Non-entrepreneurs love to say things like, “Just set boundaries” or “Close the laptop at 5:00.” That’s adorable. If you actually own a business, you know how far from reality that is. For brick-and-mortar owners, “off the clock” often looks like: A 2 a.m. false alarm call from the security company (and yes, it’s always when you finally fell into a deep sleep). A social media notification that someone just wrote something completely unhinged, and it needs to be handled before

One thing I’ve noticed about small business owners—we’re all big-picture dreamers. We’re the ones who say, “One day, I will…” But when will that “one day” be? It’s easy to push those dreams aside when you’re buried under invoices, social media posts, staff schedules, and bank runs. You tell yourself, maybe after this week’s chaos, but then you’re exhausted. The next week starts, a new emergency pops up, and your dream goes back on the shelf. That was me. I so badly wanted to

One of the best lessons I learned as a business owner was the importance of knowing my strengths and weaknesses right away. I didn’t even realize at first that one of my biggest strengths was hiring. It wasn’t until I started talking to other business owners in my industry and listening to their horror stories of staff who no-showed, treated customers poorly, shirked responsibilities, or even stole from the business that I realized how fortunate we were. In all the years we w

On a marquee birthday a few years before opening my first business, I was gifted a fancy bottle of champagne. Instead of opening it, I tucked it away in my beer fridge, saving it for a “someday” moment. I was in the early days of planning that business and thought, one day, I’ll have something truly amazing to celebrate when I open those doors. Years went by, and that bottle stayed unopened. It never felt like the right time. Then finally, after many, many, many delays, we of