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"And now it's your responsibility to make sure that that sustains, that it meets your not only needs, but wants and dreams without draining you dry.""I had to treat me as a stakeholder, and you do, too, so that you won't let it slip, so you become a goal on the paper.""You can't want a vacation. You can't just want these things. You have to make them happen.""A business plan essentially ignores the capacity and wellbeing of the woman responsible for executing it.""This rest, this wellness, like it is your life at the end of the day.""It's not about deserve, it's not about earn, it's not about reward. It's about, it's your freaking life."
Rooted & Relentless is the business strategy podcast for entrepreneurs building service-based businesses designed to grow, adapt, and last. Business strategist Steph Rubio shares practical guidance on a range of topics meant to help you sell, scale, and stabilize.
Think sustainable business growth, revenue strategy, systems, capacity, client experience, and the founder leadership required to turn your skills into a successful, sustainable company.
Steph Rubio: [00:00:00] the fifth and final and queen stakeholder of them all is you, yourself.
Whose vision was the business? Whose wants, needs were being met through the business? Whose impact? Whose vision? It's yours, all of it, from your head to your heart and out into the world. And now it's your responsibility to make sure that that sustains, that it meets your not only needs, but wants and dreams without draining you dry
I'm Steph Rubio, your go-to for honest, nuanced conversations about growing a business and building a life that you actually freaking love. Around here, we're rooted in who we are, even if we're still learning to love her, getting clear on where we want to go, and we're relentless in our pursuit to get there.
We talk about what it actually takes to build and lead a business that can sustain growth, weather market shifts, and support the life you actually want, from strategy, sales, and systems to relationships, reputation, and the self-leadership required to navigate all the messy decisions in between.
This is [00:01:00] Rooted and Relentless. Grab your notebook and hold on to your tits. This one's for you.
Steph Rubio: Earlier this year, I revealed and rolled out and have since led several talks on this concept that I coined stakeholder experience. And now it's not just a concept. Little did I know at the time it would be one lens in my six lens methodology of the lenses, if you will, for lack of a better way to say this, that you need to know, look, understand, and really build a business through build, scale, sustain, like it's the full shebang.
And stakeholder experience is one lens in that entire methodology. I have podcasts on that, so if you need those, like holler at your girl, let me know because it's really unique, and it matters. It's really taking this... And, and there's a point here, today's not all about stakeholder experience. I already covered that.
You gotta just follow the breadcrumbs that I'll lay for you, and then we'll tie a pretty little bow on it, and it's important for you to understand this. [00:02:00] A few key pieces at least. So when I talk about stakeholder experience, the purpose and the point of why it matters is helping people understand that in our businesses, way more than just our clients have a stake, right?
A lot of us approach it as like, "Okay, we have this business to make money Who are we making money from, right? That's our revenue coming in. And we have clients, and if we are running a good, healthy business, we care about keeping those clients around, retention, right? We care about getting referrals from them, and I can talk about the strategy behind that all day, but I already did, how referrals are better for your business and retention is better for your business.
Great health metrics, right? And so why it matters to focus in that area. The point of stakeholder experience is to show you that way more than clients have a stake in your business and you can leverage them. Leverage is another one of the lenses in my methodology, which I'll be rolling out soon.
Like, this fall, I'll have an episode for each of these and going through it, and it's really just a culmination of my work so far and makes everything I've ever talked about, taught, [00:03:00] helped people with make sense. So there is more than just clients that have a stake in your business that you can leverage for more revenue instead of constantly chasing, attracting to you, right?
Inbound opportunities while you sleep is what I call it. So you have clients. We're familiar with that one. You also have collaborators, so people that you are guesting on podcasts with, that you're speaking with, that you're doing Instagram Lives with, that you're doing takeovers with. And the power of collaborations, there's an episode for that.
But you expand your reach, right? And you get in front of new people, and you bypass trust barriers. Then there's biz buddies, people that have never paid you, have not collaborated with you, but you brush shoulders with, know what you do, still refer you, and drop your name. Really powerful. And then there's teammates who have a stake in the success of your business, right?
I think that one's kinda obvious to you. Again, if you don't understand the strategy of keeping your teammates around and giving them a great experience, we need to talk. You need to listen to the episodes on that. And then the fifth and final and queen stakeholder of them all is you, yourself. And the way I present this is whose idea was the business?
