Why This Consultant Is Shutting Down Her Successful 6 Figure Business - Interview with Tamara Kemper
In this interview I talk with Tamara Kemper, a former client of mine, about her decision to shut down her extremely successful consulting business, The Process Mavens.
Discussion topics:
Why she decided to go back to being a solo consultant after scaling up her team. (00:37)
Tamara’s transition from being a “optimizer” to simply trusting what life has in store for you. (11:30)
The difference between having robotic self-discipline versus leaning into discomfort. (24:00)
I loved Tamara’s transparency and how she was willing to share the messiness of her journey. I think you’ll get a lot out of it.
Relevant links:
Transcript:
Greg Faxon (00:00):
I recently got a chance to sit down with Tamara Kemper, who's a former client of mine, and talk to her about her decision to shut down an extremely successful consulting business called The Process Mavens. First, we discussed why she decided to go back to being a solo consultant after scaling up her team, and I really liked this part of the conversation because I had a similar experience in the past year. Then we talk about her transition from being an optimizer to trusting what life has in store for you. And finally we talk about the difference between having robotic self-discipline versus leaning into discomfort. And I think this distinction is really key. So let's dive into the interview.
Tamara Kemper (00:37):
It started out kind of like, oh, I'd like to have a little more time in my day. Or, Ooh, wouldn't it be nice to not work on Fridays? It was little things like that. Ooh, could I make a little more time for myself? So of course you hear from all the gurus delegate and scale and do all this stuff to get that time back as an entrepreneur. So I was kind of focusing on those things and incrementally trying to make moves to do it. And then I invest a lot in both time-wise and financially in my own personal development and personal growth. And one of my coaches did an activity and in that activity out of my mouth came, oh, I want to work 20 hours a week, which was this just radical thing for me anyway, to even say that out loud, gasp, someone could do that, you could do that and be a worthwhile member of society.
(01:34):
But once I said it, I knew it was true. I was just pushing myself to the edge of my capacity. I was not present with my family. I was not able to do the things that I wanted to do that make me feel joyful and make me feel alive and make me feel like myself. I was just feeling like every day was just getting more and more crunched in. And so I started pursuing that and the leap that I took was to hire an operations director, and I did that earlier this year. The thinking behind this was like, okay, I'm going to hire this operations director. That's the play, right? You invest in that right hand person, you give them clarity of the ownership for the operations, the day-to-day. Then the idea was I would be able to get other people to fulfill some of the work that I was doing and be able to create more of that space for myself.
(02:31):
Simple. It was going great, simple, so easy, so easy. And so I did that and I found a great person and she was a great fit for our team and for the role, and it was working and I was putting in place systems that were helping me to get all of my work done. So I had clarity and all the things, you're such an expert at Greg, prioritizing your day, prioritizing your week, getting your tasks done. And she helping me actually execute on creating this scalable system for the work we delivered. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's going. And it was going and I could feel like up. We were going up the roller coaster click, and in being pushed in this pressure cooker of like, okay, we're doing the thing. I was feeling some things because I could see what it was going to take and how my life was going to be and what it meant for who I needed to be and what I needed to let go of in order to be in that thing we were creating.
(03:49):
And I actually attended. So my moment of clarity, and it really was clear, I attended an all day session for a group I'm in where it was a strategic day where we were supposed to be thinking about the future strategy of our business. And so now I've got all of this stuff in place. I'm executing on this big plan and I'm now having to put to paper what is the strategic plan? And it was like there is just a big no no, no, I don't want to do this. No, it felt simultaneously awful. And also that beauty of knowing what you want or maybe just knowing what you don't want once you're clear, man, decisions are so easy. Action steps are so easy when you really are aligned to what you want to do, everything just falls, even if it's hard, even if the conversations are hard, even if the actions you have to take are hard, they're so easy because you just know, well, this is what I need to do. So that's kind of the place I'm in right now. I'm in the action taking place where it's like I know where I'm going, but it feels very uncertain.
Greg Faxon (05:14):
So when you say you know where you're going, what is the part that you're clear about?
Tamara Kemper (05:19):
So the part that I'm clear about is I told my team very recently that I'm going to be a solo consultant in 2024. The interesting part about it is, yes, I'm going to be keeping on a handful of clients in that capacity of the work that I was doing processes, but I don't know exactly. I don't know exactly what I'm going to be doing.
