The Zen Journey of Small Business

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This week on the Sunlight Tax Podcast, I’m sharing personal lessons from running a small business and exploring what it means to build a business that supports your life. 

I talk about aligning business goals with your values, protecting your mental health, practicing ethical accountability, and embracing the spiritual side of entrepreneurship while giving practical insights on negotiation, feedback, decision-making, and navigating external challenges while staying grounded in what matters most. 

Also mentioned in today’s episode:

00:10 Introduction to Hannah Cole's journey and insights

01:48 Aligning goals with personal life and values

04:04 Small business as a spiritual and ethical journey

07:06 The importance of mental health and self-care

10:07 Receiving and managing feedback effectively

13:02 Negotiation strategies and contract clarity

16:55 Understanding external forces like economic shifts

20:04 The role of happiness and fulfillment in business

23:08 Ethics and accountability in client relationships

30:10 Building a sustainable and responsible business

32:58 Upcoming offerings and closing thoughts

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it! Every review makes a difference by telling Apple or Spotify to show the Sunlight Tax podcast to new audiences.

Episode Links:

Join the 2-Day Business Setup Intensive Waitlist

Check out my program, Money Bootcamp

Get my Tax Help on Substack

Get your FREE visual guide to tax deductions

Order my book:Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You’re Self-Employed

Watch YouTube video version

Transcript:

Hannah Cole (00:07)

Hello, beautiful. I want to bring you something on the personal side today. I've had some feedback from various listeners of the podcast and just of my writing in general, that anytime I bring up the importance of running a small ethical business, it feels like fuel for you. And in that spirit, I thought, we all could use that. Who couldn't use a little fuel, a little fire?

For the hard work that you do when you are a solo practitioner, right? It's just hard. Everything falls on you when you are running a small business and you are the only owner or you are a full-time freelancer. it's a lot already to just do the work that you are doing, whether it is a service, a product, and on top of that, you have all of the admin, all of the marketing, all of the sales.

It's really challenging and it can feel so overwhelming that it it just it's my passion to support people like this, right? And why? In part because I am one and I really understand in my bones how hard it is, but also how rewarding on the side of just serving people that you really care about, seeing them flourish in the world. There's really nothing more gratifying than doing that and just feeling the pride of like.

I helped build that. I helped make that stronger. You know, it feels so good. So I just want to speak to you. If you are struggling in the trenches of freelance work, maybe you're even new to full time self employment. I know I've been speaking to a lot of people in the tech industry, designers in tech, some of whom have been laid off and so are making a forced transition into full time.

freelance contract work and some people who are starting their own businesses at this point. My own partner is one of these people. And it's a scary transition. So I just want to give you some words of encouragement today. Talk about, you know, I'm gonna be real about how difficult the journey can be and it is. It is hard. But it's hard in the way that weight training is hard. It's rewarding. There is something you get out of it.

And let's not forget that part. So this is my episode today on the Zen journey of small business. I wrote a newsletter this week that talked about small business ego death. And that's a little exaggerated. Of course, it's a very headline-y thing to say. and I hope nobody took that in a super literal way, thinking that, you know, things are that dire for me. They're not.

But definitely I feel that my own voyage as a small business owner, and man, it's been an evolution. that running a small business has been one of the most spiritual journeys of my life. And I know that sounds incredibly ironic and strange in our capitalist culture.

Especially if you're coming from a part of the world, whether it's the nonprofit world, the arts world, the creative world, maybe the healing world, where you feel a little adverse to capitalism, you're not so sure it's for the good. and I I just want to I just want to say that I actually see a way and feel very personally that small scale, accountable capitalism.

can really transform people in a positive way, that it's wonderful. I do want to be clear. I see a version of capitalism, I think we all do, that is metastasized, unregulated, unchecked, unfettered, and doing way too powerful with way too little accountability. And that is not what I'm talking about. I too am skeptical of that, feel very negative feelings about things like that.

But what I am talking about when I see the positive side, it's people like you. It's small practitioners, small businesses that have accountability to the people that they serve. They are accountable for what's in their products, for how they pay their workers, for how they serve their clients, right? When you are that way, there's a beautiful cycle where you offer something to someone that is.

More valuable to them than the dollars you charge. And that is the value that they get out of the thing that you offer. That's kind of a beautiful concept, right? And if you do a terrible job, if you treat them terribly, if you give them a product that makes them sick, they will never buy from you again. And that's a good thing. That's accountability. Like part of the important part here is that you need to really show up and serve people well, right?

And when you do that, like the people who are doing that, that's the people that I serve and that's who I love. That's actually the part of capitalism, the part of small business that I really want to help perpetuate in this world. Cause I think this is where good is done, right? So with that said, let me talk about some of the ways that I see running a small business as a bit of a spiritual journey and just share with you some of my wisdom gained.

in 10 years as a small business owner. Technically, I've had maybe 25 years of being a small business owner because in my life before starting Sunlight Tax, I was and I still am a professional artist, and that also is running a small business. one with, you know, some real sticky feelings about capitalism. But now I'm much more squarely in the

In the zone of small business and capitalism. And so let's let's talk about it. Okay. So, first, I want to say when you are the only owner of your business, your mental health is the company's health. And so taking your mental health seriously, taking the health of your body seriously, actually is a pretty important thing to do in terms of your business success. I'm coming to you as a person who

moves my body every day, who's gotten quite serious about weight training in the last few years. I want to be around for a long time. I want to be healthy. And I also, you know, honestly, I've been through some really hard things in the last few years. you know, the devastation of Hurricane Helene and what that did to me. and also just some shifts in the market, shifts in my client, just a lot of change all at once.

