Why I Am Leaving The Rat Race To Run A Minimalist Business | 12 Tips To Run A Minimalist Business
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Have you ever asked yourself “Is more actually better?” Have you ever caught yourself achieving a new success bracket and wondering if you actually want to be there?
Today I will share why I am choosing a minimalist business in order to upgrade my life. I have never written something like this mostly because I had to give myself the opportunity to finally catch up emotionally and spiritually to the external success I had achieved. Running a million-dollar business is no joke, and to be honest, it is nothing like society portrays it to be.
We imagine success as this easy-going, sipping mojitos, stress-free life. The reality is sitting at your computer, all your personal sh!t suppressed, with 10X the responsibility, and a lot less time to enjoy the simple things. At the end of the day, you are still a human, with all the same problems, just with a lot more responsibility and pressure.
When it comes to entrepreneurship it is very easy to get caught in the unfulfilling rat race of “I need more”. You start out on your journey wanting to just make $1 online. You think getting paid online is truly the coolest thing. So you work your ass off to get your first Stripe, PayPal notification. For once your PayPal is a portal for you getting paid instead of you paying out. You are proud of yourself. But only for a moment… because you then realize all your friends are striving for $10K months. In an instant, you forget about yourself, your achievements, and chase the next goal. Not even wondering if that next goal is even what you want.
So we chase new heights because that is what we are told to do. To hustle harder, never be satisfied and continue to consume. I mean, it doesn’t help that the moment you slow down, you can’t help but feel entirely overwhelmed with the forest of thoughts inside of yourself. So we go to our default setting of looking outwards because that feels easier than looking ourselves in the mirror and figuring out why the hell you’ve developed the patterns of being an overachiever, a people pleaser, a perfectionist in the first place. Chances are your parents have said to you…
“Sweetie, we are worried about you, make sure to take care of yourself and try to slow down” - Mom & Dad
If you are a victim of hearing those words, you’re not alone. I’ve heard it too. I believe I have been handed the experiences in my life to use my platform to share this wisdom. L E S S I S M O R E.
“Sometimes more customers means more customer support. Sometimes more revenue comes at the price of higher investments and expenses. Sometimes more exposure means more of the wrong people see you. Sometimes more staff means less loyal employees.”
When you grow into your own boss you will find yourself sacrificing different things in your life to level up. It will start with swapping drinks on Friday night for work sessions to build your dream. Then it will turn into waking up 2 hours earlier so you can read, meditate and learn. These seemingly insignificant swaps are great and needed. However, when the swaps start to turn into missing date night to close a deal, canceling a call with your best friend for a call with a stranger online, or forgetting to eat because you’re too busy. It has gone too far. Success means nothing if you’ve ruined yourself to get there.
Never forget where you've been. Never lose sight of where you're going. And never take for granted the people who travel the journey with you.
For me running a minimalist business means knowing what work is just enough, and to forget about the rest. To live a life where I have designed a business that fits perfectly inside. It is not about being the richest, but the richest in love. It is not about being the best, but the best version of you. I live strongly by the 80/20 principle which suggests that 80% of what you're currently using your time to do does not actually move the needle forward in your life. Which also means there is 20% of what you do that actually fulfills you, brings you joy, and sustains you. Doing a basic audit of all the actions you choose to participate in daily will be very eye-opening. A lot of people are unhappy and stuck just because they choose to entertain useless activities. So I know you’re wondering how does one go about running a minimalist business?
12 Tips On How To Run A Minimalist Business
1. RELY ON REPEAT CUSTOMERS AND REFERRALS
The best way to make sure you are paid consistently is to do good work. The way you can do good work is to be present to your clients. Having a business model that relies on resigning current clients instead of always finding new clients is one of the easiest ways to run your business. Not only that but offering referral bonuses for those who suggest you to their friends. Again, this only works if you are truly available, doing good work and practicing your truth. If you are out of alignment with what you should be truly doing, your clients will feel it and their experience will reflect it.
2. SCALE DOWN, DELETE THE UNNECESSARY
Running your business with 4X the amount of staff and customers is good for revenue, but not always for your expense, mental health, and sanity. There is a lot of pressure when you grow your team large and others are relying on you for their income. Realize what size of business you thrive at. You probably won’t drop in net profit because you will have fewer expenses anyway. Personally, my goal is to live an abundant life, and not feel trapped. When my business got too big I felt way too much anxiety and that is not why I started in the first place.
