The Ultimate Blog Podcast - 37. Running your blog as a business and the goals and motivations behind your blog with Ashton Smith

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

Why are you blogging? What is your motivation behind it? What goals do you have? Do you think of it as a business or is it a hobby? Ashton Smith, founder of The Awakening Co and our business coach, is here today sharing more about the mindset behind blogging as a business, focusing on our goals, remembering the why behind our business (remembering that can change over time), and paying attention to our own motivations and what we want. She shares so much advice with us and we hope that you walk away from this episode encouraged and inspired when thinking about your motivations behind your blog.Thanks for tuning in! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsThe doors for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp are open! Sign up HERE!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode37

Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast with Amy Reinecke and Jennifer Draper. We're on a mission to empower women who want to start or grow their own blog. This podcast is for women who want to learn blogging basics and who crave inspiration and encouragement. Whether you're just getting started or have been a blogger for years, we're excited to welcome you into this space where we are passionate about creating community over competition. We are bloggers who want to encourage you to believe in your potential, step outside the norm, and step into a life where you create your own schedule, your own success, and your own story. Join us for weekly episodes as we navigate blogging

and work from home life, all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. all while raising a family and having some serious fun along the way. Hey there, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast. Today, we are so excited to be talking to Ashton Smith from The Awakening. Ashton is not only a business coach, but she is also Amy and I's business coach. So we are super excited to welcome her on the podcast today. Welcome Ashton. Hi, I'm so happy to be here. Do you want to take just a minute and tell our audience just a little bit about yourself? Sure, no problem. So like you mentioned, I am the CEO and founder of The Awakening. And that

is essentially a platform dedicated to helping women in business build intentionally in the present so they can leave a powerful legacy behind. So what I really do at the core is I help early stage all the way to established entrepreneurs essentially own their power as a CEO and a founder, deeply connect with their vision and sustainably scale their business. That's central to everything that we do. And we really do fuse life and business into the equation. So I'm definitely the last person to just bring a business strategy to the table. I'm going to bring it to the table with a very holistic perspective based on who I'm working with.

So while we work together, things we're considering is you guys are both moms and you have life lives outside of your businesses. And so how can we not only build a thriving, sustainable business and company, but how can we do that in a way that supports your desired lifestyle? I absolutely love that. And so what types of people do you typically work with? You mentioned like from beginner to more established. When people come to you, what are they specifically looking for help with? Yeah. So it really does depend on the stage of their journey.

I have such a soft spot for beginners because I started as such a beginner. Like you see in the online space, there are a lot of people that come with like a lot of backgrounds, sometimes with corporate background. And I was just not that person. I was such a beginner, a fish out of water. And really in the early stage of entrepreneurship, it's so much more about owning who you are as a CEO, as a leader, as a founder, and really identifying what do I need to do? How do I need to spend my time in order to propel this business forward from not only an impact perspective,

a visibility perspective, but a profit perspective? How are we getting this business off the ground? And how are we creating cashflow, right? That's kind of like central to when you're starting out, super important when you're a beginner. And then kind of fast forwarding all the way to established entrepreneurs. So in that realm, we might be looking at offer suites. How are we designing your business model to be even more profitable, to be sustainable?

How do we have multiple tiers working in there together in order to bring more impact to your customer and more cash flow into the bank. And we just dive into a lot more high-level things like omnichannel marketing, visibility strategies, lead acquisition, and really figuring out the ways that we want to do that, the ways that we want to grow and scale your company based on, again, the longevity of what you're building and the lifestyle that you want to maintain as you're building that. of what you're building and the lifestyle that you want to maintain as you're building that. So I love hearing about the different kinds of businesses that you help with. But I want to take a step back because I think what some people struggle with is because you mentioned a beginner. So what advice do you have for that beginner who is like, well, I'm not a business yet.

