It’s my business birthday this week, and I’m celebrating by sharing nine non-negotiables I’ve learned as a business owner over the past nine years. Some of these are tangible habits that I think everyone should consider adopting, and others are mindset or belief-based. Basically, I’m sharing some of the biggest shifts I’ve made going through personal development for business owners.
I have to be honest: none of these came naturally to me. Many of them are lessons I’ve had to intentionally work into my routines and beliefs. I’ve gotten better at them over time, and then slipped up again—so this isn’t a perfection checklist. It’s not “do these or you’ll fail.” It’s more that these are worth continually working on.
So that’s what I’m diving into today.
Table of Contents
Non-Negotiable #1: I Don’t Ignore the Woo
I’ll start with the most “woo” one: I don’t ignore the mindset side of business. I don’t use it as an excuse to avoid doing the actual work, but I don’t dismiss it either.
There’s such a slippery slope here. If I hear the word “alignment” one more time, I might scream—especially this time of year. Everyone wants to feel “aligned.” And I get it: some people have earned the right to prioritize alignment. When I say “alignment,” I’m talking about being ruthless about what you say yes to, saying no more often, and having enough opportunities on the table for that to be sustainable.
But sometimes I see people chase alignment too early. It becomes holding out for “ideal clients” or “ideal opportunities” before they’ve done the work to make that realistic. And honestly, it can become an excuse for not getting things done.
Examples:
- “I started working on my freebie, but it didn’t feel aligned.”
- “I was going to take this lower-paying client, but it didn’t feel aligned.”
I’m never saying “take every client forever”—there’s always nuance. But there are also times as business owners when we have to do things we don’t want to do to get where we want to go.
The “Have To” vs. “Get To” Reframe
Right now I have a ton of video recording to do for YouTube and I’m updating my blogging course. I was Voxing a friend before I recorded this and kept saying, “I have to do this,” “I have to do that.” Then I caught myself: reframing “I have to” into “I get to” is still a daily practice for me.
For anyone who hasn’t heard that before:
- “I have to record a bunch of videos”
vs. - “I get to record videos and run a business that allows me to do that.”
There are much harder jobs out there. This is a privilege, even when it feels hard.
When Money Blocks Get Woo
Another example—one that feels a little vulnerable to even say. I had a month recently where I felt like everyone was paying slower than usual. Not literally everyone, but more than normal. I was stressed about it, and part of that stress was honestly coming from unrelated things going on in my life.
I was troubleshooting invoices and Dubsado, trying to figure out if something broke. I told a friend about it on Voxer and she said, “Honestly, if it’s that many at once, it might be a mindset block.”
My first reaction was, “So it’s my fault. Great.” But then she said something I appreciated: if it’s internal, that means it’s fixable—and fast.
(If you’re not into the woo this might sound wild, but it landed for me.)
I appreciated that perspective from my friend. I’m not a regular journaler—honestly, I wish I was—but I pulled out my journal and wrote: “The reason I’m not allowing money to flow freely to me is X, Y, Z…” and all the things. I did that exercise, a few affirmations, and a bunch of mindset work that I wouldn’t normally get on a podcast and recommend, because I’m not a super woo girly. However, I’ve seen it work again and again.
Manifesting things in my life
In fact, I can’t even tell you—this is going to sound like a crazy story and I debated skipping it—but here we go.
Back in 2018 or 2019, I was trying to manifest $700. I remember it so specifically. I really needed $700 and I really wanted it to come through manifesting because I had just started learning about mindset work. At that time, I was journaling every day, doing meditations, saying affirmations, and basically making mindset work take up my whole day.
At the end of the month—literally the 28th—I got a check for $698 for overpaid taxes from 2012. It was so specific and so random that I couldn’t not believe manifestation and mindset had something to do with it. I know how wild that sounds.
The rest of my non-negotiables aren’t this woo, but I wanted to start here because if you’re listening to this podcast, chances are you operate a lot like me: more masculine energy, getting things done, sticking to the to-do list, optimizing for SEO.
But mindset is a foundational layer to everything else—money, yes, but also how clients perceive us, how valuable we believe our work is, and so much more. I’ll come back to mindset later in this episode.
