Building a Burnout-Proof Business with Mallory Rowan

So before we kind of wrap up this first part, since that powerlifting apparel business, you've built multiple other businesses that have gone into high six figures.

I don't know if they've made seven figures or not, but I think of you as a serially successful entrepreneur.

When you were designing your next business, did you go about it differently? Like, saying, "This is the next thing I'm going to do, and I'm going to approach it completely differently now."

Yes, absolutely.

So a few different pieces of it, the first one being identity.

So that was a big one for me, being a competitive powerlifter and a young entrepreneur or just a business owner in general.

Those are two pretty heavy identity pieces that are really fun to grab onto, right? They're exciting things about yourself, and I definitely loved those things about myself.

And so one of the things I did when going through that burnout was really separate myself from my work more than anything.

The powerlifting piece happened a little bit naturally of when you can't really train that way, you're not necessarily actively powerlifting.

But it was the work piece for me as well that I really had to exercise, "Okay, can I separate who I am, who I introduce myself as in a room, who I know that I want to be in this world from my work?" Because it's really easy for us to use those labels and grab onto them.

But the more I got comfortable in, you know, saying to someone, "I work in marketing," instead of fully explaining what I do or even mentioning that I own a business, the more I realized I was really comfortable with the identity, regardless of these things that we grab onto that often are such a source of stress.

So that was definitely the first piece for me.

That it kind of puts you to the test.

Yeah.

"Hi, Mallory.

Nice to meet you.

Tell me a little bit about yourself." Like, where do you go? 'Cause I know most people say, "Oh, I'm a realtor," or, "Oh, I own a fitness business." Like, we all-- the default for everyone is to tell what you do, not who you are.

One thing I love to do is to throw it right back to someone and say, "Well, what would you like to know about me?" And then that can be really fun because it also pulls out what they're actually interested in.

But you can also just talk about what you're doing in life.

I might say, "Hey, I'm, I'm from Ottawa originally.

I'm currently living in Toronto.

Right now, I'm really into this interest and this hobby.

And, you know, I've been really enjoying doing this with my summer." And if they're like, "Oh, cool, what do you do professionally," right? Yeah.

You're telling people where your attention is directed, and you're not making identity statements.

Because the thing we forget a lot of times is when we say things, good or bad about ourselves, our brain's always listening, and it can attach ourselves to that identity.