Maybe they haven't made their first dollar. Maybe they have this grand plan, but they really don't know what to do next. And blogging is a business. So I want to make sure that we give attention to that as we're getting started here, that bloggers absolutely can have a sustainable business. But I think a lot of times bloggers start out without that business mindset. So what is your encouragement for somebody who is a blogger, for instance, to start out thinking of themselves as a business from the start? Yeah, I love that question. One of our lower ticket offers is our membership. And at the core, it's about transitioning from a hobbyist

to a profitable CEO. A lot of that has to do with mindset and where your focus is in your business. I would say one of the first things that comes to mind from a mindset perspective is stay in your lane. I spent so much time in the early days of my journey as an entrepreneur, just obsessing over all of the different strategies and tactics available. I have so many stories I could share. One of the most impactful in my journey was I reached this point where I hadn't really driven a substantial profit for quite some time. And so I decided I was super serious about getting the business off the ground. And the big thing at the time, which is still prevalent, but it was just so in my face

through the marketing materials I was seeing at the time was ads and funnels. And so I was not a business that was established, but I decided to make this big leap, this big investment. And I spent over $20,000 on this ads and funnels expert with the promise to at least make back the money. And we literally didn't make a penny. We didn't make one sale. And I always say like, I would go back and I would do that again, because that was the most pivotal moment in my business, because it really pushed me to step over that threshold of just looking at this business as though from the lens of a hobbyist, someone who's like,

just kind of having fun and also wanting other people to kind of figure it out for me. Like if we really get down to it, it's kind of where I was like, I just wanted people to just tell me what to do and just like, do it for me. Like I didn't want to have to sell. I didn't want to have to get it off the ground. I was like, I'm going to hire you and you do it for me. And I had to get past that in order to get to where I am now. And so I think that you can get sucked into the noise around all of the options available. There are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to make money, to build your blog, to build your business, your brand, whatever it is, there's so many ways to do it.

And no matter who you ask, everyone's going to have a different opinion. And so you have to come to this place within yourself where you're going to trust yourself. You're going to keep challenging yourself to grow personally. You're going to keep your inner circle small, and you're going to focus on one to three key areas. And so that's kind of the place that I got to. And that's more of like the mindset realm. And then we look at like the strategic realm. What it really comes down to is getting very focused and creating your plan of attack, doing that thing, testing, measuring, and optimizing. It's really that simple. That is like the thing that changed my business forever. I kid you not. I spent two years driving zero to very little profit in my business. And when I made this shift

inside of myself, and when I also started paying attention to my efforts, tying those efforts back to... For me, it was really about driving cashflow and profit. When I started measuring what I was doing and just making micro tweaks and improvements and optimizing those three tactics I was doing and just making micro like tweaks and improvements and optimizing those three tactics I was using, I started to see progress. And I think what happens is we're so used to instant gratification in our online space that we think that if we don't see results in one month, two months, three months, Oh, something's wrong with the strategy. It's just not working, but actually you just need more time under your belt. And if you're not careful, you can get to this place where your strategy hopping versus optimizing what you're already

doing and giving time for that thing to actually take effect and to create momentum. So that was a huge brain dump. And I hope that answered the question. Yeah, definitely. I think that as we talk about some of this, it brings up feelings that we have within ourselves often. There's so many things that you can do. And if you listen to too many people, there's so many things that you should do. And then you get so bogged down into doing all these minute things. Maybe it's something on social media or sending out emails. And maybe you get too far down into the nitty gritty details and you're not pulling yourself back up to look at the bigger picture.

And you mentioned being the CEO of your business. So obviously, when you're first starting out, CEO of your business. So obviously, when you're first starting out, you're not able to hire a bunch of people to do all of those nitty gritty things that need to be done. So how do you create a balance and create that mindset that you can... I mean, do you switch back and forth? Do you have a CEO day? Do you have a worker bee day? How do you make this all come together so that you can be planning on what's and focusing on what's really important, but also getting the work done? That's so good because it's such a balance. And I think you have to answer the question,

what really needs to be done? Like what actually needs to be done? And the thing about when you're getting started is you have to know what your focus is. And really it's usually very, very simple. We are wanting to generate cashflow. A lot of times it comes back to building that base of cashflow.

Maybe that's not your goal. Like it's knowing what your goal is, right? Are you building what you're building to be a hobby? Amazing. Know that's the goal. Otherwise you'll get to this place where you're chasing to be a hobby. Amazing. No, that's the goal. Otherwise you'll get to this place where you're chasing what everyone else is doing. You don't even want that thing. So what do you want? If we're talking about like building a business, building your blog

to support a business, then we're probably going to look at cashflow. And in order for cashflow to happen, we need to look at leads. We need to look at building your network. And a lot of times it really comes down to lead generation and sales. Those are like the only two things I focused on once I got that momentum, that initial momentum for a year, that was like literally all I focused on. And in order to focus on that, what really needs to get done? Because if you get swept up in all of the perfect things, like, oh, I need to hire a brand designer. I need perfect branding. I need a website. And it's got to be really good. I need to have an omnichannel marketing plan. I need to be doing email, Instagram, podcasting. I need to be attending