Greg Faxon (05:48):
If you demand to know what the next step is before making any changes to the current thing, it's very hard to get that clarity.
Tamara Kemper (05:56):
And I think the most important work that I can do right now is to
(06:06):
Be present with my team that is trying to also find their next steps. Some have clarity on that and some really cool opportunities have opened up for some of my team members as a result of this really magical kind of things, aligning beautifully kind of things, and some are less clear. And so having those conversations, helping them get to what they want to get to next, connecting with clients and past clients and making sure they have what they need and they know what's going on with us so they don't feel like they're kind of being left in a lurch. So that's really where my energy and my attention is right now. I don't want to just drop this and walk away. I want to really have a beautiful ending to what was created over the last six years will be six years on the 19th, so it'll be fine. Something's going to open up, that's going to be great. And I'm excited to see what that is, but it doesn't have to be clear right this second.
Greg Faxon (07:11):
That makes sense. Yeah, it sounds like you can be clear and then there's trying to do right by your team and the clients and you got to unravel it all. You might have that clarity one day, but the next day it's not done. Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. And I feel like I've had a similar journey this year as well in terms of scaling up and then be like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if this is what I want. But the process, scaling up, you created a lot of pressure and then people that you want to be loyal to and it's hard to unravel that it's not the easiest thing.
Tamara Kemper (07:48):
It's not. And I think you sometimes have to experience it to know that you don't want it or to know if you want it. I shouldn't even say it as a negative. You can look at it all day long, but until you do it, you almost can't. I don't know. It's really hard to put yourself in that experience of what it really feels like.
Greg Faxon (08:11):
That makes sense. Something you said reminded me of this James clear quote. I've been thinking a lot about in the long run, the people who succeed are the ones who want to live the lifestyle that precedes the results. Stop asking, what results do I want to have? Start asking what lifestyle do I want to live? It's common to want results. It's rare to want the lifestyle In my head, I liked the idea of a vision of a larger team and being the true CEO and holiday parties and stuff with the team, but I don't really want the lifestyle that comes with that type of business, but it's hard to know what that lifestyle is until you start down that path.
Tamara Kemper (08:55):
I don't know the joy that I got out of having a team, I don't know if your experience is similar, but the joy that I get out of having a team is that personal connection that I have with my team. There is nothing, I love more than that, than just the joy of spending time and knowing each person and having that unique experience with each person and helping them get to where they want to go and helping them thrive in their roles and all that good stuff. And the more people you add to your team necessarily, the less of that you can have because you are meant to go be doing other things, which doesn't mean you can't still have those relationships, but it's like it was turning all of the things that got me excited upside down, and I needed to step back and allow my operations person to do those things.
(09:44):
Well, those are the things that I really loved. And it's just so funny because there's this playbook for how to do this. This is the way you have to do it to scale a business. And I think I was trying to see if you could do it a different way. I was almost, I had told people a while ago, I was kind of trying to prove a hypothesis that you could build a business, build a scalable, profitable business in a more human way, in a more organic way. And ultimately I think we did it. And also I just didn't want to keep doing it. I don't know, it's not terribly rational or logical, but I think when your lifestyle and your talents are aligned, do you know and when they're not, you know that too. The way that I live most beautifully and in the most service to everyone and everything is through expressing myself in my day-to-day life, 100% as authentically as I can. So when I see that truth, when I see that clarity of like, oh, shoot, I don't want to run my business anymore. Being thoughtful and responsible, but moving and responding to that truth and not just shoving it down and going, oh, well, that's just not, I can't do that. Or even coming on here to talk to you about this and just sharing this with you openly. These are not things I would've done six months ago. They're just not. I've been playing a very, very, very, very long game of when at being the optimized person.
Greg Faxon (11:44):
No more optimizing,
Tamara Kemper (11:46):
No more, no more optimizing. It's big. And I think that's part of why process and that whole world, it's like it's hard for me now to even, because a lot of the why behind process is about this efficiency optimization, go faster, go better. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. There's not, there's a place for it, but me in this moment, that's not where I'm at. I'm in a different sort of vibe going on right now. And so there are wonderful consultants who are very much in a great place to help somebody with that. And I would much rather they're served by somebody who's really excited about that and really joyful about that and really wants to help because I'm going to be sucking you into a different place. That's not what you're trying to do. So it's not better or worse, it's just being where you are.
