Half a Month Horizontal:

What Vertigo Taught Me About Building a Business That Holds it Together, When You Can't!

May was a lot!!

For roughly half of it, I was completely out of action. Not "a bit tired, skipping the gym" out of action. I mean full-blown vertigo…. the kind where your entire world is spinning on an axis it has absolutely no business spinning on. Looking at a screen…..Nope. Coaching a new client…..Not a chance. Walking down the stairs without holding the wall…..Laughable.

I couldn't work a wedding. I couldn't coach. I could barely exist in a vertical position.

If I still had the old version of my business, the one that required me to physically show up or the money stopped….May would have been genuinely terrifying.

But it wasn't.

The gift nobody tells you about when you go self-employed

Everyone talks about "being your own boss" like it just means you get to pick your own hours and wear what you want (both true, both great). But the real gift….the one that quietly saves you when life goes sideways…..is flexibility.

When I was ill, I wasn't sat there doing maths on what I was losing. I was resting. Because the structure I'd built meant that it didn't have to be a crisis.

That's not luck. That's what intentional business building does for you.

And it got me thinking about you!

Your skills don't stop being valuable when you can't physically use them

Here's a question for you: what do you actually know how to do?

Not just the profession you already do…… I mean really…. What do you know & what can you also do? What have you figured out over years of doing this? What do clients or your peers ask you about constantly? What comes so naturally to you, it’s like breathing?

Because that knowledge, that skill set, It lives in your head. It doesn't need you to be standing over a chair, on instagram all the time or on-site with clients to have value.

Income ebbs and flows. Bodies give out. Life gets in the way. Seasons are slow. That's just the reality.

So the question isn't if your income will dip at some point. It's whether you've got multiple streams coming in so that when it does, it doesn't knock you flat.

What you’ve heard about diversifying your income is BS!

The online noise of ‘passive income’ ... is a lie. Nothing is really passive. To succeed in passive income, involves a consitant flow of ads! Otherwise you are actively pushing your product. So the setup is timely & the initial cost is a lot. Plus you have to keep an eye on the ads & see what works best.

Diversifying income however, means you can work in lifes flow, instead of accepting that some months you're flying high & some you're living on rice! It creates flexible waves of income without having to build an empire, drive ads or chase hustle culture!

You just need to look at what you're already doing and ask: where else does this live?

A few starting points:

If you're already teaching people things — in DMs, in consults, over coffee — that's a workshop. That's a mini course. That's a paid community.

If you've figured out how to price yourself & create a strong business without apologising for it — that's coaching. That's a community!

If you have a process that works — client journey, booking system, how you handle enquiries — that's a template, a resource, a product someone else would pay for.

If you've niched into something specific — a technique, a clientele, a vibe — that's a course, a mentorship, a guest teaching spot.

You're not starting from zero. You're packaging what you already do.

But what if you don't wanna go into education & you just don’t have the brain capacity to expand on this….

Okay…..not everyone wants to build a course. Not everyone has the bandwidth to launch a new offer, write a sales page, and figure out how to work the tech! Some of you are like me….. multi-passionate, easily excited, (seriously have about 5 projects on the go & 100 tabs open) and very aware that if we start another business project we will absolutely lose our shit!

So let's talk about something a bit different.

What do you already do, every single day, that someone would pay for?

I'll give you mine as an example. I walk in nature most days because I genuinely love it. It's my reset, my thinking time, my thing. One day it clicked: I could be getting paid for this walk.

So I started dog walking!!

I live with my mum at the moment, which also makes pet sitting a complete no-brainer….I get some space, the lifestyle suits it, and I get to spend proper time with animals when I can't have one of my own right now. It also has zero effect on my other businesses & can work PURRRFECTLY (animal punn) along side it all! It's an absolute win on every single level. Low start-up, low brain drain, fits around my coaching, and I'm basically just doing what I was doing anyway….. except now it pays!

That's the energy I want you to take into this question.

Not "what business could I start"......but what am I already doing that has value?

• Maybe you're the person everyone calls for advice on gut health, fitness, or navigating the perimenopause chaos nobody prepares you for.

• Maybe you're an incredible cook and people would genuinely pay for your meal prep.

• Maybe you're obsessive about interiors and you've quietly been helping mates style their homes for free for years.

• Maybe you're funny online and you've never considered that that is a skill with actual money attached to it.

The point isn't to add more to your plate. It's to look at the plate you've already got and notice what's already on it that you've been giving away for free.

Less start-up stress. Less identity crisis. More income. More variety. More you.

The version of you that's sitting on skills unmonetised

I'm not here pretending May was seamless. It wasn't. But I'm also not writing this from a place of "look how I hustled through being ill".....because I didn't. I rested. Fully. (THAT’S what should be rewarded & manifested, NOT the hustle through it BS!)

And the business held.

That's what we're building toward. Not just a business that looks good when everything's going right & you’re constantly out there busting a gut. A business that holds when you can't.

If you're sitting on skills you haven't monetised yet, ideas you haven't acted on, or a vague sense that you should probably not have one single income stream but don't know where to start…..that's exactly where I come in! 

The best coaching support for this is within my mentorship. Longer term support options for start ups, rebrands & new projects.

CLICK HERE to find out more!

What can you monetise from that fits into your lifestyle? Let me know in the comments…

Your aligned unfuckery coach,

Claire x