8 Month Year: How I Took 4 Months Away From My Business
How can you take several months off from your business and still pay yourself as if you've been working the whole time? This is my first episode back after a four month maternity leave following the birth of my second baby, and I'm talking all about how I prepared for this huge, monumental moment in my life. I've got some tips to help you get your head around preparing for something like this -- whether it is for maternity or paternity leave, sabbatical, travel, or even if you want to take the summer off from your business.
Here's a sneak peak of what I'll be talking about, with timestamps in case you feel like skipping to the good stuff:
Why is it a good idea to take leave away from your business? [04:54]
Important questions to ask yourself before you start preparing for leave [09:08]
Do you really need passive income? Check out my "farming" approach [13:44]
Know your numbers [16.42]
How to track your progress [22:47]
Enjoying your leave guilt-free [26:19]
Special note!
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Why you should consider taking leave from your business
After having had my experience of 4 months leave from my business when my son was born, I'm a really big fan of taking a step back. I'm going to talk more about the benefits and what I've gotten from this time off in a future episode, because there has been so much clarity.
In a nutshell, I've been able to get so much distance from what I do in such a positive way. I've challenged things that I haven't challenged in a long time, and came out on the other side re-engaging with my passion.
I know that, especially if you're side hustling and building something that you're excited about, you probably feel like you want to use every spare second you possibly can to work on your business. But here's the deal: taking that step back is huge for being able to see the bigger picture.
"I know that, especially if you're side hustling and you're building something that you're excited about, you probably feel like you want to use every spare second that you can possibly find to work on your business. And there's definitely some merit for having a little bit of that spring in your step and a little bit of that hustle. But here's the deal: ultimately, taking that step back is so huge for being able to see the bigger picture."
It's like working on a giant whiteboard, with your face up against one part of the board. And taking a leave is like taking 10 giant steps back, so you can see everything, not just the one corner you've been working in. You'll start to see connections and projects that you've forgotten about.
It sounds counterintuitive that stepping back is productive, because when you've got your nose to the grindstone, taking time off seems like the wrong thing to do. I'll touch on this later on, but a lot of that has got to do with fear. What I can tell you now is that, coming into 2020, I've never been so confident in what it is that I do and how it is that I'm doing it.
Preparing for leave
Asking the right questions
Once I found out I was expecting, before I did anything else, I asked myself some important questions, which are the same questions you should ask yourself when you are preparing for your own leave:
What would an ideal leave look like? What would I really enjoy? What would my ideal situation be?
It's really important to have some intention behind it before you even get started with the planning. Truth be told, I thought about it even before I got pregnant!
Start as early as you can
I started planning for my leave and crunching the numbers as soon as I found out I was pregnant, so I knew how much time I had. I found out I was expecting in late December of 2018, so I spent lots of time in January planning for my maternity leave. My son was born in September, so I knew that I had 8 months to make my plans come to life.
Creating the plan
The "farming" approach to business income
As I mentioned earlier, my maternity leave was fully funded -- meaning, I paid myself from my business as if I was working normally the whole time. And I think my piece of advice on the income side of things may be different from some of the conventional wisdom out there.
A lot of coaches and business mentors would tell you to set up your business on autopilot, where you have sales coming in consistently whether you're working or not. This is the idea of "passive income." But this is not how I did it. I actually think there is an easier, more approachable way to take the time off that you want to take.
I basically pretended that four months of 2019 did not exist.
I took an annual goal I had, and asked myself, how would I hit that in 8 months instead of 12?
This reminds me of how farmers may have set up their year, where they work really hard during the growing season, and then live off the harvest until the next year. So this can be like the "farming" approach to business. As of September 1, I knew that I hit my income goal and was able to just coast through the end of 2019.
How to figure out your "number"
The key to make the "farming" strategy work is that you need to know your annual number: what it is that you need to make for the whole year, so you can figure out when you will be making it.
As I've shared in my Year on the Wall training and elsewhere, I know that my sweet spot is $10,000 a month in revenue. Over the year it comes out to $120,000. (Note that I don't take home all of it, I take half, and the rest goes to paying taxes, business expenses, contractors, etc). Following my approach, I knew that I had to make that $120,000 in an 8 month period.
And here's the key that unlocks the whole thing:
You've got to know what is enough for you, and let enough be enough.
"Typically, we tend to either pull a number out of absolute thin air and just say, $250,000, that sounds good. But what is that based on? Or we tend to not pick a number at all and we just get on what I like to call the infinity money treadmill. I have been there, done that, and let me tell you that when you don't know what enough is, there is no figure in the world that is ever going to give you satisfaction, because you are just always going to want more."
Letting your income be enough for you will keep you off the financial treadmill of always needing to one-up yourself month after month. If you want a lifestyle business where it's not all about the dollars and cents, then you really need to get a sense of what is enough for you -- and when you reach that number each month, you know that you are good and don't have to worry.
Work backwards to bring your goal to life
After you know your number, the next step is to chunk it down and work backwards. You now need to figure out how you are going to make your figure in the allotted time that you have.
If you have group programs, how many seats would you need to sell? Or if you have some one-on-one work, how many clients would it take? What other revenue streams do you have, or could have, that would allow you to get to that number?
It's very easy to make this part stressful, but only if you allow it to be. Or you could look at it as really fun and full of possibility (I prefer the latter!) Know that there are a million different ways you can figure it out. Try approaching it with asking the question, "How would this be fun for me? How can I make this happen and really have that excitement around it?"
When you have a goal for each month or week, then you can toggle and tweak your plans as the year unfolds. For myself, I was sailing pretty close to my number, and decided to give myself a little bit of cushion so that I could hit my number for sure. So I decided to offer a small group intensive coaching program in August for just 7 people. It ended up being an additional $10,000 cash injection that helped to float the business just that little bit more over the edge of where I needed to be.
So that's what really neat about knowing your numbers: you can look at your progress throughout the year, and come up with different ideas based on how it's going.
Enjoying the fruits of your labor
After you are at the end of your "farming" season, comes the tough part: allowing yourself to enjoy the fruits of your labor. This might seem kind of weird, but personally, I had a really hard time letting go. There was fear, and guilt, feeling like I should still be working.
Part of it was just the fact that living like this is not "normal" and most people don't just craft their lifestyle like this. Usually you work, and then you have your two or four weeks' vacation.
I'm asking you to flip it: think first about what do you want to be doing with your life when you're not behind your computer or phone screen? Figure out your vision, and then craft a business around that vision. I promise you it will change your life.
Links & Resources
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Emily Ley on Instagram — @emilyley