If you’ve ever felt like your business works, but it still depends heavily on you, you’re not alone. Many solopreneurs start their businesses because they’re good at something. They have a skill, a service, or expertise people are willing to pay for. And that works for a while. But eventually, something shifts.

The same effort that helped you build the business starts to become the thing that keeps you stuck inside it. You’re the one delivering the work. You’re the one making every decision. You’re the one carrying the weight of everything that needs to happen.

And even when the business is technically successful, it can still feel harder than it should.

In this episode of The Solopreneur CEO Podcast, Carin and Marcia interview each other about the leadership topics they’ll be presenting at the upcoming Solopreneur CEO Summit and the shifts solopreneurs often need to make as their businesses grow.

This conversation explores the internal decisions that move someone from operator to CEO, the role of clarity and structure in leadership, and why momentum often requires a willingness to take imperfect action.

It’s a thoughtful conversation about leadership, identity, and what it actually takes to build a business that supports your life.

Listen to the Episode

In this episode, Carin and Marcia interview each other about the ideas they’ll be sharing at the Solopreneur CEO Summit and the leadership shifts that often happen as solopreneurs grow.

Carin talks about the decisions and agreements you have to make with yourself to move from operating your business to leading it. Drawing on her experience working with executives, she explains why many people assume effort will solve everything, when in reality clarity and structure are often the real drivers of growth.

Marcia introduces her talk on Activating Audacity, where she explores how solopreneurs build confidence and momentum through boundaries, self-trust, and consistent action. She shares how taking small steps, even when they feel uncomfortable, can build the momentum needed to move forward.

Together, they reflect on the connection between leadership and audacity and why stepping into CEO identity often requires giving yourself permission before anyone else does.

This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the conversations that inspired the Solopreneur CEO Summit and why these leadership topics matter for solopreneurs building sustainable businesses.

What We Talk About In This Episode

• Why many solopreneurs struggle to transition from operator to CEO.

• The internal decisions that shape how you lead your business.

• Why effort alone rarely creates meaningful growth.

• The role clarity and structure play in leadership.

• How activating audacity helps solopreneurs build momentum.

• Why small, consistent actions build confidence over time.

• The connection between leadership identity and business design.

Key Takeaways

• Leadership begins with the decisions you make about how you show up.

• Working harder rarely solves structural problems in a business.

• Momentum often comes from action rather than waiting for clarity.

• Boundaries and self-trust are essential for sustainable growth.

• Stepping into CEO identity requires giving yourself permission.

• Small actions compound into meaningful momentum over time.

Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonated with you, you’re invited to continue the conversation inside the Solopreneur CEO community.

It’s a thoughtful, low-noise space for solopreneurs who want support, perspective, and meaningful conversations about building businesses that don’t depend entirely on them.

🌿 Join us at thesolopreneurceo.com

And if you’d like to go deeper into these conversations with other solopreneurs, you can learn more about the upcoming event here:

🎟 solopreneurceo.com/summit

Episode Transcript

Solopreneur CEO Show Episode 12: Below is the full transcript of this episode for those who prefer to read or want to revisit specific parts of the conversation.

===

Carin:
Hello and welcome back to the Solopreneur CEO podcast. In today's episode we're actually going to interview each other. We have a summit coming up on March 26th, and Marcia and I are both talking about our expert topics that we're doing our presentations on.

We thought it would be fun to have Marcia interview me, and then I'm going to interview her to really draw out why this is our thing. Why is that topic the thing that we are an expert on and the thing that we're going to present on in the summit. So yeah, I just think it's going to be so fun. Anything before we start, Marcia?

Marcia:
No way. We're jumping right into it.

Carin:
Yay. Okay.

Marcia:
I would love for you to tell us what you're talking about at the summit. Give us the, specifics.

Carin:
The topic I'm going to talk about at the summit is all around the decisions that you have to make with yourself. The agreements that you have to make with yourself that truly shift you from being an operator to a CEO.

We talk a lot about the shift that you need to make, but much of that shift is an internal job, right?

How am I showing up? Who am I being?

That's really going to be the focal point of my talk. And the summit drops all at once, so you don't have to watch it in order but the way we have designed the flow is that my presentation would be an opening keynote. This is because it will set the tone for the rest of the topics to come.

I'm excited to talk about that in more depth and in detail than we're able to get to in our 20 minute podcast episodes.

Marcia:
Which, side note, I was trying to get out of more work so I said to Carin before we recorded, what if we just do one episode where it's me interviewing you, and then the other episode is you interviewing me?