at a time that, you know, because of my loss in Helene is not the easiest time for me personally. And so focusing in on my mental health and what I need to be healthy has meant to slow down at sunlight tax, right? And I would say it came at the expense of sunlight tax, but that's actually not true. Slowing down is actually the fastest way to recover for me because

I actually was getting to a point where I felt so burnt out, so depressed and demoralized. again, I you know, I lost my entire art studio in Hurricane Helene. That's a really big grief to me. And it's something that will never have true resolution. It's just a difficult thing thrown at me in life, right? I'm not asking you to cry for me. I just want you to kind of understand that, like, you know.

Whatever is happening in your life as a business owner can have an effect on how you run your business, of course. It can also have an effect on how you receive information as a business owner. I realized the hard way that I was experiencing some PTSD about something I had built and worked on for 20 years, just getting wiped away overnight, right? and so when I started getting blinking red lights indicators in Sunlight Tax about

You know, some programming changes that were becoming clearer I need to make. I started going into panic mode and really actually experiencing some PTSD about my hurricane loss and over applying that knowledge to sunlight tax in a way that was not actually real, right? So this was a moment, and I'm really lucky that I had a coach, a business coach, who helped me see this, where I was like, I'm not helping my business right now.

I'm operating out of panic and from a place of trauma. And this isn't healthy for my clients. It's not healthy for me. It's certainly not a place from which I'm gonna make any good decisions. And so I really deliberately took a hard look and I stepped way back in my business. frankly, just to get healthy again, just to start, you know, going to a therapist and like dealing, dealing with my traumatic loss, trying to separate that.

from my existing business so that I can come back in feeling fresh and you know able to do the hard work of running Sunlight Tax. I'm happy to say that I I feel much better having taken a couple months in slow down mode. and it feels fun again. I actually am finding joy in the process and that to me is an indicator that I'm feeling much better. So I say this to you

As a small business owner, your mental health is the company's health. And it is not something you can just ignore and put on hold. It is something you sometimes, I hope you never get to the point that I got to last spring, but it can sometimes get so blinking red and hot that you really you're gonna be forced to step away from your business. And it's better that it's your choice. Okay. More on the Zen journey of running a small business. Receiving feedback.

Receiving feedback is, I think, one of the most difficult things in a business. it can feel so triggering to get, especially when you are operating, you know, you're one person and you're starting to speak to larger groups of people doing, you know, one to many offerings like to a newsletter, to a social media following, to a podcast following, and you start hearing things,

about things they don't like about your program, things they don't like about you personally. If you're a woman, if you are a a person from a historically marginalized group, you probably get a little more of the personal stuff than than a, you know, straight white man might. This is pretty well documented. I think all of us who are in these groups know that this is true. And it's really important and difficult to sort out

The stuff that is coming from other people that is their issue from what is your issue, something that you actually need to address and fix. And sometimes people are not that nice about the way they give you feedback. And this is really challenging, right? I have often wished that I could have more of a Teflon quality, and I just frankly don't. I just don't. Things stick to me. I absolutely

Hate internet comments. because even though most of the comments I get are really kind and lovely and wonderful and I enjoy them, I do get really nasty, awful comments on occasion, and it makes me hate being on the internet altogether. I know from everybody who's got a large following, a large audience, I know this plagues everyone. I know I'm not alone. And basically, if you look at anybody who's got a big following, that is a person who's endured some.

Really nasty internet hate. And that's hard. It's just awful. you know, sometimes when it's stronger than others, I consider just throwing the whole thing away just because I don't want to receive stuff like that. That's an option, but I think for now it's worth it to me to serve the people that I serve and step around those ugly comments.

I have learned some ways to deal with them though I never like

But even with that said, as a small business owner, you get feedback that just, you know, it is hard to receive feedback in an objective way, just about, that's a change that, you know, that's a misunderstanding or a miscommunication on my part. I'm gonna need to address that. Or maybe my product or service is not serving people where they're at right now. Maybe things are changing.

People are feeling different from how they did a year, two years ago. And I'm gonna need to make some changes. Those are healthy responses to have to the kinds of comments you might get coming in that show you you need to make a change. Sometimes it's really hard to hear because it feels so personal, right? And maybe you feel attachment to the program that you're offering, the service that you're offering, the product that you're offering, and it just feels hard to adjust it.

Maybe all you can think about is how difficult it will be to make a change. So I'm just here to say I don't really have a solution for that other than trying to define a very clear boundary about when you take feedback. I like to separate feedback and input mode from sales mode. I find that when I'm doing a big sales push.

I need to be in the best and brightest energy that I can muster. and it's not a good time to be receiving feedback that can be hard and that can be challenging to just my confidence, right? I want to receive feedback about my programs. I want my stuff to be as good as it can be at all times. I want to be honest and ethical about receiving feedback, but it doesn't mean I have to receive it every day. There can be seasons of feedback.

there can be days of the week of feedback. There can be specific months you dedicate to feedback. You don't have to input that at every moment. This is some hard learning I have had from just being tossed around and derailed from too much feedback at the wrong times in my business.

On a similar note, I think one of the sort of zen spiritual journeys of running a small business are understanding a lot like the serenity prayer, the things you can control and the things you can't control, right? If you are listening to this now, you have probably been affected by higher interest rates. You have probably been affected by tariffs. You have probably seen prices rising.