networking events. You just can't execute on all of those things as one person and do it well. And so I think you just have to really stay in your lane and you have to know if these are the focuses, what are the one to three things that I want to focus on? And I want to really like go deep with, we don't really care about surface level results across 10 things because you're not going to see results. So what can we focus on? That's really going to move the needle forward. You get to choose the path. Right. And for me, like I honestly focused on, if we talk like about marketing, I focused on Instagram and email. And I was like, that was my thing. That was all we did.

And today we have like this fully built out omni-channel plan. And when people come into our community and they start asking about it, I'm very upfront in saying, Hey, Hey, wait, hold up for like three plus years. I use two platforms. The only way that we can do more now is because we have more people and we have full-time help. If we didn't, I wouldn't be doing it. I wouldn't be able to do it. And so again, what's the priority and what you really need to focus on in order to make that happen. Like I kid you not, I launched coaching. I didn't have a landing page for my coaching offer for a year, but I focused on generating leads in a community for that offer. but I focused on generating leads in a community for that offer. And I focused on connecting and selling that offer. And I was booked out. I didn't need a landing page. I didn't have like

the beautiful software. I didn't have all of the things built out. So again, I think when you're getting started, you have to know what the goal is, how you want to get there. And you have to just be willing to like be scrappy. Like you, I am a perfectionist by nature. So I have to constantly overcome that. You have to overcome that as an entrepreneur, because presence is always going to be better than perfection. I don't care if you have a typo. I don't care if you mess up an email. I don't care if whatever it is, like you don't have the most beautiful, sophisticated automations. You don't have like the beautiful branding. I got my branding done like two or three years in. So you don't need all of these things in order to get off the ground. At some point,

you may want to invest in them, but you need to know what matters now and stay in your lane and don't, don't get swept up in all the noise and all of the shoulds and what everyone else is telling you, you have to do. That's great advice. It's something that we share a lot too, is to focus on those key areas, because I think we can be inundated with thinking that we have to be everything for everybody too. Like you need to show up in all the spaces. And a lot of people who are starting blogs are starting alongside a full-time job or their moms, or they already have a lot of responsibilities. And then they hear, oh, well, I have to do this, this, and this. And then they quit before they

ever start. Or they tell themselves, this is just going to be a hobby before I ever even start. But I think it's helpful to hear you say, focus on those one to three key areas and then truly know your goal. Because I think that when you start out as a blogger, a lot of times it's like, oh, I just have this thing that I want to share this topic, whatever. But I think if you take yourself seriously out of the gate, then you won't be the hobby blogger, maybe. And you might be spending as much time as a hobby blogger is, but because of that shift in your mindset, you're actually able to be more successful and thrive because you know that the time that you're spending on it

is actually going to be more fruitful. So I think that's important. I'm glad that you mentioned that. That's something that we talk about a lot with our students too. Yeah. I love that. And I think that's important. I'm glad that you mentioned that. That's something that we talk about a lot with our students too. Yeah, I love that. And I think, again, it's like keeping the big picture in mind. I've talked to so many clients about this, even in the last couple of weeks. It's like, if what you're doing matters enough to you, if it's driven by a motivation that's deep enough within you, it won't really matter how long it takes to get there. And I think it's really breaking this perspective that we've built around this instant gratification

culture that we live in. And it's knowing the goal. It's knowing your why. If it's to have fun, you go and have fun. And you go and make this a hobby and you enjoy it. And if it's to build a business and make money, go and do that thing as well. But be okay with the fact that a process will be required in order for you to get there. And that's why I always hit home on what's the why, what's the purpose, what's the vision, because that's what's going to keep you present. That's what's going to allow it to actually be sustainable once you start. So we talked a lot about like keeping that purpose

and that vision in the forefront so that you can really stay the course and be in it for the long haul. But as time goes on and you start to see new things and you don't want to be jumping from thing to thing to thing, you don't want to be jumping on the latest bandwagon, but there probably are times when you need to pivot. How do you know? How do you develop that skill in knowing, okay, here's when

