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Effortlessly Productive
Welcome to Effortlessly Productive with Annie Veblen McCarty, where we dive into the art and science of mastering your time and boosting your productivity without the burnout.
Join Annie as she explores practical tips, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you streamline your tasks, prioritize effectively, and get more done with less stress.
Whether you're juggling work, family time, or just trying to find more time for what matters most, our conversations will empower you to work smarter, not harder.
Tune in and discover how to make productivity not just a goal, but a way of life!
Effortlessly Productive
How to Build a Business That Doesn't Break When You Rest
Are you terrified to take a vacation from your business? You're not alone. That persistent worry—"everything will fall apart if I step away"—keeps countless entrepreneurs chained to their laptops, even during family time or much-needed breaks.
This fear doesn't come from nowhere. Most of us have experienced the painful reality of watching our hard-earned momentum evaporate after stepping back, only to find ourselves essentially starting over months later. What's truly heartbreaking is how this creates a vicious cycle: fearing the collapse of our business, we never truly unplug, which leads to burnout, decreased creativity, and ultimately—the very business stagnation we were trying to avoid.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: If your business would completely stop functioning during a two-week absence, that's a crucial indicator that you're missing the systems necessary for sustainable growth. The good news? This isn't a judgment—it's an opportunity. Systems aren't just about maintaining momentum during breaks; they're about magnifying your energy and compounding your impact every single day.
Whether it's automated booking calendars that fill your schedule while you're away, email sequences that nurture relationships and generate sales without your active involvement, or lead generation funnels that grow your audience on autopilot—each system you implement transforms from a one-time energy investment into ongoing returns. Your business evolves from requiring your constant attention to supporting your whole life, including your fundamental need for rest.
The mindset shift is profound: Systems aren't restrictive chains that limit your creativity or authenticity. They're the very foundation of freedom. They don't earn you the right to rest—you already deserve that simply by being human. Instead, they create the conditions where taking that rest doesn't come with anxiety, guilt, or devastating consequences to your business.
Ready to break the cycle of perpetual rebuilding? Check out the System Seer Playbook at avmcoaching.com to identify your gaps and create a business that thrives—even when you don't show up. Because your business should support your life, not consume it.
Coaches, healers, and creatives—how much money are you leaving on the table?
Coach OS is the world’s leading all-in-one software that automates your business, scales your income, and replaces all your other software for a fraction of the cost!
Grab your free trial now, at https://coachossoftware.com/
Hey, this is Annie Veblen-McCarty and I'm gonna teach you how to be effortlessly productive. I've been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and I got sick and tired of experts preaching what business and life should look like and what I should be doing as a leader and to turn a profit, only to find myself wasting time, burned out, feeling inauthentic and still not making any money. On this show, we are ditching the shoulds. I'm giving you permission to do business differently. As a certified master coach, I believe that everything you need to have success and build the life and business of your dreams is already living on the inside. I'm going to empower you to lean into what you do best, help you see your path forward clearly and give you the strategy and action steps along the way to become effortlessly productive. Let's dive in. Welcome to today's episode of Effortlessly Productive. Today, we are going to be talking about how to build a business that does not break when you take a rest.
Speaker 1:How many times in your business have you wanted to unplug? Have you needed to unplug? Have you had a vacation coming up? Have you had a kid who is homesick? Have you had something going on in your life where you needed to have a little bit of time away from your business, and whether that means that you stepped away completely unplugged, or maybe it just looks like you're in a season where you are not able to put as much time into your business as you normally would. And I think as entrepreneurs, we often have this worry that when I step away from my business, that things are going to break, things are going to fall through the cracks, that momentum that we have worked so hard to build is going to tank. And this probably comes from a past experience where maybe we have taken a little bit of a step back from our business, maybe that we have not been as intentional with our business, maybe we haven't been able to dedicate the time. We all go through those seasons in life, and especially if your business is not your main thing, that you are putting 30, 40 hours a week, if you have a nine to five job I'm going to say that in quotes, whatever that looks like or you have lots of other commitments. Maybe you're a caretaker for somebody Again, those kids, all right, we got to take care of them.
Speaker 1:So we all go through these seasons where we, for one reason or another, we have to pull back from our business for a little bit, or we're not as focused, we're not as intentional and we probably have had an experience if we do not have our business set up in order to support those breaks, in order to support those unplugged times and we're going to talk about what that looks like or what that could look like in a minute but if we do not have that set up and in place in order to be able to do that, we may have experienced that our business falls a little bit right, that momentum slows down. Maybe you don't notice it right away, but maybe, like three to six months later, you're like man, things are really slow. What is going on? Because usually the results that we're seeing in our business right now are a result of the work that we have put in three to six months ago. So it's very normal to have that story, to have that belief, to have that thing holding us back.