For the cost of goods of what you offer, right? Not all of those things are within your control. Those are things you have to deal with, but you can't necessarily do much about. Likewise, your clients might be feeling more nervous right now. They might be feeling like they have less discretionary income. They might be feeling like they want to ask more questions about your program because they're being much more selective and careful about where they spend their money.

Those are valid things for any client to do and to feel, but it's hard as a business owner. And so my metric for that is to use a metaphor of a surfer. So I am a surfer on the ocean. I am very much and totally responsible for my business and my body, right? My behavior, my business, what I offer.

Right, the way that people interact with me, I can control that. And so to me, I will wax the surfboard, I might even completely overhaul or replace the surfboard. It is my job to make sure that that surfboard is in the best working order it possibly can be. And also, I might myself, as the rider, need to gain new skills. I need might need to get stronger.

Leg muscles, better balance, right? There are things I can control and I it's my job to control them. But there's the ocean. The ocean is bigger than me, it's bigger than my business. The ocean might be interest rates, it might be climate change, it might be a very challenging and divisive political environment. The ocean is something you are riding. You are riding the waves as they come to you and

What you can do is control how you ride the waves, but you can't stop the waves themselves. And this also sometimes the ocean gets too terrible. Sometimes there's an earthquake and then a tsunami. And like you just might not survive through things that are not your fault at all. And I am here post-Hul Hurricane Helene to tell you that is very much true. And I experienced it myself. but sometimes it does present a new opportunity, and sometimes you can learn.

to change the way that you're riding the waves, the way that you have your surfboard. and I think that's a good thing. Knowing the difference is the key there.

One of the other Zen journeys I have had in my business is about goals. now I know that we're all kind of different on this. I know not everybody is as driven by goals as I am, but man, give me a goal and I'm gonna crush it. Like goals to me are something I become maniacal about and have to meet. So I have learned actually the hard way that I have to actually be careful about setting goals.

And really make sure those goals are in alignment with the life that I want to have. I have experienced earlier in my business when I was having some good success, I set very ambitious revenue goals for myself, right? And I was pretty maniacal about meeting them until the point where I realized, wait a minute, I'm not sure it's actually more important to me to meet this.

revenue goal than to maybe not be working nights and weekends to maybe have a better experience with my family and my daughters and my partner.

Maybe actually it's worth more to me to be available in the evenings. And this revenue goal is going to be have to be balanced with the fact that I don't want to work in the evenings. I want to have dinner with the family. So

That to me has been a big journey. I don't know if you're motivated by goals the way that I am, but to me, it has forced me to put goals into my business that are more personal, especially as a solo owner, where again, a revenue goal is nobody's job but mine. And my personal health and well-being can sometimes be in conflict with it, right? So sometimes I'm dialing back.

strictly business related goals because part of my other goals, personal goals, actually factor in because I'm just one person with one life. And so maybe I'm dialing back a revenue goal because I'm dialing up a life goal of availability and connection with people I love and care.

Happiness is another of these zen pieces of the journey for me.

Something really important I learned in this era that I was making very, very aggressive goals is that happiness doesn't come from meeting a goal. it's satisfying to meet a goal. It can be really wonderful. I'm not saying don't do it, but I have listened to many podcasts, I have talked to many fellow business owners who have met really big

Goals that you might think you want, right? Whether it's a hundred thousand followers on Instagram or a million dollars in revenue, you know, name your really big ambitious goal as a solo business owner, right? The fact is, all of those people, 201, didn't feel happier the day they made a million dollars, the day they got that hundred thousandth Instagram follower. If they were happy before.

They remain happy. If they were not happy before, they remained unhappy. Happiness is not coming from that external source. And so this has been actually kind of a hard lesson as I make goals and try to meet them. Because again, that life balance, this is some of the wisdom that is really coming into play for me as a business owner 10 years in, moving past my 10-year mark as a business. My life.

My happiness, these things actually matter often more than, you know, big audience numbers, big revenue numbers. I wanna have a life that I enjoy. I wanna move through my week having days that feel good and not days that feel awful.

Another thing that I find so important, and and I credit a lot of this to the design world. If you don't know, I had a couple of years that I spent working in an interactive design agency in New York City. And, you know, I was coming in myself at the time as a visual artist. I didn't really have training in the design world, but I was trying to get some. I I love the design world.

And one of the things I learned in the design world was about negotiating and working with clients. I just got to see it happen a lot as we worked on these big contracts. And I realized, you know you can negotiate for what's important to you up front. And a lot of times, like it's not as adversarial as I had thought or been trained to believe it was in the arts. The arts tend to be pretty handshaky and wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Which does not protect you, right? Pretending everything is done through friendship, pretending all our business meetings are actually getting a drink with friends or having a party is not actually that beneficial to me. I actually prefer saying, this is a business meeting, this is a sales call. I actually like that clarity better. The ambiguity of the art world, frankly.

Bothered me. And now that I've seen it done another way, and especially in the design world, which is creative and does prioritize really top-notch creative work, but in a business context, I've really appreciated that. So I got to witness in this design agency lots of contract negotiation. I myself was doing a lot of contract negotiation. And one of the things I loved was noticing how the contract sometimes was

Wasn't always speaking to really what that person's priorities were. So having empathy for the person that you are serving, that you are working with in the business is so useful to just negotiate well and make everybody feel good walking away. There's lots of ways to get a win-win situation in your business just understanding.

