Avoiding Entrepreneur Burnout – Interview with Kristin Molenaar | 398

Chris Miles (00:01):
Hello, my fellow Ripplers! This is Chris Miles. Your Cash flow Expert and Anti-financial Advisor. Welcome you out for a wonderful show. It’s for you and about you. Those you work so freaking hard for your money, and you’re ready for your money. Start working hard for you. Now! You want that freedom. That cash flow. That prosperity today. Not 30 or 40 bazillion years from now, but right now. So you have that life that you love to do what you love and to be with those that you love. But it’s so much more than your own comfort and convenience, because it’s about you guys be able to live the life of meaning of purpose by blessing other people’s lives. Because as you become free, as you become blessed, you can be able to do the same for other people too. And so I appreciate you guys allowing me to create a ripple effect through your lives and be able to see the massive impact you’re making. And again, thank you so much for tuning in. I know you guys have been bingeing on it. You keep sharing more and more. You keep going back to the crappier crappier episodes, and I appreciate you guys still listening in and learning stuff because, Hey, you know, I appreciate that. So thank you so much for doing that for share it with other people. It’s awesome.

Chris Miles (01:05):
Here’s a quick reminder, go visit our website MoneyRipples.com. There’s a great, great blogs on there. Great content you can look at as well. And also I keep forgetting to mention this. I have a YouTube channel, go check out Chris miles, Money Ripples YouTube channel. We’ve got some great videos on there as well. So check it out.

Chris Miles (01:21):
Alright! So today I’ve got a special guest here for you. Again, I get pitched guests all the time, right? And most of them, I usually say, you know, that’s cool, not my thing or not. You know, that’s not what my listeners want, but this one I thought was perfect. Especially given the time that we’re in and with all the uncertainty of the world. I know more and more of you guys, whether you’re in business or not. You’re definitely looking for leverage. You want to be able to work less, make more, which is kind of what we talked about in the show anyways. And that’s exactly what my guest Kristin Molenaar is all about because you know, the big thing that I see happening with a lot of people now is they burn out. They can’t make it, right? They don’t know how to really avoid that. They’ve ended up creating a business that becomes a really sometimes high paying job. Sometimes it was a crappy paying job where you’re like Napoleon Dynamite saying, “That’s like a dollar an hour, gosh!” You know, it’s kinda like that.

Chris Miles (02:12):
You know, we don’t want that. So we want you guys to be able to be free and to be happy and actually love what you do. And so it allows you to let you know a little bit more about Kristen here. She’s an entrepreneur enthusiasts who lives by the mantra, work less, make more, right? This has enabled her to build a six figure business while working average and just get this guys, five hours a week. So this is like a woman after my own heart here, right? Permissions to eradicate entrepreneurial stress and burnout that fuels her passion for sharing these three step blueprint. Both she and her clients have been able to put into place and achieve true freedom in business. She’s also the founder of the virtual agency, YesBoss VA. Where she helps her team be able to really alleviate burnout, solopreneurs, and entrepreneurs and empower them to be able to create, you know, through this online business management and digital marketing support. She runs this business for you. So it creates this online business for you guys. So you can scale it like a boss. So Kristin, welcome to our show.

Kristin Molenaar (03:05):
Thanks so much for having me, Chris, I’m excited to dive into this conversation with you.

Chris Miles (03:09):
I agree. So tell us about your journey. I mean, were you at the burn-down entrepreneurial at one point yourself or?

Kristin Molenaar (03:15):
I was the entrepreneur that didn’t know how to make a dollar. That’s my story.

Chris Miles (03:21):
You got a great hobby, huh?

Kristin Molenaar (03:21):
Yeah. Right. So in October, 2014, I left my last corporate job. And I was in the beauty industry at that time doing brand management. And my thought behind leaving was I can do this on my own. Like, look, I’m an incredible employee. I would make a fantastic business owner. And I proceeded to struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle for about 12 months. I ended up in what I’m doing right now as I call it was my entrepreneurial failure. Like I had been struggling for a year living in my in-laws guest bedroom with my husband and two dogs, like feeling very suffocated. And I thought, I just need to make a dollar. So I went on HireMyMom.com and said like, anybody just please pay me as long as I don’t have to go back into an office. Like I just want like freedom to work where I want. Right? So what very quickly happened though, is I wasn’t able to turn off those entrepreneurial ambitions. Within three weeks of getting my first client, I was tasked with a blog post. Hated blogging. Thought I could do this, sat down to write it and thought, this is, this sucks! At the time the client was only paying me $15 an hour. Like that’s how desperate I was just to make a dollar. I had convinced him to hire me for $15 an hour. And I proved myself in 30 days. And he would bump me to $20 an hour! Make it a lot! So what happened is I was tasked with writing a blog and I thought, you know what? I hate this. I would rather find an intern to write this for me. I’ll pay them $8 an hour, which is minimum wage in their state. I would rather make $7 an hour, not doing anything than $15 an hour doing something that I hate. I became addicted to that and everything like nothing’s been the same since then.