Speaker 1:This starts to turn into a limiting belief that if I unplug, if I take that step back, that things are going to fall apart, and what that creates is it's going to. If we kind of go through my life coaching, the push method that I teach and that I learned, so, when we have that thought or that belief that we're going to step away and things are going to crumble, that creates a certain feeling in us, and then that feeling it probably is something like dread or fear or worry or scarcity or whatever that looks like. So that is going to make us take certain actions, and often that is that we do not give ourselves permission to step away. We don't give ourselves those unplugged times. We either don't take vacations or while we are on vacation, we are still working the entire time.
Speaker 1:So we end up in this cycle where we are literally attached to our business and we are unable to take those breaks because of the fear of stepping away. And this can even look like sometimes we just need to rest. Sometimes we need to have a season where we are not as present, where it's more a season of us pouring into ourselves, of doing things behind the scenes in order to create that business that we want to create. So let's chat about what we can do to counteract this right, because if taking a break in our heads, if taking a break equals losing momentum, the reality because that could actually be a fact, right, it might not just be this limiting belief that we have. It could actually be a fact that if you take a break, that your results are gonna start to go down. The momentum that you've built is gonna slow. So I want you to sit here and think really carefully for a minute and I want you to think is that actually a reality If you were to completely unplug and stop doing anything in your business for a week or two weeks?
Speaker 1:Take a deep breath, because I know for some of you that just created a whole feeling of probably panic or something similar in your body. Let's say you were to take that week or two weeks completely off. Or let's say something really big happened and you had to take a month off from your business. Do you have things in place right now that your business would continue to run in the background, with you not having to touch every single thing? Would there still be things that were going on? And if not, that is a pretty good indicator that you not need, but that you could start to focus on some systems that will allow you to scale. If the answer to that was, I'm going to step away and literally my entire business is going to come to a screeching halt. There is nothing wrong with that? That just means that this is like an indicator of where you are in your business and some things that we can start to focus on in the future so that we are able to take those periods of rest when we need them. We are able to unplug.
Speaker 1:So that is a huge indicator that you do not have systems in place we're going to talk about some different systems here in a second but systems in place in order to be able to scale your business. And the reason why this is important is because, yes, we want these systems in place so that we can unplug and take a break and take a rest when we need that rest. And it's also really important because these same systems are what is going to magnify our energy and give us more time back. It's not magnifying our time. It kind of is, in a way, because it's taking our time and actually compounding that because we're going to build a system once and then it's going to continue to run in the background. Or we can also talk about this in terms of hiring people for our team right, hiring support systems. So this can look like a couple of different things, but that is a really good indicator that you don't have these scaling systems either. So what that means is, even if you are plugged into your business, even if you are focused and intentional and you're able to dedicate however much time it is that you want to be dedicating to your business, you could actually be maximizing that even more, you could be compounding it, multiplying it, magnifying it, if you did have these systems, because when you're plugged in and you have these systems working, that's where that huge explosion happens.
Speaker 1:We can go back to math class, right, and talk about the parabola. I am a math nerd, so math doesn't scare me. For some of you, that may have brought up some memories, right, maybe a subject that wasn't your very favorite. But when we look at that parabola, the growth starts off very, very slow, right. We can look at this as exponential growth too, like an exponential curve. So it starts off very, very flat and then, all of a sudden, it will spike up, right. The reason that it can spike up like that is because we have these systems in place. So more is happening than just the work and the energy and the effort that we are putting in, that time that we are putting in.
Speaker 1:We're able to compound that, and so when we talk about systems, a lot of the time I feel like that word is thrown around and people are like I don't even know what that means, Like I don't know what a system is. People just talk about these systems, so these can look like sometimes we're just talking about some structure to kind of reduce that chaos, right, when we talk about business systems. But what I am really focusing on here is actually the systems that could be either automated so that means you do it once and then a computer from then on takes that system and runs that system over and over and over and over and over again in the background without you having to touch anything. That can be an example. When we talk about an automated system, that is something that is going to support you when you need to step away, right, because it requires no input from you. You have to set it up that one time, but then it does not require any further input, so that you know, even when you take a break, when you need that rest, when you step away, that there are people doing some of those more manual tasks. And this is also a reason why that structure and systems are important, because when we can create structure and systems for the things that we do in our business. It makes it really, really easy for our team to come in, do those things the way that we want them done, do those things the way that we have found, create success in our business to follow this exact plan. And obviously, I am 100% a proponent, as well, of hiring team members who are also brilliant and bring their own magic, because they will be able to add their own flavor to that. But having that system and that structure in place is going to allow that to be duplicated over and over and over again by somebody else, so that you can step away.
