The Business Coaching Advice I'm Glad I Didn't Follow

The Business Coaching Advice I'm Glad I Didn't Follow

Have you ever wondered if keeping your job while building your business means you're not fully committed? Maybe you keep hearing advice from your peers or from your coach that you need to quit your job, go all in, or burn the shit down. Put yourself in a position where you have no choice but to make the business work.

I know I did. And there was a time when I questioned whether keeping my job meant I was playing it safe, or whether if I believed in myself a little bit more, my business would grow. But the longer I build this business, the more I believe the complete opposite. I don't think I need to create financial chaos in my life to prove a version of success or ambition to anyone else. Right now, keeping my job is actually helping me build a stronger and more sustainable business.

I talked about this on the Booked & Unbothered podcast. If you're building a business while working a day job and trying to figure out what you're supposed to be doing without burning yourself out or burning your life down, this is for you.

The Mastermind That Made Me Question Everything

I want to take you back to where I was a few years ago, building a different version of my business than the one I have today. I remember being part of a mastermind group. I was probably the youngest person there. I was the only Black woman. And I was the only one who still had her day job.

I don't want to make the people in that room the villain of this story, because they weren't. They were forthcoming about their experiences, their losses, their successes. It was a phenomenal group. But I don't think I was ready for the version of success they were describing.

People talked about what they had gone through to build these businesses, and some of the stories were wild. Divorce. Bankruptcy. Taking on massive debt. Putting themselves in really difficult financial situations because they had decided to go all in. And eventually, some of them saw success. Not all of them, but some of them.

I remember listening and thinking that maybe that was just what entrepreneurship was. That was the requirement. That was the price you had to pay. You go all in, and eventually you'll see the success.

When "Just Quit Your Job" Is the Wrong Answer

Around that same time, I was struggling in my own skin and in my own business. I told my coach I didn't have the capacity to do all the things she wanted me to implement. I had a job, my kids, my husband, and I was carrying so much of the invisible load. Her recommendation was to invest in paid ads, since I didn't have time for organic marketing.

So I did. I invested in the ads. I was marketing dental implant services, overinvesting in my business, and not making any money. And I remember on one coaching call, after I had been explaining my limited capacity and that nothing was working, she asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks.

When are you gonna quit your job?

When I look back now, I'm like, what? My business isn't even making any money. I've been telling you I'm in the red. I have limited capacity and a big family that depends on me. And your first question is when I'm going to quit my six-figure job?

But at the time, I didn't know how to process that. I thought she was right. I thought I was the problem. I thought the reason I wasn't making money or growing fast enough was because I wasn't committed. And like most high achievers, I turned everything inward and made it all my fault.

Borrowing Somebody Else's Blueprint

I was taking so many risks and nothing was moving. I felt like a failure. I was in her program and another program at the same time, overinvested, with a shaky business foundation, and not knowing what I was doing. I remember feeling like I would never be able to grow my business enough to leave my job, because the way it had been framed, quitting was the only way to prove I was serious.

I can see so clearly now what I was doing wrong, because of what I've done in my career for the last 16 years in the utility industry. When you're designing something, you can look at it from street view and Google Maps, and you can have the whole design worked out in your head before you even get to the job site. And then you get there. And you notice something is off. There's something underground. A tree is in the way. Somebody's property line you have to cross. The thing that looks straightforward on paper is never straightforward.

I was trying to fast-track success by borrowing somebody else's blueprint, her ideas, her templatized version of what success looked like, and skipping the foundational elements of what it takes to build a business. Their success was not my success. Their capacity wasn't mine. The conditions of their life were not my conditions. Just because a strategy had been validated for them did not mean it was going to work for me. That's a lesson I had to pay for, literally, in thousands and thousands of debt.

When the Money Came (and the Money Didn't)

Eventually, I started selling to healthcare providers and I began to understand something that completely changed how I thought about high-ticket services. These doctors had a costly and urgent problem. They were so busy working in their business that they didn't have time to build the marketing systems to generate leads. The problem had a cost attached to it, and once I understood that, my momentum shifted.

