You Are the Business: Why “Self-Care” Is Really Profit Protection

Watch the Episode on YouTube

You’ve got your solopreneur business humming: systems in place, clients happy, goals aligned...but there’s one crucial piece most of us forget: our own well-being.

In this episode, Carly and Joe get real about the not-so-glamorous (but absolutely essential) side of solopreneurship, balancing your business and your life. From scheduling workouts like meetings to curbing doomscrolling and finding your community, they unpack the habits that keep you sane and successful. Because when you are your business, taking care of yourself isn’t optional, it’s strategy.

Q&As From The Episode

How can solopreneurs maintain work-life balance when their business depends entirely on them?

It starts with designing your business around your life, not the other way around. Schedule movement like it’s a client meeting, set clear boundaries for work hours, and implement repeatable systems so you’re not constantly reinventing the wheel. Remember: you are the business—so maintaining your well-being is maintaining your productivity.

What can solopreneurs do to combat isolation and loneliness?

Working solo doesn’t mean being alone. Join local meetups, online communities, or hobby groups to stay connected. Networking is also one of the most powerful growth tools for solopreneurs—you don’t need a million clients, just meaningful relationships that keep both your business and your mindset thriving.

How can solopreneurs avoid burnout and decision fatigue?

Repetition and routines are your secret weapons. Create standard operating procedures (SOPs) for daily tasks, batch your decisions when possible, and celebrate your wins—big or small. Recognizing progress keeps your motivation high and prevents the constant “what’s next?” pressure from draining your energy.

So, if you are lacking direction, having a hard time generating leads, or are having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do, or even just lonely running a company of one, click here to check out LifeStarr Intro!  

EpisodeTranscript

Carly Ries: Well, guys, we finally did it. After months of diving deep into the solopreneur success cycle, we have finally reached the finish line. But before we close the loop, we're tackling one crucial piece that isn't officially in the cycle, but it totally determines whether your business thrives or burns out, and that is work life balance. In this fun and honest episode, we share what it really looks like to stay healthy, sane, and connected while running a one person business. From scheduling movement like a meeting, and ditching the doom scroll to finding community and celebrating your wins, this one's a refreshing reminder that you are your business.

So take care of the CEO and that is you. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving. I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost, Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things solopreneurship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you.

But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. Joe, we technically completed the solopreneur success cycle in our last sound bite episode, which is crazy. I feel like we've been recording those episodes for year because there was just so much information.

How do you feel?

Joe Rando: Oh, I'm psyched. I'm glad we we did that. I kind of started doing that, I think, in season one or maybe it was early season two. It was a long time ago.

Carly Ries: Fifty years ago.

Joe Rando: Fifty years ago. Yes. When I was young and my hair was dark. but then we just got sidetracked on some stuff, and I never quite finished it. And now I feel like, you know, that feeling of, okay. I did it. We did it. Yes. Got it done. I think it might have been when you left. I don't remember if I was doing it after you left to have the baby. Maternity leave.

Carly Ries: Yeah. And you cranked it up that summer because I left mid June. And then by the time I got back, you were like, I have a success cycle.

I was like, oh my goodness.

Joe Rando: Don't leave me alone for too long. Weird things happen.

Carly Ries: Right? Yeah. I got it. It led to the book, but while that is a great framework, we don't like calling it framework or methodology, but while it's a great roadmap for solopreneurs, there's one thing that isn't really included, technically included in the solopreneur success cycle, and that is balancing work and life as a solopreneur. So today I wanna dive into that.

And honestly, I think it's one of the most important things, but it's also one of the most overlooked topics of solopreneur. Would you agree?

Joe Rando: I agree, but I disagree with the first part. Because I think it's kind of in step zero, defining your goals. Right? So if you're building a business to serve your life and you define the goals that you want the business to serve to your life, then it's kind of implicit that you would then have some level of work life balance, but I totally agree that it's really good to have the conversation explicitly, not just implicitly.

Carly Ries: Yeah. Because your well-being as a solopreneur, it's not optional. It's I think probably your most valuable business asset. I think you'd agree with me on that.

Joe Rando: Well, I mean, think about working for a company. Right? If you're working for a company and you work yourself into illness. You've got short term disability insurance, long term disability insurance, all these things, you know.

I don't think you can buy those as a solopreneur. the insurance company's like, no, it's too much of a risk. So you don't have that kind of protection, and you need to protect, I think it was Stephen Covey that said, it was something like the production, and he talked about this balance of production and the ability to produce and keeping that in balance I think he talked about, like, killing the golden goose. The story that they killed the golden goose to get all the eggs, but there were no eggs because it was the goose who was making the eggs. So they killed the goose, and the idea is, you know, you're able to produce as long as you take care of the thing that's doing the producing, which in a solopreneur, it's pretty much you.

