Have you ever looked at a business you worked so hard to build and realized… you kind of hate it?
Not “burn out” hate. Not “I just need a vacation” hate. I mean the deep, quiet resentment that creeps in when you’re doing work that no longer feels like you. When you’re successful on paper and miserable in your body.
Here’s the truth most entrepreneurs won’t admit: Sometimes you don’t need to scale the business. Sometimes you just need to burn it down and continue on with the business pivot.
That’s what this very first episode of the podcast is about. I’m pulling back the curtain on my own journey — ten years of building, pivoting, shutting things down, and starting over. From starting in network marketing at 18, to running a social media agency, to shutting that down in May 2025 to go back to my true calling: coaching and consulting.
It’s raw. It’s real. And if you’ve been sitting on a business decision you already know the answer to, this one is for you.
Your Body Knows Before Your Brain Does
We’re taught to push through. To “hustle.” To scale. To treat every moment of discomfort as a mindset problem to fix.
But your body always gets there first.
When I was running my social media management business, I wasn’t failing. I was signing clients. The money was coming in. But there was this low-level resentment I kept brushing off — until I couldn’t anymore. It took just a couple of conversations (including one with my coach) where someone looked at me and basically said, “You are meant for so much more than this.”
One sentence. That’s all it took to crack it open.
So ask yourself honestly: do any of these feel familiar?
Signs It’s Time to Pivot Your Business
- The Boredom Trap: Your business makes money, but you’ve lost the spark. And yes, “a boring business that makes money” is something people celebrate, but do you actually want to spend the next 10 years doing this?
- Physical Burnout: Your body is screaming stop and you keep hitting go. That’s not discipline. That’s a signal.
- Identity Mismatch: You look at your offers and they don’t reflect who you are today. You’ve grown. The business hasn’t.
- The “Bro Marketing” Hangover: You’re tired of cold calls, aggressive DMs, and strategies that feel nothing like you. I’ve been there. Literally. My first cold call at 18? The person told me to piss off. Not a great first business experience.
Not every strategy works for every personality. There are a million ways to build a business, and you get to choose the one that actually fits you.
Why I Left the Agency Model (The Real Reason)
When I pivoted from coaching into social media management and agency work a few years back, it was because I wanted to offer something tangible. Real deliverables. 30 posts a month. Graphics. Video edits. Things I could point to and say: here, I did this.
What I didn’t realize is that the power was never in the tangible. It was in the intangible the whole time.
Here’s what actually kept happening: I’d take on a social media management client, start building out their content strategy, and realize they didn’t have a solid offer. Or I’d build a beautiful website for someone, and halfway through, I’d have to stop and say, “Wait. You don’t need a website yet. You need an offer strategy first. We need to figure out what you’re actually selling before we build the house.”
You can’t put a Band-Aid on a broken leg. You can’t make a social media post go viral and call it a business strategy. I was doing work for people when what they actually needed was someone to strategize with them.
That’s when it clicked: my superpower was never the graphics or the posts. It was the 10 years of marketing brain behind them. The eyes on your business. The ability to walk in, see exactly what’s broken, and map the way forward.
That’s what coaching and consulting lets me do. And that’s what I walked away from the agency model to get back to.
How to Pivot Without Losing Your Mind
Here’s what I want you to know: my business pivot from agency to coaching didn’t feel like starting from zero. It felt like coming home. I’m still doing marketing. I’m still on social media. I’m still in the same industry. I just changed the how, from doing things for people to doing things with them.
That’s the thing about pivots. They don’t have to be radical. “Burn it down” doesn’t mean blow up everything you’ve built. Sometimes it just means burning the parts that no longer fit.
3 Questions to Help You Figure Out Your Next Move
- Audit your joy. What parts of your business feel therapeutic? (Website design is weirdly therapeutic for me, I’ll throw on a Vampire Diaries episode and just build.) What parts feel like a chore you’d pay someone else to do if you could?
- Face or behind the scenes? Do you want to be the face of your brand, or do you thrive in the background? Neither is wrong. But you need to know which one is you, because I stayed behind the scenes for so long, I got fed up with it, and that frustration alone was the push I needed.
- Trust the nudge. If you’ve been thinking about something for more than a month, it’s not a distraction. It’s a direction. I wanted to start this podcast since 2016. Ten years later, here we are. Don’t wait that long.
“It is better to fail and start something and improve along the way than to overthink and never start anything.”
FAQ: Business Pivot & Entrepreneurial Growth
How do I know if I should pivot my business?
If you feel consistent resentment toward your clients or your offers, not just stress, but actual resentment, that’s your answer. If you’ve been dreaming about a fresh start for longer than 30 days, your current model is out of alignment with where you’re going. Your body knows before your brain does. Stop waiting for permission to listen to it.
Is it okay to shut down a profitable business?
Yes. Full stop. Profit is not the only metric of success. If your business is making money but costing you your creativity, your mental health, or your sense of self, that is not a sustainable business. It’s a well-paying trap.
What is the difference between a service provider and a coach or consultant?
A service provider (like an agency) delivers Done-For-You tangible results – the graphics, the posts, the website. A coach or consultant works Done-With-You: strategy, direction, and empowering you to lead your own business. One gives you the fish. The other changes how you fish.
How do I pivot without starting completely from scratch?
You probably don’t have to. When I moved from agency back to coaching, I didn’t change industries; I simply changed the delivery model. Your experience, your expertise, and your story don’t disappear when you pivot. They become the foundation of what’s next.
What’s Your Next Power Move?
Here’s the analogy I’ll leave you with: every time I want to buy something, let’s say shoes, and I keep thinking about them for weeks, I eventually just go get them. Because if something has been on my mind for a month, it’s clearly something I actually want.
The business decision you’ve been sitting on? The project you’ve been delaying since 2016? The offer you’ve been scared to launch? If it’s been in the back of your mind for more than a month, it’s time.
Life is too short to stay in a business that drains you. Whether that means letting go of a misaligned client, scrapping an offer that never felt right, or finally saying yes to the thing you’ve been nudging yourself toward, the time to move is now.
It’s better to start something imperfect and improve as you go than to overthink and never start at all.
