The Ultimate Permission Slip

What do you do when your business model is no longer working for you? When your current income streams and activities are not just tiring but draining you to the point of exhaustion? My guest today, Tara McMullin, is someone I have long admired for her willingness to question dominant narratives about how things should be done, instead emphasizing what works for each individual person and business.

In this conversation, Tara shares her journey of making one of the toughest decisions in her business. As heart- and gut-wrenching as it was to make, it freed her energy for deep work that is even more aligned with her interests, energy, and identity of who she’s most excited to become. She gave herself permission long ago to drop the “expert/guru” model and focus on asking bigger, bolder, better questions instead.

More About Tara: Tara McMullin is a writer, podcaster, and producer. For over 13 years, she has studied small business owners—how they live, how they work, what influences them, and what they hope for the future. She’s the host of What Works, a podcast about navigating the 21st-century economy with your humanity intact. Today we’re talking about her first book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework To Change The Way We Approach Goal Setting.

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

• Our society is obsessed with goals and achievement; try emphasizing the process instead. 
• Break the content marketing mold by asking bigger, bolder, better questions. Let go of the need to be someone who has the answers.
• Consider: Can you live with less? Can you be happy and thrive with less? Think about whether or not the work you are doing and what you are offering to the world aligns with what you really need to be happy. 

📝Permission: To rebuild your business model from the ground up. 

✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Design an “earning” sabbatical, even if it’s far into the future. What elements of your craft would you be excited to dig back into? How would you spend your time differently? 

📘Books Mentioned:

• Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal Setting by Tara McMullin
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin
• Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

🔗Resources Mentioned: 

• Tara on the web, IG: @tara_mcmullin, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Tara’s Podcast: What Works
• Online Education Platform: Creative Live
• The Four Tendencies Quiz 

🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 

• 121: How to Steer Through a Downturn and Stop Micromanaging with Annie Hyman Pratt
• 114: “Failure is the Frame, Not the Picture”
• 040: It's Not Free Time If You're Exhausted
• 101: Run Your Business with Exquisite Greatness and Tiny Art Projects with Alexandra Franzen

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