Episode 56: From Burnout to Balance: Creating a Business That Honors Your Life W/ Kelly Leardon

  📍 Welcome to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast, where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I’m Samantha Eck, bookkeeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs. Each week I’m sharing my financial expertise and actionable strategies to help you build a thriving creative business. Plus, you’ll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing your business beyond the numbers. Because building a successful creative business starts with strong financial foundations. Your next chapter starts now.

 You are listening to the Creative Minds Smart Money Podcast and today I have a special guest, Kelly with us from burned out nine to five corporate girl who literally worked on her daughter’s wedding day on the drive to the chapel, to getting time freedom and money freedom with her business. She hit 110 K in less than a year with less than a thousand followers.

She has a DHD, which most creatives do, and have come up with ways to manage her business without working 24 7. How are you today, Kelly? It’s so good to have you here. Thank you.

you for having me. I’m

I’m,

How are you?

I’m good. It’s this beautiful sunny day in Texas as always. So why don’t you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Absolutely. So you’re a female business owner, so you know

Yes.

business owners we are like trying to build these businesses, spinning a million plates, keeping the household running. Everything tends to fall on our shoulders from figuring out birthdays, to organizing holidays, to running these big businesses of ours. And we feel overwhelmed, like 47 tabs open.

Yes.

of unread emails. We’re having bills paid late, like we just are having such a struggle to just keep all of the plates spinning all at the same time. So I basically help female entrepreneurs. Build the business of their dreams without sacrificing their personal life.

So having this beautiful balance between building and scaling, but also living in alignment with what we say is important. So I’m a business coach. I have a DHD, like you said, and I realize that I. Our brains work very differently than men’s brains, and so we’re never just doing one thing at a time. We’re doing one thing, but also distracted by 57.

Other

Yeah.

we tend to ping pong a lot, and I knew pretty quickly that the normal corporate systems for businesses don’t work very well for female entrepreneurs. So I was a certified director of operations. I worked as a fraction fractional director of ops inside of lots of small businesses. They had teams.

So even though they were small businesses, we’re talking at least seven figures a year in revenue and teams of five at minimum. And when I, so I started walk like Warriors as a faith-based page. It was just a creative outlet. I don’t really know what my intention was with it. I just realized. all these people scale their businesses, and I don’t even have an online presence.

I mean, I had a website, but it was like a landing page website. So I just started to kind of play and dabble, and one thing led to another and someone slid into my dms, will you coach me? And I said, you’re gonna die. I was like, no, I don’t do that. And then the next day someone else was like, Hey, will you be my business coach?

I was like, I, I mean, I was coaching small business owners, but I

Yeah.

it had scaled pretty large and had teams. And so after the third or fourth person, my mentor said to me, why are you saying no? You should just try it. And so then the business just exploded. December 31st, 2023, I closed the director of ops business and went all in on being a business coach to female entrepreneurs who are on the struggle bus with their business and balancing all the things.

It’s not like we’re not capable, we’re

Yes.

we’re capable, but we’re doing so many things. We’re overwhelmed and we’re not totally sure how to scale without working 24 7.

Yeah. Yeah, I feel that 110% and I feel that’s so common because you’re right. We do have so much that’s going on within our minds and I can tell you from experience, my husband has a lot less on his mind than I do. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It’s just that we think of everything at once instead of focusing on just one thing at a time.

Exactly. I like to say when your husband is, for example, if he was gonna be paying his quarter, his estimated quarterly taxes,

Yeah.

is paying his estimated quarterly taxes when you do it. The cat is crying. So you open the door for the cat, the school calls. So you’re like trying, oh my gosh, I forgot to pack the lunch.

Yeah.

fair is next week. I forgot to put that in the target order. I need it. So like you are doing the one thing, but you’re also thinking of 57 things.

Yeah.

doesn’t mean we’re smarter. It doesn’t mean men are smarter. It’s sort of like the whole spaghetti or waffle brains. So women have spaghetti brains.

Everything is. Tangled up together, very

Yeah.

that serves us really well. Men, waffle brain, when he is in his paying the taxes box, that’s the box he’s in.

Yeah.

tend to say, can’t you hear the doorbell? And they’re like, no, because they

Yes.

the doorbell. We hear everything and see everything and feel everything and like are thinking about everything. And so it doesn’t make one better or worse. But when it comes to running a small business,

Yeah.

it can be our superpower. But quite often it’s. like to say it’s a lot more like our kryptonite, and so our

Yeah.

isn’t growing we’re holding so much stuff in our head at all times, and that usually leads to ping ponging between activities all day.

Yes. Yes. I love that. Well, most entrepreneurs believe that working longer hours does equal more success, but why is this a trap and what’s the reality behind true profitability? I.

I love this

Love this question because

It’s sort of

sort of like how we all say,

number of followers on Instagram doesn’t equal income.

yeah.

We say it, we do tend to think that person with 3 million followers has more income than someone with 3000 followers. So we say it, we know that that’s not true, but we act like it is true.

