Conquering Workflows & Systems For Bookkeepers & Accountants | with Alyssa Lang (Workflow Queen)

The Power of Rest: Why I’m Pressing Pause to Grow Forward

• Alyssa Lang • Season 1 • Episode 111

Share episode

In this solo episode, Alyssa Lang shares her personal journey of embracing rest as a strategic and productive choice for long-term growth at Workflow Queen. Alyssa discusses how intentional pauses can lead to powerful insights, the importance of redefining productivity, and how to integrate rest into entrepreneurship, offering listeners a fresh perspective on achieving balance and success.

In this episode you’ll hear:

  • Why Alyssa decided to pause the podcast until summer for rest and growth
  • How the Zion retreat highlighted different productivity definitions and the importance of rest
  • How rest is seen as strategic in your journey
  • What plans are ahead for Workflow Queen that requires rest

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @workflowqueen

For more information about the Conquering Workflows & Systems for Bookkeepers & Accountants Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

Visit our website: workflowqueen.com

Check out our courses: workflowqueen.com/courses

Follow the Blog: workflowqueen.com/blog

Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alyssa-lang-wq

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/workflowqueen

Connect on Facebook: Facebook.com/workflowqueen

Podcast Publishing Tools we use:

Hey, friend. This episode is gonna be a little different, a little bit more vulnerable, more honest, and honestly just a little bit personal. I'm here to share something that's really been on my heart for a while now, and I've decided to pause the podcast until the summer. Not because I'm burnt out, not because I'm overwhelmed, but really honestly , it's because I'm intentionally creating space to really honor rest. And focus on the next big chapter of what we're doing here at Workflow Queen and really for the long-term growth of myself and the company. And if you've ever felt guilty for slowing down and maybe taking a pause on certain things, and this episode is truly for you. So let's kind of dive in. I want to share a bit of a behind the scenes. About what's kind of going on in my world, just to kind of be really transparent because every time I tend to do one of these more vulnerable podcast episodes about what I'm currently experiencing, I feel like a lot of you guys reach out to me and say like, oh my gosh, I can really resonate with that. And so I hope this hits home for one of you guys. And maybe if it's not you, if you happen know another bookkeeper accountant who may need to hear this episode. Please feel free to share it with them. You're actually doing people favors when you support people. Our podcast is not getting deleted, so don't worry. Like I'm just taking a pause for the next couple of months. You will still be able to listen to and catch up on past podcast episodes. We have so many incredible podcasts. It's. Crazy how many we have and there's so much content that we poured into you guys. We also still have all of our programs, all of our courses, if you want content that you can actually like take and implement today, it's all still gonna be available, but I'm taking a step back for a little bit and I just wanted to talk through a little bit of that and the decision and why that kind of came up for me so big behind the scenes of what's going on behind. Like closed doors that you guys don't get to see. Because remember, you guys are only seeing me through the podcast or through socials or through my programs or other ways of interacting with me. You guys don't get to see what's actually happening. So if you guys don't know, I actually own my own bookkeeping firm, but it's more, we do more advisory than we do bookkeeping at this point. So like my advisory firm and then I have Workflow Queen here. And while I'm not in the day-to-day of either of them, which I'm very grateful for, and it's taken me many, it's like nine years of entrepreneurship, people, I'm not surprised that I'm like taking a bit of a break after like nine years of entrepreneurship. I'm not slowing down in my other company. I will say that I am showing up there. It's just I'm choosing this very strategically here at Workflow Queen. with my other company, my firm, it's called Magnetic Profits. We are releasing our own podcast. That podcast is something that was supposed to come out next week. Unfortunately, we had a bit of a hiccup that literally happened last night as I'm recording this, which was, today is April 7th, literally April 6th. Middle of recording a bunch of episodes for our launch of our podcast at my firm. And I got a lovely email. She was so very sweet that we're unfortunately infringing on someone's trademark with the name that we had chosen for the podcast. And we did the research. We totally thought we were in the clear. Unfortunately, we're not. So we now have to change the name and that is just. It's a lot guys, and this is why I always talk to you guys. I say it all the time. I will hear you guys always say like, I'm not big enough to care about that kind of stuff. It doesn't matter how you feel about your trademark, or about your company, it is a matter of like whoever's gonna defend their trademark. People have the right guys, like I'm trademarked here at Workflow Queen. Like nobody could use the phrase Workflow Queen. And if they did, I could come and say, Hey, I need you to take that down. I need to change your name. If they refuse to change their name, I could take legal action against them and like it could get really big and really messy real quick. So as much as the most of you guys are like, I'm not planning to get so big and I'm gonna wait till later and I don't have too much of a target, or I'm probably gonna rebrand. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, trademarking is still trademarking and you still infringe on something if you take someone else's name that is trademarked. So lesson to everybody, which is funny because like we did the research, but we unfortunately miss this one key part of the phrase that is trademarked that we just didn't see, is just do your research guys, because you don't wanna be in a position like me who I literally, guys, we were gonna do a launch party. In person in Newport Beach on April 16th, which also happened to be my birthday, which also happened to be the day after tax day and the day we were gonna launch the podcast live. So we're gonna launch the podcast and do an in person event that I spent like tens of thousands on. You know, just the designers for the podcast, the editors for the podcast, the actual like event location that we were gonna throw. We invited 60 people. I literally am gonna have to like send out an email today to let everyone know that unfortunately we have to change the name. And because of that, like I can't get the team to turn it around that fast because I have to reprint material, re-edit everything. It's just a lot of work. So just all in all. I'm blessed that it happened prior to the launch, the podcast already being live, but it's also like it's really throwing it off and like it just sucks. Like it, it does, but. The lesson here is I've got a lot of shit going on, and that literally just happened yesterday. So that's not even like the re I was already planning on recording this podcast, and that just happened to be the icing on the cake and the cherry on top, but I just wanna be really vulnerable and transparent with you guys. Another really big thing that's happening is we are launching a book this year for Workflow Queen. At the end of Q4 is the plan, or Q3. Start of Q4 is the plan. I just can't announce a projected date, because things can happen with a book as well. And so I wanted to tell you guys this because I'm really excited for the book, but the book is requiring a lot of me as far as writing. I'm not the one fully writing it. Thankfully I have a writer, but she's like our ghost writer. But everything has to come through me. And this book is gonna be all around how to create the right mindset, offer systems and teams so you guys can remove yourself from the day to day. Or at least like scale back and do the things that you actually enjoy within your firm, and build it and scale it beyond you. And it's gonna be a book for the accounting space. And I'm really, really excited about it. But like, I need to give my all to this thing and I, I want all my energy to go into it. And that just means having to pause the podcast and also take a step back from like our breakthrough course for myself. We have coaches, thankfully we have, I have team members, coaches, people on my whole entire team that manage our students. Our students are obsessed with our coaches, Brooke and Erica. I reached out to them and was like, Hey guys, I need to take the next two months off from coaching calls. I need to take the next two months off of, you know, community support. Are you guys good? Do you need anything? They're like, dude, we've got this. And I'm like, great. I love that. Hence why guys hiring is so important. Because if you wanted to take two months off, you could, and I'm very grateful. I know that's not something that's realistic for a lot of people, but I need to take a step back so I can pour better into you guys. Like I said, we have our new podcast at my firm, big Shifts across both companies. We're also coming out with a brand new like service at my firm, which is really exciting. I'm not gonna announce the name because if I announce the name, I'm scared someone's gonna take it. Like I don't need to have another legal problem. So anyways, it's just this big. Service that we're gonna be offering that essentially we will help our clients with analyzing all components in all parts of the business from the financial lens, but also from the owner dependency lens. And with that being said, it's been something that I've already charged clients for and I've already successfully sold it. Now we're just like really packaging up in this beautiful bow. We've got a lot of feedback. We're just gonna tweak it for it to potentially go live in June. So that's another big thing that we're doing. And this is something that as of right now, we're charging 7,500 for our clients, but it will be something that we're gonna go over 10 K for because it's huge, what we actually provide in this service. So it's a lot, a lot of things are happening. And then I also just wanna talk about. My Zion retreat, so I just recently did a retreat for Zion. It was only available to our breakthrough students and it wasn't included in the program. They paid extra for it, and I found a common theme that happened during the Zion retreat. We were extremely transparent in like every single form of communication that we were simply getting the Airbnb and the location and providing catered breakfast snacks on site and zero strategy. We did not promise to teach anything. We did not promise to facilitate anything. Simply putting together the retreat because everybody in breakthrough for so long was begging me to just get everyone in the same room together