Whose [00:04:00] vision was the business? Whose wants, needs were being met through the business? Whose impact? Whose vision? It's yours, all of it, from your head to your heart and out into the world. And now it's your responsibility to make sure that that sustains, that it meets your not only needs, but wants and dreams without draining you dry.
. But there's this whole other part to caring for you as the stakeholder, and it's what a lot of us have heard through the years of, like, can't pour from an empty cup. That's all true, so you can't just roll your eyes at those memes, right? But I'm gonna give you examples and talk through some of this today and how it's become evident and how me kinda training the women I support to do this, coming around and, like, slapping me in the face in a really good way, like, in a really good way, but I'd never even realized...
I was doing it to help women. I didn't know it would end up benefiting me, which is obviously interesting and, and absolutely not why I've done this. It's been grounded in why it matters. So A couple different ways and why it's so important to have this whole one of five zone, a way to think about it, is because women in historically [00:05:00] underrepresented groups, which is who I support, who are stakeholders in their business, historically put themselves last.
We're the caregivers. We've been trained for centuries to put ourselves last, to give, give, give until there's nothing left. So we're always getting the dregs of our tank. When what's interesting, if you think about it, is that it's our life at the end of the day, like ours. I talk about this in terms of like not outsourcing and making it someone else's responsibility to make me happy.
So I don't mean this from a selfish aspect. I mean that it's no one else's responsibility. Not my husband, even though we're together because we are happy and we like each other's company, it's not his responsibility to make me happy. It's not my kids' responsibility. It's not my family's responsibility, my partners, my families, my friends.
It is my life, so it's my responsibility to make sure that I'm healthy. It's my responsibility to make sure I'm wealthy. It's my part to make sure I'm abundant in happiness and all of that, you know? My responsibility. So the problem is that women historically have not been able to. We served a purpose not even that long in the [00:06:00] distant past of being in the kitchen and being at home and being the caretaker and not getting jobs.
The man had to make the money and be the breadwinner, you know, and we just had to succumb to their whims and all that. So we are just even getting to a point where most of us still start these businesses to meet some need, you know, to get a little financial freedom, to be home to take care of our kids, to save some money, to not work for a dickhead boss or something like that.
And once that baseline need is met, it's like, w- cool, what else? Now you realize, like, you can just You can turn this business into something and make anything come true, so, like, what else is that? Most of us have never done that. We've never actually stopped and got clear on what that is. That means we also have not ever even considered typically giving ourself time away for no other reason, just for time away.
There's a couple of ways that I put myself first so that I don't pour from an empty cup, and the funny thing is I had to set goals for this. I had to treat me as a stakeholder, and you do, too, so that you won't let it slip, so you become a goal on the paper, which is funny to people. Again, if you only [00:07:00] isolate this into, say, like, the mom part of my life, right?
It's like, "Oh, my God, you put yourself first? Oh, what about your kids?" So selfish. No. My kids are gonna come first by default. That's our freaking default. So I don't have to put a goal around feeding them and make sure they are healthy and that they get their sleep and that they do what makes them happy and that they have hobbies.
That is the default. They're gonna eat, because they're gonna take the snack from me and then I'm not gonna have one. So I have to actively work to put myself first, and I would venture to say that you probably do, too. So that looks like anything from therapy if you need support and being okay with that.
That looks like time out completely on your own. For me, it looks like 30 minutes. I take a hot bath every single night, and it's alone time and the door's locked and no one's in there. I talk about this frequently. My people know I'm doing that. I take a 30-minute walk every day. I need one, and I need it to be in nature uninterrupted and, and that's it.
Like, and I get a hour for myself every day, boom. Between running a business, raising a family, we'll call that a win. But it doesn't stop there. One of the first things I do with clients [00:08:00] is start working on this piece and make them take time off. I make them put it on their calendar. And here's the thing, you have to do this, too.
You can't want a vacation. You can't just want these things. You have to make them happen. So when you do your annual business planning, when you sit down, which please do this, and you're like, "All right, what are we doing for the year ahead? Like, what am I selling? How much money I wanna make? Like, how do, how do I plan to do that at the bare minimum?"