And so the same exact principle applies. We say we know that busyness does not equal success. We don’t actually live our life like that. And we’re doing a lot. And a marker of this is are busy flipping day. Like, just like literally just moving as fast as we possibly can. Cross three things off the to-do list, add 10 more. But at the end of the day when our head hits the pillow, we’re like, okay, I know I was busy all day.

Yeah.

When I’m trying to think of all the stuff I was doing, I really can’t categorize it. I don’t even know how to explain all the things. I don’t even remember some of the stuff I was doing, and so are so many things that we’re doing.

I. That it, I, I don’t like

Don’t

are like, just work on income producing activities. Well, that must be nice for you. The rest of us, we’re running businesses and not everything

everything.

producing. Okay.

Yes.

I don’t like that is the mark of like the demarcation because like that doesn’t actually apply especially to solopreneurs. Or as like a one person show who’s got like a VA or a social media manager or a bookkeeper, you are still doing a lot of stuff that’s not income producing and that’s not bad. What I

I.

doing is the stuff that matters, and I. Because of the ping ponging and the, I open up Instagram to answer dms, but then I realized I didn’t send my email.

Then I realized I never paid my quarterly taxes and then I real, and so like we’re doing that all day long, so there’s so much cognitive load there, which slows us down. But also it’s estimated that we lose 17 minutes every time we task switch. So we’re busy, but a lot of that busyness. Is we don’t realize it.

It’s not like you would say, oh yeah, I wasted approximately three and a half hours today because I was going back and forth between activities. But when you can’t recall what you did that day, that’s actually what’s happening is you don’t realize that there’s a lot of wasted time in there. And so that’s where I really like to get female entrepreneurs. Thinking in terms of like buckets. Like I theme my day, so Monday is admin day, and Tuesday is content creation day. Or for

Yes.

it would be like podcast day. And so instead of like, most people are like, oh, I batch my tasks. I don’t do that. I actually batch my whole day. And it allows us to operate in our zone of genius, our spaghetti brain, but still stay inside of the right bucket.

So we’re playing in the same sandbox all day instead of

Yeah.

And then we can’t remember all the places we went, so. when women start to build their business like that, my average graduate reports saving eight hours and 15 minutes a week. A week. Like

That’s crazy.

so much less. And you know, people are like, well, how did you do that? It must be magic. No, when she sits down to work, she’s got an ordered list. This is getting done. And it also, the really cool thing, this is what makes my heart happy. They’re like, I’m more present with my kids now. Because you’re not thinking about work.

The problem with entrepreneurship is we never feel done, right? Like we

Yes.

feel done. It’s just like brain is just going. And so by, by our days, not our tasks, it’s actually like, whew. How well done Samantha, you’re done for the day.

Yeah.

off that CEO hat and now you’re with the kids and you don’t have to be thinking about all the other things.

’cause it’s sort of like my grandma used to say , a place for everything and everything in its place.

So

I like

I like to say

day for

for everything.

inside. Its day. And it’s just, it’s really powerful. So it really gets us evaluating what needs to be shed, because there’s a lot of stuff we do that doesn’t actually need to be done and what needs to be added.

The stuff that, and I have a whole soapbox about a lot of female entrepreneurs are not taught, what needs to be done to build the business. And so they resort to, which crushes me, just endless content creation, which is such a time

Yes.

and. I just, I, I mean, I

I mean,

on for five hours just about that, but I, I’m sure you have other

you have other questions to ask,

it’s sort of

sort of like,

Shop of Horrors,

yeah.

Feed me See more.

That’s how I view Instagram and content creation. It’s just like, feed me. I’m

Yes.

full. And it’s like, if we’re not careful, we’re spending a ton of time on something. That’s very, like, we’re not getting leverage from it, but

Yeah.

weren’t taught anything else to do, so we keep falling back on the one thing that’s not working and it’s taking up most of our time.

Yes. No, I a hundred percent agree and I love that you stated that you have like specific days because like for me, in my business I have a specific CEO day and that’s where I work on like the really high level stuff, the content creation, things like that. And that’s the day that I work on that stuff so that I don’t get distracted throughout the week because I think.

It’s so true. Like when you just have a million things on your task list and you don’t dedicate the time to it, you just end up getting lost in a bunch of different things that are going on.

Yes, precisely. You definitely hit the nail on the head there.

So now you said your system helps business owners reclaim at least an extra eight plus hours a week. Can you give us like a peek into how that works, which I think you already explained a little bit about it. Yeah.

Yeah. So, i, so on Monday I call it admin day. So it’s like

yep.

you would give an administrative assistant. Usually it’s like more tactical type of tasks. It’s sending out agreements, it’s getting to inbox zero, it’s. Answering messages. It can be filing receipts. It’s all those really tactical tasks that some people might be like, well, that system sounds stupid. The whole thing is, is when we don’t nip those in the bud at the beginning of the week, they tend to bleed into the rest of the week, which bleeds

Yeah.

