I’m So Proud of My “Shitty” Revenue Year

The perfectionist in me has always wanted my business revenue to grow year-over-year. I thought it was the only way to “win.”

Then my revenue plummeted to $148k in 2025 after years of doing double that.

But I’ve never been more proud of myself financially.

The quickest possible backstory here is this:

I had a mental health emergency in April that landed me in the hospital for 2 weeks.

It took me months to recover. Honestly, being on a psych ward is so unbelievably fucked up that I’m not sure I’ll ever “recover” fully. I’m changed forever.

My ability to sell new shit went out the door.

I don’t think I sold anything from my discharge in May until I launched my Unforgettable Expert program in October, and that only did a few grand in sales cuz I put bare minimum effort into selling.

I gave more attention to actually creating the Unforgettable Expert program, and I’m glad I did. That program was my chance to go deeper than just talking about personal branding. We dove into the shit that holds people back - perfectionism, overthinking, etc.

But back to why I’m so fucking proud of my not-so-sexy revenue year.

Despite barely selling anything new, I held steady at $8k/month in monthly revenue.

Not sexy, but that stable monthly recurring revenue meant a few things:

• I could pay my operations manager and right-hand woman, Haley, our agreed-upon monthly retainer without cutting back her hours or duties.

• I could pay my fractional CFO, Lou, her full monthly retainer to help me manage my tiny bit of cash flow using her genius financial prowess and the Profit First system

• I could continue to pay my agency’s creative director, Emily, in little installments for our branding projects. (I am so grateful she let me space these out, and as of today, I’m caught up on paying her for past projects!)

• I could pay myself a bare minimum lil’ salary to help my husband* pay our bills and keep up with the key expenses I have related to managing Hashimoto’s- specialist co-pays, payments on my infrared sauna, supplements, Pilates, etc.

(*We did have to use credit cards, and it was NOT a fun financial year. We usually make about the same amount of money, so losing my usual 6-figure income was a HUGE cut, and I’m so grateful to my husband for being such an amazing cook. Eating out was NOT a thing.)

When I look at that list of accomplishments now, I am so fucking proud of myself.

But it was damn scary to ride out this revenue dip, I won’t lie.

I remember upon my discharge, one of my mentors told me, “Not a lot of businesses could survive the CEO being gone for 2 weeks.” His words rang in my head over and over as I struggled not to beat myself up for not “doing more” during my recovery.

Sure- the former perfectionist in me could feel like a failure for “going backwards” in revenue.

But that is not the self-love vibes I’m riding these days!

This wasn’t possible because I’m just some lucky, privileged bitch.

(Although of course my lovely husband felt lucky as hell throughout this!)

I’ve been strategically building a business that works around managing the ups and downs of Hashimoto’s for years. I’ve been building recurring revenue and working with a fractional CFO for a long time, baby.

My main source of recurring revenue, The Long Game Mastermind, became my one responsibility throughout my healing journey.

I structured The Long Game mastermind to include primarily:

• A weekly mastermind call

• Bi-weekly hot seat coaching

• Access to me in a private group chat

That was doable even at my worst, and it was great to connect with a strong group of clients that I love seeing. (My mental health recovery journey was pretty lonely, to be honest!)

In the name of transparency, I will note that I lost 2 clients amid this tumultuous year, and there was a lot of drama around it. *Insert gigantic eye roll here.*

Maybe I’ll unpack it another time, but I am currently unsure if it’s even worth my breath when I have so many fabulous clients to be grateful for.

For now, all I have to say is that I’m cautiously optimistic about my mental and physical health.

I feel more myself than I have in years, honestly.

And you know what?

After doing $148k in all of 2025, we brought in $43k in January 2026.

So I sense I’m back on the path to being fucking iconic again.

Wanna come along for the ride with me? Make sure you’re on my weekly Fucking Iconic newsletter. (It’s free!)

Every Wednesday, I send an email with deets on what I’m doing to love the shit out of myself and how it’s supporting my business.