Chris Miles (05:01):
Isn’t it kinda funny. We almost accidentally find something that works. And you think, why didn’t I think of this before, when I was trying to find the answers, right?

Kristin Molenaar (05:09):
Yeah. I was making it too complicated. That’s really what it boiled down to.

Chris Miles (05:14):
That’s right. So what do you see with other entrepreneurs? Like what happens in their lives that you think causes this?

Kristin Molenaar (05:21):
Yeah. So I see a couple things happening that causes this like stress and burnout. One. I think that a lot of people have heard of this 80-20 principle. And I’ve been talking about this so much lately. I think that now is like the time to look at the 80-20 principle now is the time to figure out, okay, I’ve seen and heard that this makes sense. How does it apply to me? The principle says that 20% of your work will yield 80% of your results. I would say that entrepreneurs are getting stuck in burnout and stress because they’re functioning in every capacity. They’re doing all of the things. I love the analogy. I love giving this as like a visual with drilling for oil. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, they know that when you drill for oil, you have to drill really deep in order to strike oil. Right? What they do is they drill all these different little holes like this is them going from webinars to, you know, like passive income funnels, to group trainings, to Instagram lives. Like they’re doing all the things. And the problem is with that lack of focus and that lack of like staying in your lane and doing the thing persistently, they’re like an inch away, probably from striking oil, but they’ve jumped ship too soon or they’re scattering their efforts all over the place. So that’s like one of the foundational things that I see as just pursuing too many things. Obviously another one is continuing to do it alone for way too long. You know, a lot of people hit the six figure mark and they’re like really burned out. I think that I see this happen very often is that six figure mark becomes like a, Holy cow! I can’t do any more. I’ve got all these things on my plate and it’s like, well, why, you know, I would even say like, why didn’t you think a little bit more like me when I was making that $15 an hour, you know, I’d rather do nothing and make $8 or $7 an hour, then do everything. So, you know, would you rather make a hundred dollars an hour or a hundred thousand dollars a year to be completely burned out? Or would you rather make $60,000 a year and have so much bandwidth to grow your company even bigger? I think it’s just a mental shift that people need to have so that they can start putting into practice the things that are really going to catapult their growth rather than just putting money in their pocket and hoarding it.

Chris Miles (07:30):
Yeah. It’s funny, you mentioned that because this is a perfect time for people to really reassess and say, what do I really like doing, right? Cause I remember I went through that same process a few times. Like I always had to keep evolving through my business. And I remember happening again for me about five years ago, I went through a divorce. That was like, I was so emotionally drained, right? That I couldn’t work much more than five hours a week. So that’s kinda how I started working at five hours a week was, alright! What’s the absolute essential part of my business and what can I delegate out? And then the next thing I know I made more money than I ever made working 50 or 60 hours a week. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (08:04):
Yeah. And that’s why I think, you know, I don’t know when this episode is going to air, but amid like COVID, right? COVID, there’s so many people that are being forced to work less. And I think that, well, a lot of people may at first think that this is a disservice to their business. I think that it actually is a huge benefit, because think about how little you’re able to work during COVID and when this is over, you got all this extra time on your hands.

Chris Miles (08:29):
Right! That’s true. But what do you think are good ways for people to figure out how to get in that lane? Like what is actually their lane versus things they should not be doing? How do you decide that?

