You Don’t Owe The Internet Anything
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Episode Summary:
In this episode, I dive into a topic that so many heart-centered entrepreneurs experience. If you’ve ever felt guilty for taking a break from posting on social media or skipping an email to your list, this pep talk is for you. I share a gentle list reminding you of things you’re “allowed” to do in your business—like changing your mind, taking time off, or prioritizing what feels aligned. Consider this episode your permission slip to make decisions and run your business in a way that truly serves you and your clients. Let’s release the guilt, focus on what really matters, and take aligned action in business. Remember, you don’t owe the free internet anything.
Topics:
What it means to not owe the internet anything
Why heart centered entrepreneurs often feel unnecessary guilt
The importance of prioritizing yourself and your business
A gentle list of things you’re allowed to do in your business
How to balance free content with showing up and serving your paying clients
Shifting focus to what your business actually needs
Embracing clarity, intentionality, and alignment in your actions
Episode Resources:
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Anna (00:06):
Welcome to the Heart-Centered Entrepreneur podcast. I want you to be rich. Yes, I want abundant financial success for your business, but I don't just care about your business making money. I care about you too. I want you to be rich and happiness in the impact you make in your relationships and in how you give back. I'm Anna. I built my six figure business as a side hustle while I was pregnant with my daughter in 2016. Now, I've helped dozens of women do the same. I'm here to help you build a profitable, heart-centered fully book business with the latest tips on sales and visibility with proven mindset hacks and sneak peeks behind the scenes with what's working right now in the online space and in my business, ready to make more money with heart. Let's go.
Anna (00:49):
Okay. This is gonna be a 10 minute pep talk. <laugh>. I know you need it because I've had so conversation with so many of my clients is like wild. It's wild. It's a heart-centered problem. Back in the olden days, in my Facebook group I used to have on Fridays, we would write our hashtag heart-centered problem, meaning like it's a problem only we have because our hearts are so big as heart-centered entrepreneurs, right? We're nervous about, you know, our business will grow so big that we won't be able to care for our family or for our clients well or right? Like we, we care. Sometimes we care too much. So anyway, this rant is entitled You don't owe the Internet anything, okay? If you're a client of mine, I know you've heard me say this, but do not hang up this PS episode. You're gonna listen again because it needs to be said.
Anna (01:40):
And I have about 15 different versions of this. I wrote down, I did a little brainstorm before I hit record because I want you to see the sneaky ways that this mindset of us ow the world gets into our business. And it really ruins things and it takes energy away from you caring for yourself, caring for your clients, right? I'm a big believer in when your clients pay you money, you need to show up for them, right? You need to deliver on your service. And for you, you might say, duh, but I don't know about you, but I've been in a course before. I have paid money for an online course from someone I thought I trusted. And halfway through the online course, they kind of just like disappeared. And I saw on Instagram, they post about a new course they're creating and I'm like, wait, we were on week six.
Anna (02:27):
Like, where's the rest of their curriculum? I did not complain. I did not chase them down because I was like, okay, that's really telling, and for me that says enough and I don't want to work with you anymore, right? Like that's the evidence. There we go. So we're not talking about that, right? We're not talking about you need to show up yes, for the people that pay you money, the people that don't pay you money, AKA strangers on the internet, people in your Facebook group, people follow you on Instagram, your email list, you don't owe them anything. What do I mean by this? I'm gonna say the examples in a minute, but one of the examples is, let's say you decide for a month, you don't want to email your list. You don't need to feel guilty about that. You don't need to feel shame about that.
Anna (03:12):
I can't tell you the amount of clients that wrote me around the new year and they were like, oh my God, I'm behind. Oh my God, I took time off work. Oh my God. Like it's so interesting 'cause it's not this conviction of like, you know, Ooh, I really wanna work more, or I should have been more intentional. It's like this weird guilt shame. And for me, when we get that guilty shamey feeling, you know what I'm talking about, right? That's different than I did something wrong and I wanna make it right, right? I apologized to my clients all the time in one of my courses. I didn't realize this one form was going out and someone filled it out and I didn't respond, and they brought it up to me and I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I gave them a bonus month in the program to make it up to them, right?