And then I was like, wait a minute, dumbass. The presentations are 20 minutes a piece, and if we do a 20 minute podcast interview, we will go over all of the nuts and bolts of our presentations.

Here’s a little nudge for you to register (LINK) if you haven't yet, because you do want tohear everything that we're going to be sharing. And you'll also get to see our beautiful faces instead of just hear us.

Next question. Why do you think solopreneurs struggle with the transition of going from operator to CEO?

Carin:
I think the biggest reason they struggle with that transition is that they haven't decided that they are a CEO, meaning they haven't actually made that decision inside. And so the way they operate in their business, the way they make decisions in their business, the way they design their business, is not designed to support that transition.

If your business depends on you to do everything, it really heavily depends on you. If you take a sick day, your business takes a sick day. If you go on vacation, the laptop comes with. If that's how it's designed from the start, because you had a creative skill or you knew how to do a thing and so you thought I'll start a business.

But never really thought about the design of the business and how it would function and how it could grow without requiring more from you. Then it's just so easy to fall into that operator trap. Because you have to operate.

If you're the solopreneur, you're wearing all the hats, you're operating the business, you haven't really designed it to be able to support doing less while the business grows, then it’s going to be a struggle to transition because it's not designed for you to transition.

Marcia:
I love that. It's so good, and it ties into everything that we talk about. Like with your family, you can raise your kids and just be in the day to day and like, okay, they're going to go to kindergarten, they're going to go to high school, they're going to go to college. But if you're not actually thinking about the big overarching theme of their life, then you might completely crap the bed.

Carin:
Oh my God, that is such a good analogy Marcia. I remember when Maddie went to college, she was calling me and she's like, mom, these girls do not know how to do laundry.

I'm like, huh? Who doesn't know how to do laundry? As soon as they could reach the freaking buttons, matter of fact, my son's son, who's 10 is about to get the lesson because he can reach the buttons now. So I'm like, that was number one on the list. 'cause I'm not trying to be the laundry lady.

Your analogy is, what made me think of that. When you're raising your kids, you have to be thinking, I'm raising future adults that have to live on their own and support themselves. So you have to raise them with that mindset and with that structure.

It is the same thing with your business, right? I'm raising a business that in the future needs to be able to run without me doing every little thing. Oh my God, I love this analogy. You will be hearing a lot more of it.

Marcia:
Awesome. Okay, so your day job, you're a chief of staff: what do you see solopreneurs, business owners, coaches, consultants, the people that you work with through your coaching company and the day job executives, what do you see people get wrong about leadership?

Carin:
The number one thing across all the lanes that I see people get wrong and I hate to use that word, but I mean it is wrong. Is that they assume that effort is going to make a difference. If I just work harder, if I just try harder, if I just learn more stuff. The effort is going to be the driver, and it's not.

It never is. Once you get to a certain level, no matter what kind of leadership we're talking about, it's going to be about the clarity that you have in your vision, your mission, what you actually want at the end of the day, and the structure that you put in place to support bringing that vision to life. That is going to always trump the effort.

If you just try to put in more hours, more money, more time, whatever, that's never going to be the thing that is going to drive it. And that's the thing that people focus on 'cause you can control your effort more. You think okay, if I just work harder, I should be able to do it. But that's never going to be the thing that makes the difference.

Marcia:
So good. Oh my God. This is like candy for my soul. That's what I hate about the way that a lot of corporations are set up. It's all about the cogs and it removes so much opportunity for creativity. If you want to go from A to Z, there might be a way to skip to M and then straight to Z, where it's like, no, we need to see you here. Ugh. Anyway. Carin, this is why I love you.

Okay, so what do you want the people who watch your keynote presentation to take away from the summit?

Carin:
The biggest thing that I'm hoping they get from it is that moment of permission. Okay, I don't need to wait for anyone else, I get to decide. We talked about this in an episode before, there is no magic certificate that you're going to get that's like you're a CEO now, gold star. You have to decide and give yourself that permission and give yourself that certificate.

That's what I'm hoping that by the time they listen to my 20 minute talk that they're feeling energized by that and ready to step into that. Ready to make that decision. Ready to say yes.

Let me think about my business differently. Let me go back to the drawing board. How would I design this to fit my life, to support the lifestyle I want to have? What makes the most sense for the vision that I'm trying to build? And give themselves that permission to rethink, step in and do it the way that works best for them.