We’re just like, oh my gosh, there’s so much stuff. You know what? Why don’t we just tackle all that stuff, tie up all those loose threads into a pretty pink bow on Monday. Then Tuesday through Friday, we can really drill down and focus on the stuff that’s super crucial and critical for the business. When we don’t get all those tasks done, all those like miscellaneous tasks, they tend to just suck up so much time throughout the week. So I just like to get it outta my head, get it all done on Monday, and then Tuesday, content creation day or meeting day, depending on the business.

So I’m a business coach, so my Tuesday is meetings. All day, like I’m coaching all day. And then Wednesday is your sales and marketing day. So what I find is most women are really, and I don’t know if your like target demographic listener is female, I would assume it maybe skews a little bit female And Wednesday’s 20% of your week. So if you will spend an entire day doing nothing but sales and marketing efforts, your business will grow. Like most people think that posting on Instagram is their sales and marketing efforts. So we do that all day, which leads to pretty explosive growth if you’ll do that for just one quarter and then Thursdays.

A day to pick a project, a big hairy project. All the ones

Yep.

the can down the road. Onboarding sequence, offboarding sequence. A referral program, affiliate program, all these big projects, we could pick one and do it on Thursday. That day is inspired by Cal Newport’s book Deep Work. I love having like a big juicy, deep work session to just knock out a crucial project.

It’s how I’ve done everything I’ve done on my business in the last 12 months and then Friday, CEO day. So measuring metrics. I love that you’re so big on this, on threads. I’m like, praise the

Praise the Lord.

besides me is saying this is, you have to know the state of your business and

Yeah.

know it if you’re not measuring anything? And most, self-made multimillionaires who own small businesses have said that their success was tied to one thing, and that was measuring their numbers at regular intervals and developing strategy around it. So it, the, the whole bedrock of your CEO day should be. Measuring those important numbers. So KPI is short for key performance indicator.

It’s a

Yep.

snobbish person’s way of saying the important numbers. Like some people are like, what’s that? Well, I don’t know. People make up stupid names so that they sound smart. But it’s just that important numbers in your business. You measure ’em, you do strategy around them. I pay my team. I look at my financials, I look at how profitable I am.

I see what’s

Yep.

It’s just a day to basically, I like to say it’s like rising up above like a bird, looking down on my business. happening, and that’s the day that prevents me from getting in the weeds in my business. Most like, you know, a fancy way of saying it is like it’s where you can work on your business, not just in your business.

Well, to me, I’m like, what does that even mean? So I just like to say it’s like rising up and looking at a bird’s eye view. What’s happening are these numbers, I like to say your KPI dashboard, like whispering screams. They are telling you like, alert, alert, this is dangerous. You need to fix this. Or they’re like, keep Good job Samantha.

Keep going. This is going great. They’re fortune tellers for your business. And so how can we run a successful business? How can we even know what content to produce we have no clue? What’s happening in our business? I don’t, I actually don’t understand how people are running businesses without measuring their numbers because how do you, well, this will speak to you sweet One is they just open their bank account and they think that’s whether or not they’re successful.

And it’s like your,

Yes,

account has nothing to do. If you’re doing a good job as a business owner, it actually doesn’t even tell you how much money you have as a business

it doesn’t. Yes.

of the week. And so basically by chunking within that, and that doesn’t mean, so someone might be listening and they’re like, well, I’m a health coach.

What do I do the rest of the day? No, that’s just what you’re, you’re chunking your day like that for the beginning of the day to really strengthen your business, not just make more content all the time, and then the rest of the day do whatever the heck you feel like doing. Whatever your business requires is what you’re doing. But by following that routine, that ritual, our business is getting holistically healthy.

Yes.

I see that are failing. One or all five of those pieces is missing in a really big way, and all they’re doing is posting on threads, YouTube, Instagram, praying to God. They go viral and make $700,000 like their guru they look up to, and it’s like that ship has sailed.

It is not 2021 anymore. We’re not in post COD. Everybody’s home on their phone.

Yeah.

you

figure out.

figure out a different way to grow your business, you’re just gonna keep banging your head against the wall. Going viral in this day and age. And I know, ’cause I’ve coached plenty of them. often than not people say, I wish it never happened.

’cause you end

Yeah.

misaligned followers, tons of dms from people who want free stuff. They’re not planning on buying. And so to me, I like to say walk like Warrior’s. The brand is like hard work. Good old fashioned business principles. They had a baby. That baby has walked. Like, we’re, that’s it. I got nothing fancy.

I can’t help you go viral. I still have never gone viral. But, you know, I’ve had three back to back multi five figure launches with 1200 followers. So it’s like, I don’t really care about the viral game. I care

Yes.

business owners actually build, like, build an algorithm proof business. That freaking lights me up like nothing else.

Yes. And I love that because I, I, I feel it, I feel the burnout with social media and I’m just like, I’m so done with it. Like, I don’t wanna look at it. And it just feels like you constantly have to be a certain way in order to like, get people to like really look at you. In the way that makes sense. So I’m like, I just wanna like be myself and not have to worry about what other people are thinking.