Non-Negotiable #2: I Don’t (and Can’t) Obsess Over Response Times
Most of my clients would say I’m quick to respond—typically within 24 hours, and I set 48 hours as my benchmark. I want everyone to hear back within 48 hours. But sometimes it’s three or four days. Longer or more complex responses don’t happen in 20 minutes because they require my full attention, and I have a limited window for email. I won’t rush a thoughtful response.
If you ask me a detailed question, you’re going to get a thorough answer, and that sometimes means I can’t reply as fast as I’d like. I’m rarely at inbox zero.
In fact, I’m recording this on a Sunday and I currently have 22 emails in my inbox that all require action from me. Not spam, not newsletters—22 actual tasks that need responses. And if one of them requires a Loom video or something more in-depth, it will take longer.
This used to really bother me. But one thing that helped was working with resorts in Mexico and in the Caribbean market when I did destination weddings—there, you’d go weeks without a reply. That normalized slower communication for me.
If you want to always hit inbox zero and always respond instantly, I don’t think you can be as productive overall. You’ll constantly be chasing one thing to the next. When I started this business, I wanted to be the best at customer service—responding immediately, updating things immediately. But it’s not sustainable as your workload grows. And if you do find a way to maintain it, you’ll cap the amount of work you can do far earlier.
Non-Negotiable #3: I Don’t Have Client Drama
I refuse to have client drama. I don’t take it home with me—otherwise, being a business owner just isn’t worth it.
When I say client drama, I mean:
- clients who are upset
- clients who say something that bothers you
- clients who don’t “ooh” and “ahh” the way you hoped
- or clients who say nothing and you assign meaning to it anyway
I used to ruminate on all of that. I used to obsess. And it’s not worth it.
Sometimes I literally have to separate who I am at work from who I am at home. If I write a blog post and a client doesn’t like it or says it feels too X, Y, or Z, that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It sounds so dramatic to say out loud, but I’ve absolutely felt that way—like nobody likes me and I’m terrible at what I do because one client said “Eh, I don’t think this sounds like me,” or just “Looks good.”
It’s wild how much meaning we can project onto small reactions.
And sometimes people are unhappy. I wish more people talked about that. On Instagram we mostly see happy clients and endless success stories. I could share those too—I have a whole folder of screenshots of nice feedback and wins. I could post them forever and not run out. And I also have the occasional client who didn’t love something or felt like something wasn’t what they expected.
I’ve gotten good at not taking that home with me. If I have a bad work day, I don’t let it bleed into my personal life. And honestly, I’m better than ever at not letting it ruin my work day, either. I take the feedback, and then I choose to accept it or reject it.
That doesn’t mean I tell the client, “I reject your feedback.” Obviously, I still put on my customer-service face. But internally I’ll think: okay, this one client felt this way, but I have 24 other clients who went through the same process and didn’t feel confused. So I look at the majority and decide: is this a trend? Is this reflective of my process? If not, I apologize and move on with my day.
Sometimes feedback makes me think: I wonder if other people felt that way too. In that case, I accept the feedback, adjust the process, and move on.
Non-Negotiable #4: I Never Skip Repurposing Content
Like everyone else, I sometimes run out of time to write a new blog post every week or every month, depending on the schedule. But I am never going to do 90% of the work and then skip the part that gets the most eyes on it.
You will never see me throw up random show notes for a podcast episode. It just won’t happen—unless I intentionally decide there’s no keyword opportunity there. For example, when I did an Ask Me Anything episode, that wasn’t meant to be a full blog post. But almost always, you’ll see a full blog post like this one.
Getting more traffic to my website is the most important thing I do as a business owner. More traffic means more eyes on my work, which means more clients—or if not more clients immediately, more data. If I have traffic, I have options.
I never skip the repurposing step. The closest I’ve come is getting the blog post up the same day the episode goes live instead of having it scheduled ahead of time. But I have never skipped it.