and people just wanted to hang out together. So I did that. I put it together, said, let's go to Zion. Let's make it happen. And so it was like, I think four days. This was our Zion retreat. It was like two weeks ago is when we came back. And yeah, it was a really, really great time. But I will say, and I, and for anyone who was attending the retreat, I'm hoping this is calling you out in the most positive way possible. If this is going to bring something up as I say it, a lot of our attendees could not rest. They literally. We're telling either other people or in our feedback form that in order to justify the retreat and justify going to this sort of like event that they had to be quote unquote productive, we even had some people saying. I need to be productive to show proof to my husband that I actually did something productive. There's no way that I could tell my husband that I got a massage at this retreat because then like that would be crazy. Like I have to make sure I get something done. I literally had people who, in our, their feedback form had told me. you know, I have to justify being able to leave the family and do all this stuff that if I'm gonna go to this like, business retreat, even though we told them upfront we were not gonna do any strategy, that it was really up to them if they chose to do that. We weren't gonna facilitate anything, and yet we still had a lot of people who were like, I needed to be, like I needed to do. That's like the theme that we had. I had seen, , reading feedback and hearing what I kind of heard as well. And so the reason I'm sharing this with you guys is because it made me really realize that. I need a break. One, reading everyone else's idea of what productive was, made me tired, thinking about their productive, like what that looked like for them. And that's okay. Like whatever your form of productivity is up to you. But I will say that my form of productivity is rest. And I know that sounds really crazy to actually hear, to say like, well, I, if I'm resting, how am I gonna get things done? I understand that because it's really hard to understand if you've never done it for yourself, and that's okay if you define productivity by having to constantly do. But I've been through entrepreneurship guys, nine years, three different businesses later. I think I know a thing or two about why rest is so productive. And so this common theme really made me realize and made me see that at the end of the day. Everybody's idea of productivity was a little bit different. However, I was very transparent upfront about how we were gonna run the retreat, so I chose to rest during the retreat. I chose to be in the jacuzzi if I wanted to be in the jacuzzi instead of sitting in a room and maybe not wanting to talk about deep down strategy. I chose to be in a space where people could come up to me and say, Hey, Alyssa, I'm going through this certain, you know, situation or issue within the company. Like, I'd love to chat through it. Cool, let's go do it. I had people pull me aside and like bring up some business stuff. The, my most productive conversations about business were the ones where I was just sitting next to someone who's a business owner and they would naturally come up and I really encourage that for people. The first day when we were talking to the group. I told everyone like, like, you don't have to like put these strategy hours and do all these things, guys, like rest is productive. So I really wanted to share this with you guys. If you're the type of person who has to justify. Like I need to like get something out of something. If not, it's just not worth it. Or if not, then I'm not productive. I would really recommend that you kind of look a little bit inward to really talk through why is that the truth for you. So I'll give you a really great example of this. That used to be my way of thinking because I grew up with a father who was such a hard worker guys like to the point when like my brother was literally on his deathbed with cancer and I remember my dad not being there all the time at the hospital because his job required him to be at work and they just wouldn't give him the time off. And I just remember seeing my dad constantly working and he still works to this day, like a freaking crazy madman. And so for my whole life I was shown proof that in order to be successful, 'cause my dad, like we grew up with nothing and my dad like literally worked so hard. He worked his ass off. And it just was such a crazy thing for me to unwind about myself and I was like, there's no way that if I rest that I'm productive. That just sounds crazy. Like that was my thought process for so many years. It honestly took me until two years ago. So seven years in, entrepreneurship for me to realize. I needed to slow the hell down. I started having panic attacks. I was getting really overwhelmed. I was getting really stressed and I found out the more that I slowed down and the more that I rested and honored myself while simultaneously having the team, because like I will say, sometimes it's hard to rest when like you don't have people like doing the thing. So I get that. But I do thankfully have that team and but yet I was still putting this pressure on myself and I felt like I was being wrong if I wasn't constantly working or constantly showing up as the leader or whatever that might look like. And so I understand where you're coming from. I would just highly recommend that you look inward to say, why is that the truth for you? And. I really recommend that you really consider that Rest is very productive. Rest