Two years ago, I made a decision that felt radical: My business needed to come last - in a sense.

Let me explain…

This came from a realization that I was operating from a pattern of high-functioning co-dependency. This meant I kept falling into the trap of tending to needs and responsibilities that didn’t actually belong to me.

But let’s back up a little bit. My business was born from an intuitive download I received in 2012: "Take 100% responsibility for your life." That mantra has guided me ever since, revealing layer after layer of wisdom year after year. But two years ago, it revealed something uncomfortable: To take 100% responsibility for MY life, I had to stop taking responsibility for everyone else once and for all.

High-functioning codependency comes with an embedded belief that "if you're not okay, then I'm not okay." I had to heal how this pattern was showing up in all areas of my life, but in this article, I want to talk about how I healed from how it was showing up in my business.

I had to flip everything. In a sense, I had to put myself first and my business last.

Terrifying? Yes. But I knew the counter-intuitive truth: my business would actually thrive because of it.

“When you put yourself first, we all get to come first.”
Natalie Miller

By the way, if you sense you have a pattern of putting yourself last and needing to fix other people’s problems, check out the book Too Much by Terri Cole.

The Vision: A Sabbatical-Based Business

Years earlier, I had filmed an impromptu video about wanting to build what I called "a sabbatical-based business." The term just came to me out of nowhere, but it felt possible. I believed there just had to be a way to grow a business that thrived BECAUSE of how little you worked, not because of how much you worked.

The seed for this idea was planted even earlier though - a decade earlier - by a man named Dan Sullivan. I used to listen to his CD (yes, actual CDs in my car) about how he would help entrepreneurs multiply their income (we’re talking millions of dollars) while working just a few weeks per year. Not months. Weeks.

He teaches that “Free time is non-negotiable”. He says that taking as much time off as possible is the BEST thing you can do for your business because it makes you sharper, more creative, and more energized.

That vision stayed with me.

And two years ago, I was finally ready to put it to the test.

The Experiment

Every morning started with deep journaling—not the "here's what happened today" kind, but shadow work, meeting the wounded parts of myself. Past seasons of myself would visit me in my mind's eye: the seven-year-old me, twelve-year-old me, fourteen-year-old me. Each holding cupped hands full of unprocessed emotional pain, asking, "Are you ready to feel this now?" And I had to keep saying “Yes.”

“The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them.”
- Francis Weller

When faced with the choice between more work or more life, I chose life. Imperfectly but persistently.
I released any attachment to high-revenue months. Uncomfortable? Yes. Especially as the sole income provider with two children. But I was learning something more valuable: how to make my money work harder so I didn't have to. I never cut my personal pay, but I trained my brain and nervous system to stop caring about maintaining a certain amount of revenue because I needed my brain to focus on other things for a while. I started caring more about profit, investing in the stock market, and taking time off — time to read, journal, think.
I invested over $1,000 a month in coaching for an entire year. I’ve made that investment back many times over, so it was well worth it for me. I would have paid triple to have had that coaching years earlier.
I shifted my identity from "I make money" to "my money makes money." I started investing as aggressively as possible without sacrificing our quality of life. This shift birthed The Abundance Adventure.
I retired all of my courses and created an entirely new product suite — each new offering was the byproduct of solving my own problems first.
I did over one hundred calls in which I coached people one-to-one (not for free). I felt called to get out of my bubble and be more connected with the people in my community in this way.
I said yes to more hobbies, more books, more self care.
I streamlined ruthlessly—deleted 100 Youtube videos, 13 years of blog posts, and retired my affiliate and joint venture programs - in the space of a week. Even though these sources brought traffic and revenue, I needed to release the energy of my past self. I wanted to thank her for everything she'd built and tell her she could rest now. Her work was done.

The Results

I went from $0 invested in the stock market to well over $100k invested. I share my steps and journey in The Abundance Adventure.
I read over 100 books - mostly novels - completely reclaiming the part of myself that used to read for fun voraciously.
I solidified a daily art practice and I see a LOT more art-making in my future.

