Business Advice Is Burning You Out. There's Another Way

What if the way you've been told to run your business was never designed for you? Nicole sits down with feminist business coach, podcast host and author Becky Mollenkamp to unpack the capitalist conditioning most entrepreneurs carry without realizing it. They trace the through-line from toxic corporate workplaces to the inner boss we recreate in our own businesses, and ask the question that changes everything: what's enough for you?

Becky's new book, Liberate Your Business: A Radical Guide for Entrepreneurs Building Inside a Broken System, is the resource she wishes she'd had — one that honors the full complexity of building a values-aligned business inside a system that wasn't built for your humanity.

What's in the Show

• Becky's burnout story — rooted in emotional exhaustion, not overwork
• Why capitalist conditioning follows you into your own business
• The Hedonic Treadmill and why capitalism keeps moving the finish line
• Defining your own "enough" in money, hours, rest, and joy
• Consent-based marketing as an alternative to high-volume launch sequences
• How Becky used AI to finally write the book her ADHD brain couldn't organize alone
• Community-building as resistance — and embroidery as rest
• Becky lifts up: Transgender Law Center (transgenderlawcenter.org)

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Rest and Burnout

03:13 Becky's Journey with Burnout

08:58 Corporate Culture and Expectations of Creativity

12:04 The Cost of Doing Business: Burnout as Normal

15:03 Values and Rest: A Personal Reflection

17:03 Becky's Spiritual Grounding: Values-based living

21:02 Agency and Control in Our Lives

22:29 Bringing Capitalism into our work and businesses

31:04 Navigating Capitalism as Entrepreneurs

40:45 Rethinking Commerce and Relationships

43:35 Redefining Enough in a Capitalist Society

47:09 The Hedonic Treadmill and Its Impact on Happiness

49:29 The Privilege of Safety and Security

50:47 Finding Rest in a Demanding World

52:55 Building Community as Resistance

55:40 Empowering Rest Rebels

59:31 Supporting Trans Rights and Advocacy

01:00:16 Connecting with Becky and Her Work

Sources Mentioned

• Liberate Your Business by Becky Mollenkamp — available at beckymollenkamp.com/book
• Kelly Diels — feminist marketing educator, featured in Liberate Your Business https://kellydiels.com/
• Transgender Law Center — transgenderlawcenter.org

CONNECT WITH BECKY MOLLENKAMP

• Website: beckymollenkamp.com
• Threads: https://threads.com/@beckymollenkamp
• Substack: https://feministrants.substack.com/
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/beckymollenkamp

CONNECT WITH NICOLE HAVELKA:

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Transcript

0:00

Despite it all looking good on paper, none of this is working. And it wasn't until I really sat down and understand how do I want to show up in the world? What matters to me? And figuring that out. changed everything and that is what then informs how I show up for everything, including rest being a part of that. Hi, Rest Rebels This is Nicole Havelka, your host of Just Rest, Burnout Tips for Everyday Radicals for people who are tired, but not giving up. And I have the pleasure of being here today with my friend and my coach and uh gosh, one of my inspirations for business, Becky Mollencamp. She, they, hi, hi Becky. Let me tell you a little about Becky who is pretty awesome. Becky is a feminist business coach for service-based entrepreneurs who want to build a human first business that honor collective flourishing over profit at all costs growth and as a moment of personal privilege I'll just have to say that without Becky I would have probably given up on my business like four or five years ago and I certainly wouldn't have started this podcast because I'm part of her Feminist Podcast Collective which Becky founded. And uh for a year, they nurtured me before I even launched this podcast. So how wonderful is that? You all can thank them as well for giving me that space and helping me figure out how to do this podcast and still figure it out every single day, which we do together, right, Becky? This is a, oh it's certainly a two way street in the Feminist Podcast Collective and in any space that you create. So welcome, Becky. I'm so glad that you're here. Thanks for having me. Yes, collective flourishing above all, and we're all excited to have your podcast in the world. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited. I love doing this. So thank you so much for encouraging me because it is hard and intimidating to get this started. That's for sure. It is, it also becomes addictive. So watch out cause I'm about to launch my fourth podcast. Oh my gosh, I have like three other ideas that I'm trying to keep on the back burner so that I'm not too overwhelmed. Good thing this one takes a lot of time because it's keeping me from starting more, but you never know. Give it a year and we'll see how we end up then. Right? So before getting into my questions for you and learning more about what you're doing in the world, would you pause with me and with the Rest Rebels us who are listening and take a deep breath with me? So Just an inhale, make that as full and complete as feels right to you today. And then a long and as slow as you can make it, exhale. And I've been saying this at every time I've done this on the pod, but it makes me feel so much better and centered and grounded before to do that simple practice before I get started. So thanks for that with me, right? It makes everything so much better to say, okay, we're gonna pause, we're gonna be in our body for a second. And look, look what can happen with just, just a few seconds and a breath. I love it. So I'm really excited to have you here and to learn more about your journey. Well, one of the things I'm learning, let's say, is that most entrepreneurs, I think, have a burnout story or even stories plural. And I'm wondering about your own journey with burnout and rest and how that relationship has evolved as you've had your business, which has been a lot. Well, you've been in business for yourself for a very long time, but many iterations to your business over time, right? since 2005, so 21 years. uh Yeah, and started out in freelance writing slash corporate marketing and then evolved into coaching. And the impetus for leaving wasn't so much, I don't know, you tell me if it's burnout. It felt more like corporate frustration than corporate burnout, but maybe they're one and the same in that I had a micromanager boss who didn't let me, who didn't let off the reins. And I always felt like I was being watched, judged, and it made everything feel way more stressful. I got to the point where I was crying and like upset about just having to go to work. had to, went on antidepressants as a sort of a temporary solution in that case, because it was just situational of needing to get through. Once I made the decision, I was going to quit. And I created a six month off ramp for myself to be able to do that, to start my own business. And during those six months, I was on antidepressants just to help me go into work because it was so draining and exhausting. It wasn't, it was emotionally exhausting. So as I'm talking about it, I guess that is a form of burnout, right? That emotional exhaustion. It wasn't that I was overworked necessarily. It was that I was emotionally drained and burned out from having a really sort of toxic experience at work that made it just. not something I even wanted to do. And so that was really challenging. Since then, I've had, I guess, variations on burnout, which feel more like after I say I'm starting a fourth podcast, biting off more than I can chew. um I tend to have less of that stuff now as my own boss than when I was working for someone else. Because for me, the thing that is more draining is less workload and more emotional drain. I can churn like I work fast. I've always worked fast. I don't get too caught up in perfectionism. just like, and when I have an idea, I create and I go into do, do, do kind of mode. I don't spend a lot of time thinking. There's not a lot of pause between thought and action for me. So it's not having too much of my plate is usually not the problem. It's more when I have an emotional burnout sort of a thing, something that wears me out. as an example, I'm a really hardcore introvert and that's only gotten worse as I've gotten or has gotten more extreme as I've gotten older. It's not bad, but has become uh more apparent to me as I've gotten older. So if I build in too much peopling time in my schedule, that can start to lead to sort of a form of burnout for me because it's just like I get emotionally drained. And then that motor that's always humming for me, it gets harder to act on it. So It's not because I have too much on my plate for my when I'm showing up my full self. I have too much on my plate when I'm not able to be my full self, which is usually the results for me of too much peopling and not enough spaciousness and solitude built into my schedule. But that doesn't happen as much anymore. And really in the last, you know, two decades of being self-employed, I've had only smaller bouts of that. And it's usually much smaller and more quick for me to kind of navigate than like that. corporate example, was six months of more than six months of just like not a dreading work. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you're hitting on a number of oh points that are ring true for me too, which we have different experiences, the same in some other ways, which, you know, I also found like the workspaces I was in to be too confining, you know, again, for slightly different reasons. I didn't necessarily have uh micromanaging people at that point when I was leaving the church that I was working for. But I did have, what hemmed me in were the role expectations, I think it's on some level, and we can talk more about this and maybe how it contributes to burnout too, is that the spaces we're in don't align with our values, even if we can't say what they are yet. Like in 2005, you might not have been able to say what those values are, which you've now articulated in a book, right? I definitely couldn't have then. No, you didn't have words for it at the time. And for that matter, the culture maybe you've caught up with the feeling that you had, but you're like, I know I can't do this anymore and I need to leave. You know, that's the, and I've certainly had those, I've had those moments and emotional exhaustion is actually the first, one of the first or one of the three sort of hallmarks of burnout. So that's true. as I was saying it, I was like, yeah, I guess that is what it is. I think too often our mind, when we think about burnout, we're thinking about somebody who's just like, I can't do this much work. In my mind, it's more of like overwork than overwhelm. And my feelings tend to be more on the overwhelmed by the emotional burden and that kind of overload on my emotional mental systems than just the actual to-do list. And when I think about that workspace, like it felt like a straight jacket, I think. I mean, that's sort of what you're talking about to you, where I felt like, first of all, I was in a creative field. I was a magazine editor. It's supposed to be a creative business, a creative industry. We were doing photo shoots and a lot of the things I did were really fun. The problem is I have always struggled with you have to be creative at nine and then you can turn it off at five. Right. Like. Right. now. Turn on the creativity, you know, muscle and then just turn it off. Like it's not how creativity works. And that was always very challenging. The idea of corporatizing creativity is just it's just as baffling to me. And we still do it, but it just it doesn't really work well. So that was hard. The misalignment with the styles that between my manager and myself, some of my coworkers and myself and