3. OFFER LESS
I have two ways people can work with me. Private mentorship or a course. I am consistently sold out for private coaching because there is no other option to work with me 1:1. Occasionally I will have a pop up program, but these are rare, and usually, my past clients snag 50% of the spots before it is even public. Having two offers keeps my life in order, expenses in check and my schedule inflow.
4. FOCUS ON SLOW GROWTH
Adopting a minimalist business model means you can say goodbye to volatile cash months and focus on having a consistent income. Pick an honest monthly target and be okay with when you hit just that. This is a number that has shown up for you when your #inbalance and feels flowy for you to achieve. Once you have picked that number, let that be your standard. You can now live with ease and comfort. Slow growth is a recipe for a sustainable business. With a long-term vision, you can increase your income in a sustainable way and get protected legally, and have stronger systems in the meantime. Say yes to ease and no to stress.
5. LEARN FROM THE HAPPY NOT THE RICH
When you choose your mentor, choose wisely. Many choose the richest mentor, but what is in your coaches bank account has no direct relationship how they will show up as your coach. Personally, I like to be mentored by someone who is well rounded, grounded, and cares about all aspects of my life not just business. I have started to learn and be fascinated more and more from the happiest people in the world rather than the richest. Wow what a difference that has made.
6. AUTOMATE EVERYTHING YOU CAN
Why wouldn’t you want to use technology to remove yourself from manual activity. Personally I’d rather a smaller team and more technology. Using technology like Zapier, Asana, Slack, ThriveCart (full review here) to automate your manual activities is a game changer.
7. SEPARATE YOURSELF FROM YOUR WORK
The best thing you can do for your entrepreneurship journey is to realize you and your career are two different things. You must learn to detach from your achievements. You are not your failures, you are not your success. Most people at corporate jobs, do not have their friends peeping in to look at how they are “performing” When you are an entrepreneur you can sometimes feel like you have a lot of eyes on you. Once you master your thoughts you can master your world. Those who are meant to be in your life will be, those who are meant to fall off will leave. Evolving and shedding is a part of life.
8. STOP IDENTIFYING WITH BEING A WORKAHOLIC
Let go of the workaholic mentality. Do not pride yourself on your busy schedule. There is a big difference between being busy and being productive. Focus on income-generating activities and in the gaps, embrace the silence. Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing for you. In a world of followers, algorithms, zoom calls know the true importance of human connection.
9. CRAFT STRICT BOUNDARIES
I have never had stricter boundaries in my coaching than I do now. These boundaries are clear before we start coaching. I have also noticed my best coaching is after 11am. I block out my calendar from 11-3PM on 3 days of the week. These are my coaching hours. I rarely have a call outside of that time.
10. DEEPLY UNDERSTAND YOUR PERSONAL VALUES
Do you find yourself making decisions and then feeling out of alignment with that choice? What if you could understand yourself so deep so that you could have certainty when you make decisions. Crafting a list of 10 personal values that you live by will drastically help you. Now the trick is in the ranking of your values. It is not as simple as barfing 10 words that seem lovely on a paper. It is something you sit with for a while and constantly look back at the list to tweak and adjust. What is your #1 value? What is your #3 value? What value do you care about but not as much as others? For example, two people can have the same values but are living extremely different lives. Let’s take a mother and a daughter. Both have the word [security] and [adventure] on their list but the daughter has adventure first and the mom has it last. When the pair is arguing about what the Christmas plans are and the daughter refuses to fly home we can clearly understand how a value system is unique to us. Understanding your values and ranking them is the key to helping you not just understand yourself but understand your relationships. Here is a list of values from Brene Brown to get you started.
11. GIVE YOURSELF SPACE DAILY
Regardless of what you believe in, it is important to ground yourself daily. Remind yourself of how simple but significant work is the best root to go. Having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions or even relationships. The answer lies within ourselves. If you struggle to find peace and happiness in there it will never come from the outside things. So spending alone time with yourself to just hear your heart is key.
Minimalism business isn’t about removing the work you love, it is about removing the work that distracts you from the non work things you love.