As an introverted business owner and success coach for ambitious introverts, I’m never not thinking about energy – it’s the foundation of everything I do to help my clients get results.
In this episode of The Ambitious Introvert®, I share how I think about energy as the most valuable and strategic asset in my business. You’ll hear how this lens influences everything from how I coach, to how I structure offers, to how I spend my time – and why I truly believe protecting your energy is your fastest path to sustainable success.
I share:
- Why energy (not time) is the real currency of high performance
- The truth about introversion – and why the “label” can be deeply empowering
- Real-life examples of different offers and models that all work for different people
- Good tired vs. bad tired – and how to tell the difference
- Why most productivity advice is designed for extroverts (and how to spot it)
- The Olympic analogy that will reframe how you use your energy for the long haul
Whether you’re running a high-touch service business, scaling a low-ticket offer, or building a software empire, this episode will shift how you think about energy as the foundation that supports your business.
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What makes you an introvert in the first place?
Many people might say, oh, it’s my shyness, it’s because I’m quiet, it’s because I don’t like people. But actually, none of that is true. The thing that makes you an introvert is how you recharge your energy. We do so by going inwards and spending time alone, as opposed to extroverts who do so by going outwards and surrounding themselves with people. So if that is the fundamental difference between introverts and extroverts and you are not managing your energy correctly, you are not going to see the results that you are capable of in this second. How I think about episode, I’m going to be sharing exactly that. How I think about energy as, ah, the greatest asset in my business.
Welcome to the Ambitious Introvert, the podcast for founders and entrepreneurs who want to create big results in their business without dread draining their energy. I’m your host, Emma Louise Parks. Let’s dive in.
As an introverted business owner and as a success coach for ambitious introverts, I’m never not thinking about energy, it is just not possible. Energy permeates every facet of our lives and it is the thing that makes the biggest difference on our ability to execute and achieve the results that we want.
Now, the one thing that I have been criticised for over and over since I began working essentially only with introverts back in 2020, if I’ve gotten any kind of trolling comments or people emailing to to push back against the content that I’ve put out, the thing they push back against is you shouldn’t be putting people in boxes, you shouldn’t be attaching labels to people.
It’s really disempowering and for the most, I agree with that. I think labels can be incredibly disempowering when we use the label as an excuse not to do anything.
However, when we talk about the label of introvert and when we talk about it accurately and factually, like I said in the intro, which means I go inwards to recharge my energy and spend time alone, that makes me an introvert as opposed to extroverts who do the opposite.
When we take that label of introvert and peel it down to that, to our energetic needs, then if you are a high performer, if you are someone that wants to do big things in your business and your life and you are not recognising that your introversion means that you need to manage your energy in a certain way, you will not be operating at Your full capacity, it’s just not possible.
And therefore my argument back to these people is how is it disempowering to understand how to best optimise so that you can get the biggest results?
What is disempowering about that label?
And I think the mix up comes because most people use the introvert label as this person’s quiet, this person’s shy, this person’s socially awkward, etc. No, when we use it as it’s intended then it means that we are cognizant that our energy is our ah, greatest asset that needs to be protected at all costs so that we have enough of it to execute on the actions that are going to get us the results that we want. And so therefore I disagree respectfully with them.
I think in this case having a label, or putting ourselves in a box as they call it, is extremely empowering because with that label and with that recognition of introversion, it enables us to make sure and be cognizant of our energetic needs and not to try and do what everyone else on the Internet is doing, or not to try and use the latest productivity hack or time management tool that is all about surface level shift and actually recognise that our energy is the fuel that is going to drive us.
Especially if we are looking for long term and sustainable success, which all of my clients are.
Nobody wants to be here and you know, hit a really high level of success and then six months later burn out and not be able to sustain it. That’s not what it’s about. So how I think about energy is always, even subconsciously now it’s so, it’s so ingrained in how I live, in how I coach, in how I run my business because I think of all of the, of all of the different facets.
So yes, we can have mindset, we can have strategy, we can have leadership, we can have habits, all of these things. But of all of that, as an introvert, if you can really, really isolate energy and get really, really good at knowing how to use your own energy, what works for you, what doesn’t?
And you know this is not a one size fits all. Yes, going inwards to recharge and spending time alone, that’s the fundamental basics.
But when we think about our energy as well, it’s really important to know that our energy feeds our business. So this might be a situation that’s a little different than for extroverts because we need to look a little more carefully at how we’re spending our energy outside that business.
And that can be what we’re spending time doing, how much downtime we get, it can be whether we’re doing activities that light us up. It can be making sure we get enough time alone. It can also be making sure we spend enough time with people that really light us up and we have deep, deep relationships with. It can be looking at moving our body, it can be looking at how we eat, how we sleep.
There are so many different factors and often with clients it’s trial and error because there’s not any one single thing that will work for, you know, 56% of the population. Because yes we’re all introverts, but we’re all very different flavours of introvert.
And so when I think about our energy feeding our business, it’s really important for us to take stock of how we really spending our energy outside of that, but then also remembering that our business feeds our energy and we need to design our businesses in ways that give us energy too. We need to feel alive but by the work that we’re doing.