I had a 20K month. I had a 15K month. Last year was a high-grossing year for me. But here's the part I don't usually share publicly: after some of those really good months, I had months where I didn't make anything. Sometimes back to back. I could screenshot the 20K month. You think I was going to screenshot the next month when I made zero? No.

I couldn't point to a predictable pattern and say I knew exactly how to do this again next month. It's not that I didn't know how to make the money. I had gotten a hold of it. But what mattered to me was happening at the same time: I had a family. Three boys. A husband working long hours. We were traveling back and forth for AAU games. There were games I missed because of client work. And my kids were so used to me showing up that when they asked if I was coming, I couldn't find the words to tell them no.

I had to ask myself: what the hell am I building this business for? If I'm making a ton of money but I'm not present for my family and I'm creating tension in my house, what is the point? I figured out how to make money. I did not figure out how to make money consistently without me being the bottleneck.

Burning the Business Model Down

Neither option was acceptable to me. So I had to burn that business model down. I took six months off. I didn't publicly market my business. I didn't look for new clients the first six months of this year. I didn't start marketing again until July. I needed that break, because I was not interested in taking the same business and putting a different brand on it and calling it a pivot.

When I went back to the drawing board, I asked real questions. Who am I actually qualified to help? What problem am I actually qualified to solve? What am I good at? What does the market actually value? And just as importantly, what kind of business can I build within the capacity I already have, with my life and my family at the forefront?

Everything I learned from those bad investments now shows up in how I work with my clients. I teach them to build their business around their capacity, to recognize costly and urgent problems they can solve, and to charge a premium price point for solving them. Most of my clients still have their day job. And if they don't, they've been conditioned to market their expertise without articulating the opportunity cost of leaving the problem unresolved. Nobody really teaches that.

Why Keeping My Job Is an Advantage

Premium clients aren't just buying your offer. They're borrowing your judgment, your confidence, your belief. And this is another reason I keep my job, because it's an advantage. I don't need every sales conversation to turn into money. That has changed the way I sell.

I'm not about overcoming every objection. I listen. I use discernment about the person on the other end of the call. Not all money is good money. I come to the call with qualifications too. Do you have the right problem? Can I solve it? Are we aligned on values? Are you in the stage of business where this makes sense? Because I know what it feels like to invest in something when you're not ready. I know what it feels like to be sold to when I don't even have that problem.

Looking back, I shouldn't have been in that mastermind. Not because she was a bad coach or because the program didn't work. I wasn't in that stage of business. I wasn't ready for what she had going on. That was for people who were ready to scale. I was sitting next to seven-figure business owners, barely scratching the surface, still working my day job. The program didn't work for me. It did work. It just didn't work for me.

The Business I'm Building Now

I work 40 to 50 hours a week in my day job and spend about 10 to 15 hours a week on my business. But the business I'm building now looks completely different than it did last year. That's why I created this podcast. It's long-form content I repurpose into blog posts, memes, carousels, and long-form posts. Instead of sitting down wondering what to post today, I build a central body of work and let it do the heavy lifting.

I spend about six to seven hours a week on marketing, but I'm consistently having real conversations with people. I'm building relationships that matter. I'm not hiding behind automation pretending I'm talking to humans. And I spend about four to five hours delivering for clients, because I run a group program. The cohort model lets me teach people together, coach them together, and let them learn from each other without repeating myself 17 times on 17 different calls.

A lot of the systems do the heavy lifting. Not automations and AI. A proven process. Long-form content. Community. Intellectual property built from the things I failed at and learned from. All so I can be present in my life. When my kids ask me to close my laptop, I close my laptop.