then just that corporate. Because when I started at that job, it's amazing. I was only there for five years in the radical shift. from when I got there in 2000 and when I left in 2005, it was a privately owned company that had a hundred year track record of being privately owned, well respected, treated its employees well, was in little old Des Moines, Iowa, had been headquartered there, was always based there. And when I got there, I remember one time asking, what's my budget on this story for the photo shoot? And they're like, we don't have budgets. You just do what you need to do to make it really good. That's what we care about. Quality is what matters. There's not a budget uh that and then within two years of that company going public, which I think speaks to a lot of this and becoming a publicly owned on the stock market private company. And what that evolved and how it continues to evolve. There were almost layoffs were unheard of when it was privately owned. It just it barely happened. They would they would move people around, shuffle things, make it work. As soon as it became public, these rounds of layoffs became a ever increasing thing where first it was like, what is this? And then all the talk. And then it just started to feel like, here we are. Here's our next six month or three month round of layoffs. It just became a cost of doing business. The average thing. And all of us started to really understand that we were nothing more than numbers. And maybe we always had been to a degree that became at a level that was just unbelievable. And this was my sort of first. I I'd worked a couple smaller jobs was my first big important job. And that corporate experience really and I didn't understand it at the time. Right. But I now know that those expectations and how they shifted and how I knew I became nothing more than a number who constantly had to prove my worth as what it felt like as a human. Like I had to prove that I was worthy of staying on worthy of being paid. I constantly felt at threat like because. I didn't know when those pink slips were coming, right? And I would see friends of mine all around me losing their jobs all the time. People who I knew were talented, who I knew were good at what they've done, who I knew had given so much of their life to this company. And I think that like that does something to your nervous system for sure, right? And it worked very out of alignment with how I showed up. And all of it began to feel very like, like this straight jacket. And I think that's what all, it wasn't just the boss. I can say it was just the boss, but it wasn't just the boss. That was part. part of it, but it was really this bigger feeling of I am and I remember that I was only, you know, it was my early twenties and I remember that mid twenties and I remember that feeling of like, I am nothing to these people. Like I am replaceable. I don't matter. I could, it doesn't matter how great I am. I ultimately don't really matter to them and I have to constantly like, I am only as good as. how I show up today and what I do for them because our magazines had to prove their worth, right? We had to make a certain amount of money and that kept getting, the bar kept getting higher and higher as the company was public. So yeah, all of that didn't feel good. It doesn't feel good. And I think so many people in corporate America can relate to that feeling of like just feeling inhuman in many ways. And used and for that matter, it's normal, right? Like this is just how it is. I think a lot of people maybe don't even allow themselves or feel what you are feeling. Not again, not because it's an any fault of their own, but because it's like, well, this is just how it is. And I've come to accept it. we accept all of that as the cost of doing business just the way it is. You know, this is what this is just what the world is like. I mean, people will say that kind of thing, you know, especially to younger generations to sort of beat their idealism out of them. You know, you will hear and we can blame it on boomers, but it can I see Gen Xers now doing it. We've all we take up the mantle because it's just like. Well, I didn't get any different, so why should you? Like, this is just how it's gonna be. we, anyone who has any vision of what it could look like for things to function differently is ridiculed, belittled, whatever it is to get that out of their system so that they fall in line. And soon enough, they're the same ones saying, well, this is just how it is, kid. This is the way it's always been and always will be. And that's not true. That's not true. It is not how it's always been. No, it's not. it has to be how it always will be. But things don't change when we all just say, well, it's just the way it is. Right. Well, right, accepting it as the status quo is just gonna let the same thing happen over and over and over again. um I suffer all the time and I this is hard for me and I'm overworked or I'm overwhelmed or I feel used. I feel belittled. Why should it be any different for you? And if I accept that that's just the norm, then I now as I move into a leadership position in a company, just continue the same thing for the next group of people. And then the burnout it just it becomes a I mean, I think corporations really look at burnout as a cost of doing business. And that is really unfortunate. right, right. Oh, very inhumane and treats people like, you know, a commodity or product to be used, not as people. you know, because exactly we think of our car and we think, well, eventually the motor runs out, right? That's just the cost of running the car and eventually we'll have to replace it. And humans become cogs in the wheel, motors in the engine that have a shelf life. And we know we're going to use them until we deplete them. And then maybe they leave and they go take their vacation or do what it is they got to do. And then they move on to somewhere else. And that's just the cost of doing business. We'll replace them. And by the way, usually with someone who's younger because they have more energy, more. and we don't, that's all we value. see them only as a part. So why wouldn't we want the youngest and cheapest part we can get, which, you know, despite what the protections may say by the government, ageism very much exists inside of the business space, right? Not to mention ableism and all of the other things. so, yeah, corporations are, they are not human, right? Just like AI, they're not human. And they are evaluating things through only a logical mind. So no humanity inside of that. is just this person, which is this part in the business, costs this much and we get this much out of them. And then here's this other part that we could bring in instead and it only costs this much and it has an extra 10 years on it. We're gonna take that one, right? And it is, I I think when we start to really think of it that way and really understand that's really what business is in the... you know, late stage capitalism model in which we exist, um it grosses us out. We realize how just how really awful it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know that you don't consider yourself a religious person, but would you, I love that laugh. Right, I know that. Because we've known each other long enough for us to know that. But would you say that there's a spiritual, cultural, or maybe another way of putting it is like a values sort of informed foundation to your rest practice, especially considering that corporate experience is a backdrop. Everything for me is values. Everything. Everything, everything, everything. Whether those values are rooted in spirituality, religion, whatever else it may be, like, you know, for me, they aren't necessarily. But if you hear them and say, yeah, that is what that is, then that's fine. But for me, my life is guided by values. Right. And that informs everything I do, all of my business decisions, all of my life decisions, my parenting decisions, everything. It's like If I and that's what I couldn't articulate back in my corporate days, right? I didn't know what those were. didn't I didn't I couldn't understand any of that. I just reached a point in my life where I knew something's not right. This isn't good. This isn't working. Despite it all looking good on paper, none of this is working. And it wasn't until I really sat down and understand how do I want to show up in the world? What matters to me? And figuring that out. changed everything and that is what then informs how I show up for everything, including rest being a part of that. Because, you know, at the core of really what my value set is, is like at the very core of it, it is we are all humans having a human experience on this floating rock. And what matters most is honoring each of us in our full humanity. Like, meaning exactly how you were born. This may sound religious or spiritual, but and maybe it is. I don't think any of us were born a mistake. I don't think any of us were born wrong. I don't think there's anything wrong inherently with any of us. think systems and other things can begin to corrupt us, but I think we are, we come into this realm, a beautiful, perfect soul, spirit, whatever it is. And everything else begins to corrupt that in a way, but in ourselves, we are perfectly