Anna (03:51):
Like yes, like my coach always says we, we don't always get it right, but we make it right, right? We want to apologize for our mistakes, right? But here's the thing, like when it comes to like, you are allowed to not post on social media to not email your list for a month, right? Like you are allowed to do what you want to do in your business and not feel guilt or shame about it. So I'm gonna read the list and let's dive in further. Okay? Here's a list, non-exclusive list of things you're allowed to do in your business. You're allowed to change your mind on anything. You're allowed to change your niche. You're allowed to post on social. You're allowed to not post on social. You're allowed to speak out and be opinionated and post about your values and your opinions and politics and religion.
Anna (04:36):
You're also allowed to not post about that if you don't want to. You don't have to share about your religion, you don't have to share about politics. You are allowed to share personal details. You're allowed to not share personal details. You are allowed to charge high prices. You're allowed to give someone a discount. You're allowed to take days off during the work week. You're allowed to work on the weekend. You are allowed to take income that feels good to you in certain seasons. Maybe you decide that's more coaching type work. Maybe that's done for you type work. The online space does this weird thing where it like makes certain work better than others. Like coaching is better than done for you work, right? Or it's bad to have a day job. It's okay. There's nothing wrong with a day job if that feels like the most aligned income to you in the season.
Anna (05:24):
I have had clients who have gone through major, major challenging life situations that I won't say out loud on the podcast, but have had seasons of like, you know what? I wanna get some contract work and I just wanna be behind the scenes. I don't wanna have a personal brand right now. Right? There's no right or wrong when it comes to passive income type Facebook ads type coursework versus live work on Zoom. It's all about doing the thing that's aligned to you, okay? Back to the list. You are allowed to make a decision that isn't profitable but feels aligned, right? Don't scale for the sake of scaling. Make sure you're designing a job that you love when it comes to what you're doing. You're allowed to fail or make a mistake online without making it mean anything about you and your leadership. You are allowed to prioritize your version of success.
Anna (06:15):
You're allowed to form a business around your gifts, your preferences, your values, your priorities. I feel like some of you need to rewind on this podcast and listen back to this. Again, this is a non-exclusive list, right? I'm just getting started. But this, just this reminder that we make up these weird rules in our mind of what we can do and not do. I could do a podcast episode on each of these, but the one I most want to talk about today is just this idea of owing the world stuff. Now here's the thing. My beautiful former coach, Maggie Reyes, had this phrase of, you're allowed to do anything that you want, but like your reasons for doing it. She does marriage coaching, and I really like that phrase, right? Because it really addresses our energy and our heart more so than our actions, right?
Anna (07:04):
Are you giving to that person because you feel guilty? Or are you giving that person because you feel generous, right? Are you emailing your list because you know it's good for your business and you know it's gonna help bring you clients? Or are you doing it because you feel like you're letting your list down if you don't email them? Not that we can't care about our community and wanna show up for them, but I think we do it sometimes at the expense of showing up for ourselves. Let me say that again. Sometimes we show up for our free community at the expense of doing what's best for us, and at the end of the day, we're a business and we need to do what we need to do to keep our business doors open. That's number one, right? And so I'm not saying to go stop posting on social media, stop emailing your list, change your niche every three minutes, right?
Anna (07:52):
Because that's gonna hurt you. And I want to have your best interest in mind, right? I'm the coach that's advocating for your health, but I just think it's remembering sometimes it is in our best interest to do some of those things to, to show up to our Facebook group and to say like, Hey, I was doing this nation direction, but I changed my mind. So here's our new direction Facebook group. And if you don't like it, then you can leave. No problem. If you do wanna stick around, then stay around, right? That you can think in your mind, okay? As I think about the five different platforms I'm on, I, it really doesn't serve me to be posting on five platforms. It really serves me to be posting on one platform. So I'm gonna shut down this platform or not post for a little bit and focus on the other ones, right?
