How Much Should You Pay Yourself From Your Business EP 113

How Much Should You Pay Yourself From Your Business EP 113

Too many business owners are paying everyone in their business except themselves, and somewhere along the way they stopped asking why.  Podcast Club is where the conversation continues. If this stirred up questions about your own pay, I would love to keep talking. Come hang out in the Podcast Club, a free community that meets most Thursdays. You can join us at consciousedge.com/club.  [http://consciousedge.com/club] Get full show notes at www.consciousedge.com/ep113 [http://www.consciousedge.com/ep094] Instagram:@aleciastg [https://www.instagram.com/aleciastg/] You built this business. So why does it pay everyone but you? For a lot of women, owner pay is the problem they have stopped questioning. There's payroll, there are contractors, there are a dozen things that have to happen before there's anything left, and somewhere in there their own pay became the lever they pull whenever money gets tight. For others it runs the other way. The business did well, the lifestyle leveled up to match, and now there's a number they have to hit every month or the whole thing wobbles. In this month's Monthly Money Talk, Alecia St. Germain sits down with fractional CFO and financial strategist Jenn Baas to look honestly at both. What owner pay actually is, how to tell whether your business can really afford you, and the simple financial-plan math that shows where your money is going. They also go underneath the numbers, to the big assumption that keeps an owner underpaying herself even when the business could support her, and the entitlement that can creep in on the other side. This one is warm, practical, and a little bit of a permission slip to look at the number you have been avoiding. 📝 What We Cover in This Episode: In this episode you'll discover: - What owner pay actually means, from salary to draws to distributions, and why how you pay yourself matters less than whether you do -Why most owners pay everyone else first and reach for their own pay as the lever they pull when money gets tight -The simple financial-plan math that tells you whether your business can really afford you, and where the money is actually going -The big assumption hiding under "there's just never enough left for me," and why more strategy won't move it on its own -What overpaying yourself looks like, and how leveling up your lifestyle too fast can leave your business fragile when the market shifts -Why "if I'm working this hard, it has to be worth it" deserves a closer look before it sets your salary -How emotional capacity, not just the numbers, decides whether you can hold and enjoy what you have built

How to Act on a Great Idea When You Don't Have the Capacity EP 112

Every time you tuck a good idea away for when you have more capacity, you give it the chance to go find someone else to bring it to life.   If you've got an idea you keep telling yourself you don't have the capacity for, come test that thinking out loud with me at Podcast Club. It's free, it meets most Thursdays, and it's there to connect you with people doing this same work. RSVP at consciousedge.com/club [http://consciousedge.com/club] and tell me the date that works for you.  Get full show notes at www.consciousedge.com/ep112 [http://www.consciousedge.com/ep112] Come say “hi’ on Instagram:@aleciastg [https://www.instagram.com/aleciastg/] You have the idea. You can see it clearly. And then you start adding up everything it would take to do it right, the time, the money, the build, the proper way you know it should be set up, and somewhere in that math you decide you don't have the capacity for it right now. So you tuck it away. In this solo episode, Alecia St. Germain offers a different way through. She shares the moment Podcast Club arrived in her head in the shower, right in the middle of deer-damaged cars, a leaking camper, and a conference she was about to leave for, and how she chose to test it in the clunkiest, easiest way she could instead of waiting until she had the capacity to do it perfectly. Forgotten Zoom link and all. You'll hear why your own expertise can be the very thing keeping your best ideas stuck, what it looks like to test something without risking too much time or money, and how letting it be good enough is often what finally moves it into the world.  📝 What We Cover in This Episode: -Why your best ideas lose momentum the further you get from the moment they arrived, and what Big Magic gets right about acting fast -How being the expert in the room can keep you from testing the very ideas you believe in -The clunky, low-risk way Alecia tests every new idea before she spends real time or money on it -Why letting something be a version 1.0 frees you to actually get it out the door -How perfectionism is often less about the outcome and more about protecting yourself from what others might think -What it looks like to feel anger and still lead with compassion when someone won't own a mistake -The one question to ask yourself when you catch yourself making an idea harder than it needs to be