So I love that. I love that. And I think that, you know, obviously content creation and sales and marketing is an important part of business, but I think there’s a time and a place for it. And not necessarily like having this consumption in your life. Like we so often see.

A hundred percent. I think that, I don’t know, you can bleep this out of your podcast if you don’t like it, but I think some people feel like they have to prostitute themselves for the algorithm.

Yeah, I.

that. Like I’m not gonna literally do something that I absolutely despise about myself and I’m gonna think less of myself for doing in order to go viral or get a lot of use.

Now I’m not saying that good. Social media strategy is not important. But what I am saying is like I feel like what’s being prioritized is very like base level shareable stuff. And I show up to serve baby. Like I don’t know what else people want from me.

Yeah.

And if it never goes viral, so be it.

Like my

Yes.

where someone could follow walk like warriors and be like. Holy crap, I’m getting so much business strategy and I didn’t pay for it. And that’s kind of stuff typically is not gonna go viral. It would go viral if I was like, how to make six months of content in four minutes. Oh.

Like I wanna know that. Like it’s just, to me, I mean, come on, this stuff is, you know, the, the like looping audio for three seconds and then the caption has no value whatsoever.

Yeah.

no shade or hate to people that are doing that. I’m just saying for me personally as a human being. That doesn’t feel authentic to me.

Yeah.

feels fake and like I’m doing it for the follows. I’m doing it for the shares, I don’t wanna build a business that five years from now. I look back on, I’m like, who are you? Like, why

Yeah.

are you, do I, I would rather just slow growth, but it feels like me, you know what I’m saying?

Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree, and I’ve always been told like, you know, oh, you’re giving too much value. You’re giving too much value. And I’m like, I would rather give value and have people come to me who value the value that I’m providing, rather than having people who are like, you’re giving too much value, like you need to give less value and have them come to you.

I’m like. Education is so limited, like education is so limited around things pertaining to business owners, and I don’t wanna be a block to someone else who just needs one little piece of advice to further their business. Like, yeah, absolutely. I’m not gonna do their bookkeeping for a hundred percent free, but am I gonna tell them, Hey, you should separate your business and personal finances.

Hey, you shouldn’t just look at your bank account. Absolutely. I don’t care how many times I say it because it’s important that they know. That kind of stuff.

I will say. Someone had said to me about a year ago, I had like 40 followers, and they were like, it’s only a matter of time before you blow up and go viral. And I was like, you know, I didn’t know why she said it, but she’s like, you pack so much value into this page. Well, it still hasn’t happened.

Yeah.

think that about you on threads.

I’m like, this is the most value I feel like of anybody spinning up content is this, this account right here. I’m not blowing smoke at you either. Like legitimately, when I see someone like you showing up and serving that actually has strategy. Holy, holy smokes. I’m like, she actually knows what she’s doing, which is such a refreshing, I feel like there’s a lot of inauthenticity on social and a lot of people playing business owner.

Do you know what I’m

Yeah. Yeah.

it, I don’t care if there’s a business coach who never owned their own business. You might still know a lot about business, but you can tell in someone’s content do they actually know what they’re talking about? Or are they just like a complete fraud? And as soon as I saw your account, I was like, okay, this person clearly knows. A lot about what they’re talking about, and I just wanna tell you, I seriously wanna give you such a big shout out. It was truly refreshing to see somebody showing up and serving with so much value on the daily. It’s not easy to do.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I mean that’s, that’s one of my core things, right? Like as a woman of faith as well, like I just feel like serving and I feel like serving in a sense that like helps others because that’s what I feel very called to do. So.

it. I love it. I think we, you know, when we’ve got that as our, as our foundation, there’s a part of it that becomes not about business. It becomes character.

Yes.

And maybe

Yes.

again, and I’m not saying someone is wrong for trying to go viral, what I’m saying is I. know there are certain topics I could touch on that would be more likely to help me go viral, but I’m like, this is not, just not me.

It’s not, I

Yeah.

that’s how I wanna show up and serve people. And I, I, there’s so much gatekeeping too. It’s like, well, if I give too much away for free, they’re not gonna buy for me. I have found the opposite to be

Yes, absolutely.

so I just wish. Again, there’s, and now I don’t know if you’ve seen the whole trend, like stop posting educational content.

It doesn’t

Yes.

I’m like, everything I’ve built has been based on educational content. It won’t help you be re-shared a bajillion times and thus go viral or end up on the explore page. But I think that the people who vibe with that. people who appreciate someone showing up consistently and pouring into them.

Those are the exact people that will buy from you. Those are the people who are the most engaged. You know, who doesn’t buy from you. You posted some hilarious reel that was super relatable, so they followed you ’cause they thought Samantha’s so funny.

Yes.

I’m sorry, we, I, I don’t buy a lot from comedians.

I don’t think I’ve ever spent a dollar on a comedian. So it’s like you don’t want him getting whiplash either. Like you went viral for the super funny, relatable thing. Then you try to sell and then you end up with this massive following that doesn’t wanna buy from you,

Yes. Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree. ’cause like that’s what I do on my podcast too, is all I do is really talk about value and education and things like that. And I think that that’s so important. And I’ve had people before, like the thing is, even if you give away that much education, right, that person’s brain is never gonna work the same way that your brain does.