Marcia:
I love it and I love that we've provided people with so many resources in these episodes to help through that transition, because transitions are the hardest times in life because you're walking in shoes that don't fit right. So it feels weird. You are going to need to ease into it and look back and keep track of what you're doing so that you can recognize that you are actually making the decisions, even though it feels like you want torun into the cave and hide.

All right. I think that was, oh my God, it's my turn.

Carin:
Yes. We are going to flip the script. And so now I am going to interview Marcia. So fun.

Let's just dive right in. Marcia, what are you going to be talking about at the summit? What is your presentation about?

Marcia:
I am so excited because I have been toying with this audacity thing since I recorded a car Instagram reel (LINK). It was about our current administration, and I was like the audacity.

I basically went off and was like, I swear to God, if women had more audacity in their lives and they didn't think about the consequences and they didn't wonder what people would think about them and they didn't feel fear. I was like, this world would be completely different and we're headed there. There's definitely a lot of women who are stepping up.

The talk is called Activating Audacity, and I'll be going through a framework that I created that is all about boundaries, knowing that you have options, doing what you love and then also delegating. Those are the four things that are going to help you to live a more audacious life.

The boundaries can be anything from people's access to you. The boundaries that you're putting up for yourself. So if you are doing something that's more visible, if you're flexing your leadership muscles, the boundaries provide protection methods for you to help with the psychological safety that you need when you are embarking on this journey.

I'm going to have participants take action. That's the quickest way to get feedback and to realize I can play big and I'm going to shit my pants a little bit, hopefully, not literally, but I'm going to sweat. I'm going to have the armpit sweat, I'm going to feel freaked out.

But when you do that and then you text someone like Carin, oh my God, I just did this. I am freaking out. You realize okay, I survived.

I'm super excited because I’ve been working on boundaries since 2020, and it just all feels full circle.

Starting my blog on September 16th I was like, I'm going to blog every day for 365 days. And I'm on day 179 I think today. It has been so illuminating. It has helped me grow so confident in so many different ways. I've advocated for myself and I'm just excited to share everything that I've really been thinking about.

This is the start of a movement. How audacious to say that, right?

Carin:
It is and I love this direction for you. I think this is the most aligned situation ever. So yeah, I'm really excited and I'm excited for everyone to get to experience your talk because the areas that you talked about: the boundaries, doing what you love, knowing you have options. Oh my god. I love it.

And then, yeah, the delegating. And it can be as simple as having someone come clean your house. I didn't even think that was such a taboo thing. I'm a woman, I should be taking care of my own home. I'm like, no, no, no, no. They come every week.

I don't have time, I just don't. I'm doing too many things. But it took me a while to get there. At first I was kind of like, uh, is it okay? Should I be the one, am I really a good mom and a good homemaker? You know, all the things that we will say. Women, we need to let it go.

Marcia's going to help us with that. I'm so excited.

So what do you think activating audacity, how does that relate to creating momentum? For solopreneurs who are really trying to move forward? How does that help them do the damn thing?

Marcia:
When you start taking action and you start realizing it isn't going to kill you, because we do feel like that. Whatever that part of our brain that feels like we're under attack. Anytime you take tiny actions, and that's what I recommend too, because you're building up your muscles.

If you go and see a trainer and they make you run a mile and do squats and other workout type stuff, if they make you do the whole gamut of physical activity, you're never going to go back to them because you're going to feel like absolute trash after. You're going to push yourself in a way that wasn't safe. Maybe you do hurt yourself, get an injury or whatever.

I've been on this path for 14 years, too long. I'm 47, man. I'm old as shit. But I'm still coming up with new stuff and I feel better than I've ever felt in my life. Because one of the audacious things I've been doing is advocating for my health.

I've been going to doctors, I've been getting the blood tests, I've been changing the diet. I've been fighting with myself, like, God, I love dairy.

I can't have it, and I hate that I can't, and when I do have it, my body hurts really bad. But I have never felt this good in my life and it's from all of these tiny steps. Every single tiny step has compounded. That's where the momentum comes from.

There's times doing this daily blog, I have phoned it in. I'll just copy a newsletter I've sent in the past. So there's been times that I've phoned it in and I'm like, that's a part of life. You're always going to have ups and downs. You're always going to have to make the choice about what is being shared and what's not. That's where the boundaries come in. I've had stuff happen with my family and I'm like, that's not my story to tell and I won't tell it.

And so I'll have to phone it in with a blog and that's fine because I am living my life and my experience.

It's committing to something that you know is beneficial for you. And sometimes you give it 5% and sometimes you give it 192%. So yeah, so that's where the momentum comes from. It comes from not breaking promises to yourself, showing up when you don't want to. Doing that with something that you love.