Carly Ries: So yeah. Self care component. It's not just a buzzword. I feel like some people are like, oh, yeah. Self care, work life balance.

But it's the maintenance to keep your business engine running. Because you are your business, so if your health crashes like you were just saying, your business does too. Usually. I mean, doesn't run as efficiently as it can.

So I would say physical health first, scheduled movement, like it's a meeting. You and I have both tried to do that so much. I feel like I have finally stuck with it. Do you feel like you're sticking with doing it

Joe Rando: I have been. I was doing really good, and then I got a little hung up the last couple of weeks just with travel and some other things. Like, this morning, I got up, I lifted weights first thing. I'm planning on sneaking out about quarter of five and taking the dog out for a good long hike in the woods before dinner. Just hard with him because he knows it's dinnertime, and he always wants to go home. golden retriever. But yeah. I have been doing better and continuing to plan to do even better.

Carly Ries: yes. I mean, I've put it on my calendar, on my personal calendar, and just haven't moved it. Because it shows up on my work calendar too. Nutrition obviously plays a huge role in energy and focus. We're not here to be your dietitians or anything, but when you eat better, you think better.

When you drink lots of water, you think better. When you and I don't know if you and I could speak to a caffeine habit. But if you're prone to caffeine crashes, maybe lay off the caffeine a little bit.

Joe Rando: Yeah. you know, the arguments are, in moderation. It's good for you. I mean, there have been no studies that I believe, at least.

Now most of the studies show that moderate caffeine intake is actually reasonably good for you. But you don't wanna be either, number one, drinking eight cups of coffee in the morning, and then 02:00 comes around and you're in a coma. Or number two, having coffee at 04:00 in the afternoon, and then when it's bedtime, you're vibrating, which that's something I've done in the past. I don't do well with caffeine after morning. So I don't do that.

Carly Ries: it's funny when we were at Inbound, I would go back to my room and I would make a coffee. And when we get back at like eight, I just love the little Nespresso machines. It doesn't affect me. I did it right before bed, and I was like, this is just fun being in a hotel room and drinking my coffee. I don't know if I told you that.

Joe Rando: No. You didn't, but I read a research report that said that the people like you that process caffeine really efficiently get the most health benefits from caffeine.

Carly Ries: Oh, well then, cheers to that. Here's my coffee. But we're talking about physical health, and as a solopreneur, one of the biggest things we need to talk about is mental health. I mean, isolation is one thing, and I wanna talk about that in a second. You really need to find a way to take care of your mind. Don't wake up in the morning and doomscroll. Don't even wake up in the morning and turn on your computer. I know I'm not the first person to say this. There are so many experts that say don't open your laptop immediately, but really, waking up and finding a way to just whether it's meditating, reading, just being present in the moment, walking our dogs, like start the day in a zen mindset, I would say, to help set the tone for the rest of the day.

Would you agree with that?

Joe Rando: Good advice that I'm not following. I get up in the morning and I read the news because I have to do it early.

Carly Ries: That's like the worst thing you can do.

Joe Rando: Yeah. I know. if I do it later, then I don't sleep.

Carly Ries: Okay.

Joe Rando: So I do it early because I can process it over the course of the day. But you're absolutely right. I should be meditating. I was doing meditation for a while. I've kinda fallen off the meditation wagon lately.

I did do it the other day, but yeah. Okay. I'll do it.

Carly Ries: You're homewoke. I'm gonna make you not doom scroll. I'll Call your wife if I need to to make sure that she is on top of you.

Joe Rando: She's right next to me. Because she won't sleep either.

Carly Ries: If Licia can hear me, no doom scrolling in the morning. Let's talk about something every solopreneur, speaking of mental health, something that so many solopreneurs deal with is loneliness and isolation. And I'm gonna say it. It's my favorite phrase. Working solo or flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone.

So find a community, whether it's a local meetup, an online group, if you're a hobby club of sorts, whatever you're into, just find that community. It does not need to be a work related community. In fact, sometimes it's better to have a community that's not work related. Just to kinda fuel every side of your business. Because again, we're all about a well rounded business.

That means your personal life and your business life. So find ways to surround yourself with people. How do you think you're doing on that front, Joe?

Joe Rando: Well, I mean, I do have a social life. It's not as robust as some people's, but I really don't want it to be. I'm an introvert. I like my time of just kind of doing my thing, but I have a social life. I do think that one of the interesting things that I've seen I'm plugged in with a lot of different solopreneurs in different environments, you know, all kind of social media based.

