Hey {{first_name | there}},

This month, I launched a new website, and with it came a new way to work with me—asynchronous strategy sessions I’m calling A New Perspective. I’ve received a few requests for these sessions, and the common thread I’m already seeing:

People don’t know how to spend their energy.

No matter what the selected goal was—attracting better clients, growing beyond referrals, raising rates, or pivoting entirely—the self-identified problem of nearly one-third of the folks who requested a session was that they didn’t know how to spend their energy to make that goal happen.

We all know our energy is limited. But still, the world continues to demand an infinite amount of it. Factor running a business into the equation, and you’re probably operating at an energy deficit—pouring everything into client work while your own business survives on scraps of attention.

So how do we decide where to spend our limited energy? That’s this week’s Brand Burnout.

Repeat after me: My energy is finite. My attention is finite. My time is finite.

Saying it is one thing. But coming to terms with it is a different story.

Despite knowing we have limited hours in a day, next to zero free time on our calendar, and limited brain space to think through complex problems, we still take on more and more, all while telling ourselves the same story.

“This will only take a minute!”

“This is a great opportunity for exposure!”

“This person really needs my help.”

But saying “yes” to one thing is saying “no” to something else.

The problem is that most of us spend our energy reactively, not strategically. We say yes based on urgency, guilt, or opportunity—not based on what our business actually needs in a specific season.

With my clients, I talk a lot about making space for “the possibility of…” The possibility of what exactly? We won’t really know until we make space for it.

Take, for example, one of my clients who had built a lower-ticket offer that genuinely worked — it solved a real problem, and clients were happy with it.

The lower ticket offer wasn't bad—in fact, it served a pretty significant purpose during a different season of her business. In that season, which was a slower one, it helped her drum up new work and generate some revenue. But as her business grew into a new season—one bursting at the seams with client work, a rebrand, and a busy travel schedule—the smaller offer became a roadblock.

Every time she took on one of these smaller engagements, she was saying no to the deeper, more meaningful engagements that created space in her schedule and afforded her the flexibility she needed to live her life while still doing meaningful work.

Turning down these opportunities didn’t look so literal as, “No, I can’t work with you.”

It was the time on her calendar—pushing start dates out by weeks and months.

It was her capacity for solving problems—she was working really hard and didn’t have much space to think beyond keeping her head above water.

It was the quality of the work. She admitted to me she had started giving more and more away as part of the smaller offer, because she was craving more depth from the work itself.

Meanwhile, the clients vying for the lower-ticket offer were often more uncertain and required far more hand-holding. They were slower to make decisions, less confident in feedback, and less likely to fully implement the work afterward.

The problem wasn’t the offer itself. It was that the offer no longer matched what the business needed most from her energy.

But saying “no” to an offer you spent so much time creating? That’s pretty scary! To get comfortable with putting the offer on ice, we had to back into the bigger question—what did my client actually need in her business? Was it more money? Sustainability? A chance to reconnect with the work itself?

Looking at what your unique business needs is a more specific filter than “what could make money” or “what are people asking for?” There’s a time and a place for those questions—usually when you’re inventing or reinventing the business—but not while you’re trying to make the most of what’s already working.

In this case, my client needed the opportunity to reconnect with the work itself. A chance to do the deeper work with more aligned clients so she could think through the impact of the work and uncover new ways of talking about it in a way that resonated with more of those right-fit clients.

After lots of conversations and really digging into the core of each of her offers, we realized one thing—the two offers weren’t that different after all. One was just priced lower, which attracted the very clients she was starting to resent.

So, we put the offer in a metaphorical lockbox and determined some very specific conditions that had to be true for her to unlock it. Everything else defaulted to the full engagement.

We didn't know exactly what would happen when she stopped leading with the smaller thing. But we knew this season of her business would require her to stop optimizing for accessibility and start optimizing for depth, alignment, and the type of work that would help her get back in touch with the impact of the work itself.

What showed up? A client who opened the conversation by saying, “I want the best package.”

What your business needs should become your standard filter for decision-making.

In any given season, one need will sit above the others. The clearer you are about that need, the easier it becomes to decide where your energy should go.

So instead of asking, “Where should I spend my energy?” start asking, “What does my business need from me right now?”

Thanks for reading,

Step right up! See what you’ve been missing! Send me a bit about the challenge you’re currently working through in your business, and I’ll send back a personalized video about what I see, what may be happening beneath the surface, and where to focus next.

If you know your energy is misaligned—get on in here! I’ve got 4 spots for Calibration Sessions in June! These one-hour, structured strategy sessions are designed to give you clarity, direction, and next steps for solving your most pressing business challenge.

My books are currently open for brand-led strategic advisory engagements. These engagements help you identify the true leverage points in your business while turning abstract ideas into a plan of action.

You made it to the end of the email! As a little treat, here’s a song I’ve loved lately.