I did that mile a day challenge in January where I walked a mile a day and it was great until I got COVID and then I felt like shit because I had walked 21 days and like, I walked in the rain, I walked, I didn't walk in the snow. Maybe I did. No, I don't think so.

But I got COVID and there was that big snow storm that lasted for like a freaking month.

Making a promise to myself to be consistent with something that's like physical activity, not so great. But writing, I fucking love writing. I love it. It does something for me. It's easy for me and I just get all the good dopamine from it.

So yeah, that's where the momentum comes from. Doing something that you love, being consistent with it and growing that muscle.

Carin:
Yeah. I love that you said that because it is building a muscle. You do have to work it out, you have to do your reps. Taking that small safe action. We both use power sheets (affiliate LINK) and they really advocate that tiny steps add up. Progress is progress. It's okay to grow slow.

That's the opposite of what we see in most of the marketing that is geared towards entrepreneurs. It's all about fast money, love, speed, move fast, do it all, do it right now, do it yesterday. You're already behind.

It can make you crazy. I think maybe I'm a little insane. You definitely want to do what Marcia is saying, right? Step into what you love because that's never going to let you down. Where your passion lies is always going to be the thing. I love that. I really love that.

So when you think about someone who's going to be listening to your talk and they want tobuild that momentum, they really want togrow in that confidence.

What do you think that they should focus on to get started? You talked about small actions and safe actions, but if someone's going to rip the bandaid off and get going and start to build that momentum, what do you think they should focus on above all else?

Marcia:
Ooh, this is a good one. I'm going to not edit this out and I am not going to practice self-control or restraint when I say this, but I think you need to look at your life honestly, through a lens of where you recognize what you're settling for.

You look at the parts in your life where you're dealing with bullshit.

That's not to say if you're in a bad nine to five situation, that you should just say, I'm going all in on my business. That is not the case at all.

I think it was very difficult for me to partner up with Carin 'cause she does so much and she's so good at everything she does.

For me, I've had the luxury of being able to grow at a very, very slow rate. I know that that's not the situation for everyone, and sometimes people do have to take these big leaps and these big jumps and that can work. You have to tap into your intuition and see, is this something that is safe for me right now?

Is this going to break some of my relationships? There were points where I could have divorced Ryan. I could have taken half the equity of the home, put it into investing into my business, hired the coaches I wanted to hire. But I would've lost the love of my life and that's not what I wanted to do.

Everything is about compromise.

I think in order to really realize what it is that you want, you have to recognize what you're putting up with in life that you really dislike. And that's where those tiny steps towards the things that you love, that's going to help so much.

Me doing the blogging and the writing and showing up for myself, that's helping me do the dumb shit I don't want to do in my business.

So it's not like you're completely going one way to the other. You start to recognize, oh wow, this is giving me so much more energy and it's helping me to focus and get things done in a better way. By doing those things that you love, that you're good at, that's your zone of genius. that's going to help you do better in your day job and you're going to show up better.

And then your supervisor's going to be like, what the fuck happened with her? Dude, is she on drugs? She's doing some really good stuff right now, and it's because of the confidence.

The quickest way to get a bunch of guys interested in you is to have a guy who loves you. Because you're emanating that self love because you're feeling loved. And then all these other bobo guys who maybe you had been checking out before, they're like, Hey, what's going on? And you’re thinking, absolutely not. I don't think so.

It's the same thing with business, when you're feeling yourself and when you're doing what you're naturally skilled at it helps with all the other bobo parts of life that we have to do. Because we do have to be operators in our business like Carin was saying.

I think that's the main gist of everything that we want to share: you're a human with a business, but your business can make such an impact on so many people's lives if you treat yourself good. Be nice to you. You're the boss.

Did that answer your question?

Carin:
I love it. Yes, I love everything. I love that there's such a natural connection between these topics.

It might not seem like it on the face, but leadership and stepping into your CEO identity, deciding not to be in operator mode and having that confidence, building that muscle, being audacious they just go hand in hand. I love the connection.

So I think that was all of our questions for each other. Our little interviews, that was so fun.

In our next episode we're going to talk about the summit in general and the experience we're designing. So definitely tune into that one. And for sure come and register for the summit at http://www.solopreneurceo.com/summit.

It's on March 26th. We have some really fun things. We're going to do a coffee chat, we're going to have a live closeout.

It’s a day where you can show up and really be focused on you and your business and stepping into that CEO identity. Yeah. So don't miss it!