But, one of the things I see is a lot of people saying, yeah, I got my friends, I got my family, but they don't understand. And so that's why I kinda feel really good about having a community of solopreneurs to come together because, these are people that understand, and I hear that from some of the people in our community that say, it's just so nice to have somebody else, other people that get what I'm dealing with and what I'm doing. So there's a little bit of a balance. But, yeah, what you don't wanna be is eighteen hours a day of sitting in front of your computer just, stressing out over what you're doing because it's not productive. You lose productivity after a while.

Carly Ries: Well, what I was gonna say is even if you think oh, well, I don't need to be around people. I'm an introvert. I'm perfectly fine spending eighteen hours a day at my house. I mean, even just from a business standpoint, you want to be talking to people to share your idea. you don't wanna be working in a vacuum.

So use that as an excuse to get out of your basement for those eighteen hours.

Joe Rando: You know, the longer we do this, Carly, the more I realize that for about ninety eight percent of solopreneurs, the primary marketing tool is networking.

Carly Ries: Yes.

Joe Rando: it's not SEO. It's not content, you know, inbound marketing. It's not pay per click. It's not social media. It is networking, and you need people for that.

Carly Ries: You do. Because so many solopreneurs, you don't need a million clients. a lot of them need a handful. So networking is a great way to approach that without spinning your wheels.

I think another big thing that I mean, there are so many things. I guess I'm gonna do a shameless plug. If you wanna know our take on all things work life balance, definitely check out our book, Solopreneur Business for Dummies. But we've talked about boundary setting in other episodes, which is I think is huge. The power of no, which I think is huge for work life balance.

But I also think just how to avoid burnout and decision fatigue is huge for well-being of solopreneurs. I feel like they're really sneaky pitfalls that people fall into. Would you agree?

Joe Rando: Yeah. I mean, there are so many places when you're running your own business that it's on you, and you're constantly making decisions and or even deciding not to decide. And all these things add up to stress. if it's an easy decision, great. But a lot of times, it's not easy.

And, we live that. You and I live tht in our lives and businesses, and it's very hard to maintain that every workday of your life.

Carly Ries: I think a way that you can try to do that is by implementing as many systems and routines as possible, like making repetition your best friend so you don't need to reinvent the wheel on everything every single day. Because that just gets so exhausting, like you were saying. I would say make those SOPs your best friend, make those systems your best friend.

Joe Rando: Standard operating procedures. and it's so nice because when you have a standard operating procedure and then something's not working, you can go, what do I need to change here? Right? You're looking and going, oh, that step didn't do as well as it could, let's do something different. Whereas if you're just kinda winging it all the time, it's like, oh, I don't know.

Carly Ries: Yeah. So following that, we've also had episodes on staying productive, which I highly recommend people check out. If you go to our podcast, you'll see the productivity episodes. But I think something that we haven't talked about from a work life balance standpoint in any of our episodes is celebrating wins as a solopreneur. I figured we should wrap up on this day because let's end on a high note, shall we? Because you're your own boss now, which means no one is going to be giving you a promotion, nobody's gonna be handing you best boss award or whatever, unless you wanna give that to yourself. You have to create your own celebrating system as a slow beginner because that will just fuel your motivation, your productivity as you keep going. So I've heard people that have kept wins journals. some people save client compliments in a special folder in their email.

Some people have a victory jar filled with notes of awesome compliments. Some people have a jar that every time they accomplish something they put something they'd want in that jar, and then at the end of the month they can draw out of that jar for their celebration. There are just a lot of ways to celebrate, but don't forget to celebrate. What you're doing is hard, and so you don't have to wait for the big wins to throw the confetti. make sure you keep the momentum going because you'll need that since you are flying solo.

Joe Rando: I'm really glad that you're here because I'm terrible at this. That's something I'm really bad at, and so I'm glad you can help people do it, and you can help me too.

Carly Ries: I'm gonna help you too.

Joe Rando: I tend to go, oh, got that. Okay. What's next? And it takes a little bit of what should be fun out of the process.

Carly Ries: Instead of sending you coffee from around the world for Christmas this year, I'm gonna send you a box of confetti that when you open it, like, confetti just flies out.

Joe Rando: Oh, you know, and Licia will just love that.

Carly Ries: Love that. Yeah. You're welcome, Licia if you can hear me right now. But anyway, so much goes into work life balance.

We dive into it so much more in our book, but those are just my thoughts for today. And remember you're building a business that serves your life, not the other way around. And that's my spiel. Anything else, Joe?

Joe Rando: Nope. All good.

Carly Ries: Well, listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, leave that five star review. We are gonna give shoutouts on random episodes, so keep an eye out for your name if you do that. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube. We will see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur.

You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.