formed. And I think that What matters most is how do we honor that fullness of who we are, the uniqueness of who each of us is. And so, and I think rest is one of the ways that we do that, right? We honor the fact that I get tired. I honor the fact that I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish and do because that honors my interests and goals. And to be able to do that, I need capacity, which requires rest. I also like to rest because it feels good and it's fun. But all of those things honor the fullness of who I am as a human. And so that like is what informs my feelings about rest. it's just like, it's just being human. I don't know, like it seems so simple, but I think I didn't used to honor that. I know I didn't used to honor that. I did not honor my humanity until late in my 30s into my 40s. Yeah, right, right. Well, and that, I mean, some of it is just at some age, we lose the capacity, right, to grind in the same way that we did when we were young, right? Wait, we do run out. So that's part of it, I think. I think you also alluded to it when your story about being in your 20s and being in a corporate environment, right? There was this... expectation that you would just show up and be creative from nine to five, which like you pointed out is is ludicrous. Like that's not how it works. Like creativity actually demands a lot of rest. It does. And inspiration, which you can't just get sitting in a, you can't always get sitting in a fluorescent lit cubicle. Like that's not going to lead to inspiration. I can't do it when I'm tired. And when I have, I can't do it when I have somebody yelling at me, right? Like there's all these things that affect being able to um feel creative. And that isn't, that isn't corporate America usually. And yeah, I have to be well rested. And it's hard to do that when you're hearing have to get this done, this done, this done by this date, this, you know, and that's not a restful, creative, spacious, expansive experience. I creativity is about expansiveness. It's about what's possible. You have to be able to have spaciousness to feel creative and you don't have that inside of these restraints, again, where I felt like I was in the straight jacket. Yeah, yeah. Like I love that image actually of the straight jacket because it sort of feels like the right thing to me. You know, I'm like, right, that's exactly what it feels like. Or like something is crushing your breathing, like you can't breathe. And I'm, haven't ever been in a straight jacket. I can only assume it would depress your breathing given how it confines you. So you're not, feeling like you can't, you know, you can't be the fullness of who you are within the context. whole point of the straight jacket, right? Is to remove agency. It's to remove your control over your own body. And that's what corporate America has often. It feels like for many people. And I think not just corporate America, I all parts of our lives until we really do some of this work can feel that way where we feel like we don't have control. Like, I'm sure you hear this all the time for people with breast. It's like, I don't have time for that. I can't make time for that. Right. I don't have there's I can't change this or that to do that. And it's like It is that we truly, whether it's actually real or not, we believe and feel like we have no control over our own time. And that is that like restrictive, you know, how can I take a nap when I don't have control over my time? Right? And so we have to free ourselves from whatever your straight jacket is, whether that's the, you know, corporate experience or the capitalist conditioning you're bringing into your own life, whatever it is, those straight jackets that keep us from feeling in control so that we can take back that control and say, I do have control and I can take this time for rest, whatever rest looks like for me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and I know that I have, but I even have the same problem. To some degree inside my own business, and maybe this can be a good segue to get you to talk a little bit more about your book, that I was actually pretty good at taking time for rest when I worked for other people. I was actually better at it than I am as a small business owner in a lot of ways because When I work for other people, like there's paid time off. Now that came at the expense of like also there were times when you're like, you just have to work and you have no options. You know, like if I was running a big event or something like that, you were working like there were weeks where it was like a 24 seven almost kind of experience because of that. But when when I was out, I was out. You know, I was good at shutting pretty good at shutting it off. And I had, you know, I have a yoga and meditation practice, I had all these things that helped me rest and renew. Of course, eventually, that wasn't enough because of all the other stuff we've already talked about, because the rest doesn't compensate for all the other nonsense at some point. But In the context of having my own business, there's always this internalized, I mean, it's all the internalized stuff from all those other voices, right? Internalized stuff telling me, oh, you have to do one more thing, or you're not going to make enough money. Like there's this this looming fear always of not not making enough or not being appearing successful enough or whatever that nonsense is in our head. But I know that I have a harder time shutting it off as a small business owner. And I know that's different for different people, but that has been my experience. I definitely work, I probably work more hours or even if not more hours, I don't take as much time off as I did or chunks of time like I used to. Well, I work more than I did in corporate America because the amount of time you actually work in corporate America for some jobs can be pretty ludicrous because there's a lot of water cooler time. There's a lot of unproductive meetings. There's a lot of the actual work time was like often very limited, which we could be frustrating because sometimes I mean, we take work home to actually get the work done because there's no time during the workday to get work done. But anyway, that said, when we don't work for ourselves, sometimes we reproduce exactly what we have experienced inside of corporate America or capitalism, wherever it is, right? We end up being that boss for ourselves. We hate it. Other times we almost rebel and do the exact opposite. And that can also, though, be just as toxic because maybe we now like I know when I left, I was like, I just want to work my pajamas when I want to work. Well, that was it sounds lovely. And it kind of was because it was like the other extreme. what it ended up meaning was sometimes I was working until 2 a.m. because I was like, I just want to work. I don't want to work during the day and I'm to go do my errands and run and play and whatever. And then suddenly it's like, oh, but I actually have project. I got to pay the bills and I have a project that I have to do. So now I'm here. I am at two in the morning trying to get it done before it's due in the morning. Right. So you can kind of go to the other extreme as well. And then that can be just as problematic. But I think one of the key words you said there was enough. Right. What's enough? Because if we don't define for ourselves what our own enough is and what success means, to us outside of the systems, then we will be churning and churning and churning all the time. Because capitalism teaches us there isn't enough. There is never enough. Capitalism's only message is more, right? It means us to be consumers, constant consumers of more to function. That's what capitalism is, right? It is about extraction and constant growth. And so that doesn't happen unless we are all consuming more. The reason my company that I used to work for got so toxic was because it entered into that public domain where instead of it being about an individual family saying how much is enough for us as a family for profits and we have wiggle room in there and we can we could say no we don't need to make more this year. Maybe we even make a little less. We can keep our people on payroll. Right. When you shift to your only obligation is to shareholders who need more. They always need more. They've got if you made me six dollars now it's got to go to 6.50 or I've made no money. Right. up. There is no going down. It has to go up. When that becomes the only metric is more, it never ends. You can't stop. You are now on that hamster wheel that now you're out of control. You're like the hamster who's like, right? And we often do that for ourselves. If we don't know what our enough is, we are in the pursuit of endless more. So we have to get clear about that. First and foremost, when we go into business for ourselves, what is enough for me? Right. money, also enough work hours to achieve that enough time spent to do that enough visibility enough, whatever the things are. And also what's enough rest to allow me to do that. Right. We don't often only think of the enough being what's my enough money, but I also need to factor in what is enough rest. What is enough joy? What are the things that are going to give my engine, keep