doesn't need to look like five hours. I'm just gonna chill and do nothing and not get any work done. It could start off with slow increments. It could start off with 10 minutes a day. I'm gonna sit down outside and look at the sun and just like soak up the sun with my dog. Like you could start with 10 minutes and it can turn into 20 minutes, and next week then 30 minutes. And. You will slowly start to find that in those moments of rest, you will actually get the best business ideas ever. And so for me at the retreat, I chose rest. I chose to go in the jacuzzi if I wanted to. I chose to go on an off-roading adventure. And the cool part is I had so many people hop in my four runner and we had three different cars. Everybody was hopping in different cars and we switch people in the cars and we were naturally talking about business. That to me. Is a form of rest because I don't have to be sitting in a formal chair around a circle with other people. And that's okay if that's what everybody's choice is. But for me, I wanted to share with you guys that rest is productive and I want more awareness around this because as we're ending off the last like week of tax season. I will say that I've seen it all guys. I have seen people telling me that like, don't talk to me for the next six weeks. I'm a tax preparer. There's no way I'll have time. Why is this the normal? Why do we deal with this? Why do we allow for rest to not be a thing? And so I really just wanted to talk about that. I think that the Zion retreat really brought more awareness in my eyes of like how much my own audience and my own students really struggle to justify anything that is not doing work. And I really wanted to make this message very loud and very clear. if you struggle with this, seriously reply to the email that we're gonna send out with this podcast episode. Come on Instagram at Workflow Queen. And literally tell me, guys, I dealt with this for so long now. I no longer. I would rather be rested than force myself into a situation I don't wanna be in. I will not be here to make anyone happy. And I know that sounds really harsh, but it's taken me years to get to this place of I will literally say no to events, no to things, no to situations when I don't feel okay. And I think a lot of the times we don't realize that people around us are actually struggling and going through their own shit. And I think it's just something so important to like kind of speak of. And I know that. It's, it's hard. It's hard to get through and actually rest because you've got family, you've got kids, you've got husbands, you've got this, and I'm so sorry. If you're in a situation where you have to prove yourself to someone, and I know that's a lot because I've been in a relationship like that, but I really hope that you can have a transparent relationship with whoever those people are in your life to say like, this is. A productive thing for me is to rest and chill and relax and get away and be able to get a massage and do this, and instead of kind of hiding that, right. And so I wanted to kind of like really deep dive into that. And for those of you who were at a retreat, like obviously I really, I'm so grateful that you guys were there and so many guys had such a great time. But I just hope that you guys walked away with like. Maybe feeling invigorated. I do know that every time I've gone to an event that was like strategy heavy, I came back like more overwhelmed. So therefore I was like, I'm gonna let you guys do whatever you wanna do. So I hope you guys had a really good time. Based off our feedback, it looked like you guys did. So I just kind of wanna dive into a couple of four pieces of a framework that I like to use. Or, sorry, three different parts. Sorry. I dunno why I said four, three different parts I wanna talk about. Rest is strategic, not weak. So a really, really big. Person in my life, or two people actually that have a lot to influence around. The rest is strategic, not weak is Brooke Swan and Serena Shoup. I can't tell you guys how grateful I am for the two of them and like, I'm trying so hard to get my shit together right now, guys, like, I'm dead serious when I say like I'm on the verge of crying because I've been going through so much and, uh, it's a lot and I, you know, it's always easy for me to pause and just like cry it out and just come back, but. This is really what a business owner goes through and it's a lot. And I'm just so grateful for Brooke Swan and Serena Shoup because they have seen me go through the ringer of like the shit I'm going through right now that like you guys don't know about and aren't aware about. And I'm sorry, I'm like breaking up and like it's just a hard, and it's very emotional. I wanted to be very open and raw and this is the exact reason that rest is so productive for me. And taking pauses 'cause I just have a lot going on. And they really helped me with shifting my perspective on rest and why it was so needed and why being in beast mode and constantly and like keep going and going and going is never gonna serve myself or more of you guys. So I'm just very deeply grateful for the both of you guys. If you are listening, I just love you and appreciate you guys. You've been such a strong part of like this journey for me and it's just really crazy. I will say, like I mentioned before, like I come from an upbringing where hustle meant worth. And so for me, I've had to unwind that for so many years and it's a lot and it's stressful and it's very overwhelming, but it's a lot of work, guys. Like I can give you strategy all day, every day until you