You're also a part of that. So in your annual planning for your business, make sure that you're classifying yourself as a stakeholder, because that's what you're already doing if you don't realize it. You're planning for how many clients you need. When you think about revenue, how many clients are gonna take you to that, okay?
You're planning collaborations in some way, shape or form. If you're planning to speak, if you're planning to be on podcasts, if you're planning to try to collaborate to get more eyes to get those clients, right? If you need to hire, you're planning around teammates. So you're already doing this even if you weren't thinking about it through the stakeholder lens, but you're probably not doing yourself, ' cause I know you.
I know how this goes, okay? Are you putting time [00:09:00] on your calendar? That's what I have my people do. I'm like, "You go ahead and right now mark that time off," and do it quarterly. Why are you only taking one vacation a year? That's silly that you have a whole year and it's your year. So more than a week, baby cakes.
- A couple things, like why I say quarterly, and what those can look like specifically. So it doesn't always have to be a vacation. In fact, I took 17 days off over the summer, and a lot of people were like, "Where are you going? What are you doing?" And I was like, "Um, nowhere." I mean, we did end up going to our in-laws and visiting them for 5 days out of the 17.
We had friends come visit. But like when you go on a vacation, you still have to plan. You still have to use some sort of mental yes, of course, less... Yes, unless you do like travel advisors and stuff, absolutely. But you're still planning, leaving, and, and meeting deadlines and stuff like that. So sometimes it's not always just take a vacation.
I didn't say take a vacation off every quarter, but I said mark time off on your calendar every quarter, and the point of marking your time off on your calendar is hold yourself accountable to it happening. So that should be a non-negotiable for you when you sit down and plan your [00:10:00] year, and there's a couple different ways.
One, you should sit down and plan your year for your business. I suggest coupling that also with time, and this can serve as a couple other things. I was talking to a business owner last year, like we met, we hung out at the beach a little bit. She's a friend of mine now here in town, and she talked about doing this, and I have been talking about doing the same, and the funny thing is it was the same hotel.
We had did it at different times. But go hole yourself up in a hotel and spend time planning the business, but also maybe hit the spa and have some good food and chill time for yourself with no one else around while you're there. You get to not only tunnel deep and get clear on what your business needs, but you also get to reset and love on yourself.
Celebrate what you did last year. Just take care of yourself for being a badass woman because it is your life at the end of the day. So what does that look like? Um, taking time off quarterly, maybe you do take a week where you go on vacation over the summer or something with family. Cool. That's your time off for that.
Maybe another one's just a Friday and a Monday and you take an extended weekend. That doesn't mean you have to go anywhere. You just take time off. You lock that laptop in a safe deposit [00:11:00] box somewhere where you can't get to it, and you take time and you reflect and you feel good. You do what lights you up.
For me, like I'll just take a day and I'll just read a book. Why not? I love to read books. I love to read fantasy books, so I'm working a lot and fast these days, and if I don't read fantasy books, I feel like, what am I doing? If that's what I want to do with my time, why am I just working all the time and not doing that?
So take two days off and do it. I'll be doing that in October when my super anticipated book in this series here... You can't see it. It's beautiful, colorful Actar series, and holy shit, I just kind of realized those are becoming my brand colors, lightly, not that bright. You'll see. Oh, my God, the tell-tale to that.
That is whack. All right. Okay, focus, Stephanie. All right. So the cool thing is I have a client going on two years now, nearly, one-on-one calls every month, and I told her this concept, like that she should take time off. She is a woman who has left her 9:00 to 5:00 Since working with [00:12:00] me, like she became a VA on her own and we started working together.
She left her nine-to-five and has since scaled and changed the whole thing because she was more advanced. Like, she was way better in the strategy realm and the operations consulting. She's now a fractional COO. She was way better at that than just being the executor, but she-- we had to get clear on that.
She had to give herself permission, admit that, notice these zones, price accordingly, right? And she has since now has one retainer client who pays all the hours plenty of money. She went from making a couple thousand a month and working a corporate job she hated to making nine thousand in revenue in her own business.
And she was really just stepping into her power and still has a lot through the past years and has really started to step into, like, how she owns her space in the world as a woman and looking at how that affects her daughter and young girls in the generation to come. It's freaking fascinating, and I'm so proud of her.
