The Moxie Movement

Somewhere in the last two weeks, your inbox changed temperature. The subject lines got shorter. More of them carry a date, and the date is before Christmas. Every client who has sat on something since August has suddenly remembered it, and would love it sorted before the end of the year.Earlier this year I walked a woman through her week, one item at a time. Every item came out the same way: critical, urgent, on fire. By the bottom of the list there was one actual fire. Everything else could wait.In this episode I pull apart why one urgent item sets the temperature for your whole week, and how other people's lack of planning turns into your emergency every November. Then I give you two questions that sort a fire from something that can wait, and a release list that gets the rest out of your head.What you'll walk away with:Why you're judging your whole week by the temperature of its worst itemHow a client's lack of planning becomes your November emergency, and how to hand it backTwo questions that sort a fire from something that can waitThe release list, and why it must never turn into a to-do listWhy November is the last month with enough working days to finish what mattersCalled It: "It all feels too hard at the moment, to be honest."The two questions and the release list are written up in my book, Built For You, so you can stick them somewhere you'll see them. It's free: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/get-built-for-you-bookWhat to listen to next:- When every week feels like putting out fires- The decisions you keep putting off, and what they costHit follow so next week's episode, on the one word that decides how your December goes, lands in your feed without you going hunting for it.Got a question about what to let wait this November? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episodeWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themoxiemovementRead on the Blog: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/blogWORK WITH SARAH:// The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: The Done by 3 Club | The Moxie Movement// The Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure - 4 Spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. The Moxie Business Advantage// Calm By Christmas Workshop™: 90 minutes, live on Zoom, on your own numbers. We find at least $10K of profit in the business you’ve already built, before Christmas, or your $97 back. Wednesday 25 November, 12 midday Auckland. Message me here to save your seat.

A client signed a contract in June and did something I want you to hear about. She opened her calendar and blocked out every delivery hour for the whole project. She didn't stop at the deadline. She put in every hour, spread across the weeks it would really take. Then she looked at what was left. For the first time, she could see her own workload before she promised it to anyone else.In about six weeks the school gates close, and for some of you they stay closed until February. Your business doesn't close for seven weeks. Clients keep emailing, invoices still need sending, and somebody has to be the adult in the room at 9am. Most of us cover it by working nights and answering emails from the beach, while someone yells "watch me" off the same pontoon for the eleventh time. Call that what it is: a full workload with the worst working conditions you'll ever run a business under.Both fixes in this episode work in November. By the third week of December, they're gone.What you'll walk away with:The capacity maths: every hour you've already promised between December and March, on the calendarWhy a client will happily move to a February start in November, and hate it in DecemberThe household conversation nobody has had: who covers which days, with names written on themWhy the job only you can do is a business design problem that shows up every summerWhat has to be true for your business to run for seven weeks with you at half capacityHalf capacity shows up for more than summer: your health, someone you love, griefCalled It: "I'm the only one doing all of the things, and so I don't do them currently."Why the first three things to give away should be domestic onesYour task this week: open your calendar and find the last day of school. Count forward to the first day back. Block those weeks in, then write one name on every weekday: yours, someone else's, or nobody's. In the Northern Hemisphere, your long break lands mid-year. Same maths, different month.If that calendar shows you a conversation you've been avoiding, the script for having it without a fight is in chapter four of my book, Built For You. It's free: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/get-built-for-you-bookWhat to listen to next:- A working week that survives the school holidays- Building a business that works when you're not thereWhile you're here, hit follow, so next week's episode drops straight into wherever you listen. Next week: why everything in November starts to feel like an emergency, and why almost none of it is.Got a question about running your business through the school holidays? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH://The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: The Done by 3 Club | The Moxie Movement//The Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantage //Season 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