That’s why you do what you do. That’s why people are drawn to you. So the way I’m speaking, I can speak all the time and educate them about everything that I can, but their brain just isn’t gonna work that same way. Some will, most won’t. And the people that brain doesn’t work that way are gonna wanna work with you.

’cause they’re like, I can’t do that. Help me.

Yeah, a really interesting example of this. So that’s part of it is they’re buying you, they’re buying your brain, they’re buying your

Yeah.

Some of it also is maybe they can copy you. Exactly. They don’t have the time to, and there, there’s a whole niche there where it’s like

Yeah.

wanna hit the easy button and be like, well, I could do it myself.

But

Yes.

I. It’s just as smart as me. Maybe more so, so I’m gonna hire her. And you see this with, I love the company StoryBrand, Donald Miller’s company called StoryBrand. They

Yeah.

Tell you the entire system. And at the end they’re like, you can hire one of our certified guides and it’s, you know, the bajillion dollars. But the reason that they can give everything away for free and people still hire the guide, is that someone like me, I’m so close to my own business that I can’t always see the forests for the trees.

Yes.

that’s where too, there’s a lot of service-based business providers. Like I was coaching a virtual assistant last year. I’m like, you could tell them your entire organizational system. They’ll still hire you because so many of them are like me, and I’m like, I just wanna hit the easy button. Where is that button? I just

Yes.

to do it for me. And so you also unlock a whole new level of profitability in your business, as you know, because the people who have more money than time, they’ll pay you really good money to hit the easy button for them.

Even though they could do what you do, they want you to do it because you’re clearly good at it. You’ve shown up online, you’ve shown that you know your stuff, that this doesn’t apply to everyone, but it’s like I even tell health coaches, why are you gatekeeping? I’m not

Yeah.

coach ’cause you have some mysterious knowledge that’s not clear.

I’m hiring you for the accountability. So you could

Yes. School

program, but I’m not

I’m not,

for the knowledge. I can get that on YouTube or from chat GPT I’m

yeah.

you to hold me accountable. And so this is where I think the gatekeeping people still do it. And it blows my mind because I’m like, will only hire someone that I think can help me. And how do I

How do I,

me if you’ve never

yes.

of value with me?

Absolutely. I a hundred percent agree. Now, to branch off of that, like a lot of business owners struggle to delegate or automate because they think, well, no one else can do it like me. How do we help people shift that mindset?

that is a huge thing that I hear from business owners, and there’s a couple points here. One is, is that none of us are the best at every area of our business.

Yeah.

an entrepreneur that thinks that every aspect of your business, you are the absolute best at, I, I have a little the talk to have with you about pride because no one is the best at everything

Yeah.

and part of growth and scalability is releasing control of what isn’t going to hurt the vision of the business. So I believe most people, their first hire. It should be somewhere in this category, is you, you need to have a good virtual assistant. You need to have a good bookkeeper slash cpa. So, so CFO in whatever, I mean, a $50,000 a year business doesn’t need a CFO, but

Yeah.

someone to help the inform their financial strategy and that at some point a social media person to help take that content creation monkey weight off of your back.

Those three roles will eventually need to be hired. And what I have always found to be true is when you’re hiring for someone who’s in that zone of genius. They do it better and they do it faster, those two things. Another thing I would say

I would say.

you is, and if I call you sweet one, I’m sorry, that’s just what I call people, but I really care about them, but. I would trust that you are way more aware of software and tools and what’s trending and this new law that just got passed. ’cause like you lively breathe this stuff and to me I’m like, well I’m good at it. I can do it myself. But at some point it’s like I either don’t want to ’cause I don’t have the time or bandwidth or this person is obsessed with the industry that they operate within.

So they’re gonna know way more than you the, they don’t do it just like me. One is the humility to say, yeah, but Samantha’s way is probably better ’cause this is her industry. And if it’s those things where you’re like, I don’t care, it has to be done like this. What I

What I

owners to do is I share

share.

I have a Zoom meeting with one and that would be myself. And I say, alright, so when you get to this page, you’re gonna click on the top left button and it’s green. And then, then you’re, and you literally can do it. And then they watch the video and you know what happens when, so you’re, you onboard someone, you give them the Zoom video. do it just like you ’cause they do it alongside you.

And

Yeah,

them use that Zoom video every

every time they do it.

it’s quote unquote just like me. There’s very few things in my business that need to be done just like me. But those ones, it’s like that’s how you can offload. And the other thing I really love about building a training manual with Zoom videos of you teaching it, it’s evergreen.

So if things don’t work out with a social media manager or a va, you don’t have to spend all that time retraining them. It’s

Yep.

and you just share the video with the next person. It ensures that it is done just like you. For those, it’s a small amount of tasks, but I’m sure there are things that all of us want done a very specific way.