Greg Faxon (12:51):
I feel like I very much have one foot in both worlds right now. Maybe I'm in process because I'm still very much have an optimizing side of me that's still feeling very alive. And then I have this, it is what it is side of me. I don't know if that's a healthy middle way or I have somehow haven't taken the full leap, but we'll see.
Tamara Kemper (13:23):
I mean, it's interesting you say that. I definitely feel that when I read your posts, when I read your emails, I feel that that other side, that not the optimizer, the okayness, it's very different. It's a very different tone from maybe when we first met,
(13:45):
Which isn't better or worse. Again, it's different and it's like allowing that other side. I've been thinking and talking a lot about this idea of the feminine and the masculine energy, not men and women, but the masculine being more of that pursuing energy and the feminine being more of the allowing and the opening energy, relax, release, all of that. And of course a lot of the scaling business, entrepreneurial stuff, it's very masculine. I mean, of course that's kind of how it is. I told myself that that's how you should be, should be somebody who has a very organized task list and gets all their work done and prioritizes their work and knows what their quarterly objectives are and knows what their this is and know what, and that is the way you should be. And as it turns out, we don't all have to be like that because some of us are way better at doing other things really beautifully, and it adds color and texture and necessary depth to the whole picture of what we're doing. And that's not just in families, that's in business as well. Maybe not everybody needs to be awesome at managing their task list. Gasp,
Greg Faxon (15:10):
Am imagining a scenario. There's like there could be two people and one has one type of gift. Let's say one person's super organized and really great with processes and the other person is very visionary, disorganized, but very charismatic. And you could have that visionary person feeling that they actually should be more operational or organized and trying to squeeze into that box while the other person feels like, oh, the cool thing is visionary charisma, trying to squeeze into this box. Now you have two people who really aren't in their strengths and would've just been good collaborating doing their thing. I'm really interested in that too. And I think it's like what you spoke to at the beginning, that idea of alignment, trying to get aligned with what you're actually supposed to be doing, getting the flow of things instead of fighting upstream because you think you should be doing it a certain way.
Tamara Kemper (16:06):
I work really closely with organizations, so I see this all the time, all the time. People in roles where either they're in the wrong role period or they're in a role where 50% of their job is miserable for them because they're being asked to act so far out of their core competencies. But the problem is because we feel like we need to cover up who we really are and pretend like we're really organized or pretend like we're really good at giving a talk in front of a room or whatever it is that is our role that we think we need to be.
(16:47):
We just suppress the part of us that's saying, no, we have an internal no, that looks like resistance to doing. Listen, there's a million reasons you can resist test. I'm not trying to give a whole say that that's the reason for everything, but if we're not ever letting ourselves really acknowledge what isn't working for us, we're just going to keep doing all the stuff that isn't for us and we're never going to really find what we're great at. And I feel like that's honestly what I'm doing right now is I'm peeling away everything so that I can re-identify what I actually love doing and create something that I don't know is going to use that I know I can help people. I know I can help. I can be a part of creating something good, and I want to do it in the most, I mean, I guess I'm optimizing Greg, I'm optimizing, but just in a very conventional way
Greg Faxon (17:55):
Where they just were right in there perfectly. Yeah,
Tamara Kemper (17:58):
Yeah. But where I'm not doing a bunch of junk that I would give myself such a hard time about not writing a blog post or not posting on social media, and it's like I didn't want to do any of that. I didn't want to do it. And so why am I trying to force myself to do those things when what I really want to do is jump on a call with you and just have a really interesting conversation. And even sales conversations. I would love having sales conversations. We were just solving problems. So it's those kinds of things. I'm like, I don't know what kind of business that is, but I'm going to figure it out, figure it out. I don't know.
Greg Faxon (18:40):
My coaching style has been changing recently along these lines because I feel like what I've sort of learned is that mostly people will come into a call feeling like I should be doing something a certain way. I'm working with a client now who wants to have a better sense of her capacity to know when can I say yes to a client versus we're starting later, keeps getting overbooked and then you don't have time to work on the business or to do marketing just in client stuff. She felt like she had to have this thing in Asana that was this very nicely client process, which probably actually not the worst thing to have, especially if she wants to build the team up so everyone's on the same page. But she wasn't doing it because she felt like it needed to be this thing and that thing that she thought it needed to be really wasn't how she naturally operated anyway.