In fact, I noticed something surprising. The more time I spent making art, the smarter I became in my business. Just like Dan Sullivan said I would.

I shed the pattern of high functioning codependency and created systems for addressing and banishing blind spots and dysfunction in every area of my life and business. This led to the creation of Banish Your Blind Spots.
Every area of my life showed dramatic improvement - my health, spirituality, home, and more.
After using Notion since 2018, I experienced an internal shift that led to me going all in on learning how to THINK in terms of SYSTEMS but with my own personal understanding around how systems needed to serve me as a woman who desires to nurture EVERY area of my life. Thus Sacred Systems was born.
I’m experiencing high-revenue months again, but this time with an air-tight system for managing and investing the money, so that I can become more and more “work-optional” every day.

Stop rushing and start healing.

My progress over these past two years didn't come from taking more action—it came from taking less action and prioritizing more healing.

I had to make difficult decisions and feel painful emotions to get through these past two years the way I did. When you start making those tough choices and allowing yourself to feel what needs to be felt, you'll find yourself doing less but progressing more.

Life is always teaching us sacred lessons, urging us to release our false narratives and the beliefs shaped by past wounds. When we resist these lessons, we often try to compensate by pushing ourselves harder. But this never really works. Life will always loop you back to where you started until you learn the lesson.

Here's an important tip to remember:

Even when you feel terrible as you shed what no longer serves you, that's no reason to treat yourself poorly. I say this repeatedly on my coaching calls—get up, get dressed, and eat a nice breakfast no matter how you feel. Send your inner child the message that you're safe. This is what creates the space for you to release what needs to be released. Your inner child needs to know that you’re an adult now and you’re going to take care of yourself from now on.

The Philosophy: Life First, Business Last

When I say "business comes last," I don't mean it's unimportant. I mean it becomes the natural overflow of a life well-lived, rather than life being squeezed into whatever minutes remain after work.

Picture your business as a garden. Traditional advice says tend the garden obsessively—more water, more fertilizer, more attention. But what if the real problem is depleted soil?

In a sabbatical-based business, YOU are the soil. When you nourish yourself through rest, relationships, creativity, spirituality, play—your business naturally flourishes. You're creating from overflow, not depletion.

The Beautiful Paradox

When you truly prioritize yourself and the entirety of your life first, magic happens:

Living fully gives you actual experiences and insights worth sharing. You're magnetic because you're genuinely fulfilled, not desperate. Your rested mind sees opportunities an exhausted one misses. Two focused hours from overflow accomplish more than eight hours from depletion. Your unique perspective—shaped by actual living—becomes your advantage.

Your business becomes the natural documentation of your life:

That sabbatical you took becomes content about intentional living
Your spiritual practice infuses depth into everything you create
Your healed relationship with yourself makes you a better coach
Your restful approach becomes the radical modeling others desperately need

The Sabbatical-Based Business Revolution:

To me, a sabbatical-based business thrives because of the joy, peace, and rest you cultivate outside of it.

Here are the core principles I have been learning to embrace in this journey:

Your highest service is being your most healed, joyful self
Play is infrastructure, not luxury
Free time is non-negotiable
Inner work comes before business work
Money should work for you through investing, so that eventually, work can become optional
Saying yes to desire can be a valid business strategy when backed by systems, boundaries, and healing
The journey matters just as much as the destination

These aren't aspirations—they're the operating system of a business that actually works in the most nourishing, sustainable, and profitable way possible.

"Instead of asking, 'Have I worked hard enough to deserve rest?', I've started asking, 'Have I rested enough to do my most loving, meaningful work?'"
~ Nicola Jane Hobbs

Now that I’m coming out of this 2 year experiment, I can say that Dan Sullivan was right. Your business doesn’t need you to work harder.

It needs you to live fully.

Heal deeply.

Feel everything.

Rest daily.

Play freely.

And that can start now.

My Pursuit of a Sabbatical-Based Business