Yeah.

but the other

Other thing is no

training can capture all that

one.

live. It’s much more helpful for them to be able to follow along to a video until they get the hang of it. So that is, to me, the best way to offload things to other people. But I think that, especially with VAs and bookkeepers, like those two things, when you hire the right person, there’s so much faster than you and they see things in your blind spot. And by definition. It’s your blind spot, so you

Yes.

like, I don’t have blind spots. Well, the by very definition, you don’t know that it’s there and adding a fresh set of eyes to your business, ooh, it is like that rainbow sprinkles on the sundae. It’s that extra like oomph that your business needs, but you don’t know

Yeah.

it.

So like quote unquote even, and I hate that word for VAs. I started out as an administrative assistant. I love that role and I think the right person, they actually, that is one of the most important roles of all time for a business owner to hire for. But.

Yep.

They, they help me see blind spots in my business that it’s like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat.

I’m like, I didn’t even realize that. I didn’t even realize that that was happening. So that’s another thing is I hear a lot of business owners like, I’m an island and I just wish I had, is why you help have people help you

Yes.

collaboration. So, and I, that’s when I, I see that a lot with your posts.

I’m like, see, this is somebody who’s like a strategic partner.

Yeah.

and if there’s one area that’s super weak, for the women, at least in my circle it is. Metrics and financials is just like. Popping open stripe and that’s how much money we have. And I’m like, no,

Yes.

please stop doing that. That has nothing to do with anything or, you know, they’ll overspend because they had one good month in their business and then the next month they’re laying off their va. I’m just like,

Yeah.

we, we need to do better. We need to operate a little bit more like CEOs in less like hobbyists. And that does start with those key hires when you’re profitable enough for that to make sense.

I don’t think someone making $50 a month should be hiring a team member, but there are certainly some benchmarks and least in my mind where, yeah, this is a good point at which you need to be

Yeah.

somebody to take this off your plate.

Yeah, no, I 110% agree. Now, again, to branch off of that, like what are some of the common mistakes that you see that keep business owners stuck working those nights and weekends?

The biggest mistake that leads to working nights and weekends is not having a workflow or a, you pop open the laptop and it’s Monday, and this is what I do and this is the

Yeah.

do it in. And when you can begin to formulate. A workflow for your week that strengthens every side of the business, you actually can turn off your work brain. So for me, and so like it’s, it’s basically like kind of in a, a Google sheet with little, like done or not done.

Yeah.

I finish that, doesn’t matter if it’s 11 in the morning on a Monday, I can, with full confidence and feeling good about myself, say I’m done. There’s always more. It’s kind of like you know, if you go to college, one of the things I think that’s really cool about going to college is like the scales fall off your eyes and for the first time in your life, maybe you’re like, there’s so much more to learn. That’s where being a business owner, there’s so much more to do, but the way that when you can structure your days where you’ve got that, and so I’m not, so I wanna just be clear. I’m not trying

I’m.

somebody into my program. You can literally do this with an index card. That says Monday and just this stuff that’s strategic that you know is gonna actually move your business forward. And you work that every single day. And what happens is after about five or six Mondays, you get faster, you get more efficient, you’re able to do it in half the time, and you start feeling really good. Like you know that because of our spaghetti brains, Samantha, you didn’t do this. You didn’t do that. Yeah, but I do that on Wednesday. So that’s fine. It’s all fine. It’s Monday.

Yes.

to do that because I’m gonna do that, and all of a sudden we start to have margin and breathing room in our week. So that’s really the biggest mistake I see people making is, is the ping ponging, and I don’t know a better word, somebody said it. I feel like I’m playing dodgeball with my to-do list.

That’s another way to view it. basically just waking up every day and flying by the seat of your pants is the absolute worst way to run a business. It costs you

Yes.

costs you money, and it leads to burnout because you’re working nights and weekends to stay caught up. And I want you watching the Disney movie without creating a reel.

Yeah.

you out on a date with your husband without checking dms like a maniac. Like that’s not the way to live. Balanced. And what happens is, our first year in business, anyone can do that. This is why I like papers. I don’t care. Business coaches will criticize me on, Instagram threads. Like, oh, well, I like working weekends. Everybody likes working weekends until they burn out. And your first 12 months in business, 24 months maybe. There’s so much dopamine. You are flooding your system with happy endorphins. Like everything is exciting and it feels good, and you get the ping like you just made a sale and like,

Yeah.

but after a while, it’s kind of like when you’re dating someone, right?

You don’t realize that he chews super loud and he leaves his shoes everywhere and you’re tripping over his socks like. Because you are so flooded with happy hormones, you don’t actually see it for what it is. And I’m not saying that’s bad, but eventually the scales fall outta your eyes and you’re like, oh, He’s not literally the most perfect human being that God ever created.

Yeah.

happens with our businesses, and that’s why I’m so passionate about this topic, because anyone can do anything for 12 months. once those endorphins calm down. All of a sudden I see so many women quitting their business, and it’s almost always from burnout, exhaustion, or overwhelm. And that’s why I’m really passionate about fence posts around our work time. It doesn’t

It doesn’t matter that you like it.

it all day every day. I did

I do too.

that eventually fades and it starts to feel more like a grind, which is why it’s so important to have these systems in place.