(19:36):
The conversation was sort of like I was, where do you go right now to figure out your capacity? And she's like, well, I go into my Google calendar and I was like, why don't you just have everything represented better in your Google calendar? So you could just look at it. It would just accurately convey you'd have the client starts here, all day event marked free all the way three months later. You'd see all the active clients. You could schedule in little focus times for them, but it could just be on the calendar and I dunno, you might have to change it later, maybe, I don't know organizationally, but it should work for a long time if you had it there. And she was so excited to do that because she was like, oh, cool. That's how I operate any, that's how I think about it. But I felt like I had to go into as sauna or something to build it. I am like, you're never going to do that. Basically anyone who comes to me with a problem that feels like there's friction or resistance, it hasn't been done yet. I'm like, basically, you're never going to do that. So there's something that we could approach it differently that would probably feel easy to you. If it feels hard, it may be a sign that it's getting forced. Maybe
Tamara Kemper (20:43):
What you're talking about I think is trusting yourself. Again, gaps. I feel like coaches are amazing for helping you see blind spots and giving you a push when you already are aligned with what they have shown you. So Greg, I remember when I worked with you and I was a closet consultant, nobody knew I was doing it and you made me post the thing on Facebook and I wanted to barf because I didn't want to tell anybody. It was so uncomfortable. But I knew that that was the barrier. You gave me a tool you cheered me on, and then you went and you pushed me. And plus I was investing money in the program with you. So it was like I was already investing in me, but you were the one that could help me to operationalize the pieces that I didn't have. But I was already on board, I was already aligned and I was already in.
(21:53):
And so lo and behold, it worked. I got my first five figure client, I business grew. It was a direct result of that action you helped me take. I've done other programs where the coach has tried to have me do things and there is a no, and I'm am not going to do it. I know I'm not going to do it, and maybe I'm not even admitting it to myself. And when that happens, it's just a waste. You might as well not even do it because you're never going to do it. The thing too is calibrating your sensitivity to your yes and your no. So if you could just know what your know is right away, you could save so much time and money on coaching and consulting and buying the latest, greatest thing, you would just know. Yeah, no, I'm not willing to do that. I'm totally not willing to do that. So no, I'm not going to buy that program.
Greg Faxon (22:53):
It's a very different mindset I feel like to say, I'm going to put my attention and intention on how do I get in the flow of life where, what's wanting me stuff, it's wanting me to do, how it's trying to support me as opposed to how do I make all of this happen with my plan and my actions to conform life to the idea that I have? And you can definitely do number two to a certain extent. I mean, I feel like it can be tiring. I was having a conversation, the last interview with Madison Arnhold, who's an intuitive life coach, and she was talking about this idea of intuition. How do you know when something's resistance? Because it's a no versus it's just resistance because it's uncomfortable. You had resistance to posting sort of coming out as a consultant, but it wasn't, it was a no and out of alignment. It was more just like, oh, is this scary? So there's an emotion coming up you
Tamara Kemper (23:54):
Saying yes, it was an exciting no.
Greg Faxon (23:57):
Yeah, totally. So I feel like that's something that I'm definitely not great at yet, but I'm trying to get better at, which is putting my attention more on what's trying to happen versus what should I be making happen. So
Tamara Kemper (24:15):
I'm really curious about this too, what you've just said. So you would be on my short list of about three or four people in my life who are just crazy disciplined, focused and able to execute on what you put your mind to. Man, if I needed to get something done, I would call Greg Fon. I would just do that. So yay for you. That means you can get a lot of things done. And that means when you get clear, you go get it and great for you. And I've looked up to you in that way, and I've been jealous of you in that way and all the feelings, why can't I be Craig Facts and what's wrong with me? And what you just said is really interesting because it's almost your discipline muscle is so good. You can almost act past your intuition. You can push past your intuition to do it anyway.
(25:11):
Whereas for me, that's not, that's very difficult for me. And so what it looks like for me is procrastination. So if I have a no, often I will go in that direction, but then sabotage myself. And so then I just kind of stall so it shows up differently. But it's just interesting how those superpowers we have, if we're not also listening or the weaknesses that we have, we could be listening to those and then they become are they really? They're just talents. Again, it's talents. So when you're aligned, man, you can't be stopped. And when I'm aligned, I can't be stopped either. But when we're not aligned, we're going to do very different things, you and me
Greg Faxon (26:00):
And I can really relate to. There's times I cannot discipline myself out of something that's just not feeling exciting to me. I'm
Tamara Kemper (26:10):
Sure. Yeah.