my engine going. But then I would also, I don't want to say, wouldn't say push back, but I would just say that for me and for some people, when we go into work for ourselves and remove all of those other constraints that we've had, where we're making other people money, where we're doing it the way they tell us it has to be done, you know, all of that, when we go into work for ourselves and we're making money for ourselves, doing it the way we want to do it, and often doing the thing that we really want to do, sometimes the work does feel restorative. So like in my case, I love to work. I used to hate work. Remember, I was dreading going to work. I would cry about it. Yeah. I would rather be at work than a lot of things. And it's not because I'm a workaholic and it's not because I'm like, my God, like I'm panicked. It's because my work feels restorative to me. It actually gives me energy. It makes me excited. It lights me up. gets, part of what makes me feel good and whole. It's part of how I feel like I'm giving back. So for some of us, we might be working more, but it's actually part of our rest practice. It's part of the restorative practice that makes us feel good. But we have to watch for that to make sure is that true for me, right? Or am I working for all these other reasons, these scarcity reasons, the fear reasons? Because if that's the case, then I think it's more about doing some of this actual evaluation of what is enough. What is my actual goal? Because the goal can't just be more. You when people say, well, I want to make six figures, I want to make seven figures. That's not that's that's a number, but it's not a real goal. It's not why. Why do you need to make six figures? Yeah. is the actual number? Because six figures could look like 100,000. It could look like 999,000. How much is actually enough to fund the life that you're wanting to fund? And then there are times too, Nicole, that it's just the reality of you still live in a capitalist system. You don't get to check out of it just because you became self-employed. The mortgage has to get paid and that or the rent has to get paid. The car those things have to happen. And sometimes you do have to work more than you want to work. Because you just got to pay the bills because we live in the reality of that's what it takes. There are things that we can do, some levers we can pull. Can I charge a little more so that I'm having to work a little less to make it? There are things like that. But I think we also have to honor that lived experience and the reality of sometimes being self-employed is hard. And there are challenges. Making money, it's not like you become self-employed and suddenly people are just throwing money at you. Yeah, yeah. You gotta figure out how and it's challenging and it may mean you have to work more because your fears around money may very well be valid. And we have to honor that for ourselves too, right? So the answer to that is not easy because there's different places you can go with that. Sometimes it's about recreating the harm that you were already experienced because you don't know another way. Sometimes it's about, I don't actually know what I actually need. So I'm just in the never ending pursuit of more. And that's why I'm always working. It could be that you actually like your work and the work is restorative and that's valid. And it may be because the reality is just, damn it, I have to make more. And that sucks that I live inside this capitalist system, but it is what it is. And so I have to work more until I'm able to figure things out so that I'm not having to work as hard. So like all of those things are real. And sometimes it's multiples of those things. Yeah, yeah. So how, how is all of that, like decade, couple of decades now of experience, factoring into the book that you are have written, and that will be out at the end of April. So tell me more about that, how all of that factors in and then why now? I mean, you talked about being a writer since you were, you know, in your 20s, in your early days of your career. So Why and so you've been published in a lot of ways before this but why write the book now? Yeah. Liberate your Business. There it is. It's a radical guide for Entrepreneurs Building Inside a Broken System because the system is broken. So that is that part of we have to be able to honor that full experience of the fact that I don't get to opt out of the system. So telling me to be fully anti-capitalist doesn't work inside of a capitalist system. But how do I function in a way that honors my fullness of the fullness of my humanity inside of a system that doesn't? Right. What are the things that I can do? And I think that the key is that and where I think too many business books want to be really black and white, really binary about things and really simplify things. And usually that means just through my lived experience. So if I'm a privileged white person who's had a great experience, I say, well, why can't you do it? I did it. So here's the here's the one, two, three formula. It work for you. It worked for me. That doesn't factor in all of the many differences in how each of us show up and what our lived experience actually is. And so I couldn't find the book. The book I definitely would have wanted 20 years ago when I started my business, 10 years ago when I shifted to coaching or even now I just every business book I read. I mean, and I haven't read them all, so I'm sure there's great ones out there. But most of them I read are written very much through one lens and don't feel like they're very honoring of the fullness of our humanity. And so much of it is focused on capitalist vision of what a business should be. And again, or It's this like way outside, way left field, anti-capitalist thing that doesn't really honor the reality of where we are. And I wanted to find that thing that sort of straddles those two of, and kind of in the answer I gave you about rest, where it's like, it can be multiple things, right? Sometimes it is, I'm just recreating capitalism. Okay, let me address that. Sometimes it is, I can't change the reality and so I have to exist inside of it. And how do I then honor myself and love myself through that, right? Because that's also real. I tired of the sort of prescriptive, just think better and it'll change for you. doesn't, coming from some privileged white woman usually or white man, that doesn't honor that not all of us can just think our way out of the reality of being single and having to figure this out or being a single parent even harder or, the multitudes of ways that we show up that just aren't as simple as, well, I have a rich husband who's funding this and then letting me now to show up this way. Or even if I didn't. But I built this business in 2005 and business looks very different today. But I'm still telling you, it's just as easy. Right. I just think we needed a different model. And so I wanted to write it. And why now? One, because I just it has been like pulling at me for a long time. Two, I finally was dealing with enough of the internal stuff, although it's still there, to not feel all of the who am I to write this book. That's still there. But I was able to at least move beyond that enough to do it. And three, and really key. And this is hard because um in, you know, when we talk about a liberated business, AI is a question that comes up. But for me, with my executive functioning issues that I have, I believe I have undiagnosed ADHD, whatever it is, I definitely have executive functioning issues. The idea of trying to put together a book of this size without some help, and I couldn't afford to hire a developmental editor, having AI be able to help me in that role is sort of the developmental developmental editor to say, here's all the content you already have. Here's a way that you can formulate that and make it make sense. That allowed me then to be able to say, okay, now I'm just writing a little bit at a time. I understand how it's going to work. The big mess of everything was too much for me. And that's really what has held me back for a long time. It's just like, I don't know where to start. And how often do hear people say that? And I do think for me and choices that I'm making in my life, we all have to make our own. That is where AI has really been helpful. It's helping me be able to make sense of content that and of of it's helping me make sense of big ideas and lots of stuff that my brain previously would absolutely slow down on just that would stop my ADHD brain of like, I forget it. I'm shut down. I can't continue. ah You know, I I wrote the book, but I did help me get it to get the ideas to a place where I could see how to write the book, if that makes sense. So that's been an important piece of it to me too for the timing. Yeah, so yeah, so you I mean, it is like a it's a developmental editor, essentially, or an editing coach, or a book writing coach of some sort, who can help you get over the humps at least that you had for getting that book out there. Right, right. Yeah. has allowed me to do that. And it was a lifelong dream to be a published author and goal checked. Like I have a book that people can buy and that I can hold others will be able to hold soon. And that feels really exciting. And then