Built by the Journey

#29 #17 S2 I Still Love My Business. I Just Don't Know What Comes Next.

Have you ever felt like you've lost your footing in a business you still love?

As seasoned female entrepreneurs, we know how to build, adapt, and navigate challenges. But when life changes, our familiar routines and plans don't always work the way they once did.

In this episode of Built by the Journey, we're talking about the power of taking inventory: recognizing what has changed, what we can let go of, and the experience, resources, and relationships we already have to help us find our way forward.

Because you don't lose everything you've built just because life changes the way you have to build it.

This week's reflection: What am I navigating right now, and what do I already have available to help me?

Learn more about Your OutLoud Person at chrislaible.com

Built by the Journey — Every Milestone Matters, Every Detour Counts.

Consistency is what sustains an entrepreneurial journey for the long haul.  Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts. I’m your host, Chris Laible.

Today, we’re embracing: Your Marketing Habit, deciding how you will show up consistently.

Marketing Habit: The Quiet Consistency That Sustains Your Entrepreneurial Journey

We spend a lot of time talking about marketing foundations: our message, our brand, our visuals, our language, and for good reason. A solid foundation removes decision fatigue. It makes you recognizable. It makes showing up easier. But once that foundation is built, the real work begins. That work is your marketing habit.

A Sustainable Journey Requires a Sustainable Habit

A marketing habit is not flashy, loud, or requires daily hustle. It requires intention, permission, and consistency that fits your life. It requires remembering that showing up counts even when it looks simple. Because staying visible isn’t about being everywhere. It’s about being present, and presence over time is what sustains an entrepreneurial journey.

Because the entrepreneurs who stay visible stay in business, and the world needs the reminder that you’re still here.

So, remember, staying visible means staying an option. Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can also find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

#27 E15 S2

The Entrepreneur as Client Zero. Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts. I’m your host, Chris Laible.

Today, we’re embracing the question: Are you Client Zero? The goal isn’t to invent

 a fictional person. The goal is to begin by observing a real one.

So here is the question: Are you Client Zero?

Entrepreneurs are often taught that the first step in building a business is to study the market. They are told to create an ideal client avatar, analyze demographics, and research competitors. They are told to look for trends, study data, and identify opportunities within industries.

While all of those things have value, seasoned entrepreneurs often discover something surprising along the way. Sometimes, the most powerful research does not begin with studying the market. Sometimes it begins much closer to home. It begins with studying yourself. Not in a self-centered way. But in an observant way. In a way that lets you understand how real entrepreneurs make decisions, solve problems, and navigate growth. Because before you ever become the provider of a product or service, you are already something else. You are a participant in the marketplace, a buyer, and a learner. Along that journey, you became a decision-maker, a problem-solver, and a consumer of services. You are a member of communities and someone trying to build something meaningful in the world.

This realization introduces a powerful concept of Client Zero.

When you begin recognizing these patterns in yourself, you start noticing them in others as well. And suddenly your understanding of your ideal client becomes much clearer. Because your insights are no longer theoretical. They are actual experiences.

Are you Client Zero, and if so, what’s next?

Entrepreneurs who stay visible stay in business by remaining an option.

And the world needs the reminder that you’re still here.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can also find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

There was a moment when you decided to build something. Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts. I’m your host, Chris Laible.

Today, we’re embracing a question: Have You Outgrown Your Passion? The goal isn’t to chase passion recklessly. The goal is to steward it wisely

So here is the question: Have You Outgrown Your Passion?

Yes, there was a moment. A moment when you decided you were going to build something.

You were fueled by:

• Freedom
• Flexibility
• Financial independence
• Creative expression
• A desire to prove something
• and A calling you couldn’t ignore

That passion ignited your entrepreneurial journey. But here’s the question seasoned entrepreneurs don’t ask often enough:

Have you already achieved what originally ignited you?

The goal isn’t to chase passion recklessly. The goal is to steward it wisely. Because staying visible, staying relevant, and staying sustainable require more than consistency. It requires fire.

So, here’s the question I’ll leave you with:

Have you outgrown your original passion, and if so, what’s next?

Because the entrepreneurs who stay visible stay in business.

And the world needs the reminder that you’re still here.

Staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

Will Someone Notice If Your Business Disappeared? Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts. I’m your host, Chris Laible.

Today, we’re embracing a question I’ve been sitting with lately. If you were to disappear from your business for 30 days, would anyone notice? Not in a dramatic way. Not in a “something bad happened” kind of way.

I mean, if you quietly:

Stopped posting
Stopped emailing
Stopped networking
and even Stopped showing up in stories, on podcasts, in blogs, or in conversations

Would your audience notice your absence? Or would the silence blend in because your visibility has been inconsistent all along? That question can sting a little. But for the seasoned entrepreneur, it’s an important one. Because visibility isn’t about vanity. It’s not about feeding an algorithm. It’s not about posting for attention.

Staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

#24 E12 S2 Designing What Fits You: Why Your Business Needs a System That Grows With Your Life

Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts.

Today, we’re embracing the value of designing as an entrepreneur, which is Designing What Fits You: Why Your Business Needs a System That Grows With Your Life

There is no shortage of PDFs, planners, checklists, and systems in the entrepreneurial world. We download them with hope.

This one will be it.
This one will finally keep me consistent.
This one will make everything feel easier.

And then… it doesn’t.

Not because the tool is bad. Not because the creator was wrong. But because it wasn’t designed for you.

The system that keeps you sustainable is the one that understands you best. And no one knows you better than you do.

And that’s how designing your sustainable systems helps you stay visible.

Staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

#23 E11 S2 Creativity Is Not an Art Class: Entrepreneurial Creativity is About Designing Solutions

Entrepreneurial Creativity is About Designing Solutions- Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts.

Today, we’re embracing the value of being creative, which is Creativity Is Not an Art Class: Entrepreneurial Creativity is About Designing Solutions

Some solutions may require you to draw on wisdom you have already earned.

If you are an entrepreneur, you are already creative. When people hear the word creativity, they often picture artists, painters, musicians, designers, or writers staring at a blank canvas waiting for inspiration to strike. And because of that, many entrepreneurs quietly opt out. They may think: “I’m not creative,” “That’s not my strength,” or even yet “I’m more practical than creative.”

But here’s the truth: if you are an entrepreneur, you are already creative, whether you call it that or not. Creativity is not about art. Creativity is about designing solutions. And entrepreneurship demands that every single day.

Creativity isn’t flashy. Sometimes it looks like rebuilding quietly. Sometimes it looks like simplifying. Sometimes it looks like choosing sustainability over speed. But make no mistake, entrepreneurship without creativity is exhausting.

Entrepreneurship, when coupled with creativity, becomes adaptable, resilient, and deeply personal.

And that’s how creative solutions help businesses become sustainable by staying visible.

Because staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

The Entrepreneur as Client Zero - Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts.

Today, we’re embracing the value of being client zero, which is The Entrepreneur as Client Zero: Why Your Habits Hold the Clues to Your Ideal Client

Most entrepreneurs don’t wake up one day and randomly choose a business. More often than not, we build what we once needed. We create what we searched for. We solve a problem we personally experienced.

Entrepreneurship is personal. No matter what product or service you offer, your first and most important client is you.

That’s what I call being Client Zero.

Client Zero is the test subject, the experiment, the proof that what you offer works. Before you can fully sell it to others, you have to embody it yourself.

Client Zero isn’t your final destination. It’s your starting point.

The more you understand yourself, the easier it is to connect with the people who need what you’ve built.

And that’s where real visibility begins.

Because staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

The Power of Being Bingeable - Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts.

Today, we’re starting a conversation where a library creates a safe place for discovery, which is The Power of Being Bingeable: Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Content Library

Have you ever had a moment where you got hooked entirely on someone’s content? Maybe it was a podcast, a YouTube channel, or a series of reels. One video turned into five, and before you knew it, an hour had passed.

Being bingeable doesn’t mean presenting all the time. It means you’ve built something solid enough to stand on its own. Your content library is your body of work. Your thinking. Your invitation. And when someone is ready to take the next step, it will still be there, quietly doing its job, keeping you visible.

Because staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.

Welcome back to Built by the Journey: Navigating Entrepreneurship Where Every Milestone Matters and Every Detour Counts.

Today, we’re reminding the world and you, too, by discussing the topics What Did You Do Today to Remind the World You’re Still Here? And what did you do for yourself today?

There are quiet assumptions that many seasoned entrepreneurs carry.

“People know what I do.”
“If someone needs me, they’ll find me.”
“I don’t want to be annoying.”

And so, we build. We serve. We show up for our clients. We refine our craft.

But we forget something important along the way:

Just because you’ve been in business for a while doesn’t mean the world remembers you’re still here.

Not because you’re forgettable. Not because you’re doing anything wrong. But because life is loud, and attention moves fast.

So yes, remind the world you’re still here. Be Visible, but don’t forget to take care of yourself, too.

Staying visible means staying an option.

Until next time, remember: every milestone matters, every detour counts, and your journey is building you as much as you’re building it. 

You can find this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and YouTube Podcast, so be sure to subscribe to be notified when episodes of Built by the Journey become available, and let’s walk this road together. In the meantime, please follow me on Instagram (@On Track with Chris), because staying visible means staying an option. And your journey? It still matters.