How a phone call with Seth Godin made me scale back my business and change my life

A photo of Seth Godin.

It was a year ago. I had 15 people working for me, my business was losing money every month, I was stressed beyond belief, and everyone thought I was successful. “You know, Jeff,” my business coach told me, “you don’t have to do this.”

But I did. At least, I thought I did. When you’re good at something, you have to keep doing it even if it’s killing you, right?

After bootstrapping my company to a million dollars, I was now living in the stressful reality of running a seven-figure company.

So, I did what smart entrepreneurs do in this situation. I hired a coach.

From a blogger to a CEO

I thought things would be easier, but now they were harder than ever. So, I reached out to my friend Casey Graham to help me make sense of this.

Casey coaches business owners on how to scale their companies, helping entrepreneurs become CEOs. Here’s what he told me when I asked to stop feeling so stressed about running a business:

“First, you’ll need to work harder than you’ve ever worked before. For the next 24 months, you’re going to have to act more like a CEO and less like a writer. It’s not going to be easy, you’re probably going to hate it, but in the end, you’ll be able to get out of your business and do what you really want.”

This sounded like the advice from a friend who runs a software company: “Your life is going to suck for the next two years, but after that things will be great.”

OK, great, I thought. I can do that. It’s only two years. If this is what it takes to succeed, this is what must be done.

Together, Casey and I mapped out a plan that included US$600,000 in new salaries, a bigger team, lots of expenses, more work, and even more stress. And for six months, I worked the plan, pursuing this dream of freedom, updating my coach every week.

But each week, my anxiety grew and Casey told me the same thing: “You don’t have to do this.” Still, I kept going.

My love for the work decreased. I stopped writing altogether. As the company grew, expenses increased, and there were even a few months when we lost money. As someone who grew up lower middle class, I worried I was going to bankrupt myself trying to scale this thing.

A phone call with Seth Godin changed everything

How I strategically scaled back

Lessons on not scaling your business