I need to stick it out. Here's what I need to pivot and serve my community in a different way. That's a good question. I've pivoted so many times in business actually my first quote-unquote business was a blog it was called all together beautiful and I think a lot of businesses are actually built through blogs I know a lot of people that have started blogs and then you kind of start with a hobby and you're excited about it and then you find more and more of your passion and it turns into a business but I've've pivoted so many times. I had a blog that pivoted into a publication, a print publication. I also at some point had a marketing agency. I had drastic pivots. Those aren't even necessarily pivots. They are,

but they were just drastic changes in business models because I knew at the time that I also wanted something that was profitable. I didn't want just something that was fun. And so that was one of my driving motivators throughout the time. And I think it's coming down to what is the desire? Where is the desire coming from in order to pivot? Is it something that you're feeling like you're outgrowing what you're building? Maybe it's something that's actually internal. There are actually things that I'm

dreaming up right now that aren't going to require a full pivot, but almost an expansion of what we've already built. And I think anytime that you're starting to feel the need to pivot, we need to slow down a little bit. Like you said, we kind of need to explore that. Like what's the motivation? Why are you outgrowing what you're building? Are you being excited by something different? Do you need to change up your business model in order to be more profitable? Like where is that coming from? Is it because you see everyone else doing it? And so you feel like you have to do it. Is it because you feel like you have to do it? Is it because you feel like you need to do more in order to prove your worth, in order to validate that you're enough? Like all of these things, and trust me, oh my goodness, I've been exploring so many of these

questions this year, because we really do have to identify like what is motivating us. Because if you make a big decision that's motivated by, you know, we're seeking validation, you're going to find yourself so unfulfilled and so unhappy. So what's the motivation behind the pivot really takes some time to like mull over that before you make a big decision. The other thing too, is like, you'll want to constantly measure what you're doing. So beyond kind of like the inner monitoring, right? we also want to look at more of the logistical side, especially when you're wanting to make a pivot in order to change results. And this is where I talk about CEO days and getting systems and tracking systems in place

so you can monitor how is our content performing? How is this platform performing? How is this offer performing? How are sales calls performing? And then that can like really help you identify changes, tweaks that you might want to make in specific processes in order to increase results. So, you know, if you have a blog and maybe we're contemplating changing niche or changing the entire topic of your blog. Why? What's the motivation? Do you have data to support that? What are you looking at in order to make that decision?

So I think we have to weigh two sides of the spectrum. What's the motivation? The inner motivation. And then also, what's the data telling you? And how is that informing the decision that you're making? What I'm hearing you say when you're talking is that pivoting is okay, but a pause is required. And the pause is important because we can chase squirrels all damn day. We can literally see something and go chase it and see something else and go chase it.

see something and go chase it and see something else and go chase it. And we have done that so many times in our business that I think that we've had to learn to just pause more. And we're both guilty of it. We're both like, oh, that sounds like a really great idea. We should do that. And then what we realize is that then we have like 15 irons in the fire and 14 are out of control that we don't know what to do. So I think the pause is so important. So if you're listening to this, I think what I want you to be hearing is the pause, no matter where you're at in your business is important. So if you're at the front end of this, then you're considering starting a blog, pause, like ask yourself the important questions. Ask yourself, why do I want to do this? What am I willing to work for? How many hours am I willing to put into this? Do I want to

replace my income? Is this just a hobby? But ask yourself those really important questions. And don't be afraid of the pause. I think that the pause could end up making you successful in the long run because you actually took the time to consider the questions that you have that live inside of you that sometimes we go, go, go every day so busy that we don't allow ourselves to actually think and ask ourselves the important question, what do I want out of my life to make me happy? Because I think that's the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is we're actually in charge. If there's something that we don't love to do in our business, we have a couple options. One, we don't have to do it. And two, if we're in a place financially, we can hire it out. And I don't say that to sound arrogant or whatever. I say that

as a way of... If that's what you want, if you're working a nine to five that you hate, there are other options out there for you. There are other options. There are a ton of different ways that you can make money at home. Doesn't honestly, honestly, I shouldn't even say this, but it didn't even have to be a blog. Like there's a ton of different ways that you can make money, not having to like punch a time clock for someone else. So don't sell yourself short and don't tell yourself that you can't do something because, because it's scary or. So don't sell yourself short and don't tell yourself that you can't do something because it's scary or because you don't know exactly what the end outcome is.