Anna (08:38):
So I'm not saying to do these lists of things if it hurts you, but I'm just saying you're allowed to do the myth. It helps you, right? What is it that you want to do and what's your reason for doing that? The reason I'm saying this is because I think we got caught, get caught up in this like, oh my God, I haven't been posting on social media. Um, and then we get really caught up in the guilt and shame instead of focusing on like, okay, back to square one, what does my business need? What am I selling? What visibility is gonna serve me most and how do I do that moving forward? Right? I think 2025 is more energy on like releasing what was and more about I, I saw this amazing poster online, I'm redecorating some of my house, and it basically had the words like past, present, future, and had past and future crossed off and just present was really big and in italics, obviously I think we need to focus on the past so that we can heal.
Anna (09:30):
We need to focus on the on the future so we can vision, but we mostly need to be in the present as business owners, right? I did a post on Instagram the other day that people really liked and it was basically saying like, stop focusing so much on the future of your business when you're really not taking action in the present, right? We need somewhat of a vision and of a strategy, but the truth is that our vision and strategy shifts as our business grows. So the best thing you can do is be faithful to your current season. What is your job and your mission right now? Is it that your message isn't clear? Double down on that. Stop posting on social media and getting visible if you don't have clarity on your offer, on your strategy, right? Or is it time to get visible, right?
Anna (10:12):
Maybe you need to stop selling because you don't even have people to sell to. Maybe you need to be growing your audience with humans in the first place, right? Or do you have a big audience and it's time to start selling to them and being like, Hey, by the way, you can buy things from me, right? I remember starting to do that and someone was like, oh my God, that's so cool. I didn't know I could actually work with you. And I'm like, face palm, right? <laugh>. Anyway, I have a meeting in a second, so I've gotta go. But this point is I think this fear of like, oh my God, I haven't been posting on social. I owe my audience something. Oh my God, I feel guilty. I haven't been emailing my list, right? Like, stop worrying about your audience and start worrying about you.
Anna (10:48):
Start worrying about your business and what you need and let your actions be an echo of that. Your energy will be a lot cleaner. Your energy will be a lot cleaner. Okay? That's it. I love you. You don't owe the free internet anything. You don't owe anyone anything really, maybe besides your children, if you have them, if you have a pet that you are responsible for, right? But outside of that, it's safe for you to prioritize you to take care of you. I talk about this in my book Freedom Fund too, right? Like prioritizing our financial self-care before. We're like giving our money to everyone and everything else. Like what about you? What about your future? What do you have a savings account? Do you have a fatty retirement account? Right? Focus on yourself. You guys know one of my favorite books on this is Melody Beatty's book, the Meditations on Codependency. Not the main book she has, but the meditation version of Codependent No More, and it's the same concept. Focus on you. Focus on you. This concept changed my life forever. Okay, love you. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Thanks for hanging out today. Please hit that subscribe button so you can make sure to stay updated anytime a new episode drops. And I would love for you to join me in my free Facebook community. It's called The Heart-Centered Entrepreneur. We discuss the podcast episodes. I regularly go live and do free trainings, and you may even meet your newest biz bestie, so you can join at https://heartcenteredcommunity.com/. It's absolutely free, and I cannot wait to see you in there.
PS: In the midst of this challenging time I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help? One of the #1 ways I support my clients is by helping them simplify their business so that they can increase the flow of money without creating extra work. In this season simplified visibility and sales is needed more than ever.
So if you’re craving personal support as you reposition your free and paid work, I’d love to help you simplify your sales process so that you can produce income in your business even during a challenging time. If you want support you can check out my services and book a free discovery call here, or you can send me a DM on Instagram.