Your Fun & Profitable Online Business · Episode 81
Making Your Business YOURS
Did you choose the business you’re building – or accidentally assemble it from everyone else’s advice? Use one ordinary Tuesday to design a business you actually want to run.
Press play and design a business that feels like yours
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Design the experience, not just the goal
Four ways to make your business feel like yours
Instead of asking only how big you want the business to become, look at the ordinary life attached to it. These four questions help you design that experience more intentionally.
Experience
Choose what comes with the goal
Revenue matters, but so do the responsibilities, routines, relationships, and infrastructure attached to it.
Tuesday
Picture an ordinary workday
Skip the highlight reel. Imagine where you work, what fills your calendar, who needs you, and when you stop.
Fit
Notice what belongs – and what does not
Pay attention to the work, people, complexity, and pace you want more of, plus what is noticeably missing.
Redesign
Change one piece at a time
You do not need to tear down your business. Use what you notice to make the next decision more intentionally.
It’s an ordinary Tuesday three years from now. What are you doing, who are you with, how does money come in, and what is noticeably absent from your day?
It’s surprisingly easy to build a business without consciously choosing half of it. You collect an offer from one course, a marketing rhythm from another, a funnel because everyone seems to have one, and a revenue goal because it sounds appropriately ambitious. Before long, you’ve assembled the online-business equivalent of an IKEA showroom: all the expected pieces are there, but you’re not entirely sure you picked them.
Learning from other people is useful. The problem begins when you forget that every borrowed piece was optional – and that a strategy can work beautifully while building a business you don’t actually enjoy running.
Why a successful business can still feel wrong
Suppose you build a thriving business around eight one-to-one clients every week. The model works, the clients get results, and the revenue arrives. That sounds like success – unless you don’t want eight client calls every week.
The same is true of visibility, delivery, team size, and growth. A $500,000 business is not automatically a $100,000 business with another $400,000 resting politely in the bank. Depending on the model, it may require more customers, more marketing, more management, more complexity, and more risk.
None of those choices are inherently good or bad. The useful question is whether you want the day-to-day experience attached to them.
How to design a business around the life you want
1. Imagine an ordinary Tuesday three years from now
Don’t begin with a revenue number, a launch, a vacation, or a giant stage. Picture a regular Tuesday. Where are you? When do you begin? What kind of work happens first? Are you meeting with clients, writing, teaching, creating, or managing people? What time do you stop?
Then ask what happens if you decide to take Wednesday off. Does everything continue? Does someone else step in? Or does the business wait for you? There is no universally correct answer. There is only the answer that fits the life you want.
2. Notice how you spend your time
Look for the work you want more of: creative projects, deep client conversations, teaching, writing, strategy, or making things. Then notice what isn’t taking your time – especially the recurring tasks that make you think, “Not this again.”
3. Notice the people and complexity around you
Do you want many customers or a handful of deeper relationships? A team, a few collaborators, or long stretches of being left alone to make cool things? Do you want a beautifully simple business or a larger company with layers of people and systems?
The point isn’t to choose the smallest business. It’s to choose your preferred amount of complexity on purpose.
4. Notice what your business makes possible
Your answer might include travel, creative work, family time, a four-day week, starting at 10, disappearing for a month, or living on a little farm in the middle of nowhere. Your business is not the destination. It is infrastructure that can help create the life you want to live.
You’re building your future Tuesdays today. Make sure they’re Tuesdays you actually want to be part of.
Your action step
Take 10 minutes and write: “It’s an ordinary Tuesday three years from now…” Then describe:
- Where you are, what you’re working on, and who you’re talking to.
- How many hours you work, how customers find you, and how you make money.
- What you’re looking forward to – and what is noticeably missing.
Now compare that Tuesday with the business you’re building today. What is one piece you want to keep, and one piece you may want to design differently?
Questions you might be wondering
How do I design a business that fits my life?
Begin with the day-to-day experience you want, not only a revenue goal. Decide how you want to spend your time, who you want to work with, how much complexity you enjoy, and what you want the business to make possible outside of work.
What is a lifestyle business?
A lifestyle business is intentionally designed to support the owner’s preferred way of living and working. That does not mean it must stay small. It means growth, delivery, marketing, team, and revenue decisions are evaluated by both financial results and the life they create.
Do I need to start over if my business no longer fits me?
No. You can observe what feels misaligned and redesign one element at a time. You may adjust an offer, schedule, delivery model, marketing channel, price, or boundary without discarding everything that already works.