And all three of us today on this episode have made that decision to say, I don't know what the end result will be, but we know that we want this, this, and this, and this is the avenue in which we've decided to go for it. And entrepreneurship is not always easy. There are hard days. I think we all have those days that we question, well, how is this right? Are we going to make it or not? And I'd love for you to speak a little bit into that too, Ashton, because I know that Jennifer and I feel that sometimes. Can we do this? Are we cut out for this? I think that's a piece of entrepreneurship, a piece of blogging that it would be really helpful to know that going in, that those days are going to come, but it's how we talk to ourselves and get through it.

So what advice do you have for somebody who is in that season that they're like, I don't know if this is working? That's so good. I love everything that you had to share about the power of the pause I feel like that's one of the things I talk about a lot with beginners is the power of slowing down the power of listening to your own voice the power of self-awareness on some of those like mindset pieces but also awareness of your own business, the more strategic side of actually looking at your business. But people have such a hard time slowing down. They have such a hard time tuning out the noise. And I feel like that is just such a good takeaway from this episode. Now speaking to the other piece, of course, I've definitely had days and so

many seasons where I have questioned like, can I do this? Especially when I was getting started. I mean, you have to imagine before my current brand was born, I could look at all of those other experiences like two years prior to this brand and just look at them as like constant failures or setbacks. But oftentimes I feel like the things we see as setbacks are actually setups for our future and for the things that we desire. And every single thing that we're doing, it is growing our capacity in order to carry what we're building. And anyone that tells you that it's going to just be easy, it's going to just feel good all the time. They're just not sharing the whole picture.

They are lying. They are lying. They're lying. They are straight up lying. And I understand there are ways to build things in alignment with your lifestyle. So you are setting your business, your blog, whatever it is up to fit into your lifestyle. And that can feel very good, but you're not always going to feel good. You're not always going to feel motivated. You're not always going to feel like getting up in the morning and doing the dang thing. You're not always going to feel like going live. You're not always going to feel like putting yourself out there, like entrepreneurship, out there. Entrepreneurship, following your passion equals putting yourself out there,

equals being constantly challenged. And so you better bet that when you step out, you're going to face a resistance because you're literally stepping into and onto an entirely different level that you've never been at before. So you have to have some grace. And when we talk about sustaining momentum, when we talk about having the stamina to keep going, you have to start with a good enough reason to build and to keep going. And at the beginning, that might be something totally different. When I started my first business, I knew I was recently, or I was actually engaged at the time. I was like, I want to be able to work from home. I want to be able to spend every single moment in the same vicinity as my husband, even if we're not together, I don't want to have to say goodbye. I want to be able to travel. I want to have freedom. I want to have financial stability. And all of those things are beautiful. And they're still byproducts of the business today.

My motivations have elevated into something a bit bigger that's tied to more of a mission and a purpose and a vision. And I think that as you go, you have to allow that driving force to grow because you have to have something to hold on to when things get tough. But here's the thing. If you're wanting to do anything, if you're going to start a blog, you're going to start a business, you're wanting to make money, you're wanting to do a side hustle, all of those things have been done before. All of those things have been done before. And I also believe that if you have the ability to dream something, to desire something, that is proof

of your ability to actualize it. If you can think it, and also if you've seen other people do it, you can do it. So it's not really a question of whether or not you can have the thing. That's already proven. That's already like, that's already evident. The real question is, are you going to be available for the process in order to get there? And that's where you lose people. A lot of times you lose people in the process. And a lot of people in our current society, it's because it takes too long and it feels too hard. And so you have to have something that's motivating you from a deeper place inside of you. Even if that is like financial stability, I need to make money for my family. Maybe it's because I really want to impact women in business. I want to help other people

build profitable businesses, whatever it is, you have to have an inner knowing that you are connected to. It's going to keep you going. And you also have to be very specific about who you surround yourself with because strategy is like great and all, and you know, we do it around here, but mindset is like the name of the game. If, if you are having this inner dialogue constantly that says you can't do it, If you are having this inner dialogue constantly that says you can't do it, then you're going to prove that reality to yourself. And so I think a huge piece of this too is getting around community, getting around people that think bigger, getting around people that will encourage and empower you to keep going when things get tough.

