My business mentor does not approve
Are we still doing the trend of calling out trends? Because, my word, hustle culture is out. Let’s all take a collective exhale, shall we?
Earlier this year, I admit, I got swept into it.
I invested in a coach I admired and started building a new program.
My program itself is rad — my clients are sending me DMs about breakthroughs, milestones, and ahas every week.
But underneath, the guidance from my coach had the unmistakable hum of hustle culture:
Move faster.
Produce more.
It doesn’t matter if you’re on vacation, keep working to get results.
Promise speed. Package urgency as value.
It’s the industry’s favorite flavor of adrenaline — and for a minute, I drank it.
Others in my cohort were posting big launches and bigger guarantees, and insecurity sneaked in. I didn’t want to fall behind, so I tried to match the push just to stay in the game.
I even recorded an entire sales video using hustle-driven principles — and the feedback was ecstatic.
“Olivia, this is the best video sales letter I’ve ever seen.”
Do you remember that video?
Of course not.
I never shared it.
It wasn’t until I created stillness — the kind hustle culture does not allow — that I understood why.
The message was good. The program is incredible. But the energy was forced.
It promised fast results. But it didn’t promise what you actually need:
Pacing that feels delicious. Support to honor the fullness of your life. A business that works with your life, not against it.
Hustle culture asks people to override their bodies, their intuition, and their bandwidth. My clients are too wise for that.
You are living full, complex, beautiful lives:
Norovirus ripping through daycare.
Teenagers navigating major decisions and awakenings, who deserve a loving grown-up who can be present.
Impromptu trips to Germany to go to a Christmas market.
Perimenopause.
Aging parents.
Art projects that joyfully take over the dining table.
Relationships — marriages, friendships, siblings — that matter.
And no one — truly no one — needs me breathing down their neck about completing module two by a set date so I can point to a faster “success metric.”
Hustle culture confuses speed with transformation.
What we do here? We take our cues from nature, who knows that things unfold with perfect, divine timing.
The irony is that the coach whose urgency swept me up?
Recently she’s been sharing publicly that she’s been so burnt out over the last two years, she’s been working from desperation and scarcity.
Despite having a multi-7-figure business and posting all the cheerful Insta content of playing with her daughter and smiling at family functions.
This is hustle culture’s real truth: it looks impressive until you see the bill. And I refuse to build my business — or guide anyone else’s — on exhaustion disguised as ambition.
So no, I don't have a multi–seven-figure empire. (Empires — also out. We can do better.)
But I do have a business built on service, joy, clarity, steadiness, and alignment — and that success is real.
It looks like:
• Clients who get results that last — and keep coming back.
We recalibrate patterns, energy, identity, and strategy so your business actually works.
Which means (enter some good ol’ business coach speak): my LCV, or lifetime customer value, is remarkably high. Sign me up for deeply satisfied clients who keep coming back.
• Internalized permission to rest.
When I need rest, I rest. When I want rest, I rest. And I do this publicly because this is what I want to normalize.
• Flexibility for life.
Life is gonna life. Sometimes it goes hard. When hand, foot, and mouth swept through my family, I was able to rearrange things. When a loved one had surgery this fall, I was able to go help for a week. (Everything went smoothly.)
Because isn’t this a big part of why we work for ourselves? So we can be present for what matters without tracking PTO hours? And when you design your business for real life, it can keep moving forward even when you step away.
• Work that is a pathway to healing.
Entrepreneurship is a spiritual experience under the guise of to-do lists and tax filings. I’m here to help people not only heal how they work, but heal through their work.
• A values-aligned approach to making money.
Yes, money matters. But not at the expense of your nervous system or your integrity.
• A nervous-system-first approach to visibility and consistency.
Because your business grows at the pace of your self-trust — not your output.
• A knowing that sustainable success is relational, not performative.
My biggest business inspiration isn’t the women on the covers of Inc. or the judges on Shark Tank — it’s the mycelial network, a vast, interconnected underground web of fungal threads. Quiet, connected, intelligent. An ecosystem that thrives because every part is in communication, not competition. That’s the kind of business I’m here to build — and the kind I help my clients build: rooted, relational, and powerful in ways hustle culture can’t touch.
Can I help you grow quickly?
Yes.
But lots of people can.
My real secret sauce is helping you feel safe to go at your own pace and build the business your soul is really asking you to partner on. To divest from hustle culture and explore how you want to run an ethical business while still supporting the life you want to have.
Because your business isn’t a hobby, and mortgage payments and health care and, yes, joyful luxuries, are all very real.
So we do need to make money. But what if we do it differently?
And if that appeals to you, I’ll send you my new video (so help me, did not run it by my business mentor) all about my signature program where I can show you exactly how to create steady, premium client flow by shifting the patterns underneath your business — not by pushing harder.
Oh, and I decided to drop the price for this round, too.
Because this season asks for support, not pressure.
Because we’re in a collective recalibration.
Because early adopters deserve generosity.
Because urgency has no place in this work.
So this holiday season, let’s opt out of hustle and urgency, and make like that mycelial network, supporting one another.
P.s. The next cohort for the Chakra Path opens in January. If you want 2026 to be your most relaxed, joyful, and lucrative year yet, hit reply and I’ll send you that video.
P.p.s. If you’re local to D.C., save the date for our next installment of The Portal, our new monthly series for IRL connection and activation. Monday, January 12, 10 - 11:30 a.m. at The Play Shop.
