Wait, I Can Divorce My Business?

Stephanie started a housing arbitrage business to escape bartending and buy time for her acting career. It was supposed to be a side hustle. It was not a side hustle.

A year and a half in, she's waking up stressed, anxious every time her phone buzzes, and heading toward a breakdown — while the business is, technically, succeeding. Then her coach asks one question: if you had to put a price on this business, what would it be?

It had never occurred to her that she could sell it. That she didn't have to stay married to it. That she could get a divorce.

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:42 The Side Hustle That Wasn't
• 01:24 Going All In
• 01:58 Burnout on Paper Success
• 05:03 The Question That Changed Everything
• 07:05 Wait, I Can Divorce My Business?
• 09:08 The Permission
• 09:44 Until Next Time

Transcript

Stephanie 0:01

Hello, I'm Stephanie Arapian and this is The Centered Creator Podcast. I tell stories from my creative life, my travels, my many questionable decisions, and what I've learned about being human along the way. This one's about the conversation that cracked everything open and why sometimes you need someone else to name the thing you already know. Why does it feel more validating when someone else names what we're thinking? So I think I've mentioned before that. I started a business and it was gonna be a "side" business. I laugh at that now. It was gonna be a side hustle as many artists do. We pick up a side hustle, we start doing this, and sometimes it's just a couple hours a week. Sometimes it's a full on weekend job. Sometimes it's struggling- three, four or five different gig jobs during the week. At one point I was juggling pretty much what I would call three or four jobs at a time. One was unpaid but I was working as a bartender which was my W2 job. It was a very nice, good job that I actually ended up staying at for over 12 years, just about. There were reasons to stay that had to do a lot with my own needs of security. But I wanted to get away from that. I felt like it was, I was stuck. I went down a research rabbit hole after having some conversations spark. I do this a lot. You will learn. I do this a lot. I went down a research rabbit hole when somebody brought up the idea of arbitrage as a housing business model. And I thought, oh yeah, okay. But I got involved in a mastermind and I built up a business and I was gung ho about it like that. For six months, I, I literally mentally and physically changed. That year I leveled up in so many ways I could talk about this in another episode But flash forward to about a year and a half later and I was kind of headed for a breakdown. I would get up stressed. Wondering what disaster was awaiting me that day. Feeling like I wasn't getting any traction in my true vocation of acting. And struggling with what can I change? Like this was supposed to be the job that got me out of it, and I I was doing successfully on paper. And according to many business people, I was doing really well in the business. It was succeeding according to all expectations. I was doing really well in that cash flow, but I had unrealistic expectations of what that realistic cash flow would do for me and what timeframe to be able to get myself out of bartending. And also, I'm not the person to jump ship without a clear plan that makes me feel safe and held and secure. I will take a lot of leaps, don't get me wrong. I'll take a lot of leaps. China. I'll take a lot of leaps without looking if I feel that they're the right move, but I also like to, I'm very practical. I will take those giant leaps that feel like crazy to some people 'cause they do. But I have a plan. I usually always have a plan with them. And I had developed this plan about the business that I was going to transition out of bartending, and this was gonna be my passive job. That I wouldn't need to spend much time on. It would kind of run itself and then I could really concentrate on acting and maybe even more writing a little bit- I hadn't really owned my identity as a writer yet- and maybe produce some more things and just feel out what it was like to be a full-time artist, or at least a most of the time, artist. And that wasn't happening. That really wasn't happening. And after like I think it was a culmination of some really difficult couple of weeks where I was dealing with vacancies, which I found so stressful. It's like waiting for a, like an audition You never know. You can't judge like when somebody's gonna need your house and you can only do so much and then wait for it to be needed. And I was already getting burnt out on the effort that I was putting in because when I go in, I go in like 180%. We'll talk about the cycle of burnout later. But I was reaching a point where I was so anxious every time I received any message on my phone, when I got a phone call, even after I had deliberately separated my personal phone number from a business phone number and the messaging system there. Even after that, I was still anxious every time I got a ding or a notification or a new email, and I didn't wanna live that way, and it felt like. I didn't see a way out. I was literally in tears one day after like so many things that happened. You know how things hit you and you start talking about something and then you don't realize how strongly you feel about it. This is why I like to verbalize a lot of things and why I started this podcast, honestly. But I was in a conversation with my coach and shout out to Coach Laura- you know who you are- and I was explaining to her my frustrations, my fears, just, it led to kind of a breakdown of me crying and I just did not see a way out. And she said something like: Stephanie, I would just like you to take a breath, and just float the idea of a number. If you would put a price on this business, what would it be?" I'm like, why are you asking me that? But she was leading me towards an idea, just the idea, of selling the business. And I was like, what? That, what I, I could, I could do that? That's a thing? I, I, I could sell the business. What? And she kinda led me down this little path and it made me realize I was thinking of this like a till death do us part marriage between myself and the business, and it felt so ingrained that I didn't even realize that I'd held that belief. That I was actually holding onto it. Like I had said vows to hold on to this business forever, in sickness and in health, from the day forward till death of us apart. And just the idea of being able to get a divorce was shocking. Like so shocking, I cannot even describe. And just the idea of like, you mean I can sell this? Like this would be something that somebody else would pay me money for. Really? Oh, well, yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess it is kind of successful on paper and it's doing pretty well, and if there's somebody who obviously can take it and move it forward, great. That led to a much later decision that I talked about in a different episode. But that was the start. That was the conversation that gave me permission to unlink- and that was the key idea that she was leading me towards- unlink these concepts and beliefs that I had so tied together that I couldn't unlink them without outside help. I needed her and her outside opinion to be able to name it for me, what she saw going on and recognize where I was having trouble and the disconnect. I was like, oh, I can unlink myself and still be a whole person from this concept. I needed to change my idea of what success looked like, what failure looked like, and that really started my path towards, oh, I. I don't have to do this the rest of my life, and that was just very, it was like a breath of fresh air. Oh my God. My entire body relaxed, my shoulders dropped, everything physical, and then my brain just freed up. Now granted, I stuck around with the business for over a year after that before I seriously was like, okay, I actually need to sell. But just the idea that I could unlink those concepts that I could remove that from a necessary part of my identity that I was not necessarily defining myself as this person who is going to do this for the rest of their life... it was enough to keep me going, because I wasn't ready yet to actually take action on that, which was fine. Everybody comes to their own process and takes the road and the path that's meant for them at the right time, and that was my fork where I could be like, oh. I can split ways, and that was enough to keep me going. And that planted a seed that then took root, slowly grew and then germinated to the point where it was flowering. And I'm like, oh yes. This is the point at which I need to actually harvest that and move forward. So yeah, sometimes you just need to say something out loud, have that conversation, ask for the advice. It's like, here's my problem. What are you seeing that I'm not, and part of me knew that this business was a problem, but I couldn't find a way to give myself permission to let go of it. Because I'd started this. It was mine, it was my baby. Why would I let go of it? Why? How, how could I let go of this? I need to hear someone else say that it was okay to let go. Yeah, If this sparked something in you or if you've had a letting go moment or a conversation that gave you permission to do something, I would love to hear about it. Until next time, take care.