Not just the stated goals, but some of the below-the-surface goals of the person that you're working with. And likewise articulating, being clear about some of the things that are important to you. I'll give you a very clear example. So I give a lot of tax workshops to a lot of organizations. I have spoken to real estate firms teaching independent real estate brokers how to do their taxes.

I've spoken to large membership organizations, granting organizations, universities, you name it. So I'm all the time looking at contracts for these speaking teaching opportunities, right? And the contracts have a lot of common themes, but they're all a little different. A lot of them are taken from boilerplate legal language, right? Written by somebody who's not the person sending it to me. It's like a contract that they use over and over again.

So they'll send me the contract, and sometimes that contract will be really grabby and really aggressive. And who knows what era that was written by what lawyer with what goals, right? It's often not written by the person sending it to me in the first place. But a lot of times I'll read the contract, and yes, I always read the contract. my gosh, I'm so grateful I've never signed a contract I haven't read. But a lot of times it'll say things like,

We own all the intellectual property when you speak with our group. We own it forever and we're gonna record it. And to me, that could kill my business. That could actually threaten my business. And so I I'm never, I'm very careful not to sign a contract that ever has any language like that. But again, I also know that the person who sent me the contract probably doesn't know that was in there and didn't do it with any intention to be unkind or aggressive with me.

So I just come back with them and I say, Hey, this contract looks great, but paragraph five says that you would own everything that I say and that you can record it. And I just can't sign that. So it, you know, just change that and then we're good, right? So it's really in good faith. And it's really just stating out loud, like, I have this thing that's really important to me that would be hamstrung by agreeing to this. And I

gonna need you to shift that in order to move forward. I've actually never had anybody push back when I did that. Sometimes it's really, really easy and they can make a same day change and it's simple. Sometimes they have to go through some hoops and like send it to the university's lawyer and it takes a while. And I just sit tight and I say, thanks for changing it. You know? Like

It doesn't have to be antagonistic and that's one of the most wonderful parts of negotiating that I have learned and really loved. That like people often don't know what's in their contracts and you can just say what you want. Just say what you want. Be clear.

The last thing, the last point I wanna bring up on the Zen journey of running a small business is about ethics.

I want to say this specifically because I come out of the world, that is very adverse to money and adverse to capitalism. And so I have been around a lot of people who feel suspicious of taking money. They sort of want and seek out an indirect relationship with that. This can happen in the world of nonprofits, this can happen in the world of the arts.

because these are places where people don't orient on a sort of like business mindset orientation. I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just saying these are cultures that exist. And

I've seen a lot of people kind of prefer to set up things where they're asking for a donation rather than to say, you are paying me and I am delivering this thing. But I want to say that over time my thinking has really evolved on this to a point where I love and prefer the ethics and accountability of a direct relationship with the person who is paying you.

And what you are giving them directly, how you serve that person who is giving you a payment. I actually have found that when you triangulate, right, when it's a donation that goes over here, when there's a board involved, sometimes this can corrupt that accountability relationship in a way that is not productive. What I love as a business owner is that I

make an offering. I offer services, maybe products sometimes, and it I'm very clear.

Again, this is where clarity is important. I am clear about what is inside. That is the ethics on my side. I need to be clear about what is on offer and what I will deliver and any parameters there or restrictions that the person buying needs to know. That is my ethical duty as a business owner. Their duty is to look at what's offered, see what the restrictions are.

note if it feels like a fit or not a fit to them and they make the decision if the value that I give, those items that I'm offering are worth the dollars to them. And to some people it will be worth it and to others it will not. In economics there's a whole term and study of this called the cost curve. A cost curve is this plot, this graph that you can make about who in a population is willing to pay X tiny amount for something.

And who is willing to pay Y super high amount. And you can plot sort of how this tends to fall onto a curve with some few people willing to pay a whole lot for a certain item because it has a special amount of value. And then there's a whole world of looking into why those people value with things that way. And some people who could kind of take it or leave it, they'll only get it if it's really cheap, right? And so there's a whole economics about picking prices.

Along that curve and who you're serving and what the psychology is and who's perceiving the value in a different way, right? So I love that ethical call and response relationship where it's very direct. And then you deliver what you said you were gonna deliver, they pay what they said they were gonna pay, and everybody can walk away having been very clear about what was involved in that transaction and feeling like it happened well.

This is the accountability that I really particularly love in an ethical small business and I think I wanna leave you with because I think it is kind of a little bit of magic.

If you're interested, I could talk more about that ethical two-sided equation because it also really steps into things like pricing and demonstrating value and clarifying where you do and don't do things, like actually showing what you need as the business owner and what you expect from the client. there's lots there to dig into.

But just to close, what I want to bring you back to is just a reminder about who I serve and why. It's you. It's people who are on this journey with me. I don't know if you have felt this sort of spiritual or ego pull that I have in running a small business. the highs and lows of it, the difficulty, the strength building of it.

I hope you have, and I would love to hear about your journey. Definitely feel free to send me a message. you can reach out at it @sunlighttax on Instagram and drop me a line or hello@sunlighttax.com. but I'm curious if you have felt this kind of zen or this kind of spiritual journey that I have in running a business. I find it very difficult, but in the most gratifying way.

A lot like lifting weights.