The Scarcity Story that Keeps You Stuck Before You Feel "Ready" for Help EP 111

You keep waiting to get back to solid ground before you ask for help, when reaching for help is usually what gets you there.  You’re Invited to Podcast Club: I’d love to keep the conversation going with you by inviting you to Podcast Club on Thursdays at 1pm ET.   Think book club, but for the podcast.  It’s a way to deepen the conversation and engage in authentic dialogue with other business owners. RSVP for the dates you want at consciousedge.com/club [http://consciousedge.com/club].  Get full show notes at www.consciousedge.com/ep111 [http://www.consciousedge.com/ep111] Come say “hi’ on Instagram:@aleciastg [https://www.instagram.com/aleciastg/] In this episode of The Conscious Edge podcast, Alecia St. Germain calls out a pattern she watched play out over and over at a recent conference for women building wealth. There are two moments an entrepreneur tends to reach for support. One feels like an easy yes, the season when things are working and she is ready to scale. The other feels vulnerable and risky, the season when something is not working, debt may be building, and she has convinced herself she has to climb out of the hole on her own before she is allowed to ask for help. Alecia walks through the questions she asks women sitting in that harder season, the scarcity thinking and big assumptions that keep them stuck, and why the shame of "I should have this figured out by now" is often the real thing standing in the way.  📝 What We Cover in This Episode: -The two seasons when entrepreneurs reach for support, and why one feels like an easy yes while the other feels terrifying -Why waiting until you are "back to center" to get help often keeps you in the hole longer -The two questions to ask yourself first when a big investment in support feels like a risk -How debt in your business is often a band-aid for a big assumption you have not named yet -Why believing you have to know it all or you're a fraud is keeping you from getting paid for what you already know -The reframe that makes spending on the right support feel like an accelerator rather than one more cost -Why the thing actually blocking you is usually shame, and what becomes possible the moment you stop carrying it

Why Your Business Still Feels Like a Struggle Even When You're Doing Everything Right EP 110

You can do everything right, follow every system, hire every coach, and still build a business that doesn't feel like yours, because no strategy can outrun what's out of alignment with your values.  You’re Invited to Podcast Club: Listeners of The Conscious Edge are coming together on Thursdays at 1pm ET for Podcast Club. Think book club, but for the podcast. We'll talk about the episodes, what landed, where it's challenging us, and how to actually apply it. It's a chance to meet other business owners, get into real two-way conversation, and stop just consuming content. RSVP for the dates you want at consciousedge.com/club.  Get full show notes at www.consciousedge.com/ep110 [http://www.consciousedge.com/ep110] Come say “hi’ on Instagram:@aleciastg [https://www.instagram.com/aleciastg/] Most entrepreneurs have done some version of values work. You have a why, a mission, a set of words on a page. And then somewhere along the way, following a coach here, a strategy there, a system everyone swore by, you look up and realize the business you built doesn't look much like the one you actually wanted. In this Mindfulness Matters conversation, Alecia St. Germain and her longtime business partner Jonathan Dugger go past the surface of values work and into what keeps you connected to it. They get into why values evolve as you grow, how money amplifies whatever is already running underneath you (your purpose and your self-protection patterns alike), and the difference between a value that's truly yours and one you're holding onto to feel safe. Alecia also opens up the soul purpose work she's trained in, and Jonathan shares how his own reading turned years of self-imposed pressure into something much closer to joy. Together they offer a grounded way back to alignment, including the STOP practice and a handful of questions you can return to anytime your business starts to feel out of sync with who you are. 📝 What We Cover in This Episode: -Why following someone else's system or strategy can pull you off course when it isn't built around your values -How your values evolve as you grow, and why it's worth redefining them on a regular basis -The difference between a true value and a self-protection value, and how people-pleasing can disguise itself as kindness -Why money amplifies whatever is already there, both your purpose and your hidden assumptions -What soul purpose work is, and how a single reframe can turn pressure into joy -The STOP practice (Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed) for checking alignment before you act -A few simple journaling questions for a quarterly values check-in -Why your time and money struggles often ease once you tend to the deeper capacities first

Outsource, Delegate, or Do It Yourself? How to Get Your Time Back EP 109

You've been told to delegate, outsource, and get help, so why does it still feel faster to just do it yourself?  Want help deciding what stays and what goes? Alecia's free Capacity Decision Guide walks every task and obligation in your business and life through the same decision tree from this episode, so you can put down what was never yours to carry. Grab it at consciousedge.com/decision [http://consciousedge.com/decision].  Get full show notes at www.consciousedge.com/ep109 [http://www.consciousedge.com/ep109] Instagram → @aleciastg Alecia St. Germain knows this story well, because she lived it for years. The belief that once this project wraps, she'll finally have time for what matters most. Then the next busy thing arrived, the business started to feel heavy, and her body wore out. She found her way out of that pattern, and now she helps other business owners do the same. In this solo episode, Alecia shares the tool she built for that exact moment: the Capacity Decision Guide. It's a simple decision tree that takes any task or obligation and sorts it into one of five outcomes. Release it, outsource it, delegate it, lead it, or grow into it. She talks through why so many entrepreneurs keep doing everything themselves, why outsourcing and delegating are not the same thing, and why confusing the two is so often the reason a past hire fell apart. And she's honest about what doing it all alone really costs, from a ceiling on income to the stress and burnout the body takes on along the way. This episode is for any business owner who already knows they're handling too much on their own, and is ready to take on the challenge of doing something different. 📝 What We Cover in This Episode: – The story you keep telling yourself, and why the time you're waiting for never comes -The five things you can do with anything on your plate, and how to know which one fits -Why doing it all yourself means you're 100% limited by your own capacity, and what that does to your body over time -The real difference between outsourcing and delegating, and why mixing them up is often why a past hire didn't stick -How "I don't have the capacity" is usually a leadership and boundaries conversation underneath -What it takes to grow into the work that scares you, instead of pushing it to the back corner