anything else that I been craving. And and I actually posted this today on social media the day that we're recording that like, this is the book that I wish I had had, you know, four or five years ago, fortunately, I met you at that time. And so the ideas that are now in this book, like we're, you know, I've been absorbing over the last several years. But it was So I remember it was just so important to me to hear from someone who was like, you know, don't have to do even, even just to say there aren't like, you don't have to do what everyone else tells you works. I mean, one of the best examples I can think of or one of the simplest examples anyway, was like what people say what "they" say you should do when you're launching something and how many marketing emails you should send. You know, that's a, and It was exhausting to me and not just, and I realized not just because it's a lot of work, which it is. And of course I didn't have, know, which makes me sound really old, but it was probably three years ago. Like, but we didn't have AI back then, you know, helping me churn out lots of content. Like I was writing every one of those emails myself. And so that's, that is, and it just is a lot of work and draining work. I mean, I actually love to write, but I also know that I have limited chunks in a day that I can spend writing, right? That kind of creative high energy work, I only have so many. I always say, now I just say, I got about two hours of that a day and if at most, and that's provided that all the planets have aligned and I got enough sleep and all that jazz, right? But for someone just intro, both you and then your podcast and just other groups I've been in with you, introducing the idea of like feminist aligned approaches to marketing, which includes like ample consent, you know, making sure people have consented. And the idea that I use, I can't remember who I got it from, maybe someone from one of your podcasts, where you give people the option to opt out, which I do now, anytime. Kelly Diels thank you. Awesome. And who I also follow on other socials. I don't think we've met yet, but I've followed. Feminist marketing, and that was one of the things that I learned from you and from her that was like, oh, you can create a way for people to opt out of a sequence. And I do that with anytime I'm doing a like, hey, you don't want to hear any more about this offer. Fine, just click this. And what's really interesting is that very few people do it. But I'm always so glad that the people who did did and then they're not getting the five, you know, and I don't do 1220 emails anymore. opted out of your email list altogether. Right. keeps subscribers, but they're like, hey, this isn't the reason I'm on your email list or that I don't have the bandwidth today to even listen to it or whatever the reason is, right? Yeah, it may be a timing issue, but maybe that means they're not going to be annoyed with me next time I launch and they're actually going to engage. It's a long game. It's not like trying to win. sales right now for shareholders. Now, neither of us have shareholders to appease, right? But it's not that short term sales strategy. It's a long term, more relationship based. And that is to me the fundamental, I think, message of this book is again, going back to humanity, it is about being in right relation with yourself, with your team, if you have one with your clients, with your larger community, being in right relation, which and being in relationship. Right. And that is what's missing because capitalism is about transaction. Right. That is all that it is. It is just about how do I extract from you? whether that's money or your time or whatever it is, I just want to take from you. And if I have to give, I'm going to figure out how do I give as little as I can. And that is not what this is about. This is about how do we like make sure that we each feel whole through this experience? And that is what a relationship should be. And that's, you know, going back to those people who say this is the way it's always been. Well, that's not true. And in fact, through most of humanity, commerce and commerce is not the problem. It's not what I'm talking about. I'm about capitalism, which is a form of commerce. But commerce in and of itself, which is just an exchange that has existed throughout humanity and has for most of humanity been about making each other whole. So if I'm taking 10 years of corn, what would make you whole for that? Does that look like I'm going to watch your kids for an hour? I'm going to knit you a sweater. Whatever it is, right, it's how do I make you whole? And because that corn is now gonna make me whole, it's gonna feed my family tonight, and that's what I did. What is it that you need today to make you whole? And we work together as collective people, as people who exist on a planet together, in a community together, and we figure out how do we make sure that we're both whole, right? That's what commerce should be, and is really at its core, is about, and that is how it's most of humanity. Capitalism is a form of commerce and it is what has perverted commerce into what it is now. And that is about fully about extraction. It is only about how do those with who have the ownership class that have the means, how do they take as much as they can from those who create to enrich themselves as much as possible? That is a very different model than how do we both come out of this feeling whole? And that continues to get worse and worse over time. And that is what I'm like, how do we fight that? at the individual level because we recreate it for ourselves unknowingly all the time because it is the air that we breathe. We all, especially here in the US at least, and most of Western culture, and in fact, most of the globe, we are just breathing capitalism. It's what we know. That's the only form of commerce many of us have ever even experienced. We don't understand there are other ways to look at commerce, which include things like mutual aid. It includes things like bartering. It includes things like equitable pricing. There are other ways of showing up and doing commerce that feel far more healthy because and more aligned make you feel better at the end of the experience because they're not just transactional. They are relational. And that's what I want to try to shift. And that's, you know, that makes all the difference is that relational experience, even down to like your marketing choices. And the book really talks about all of those. There's 25 chapters that explore everything from like rest and productivity and then leadership, hiring. also talking about marketing and visibility, like all of the different components of our business that's thinking about how do we think about all of these in that way that is more honoring of a full humanity that is about how do we all leave this experience feeling whole. Hmm. And would you say that that that idea of uh everyone leaving the experience feeling whole as sort of the key idea you want people to take away from the book, or something else or more than that? I don't know, that's a great question because I do love that. But I would say maybe at the more immediate individual level, I think that's part of it. But I think it's even starting with ourselves to ask ourselves what's enough, because it's kind of hard to know what would make me whole if I don't even know what I need or what enough looks like for me. Right. Because if you don't, then there's never making me whole. I'll never be whole because no, I want even more. I want more and more and more. So I really think it starts at that place of understanding for yourself. What is enough for you? We are not encouraged to explore that question inside of capitalism ever. And I think it's important for us to not what's more, what else could I have? It's not like, because could I have a house with like an indoor and an outdoor pool, a personal chef, a blah, blah? Sure, I could. But do I need that? Is that really what would be enough to make me have a life that feels really good? No, enough to have a life that feels really good is probably this house I'm in, you know, maybe upgraded a little, but like I... need a mission to have enough? I, you know, could it, would it feel better? Maybe. But is it enough? Like, is that really what I need for enough? No. And I think in capitalism, we are conditioned to think that enough is settling. And settling is not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying I have to settle. I'm asking myself, what do I actually want and need? What do I really need to feel like I have enough in this world? Because for most of us, the answer is not all of the stuff. It's what who's in the house with us. how I'm spending my time with those people that are in the house with me, right? It's what I'm doing all day long, who I'm helping. Like those are the things that really make life feel like enough. And so when we can get to a place of clarity about that for ourselves, then that other piece of now how do I show up in relationship with others becomes a little bit easier because now it's like, okay, could I charge you $7,000 for this pen? Sure, maybe some person would buy it. We see those stories all the time. But it's not what I actually need to