Speaker 1:So what do some of these systems look like? These can be very, very I'm going to say simple in terms of, like you know, it doesn't have. We're not talking. You have to have a system that is this huge, massive thing that does a ton of different actions. Right, it doesn't have to be massive, it can be big. It can take care of lots of things and have lots of systems working interconnectedly. However, we can also do something as simple as maybe you create a booking calendar, right, so that people can go online and schedule appointments with you online without having to have a conversation back and forth. That is a system. You could set that up. You could unplug from your business and, as long as that calendar is out there in a way that supports this, you could have people booking appointments, booking calls with you. If that is something that you do that serves your business, they could be booking paid calls with you. They could be booking just like discovery calls with you, so that could be running in the background so that when you come back to your business, you have a calendar full of calls set up and ready to go. So that is one example of something that could be a very simple system.
Speaker 1:Now, with any of these systems we talk about, we can actually add on different layers. Right, I mentioned that we can start with a very simple system and then we can make that more and more complex. So an example of something we could add on to a calendar system is that we could then add on some reminders about the appointments. So set it up so people are getting automatic emails and automatic text messages to remind them of that upcoming appointment, so that they show up and they don't miss it. We can also add some emails or text messages that are maybe starting a conversation with them beforehand, that are helping them get to know us, that are maybe introducing them to some other systems that we have built.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have a free offer that you would love for them to plug into, just to stay involved in your brand and in your teachings. Maybe you have some paid offers that are evergreen. When I say evergreen, that means we're not teaching it live. It can be delivered without us having to show up live. Right, it's something that we've pre-recorded or pre-written like a product that they and this doesn't have to be a tangible product. It could be a digital product that they can purchase and get access to and then watch right or read or consume whatever it is, and they're going to be learning and getting that value. But here you've made a sale without you having to actually show up live to anything. So we could use this email sequence to nurture people, to have them get to know us and then to upsell them to have them grab some of our other offers right, some other things that we have that they can plug into. That is not a showing up live, so we can do that. We can also use these emails and text messages to follow up with somebody after their call. So maybe you're asking for referrals, maybe you're asking for a testimonial.
Speaker 1:I know, for me, collecting testimonials is, I'll be perfectly honest, that's something I have not done a great job of, and because that's not something that I tend to do manually, I have started to build this into all of the systems that I put into place. So once I am finished working with somebody, or they have a course that I have created or a workbook I have created, I am then automatically reaching out to them via email to collect a testimonial from them so that I can use that to help other people connect with the offers and the gifts and the knowledge that I have to share. So that is an example of how we can take a very simple system and then compound on it and you can see this is turned into something where we're nurturing people, where they start to get to know us. This is turned into kind of service after the sale, if you will, even though maybe we haven't had a paid call with them. It's that service after it's also collecting things that are going to help us continue to build our business, like testimonials and referrals. So we can take a very simple system and we can add on to it and maybe within that you then have a team member who is doing a piece of that, who is doing a follow-up with them. So there's lots of different things that we can do here where we're adding in that human touch as well as the automated computer touch.
Speaker 1:I will say, when we talk about those automated computer touches, you have written that you have created that to begin with. So whatever energy you create it in, that is infused in there and that energy gets to get magnified over and over, and, over and over and shared. It's not like you wrote it, with that energy and that energy just disappears and now it's suddenly this cold interaction. No, whatever energy you've poured into these systems as you build them, that is, the energy that is going to get magnified and duplicated and compounded, is going to get magnified and duplicated and compounded. So this is how we take our energy, our time, our effort, how we pour it into these systems that we are creating and then we can actually compound that energy over and, over and over again, without it having to be us giving that energy every single time. We can take the energy that we put in one time and we can actually use that over and over and over again. How beautiful is that? So that's one little example of a system.
Speaker 1:Another system that you could set up is, again, we have this free thing that we want to give to people so that they can start to better their lives, so they can start to heal, and also so they can get to know us and know our magic and find out if we are somebody that they want to work with. We can have a system set up Maybe you have some ads running that are directing people to that free thing that you have, whether it's a video or a download or a checklist or a guide, whatever that looks like. So we can do that. We can have a page with a form that they can fill out to actually get that to request. Whatever this free thing is. That also adds people to our email list, which is beautiful.
Speaker 1:I love email. I'm going to say marketing, but email just like pouring value into people with the emails, like showing up in their inbox to help them and light up their day. We're collecting their email. They are getting all of this value from us. They're going to continue to get value from us. We can then have an email that delivers whatever that free thing is that we wanted them to have, that they wanted. And then we can again use this email sequence. We can use the thank you page where they requested whatever that is that they wanted, the free thing. We can use that to share with them some other offers that we have and again it just it's kind of like that calendar, like this. We can build and build and build on this. So now we have all of these other things, we have these upsells, we have these additional offers that they're now getting introduced to. Maybe you offer them your calendar link to be able to book a free session with you.