exactly how I run my firm. But if you don't do this deep work, you won't be able to get out to the other side and really see what like this beautiful stuff is and realize that strategy isn't all of it. The best strategy I've ever implemented in my business was strategy for myself, was unwinding a bunch of money, mindset issues, a bunch of worth and hustle issues, all these things from the past. I will just say, guys, reflect on your past seasons where you felt like you were burning yourself out. And then I want you to also reflect on past seasons that you actually allowed yourself to rest. Pause, stop if that was ever even a part of your journey. If it's not. Then let's talk about ways that we can think about that. How can we infuse rest in our life? And like I said, it doesn't have to be like taking off for two months like me. It could truly be like a couple of hours a week. Just intentional time for yourself. The second part of my framework is honoring rest publicly, is actually allowing me to set an example. Like I said, it's a lot easier for me to pause the podcast while I'm recording and cry my heart out and come back and pretend like everything's okay. But it's not, it's not for me, and it's something that I, I wish more people like, like understood and saw. And it's okay if people are like, Alyssa, you're weak. Like, that's okay. Like I've gone to a place in my life where I'm like, if that's not you, and you don't like hearing this vulnerability and this honesty right now. Then I'm not your people because I am always gonna be real and vulnerable and honest with you guys. And I think this is the dark side of entrepreneurship that most people are too scared to talk about. We always like to put this facade on that we're perfect and everything's great, and it's not. There's a lot that goes into this, guys. This is the most challenging thing I've done in my life is be an entrepreneur. But it's also the most incredible thing I've done in my life, I want to say. Many entrepreneurs don't realize that they can actually take a break. Especially tax repairs right now with the last week, when was the last time you stopped and did something for yourself? Like, I want you to actually reflect on that if you are in busy season right now, when was the last time you just sat? I bet you a million dollars you're listening to this podcast and you're probably doing something else. Like you're not just sitting here listening to this podcast. You're probably clicking around on your keyboard. Maybe you're, you're driving to pick up kids. I get it because I love to drive and listen to podcasts. But what I mean by this is we're so busy trying to multitask that we don't realize we just need to sit down. And breathe and be here with ourselves. This is what creates anxiety is us just not facing the truth of like what's happening in front of us, right? You can take breaks. You deserve breaks. This message is really for any of you guys who feel like you just can't stop. I hear you. I see you and I know you'cause I've been you. I still struggle to this day with this, and I will say it's okay to be in a season of your business where you feel like you can do a lot more. And I understand that because right now that is me and my season of business. But I told myself at the end of May, I was gonna take a chill bill. And what I mean from both companies, actually from June to August, I'm in beast mode right now. But my beast mode is being directed to my firm right now while I pause this, because right now I wanna be able to give into the book and behind the scenes the things I have to do to lead the team. If you need to prove your worth through doing, I really encourage you to ask why. Ask yourself. Sit down with yourself. Why do you have to prove this? Just keep writing. I know that at first it's like you might write like, because I have to, 'cause I have to make sure to get things done. But keep asking those deep why's. But why do you feel like you have to keep getting this to work done? Well, because I'm a tax repair and it's promised I set in my, you know, my contracts. But why? Well, because I wanna have an obligation to deliver. But why? Because I promise people and I don't like to, you know, not go through with my promises. But why? Because I was taught. To always have to go through with my promises. Do you see where the more you ask that why you can start getting to the root of the problem? It's not my story to carry. It's not my story to carry about my worth and that hustle equals worth because that's what I was shown. I carried it from my father, even though he's an incredible man and he's done so much for our family. I pick that up from my dad. Yeah, and so why carry that moving forward? I'm carrying something that's someone else's baggage. Why am I carrying it? So I had to let it go. It wasn't easy. Took me a really long time to do it. But I encourage you to ask yourself, why are you trying to prove your worth through doing the last part of my framework is what this means logistically to actually rest and what that means for me. For me, it means pausing my podcast until the summer. I'm still here. Everything's gonna still happen. I have a team. Thankfully. Everybody's running the show. This just means for me, I'm stepping away from breakthrough coaching calls. But thankfully, we already had biweekly calls done by Brooke, and the other biweekly is gonna be Erica. They're already supporting our students up for years now. They're already doing homework reviews. I've been training them to like take over. Like for quite some time, guys, this is my own way