And just because things get tough doesn't mean that you're not meant to do it. You're meant to do it if you want to do it. Just because things get hard doesn't mean that you're not meant to do it. You're meant to do it if you want to do it. Just because things get hard doesn't mean that you're not meant to do it. It's just a part of the process. It is a process. I mean, I'm glad that you're talking about that because it truly is. And I think, you know, you were talking about like initially when you started how you had, you know, like wanting to be with your husband all the time. And when you were saying that, it reminded me of when our business grows, we grow. And when we grow, our business can grow too. So as we are in business longer, some of those wants change too. So some of the things that got us started aren't what's keeping us going. They look completely different. I know what got me started in the beginning was definitely not what's keeping me going today. It just looks totally different.

So I think giving yourself permission for that pivot and that change, whether or not you see it coming or not, or if you just feel a shift in general, that's just part of the game too. And if you're not doing that, I would say that you're not growing. Because I think that's just part of the game too. And that's, if you're not doing that, I would say that you're not growing, you know? Because I think that's part of this process is where you're growing and are you being open to the growth or not? Have you ever wanted to start a blog but had no idea where to begin?

Or maybe you have a blog that you'd like to update and want some help to make it the best it can be. We know that there are many people out there who have big dreams for their own blog that never happened because they simply feel stuck. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp is an eight-week course designed to help you create a solid blogging foundation by teaching you how to treat your blog as a business, find your audience, design a website that is optimized for SEO, all while providing support via online coaching calls each week of the course. There's a private Slack channel for students as well, so questions will never go unanswered. The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp will give you the tools and support to create a blog that

has the potential to turn into a profitable business. We are committed to helping each and every student feel empowered and confident with the foundational principles of blogging and the behind the scenes work that goes into it. If you don't wanna blog alone, we can help. We keep each round small in order to provide each student the attention and support we believe you deserve

during this process. Since space is limited, get on the wait list today so we can help you with your blog. The link to join the wait list is in our show notes or go to sparkmediaconcepts.com and click on the ultimate blog bootcamp. Yeah, that's so good. I just, I think it's always important to share context for anything, whether you want to build like a multimillion dollar brand or you just want to have like a side hustle, that's like an extra income source for your family. I think it's so important to provide context around what it takes to actually build

something because there's a lot of content out there that shows the end result. And, you know, that's part of marketing. You want to show people what's possible. But I personally, I don't think that everyone is meant to share their deepest, darkest moments. And I don't necessarily put all of mine on the internet, but I do feel such a deep calling to talk about the actual process because that's where I got so sidelined for so long. I got so distracted for so long because I felt like this is so hard. This is just so much harder than what everyone else said. Clearly, I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what I'm doing. I probably shouldn't even be doing this. And you disqualify

yourself because it's hard. But 80% to 90% of it doesn't feel great. You know, it doesn't feel like you're on a mountaintop and you hit the big goal. It's the actual process. And so you also have to develop an appreciation for the actual process because 80 to 90% of our time is spent on the process of becoming who we need to be to carry what we're building. And then the rest of it is actually living to be to carry what we're building.

And then the rest of it is actually living in the enjoyment of what you're building. But if you... It's so cheesy. It sounds cheesy. It's so true. If you aren't enjoying the process, if you aren't celebrating along the way, if you aren't actually connected to what your definition of success is, and the fact that you're living even a small piece of that right now,

you'll get so lost. And so I think it's just important to talk about the importance of the process and that it is sometimes hard. Like it's just the online space can glamorize everything and entrepreneurship can look so glamorous. It's just really not. I believe that it provides beautiful things. It does. Like we all live in some of that beauty, but it's hard because entrepreneurship equals personal growth. You're just constantly being pushed and challenged to grow. And it's a good thing. If you don't feel uncomfortable ever, then you're just not growing at all.

So I love that we're talking more about the process because I think that that's really the thing people need. People need the pause. People need perspective around the process. And we can talk strategies all day. That's great and all, but that's just like a tool in the toolkit. It's not the whole thing. It's really just about being so honest with yourself about what you want, why you're doing it and continuing to check in with yourself all the time throughout the process, throughout growing your business and making sure that you feel like you're on track and serving the purpose that you started with or the purpose that you're growing with.