Speaker 1:There's so many things we can do and you can see how, once we get that up and running, they're literally you do not need to step in. So let's say you were to unplug from your business for a week or two weeks, all of these people would be coming in from your ads. They would be downloading, requesting to download this free thing which is building your email list. They would be on the thank you page, maybe buying a paid offer or booking a call with you. They would then be getting emails to get to know you better. Maybe you're introducing, if you have a podcast like hey, go follow my podcast, follow me on social media. Here's another offer that I'm doing. Here's a program that I'm launching Join the wait list.
Speaker 1:Again, there's so many things that we can start to do with this. So you can now see how, if you were to unplug, maybe you come back and your email list has grown by 10 or 50 or a couple hundred people. Maybe you've made some sales in the background for whatever these evergreen upsells are, and you were able to deliver these all automatically, right? So your time and energy is still out there, it's happening automatically in the background, and you've now been able to unplug from your business while your email list still grows, while people get to know you, while you're putting your face and your name out there, your brand out there. You've been able to have some upsells, you've been able to book calls on your calendar, all while you were completely unplugged from your business, been able to collect testimonials, been able to collect referrals. It's beautiful, right? So this is how we start to build a business that does not break when you need to take a rest or when you want to take a rest. Even more importantly, we don't earn that rest, we get that rest. We deserve that rest. We are worthy of that rest. Just by being us, just by being humans, we don't have to do anything to earn that.
Speaker 1:You are going to have times, especially as I am recording this. I don't know what time of year you are listening to this, but we have summer coming up. I know so many entrepreneurs who are like I want to take a vacation, but I am honestly terrified to do that and completely unplug. I want to do that for my family. I want to give my family the gift of being fully present and not checking into my business. However, I am terrified if I do that, I am going to come back to a pile of rubble, all the momentum I've been working so hard for completely gone and just literally starting from scratch.
Speaker 1:And entrepreneurs get in this cycle of starting from scratch over and over and over and over again because they don't have these systems supporting them. So if you are scared to unplug, systems are what you need in order to support that. Systems are our rest makers, in a way. So I know a lot of people. The idea of creating these systems and building these systems is maybe not in their wheelhouse. Maybe you run into tech fatigue and you're like, oh my God, I don't ever want to have to touch tech again and that's something else that we can work through right. That's part of why I love teaching people how to build these systems and breaking it down in a way that is super, super easy, that it makes it easy for them, that it makes it little bite size and that we can start to then build one little piece of a system and then build the next layer of it and the next layer of it and the next layer of it until you do have a fully supportive system. So we need to have this shift right. This is a mindset shift, this is a belief shift. This is honestly an identity shift.
Speaker 1:So systems are not what is going to restrict you. I think a lot of people have that thought of. If I put these systems in place, like systems are so rigid, they're so restrictive. Systems are actually what is going to give you the freedom to be able to unplug, to be able to pour your time and energy into the things that you want to spend your time doing, like maybe you love coaching people, healing people, going on in-person retreats, all of these other things and right now, like creating new programs. Right now you don't even have the capacity to be able to do that, and part of that is that you are doing everything manually and you don't have this safety net of systems. You don't have this support of systems and you're so afraid to create systems because you're afraid that's going to be a restriction. But in reality, these systems are actually that freedom that you have been seeking and you crave so badly.
Speaker 1:So I invite you, start to baby step into systems, if you haven't already, and if you are a systems expert, a systems veteran, do an audit of your systems and look at where maybe you have some gaps that you can start to fill, before we head into seasons where that rest is something that we want to plan for right. And even if you know you're not coming up on a season where your rest is something you wanna plan for, life is unpredictable right. And even if you know you're not coming up on a season where your rest is something you want to plan for, life is unpredictable right. So it's always worthwhile to kind of do an audit If you want somebody else to take a look and do an audit for you, because sometimes we can get so focused in on our business, it's hard to see the bigger picture right. So I do audits, both auditing where you might have some energy leaks, where you might have some nervous system dysregulation because that's really important. Talk about that in another podcast episode.
Speaker 1:If you want to go tune into that one and also do a full audit of your business systems and figure out where you may have some gaps that we can start to fill so that you are fully supported. If you are listening to this right when I launch it, this is in process and it is coming so soon If you're listening to this, a couple of weeks or months or even years out, this will be out there for you. I have a full playbook that will also help you analyze all of your business, take a deep look and help support you in building these systems that you want to put in place in your business. It's called the System Seer Playbook. So if you are interested in checking that out and getting this full support and doing a deep dive and starting to get these systems built, go check out that playbook. I'm super excited for you to get it. Thank you for tuning into today's episode of Effortlessly Productive. I will catch you very soon on the next episode. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day.
