A love letter to every exhausted business owner who’s still showing up

I cried on the scale after I woke up.

Then I scrambled to clean “the wedge.” That’s what I call the carefully angled sliver of my office that’s visible on camera. It looks professional. Put together. What you don’t see is the pile of 15 pairs of shoes just behind the angled wall. Or the clean, but unfolded laundry basket behind the door. Or the general chaos of a life that’s been life-ing at me for months.

Just after starting my first Zoom call of the day, I left everyone hanging while I ran to grab my medicine because if I don’t take it before 10:30, I’ll be up all night.

Then I led a coaching call where we were supposed to talk about thought leadership and visibility; you know, putting yourself out there, being seen, showing up as the expert you are.

Instead, we talked about being too tired to post. Too scattered to think. Too overwhelmed to show up as the leaders we know we are. At one point, I joked that if my jeans keep getting tighter, I might have to start a new show called “The Naked Marketing Hour.” (I’m kidding. Mostly.)

And in the middle of all that honesty, I realized something I need to share.

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The Smoke and Mirrors of Success

Here’s what we see online: The successful business owner. The one with the ring light and the curated feed and the “I 10x’d my revenue” posts.

What we don’t see: Outside their wedge. Their pile of shoes. Their 3 am anxiety. Their marriage strain. Their health scares. Their kids in crisis. Their unfolded laundry, forgotten medications, and days when getting on a Zoom call feels like climbing Everest.

We’re all cleaning the frame others see, while living in chaos just outside it.

And if we keep pushing our feelings down, living by the “suck it up, buttercup” mentality, there will be nothing left of us to give.

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The Lie We’ve All Been Told

Somewhere along the way, maybe from our upbringing, maybe from hustle culture, maybe from watching other entrepreneurs who seem to have it all together, we absorbed a belief that sounds something like this:

“If I’m not struggling, I’m not earning it.”

“If I rest, everything will fall apart.”

“If I put myself first, I’m abandoning everyone else.”

“My needs come last.”

That’s the lie, friend.

Your worth is not measured by how much you sacrifice.

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The Many Heathers

I sometimes joke that I need t-shirts to warn my husband which wife he’s getting each day:

“Hot Mess” Heather – running late, can’t find her keys, forgot to eat

“Hot Shot” Heather – crushing it, closing deals, feeling unstoppable

“Hermit” Heather – don’t talk to me, don’t look at me, I’m in my cave

“Happy” Heather – smiling, energized, ready to enjoy the magic of life

“Hassled” Heather – overwhelmed, overstimulated, one notification away from tears

“Hopeful” Heather – believing again, dreaming again, ready to build something beautiful

Most days, I cycle through at least three of these before lunch.

Does anyone relate to this, or is this just a “Heather” thing?

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What I Saw in That Room

On that coaching call, I wasn’t looking at a group of people who were failing. I was looking at beautiful, immensely gifted women who were carrying so much.

One spent 12 hours working through a complex legal filing with AI because she’d been scammed by a lawyer years ago and couldn’t afford another one. She did it herself. She figured it out. And when she shared it with a family member, they couldn’t even be bothered to respond.

One was packing up a house of 30 years, to move her family half a country away, while grieving her father, managing her team, filling in the gaps of a VA she had to fire, and keeping her clients happy.

One has a husband and son both out of work, and she’s teaching classes, running her business, networking, showing up for her community, and she said, “Sometimes, I just get so tired.”

And me? Let me tell you about my year.

• My sweet old chocolate lab passed away, and we got a Golden Doodle puppy who acts like he’s had 12 espressos. (I love him. He’s also causing havoc on every aspect of my life.)
• I fell, passed out, and had my first ambulance ride.
• My husband had a 3-month journey to find out he didn’t have cancer. Thank you, God.
• I was diagnosed with ADHD at 50 (I finally went to get checked, after I drove away from a gas station with the pump still attached to my car).
• And there was a family crisis I can’t talk about publicly, but it broke my heart wide open.

Yes, my own struggles are small in comparison, but the compounding effect of life’s “little” things still filled my capacity to the brim.

We weren’t failing. We were full.

There’s a difference.

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Beyond the Wedge

On the surface, things might even look rosy.

I held 30% profit margins this year, in a service business, during all of that.

But here’s what you don’t see: I went from a team of 7 to a team of 3. Not entirely by choice. And I filled the gap myself.