At the end of last year, a client showed me her goals for the year ahead. It was a really good list. Respectable. The kind you read out at a networking event and everyone nods. So I asked her to go down it and mark each one. Do you want this, or do you think you should want it? She got a third of the way down and stopped. Nearly every tick was a should.She'd written a whole year out of other people's goals, in her own handwriting. And she was about to spend twelve months chasing them.Some goals pull you towards something you want. Others push you away from something you're scared of: falling behind, looking stalled, what people might think. The pushing kind runs on willpower, and willpower is a tank. It empties right about when the gyms go empty in February. So if you drop your goals every year, look hard at the list before you blame your discipline.What you'll walk away with:- Why a list of shoulds goes flat by March, even the ones you hit- Goals you run towards and goals you run away from, and why only one kind lasts twelve months- How a sales target gets dressed up as ambition- Why willpower runs out, and why a business owner's tank empties first- Permission to want a quieter year, a consolidation year, a year that won't photograph well- Name the want first, and the plan falls out of it- Called It: "I set goals every year and never meet them. What am I doing wrong?"- The secret test: keep only the goals you'd still chase if nobody ever knewYour task this week: before you open a single planner or 90-day challenge, finish this sentence. "For the business and for me, what I actually want next year is..." Read it out loud, and check whether you're running towards it or away from something.If you want to build next year around your life instead of at the expense of it, start with my book, Built For You: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/get-built-for-you-bookWhat to listen to next:- Finding what you want when you've lost track of it: - Measuring success with your own rulerIf this one helped, hit follow, so next week's episode turns up right when you need it. That's where we turn your sentence into a year that can actually run.Got a question about the goals you're setting for next year? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH://The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: The Done by 3 Club | The Moxie Movement//The Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantage //Season 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

Last December I sat with a client while she went through her year-end list. Bonuses for her team, worked out to the dollar. Gifts for her key clients. The family trip she'd promised the kids. Tax put aside. She had a number for every person sitting at the table in her business.Then I asked her what the business paid her this year. Not turnover. Not sales. Her. She didn't have a number. The woman who built the table couldn't give one for herself.The end of the year is when the money moves. It flows out in every direction, and it's probably the most generous season in your business calendar. This episode is about the one place that generosity rarely reaches. And about the order money leaves your business in, because that order shows exactly where you've ranked yourself.What you'll walk away with:- Why year end is when the money flows out to everyone but you- The one number most business owners never add up- Your two pay packets: the wage for your work, and the return for the risk you carry- The last creditor pattern, showing up again in a Santa hat- Why being paid last is an instruction you wrote, and can rewrite- When generosity turns into a subsidy you fund yourself- Called It: "Isn't it selfish to pay myself more at Christmas?"- Why Christmas bonuses belong to outcomes, not expectationsYour task this week: total what this business actually paid you this year. Your wage plus the profit, from what hit your bank account, not what it says on the tax return. Then ask yourself one question. If next year rolled out exactly like this, would that number be okay?If that number lands wrong, book a Fit Check Call. Let's have a real conversation about where you're at, where you want to go, and what's getting in the way. We'll explore whether working together is the right fit and identify the next best step to help you grow your business without sacrificing yourself in the process.What to listen to next:- Why a busy year still leaves you short- Why you keep paying yourself lastHit follow, so next week's episode turns up without you having to do anything.Got a question about paying yourself properly this Christmas? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: The Done by 3 Club | The Moxie MovementThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantageSeason 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

You came back from the school holidays with the same tired face as every other woman in the room. You kept things ticking over. You answered emails from a chair by the pool while the kids did bombs, and you used the slow weeks to get ahead. Then term started and you were already behind, running on a tank you never got round to refilling.Serious athletes don't train flat out all year. They plan hard blocks, maintenance blocks and deliberate recovery blocks, because the muscle rebuilds stronger in the rest. Skip the rest and you get injured. Your summer is the recovery block for your business, and most of us keep raiding it for the jobs we didn't finish."Rest more" is useless advice when a sick kid woke you at 2am. So this episode is a build, in three steps, and the order matters.What you'll walk away with:- Why you come back from the holidays more depleted than you left- What serious athletes plan into their year that business owners skip- Why "I'll catch up on holiday" damages the next term before it starts- Step one: block the break first, like a flight you've already paid for- Step two: build the last weeks of the year backwards from the break- Step three: whatever only you can hold over the break becomes this term's project- Called It: "Sarah, my business really can't run for two weeks without me."- The difference between "only I can do this" and "I never set it up so someone else could"Your task this week: open the calendar and block the summer holidays, or the next school holidays, before a single piece of work goes in. Then build backwards from the break.If you want a business strong enough to run while you're at the beach, start with my book, Built For You.What to listen to next:- Building a business that holds while you're away- Planning your year around the seasons you actually liveIf this helped you plan a real break, hit follow, so the next episode turns up right when you need it.Got a question about stepping away from your business over the holidays? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-clubThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantageSeason 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