And one of the things that I find the absolute most gratifying about it is getting to serve people like you. I am not the only person out there who really cares about doing deeply good work, excellent, excellent work, and serving people who I find to be kind, caring, ethical, and doing good work in this world. It's the whole reason that I've built my company Sunlight Tax. The point is to

Support and amplify the amazing work that you do by, in my case, helping you just set up the technical side, the scary stuff that can derail you, like audits, legal obligations, kind of knowing what you need to do on the technical side, so that can just stop being a headache and stop being in your way and just exist there as a structure to support you as you go on to do that amazing work that you do. The way that you operate.

Matters. Who you serve matters. How you serve matters. Honestly, you matter. So I hope you've enjoyed that little zen journey of a small-scale capitalist. let me know what you think. And if you're interested, you can probably sense as I talk about this that I am I am on a journey.

right now, right at this moment, I'm doing a lot of work behind the scenes to build a new offering, which is a two-day intensive to help set up your business. It's really different. And I'm trying to, you know, respond to all that feedback that I took in in the last few months and build something that feels really useful, really useful and really valuable to you as a small business owner. So if you want to check out what's involved in that intensive, if you want to sign up for the wait list.

There's no commitment. You join the wait list. you don't have to join. But you will get notified when I do open the doors. So if you're interested in just checking out what the intensive is about, who it's for, how it will work, and you want to get on the wait list to be notified when it's open, you can go to sunlighttax.com/waitlist. All right, you wonderful human being doing amazing work in this world. I'm so happy to connect with you.

Thanks for listening today and I will see you next week. Bye.

Set Up Your Business Intensive: Behind the Scenes

Listen and Subscribe Here

In this episode of the Sunlight Tax Podcast, I explain how self-employed people, including freelancers, creatives, consultants, and small business owners—can build simple, effective tax and legal systems for their businesses. I also introduce a new 2-day intensive program designed to help you set up your business structure, organize your taxes, strengthen legal compliance, and create a clear plan for moving forward.

With personalized guidance, practical tax planning, and community support, this intensive is designed to make the often-overwhelming process of setting up your business feel simpler, more manageable, and more human.

Also mentioned in today’s episode:

02:04 Who I serve: Creative and non-creative small business owners

05:12 Common overwhelm and challenges faced by self-employed individuals

07:08 Choosing the right business entity and legal setup

08:44 Understanding quarterly taxes and avoiding surprises

09:51 The importance of trust and accuracy in tax information

12:04 Details of the two-day intensive format and community aspect

13:57 One-on-one guidance and privacy considerations

15:33 Risks of AI hallucinating tax law and how to get reliable info

16:54 Features of the new program: database, implementation, and support

18:46 Invitation for feedback and how to join the waitlist

20:56 Matching cohorts by business stage and profession

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it! Every review makes a difference by telling Apple or Spotify to show the Sunlight Tax podcast to new audiences.

Episode Links:

Join the 2-Day Business Setup Intensive Waitlist

Check out my program, Money Bootcamp

Get my Tax Help on Substack

Get your FREE visual guide to tax deductions

Order my book: Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You’re Self-Employed

Watch YouTube video version

Transcript:

Hannah Cole (00:07)

Hello beautiful. I hope you're doing well today.

I don't know about you, I want to talk to those of you who are listening to this podcast. I'm curious. I know some of you listen to this podcast, and you might hear me talk about creative people or artists, and you might not actually identify that way yourself. I certainly know a lot of people listening for

What to me is the real purpose of this podcast is because you're an ethical person, a caring person, someone who is trying to do good work in this world. And you find that the way that I describe tax information or career issues for a small business kind of speaks to you, right? That's actually to me the point. I know that I've had the experience of talking to people who I think are my perfect client, who I could help so effectively.

Who think that they're not somebody that I serve because they're not creative. And I just want to speak to that explicitly right now. I think that that message has gotten out there because of my background. Yes, I went to art school, I've been an artist for a long time, but I'm a small business owner. and who I serve is other small business owners. Now, a lot of them do happen to be creative, and that is because so many design schools and art schools.

Ask me to teach tax workshops that a lot of my audience does end up being in the creative side of the world. And I love that and I welcome that. But I do explicitly want to make sure you know that Sunlight Tax, my work, my book, is designed for self-employed people of any variety. Really, what I care about is that you are building an ethical business, doing work independently, because independent work is where it's hard.

That's where you need tax help, right? When you work on your own, when you're a freelancer, when you're a consultant, when you have your own business, you have a lot more admin than somebody who has a W 2 and works for someone else, right? And so that is who I serve and why I want to serve you. So I just want to speak explicitly to those of you, those many of you who may think.

That you only belong here if you are a creative person. And I just want to assure you that I love what you do. I explicitly want to help you when you are doing good work of any kind. I will name a couple people who actually I know listen to this podcast who are not doing creative work at all. I have many people who I have served over time in fields outside creative fields, and I I explicitly want to call you in.

So if you are, for example, an endocrinologist who works on contract, if you just got your master's in human resources and you are starting a new company to help small businesses set up human resource policies. if you are a therapist engaged in ketamine-assisted therapy,

Maybe you're a therapist who's beginning to venture into the world of executive coaching. I have a lot of coaches in my orbit and a lot of healthcare professionals. Maybe you're a doula or a midwife. maybe you are, like my own partner, a software engineer who just quit his day job in order to take on independent projects that light your fire that drive

a mission that helped the world. You are sick of helping San Francisco based startups just make more money. And now you want to help Asheville. Now you want to help small ethical businesses around the country and especially local to Asheville do things that help their business. So it's really funny to me that my own partner actually recently took a huge step and became

my ideal client. So I just want to explicitly call that in, so that you know that this is a place where not only can I serve you, but I really want to.