And social media? I took a month off as an experiment — “I’ll finish this project, then evaluate how it went.” That was over a year ago. I never went back.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t notice a big dip. Because I’ve been blogging consistently for over a decade. The posts I wrote in 2016 still bring me clients today. My content carried me through one of the hardest years of my life.

Not every business can afford to go dark on social media. But I could…because I’d built something that didn’t require me to perform every day to survive.

That’s not luck. That’s strategy. And it’s exactly what I want for you.

Note: If you want to dive deeper into creating lasting content assets, I wrote about the strategic benefits of content that works long-term in this article: The Best Times to Publish Blog Posts for Maximum Impact

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The Truth Nobody’s Teaching

Here’s what hit me in the middle of that call, while we were all being honest about how hard it is:

You can’t add the life you want on top of the life you have.

You have to subtract first.

All those marketing strategies, content plans, visibility tactics, social media schedules, they don’t work when you’re running on empty. They become another weight. Another thing you’re not doing. Another reason to feel like you’re behind.

The hustle bros won’t tell you this, but I will:

Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is stop.

Stop adding. Start subtracting.

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The Subtractful Life

I’ve been sitting with a word lately: Subtractful.

My clients have heard me mention it, and the best way I can describe it is as if mindfulness and minimalism had a baby.

It’s the practice of asking: What can I subtract to make space for what matters?

Not “what more can I do?” but “what can I release?”

Not “how do I fit this in?” but “what no longer fits?”

Subtract the clients who drain you.

The ones who take more than they give. The ones who make you dread opening your inbox. The ones who pay the least and demand the most. They’re not just hard on your energy; they’re taking up space that your dream clients need.

Subtract the offers that don’t serve you anymore.

That thing you created three years ago that you still feel obligated to deliver? That pricing you set when you were scared to charge what you’re worth? That structure that made sense then but makes you resentful now? Let it go.

Subtract the “shoulds” that aren’t yours.

You should be on TikTok. You should do Reels. You should post every day. You should network more. Says who? For what? At what cost?

I subtracted social media for over a year, and my business survived, even thrived at times, because I had a decade of blog content doing the heavy lifting. Sometimes the thing everyone says you must do is exactly the thing you need to release.

Subtract the belief that rest is laziness.

If you’ve had a challenging year, if life has been life-ing at you at full volume, taking time to breathe isn’t abandonment. It’s survival. It’s how you make sure you can keep showing up in a sustainable way.

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Your Permission Slip

I don’t know what you’re carrying right now. I don’t know what’s making you tired, what’s keeping you up at night, what’s behind your own wedge.

But I know this:

You are allowed to build a business that doesn’t require you to constantly give yourself away.

You are allowed to charge more.

You are allowed to say no.

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to let go of what’s not working.

You are allowed to want ease and success.

You are allowed to have what you want.

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The Shift

Here’s where I am right now, in the middle of my own messy, honest journey:

I’m resetting my mindset from “I can’t have what I want” to “I’ve got it all.”

Not because everything is perfect. (Have you been reading this post? Nothing is perfect.) But because I’m finally giving myself permission to believe it’s possible.

And the bridge between those two places?

Space.

Space in my calendar. Space in my offers. Space in my relationships. Space in my mind.

Subtract to create space. Space to breathe. Space to heal. Space for the life and business you actually want to flow in.

And it’s scary. Saying no, setting boundaries, and honoring our energy and dreams is hard.

Especially for the open-hearted, ultra complex, deeply feeling, compassionate “Birds of a Feather” business owners that I have had the honor of working alongside these past 10 (almost 11) years.

But we can do hard things.

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One Last Thing

If you’re reading this and thinking, “This is exactly how I feel,” I see you.

If you’re “Hot Mess” You today, cleaning your wedge before your next call, I see you.

If you’re exhausted but still showing up, still trying, still believing in your dream even when it feels impossible, I see you.

If you needed permission to stop adding and start subtracting, consider this your sign.

You’re not failing.

You’re full.

And the answer isn’t to pile on more.

The answer is to make room.

From the middle, with love,

Heather

(Currently: Hopeful Heather. Ask me again in an hour.)

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If this resonated, I’d love to hear from you.

Message me and tell me: What’s one thing you’re ready to subtract?

And if you want to build the kind of marketing foundation that works even when life gets hard, the kind that carried me through this year, I’m building something for coaches and service providers who are ready to market peacefully. It’s called Peaceful Marketing Lab, and doors open in 2026.

Stay tuned. 💛