Kristin Molenaar (08:39):
Yeah, so like, I, like you mentioned in the little intro, we have like a three step process that we put into place. Like our three step. Work less make more blueprint. The very first thing is to eliminate all non-essentials, which I kind of touched on a little bit. There are a series of questions that I really encourage people to ask if they’re like, well, what is it that I should be doing? One. I think that it’s really important to give yourself the space and the time to go back to what your original plans for your business work. Like I think that what happens is we get so stuck in the trenches and in the tactical stuff of our business, that all the creativity just get shut down. But as entrepreneurs, like, we need to be visionary. Like that is our role that we need to take on. So entrepreneurs are visionaries that put people and processes into place. Entrepreneurs are not people that just poured all the work and get stuck in task work all the time. That’s what’s going to lead to that burnout. Right? So think about what it is like, why did you get into business? What were your dreams? And I love going back to that beginning stage, because I feel like that’s, when things felt so free and new and exciting, and there wasn’t any of that fear or like those mental games that you’re having to break through. None of that existed when you were just starting out. So I love going back to that. And then I think that you have to look at your business in two categories. So looking at like, what are you doing for marketing? And what are you doing for like your monetization or the things that you’re offering? And figure out in those two things separately, figure out what things really light you up. So I say to people, for me, it’s so important that my business energetically fuels me up. Because when I leave my business I go to become a, you know, I walk away and I’m a wife and I’m a mom and I have other things I’m doing. And I don’t want my business to deplete me. Cause I don’t want to show up to the rest of my life depleted. So in your business, what things are lighting you up? What can you do, that you’re walking away from your business feeling like you’re ready to take on the world. And then what, look at the data too. So what is the data that supports the efforts that you’re putting into it? Because it needs to be of, you know, you need to follow your heart and there needs to be that data there. And then that’s telling you like where that 20% of your effort is yielding that 80% of your results.

Chris Miles (10:52):
That’s right. It’s kind of like the eeky guy, right. That diagram that people use all the time is, you know, what do people want you for? What do you like doing? You know, what are you good at? And combining all those elements together. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (11:03):
Absolutely. Yeah. Let’s build businesses that we love. Like if we wanted to do work that we didn’t like we could go work for the man, I guess, control of our own journey here. Let’s start doing things that light us up.

Chris Miles (11:15):
Yeah. It’s true. Like there’s been times like I’ll be, be kind of a grumpy mood at the beginning of the day. Like maybe like my wife and I getting a little spat, you know, and then it’s like, Oh, you know, and you have to have that state change. Right. And maybe it’s easier for men to kind of shut that part of your brain off and just go like cut it off. But I notice that sometimes if I’m actually doing the meetings, I love doing, you know, doing that kind of stuff. Like I can walk away and be in a totally better mood and be like, I love you. Like, like nothing is like, world’s perfect. Like that was stupid. You know? Like it’s kind of cool. Like versus like saying man, this day just sucks. Like this is the worst day ever. You know? And I think that’s the difference. There is really fine. What does let you up?

Kristin Molenaar (11:54):
Yeah. Yeah. It’s essential in the cool thing is we’re in control of all of it. We’re running businesses that we don’t like, it’s like, well, who are we going to blame for that?

Chris Miles (12:03):
Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. You can’t blame anybody else for your, your decision. Right? They know you’re the boss. Or you’re supposed to be, at least. Unless you’re trying to be the victim. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (12:12):
Exactly. I guess you have to make that decision for yourself. Right?

Chris Miles (12:15):
Absolutely. What are other things that people can do to actually help, you know, get themselves away from their business and this stuff that they’re not just working in it, they’re now working on it.

Kristin Molenaar (12:24):
Yeah. I love this question and let’s move on. Like you’ve just teed it up for me to move on to the next steps in our three set process. Honestly. So the next step for me is to automate and delegate. So I like to put these two things together because for me, I have seen just so much fruit out of delegation that I actually delegate the automation in my business. I don’t do the automation myself, but this is really up to where you are in your business and where your strengths are. If you geek out on, you know, automation go for it, but it doesn’t light me up. So you need to think about automating and delegating. Now this has to come after you’ve determined what things are essential. Don’t automate non-essential things. Don’t delegate, non-essential things like, you know, we help solopreneurs. We actually are that driving force and that team behind solopreneurs. And we tell them, don’t give us stuff. That’s not essential in your business because what’s going to happen is you’re going to bring us in as a team. And you’re going to be sharing the vision of your company with us. And we’re going to get really excited about us. And then when things get hard, if you’ve not given us essential tasks, we’re going to be the first person that’s cut out. And you’ve spent all this time investing in this team that you’re building and they’re not bringing anything to the table that really matters in your business. So yeah, the automation, I think that there are a lot of people that might be on the fence about, well, what things do I automate or should I get this platform or that platform? I like to use a very simple math formula. You know, if the platform that you’re wanting to use to automate like a CRM or whatever, say it’s a hundred bucks a month and you’re spending 10 hours a month manually doing it, you need to assess, am I worth $10 an hour? Probably not. So it’s time to automate that thing. So that’s number two in my process. And then number three is generating effort free income. So this for me was like a big game changer. We internally like calling it white labeling, but essentially what happens is you build a team internally that produces profits for your business. This can look different in a variety of different businesses, but I think for a lot of people, what makes sense is figuring out how you’re serving your clients right now and what is a way that you can add additional value to them. But in a way that’s like can be systematized and taught to somebody else so that they come in, they provide that support and you make money on the backend.

