How Getting Skinny Saved My Studio Over 10K a Month

After 22 years in business, I hit that all-too-familiar wall where I'd fallen out of love with the whole thing again. In this solo episode, I get honest about the self-imposed deadline I gave myself to quit, the 160-mile Camino pilgrimage that made me question all of it, and the decision to get my business "skinny" so I could finally make moves I'd been too stuck to make. If you've ever felt buried under the parts of your business you never signed up for, this one's for you.

Key Takeaways

• Falling out of love with your business is usually a signal you're spending too much time on the work you dislike—not proof you're in the wrong work.
• Selling stops feeling gross the moment you actually believe what you offer matters to someone's life or business, whether or not they hire you.
• Cutting expenses to get "skinny" (sharing studio rent, trimming roles) freed up roughly $10K a month and gave me room to be nimble again.
• You can't control the outcome—only what you do today—and there's a lot of freedom in laying down the weight that was never yours to carry.

 In This Episode 

• [00:00] Welcome to the show!

• [02:09] Loving What You Do

• [06:07] Frustrations In Business

• [07:52] Business Is A Journey

• [19:56] Ryan's Book

• [25:53] Trimming Down

• [33:26] Onward Summit

• [34:10] Newsletter

• [35:38] Outro

Quotes

"So much of what I teach is do work that you care about, but the thing that gets in the way is when I end up doing the things in the business that I don't like doing." — Ryan Koral

"All I'm responsible for is right here today. I can only control the things that I can control. I cannot control the outcome." — Ryan Koral

"Getting skinny is allowing us to make choices we couldn't make in the past, because we were just stuck. I'm enjoying being nimble." — Ryan Koral

"I still feel called to this work of storytelling. I feel more called now than before. So my work's not done." — Ryan Koral

"To live a good life: pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it." — Mary Oliver (shared on the trail by Mark Manry)

Links

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