I know when you are self-employed, it can feel really hard. You are so busy, you're often overwhelmed with so many tasks of admin that the last thing you want to do is spend time setting up bookkeeping, setting up tax systems, thinking about whether you need an LLC or not, whether you need to be an S corporation or not.

Figuring out sales tax and how to set up for that, right? Those things feel hard, even though they are necessary. You recognize they're necessary, but you're really nervous about sinking a lot of time into them, or sitting with an accountant who just seems to speak in jargon and just wants you to pay them a lot of money, but doesn't explain anything to you and you have no personal understanding of what is going on, right?

You want kind of a balance of like.

Okay, I get it. I know what that's for. I know why I'm making this choice. You want that power. You want to feel empowered in that way. But you also just want to get it done, right? You're not there to like, okay, I don't need a degree in this. I just want to be following the law. That's it. I want to not get audited. I want to not have someone sue me and have no protection, right? That's what you want. So

You probably recognize that you have these needs when you're self-employed, freelance, starting a new business, maybe even shoring up an existing business. You need to track your income. You need to track your tax deductions. You want to get every penny that you can, and you should. You want to make sure you choose the right entity. LLC, S Corp, Partnership, C Corporation, Sole Proprietorship. These are all good options. They don't all do the same thing.

Set up for sales tax, know that if you need a business license that you get it, right? There are a lot of those technical items and you want help, but you really just want to get it done quickly, right?

I also really want to say that one of the most critical times in business setup and getting up to speed quickly, like not trying to just DIY everything and slowly figure it out, is when you are, like my partner, leaving full-time work as a W-2 employee and venturing out onto your own, right? Maybe you're now, you know, you quit a day job and now you're becoming a consultant.

if you are doing that, you can hit a tax whammy really quickly, right? That is when estimated quarterly taxes are going to apply to you right away rather than ramp up gradually as a small business starting from zero is gonna have. And so you in particular need a nice quick setup and you need to understand what is coming before that quarterly tax bill hits you in the face.

And I say this with a lot of experience being the tax practitioner who tells people, hey, you didn't pay any quarterly taxes last year, even though you were obligated to under the law. And now you owe a tax bill that is really big, a lot bigger than you expected. And I'm sorry to tell you this, but if you'd been paying quarterly taxes, you would have saved yourself all of this pain, right? Rather than be the person who says that, I would rather teach you.

how to get on top of your quarterly taxes and avoid that horrible problem you might get at tax time if you don't.

So I understand that you're busy. I understand that you may feel overwhelmed with this technical side and be impatient to get to that good work that you do, serving the people that you serve, making that product that you make, fulfilling that mission that you have, right? That's the purpose of going out on your own or building a business that you love, right? It is to serve those people that you want to serve to fulfill that mission. It's not to get all down and dirty with tax law, right?

You want someone like me to make it easy for you. And with that in mind, I want to tell you how I am shifting my offering to serve you better in a world where you may be feeling a lot of overwhelm, a lot of information glut, and a sense of, I just want to do this as quickly as I can. I want to have results, I want to have it done, right? You don't want a lot of information that you have to weed through and sort through on your own.

You want to actually get the thing done. And you also want to know that you can trust it because AI hallucinates tax law and is actually not very good at math equations, especially tax ones, where it might draw from old and out-of-date tax law or even make up tax rules altogether. so you also need to know that you can trust it, and that is where, as a licensed tax professional, my obligation to stay up to date with tax law and give you the latest.

Is really really important. So here's what I am picturing. I say this to you to preview it, yes, to get you excited, but also for your feedback. If this feels like a program that you'd be interested in, please get in touch. Ask me questions. Tell me specifically what you're looking for, what you hope to see. Because I am building this right now as I talk to you today.

I wanted to feel responsive to what you need. I have been interviewing clients all summer to get this information, to build the best new offering that I possibly can to serve you where you're at right now. But I'd love to hear from you if I haven't already. Ask me your questions. Tell me your concerns. What is it that you know that I could deliver that you really want to see? Okay.

On Instagram, you can DM me at @sunlighttax. Just send me a DM, ask me your question. I love to just voice memo back and forth with people in the morning on my morning walk. You can also email me, hello@sunlighttax.com. If you're not on Instagram, you're welcome to email me your questions, your concerns, your thoughts, your enthusiasm. Maybe you don't feel enthusiastic. But here's what I'm envisioning: I am picturing a cohort.

A small group, a limited group, 10 to 20 people, nice and small, nice and intimate, small enough that you can get to know everybody in it and actually start to feel a network with them, start to feel support, start to realize that other people are going through the same issues that you are, and realize that you have a group that has its own wisdom and resources to draw from. I have found this personally very valuable in programs I have been in in the past.

I have business friends I met that way who I still call for advice. It's absolutely wonderful. This has not been a part of my program to date, and it's something I personally have been longing for. and I really I think the need for community is so strong right now. I'm feeling it, and I just I want to have more connection with the people who I'm serving. So it's gonna be a small group program.

It's gonna be intense and it's gonna happen in two days. Okay. So it's not just an endless program, it's not a year, it's not a long timeline. It's two days and you get it done. The focus is less on an information dump and more on implementation. It's a done with you intensive, right? So it's a mix of me teaching and some group learning and then also implementation time.