to prove to you guys and show you guys not proof. That's not the right word.'cause I don't need to prove anything to you guys to show you guys that I practice what I preach because when shit hits the fan, I wanna know that I can walk away from the company and know that I don't have to worry about financials, that I don't have to worry about anything else, and that students aren't fulfilled right. You'll still see me in emails, you'll still see some updates if you feel called to, reach out to me. Share your story. Share why rest, why you feel like you're productive, has to be doing something. I'm not judging you guys. I get it. Like I literally just cried on this podcast. Like I, I'm, I get you. Like if anyone sitting here gets you, it's literally me. I'm literally sitting in my PJ's and was like, I'm gonna have a raw moment and just share my thoughts on this podcast. And I originally was just gonna pause the podcast and not say anything. But it felt very called to share this story with you guys. A couple of things that might come up for you guys, if you're thinking about taking whatever rest is, like I said, it could be 10 minutes. You do not have to do it like I do. I always just always do everything dramatic and crazy and big. Not like dramatic, but what I mean is like big. Like I always need to like a month off. Like it's like it's not something where I'm like 10 minutes. Like even though I have done the whole 10 minute thing, you might say something like, if I stop and slow down and rest, I might lose momentum. And I'll tell you guys, every time that I paused, I came back way more powerful. The fact that I went to Zion and did not intentionally go and have hours of conversations around strategy that people were kind of putting together at certain times. I naturally had combos with people. I came back with little tiny nuggets of things of only what I needed to know. I knew I didn't wanna fill my brain with more ideas. I have all the answers. I don't need more ideas right now, and that's really overwhelming. I think a lot of people think that more ideas equals is better, and that's fine if that's what you believe. But I will say that the times that I paused slow down and rest honored myself, I actually come back more powerful. I came back from that to retreat more clear and I didn't have to sit through hours of strategy that people put together. Right? I think this is something that. People think that immediately if I slow down, I'm gonna lose all that momentum. It's not really true. If you guys have ever heard me quote this, slow down to speed up, that's like one of my favorite quotes of all time and also done is better than perfect. Slow down to speed up really means that you are really slowing stopping. That even means like reworking your systems, reworking your clients, and then coming back to speed up. Because we have to give that attention, right? Another thing that you might be saying is, my team or clients will think I'm abandoning them. I get this to your, my fullest, fullest inner core, that like your team, you're gonna feel that you're, they're gonna think you're just leaving them, that you don't care, that you don't give a shit and all these things, right? This is not true. If you've infused this into your team of how important rest is to every single one of them, and not just you. They will understand. I have poured, and I'm sure that my team can back me on this. They have an anxiety day. I'm like, take the day off. You do not have to use your hours. Just take your day off. Like I will pay you to have the rest of the day off like go be with your family. Do whatever you have to do. Don't worry about your vacation time, just take the time off. I am such a generous. Employer, because I have seen my own dad through his son going through cancer, not being able to show up because they needed him to constantly work. I didn't wanna be that. So you have to infuse this into your team. And if you have a team member who tells you like, oh, like Alyssa, she's gone and I'm, she's abandoning us, and blah, blah, blah, that person would not be working on my team in the first place. But if that were to come up and that were to happen. Then that's just a conversation you need to have with them and be a little bit more vulnerable. Like stop trying to put on this facade that you're the most perfect leader, because that's what I'm not. And I'm very transparent. I've cried on my team meetings like, because I need to. It's, it's what I need, but I've also heard some pretty damn vulnerable things from my team. I will tell you that if you have a solid team and solid systems in place, then you can step away. And this pause will actually protect them more than me if I can pause and come back more powerful. They will have a job in the future. If I burn myself to the ground guys, I'm gonna burn the company to the ground and therefore they will not have a job. So it's very important to communicate this with the team. Right. Another thing that might come up for you as you're listening to this is I'm scared of what people will say about me. I get this because in my mind, I remember calling Brooke, it was like a couple, like a week ago, and I was like, I think I'm gonna pause the podcast. I think I, I need it. And I remember just crying to her and I'm like, dude, I'm just going through so much. And I just feel like. I need to make this message loud and clear how productive rest actually is. And I said, but I'm scared of like, what's gonna happen. I'm scared that what if like revenue doesn't come in? I'm scared that, people won't be happy. I'm scared