As someone who has both a podcast and a YouTube channel, I know how much work they take. Outlining the episode, doing keyword research, recording, handing it off to editors (or editing yourself), and everything else behind the scenes. The idea of doing all that work and then not also turning it into a blog post feels wild to me.
I might be an extreme example here, but I have pages of receipts from business owners who prioritize this and I’ve seen how it pays off every single time. I don’t know anyone who has hired me to turn their podcast or YouTube content into blog posts who hasn’t seen a major reward from that extra effort.
Non-Negotiable #5: I Don’t Want Money From People Who Don’t Want to Pay Me
This one is controversial, but I don’t want money from people who don’t want to pay me. Let me explain what that looks like in real life.
This is why I don’t do long-term contracts, even though it would make total sense for me to require them. Blogging and Pinterest work take six to twelve months to show results. It would make perfect sense to say: “I want a six-month contract,” or “Let’s do a three-month trial and then sign for another three to six months.” It would make sense on paper.
But I don’t do that. I enter relationships assuming we’ll work together long-term, and I do require 30 days’ notice if someone wants to cancel—but I don’t enforce it.
Because at the end of the day, I don’t want money from people who don’t want to pay me.
I know that business-wise, it doesn’t make sense. It might even be a “money mindset” issue on my part. I’ve been told that before. But anytime someone is reluctant to pay me—if I feel like I’m convincing them, or they feel resentful because they’ve already paid four months and I said it can take up to twelve—it doesn’t feel good. And it affects my energy on the project, which I hate.
Happy Money
There’s actually a whole book about this called Happy Money. One of my clients mentioned it—not directly to me, but on her podcast—and I came across it while turning that podcast episode into a blog post. The idea is that when happy money changes hands, the person giving it feels good about giving it.
I want clients to look at my invoice and think, “Yes—this is a good investment.” Of course we all like keeping our money, but I want it to feel like, “I love working with Kara,” or “These blog posts are so worth it,” or “This investment is helping me build a sustainable marketing strategy.” That’s the kind of energy that matters.
And I feel that same way when I pay my own team. When I pay my YouTube editor, I’m genuinely grateful that I don’t have to edit my own videos. When I pay my podcast editor, when I pay my team—thank you, please take my money. I really believe it’s possible for people to feel grateful and happy to pay you, and that’s the only energy I want around my services.
If you don’t want to invest in blogging or Pinterest marketing, that’s fine. None of this is required. Smart business owners make their own decisions about what to prioritize. And if what I offer isn’t something someone values, we’re both going to survive.
There are a million business coaches who will tell you to enforce long-term contracts, especially for services that take time to produce results. And I get why. But if you’re working with smart business owners, which I am, they can make decisions for themselves. You can explain the timeline and the expectations, and then it’s up to them.
Contracts aren’t always the safety net people think they are. People still try to get out of them, or they stay but remain openly unhappy the entire time. For me, it’s just not worth it.
Non-Negotiable #6: I Take Radical Accountability
As the great Taylor Swift would say, I keep my side of the street clean. Sometimes this comes naturally and sometimes it takes effort, but here’s what I mean: I assume things are my fault first.
If a client misunderstands something, I ask myself:
- Where did I go wrong?
- How could I be clearer?
- Do I need to update my systems?
- Did I say something that could have been misconstrued?
If my team makes a mistake, I ask:
- Was the training unclear?
- Was the training too long or hard to digest? (Hello, 40-minute Loom video.)
- Did I provide the systems needed for success?
- Did I assign too much too quickly?
I always look to myself first instead of blaming others.
An Example From My Personal Life
The longer I’m in business, the more I notice how many people avoid accountability. They look for who made something harder, why it wasn’t their fault, or how someone else dropped the ball. And I see how much it holds them back.
Let me give you a non-work example. I signed my child up for dance classes and the onboarding process felt clunky. Which sounds wild—because it’s a class for three-year-olds.
With the dance class example, I was like: I didn’t realize I needed to be so prepared for a three-year-old to start ballet. I didn’t know what shoes to buy. I didn’t know there was a dress code. I didn’t know we were supposed to arrive early. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
And honestly, I still think the studio has room for improvement. If they asked for my opinion, I would absolutely say the onboarding is clunky and there are a million ways to make it better. But as someone trying to take accountability, I also had to ask: was the information on the website and I missed it?