Capacity Means Building the Bridge, Not Leaping Off the Ledge

I've spent 16 years in my career. I've earned the degrees, the experience, the respect. I've built skills that directly influence the kind of strategy and business owner I am. The systems thinking, the analytics, the problem solving, looking at something from multiple vantage points before I make a decision. That's what I'm good at. And I'm not willing to risk it all because somebody on the internet said I should.

I've also built a life I love. So what would I look like throwing all that away because somebody else's definition of success said I should, especially when the business hasn't shown me consistent five-figure months yet? I had the 20K months. Then I had zero. Zero. Zero. All of that is data. It's not evidence that I can't build. It's evidence that I'm not done building.

My job is building the bridge. I had to go back, refine, recalibrate, and define what success looks like for me and my family. Right now my job is funding the business while I build something that can eventually replace what I've designed over 16 years. I was strategic about how I built that. And because I have kids and a family depending on me, and a husband who has supported me through all of it, building that bridge matters to me.

What type of wife and mother would I be if I said, screw it, I'm just gonna leap off the ledge because somebody on the internet told me to? I don't need to leap. I have strategically built bridges my entire life.

The Thin Line Between Honoring Capacity and Hiding

I don't want somebody using this episode to justify sitting on their ass for six years saying, well, Yarden said keep your job. No. Your job can give you the money, but it can also build a really comfortable hiding place. I've had to check myself on that too. Am I actually selling? Am I actually marketing? Am I getting my offer in front of new people? Or am I endlessly preparing because my paycheck created a safety net?

There's a thin line between honoring your capacity and avoiding discomfort. Only you know which one you're doing. I'm not interested in using my job as an excuse not to build. I'm using it to build better. To build a more sustainable future.

I don't have a cute, sparkly date on my calendar saying bye. I don't have that yet. I would love to. But I need the numbers to make sense. I need consistent high-earning months, not one 20K month that lets me post a screenshot. I need to understand the pattern. I need real, documented demand. I need to know where my next client is coming from and what marketing is creating those qualified conversations. And I need a business model that doesn't require me to sacrifice my family.

Stop Measuring Your Success Against Somebody Else's Highlight Reel

I know a lot of people who aren't nearly making as much as they say they are. They're not nearly as successful as they pretend to be on the internet. So why would I use somebody else's highlight reel as a measuring stick for my actual life? Maybe I'm on page 10 and they're on page 50. Fine. We're still in the same book.

I'm not afraid to say I'm in the messy middle. I'm not afraid to publicly claim I've failed, I've lost, I've burned a business model all the way down. That's part of building. And it's changed who I learn from and who I take advice from. I can't take advice from somebody just because they've made more money than me. That's not enough anymore. I need to know: do they understand the life I live? Do they align with my values? Have they solved this problem for somebody like me? Are they listening to what I'm actually saying, or are they trying to fit me into their template?

Build the Bridge Before You Leap

There's more than one way to build a successful business, and the way you build yours has to make sense for you and the life you actually live. You don't have to quit your job to prove you're committed. You don't have to manufacture financial pressure to prove how ambitious you are. But you do need to use the stability you have to build the evidence.

Ask yourself better questions. What evidence do you need before you can make that step? For me, it means demand, consistency, and sustainability. Yours may look different. But you have to decide it for yourself instead of letting somebody else decide it for you.

I'm building a business around my life. I'm not building my life around my business.

If you're building a business and trying to figure out what needs to change in your offer, your marketing, or your positioning so you can build something sustainable, read why your marketing can work while your business model can't sustain it, and the real reason you keep second-guessing your decisions as a business owner.

If you're ready to stop building around hustle and start building around clarity, the REGAL Offer Accelerator is where we restructure your offers, positioning, and capacity around the life you actually want.

Listen to the Full Episode

Hear the full conversation on the Booked & Unbothered podcast episode this post is based on, The Business Coaching Advice I'm Glad I Didn't Follow. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or play it right here:

Booked & Unbothered: Off the Mic

Every week I share messaging frameworks, marketing insights, AI tools, and business growth strategies that help coaches, consultants, and service providers build businesses that convert without burnout.