Yes. And I love that. And I think that’s so true because if you start working just hours, and I think I’ve started to feel that too, where I’m like in my second year of business and sometimes I’m like working past that 5:00 PM mark and I’m like, Hmm, I don’t really wanna be working right now.

Yes.

I’m like, I love it, but I don’t wanna be working right now.

And that’s where that setting up that boundary, being like, okay, I’m stopping at five, I’m not doing anything else, is gonna become so, so helpful. For sure.

yes, for sure. And another tip, ’cause like I don’t want anyone to feel like they have to hire me as their coach, but

Yeah.

those things that always happen as, so behind me I have these bookcases, right? Like as bookends. So what in your Monday happens at the same time every day? Is it the bus pulls up in front of your house?

And the door’s open and your

Yes.

That’s your bookmark. That’s when it’s like, I’m shutting down at this time. Or you drive the kids to school and you get home and maybe you put on Netflix or you go this or that. Well, instead, it’s kind of like Atomic Habits talks about, it’s like that habit stacking is no, you pull into the driveway.

You stop the car, you start the Keurig, you make your cup, and then your butt is in your seat, like that’s the marker of your day. And so these bookends can really be powerful. Those things that are recurring can function as like, these are checkpoints in my day, and at this time this happens, and at this time I’m done. I’m a huge fan of having fence posts around our work blocks because now this is different. Like if someone’s got a 1-year-old and a baby. get that you’re trying to feel, you are trying to put your business in the cracks of your day. That’s not my target demographic. So if someone’s listening and they’re like, well, most of you, nice for her.

I have four kids. But yeah, in full transparency, my oldest two are married, so I have, I treat this like a full-time business. If someone’s got lots of little kids, that’s not my tar target demographic. You’d be better off listening to a business coach who teaches you like building your business in the cracks of the

Yeah.

But it’s really

It’s really hard to feel that way.

be completely exhausted all the time because you can never. Put it in the off switch position, and I think that long term, that’s a pretty unhealthy way to live.

Yeah, yeah. No, I, completely agree. Now, pivoting to sales and marketing, selling confidently without feeling salesy is such a huge challenge for many entrepreneurs. What’s your approach to making sales feel more natural and effective?

Do you have an hour? let me try to make, I’m gonna try to just distill this down to its simplest points and keep it short. One is, is there’s two ways to parent. Your kid is afraid of water. One is go inch by inch into the water until they’re comfortable. The other parent is the one that just throws them in the deep end and like, ah, they’ll figure it out.

So I’m going to leave the deep end stuff and I can coach people that way if they’re more comfortable, like, Hey, just throw me into it. But sometimes baby stepping into selling with confidence. And so like social proof, screenshots. With a link to buy is like the ultimate way to sell without selling.

Like I don’t wanna show my face. Just do that, but do it consistently. So like, let’s pretend, so I told you Wednesday’s growth day. What if every Wednesday you got into Instagram stories or you went on threads or whatever in your email that you send to your list? ’cause everyone should be doing that. you just post a screenshot with like, buy now or This is me, Samantha, I want this. Like, that’s a good way to baby stop into selling

Yeah.

Um, another thing is, is just do like a tap through story where every time someone taps the next thing appears, kind of warming yourself up to

Yeah.

to actually talk about what you have. I will say that when women come to me for coaching and they say, I’m not making any sales, and I say, well, how often are you selling? How often are you asking for the sale? Well, I mean, the link is in my bio and I say, comment the word no, no, no. Like how often are you

Are.

You’re forcing sales, like you’re going in there with the intention and usually it’s like, well, once every 12 weeks, so anyone listening, you can really increase your sales by just twice a week.

You make a point that you’re gonna get into Instagram stories and sell. You’re gonna sell in every single email that you send. People will unfollow. Well, I’m sorry. Is your account to be prom queen or is it to make sales? ’cause mine’s to make sales. Like I want a business. If I wanted to be popular, I would be doing the little three second reel with how to make 27. Months of content in one minute with Chad, GPT. Like

Yes.

make sales, you have to sell. But baby stepping your way there. So first you could just start with screenshots. Then you could start with just like text on screen.

Yeah.

you can move on to B roll like you’re typing away and the words are over top with a link to buy. And then maybe after five or six weeks, maybe you’re getting some interest in the dms or what have you. Then you force yourself to get in stories and actually talk about it. ’cause nothing sells like enthusiasm. Like enthusiasm is it? And so if you need a baby step, I love Shannon McKinstry. She’s an Instagram coach.

I. She talks about like, to get comfortable showing your face is, you know, wear big old sunglasses and have like a big

A big Starbucks drink.

of hide, but just make these checkpoints, make a list on a, on a post-it note

Yep.

just like week one, I’m gonna do this. Week two, I’m gonna do this baby step your way into selling. But nothing builds confidence like a result you get for a customer.