So I went looking. And sure enough, buried on the eighth tab was a small line about dress code. I still didn’t find anything about the shoes, but maybe it was somewhere. Maybe I should have looked harder. Maybe I should have asked the right questions. Even for a three-year-old’s dance class.
Taking accountability doesn’t always come naturally to me, but I try. It’s a constant work in progress. I’m always asking: what could I have done differently to get a different outcome? I think more of us should do that. If we don’t have the business we want or the life we want, what can we do? It’s so easy to come up with a list of things other people should do.
One of the biggest differences I’ve noticed between clients who are miles ahead of me in business—established, calm, the kind of business owners I aspire to be—is this trait. They’ll say, “You did this wrong,” but then follow it with, “I think I wasn’t clear. Let me explain what I wanted.” That is leadership. That is business ownership. I can’t say enough about this. If you take one thing from this episode, I hope it’s that.
Non-Negotiable #7: I Refuse to Believe My Clients Aren’t Smart
I refuse to believe my clients need to be babied. If I asked you whether your clients are smart, most of you would say yes—they’re brilliant, they’re capable, you love them. But this mindset shift changed a lot for me.
There’s this idea that if a client is happy, they will constantly rave about you, the way you see online. So it becomes easy to assume that anyone who isn’t raving must secretly be unhappy.
Here’s how that shows up in my business: when I’m running Pinterest and blogging for someone, I only have access to certain data—keywords, impressions, clicks, saves. I know clients also care about leads. They want Google to be a top source of leads, ideally their number one, or at least a major part of their marketing ecosystem.
But the tricky part is I don’t always have access to their leads data. I don’t always know how many inquiries they’re getting from Google.
Sometimes clients tell me when they get a lead from Google—usually early on. I’ll get messages like, “Got my first lead from Google!” which is always exciting. But very often, I never hear about leads again. I could do an entire episode about changes I’ve made to better track results, and I’ve come a long way since the beginning of my business when I was basically crossing my fingers.
It’s not that I’m ignoring outcomes—I’m constantly watching the backend numbers. I just don’t have access to the most important numbers: leads and conversions.
It becomes easy to fall down a spiral. And I’m going to explain it the way someone explained it to me years ago, because it was so important that I had to include it in my nine-year reflections.
I remember feeling insecure, thinking: “What if nobody is getting results? What if people are just paying me out of guilt or because they like me?”
Then someone asked me: “Do you think your clients are smart?” And I said, “Of course. They’re business owners. They’re smart.”
And they said: “Then what you’re really asking is: what if none of my clients are getting results and they’re just not smart enough to realize it?”
Which sounded absolutely wild. It would be insane to think my clients are paying me out of guilt or friendship or while getting no results. People like to keep their money. If they weren’t getting results, I would know.
Tracking an ROI Over Time
And yes—it would be nice if happy clients told you all the time. But that’s not how it works, especially for offers with a longer ROI. In my business, that’s blogging and Pinterest. But I also think about brand and web designers. There are testimonials out there like: “I rebranded and got a lead in three days!” or “I paid off the investment with my first project!”
If you have those testimonials—amazing. I would highlight them too. But it also creates an unrealistic narrative, because a more typical path is: “I upgraded my branding and six months later I started getting more inquiries because my brand was out in the world converting slowly.”
But that isn’t exciting marketing copy, so we don’t talk about it.
There is no world where I don’t believe my clients are smart and capable of monitoring ROI for themselves. I may not have access to their financial data, but I can make it clear that they can come to me anytime. If someone isn’t seeing ROI and I see traffic and keywords rising, we can talk about it.
Again, it comes back to radical accountability. They can ask questions and make it clear if they aren’t getting an ROI.
This was a lesson from a couple years ago, but it stuck with me. I think we’re often told to create the path of least resistance, make it as easy as possible, make sure clients never feel confused or overwhelmed. And to an extent, that’s true—we should make it easy to hire us, easy to pay us, and easy to work with us. That’s one of the biggest compliments I get: how easy the onboarding and working relationship is.