Your kids are learning how to run a business by watching you run yours. Most of the lesson lands on days you had no idea they were listening.Scarlett was meant to be doing her homework. She was eavesdropping on a hard money conversation instead. Afterwards she didn't say a word about the money. She said, "You sounded really sure."She was learning what a woman sounds like when she values her own work. Nobody taught it to her. She absorbed it, the way you absorbed the song your mum hummed at the sink.In this episode:- Why your kids pick up the texture of your business and miss the strategy- Scarlett can explain profit at 14 and still trips on seven times eight- What they notice: whether the business ate you, whether you take a fair return or the scraps and call it humble, whether you're the calmest person in the room or the most frayed- Who else is watching: younger women in your industry, the friend who hasn't started yet, the team member who'll run her own business one day- What Built For Generations means underneath the strategy- Called It: "I worry my kids only ever see me stressed and working. Am I teaching them the wrong thing about business?"What to listen to next:Stepping away without the whole business wobblingTaking your fair share instead of being paid last Got a question about what your kids are learning from your business? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-clubThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantageSeason 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

You knew the answer in four seconds. Then you spent the rest of the afternoon on the reply: the paragraph underneath, the alternative you made up on the spot, the warmer second draft, the delete, and the third draft that said almost exactly what the first one did.That paragraph under your no has a name. A sociologist called it emotional labour decades ago, watching flight attendants who were paid to manage how their passengers felt. You do that same job after every no you give your employees, your clients, your suppliers and your kids, and nobody ever wrote it into your job description. In this episode I get into why other people’s feelings about your boundary were never yours to fix, what’s really going on when you worry your team thinks it’s “your way or the highway,” and why your business is meant to run your way. Then I leave you with one small, slightly terrifying challenge for this week.What you’ll walk away with:Why the decision was never the expensive part, and where the real hours go once you’ve said noHow to tell the kindness in your follow-up paragraph apart from the tax you were taught to pay as the girl who got praised for being easyWhy leading a business means some people will be uncomfortable with your standards, and why that discomfort is theirs to carryWhat to do with the cold, harsh feeling that shows up when you hold the line: act first, and let the feeling settle afterwardsThe one-no challenge: send the sentence, delete the paragraph, and sit in the silence without filling itWhat to listen to next:Handing back weight that was never yours to carryLeaving the Good Girl script behind as a leaderHit follow so next week’s episode, on the one season of the year you keep handing away, lands in your feed without you going hunting for it.Got a question? What’s the no you’ve been rewriting in your head all week? Drop it here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-clubThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure, 4 spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://themoxiemovement.com/the-moxie-business-advantageSeason 27 Retreat: If you’re ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we’d love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you’ll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

You had the big fortnight. Everywhere at once, lit up, running on adrenaline and not a lot of sleep. Then came the week after, where you could barely face the inbox and the work stacked up like the clean laundry you still haven't put away. And somewhere in there you wondered, privately, whether you're actually any good at this business game.Every business has a heartbeat. There's a rate at which the money comes in, a rate at which the work goes out, a rate at which your clients hear from you and your team gets your attention. That rhythm exists whether you set it on purpose or not. If you don't set it deliberately, it gets set by how your energy is feeling today, by whatever is loudest in your inbox, by whatever fire everybody is standing around pointing at. In this episode I'm making the case that the tempo of your business is a decision you get to make, and that the only pace worth building is the one you will still be running in five years without hating it.What you'll walk away with:Why "I work best under pressure" is usually a business with no set tempo, and not a working style you were born withHow to get your sleep, your caffeine and your nervous system out of the job of holding the rhythmWhat your team is actually doing while they brace for the next crash, and what that bracing costs your momentumHow to run a genuinely seasonal business on a plan instead of being ambushed by your own calendar every single yearThe one exercise to do this week: draw your real year, then mark which spikes you chose and which just happened to youWhat to listen to next:Working week that survives school holidaysPricing and paying yourself properly from a seasonal businessFollow the show: Give us a quick follow so the next episode turns up without you having to go looking for it.Got a question? Drop it here, I pull listener questions apart on the show all the time, and yours might be next.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-modelThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure - 4 Spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://go.themoxiemovement.com/mbt-podcastSeason 27 Retreat: If you're ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we'd love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you'll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27