that people will be frustrated and she's like, Alyssa, you've worked so hard to show people that you do not have to be here to run this, company successfully, like at the end of the day. And then she told me she was like. Who cares. Who cares what other people think of you? Those aren't my people. The people who are gonna sit here and judge me and expect me to show up because I'll give you a great example. I pour my heart and soul into breakthrough. I pour my heart and soul into new lessons, new resources, new guest experts, constantly on coaching calls. How can I build more resources? How can we help you guys? And then yet, at this retreat, there was an expectation that I gave more. And so at the end of the day, it's like I can't, I can only give so much to everyone that I need to make sure that I protect myself. And if people don't like that, then they're not my people. Leadership means making hard decisions others may not understand in the moment. And also leadership means you have to start not caring what people say.'cause at the end of the day. I do know from years of doing this what feels good and what feels right, and I will take those people along with me. The people who are going to tell me I'm not right, or I'm wrong, or this is not leading, or whatever that might be, I. I will be happy to show them the door. Like for real, like, I know that sounds really harsh, but like it took me many years guys to get to a point where I'm like, it's fine if you wanna walk. Like that's okay with me. At the end of the day, we have to make sure that we pour into the things that make the most sense for me. I will fire clients, I will fire students, I will fire friends and family. Like I just let go of a friend of mine who just. I had so much negative energy and it was really bringing me down. Like I, I feel like I'm in this season of like letting go of a lot of things that are no longer serving me. And so I will say that being a good leader for yourself means making hard decisions that other people will not understand and not trying to prove to them why they should understand. The last thing you might be saying is rest isn't productive. I get that guys. It's a societal lie. Everybody else has thrown that down your throat. Thankfully the newer generations, some people call them lazy, but I will say that, yeah, well some of 'em are lazy. I will say that a majority of them just have a better idea in mind of like, why do I need to work 40 hours a week? Why does this have to be my life? They're like questioning it when before a lot of people didn't question it the same way. And so the reason I share this with you guys, that like our society has drilled into us, especially in America. That, doing things equals more worth, equals more money, equals more success. The more you do, the more you grow. And especially as women, like, I feel like men are just in beast mode all the time. Like if you're a man, and I'm sure that you have your own moments of like, I need rest, but like I know that men just have different energy levels. If, especially if you're a woman, we have like our different cycles or parts of our cycles each week. We're in different phases where we actually need more rest and we do need more productivity. And just understanding that stuff really helps you. But some of my biggest moments of growth happened in stillness that's really hard to like understand if you haven't been there yet. But I just recommend you just sit there, just cook, just walk, just sit. Just meditate. Anything that you could do, just journal 15 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes. I don't care. Just do something, So at the end of the day, guys, just take time for yourself. If you don't know what that looks like, reach out to me seriously. Just DM me, email me Carrier pigeon, however you wanna get stuff to me. Share this episode with someone that you know that's feeling burnt out. If someone needs to hear this. Like you are doing them a favor by sharing it with other people. And if this resonated with you, seriously, let me know because I get where you're coming from and I understand. And like I said, if you're one of our breakthrough students or if you're in, you know, other programs, don't worry. You guys are being still taken care of. I just happen to be pulling back. And just as a quick recap. I'm not disappearing. I'm just moving forward and I'm growing forward. I'm giving myself the space that I need in order to pour into you guys. As we come out with this book, as we like relaunch stuff in the background, there's just so much moving behind the scenes that I need to take a little bit of space for myself. This is not failure. This is leadership, and I wanna remind you guys of that because you might be feeling like that might be what it feels like for you, but it's not. This is your permission slip that rest is powerful, rest is productive. And you truly deserve it. I'll see you this summer. I can't wait to chat with you guys on the podcast. Again, we've got some great guests and some great topics and I'm really excited to be recharged and if you wanna connect, just reach out to me. I'm always happy to connect and I always love to hearing from you guys, but I hope this episode resonated with one or two of you if you made it here to the very end. And let me know if you need anything because I truly, when I say I'm a friend and I'm here for you, all you have to do is reach out. I know it feels intimidating, but I promise you guys, I actually am a pretty approachable human. And I really want to support you guys and help you in whatever way I can.