But at the same time, it’s okay to believe that clients are smart and capable of communicating.
Non-Negotiable #8: I Choose My Hard
Another belief I’ve developed is that I choose my hard. I said it earlier, but for example: recording video is incredibly hard for me. I’m an introvert. It takes a lot of energy to respond to messages, show up on video, and push myself creatively. I don’t think I’m naturally great at video, so there’s an internal battle every time.
But this is the hard that I’m choosing. And it feels like a better “hard” than some of the other hard things I could be doing.
I am the first to say: I don’t think everyone should be an entrepreneur. I love it. I think it has incredible advantages. But I also know plenty of people who don’t want it.
I was talking to a friend recently—she’s a social media manager (shoutout Laura!)—and I asked if she considers her job stressful. Because personally, I think being a social media manager would be stressful. It’s one reason I stopped offering social media services. Algorithms change constantly, people get in their heads about numbers, and feedback can be very particular. Not wrong—just intense.
In marketing, a slow month can make you feel like everyone is mad at you or no one likes your content. Sales calls can feel hard, especially in seasons where trust is low. But there are far more miserable jobs out there. So I remind myself: the hard things I have to do in this business aren’t that hard compared to other hard things.
As I celebrate nine years in business, that feels true. I’m resourceful. I can figure things out. This can’t be that hard. Everything is figureoutable. When we only talk to other entrepreneurs, it can feel like we chose the hardest possible path. There’s a lot of rhetoric online about how hard entrepreneurship is—and sure, it’s not all rainbows. But it’s also a beautiful kind of hard that becomes easier with time.
This is less true at the very beginning. The unglamorous truth is that there are often years of working for free or minimum wage or less when you do the math. That sacrifice is often required to get to the other side. But once you are on the other side, it’s like: yes, there are things I wish I didn’t have to do, but I’m well compensated for the work I do. I’m well compensated for the stress (stress in quotations). And I never want to forget how good of a thing that is.
Non-Negotiable #9: Friends and Family Won’t Get It (And That’s Okay)
My last non-negotiable is that friends and family won’t get it—and that’s okay. You will waste so much mental energy trying to make people understand why you love what you do, why sometimes you don’t want to talk about it, and why other times it’s all you want to talk about. Most of the time, they just won’t get it.
Which is why two things matter so much:
1. It’s important to have a community within your work that gets it. I don’t have a million business friends—I would love more—but I have a few people I can Vox anything to. They get it, they’ll support me, or they’ll laugh with me about things no one in my personal life would understand.
2. It’s important to have a life outside of work. I didn’t learn this early on—I would say year five for me. I’m stubborn and a slow learner with things like this. But without a life outside work, you will find you have nothing in common with the people you care about—your friends, your partner, your family, the people you spend holidays with. If you work all the time and work becomes your identity, that gap grows fast.
Entrepreneurship is the biggest personal development journey I’ve ever been on. And I’m not saying that to sound enlightened—plenty of people have been in business way longer than me. But there are things you confront in entrepreneurship that others don’t have to confront as directly. And sometimes you see mindset or patterns in your personal life that you’ve already had to work through in business. Not because entrepreneurs are better—just because the stakes force you to deal with it sooner.
I could have talked about each of these points for much longer, but here’s a quick recap:
My Nine Non-Negotiables After Nine Years in Business
- I don’t ignore the woo/mindset work but I don’t use it as an excuse not to get things done.
- I don’t obsess over response times.
- I don’t allow client drama into my life.
- I never skip repurposing podcast/YouTube content into blog posts.
- I don’t want money from people who don’t want to pay me.
- I take radical accountability.
- I believe my clients are smart and don’t need to be babied.
- I choose my hard.
- Friends and family won’t get it — and that’s okay.
Thank you for celebrating nine years with me. I hope this gave you something to think about—and I’ll be back next week with something good.
LINKS MENTIONED
- Hire us to write SEO-driven blog posts for you
- Learn more about our Pinterest management services
- Learn more about working with our marketing agency here
- Follow me on Instagram