You used to be the woman who held all of it. Every number, every name, every next move for the next three months, all of it in your head, no notes needed. Then across a stretch of months you couldn't date if you tried, the words started going missing, and you decided the problem was you.This episode is for the woman running a real business right as her body decides to rewrite the rules on her. Perimenopause. Brain fog rolling in at 2pm. Sleep worse than the newborn years. Names of people you've worked with for years, gone mid-sentence. Sarah names the season most business advice acts like doesn't exist, and she pulls apart the two things you've been treating as one thing: your competence, which has not moved an inch, and your confidence, which walked clean out the door. You'll finish this one knowing that leading through this season is not a smaller version of you. It's a set of operating conditions, and a real leader builds for the conditions she's actually in.KEY TAKEAWAYS- Why your competence has not dropped, even on the days you are certain it has, and how to stop rebuilding your whole business off a feeling that no longer matches the evidence- The shift that changes this whole decade: letting your systems hold what your memory used to hold, and why that is the most experienced move you'll ever make, not a retreat- How to lead through this season instead of hiding through it, when everyone needs you at once and there is no grace left for falling apart- Why building for the capacity you have now, not the capacity you had at 25, is the exact skill you'd praise in any other operator- What to do with the shame that you're not coping, which turns out to be the most expensive symptom of the lotWHAT TO LISTEN TO NEXT: Building systems that hold when your head can'tLoad at home and making it visibleSUBSCRIBE: Hit subscribe so the next one lands without you having to remember it's coming. Your memory has enough to carry right now.GOT A QUESTION? Comment below or drop your question here and I might answer it on a future episode.Watch on YouTube: Sarah Greener | Business Without ChoosingRead on the Blog: The Moxie Movement Blog | Business Growth for WomenWORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-modelThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure - 4 Spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://go.themoxiemovement.com/mbt-podcastSeason 27 Retreat: If you're ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we'd love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you'll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: The Moxie Movement // Home

Your sales were up on last year. And you still sat there feeling like you were losing a game you did not remember signing up to play. If you have ever heard someone mention their exit multiple the way other people mention the weather, and felt it land in your throat, this episode is for you.There is a specific kind of business most of us are actually building. Built on relationships, trust, reputation, repeat clients, the slow good work that compounds over years and sends three more people back to your door. It is an ancient and honourable way to build something. Then we hold it up against a scorecard built for a completely different kind of business, the one designed to scale fast and be sold. In this episode Sarah names the difference between a commerce business and a capitalist one, why measuring the first against the second will always leave you feeling behind, and how to give yourself permission to want the business you actually chose.WHAT YOU WILL WALK AWAY WITH- Why sales up can still feel like losing, and what that feeling is actually pointing at- The difference between a commerce business and a capitalist one, and which one you are really running- How to spot the borrowed scorecard you picked up because it was lying around and everyone else was holding it- What really good and really mine looks like when nobody else is watching or measuring- The exact line to use next time someone asks about your exit strategyMENTIONED IN THIS EPISODESarah's book, Built For You. It holds the questions she uses to map out what right size actually looks like for your business. DM Sarah on Instagram @sarahgreenercoach with the keyword "BUILT" and she will send it over.WHAT TO LISTEN TO NEXT- Giving yourself permission to want a different size business- Building something to keep instead of building to sellSUBSCRIBE: Give the show a follow so the next episode is right there waiting for you the moment it drops.GOT A QUESTION? Drop it in HERE, and it might become a future episode.WORK WITH SARAH:The Done By Three Club: The only business model for Mum’s with an established business wanting to be Present Before 9, Done by 3 and Profitable in between. Learn more: https://go.themoxiemovement.com/the-done-by-3-modelThe Moxie Business Advantage: Application only program to provide complete business support and structure - 4 Spots available each month. Apply via a quick 15 min phone call to see if we are a fit and that we can help. https://go.themoxiemovement.com/mbt-podcastSeason 27 Retreat: If you're ready to stop juggling and build a business that actually works for your life, we'd love to welcome you to our Season 27 Retreat in Russell, New Zealand. Over three powerful days, you'll create your 2027 strategic plan, install practical systems you can actually use, and leave with the clarity, confidence, and momentum to lead differently. Find all the details and save your spot here: https://themoxiemovement.com/season27