Where you do the thing that we just talked about. And you do it with me there to support you as you go. All right. Another component that I think is super important, especially because I am a tax expert and taxes, your specific tax information, your specific tax questions, your income numbers, these are things that should rightfully remain private.

This is not information I ever want you to bring up in a group session. And so deliberately, part of what I'm planning is that you get two one-on-one consults with me. One before the intensive begins, one after the intensive ends. And this way you can come in having already gotten one-on-one guidance from me, maybe doing a little pre-work if that is necessary for you.

And then also knowing that you'll have another consult at the end after you know all the things, after you've done all the things. So that if you have any trip-ups, if you have any things come up as you go, if you have any weird outlier questions that didn't get answered in the intensive, you know you have the time, the space, the privacy to get my eyes on your question. Okay? So I think that is a really valuable part of this intensive.

That it's a small group cohort with intimacy, with community, but also a component of one on one guidance for me.

Also, and I'm really excited about this part. I think information overload is real. I know that a lot of you sit and ask your tax questions of AI, and I think you know that's probably not great, but I'm here to tell you specifically why that is not great. AI hallucinates tax law. It has made up tax rules. It still makes up tax rules. All of the programs.

Have instances where they have made up information that is simply not true. This is breaking the law when it comes to taxes. You need to be so careful because your signature on your tax return says that you have done the due diligence to know that everything in it is correct. This is why AI is really dangerous when it comes to taxes. I know you're using it. That's okay. That's not my complaint. What I want is for you to have a place to get tax information you can trust.

I am a licensed tax professional. I stay up to date on tax law. That is a requirement of my license. Another requirement of my license is due diligence, right? AI has no due diligence requirement. And so it'll just tell you crazy things that make no sense, that are not real, and it will confidently tell you that it's true. So one of the things that my new program includes is a database, a searchable database.

of my content where you can put in your question and it will not summarize, it will not make it in its own words. It will bring you directly to the spot in the transcript and in the video where I am teaching that very thing that you're asking about and it will give you my answer in my words. This I think is really valuable because this way you know you have a way on your own time

At three in the morning when you wake up with a panic attack to ask your tax question and get a real tax answer that you can trust. Okay. And that part is yours forever. I love that. I'm really excited about that piece of this new program. So the idea is that in two days you get your tax system set up. So your receipt tracking, your tax documents.

set up a tax layer on top of your bookkeeping so that you track all the special categories to make tax time extra, extra easy. You understand how to pay your quarterly taxes. we do a session on paying your estimated quarterly taxes so that you know and practice making a calculation and making that payment and knowing how to do that every single quarter when you're gonna have to do that.

and also knowing the legal and business setup that you need for your business. So what are the business license requirements? LLC requirements, S Corp, do you need to have that? Should you have that? You know, is it okay to be a sole proprietor to have a Schedule C? I answer all of those sort of business setup questions. So you choose the right entity.

and you know how to move forward with all the licenses and legal and tax boxes checked that you need to. So the idea is this is two days mix of teaching and co-working, teaching and implementation, sandwiched by one-on-one time where you get individual attention from me and a database of tax reliable searchable answers for your tax questions in the middle of the night.

I think this is a really awesome program. I'm super excited about it and I would love to hear your questions, your feedback, your thoughts about things you wish to include, questions about what it might include, suggestions possibly. So I'd love to hear from you at this stage as I'm building it out. because this is to serve you, right? And I want you to know that yes, absolutely, if you're running a creative business, you are absolutely welcome as always.

But explicitly, if you are a person who is running a small business, working as a consultant, working on your own, who is not creative, you are welcome here. This is absolutely for you.

I also want to mention have had in my programs in the past a component of tax law updates, a calendar of tax deadlines, ongoing support, monthly coworking, monthly check-ins. That ongoing component is really cool and really awesome. It's, I think, a good idea, but not everybody wants it. And so I have disconnected that from this intensive so that the intensive, you are one and done, one shot.

Two days you are done. If you want to at any time join in a year-long year of guidance and get that sort of year-round prompting from me, you can do that also in addition. You can opt into that. But it's not required. It's there as a service to you if that feels valuable to you. So just to let you know that that is also there, that exists. But this program is just, you will be done.

In two days. Okay.

Again, I would love to hear what you think of this. I would love to hear your questions about this. If you feel like it would fit you, if it would not, if it's right for you, if you just want to talk about like how you wish it would be, there's things you'd love to see. I'm really open to hearing that right now. I would love to hear from you. So DM me at @sunlighttax on Instagram or email me hello@sunlighttax.com. Love to hear from you. I am hoping to

Have this ready to show you in the fall. and I cannot wait until it's all built and get you really excited for this new program that's gonna get you all set up in just two days. also if this just sounds good, if you don't have questions, if you're just ready and this sounds great and you're interested,

Just go ahead and sign up on the wait list. I have a really easy wait list form on my website. Just go to sunlighttax.com/waitlist, or I will put a pop-up on the website just so that you can remember. If you go to sunlighttax.com, you can see it there and you can just say, yes, I'm interested. That way I'll know to notify you when this program is ready. I also want to say, depending on the demand,

One of the things that really excites me is knowing what kind of business and what stage of business you're in. Because since I'm running this in cohorts, what I would love to do is group it together with people who are dealing in a similar stage and dealing with similar types of business. Maybe you are in the health and therapeutic professions. Maybe you are a content creator.

