Aug 5, 2026 · 52 min · 16 segments
What if giving up social media could give you back your focus, creativity, and peace of mind? This week, we’re revisiting one of our favorite episodes from the past year with one of our favorite…
Sarah Faith GottesdienerHostCan we talk about this? I've been thinking about this a lot because my studio manager, Dior, recently has said, "Sarah, I think you should do a blog post or a podcast episode essentially for freelancers or people wanting to start businesses on how to get hired and how to stay hired," because we've gone through, like, a revolving door, essentially, of freelancers because the Moon Studio uses quite a bit, such as yourself, although you have a business.
You said, "Stick-with-it-ness." And, you know, I think one of some of the most important qualities to be a freelancer, to work for yourself, to run a business, is the ability to regulate your emotions.
So if you have rejection sensitivity, if you are just very sensitive to feedback, if you get very emotional very easily or, you know, are quick to shut down or whatever your stuff is, it's gonna show up in business.
I've noticed folks not being able to essentially leave some of their emotional stuff at the door.
I've noticed folks not be able to understand certain feedback or that it is in fact just feedback about the work.
You have to be quite organized to be a business of any kind really, even if it's quite simple or if it's like an octopus like my business kind of is.
You have to have the ability to show up day after day when, like, sometimes your business feels like watching paint dry, or sometimes there's something really hard, a really wild problem happen that you didn't even know could happen.
I'm like, "Wait, I'm getting a letter from the IRS about this thing that I didn't even know was a thing, and now I have to...
And so I was hoping you could share maybe some of the qualities that you've noticed within yourself or working with other people that do set folks up to be able to run a business for a long period of time that feels consistent.
Having worked with so many business owners now, both through Softer Sounds and through Off The Grid, where I have had this community of hundreds of small business owners and solo creators and artists, what I see time and time again is that it seems to boil down to if you are someone who, like, needs there to be a prescribed path that will lead you to a specific destination, and you will be promised if you do this, this, this and that, then you will get this result.
If you need that, that's okay, but entrepreneurship's probably not for you [laughs] because every step we take is just, like, a step toward mystery.
We don't know what's gonna come out of left field, like you said, you know? And not only is it that you might get the letter from the IRS, but you have to be emotionally regulated enough to know that that could come any time, and you can't just be panicked and stressed about it all the time, or your nervous system will, like, kick you out of business pretty fast, right? So we have to be able to navigate all of those question marks and all of the sort of unsurity that comes with business.
And I think that the business owners that I see succeed, they just stay committed to some kernel of their work that feels so true to them, and that could be a modality, it could be a value, it could be a practice, it can be so many things.
Can we talk about this? I've been thinking about this a lot because my studio manager, Dior, recently has said, "Sarah, I think you should do a blog post or a podcast episode essentially for freelancers or people wanting to start businesses on how to get hired and how to stay hired," because we've gone through, like, a revolving door, essentially, of freelancers because the Moon Studio uses quite a bit, such as yourself, although you have a business.
You said, "Stick-with-it-ness." And, you know, I think one of some of the most important qualities to be a freelancer, to work for yourself, to run a business, is the ability to regulate your emotions.
So if you have rejection sensitivity, if you are just very sensitive to feedback, if you get very emotional very easily or, you know, are quick to shut down or whatever your stuff is, it's gonna show up in business.
I've noticed folks not being able to essentially leave some of their emotional stuff at the door.
I've noticed folks not be able to understand certain feedback or that it is in fact just feedback about the work.
You have to be quite organized to be a business of any kind really, even if it's quite simple or if it's like an octopus like my business kind of is.
You have to have the ability to show up day after day when, like, sometimes your business feels like watching paint dry, or sometimes there's something really hard, a really wild problem happen that you didn't even know could happen.
I'm like, "Wait, I'm getting a letter from the IRS about this thing that I didn't even know was a thing, and now I have to...
And so I was hoping you could share maybe some of the qualities that you've noticed within yourself or working with other people that do set folks up to be able to run a business for a long period of time that feels consistent.
Having worked with so many business owners now, both through Softer Sounds and through Off The Grid, where I have had this community of hundreds of small business owners and solo creators and artists, what I see time and time again is that it seems to boil down to if you are someone who, like, needs there to be a prescribed path that will lead you to a specific destination, and you will be promised if you do this, this, this and that, then you will get this result.
If you need that, that's okay, but entrepreneurship's probably not for you [laughs] because every step we take is just, like, a step toward mystery.
We don't know what's gonna come out of left field, like you said, you know? And not only is it that you might get the letter from the IRS, but you have to be emotionally regulated enough to know that that could come any time, and you can't just be panicked and stressed about it all the time, or your nervous system will, like, kick you out of business pretty fast, right? So we have to be able to navigate all of those question marks and all of the sort of unsurity that comes with business.
And I think that the business owners that I see succeed, they just stay committed to some kernel of their work that feels so true to them, and that could be a modality, it could be a value, it could be a practice, it can be so many things.
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