My Pursuit of a Sabbatical Based Business
Two years ago, I made a decision that felt radical: My business needed to come last.
This came from a realization that I was operating from a pattern of high-functioning co-dependency. This meant that the weight of tending to responsibilities, needs, and requests that weren't actually my own had become my default state.
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's once and for all.
High-functioning codependency comes with an embedded belief that "if you're not okay, then I'm not okay." To heal it, I had to flip everything. Put myself first on my list and put my business last.
Terrifying? Yes. But I knew the counter-intuitive truth: my business would actually thrive because of it.
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.
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?" There's this quote that says adulthood means learning how to hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other. Since moving to Portugal, that's exactly what I've been learning.
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. 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 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.
I shed the pattern of high functioning codependency and created systems for addressing and banishing blind spots and dysfunction. 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.
Being in a state of chronic avoidance in any area of your life always creates an additional load of unnecessary work.
Here's an important tip: 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 Truth About Feeling Overworked
Feeling overworked and underpaid is rarely a business problem or a money problem. It's a life problem. We're trying to extract from our business what we're not getting elsewhere:
Working for identity? You haven't cultivated who you are beyond your role
Working for excitement? Your life lacks adventure and play
Working for control? Other areas of life feel chaotic
Working to avoid? You're running from difficult emotions or relationships
Your business becomes a catch-all for unmet needs. But it will never satisfy them because it wasn't designed to. Your business can't give you (or your “audience”) what you’re not giving to yourself.
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 competitive advantage.
Your business becomes the natural documentation of your life:
That month off becomes content about intentional living
Your spiritual practice infuses depth into everything you create
Your healed relationship with yourself make you a better coach
Your rest becomes the radical modeling others desperately need
The Sabbatical-Based Business Revolution:
To me, a sabbatical-based business is one that thrives because of how LITTLE time you spend in your business due to how MUCH time, joy, peace, and rest you’re cultivating in the rest of your life.
You’re not on this earth just to “help people”. When I hear people say that, it now feels like a red flag. It’s like I can hear a neglected, inner child screaming in pain behind the banner of “I just want to help people.” The best thing you can do to “help other people” is be YOURSELF - the most healed, joyful, loving, peaceful version of yourself.
Play is essential infrastructure, not luxury.
Prioritizing FREE TIME is non-negotiable.
Never allow business to distract you from doing the inner work.
Less can create more.
You’re not just working for money. You make your money work for you by investing it so that eventually work becomes OPTIONAL.
Saying yes to joy and desire (backed up by healing, not avoiding your trauma) is a valid business strategy.
The journey can be just as beautiful, if not more so, than the destination
These aren't aspirational ideas. What I’m finding is that they're the operating system of a sabbatical-based business in which the owner of that business is capable of RECEIVING (not just making) more income whilst working less.
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 more.
Heal more.
Feel more.
Rest more.
Play more.
And that can start now.