Chris Miles (14:48):
Give us example of that.

Kristin Molenaar (14:50):
I was just going to say that! I’d love to give an example because I think that sometimes it’s hard to understand how this could work for you. So you have a client who does coaching for people who want to speak on stage. And so what she does is she does all that coaching. So she’s showing up and telling her clients how to do that stuff. Well, some of our clients are like, I don’t have time. Like, can you just do it for me? And so what she does is she white labels, our outreach service. So for $750, YesBoss does all of the speaker research and outreach for her clients. But because she’s in this elevated expertise level, as the coach, she’s able to sell that same package for over a thousand dollars. Every time she sells, it puts no work on her back, but it gives her an additional 250 plus the profit margin to pull it into our business. And I think that we should be doing this with all kinds of things in our business. It adds value to our clients. It puts profit in our pocket and it continues to employ people and keeps the money going through other entrepreneurs.

Chris Miles (15:53):
That’s awesome! Yeah. That’s the thing that many entrepreneurs never take the time to take it to that next level, which is all right. How do I duplicate me? Right. And be able to allow this to really grow beyond my own capacity. Right?

Kristin Molenaar (16:06):
Yeah. I like to think about being a CEO or building a company. And that’s when these things start to like, okay, if you think about, I’m building a company here, I’m not building a job for myself. Like everybody in a company brings value to the company.

Chris Miles (16:21):
Yeah, that’s right. And then you really just can not have freedom. If anybody’s like me, listen to this right now, you probably went to business like I did. And when I did this almost 20 years ago is, I was going in because I wanted control of two things, primarily, you know, my money and my time. Right. Like it really controls my destiny, you know, overall. And I knew I would never get that. Just working in corporate America. I knew that had to be something that went beyond that. But the thing I learned, and I know that you’re talking about as well as so many entrepreneurs are saying, yeah, I become the CEO. Yay. I’m free. And then you just created another job that really, in some ways sucks more because if you were like me, I mean, I remember seven, eight years ago after I launched Money Ripples and it’s trying to do it from the ground up. Like it got to a point where I started to fantasize about a job. Like I remember thinking like if I could just have a job where I did have to think I could just do one task, that would be so awesome. I wouldn’t have to think about all the elements of business with every aspect that has to be done. I can just focus on one job and be brainless. Not to insult any of you guys. So they know a lot of you guys are working W2 jobs and you’re not brainless. I know that, but it’s that thing that there’s so much mental energy to be a business owner. And like you’re saying just kind of to become the owner and say, yes, we can look at big picture, but we don’t have to be in the trenches with each one of these areas. So, well, I appreciate having you on today, Kristin, and this is awesome. So thank you so much. If you want to learn more about your three steps and how that would apply to their business because they’re wanting to be free. Right. What would it be the way they could do that?

Kristin Molenaar (17:51):
Yeah. So you can get access to the blueprint. I mean, we went through a very, very quick version of this. I feel like I spoke faster than I’ve ever spoken before, but you can pick that up at YesBossVA.com/WorkLessMakeMore. If you’re a solopreneur, that’s feeling burnt out and you’re like, don’t tell me how to do it. Just do it for me. You can check us out at YesBossVA.com. But yeah, it was a pleasure chatting with you. We covered some really good material really fast.

Chris Miles (18:18):
We sure did. Well, Hey, it’s that whole like, you know, fast, little rabbit punch, you know, like it’s perfect. So that was a lot of value. I really appreciate you being here today.

Kristin Molenaar (18:27):
Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a privilege.

Chris Miles (18:29):
You bet! Everybody else. Thanks for joining us. And again, remember your life doesn’t change unless you act upon, unless you do something about this. So if this really resonated with you go to the website, we’ll have that in the show notes. So you guys can go there, but yes, this is the perfect time right now to, in a sense, reinvent your business to be the way that you always wanted it to be. So go take action. Check out the link in our show notes, everybody. I hope you make it a wonderful and process week and we’ll see you later.