How can I tell if I actually want my business goals?
Picture the ordinary workdays required to maintain the goal after you reach it. If you like the responsibilities, routines, relationships, and infrastructure you see, keep building. If not, use that information to reshape the goal or the business model.
Read the full episode transcript
Episode 81 transcript: Making Your Business YOURS
Why a successful business can still feel wrong
Hey there, and welcome to episode 81 of your fun and profitable online business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Wendy Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses by reducing overwhelm and intentionally designing businesses that actually work for them. Now, let me ask, have you ever looked around your business and realized you don’t actually remember choosing half of it? And somehow you’ve built an Ikea showroom of online businesses. Everything looks like it belongs there. All the expected pieces are present. But did you actually pick any of it?
Because here’s something that’s been popping up in my conversations lately. You can build a perfectly successful business and accidentally build one you don’t really want to run. So that’s what we’re talking about today, building a business that you actually enjoy running.
Most of us don’t design our businesses completely from scratch. We actually assemble them. We pick up pieces from courses or from coaches or from podcasts or competitors, social media, previous jobs, and whatever the online business world currently considers best practice. And that actually makes sense. We’re learning. We’re experimenting. We’re seeing what works for us. But the problem happens when we forget all those pieces were optional.
When we think about those pieces of our business, the question we should ask ourselves is, what relationship do I want between my time, my income, my customers, and the work that I actually enjoy doing? Because if something works, you’re probably going to end up doing more of it. And that’s the part we don’t always consider.
Let’s say you build a business around eight one-to-one clients every week, and it works. That’s awesome, super exciting. Except you particularly don’t want eight client calls every week. Now, you can absolutely change it, but it’s a lot easier to ask yourself today, do I want more of this while you’re building rather than after you spent three years building and making it bigger?
How to design a business around the life you want
This doesn’t just apply to what you’re selling. It applies to how you market, how you work, how visible you need to be, and even how big you want your business to become. This is especially true for revenue goals. A $100,000 business looks completely different than a million-dollar business. Working independently is totally different than managing a team.
Every goal comes with infrastructure attached to it. A $500,000 business isn’t necessarily a $100,000 business with an extra $400,000 in your bank account. Depending on the business model, that growth might mean more customers, more visibility, more management, even more risk. You don’t only choose the goal. You’re choosing the version of your business that comes attached to that goal.
So where do we start? Imagine your business three years from now. Let’s begin without your revenue goals or recognition or whatever version of success your brain immediately serves up. Imagine something much less exciting. A Tuesday. Just an ordinary Tuesday. There’s no launch. There’s no vacation. There’s no speaking on a giant stage. It’s just Tuesday.
Where are you? What time do you start working? What’s the first thing you do in the morning? Do you have meetings on your calendar? Are you talking to clients? Are you writing? Are you teaching? Are you making something? Are you managing a team? Are there Slack messages waiting for you? What time do you stop working? And here’s a really important question. What happens if you decide you want to take Wednesday off?
We’re not picturing the polished version of your business. We’re picturing the experience of actually living inside of it. Once you see your Tuesday, start evaluating today’s decisions against it.
There are four things I want you to pay attention to. First, notice how you’re spending your time. Second, notice who you’re spending your time with. Third, notice the amount of complexity you’ve built around the business. And finally, notice what your business is making possible. It could be travel, creative work, a little farm in the middle of nowhere, family time, a four-day work week, being able to disappear for a month, or starting at 10 because you particularly don’t enjoy mornings.
Your business isn’t the destination here. It’s the infrastructure that can help you create the life you actually want to live. So let’s be intentional about how we design it.
Your practical next step
I want you to open a blank document or grab a piece of paper and write down, it’s an ordinary Tuesday three years from now. Take 10 minutes and describe it. Where are you? What are you working on? Who are you talking to? How many hours are you working? How are your customers finding you? How are you making money? What are you looking forward to? And maybe most important, what’s noticeably missing?
Then look at the business you’re building today and ask yourself, is this business moving me towards that future Tuesday? If the answer is yes, fantastic. Keep building. If parts of it aren’t, that’s useful information too. You don’t need to pivot or throw everything away you’ve built. You simply found something that you might want to design differently.
We spend a lot of time asking, how do I want to grow my business? But occasionally we need to ask, do I actually want what I’m growing? Because you’re not just building revenue. You’re building responsibilities, routines, relationships, expectations. You’re building your future Tuesdays today. So make sure they’re Tuesdays you actually want to be part of.