be whole here. Probably not. Maybe the pen cost me a dollar. I sell enough, if I sell enough pens for $4, then I can have that. I can live the life I was wanting to live and that would be enough. So I can charge you 7,000 or four. 7,000 sure I probably have, I can have 12 homes. I could build a bunker in Hawaii, like next door to Zuckerberg. But do I really need that? No. I just want the, I want to go sell you the $4 pen so you feel whole cause you got the pen you needed. You could actually afford it. And you helped me be able to make sure that I can like, you know, feed my family and be in this house that feels comfortable. Like that's it. That's, and I just think it's such a beautiful and simple message. And yet too many of us because of capitalism have been made to feel like that's not good enough. How sad is it? no. Well, and then if we're not accumulating constantly like that somehow makes us bad or wrong. And the reality is that the more you accumulate, like, let's say you got that, you know, in ground pool in your backyard or whatever, you got a bigger house with an in ground pool or something like that, now you're having to work harder to maintain those things and add something else. The next thing you have to do is furnish it and have all the deck furniture, whatever. And that's just one somewhat silly example. But like, that's how it works. Right? Yeah. does that by design because when the system is never ending growth and that is, I mean, you look at the stock market, you see companies that have a stock value of a thousand dollars a share and it's not enough. Stockholders will not be happy unless tomorrow it is a thousand and one dollars a share, right? So it's always gotta be more and the same that all trickles down and translates into how we show up with everything. We think it's called the Hedonic Treadmill, just for anybody who doesn't know. And it's this idea that once we have what we once previously thought would make us feel happy, we reach that. And now there's a new finish line. And the finish line continues to move and to move and to move. And we have to be the ones who say, I'm done moving the finish line. Because otherwise what happens is you see a whole lot of really rich people who are really unhappy. And it is because their finish line continues to move and there is never enough. And they will never be happy because they are trying to fill happy, make happiness show up with stuff. Stuff doesn't make us happy. actually the opposite of the wholeness that you're talking about. It's an emptiness, right? Or an incompleteness. Right. And I've never known, maybe you have or other people listening, and if you have listeners, known someone who has this experience, you let me know. But I've never known anyone who gets to their deathbed and says, oh, I wish I just had accumulated more stuff. They don't. Right. Right. And, again, to honor full lived experience of people, there's privilege inside this conversation to a point because studies have shown time and again that money does buy happiness or at least it buys safety is what I would personally say by safety until we have our safety needs met, which means I have a home that's safe. I have food on the table and I don't have to worry about it. I'm not constantly being harassed by creditors, those sorts of things, right? So I have food, I have clothing, I have healthcare, I have education for my children, I have shelter. When we have those needs met, it used to be 70,000 for a family, now it's probably more because of inflation. But there is a number at which we do need money to have, I would say safety, which creates that feeling of happiness or whatever. But there is a point, and that number is, far lower than most people really allow themselves to believe. And certainly the capitalism wants you to believe. But once that number is met, beyond that, we're filling a hole that won't be filled. Because it's not about our safety and security anymore. It's about trying to work for happiness through the lens of capitalism, which is through the lens of consumerism. And that's not where happiness comes from, because you're right, deathbeds, people don't say that. What they say is, wish I had more time with people I loved. And you know the reason why they didn't? they were too busy trying to accumulate wealth Right, right. Or feeling bad that they weren't. You know, right? Yeah, yeah. fully honoring that for many of us, we don't we don't have the privilege to be able to say that, right? Because we haven't even had we're not at that place of the safety and security being met through financial means. So you do have to get there. And I fully honor that because, this that message doesn't mean anything if you're not there. But I just would say that this book also speaks to that because it's going back to this idea of, well, that's all lovely. But I got to pay the bills. Yeah. And sometimes that means we do have to treat ourselves like cogs in the wheel, you know, to pay the bills. And it sucks. I hate that we live in a world where that's true. I hate that we live in a world that to have those basic needs met, sometimes we have to treat ourselves like crap. I hate that. And that's the reality. And I don't like books that don't honor that reality, because for some of us, that is our reality. And that needs to be honored, too. And in those cases, then it becomes about how can you love yourself through that? Right? And rest is a big part of that. Where can you find those pockets of restorative activities and or actual sleep to give yourself the love and the care that you need as you have to navigate this really crappy world that we live in? Yeah, yeah. Well, I know we could keep having this conversation all day and night because well, at this point, we have Becky over the course of many years. oh I want to. Right. This isn't the last conversation we'll have ever. Just the one in this podcast is going to need to come to an end. Otherwise, it'll be way too long for people to listen to. Although people hang on surprisingly long to these podcasts, which is delightful to me. So. I have a few last questions that I like to ask all of my guests. And the first one is, what is one simple way that you rest? So not complicated one. um What is something you do for yourself that is restful? Something I have started this year is embroidery, which makes me sound as old as I am and I don't care. I started it not so much as a restful in my mind activity, but it was just like, need a handcraft that gets me off of the doom scrolling. But I have found it becomes really meditative because you have to really focus to be able to do what you're doing. And I love that level of meditation because it really does. Like when I can get into that space and I'm not worrying as somebody who has lot of anxiety. Being able to quiet my mind in that way is very restful for me. Yeah, yeah. So having something tangible and touched that you you're focusing on um to help you get into a flow state, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. So what is similar question? What is a simple way that you resist, like all the stuff we've just been talking about? Or maybe there's an example from the book that you can think of, or maybe just some simple thing you do. Resist. I thought you meant resist rest. Cause I was gonna be like, I do that constantly. I just, no, well, I will just say that I, I suffer from, suffer from what do they call it? Is it procrastination insomnia or no, what is it? The kind of insomnia where like I stay up even though I know I'm tired because I'm just like, this is my time. And then I pay for it later. How do I resist what's happening in the world? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess for me, it's about community spaces that I'm building because I think, again, going back to this, like, how do we make each other whole? I think we have to remember that we are having a collective experience. are humans having this human experience, right? We are, as far as we know, the only ones of us doing this thing. And yeah, there's a lot of us, billions, but in the grand scheme of the planet and the I mean, the solar system and when you look at how big existence is, there's just so, there's not that many of us doing this thing and we're doing it together and my ripples, the things I do ripple out and affect you. And so we have to like learn how to be in community and capitalism is hyper individualistic. It doesn't do that. And the United States in particular is very hyper individualistic. And so for me, anytime that I am in community space, building those spaces, participating in those spaces, That feels like resistance. It's like saying, no, I am not just going to worry about me, me, me. And how do I get mine? I'm going to remember that I am part of a collective experience happening and that what I do matters to others and what they do affects me and that we're going to do that with some degree of intentionality together. Mm hmm. And we talk about this off and on. also, speaking of community, hope that we talk off and on about having like our Golden Girls house, like when we're all retired, we're going to have our own version, our retirement plan, because none of us are going to have traditional retirement plans doing this work. how do we