The Three Stages of Scaling a Business: How to Leave the Hamster Wheel Behind

How I left the hamster wheel by knowing where I was in the three stages of success..

I was stuck in the hamster wheel. You know.. the hamster wheel of trying to set a business passive so you can focus on your creative projects

Inevitably, just when you're seeing the finish line, random demanding projects come rolling in.

They could be in the business, could be in the home, could be in the family. We have a family business, so we have all three, all the time.

The thing about the hamster wheel is that you feel like you're not going anywhere. You're running the same loop over and over again, trying to get out of something by doing the exact same thing. The longer you go, the more tired and frustrated you get.

When we wrapped 2022, our second no Ritual year in a row, it was giving hamster wheel. In a big way. I stopped doing the ritual because I didn't want to "have to do anything"

I had a large suite of workshops I no longer resonated with, but couldn't bring myself to abort. We had to do something for money, so I found myself still selling these things on repeat. 

Launching and selling takes energy, and at the time, there was no separation between my energy and the business's energy. Because this separation couldn't occur, I couldn't ever see myself as outside of the wheel. I started to get depressed. Resentful. 

Why did I have to be the only one stuck in the wheel, why did I have to be the one working?

But if you know what you're doing, and where you're going, you're not in a hamster wheel. You're on the trail. You're still working, you're still burning energy, but you know where you're going.

The difference between hamster wheel and trailblazing is DIRECTION.
When I taught the first version of this workshop, the main success metric was MONEY. CASH.
Now that myself and all my clients have grown up a bit, the main thing we all want is DIRECTION. We pay the big bucks for direction.

So how do we direct ourselves out of the wheel? We need to know exactly where we are, and exactly where we're going next.

this email is brought to you by the blocks you'll get at every level. Block One, aka Denial, might be why you're stuck. if you're in the wheel, you
 NEED to watch this video.

Success comes in three phases:

Building: 
Phase one, you're building. Building the content, the infrastructure, the launches. This was very much our 2023. We released five original workshops, and updated three more. These included writing high value book and audiobook lead magnets. We also built an app, hired a four person team, hired two coaches, started a podcast, started an affiliate program, and I completed another full length non fiction book, set for release in September 2024. We also moved to Costa Rica (and back!) and bought a house in New York (moving in SO soon)! 

build mode is not profit mode. It is also not the hamster wheel.

Systems:
Phase two is building the systems to handle the content you spent the last phase building. Better technology, higher converting marketing funnels, higher converting everything, content optimization, organization, study, and teams. 
Reluctance to pivot to this more-boring-but-necessary phase of success is what guarantees you never leave the build phase. You have to hire enough people that will let you to grow WHILE you step away to focus on the bigger picture. This is definitely what's going on with us now, and I have too much experience in business to tell you (or me) that we'll be out of this phase in a few months. You also need to study ads here, because I'm telling you from experience, you can't hire an ad manager to do this. You're just dumping your money into the garbage can. You have to know how to do it, and do it well. Forget "boosting posts", I mean legit, data-driven, well stacked ad strategy on multiple platforms. 

systems mode is not profit mode, but it FEELS different. FEELS like breaking new ground. With every new system applied you get a big sense of "ahhhhhhhh now I see why the hamster wheel wasn't working! never going back there again!". It costs a whole bunch of new expenses to build systems, and as you recognize that this has to be done AND the business has to grow simultaneously to absorb this, THEN you start to see your energy start to separate from the business energy while it grows.


Scale:
Phase three is scaling, which you achieve by applying budget to the systems that can now handle the volume of success. Applying budget in the form of ads. I was just on call with my coach yesterday and he said that the only trick to ads (real ads, not "boost post" ads)  is "patience and losing money" . Good thing we had all that experience in the systems phase of spending money to make money, because you're doing to need that x3 when it comes to running ads consistently. The ads send people to systems that are built, and the product is good, so you know it will be profitable. Now we just have to find out WHAT kind of ads do best for your company and the way we do that is with patience and losing money. Like three months minimum of steady "money out" without seeing "money in".  A lot of times, with ads, you won't see your ROAS for six months. People don't buy from people they don't know, so, it's going to take time. How patient can you be, and how well can you understand what is going on during this process. You master this, you've entered profit mode.

This is 110% profit mode and guess what??? By this phase, if you're any good at business, this will feel like build mode is beginning all over again. Yes, it's a major rush to be able to see the numbers rolling in, the fame and recognition of your services, and now you're onto the next project. You have successfully figured out how to detach your energy from the company energy WHILE growing it, and now you can grow something else.

STOP TRYING TO STOP WORKING. You're here to change the world, not to change it until you're 60. 

Let's bring it to you:
What stage of success are you in? Hit reply and let me know.

This direction is really what we're after, really what we're focusing on in the ritual this year. What's the direction? What's the plan for you and for me? Who do we need to become to handle this, and how do we start emulating it now. That's the get down. That's the goal. That's what we're going to get.

The masterclass on wealth is speaking to a higher level than "just the blocks". It's really the beginning of the ritual. You need to focus on money, and nothing but money once a year. You need G-O-D. Generate the vision, Organize the plan, and DELIVER. 
 It’s on 12/18 at 1PM EST and your invite is RIGHT HERE.