And just always doing your best to make sure that you are carrying out that mission, whether it's to serve people. I think it's always double-sided because you probably started out because you wanted a different life. I mean, you don't want to go drive downtown to work every day. You don't want to work for somebody else. But then there's the hard parts of it too. But then you also start to learn as you start this business that you're touching other people's

lives and you're helping them. So just keeping both of those things in mind, you don't want to burn yourself out by only taking care of everybody else's needs because people are so happy with the service that you're offering that you're not ensuring that you're taking care of the reason you started it in the first place, which was to have a more fulfilling life in some way. It's easy, I think, to burn yourself out if you're not careful. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's so easy. People just think that the further you get and the milestones you hit, you're just going to arrive. This is going to be great. You're going to arrive and it's going to feel amazing. And there's nothing, there's nothing else outside of that. But the more you grow, the more responsibility

you have. Like when I first started, when I first started driving a profit, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is the dream. There was definitely more responsibility. And now we're to a point where I've grown so much further than that. And I'm like, whoa, I feel a whole different level of responsibility. I feel a whole different level of weight. Right. But I think it's so important to stay in touch with like, what are you building? Why are you building it? Because there's always going to be more to do. There's always going to be more to achieve. The more you grow, the more responsibility you have, the more opportunities you have, but like what is for you and what isn't for you, you don't have to do all the things. And sometimes we get so lost in all of that that we just keep adding to our plate because it's the thing we should do, or we want to keep up appearances

or that's what so-and-so said we should do. But does that support not only the business, but does that support the desired lifestyle that you're building and why you originally started? I think the lifestyle component is so important to me because if we're not careful, we can just build businesses that have us much worse off than we were in the job prior. businesses that have us much worse off than we were in the job prior. The thing that we wanted to get away from, we've now built that culture in our own company and we don't know how to say no. And a lot of times it's because we say yes in order to continue validating ourselves, in order to feed oftentimes what is an addiction to working in our society. So again, this piece of pausing of self-awareness is so important. So you can stay in touch with

why you're building the thing. So it can not only support the business, but it can support the life that you want to have too. So do you have advice on how you do that? Do you have set hours that you work each week or set weeks that you take calls? Or how do you set yourself up for that? Because as an entrepreneur, we are in charge of our time. But so is it okay to give yourself permission to take a week off or whatever? How do you integrate that with your business? I love that. So I think it looks different for everyone. Something that's really important to me that I shared that was like a big motivation when I started my business was traveling with my husband. And so that's just

something we love to do. Obviously that's very different over the last few years, but we love to travel. And so I have to build my schedule in honor of that. So number one, like I know my personal capacity and bandwidth. You have to know that, especially when you're working with people one-on-one, when you are like layering meetings onto your calendar, you have to know your capacity. You have to know your bandwidth. We have a set number. Myself and my team, we know the number of clients that I want to have at a given time so that I can not only feel like I'm operating in my bandwidth, but I can serve my clients well.

That number is not surpassed. And if we have people signing up for sales calls, clarity calls, myself and my team knows that I need to be notified of next availability. And that's just a boundary that has to be set. So what's your bandwidth? What's your capacity? And then building your calendar and your schedule in an optimal way.

For me, I operate in my calendar system on an A-B week schedule, which means that every other week, I am ideally taking all of my meetings. So my client meetings, hopefully interviews, lives that I'm doing, any events I'm a part of. Sometimes, you know, we have like a spare call or two that's, you know, doesn't fit within that week, but nine times out of 10, every other week I'm having calls, which means that for me, two weeks out of the month are open. Not so that I'm taking, you know, I'm not taking half of the month off every month. We're not there yet, but I'm working on my own brand. I'm working on our own initiatives and I have the opportunity and the option to take some of those weeks off.

So that's really important to me to like honor my schedule in that way and give myself options going into a new year as well. Like I'm just so specific and protective of my calendar. So like already it's what's it's August. So September, October, November, December, we're like four months before a new year. And 2023 is like already like set in my calendar. So myself and the team, we've gone through and we've blocked through different dates and part of our end of year planning will be like, I will be putting trips in there. I'll be putting time off in there. It's just a non-negotiable that I have every single year. Even if some years it's less trips, right? Some years it's more trips, but that is something that I honor. And that's

something that allows me to be able to move my business forward in a sustainable way. thing that allows me to be able to move my business forward in a sustainable way. So I think, again, it's knowing what are your boundaries? What does your lifestyle allow for? Like I have some clients, like you guys are moms. I have some clients that are moms. And so they have like two days of the week where they take meetings. That's just it. That's non-negotiable. So you don't have to go on like an every other week system. But I think it comes down to what your boundaries are, how you're managing your calendar and knowing your bandwidth, knowing like, what is your capacity in this season? And I asked myself that going into every year, going into every quarter, we, my husband and I, we were actually supposed to be moving in Q4.