Yeah.

where a lot of people go wrong is they roll out all this crap and it’s not getting any results. So no one’s in their dms. Like, I’m not bragging, I’m just saying like this morning when I woke up, I had three dms from my Success squad girls about wins they’re having.

So like that’s the ultimate confidence boost is you’re literally changing someone’s life. And so I don’t have to fake it till I make it. It’s like help more women. Build these businesses of their dreams without sacrificing their families or themselves to do it. And so the ultimate, ultimate end goal is build something really awesome that’s getting results and then let those results like spur

Speak.

to share it with more people.

Sorry, I said that was gonna be

Yes.

I can’t do anything like that, but.

No, that’s totally fine. I mean, while we’re on these tangents, you’re answering a lot of the questions, so that’s great for someone feeling overwhelmed. It’s buried in work, and unsure where to start, what’s the first step they need to take to reclaim their time?

Oh man, this is a good one. So this will be a little outside the box, but it doesn’t serve a woman well for me to help her cram more activity. Into a cram schedule. So I like to have people zoom out and make open a digital calendar or paper calendar works too. if I was doing this with you, Samantha, I would say, all right, first things first.

Forget about work. Forget about everything. What are the most important things in your life to you? So you might say, it’s my marriage, it’s my faith, it’s my kids. I like to serve at a soup

Okay.

All right, don’t do anything else. Put those in first.

Yep. Okay.

All right. Next. If you’ve got a nine to five job and you’re side hustling, put the nine to five like next.

Put your immovable commitments that you have, whether it’s work or whatever. Okay. I know. It’s like, what are we doing right now? The white space left is the spot you have for your business,

Yep.

and until people do that and rise above their schedule and look at it very cold and calculating, not with emotion, we can’t build anything because usually just that exercise. Women have a lot of aha moments. They either have way more time than they thought they had, and they

Yep.

they’re really wasting a lot by not being strategic they have hardly any time. And that’s why they feel so overwhelmed is they’re trying to do a 40 hour a week business and they’ve got three and a half hours a week. That’s

Yep.

an important aha moment. So we would start

Start there.

Um,

what I

what I found is,

It doesn’t

doesn’t

if

matter, I

build the business of your dreams. If your personal life is in the toilet a year from

I hear from now

a very unhappy person. So

yeah.

why I start there because I can say

Say

marriage to Keith is the most important thing to me.

Well, my faith and then my marriage. But if I build a week where I’m not spending any time on any of my faith practices, and Keith and

Keith.

have not had a date in six months. I know that a year from now my business could be a multi seven figure business, and I’m still not going to feel a lot of joy. Or fulfillment it no amount of money.

That’s why you look at, I mean it’s, I hate to say this ’cause it’s so dark, but you look at all of the rich and famous people that commit suicide or are addicts, it’s because money is not enough to

Yeah.

our human urges. And so I always start women there is, I want them to really build their ideal week.

They’re like, they’re values driven week first and see what kind of time we’re looking at, and then we work backward and say, okay, with this amount of hours, this is what you can do to optimize what you’re doing in your business.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that, and I think that’s so true. I do. But Kelly, this has been such an amazing interview and I think you’ve given so much value in education, and I just wanna know where my audience can find you and connect with you so that they can learn more about you and potentially work with you.

I appreciate

appreciate that so.

is walk like warriors.com. The name Kelly means Warrior Woman, which is like a very apt name for me. So the company is named after that. It’s like a riff on, I want women. To feel like warriors, to feel like they are strong and can and can build what they want to build without sacrificing anything.

Now Instagram, that handle was taken, so there’s underscores, it’s walk like warriors, but there’s underscores in between each word and it’s, my favorite color is yellow. So if you see my profile photo with yellow behind me. You found the right place. I coach for free every day in Instagram stories. I’m sure you’ve seen.

So I’m really all about pouring into my Instagram followers. Even if they

Yes.

a penny with me is if you follow me on Instagram, you’re gonna start to get a ritual to your week that’s gonna help you feel a lot more peace.

Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you so much again, Kelly. I really appreciate it, and I can’t wait for this episode to come out. Thank.

Thank you. Appreciate you.

📍 Freedom in business isn’t built by running yourself into the ground. It’s built by slowing down enough to get clear on what actually matters. You don’t need 10,000 followers. You don’t need to go viral. You just need systems that work with your brain, not against it. You need the right offers, the right rhythms, and the right kind of support.

And most of all, you need to believe that building slow, sustainable, soul aligned success is more than enough. Kelly’s story is such a powerful reminder that profit doesn’t require pressure and peace doesn’t mean playing small.

So if you’re ready to reclaim your time and lead with intention, I’m cheering you on every step of the way. I. As always, if this episode spoke to you, please share it with a friend. Leave a review, submit a topic using the form in the description box below, and of course, come say hi on Instagram. I’m here to make sure you never feel alone in this until next week.

As always, I wish you the best week ever and we’ll see you next time. Farewell fellow Travelers.