But this has been a journey of realizing that she can. You know, she had the [00:13:00] typical thing of, like, quitting your nine-to-five and family doubting you and questioning what you did. A couple weeks after quitting that nine-to-five and going all in on her business with all of this doubt from everybody in her support system, she lost a couple of those clients, so it almost validates that, right?
But she stayed steady. We stayed steady. We kept emotions. We kept doing the right things that bring new clients, and it worked for her. We transitioned her business over time into what it is today And so this stepping into and owning her expertise, her power, what she wants, going after it, just her space in the world has been a journey.
And one of those first things, and she remembered this, and it wasn't like a homework thing. It's me coaching her on this, but you have to go implement and has worked to take time off every single quarter since that for two years now. And that's vacation with family sometimes. Her and her husband went away alone for the first time in a while.
And she was the very first person who purchased a ticket to come to the Rooted Reset the moment it opened. I didn't even know what city this would be in, okay? I just knew it'd be in the US. And I [00:14:00] was like, "Um, you know I'm actively looking for homes, and I know you wanna be there." I opened it to the wait list.
Two people grabbed those. She was one of the first ones, and she told me, this is where I said it'll slap you in the face, in a good way in this case, right? 'Cause I get to meet her in real life. I get to really change the game for her again coming to the Rooted Reset, and obviously she's paying me as a client.
So how's that benefit? And that was never even why I said this. I said it for all the reasons I just told you. She told me, "I knew I wanted to be there. I knew I wanted a space, so I didn't hesitate, and this is my time off for that quarter." Like, my kids are like, "No, I don't want you to leave." This is the first business trip alone, like she's leaving for, right?
And coming to a group of women like this the first time for her. So again, stepping into her power, and I just sit with that anyways. That's so freaking incredible, and I'm so excited. Um, but her saying like to her kids, like, "I know you don't want it, but like mommy's gonna go." And her saying like this is her quarterly time off, I'm so freaking proud of her.
And the fun part is that this event hits both of those boxes I was talking about. We're doing the strategic planning I've talked about in the hotel, right? [00:15:00] Plan ahead for the business. Figure out all of that. How many clients, the revenue, if you're hiring, if you have to hire people to pull this off, like all of that, right?
But also because it's representative of me and the community that I support, everyone is curious about this duality of the event. So that's one checkbox. But it's not just strategic planning. I also padded in a full wellness day because of the demographic we are. We rarely take this time. I just told you of a woman who's doing this for the first time, so we don't have a second to waste.
We're gonna put the duality in there, both of those, the planning for the business so that's shored up, checkbox, we feel good about where we're taking it, we're clear, we have the plan, and also then pour into the woman who has been leading it and who will continue to do so. Take advantage of the time that you're already away from home and pour into yourself.
So I, of course, went a little crazy and I made that physical wellness. We'll have movement. I made it logical wellness, if you will. So we'll use our brains that we all love to do and have a wellness workshop to understand why taking care of yourself [00:16:00] matters, why this you as a stakeholder is part of your business strategy, and also spiritual wellness, energetic wellness.
We're gonna do sound bath, we're gonna do energetic healing, we're gonna move our bodies and connect in community because laughter, I do think, is the best for the soul. And, like, can you imagine being any more lit up from the inside out than that? And how cool that I've developed it for that duality. I have been working for years on helping women step into that, and this is a moment where it's, like, coming full freaking circle and I'm...
It's insane. It's insane. Like, a business plan essentially ignores the capacity and wellbeing of the woman responsible for executing it.
I do wanna be careful saying that, like, we're gonna celebrate what we've... Like, we're going to celebrate what we've, you know, brought, what we have accomplished and pulled off so far. But, like, we don't have to earn this celebration. You can do that anytime. This isn't about, like, taking a moment and celebrating what we earned.
This rest, this wellness, like, it is your life at the end of the day. [00:17:00] And you-- It's not about deserve, it's not about earn, it's not about reward. It's about, it's your freaking life, so you should just be able to do this. Your business demands that you take the time to plan, and your body, your self, your life, your energy, it demands that you at least start pretending like it's even yours and your responsibility to lean into and care for.
And out of three hundred and sixty-five days, I hope you can find two, three, four each quarter. I mean, each month would be cool, where you shed all of that, and you just live your best freaking life
[00:18:00]