create but if maybe not the accumulating a lot of wealth may not be the only way also to have a secure quote retirement. Just saying. Collective approaches to life are where it's at. And we as white folks in particular do not learn this for a whole lot of reasons. And we could learn so much from our black and indigenous family and friends because those cultures have understood to survive is a collective experience. And they have taught us so much about what it looks like. And that's, you know, I pull from that wisdom in the book too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool. I just had to throw that in there because that's a little... I love that idea actually and I'm like, I want to make that happen. I don't know how to do it, but I want to make it happen. been seeing more and more women doing that and I love it. Love it. for sure. em So I, as you've already heard today, I like to call my community members and listeners rest rebels. And so if you were going to write a note to them or speak a note to them today, dear rest rebels, how would you finish that sentence? so I have these cards that are coming out with the book bundle that have reflection questions on the back and they relate to the key concepts in the book. So I would say Dear Rest Rebels, you are enough. No proving is required. That's this card. There's others. You could also say, rest rebels, you are worthy and your value isn't transactional. There's others. And by the way, you'll be happy to know, Nicole, there's one that says rest is necessary. Life isn't the competition because that is a key concept. That's a key concept in the book. But so I would say just like, think the one that at the core of it for me is I'm enough. I also really love the one that says I am whole. The system is broken. You are not the problem. It's the system that's the problem. You are whole. So remember that you are, whether it's divinely created or whatever you believe in, are, you are whole as you are. And you're not what the problem is. It's the system that's a problem. So anything that tries to make you feel like the problem, know that that's the system trying to convince you of that. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, preach sister. That's all I'm saying. Sure. anything that tries to convince you, or your rest is the problem. That's the system. The system doesn't want you to rest. So you are your rest isn't the problem. You wanting rest, needing rest, whatever. That's not the problem. The problem is the system that says that that's right. Even if you're, and I'm gonna say this for my folks who are in like nonprofit work, even if the system is like doing good in the world, quote unquote, if it's extracting from you, it's not doing good in the world. Exactly. on, by the way, in case you were listening to this going, I'm not sure what this has to do with my world. It does, in fact, have something to do. Yeah, because the habits are there, present whether you have a for-profit business or a nonprofit business. And they're just different forms of business, by the way. And so that's why I think you're this liberated, liberating your business can apply to all sorts of things. That's a side road I didn't plan to go on, but that's okay. life, right? So, yes, this book is written for entrepreneurs. I would say and even though I think traditionally employed people, especially in leadership roles, it's really, I think, a valuable book. But really, I think so many of these concepts, because there's a whole first section about mindset that is regardless of whether you're a business owner or not. I there's a lot of stuff in this book because, again, and just just be clear. This is pulling from a lineage of thinkers. This is not me trying to say, came up with these concepts. I cite who I've learned from. And most of them are black and brown and indigenous and black leaders who have taught us so much. uh And so I'm pulling from all of this wisdom. It's not my wisdom. And so there is wisdom there for all of us. So uh I'm and I actually borrow this from you from your I ask my guests to name an organization doing good in the world that you would uh want to lift up and that you would invite us to support and I'll give a small donation. uh as thank you for being on this podcast. So is there an organization you'd like to lift up? And I also put it on my, eventually I'll get it on my website. I'm gonna have a section of all the uh great orgs that um my guests have lifted up. Transgender Law Center. That's the organization that I give to. Transgender Law Center is the largest trans led organization that advocates for self-determination for all people. And so they help trans folks with legal costs and other, and fight for trans laws to support our trans sisters and brothers. So it's an organization I love and I will, it's transgenderlawcenter.org. Excellent. We will, or I will get that on the put that in the show notes, of course, and on the website and give a small donation to that organization as well. uh give a donation because thank you for reminding me. don't think I have this year. Last year I was better about automating those things em and they're an organization I give to every year. So it's time for me to do that. So thank you for the reminder. And hopefully the listeners will as well. yes, I hope so. hope so. So um one one last thing. How can people find your book? How can people find more about you? How can they follow you? um How can they be part of the communities that you form and create? Well, probably in the show notes, but the easiest thing is Becky Mollenkamp dot com. You can spell my name wrong. I'm it's that's the joy of having a unique name. Google will find me. So don't worry about mangling it. But Becky Mollenkamp dot com. If you go to slash book, you'll find the book, but it's also just on the top page. that's where there's links to all the communities that I run in the spaces and podcasts I host and all the things I'm doing. Cool. Yeah, that's the best place to find Becky. My search engine knows what it just puts you in if I put in like B-E-C-K-Y now. It should, correct. It should, it should. Well, are there Rebecca's maybe or yeah. You are not a Rebecca. No, no. Well. Well, do listeners I really do hope you go out and buy Becky's book. I already have pre ordered it which I'm super excited about. I will drop that link to her book to her website in the show notes. And this probably isn't the last time you've heard me talking about that and while we were talking about the other idea I had is like, how about like a book discussion group about your book. community, I'd love to do another. And also just quickly on the book, it'll be available in all the places you buy books. You can get it on Barnes and Noble bookshop, Amazon, of course. And then also you could ask your library. They can order the top order a copy in. So if they don't have it, they won't. But they can order it in if you request it. But also, just so you know, if you go to my website and order from me directly, I will actually make a little more money on the books. Not that that's the only goal in the world. But if you'd rather I make the money than Amazon. Feel free to order directly from me. Right? Aren't we all exactly. Like, Jeff Bezos doesn't need another yacht. Let's just give... He's doing just fine, by the way. So he doesn't need any more of your money. Like, just give the extra 50 cents. I don't know what it is, because books don't cost a whole lot. to order it through Amazon, you get it quicker, then I'll be able to get it to you. So, but yes. that is totally a thing. It's totally a thing. And that's reminding me, I'm going to request it at my library because I'm going to be over there tomorrow as a matter of fact. So I'll mention that to our business and career librarians who I'm friends with now. We love a library, don't we? do. And I was just thinking the other day, like the thing that would make me the happiest is seeing it on the shelf at a random Goodwill. Like that means somebody had it and read it and passed it forward. Also, if it ever showed up in the library, I'd be like, my gosh, because I'm not requesting it. So somebody else has to. So that'll be very exciting. Anyway. thank you so much, Becky, for your time and for the energy that you put into this book and really for the time and energy you put into other small business owners and podcasters and creators for a really, really, really long time. This book is just one, not just, is a culmination of that work. And that's nothing to sneeze at. And I'm so excited, excited for you and proud of you for doing it, because like you said, it's not easy to get over that hump of saying, well, I couldn't possibly add anything to the conversation, or I don't have enough to say to possibly fill a book or whatever, which is nonsense, you have plenty to say, right? by the way, that voice still sits there. So sometimes we have to hear the voice and do the thing anyway. Right, so if you take nothing else out listeners, like hear the voice, do the thing anyway, and do your truth and do be whole in your own way. You are enough to do that really awesome thing in the world. So you are worthy. Thank you so much, Becky, for being here. I appreciate you so much. em And everybody go buy the book.