make your first dollar as quickly as possible so that that screen's already broken?

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:33

And then have fun. Like everybody teaches it a different way. Everybody, it took me a whole year last year to run different class styles until I found one that kind of worked, that I enjoyed, that's now my you know, go-to. I think it's gonna be messy, you're gonna cup and it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

You try to see what happens when I am on camera. You you you put your knowledge out there, you go through it, you learn, you start to get better at expressing your things, you have conversations with people, inevitably, along the line, it will lead to more natural sales, especially you if you work on you know your inner shit of regarding it. But when there is so much pressure on this has to lead to that, this has to result in this, that is when you really feel like maybe there is a 99% chance of failure and a 1% chance of success. You you kind of need to flip those odds. So if it's just don't die, have fun, see what happens, no sweat. You know, it doesn't matter, whatever. If you jump midline, it's okay. It doesn't matter. Do it again, go again, assess. If you can really take the pressure up and have fun and find your way of doing it. Because, like you said, there are a million ways to skin a cat, there are a million ways to build a business. It's not for everyone to do a webinar, it's not for everyone to do a masterclass, it's not for everyone to do a live session. So find your way, but you can really only know if you try the version of the stepping stone.

SPEAKER_02 50:58

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

I think that is the the best advice to end on. Really allow yourself to take the pressure off, have fun. If it's not fun and you really hate it, then ask yourself, why am I doing it? Why am I doing it? And could there be another way? That's that's the bottom line. It doesn't matter how anyone else builds a million-dollar business that way. If it's not your way, it doesn't work. Doesn't matter if somebody's preaching it and says that's the only way you can make it, doesn't matter. If you hate it, dread it, then don't do it. Simple as that. Find another way. I want to thank you a million times for taking the time to have this conversation. I do feel like it's been, I'm gonna listen to it again and again and again. Um, because I do feel like there has been so many great teachings, like just showcasing how the entrepreneurial journey looks like, and that we cannot figure it out in advance. We cannot use our amazing brain. That's another thing human design gives us, right? We cannot rely on our brain to lead us ahead. We can only use it to kind of crunch all the data behind us, and it's great at that. But trust, exactly, yeah, let life lead and just play, have fun, don't take it so serious.