When Energy Leaks: Balancing a Soul-Led Business with a Full-Time Job (and Surviving, Sometimes)
Lessons from living two lives: corporate by day, soul-led by night — and learning to keep my energy intact.
Living a Double Life
Most days, I feel like I’m living two lives. By day, I’m answering emails, stuck in meetings with all the wrong people, and politely smiling through phrases like “circle back.” By night — and let’s be honest, early mornings and stolen lunch breaks too — I’m sketching the bones of a soul-led, vision-driven business.
It’s a strange double life: corporate badge by day, creator of something bigger by night. And the honest truth? The hardest part isn’t the schedule. It’s the energy.
Because if I don’t guard my energy like a phone charger in a crowded airport, my environment steals it. Gone. Poof. Vanished into a day full of everyone else’s priorities.
It’s Not About Time
We love to complain about not having enough hours, but if we’re honest, it’s not time that trips us up — it’s energy. Time is fixed. Everyone gets twenty-four hours. But energy? That’s the difference between dragging yourself through the day and actually moving your vision forward.
I’ve had entire weekends blocked off for “vision work” that mysteriously disappeared into Netflix, laundry, and “just one quick Target run.” Not because I didn’t care, but because I burned through every ounce of energy during the week. By Saturday, I was running on fumes.
It’s like trying to pour from an empty cup, only the cup is cracked and leaking because I didn’t set a boundary, take a breath, or give myself permission to rest when I needed to. That’s the thing about energy — it doesn’t just vanish; it seeps out in all the little ways: when we stay plugged into work long after we’ve logged off, when we let everyone else’s urgency become more important than our own vision, when we agree to things we don’t actually have the bandwidth for.
The Messy Middle of Building Something New
One of the hardest parts about building a vision-driven business while juggling a 9–5 is communicating what it all means in real time. I don’t always have the perfect words for what I’m creating — because I’m still creating it. It’s like trying to explain a movie you haven’t actually seen yet.
Sometimes I stumble, sometimes I overshare, sometimes I go quiet because clarity hasn’t landed yet. And while that can feel frustrating, it’s also what makes me a stronger coach. I don’t live in theory. I live in practice.
Why I’m My Own Biggest Project
Here’s the paradox: I coach, I teach, I write… but more than anything, I am my own case study.
Every boundary I learn to set, every habit I break, every energetic leak I patch up — it all comes back around as fuel for the people I serve. I can’t ask others to step into their fullest self-leadership if I’m not willing to do it first, messy edges and all.
And let’s be real: growth doesn’t always look glamorous. Sometimes it’s a disaster — like saying yes to something I knew was a no, then spiraling into resentment. Sometimes it’s magic — like catching myself in the moment and choosing differently. Most days, it’s both: a messy middle ground where I’m still figuring it out, but at least I’m figuring it out out loud.
That’s the gift of being my own project. The very struggles I trip over today are the lessons I’ll bring into coaching tomorrow. Which means my work isn’t built on theories from a textbook — it’s built on lived experience, trial and error, and the courage to keep showing up even when the process is anything but polished.
Your Turn
Protecting your energy isn’t about saying no to everything or building walls. It’s about choosing what gets access to the most powerful currency you have.
For me, that means learning to balance a demanding 9–5 with a soul-led vision. For you, it might look completely different. The common thread? If you don’t guard your energy, the world will spend it for you.
So here’s the question I’ll leave you with:
Where is your energy leaking right now — and how would your future self want you to redirect it?