Greg Faxon (26:11):
And then of course, because that has felt so core to my identity, then I'm like, I can't get stuff done, so then I feel bad about myself or then I'm like, I'll almost go too big picture in analyzing what's out of alignment. I'll be like, I guess my whole business must not be, if I was really enjoying my business, I wouldn't be having resistance, which sometimes is the case obviously, as we've seen. And sometimes, sometimes that's also an escape of like, no, it's one specific tweak. It's like this program, do you know what I mean? It's this way of doing it.
Tamara Kemper (26:45):
Maybe what you're calling discipline, I would call ability to stay in discomfort. So sometimes I think discipline can sometimes be turned on and it's this machine, and you think you just keep doing that because I decided that this was the thing that you do. Then you just do this. You have to do it because disciplined, and if you don't do it, you're not being disciplined. So that is to me where it becomes problematic. But I agree with you because you're not being sensitive to what's here, what's actually happening right here, because it may not make sense for you to continue being disciplined in that thing if that thing is no longer for you. So I'm careful sometimes with that word. But what I do wholeheartedly see is that we as a society do not want to be uncomfortable. Of course, biologically, we don't want that.
(27:53):
But now we've created so many ways to escape any form of discomfort that when it comes up, we run. And I think that's what discipline does, is it gets you comfortable with being in discomfort because guess what? That is part of life. And that's how you grow. That's how you are to do more and to have a richer, more beautiful life is that you can be with anything. You can withstand anything. And so those practices that may be called discipline, that's for me what their purpose can be, is to help you to sustain discomfort and not have to run away. This morning, I had an altercation with my seven-year-old daughter, and it was intense. Very, very intense. Anybody who's ever had to hang out with kids knows I know. And I had choices in that either I could react and give her that same energy back or I can just be okay.
(29:02):
I can be disciplined and be okay in sitting there with her and with kind of let that storm pass and together we can figure out where we go from here, where some boundaries crossed, yes, they were. But dealing with it in that moment was not going to be the effective solution. I needed to be disciplined. I needed to withstand that comfort discomfort. And so I think that's the part that we're really aiming for. And we have to be careful with the routines in making them too rigid because you can numb yourself to what the world is presenting you.
Greg Faxon (29:44):
What appears to be lack of discipline or lack of willpower is often a lack of alignment because people who look disciplined are usually just doing what they wanted to do anyway. If a tattoo artist draws four hours a day, someone else who might not even enjoy drawing, if they tried to get themselves to be better at drawing without it coming from really an internal intrinsic, motivated place, it'd be like, wow, really? This is taking a lot to have me draw every single day. The other person's like, oh, I'm just drawing. I want to draw. Of course.
Tamara Kemper (30:13):
And there's seasons of what you want to. I remember when you and I started working together, I was very energized and very excited about following this spark of, I want to figure out this business thing. This is really fun. This is really exciting. So it's not, that wasn't right for me, period. That was amazing and joyful and wonderful. And I had to do the things that would get me to that place. I wanted to go in that direction. If I was still trying to make myself do those things, that would be so silly. It'd be so silly if I was posting on LinkedIn every week right now, why would I do that? That's not the thing I'm trying to do.
Greg Faxon (30:58):
Yeah, it's okay to let what you do change as you change,
Tamara Kemper (31:03):
Because I think that there's a lot of us type A, and I'm not putting you in a category, I'm putting myself in it. Type A achievers who got all the good grades, who did all the things. Winners. Winners who feel like when you're not doing the thing, everybody else who's winning is doing that, you are a mess. And it's just not true. And I think underneath all those layers, we're all so different. So how you became a winner and how I became a winner and how this guy became a winner, it looked so different, but we're all there and we're all looking at each other and we're like, well, he sure seems like you've got it figured out. Why can't I do it? It's like, because you're totally different. You're totally freaking different. You're never going to do it the same way. And so stop. And now just be yourself and see what happens, because you're probably going to be just fine. In fact, you're probably going to be better than fine. I don't know. I'm excited. So good.
Greg Faxon (32:05):
If you enjoyed that conversation, I think you'll love the interview I did with Madison Arnholt, where we talk about how to tap into your intuition and how to know the difference between just discomfort. That's fear and uncertainty that you should lean into versus something that's a no for you. So go check that video out now.