Depending on how big the demand is, I am hoping to group people into cohorts with their peers. And this I think can be extra valuable for you. So it's optional as you sign up for the wait list to tell me what you're what field you're in, what profession, but it's really helpful to know that I've got, you know, a critical mass of like people in the healthcare doula therapy world.

so that we can create a health specific cohort. Or if you are likewise in the moving from full-time work into full-time consulting, full-time self-employment, that's a really critical moment. And I would love to group a group of people like that together. So if you want to give me that information to help me match you with people who I think you would do even better with, all the better.

But that's up to you. Okay, thanks for listening. Please tell me what you think. Remember to DM me at @sunlighttax on Instagram. Send me an email hello@sunlighttax.com or just join the wait list at sunlighttax.com/waitlist. And I can't wait to tell you more. And I can't wait to launch this new venture to serve you well in this world and help you get that amazing ethical work that you do amplified in this world.

Because that's the point, after all. All right, thanks for listening. See you next time.

Amelia Hruby: How to Build a Successful Business Without Social Media

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“The idea that you have to be on social media to have a successful business is provably false.”

— Amelia Hruby

This week on the Sunlight Tax Podcast, I’m joined by Amelia Hruby, feminist writer and host of the Off the Grid podcast, for a conversation about building a successful business without relying on social media.

Amelia shares her personal journey away from social media dependence and explains how she created a sustainable, relationship-centered business through community, creativity, email marketing, and intentional audience growth outside the attention economy.

Also mentioned in today’s episode:

00:10 Introduction to Amelia Hruby

01:24 Journey to Feminist Podcasting and Authorship

03:40 Personal Experience with Social Media

07:26 Navigating Business Without Social Media

10:17 Building Relationships Beyond Algorithms

18:24 Reframing Attention: From Scarcity to Ecology

25:29 The Art of Noticing and Attention

27:57 The Impact of Social Media on Creativity

30:30 Navigating the Challenges of Social Media

34:35 Reclaiming Attention and Relationships

38:32 Deciding to Leave Social Media

44:49 Finding Connection Beyond Social Media

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it! Every review makes a difference by telling Apple or Spotify to show the Sunlight Tax podcast to new audiences.

“Leaving social media doesn’t mean you stop marketing, it just means you do other things and figure out what works for you.”

— Amelia Hruby

About Amelia Hruby:

Amelia Hrubyis a feminist writer and podcaster with a PhD in philosophy from DePaul University. Over the past decade, she’s been a university professor, a community organizer, and a radio DJ. Now, she is the founder and executive producer of Softer Sounds, a podcast studio that supports women and nonbinary small business owners.

Since leaving social media in April 2021, she’s also launched the popular podcastOff the Grid, where she interviews artists, writers, business leaders and former influencers. Amelia is a platform critic, an AI skeptic, and an advocate for a non-extractive internet. Her new book, Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Mediais out now.

Check out Amelia’s work:

Off The Grid Podcast 

Download Amelia’s FREE Leaving Social Media Toolkit

Get Amelia’s Book: Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media Use code SUNLIGHT for $5 off the book (paperback, ebook, or audiobook version)

Episode Links:

Get my Tax Help onSubstack.

Get your FREE visual guide to tax deductions

Order my book: Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You’re Self-Employed

Watch YouTube video version

What Makes Your Business “Official?”

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In this episode of the Sunlight Tax podcast, I share how solo business owners can set up or tune up their businesses to create legal protection, stay compliant with taxes, and actually feel at ease. I walk through what makes a business “official” in the eyes of the IRS and break it down in a simple, practical way. 

I’m also introducing an upcoming workshop called “Set-up or tune up your business” designed to help you get your business organized and set up the right way.

Also mentioned in today’s episode:

00:00  Embracing the Human Element in Teaching

03:11  Navigating Business Setup and Legal Essentials

05:48  Understanding Tax Obligations and Business Protections

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it! Every review makes a difference by telling Apple or Spotify to show the Sunlight Tax podcast to new audiences.

Links:

Sign up for theSetting Up (or Tuning Up) Your Business Workshop

Get my Tax Help onSubstack.

Get your FREE visual guide to tax deductions

Order my book: Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You’re Self-Employed

Watch the YouTube video version

Change is Coming: How I Use the Feedback Loop to Shift My Business

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In this episode of the Sunlight Tax Podcast, I take you behind the scenes of a challenging season in my business and share what it really looks like to navigate change as an entrepreneur. I share insights on the power of feedback, confronting financial realities, and the critical shift from simply learning about taxes and business to taking actionable steps that drive real results.

I also introduce new workshops and community-building initiatives designed to make learning tangible, supportive, and actionable. If you’re a small business owner, creative, or entrepreneur looking to grow with confidence and clarity, this episode shows how to shift from overwhelm to empowered action.

Also mentioned in today’s episode: 

01:00 Navigating Difficult Times in Business

09:37 Embracing Change and Taking Action

17:56 Building Community and Future Workshops

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review and share it!
Every review makes a difference by telling Apple or Spotify to show the Sunlight Tax podcast to new audiences.

Links:

Join my Free Class on 3/4: Make Money Easier, Starting With Taxes

Order my book, Taxes for Humans: Simplify Your Taxes and Change the World When You’re Self-Employed

Check out my program, Money Bootcamp

Get your free visual guide to tax deductions

Watch YouTube video version