Our timeline is like so out of whack now, but that's something that was taken into consideration at the beginning of the year in order to make Q4 lighter, because I knew we're going to be moving. That's not going to be happening now, but Hey, now I have a light Q4, which is great. So taking note of these like anchor points and pieces, what's going on in your life. Like, do you want to take the summer off because you're at home with your kids? So what is that capacity? What is your current season of life look like? And how can you build boundaries and schedule around that? And I think as people are listening to this, they might be saying, oh, I'm looking at taking

this time off. I'm looking at building my lifestyle into this. How am I ever going to be successful? How am I ever going to make money? But I think the thing that you've mentioned several times, and the thing that I think is one of the most important pieces is you have to be intentional. And if you're so, if you're intentional about your goals, the time that you have available and what you really need to accomplish, you're probably going

to move yourself further down the road than you would if you were just aimlessly working 80 hours a week towards who knows what, chasing everything that everybody was telling you you needed to do in order to build a successful online business. So I think just making sure you know where you stand, where you want to go, what your goals are, and just working on those in the time you have allotted is going to move you so much faster than trying to run some big race. Yeah. That's why we talk about these layers. One of the most important layers is moving with intention. That's why you have to know, why are we doing this? What's the focus? What's the goal? And then if you know that, then if you only have four hours to work, you have two hours to know, why are we doing this? What's the focus? What's the goal? And then if you know

that, then if you only have four hours to work, you have two hours to work, you're going to fill that time with things that are going to move the needle. And then you get to take the time off. And that's how you get to have that feeling of sustainability throughout as well. So if you were talking to somebody who is maybe at the beginning stages of starting a blog, wanting to build an online business, if you could condense down what we've talked about and give them just like a really solid piece of advice before they commit to this, what would you say to them? I would say kind of to reiterate, if you want to do the thing, you can do the thing.

I think first and foremost, you have to come to this place in yourself where you believe in yourself, even if it's like a teeny tiny glimmer of belief that's going to grow over time, but you can do the thing. Like I am such a big believer in the fact that like we can have it all, maybe not in one moment, it'll break us. But over time, like all the things that you desire, like you can have those things. The desire is proof of your ability to make it happen. And so I think it's really coming down to some of these simplistic pieces that we've walked through, knowing what you want. What do you want?

Like not what other people want, not what you see, but what do you really, really want? What does success really look like to you? What do you want? How do you want to get there? There are two ways that you can identify in order to get there. And how can you just daily make yourself available for the process that it's going to take in order to get there? I don't necessarily want to say that it's going to be easy because it's not, but success can actually be so simple. It may not happen in the timeline that you wanted. It may not happen how you envisioned it, but it can be really, really simple so long as you make yourself available

for the process required. So I would just give that pep talk of like, you can do the thing. Like it's so available. It's so accessible and it can be so simple. It doesn't have to be complex. Like let's remove complexity. We don't have to have perfection. We don't have to have complexity. It's not necessarily going to be easy every step of the way, but it can be simple. You just have to stay in your lane. You have to believe in yourself. And I mean, this is a great resource, just this podcast and this community to come back to like, as you are going through the process, because it isn't always easy, but you're not the only one in it either. So thanks so much for just sharing your wisdom with everybody with us all the time and with

them today, Ashton, will you please let everybody know how they can connect with you? Absolutely. So our website is myawakening.co. And then we're myawakening.co on Instagram, Facebook, I think YouTube, Pinterest. But yeah, if you go to our website, everything will be there. We have a free resource over there. I'm on Instagram all the time so we can connect over there. And you have a free, is it a profit planner that people can come and grab off of your website as well? Yeah. So if you really resonated with the portion around figuring out how to move the needle forward and generate profit in a simplistic way, our 90 day profit planner is really great for that. And it's just on our website, complimentary. So you can download

from there. Awesome. I love the idea of making it less complicated. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It doesn't have to be complex. Thank you so much, Ashton. Of course. Thank you guys. Thanks Ashton. Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you'd like to continue the conversation about blogging with us, please find us on Instagram at spark media concepts. You can also sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share blogging tips and inspiration. You can sign up by finding the

link in the show notes. For those of you who are ready for the next step and want to start your own blog, join the waitlist for the ultimate blog bootcamp. The link to join the waitlist is also in the show notes. Go out and make today a great day.