The Joy of Hitting Pause and Scaling Down

Two months after being profiled in Forbes for 'Scaling Up', I chose to change course and scale down dramatically. This is why.

I am 15 years into operating my business and in that time, I have experienced year-over-year growth on the metrics we typically count as important in business. By these measures, I was successful and my company was thriving. This year we were positioned to continue the trajectory with new streams of revenue added, new marketing initiatives, and the strongest, most brilliant team working together joyfully.

The challenge was that my own personal metrics of success were changing quickly.

Two weeks ago I hit pause on the flagship offering from the Academy of Culinary Nutrition .

This program, an anchor in my business since 2011, has been a mainstay. It is what I have built my team around, my business around, even my personal schedule, travel and even conceiving my child.?

It has been the primary source of income for all that I do and has been and could continue to be wildly successful.

So, why did I hit pause?

Why did I make the even harder decision of releasing my amazing team to be free to move on to their next endeavours and adventures? Why didn't I keep doing something that has helped me become a successful entrepreneur, a well known person (in some niche circles) and the privileges that come with this, and empowered me towards financial comforts?

The reason, which has resulted in a lot of big decisions, complicated challenges, grief and heartbreak, is actually very simple.

I just didn't want to do it anymore.

More is not always more. Being great at something, doesn't mean you need to always be great at that one thing.

I spent years working like mad to build what this has become and I loved the daily challenge of it.

I have loved building a company that I would have also loved to work for, hiring based on the company's core values and with that offering benefits we all enjoyed (flexible work schedule, 'crafternoons' of macrame and candle making, team games, gifts, surprise bonuses and more).

What it came down to was twofold:

1. I have no intention of selling this business. An unpopular opinion given what has been sent my way since making this announcement.
2. When I looked at the list of tasks that were assigned to me day-to-day, I felt dread, not inspiration. I didn't want to do it.

I have notebooks full of tips and strategies from some of the world's greatest CEOs on how to build a company, create products, sell products, grow and nurture a team, bring on investors to scale faster, and ultimately make myself redundant and package things up to sell the whole lot.

I didn't want to do any of it.

I wasn't afraid. I wasn't stalling. It just wasn't appealing to me.

If I wasn't planning to sell this thing, why did I need to grow my numbers? Why did I need to hit new revenue milestones that ultimately had very little baring on the bottom line?

Most of all, why, in my own company, was I turning my role into something I would never have considered applying to do for someone else?

And so, I hit the big old pause button.

I called my team members one by one and shared this decision and what it would mean for them.

In a short span of time I have gone through regret, a whole tickle trunks of 'what if', and questioning what this says about me, or who am I without this.

After a week of the spinning thoughts and sleepless nights, I made the decision to plant my feet firmly and look ahead only. That is when the feeling of freedom washed over me.

I know that the courses I offer, especially the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program, are profound life changers. I stand behind every claim, every celebration and every brag I have ever made about this program.

This is not a dramatic end to anything. It's an energizing new beginning that is intended to reduce the earning urgency for the company, which in turn, frees me up to explore, create, do more deep learning and deep working (when I feel like it), and focus on getting into the best health possible for this beautiful next phase of life.

The currency feeling most valuable to me right now is simply free time.

I do believe it is time to slow down. For all of us.

I never tied my ego to earnings, or sense of self to followers. It's always been about impact and affording my ideal quality of life. I have no doubt about the impact the work I've created over the last 15 years has had, and I have no concerns at all about what may come next.

I am living the life of my dreams. I have checked the boxes on the major goals and milestones I wanted to reach. I am not scrambling for the next thing.

How things will evolve remains unknown. It's a beautiful pressure-free process and I am enjoying it. It's a shedding of sorts. I already feel the weight lifting without having realized how heavy it had become.

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All courses on Culinary Nutrition remain available, and will continue to be available. Registration for the Culinary Nutrition Expert Program will re-open in a month or so, with the option to do it self-paced or in a small 25-person cohort.

#scaling #entrepreneurship #timefreedom #onlinecourses