For many introverts that means feeling attached to a purpose, a bigger mission, a deeper outcome. To me, for example, as you know a coach that operates mainly online, there are so many different business models I could have, I’ve tried numerous ones but for me I love one on one coaching, I love the depth of one on one coaching and I love that I get to build very deep and very important relationships with clients over a long time and support them and hold that space for them as they go through various facets of business.
It would probably not work well for me if my model was power hours and that was it because I wouldn’t get the depth that I crave. So I can probably spend the same amount of time on client calls but with my long term clients as I would if I were simply selling power hours.
But I would get really exhausted from the power hours because it’s not the type of connection that feeds, feeds me and lights me up in the same way. I have a friend who has a membership model, it’s $22 a month and there are many, many people in this membership and business revenue wise it’s about the same as me having a handful of one on one clients.
But it requires a lot of admin and not really many touch points. So they create training which gets fed out into the membership.
But they have a couple of co coaches in there, people doing admin, people managing the payments because having multiple, multiple payments every month, there’s a lot of admin with know chasing that up. There’s admin people asking questions with links, breaking the people putting comments.
All of that needs addressing and my friend thrives on that they love that business model. They love having this team to manage. I don’t love having a big team. I’ve tried various sizes and I don’t like it and I like to have a deep connection to my clients and I like to keep admin at minimum and ah, therefore I have higher, higher priced, higher ticket, one on one coaching. And it’s really important to say that neither of these are wrong and there’s every everything in between. Right?
Some people really love coaching in a group. Some people really love content creating and selling products off the back of that. Some people really love running retreats and doing stuff in person and not coaching online. And so whatever type of business you’re in, this isn’t just for coaches but, but it’s thinking about how your business feeds your energy.
Because when I switch off for the day at the end of my, at the end of work I want to feel good tired and my clients and I talk about good tired because we don’t want to villainize being tired. Being tired and needing to sleep or you know, feeling worn out after we’ve worked hard is normal human condition and sometimes I feel like it can be villainized.
Like well you shouldn’t ever be tired, you should just be able to go, go, go in this kind of always on capitalist society. But the truth is it’s very normal and natural to get tired.
We live in a 24 hour day, so over 48 hours it’s very normal that we will feel tired twice in the times that we are going to go to sleep. So when I talk about good tired, good tired is almost like a I’m done for the day but I feel satisfied with what I’ve done or I feel tired because I’ve been really engaged with my clients and really engrossed and having these great conversations and holding space for them and of course that’s mentally taxing.
But I feel good. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the thing that tired me out.
If I had to compare it to something physical I would say it’s like going for a long walk on a winter’s day that is cold but crisp and clear and blue sky and you’re all wrapped up and you go for a long walk and you build up an appetite and you know your body’s moving and then you get home and you light a fire and you sit down and it’s like ah, like I’ve worked and I feel good.
So that to me is good tired. And when my business is making me good tired, I know it’s, it’s fueling my energy.
There are times that I feel bad tired also because I can’t just do you know, 100% of the tasks I do in my business are not the things that light me up. I try to stay in my zone of genius wherever possible by, you know, keeping things simplified or bringing in team members and experts that can do the things that really, really drain me.
Admin being one of them.
But sometimes I just have to do stuff that isn’t my zone of genius. And even last week I was updating some of the forms on my application. Some of the questions, sorry, on my application form to work with me, I was updating a few things on my website. I was looking at some SEO, I changed some ah, keywords and different things on the blog and these aren’t things that need doing regularly. I think it had been two years since I’d done this and oh, my brain hurt at the end of it. I was tired and that was not good tired because it’s stuff that I’m not particularly good at doing.
It’s stuff that doesn’t really light me up but it needs doing. And actually it wasn’t worth in that instance outsourcing it. It didn’t really take too long, it was probably half a day.
But the difference in the tiredness that I felt like if I was doing that day in, day out, I would be exhausted and I would hate my business and I doubt very much I would be here recording this right now. So I think it’s really important to.
Yes, our energy feeds our business so we need to look after our energy outside of it, to come in and perform our best, but also to design businesses that feed our energy, that give us the things that we want, that we want.
And maybe that is holding space for, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people in a low cost membership or maybe it’s holding space for seven or eight individuals at a very high touch level and anything in between.
And that is okay. It’s just finding out what works for us. And the other thing I wanted to share in how I think about energy is the introvert, extrovert thing because extroverts are generally more visible, generally more vocal, generally noisier and generally more willing to share verbally their thoughts before they are fully baked and just generally more willing to put themselves out there.
A lot of the Time. A lot of the advice that we see on the Internet, in books, on TED talks, anything else is very extrovert driven. And there is nothing wrong with that when you can look at it through that lens.
But when we look at it through the lens of, oh, this is what I should be doing, or if we have other business owners or entrepreneurs that we’re in communities with, when we see them operating in a certain way, feeling like we’re somehow less than, or we should be doing what they’re doing, or that’s the only way to succeed, it really, really needs us to think critically and to have this filter of introversion before we take productivity advice, time management advice, before we sign up with a coach who’s got a very prescriptive system about how to do things, which, you know, I’ve been there and I’ve heard over and over again from probably almost every client I’ve worked with where they’ve made an investment and then realised it’s not going to work for their energy.
And the coach or mentor said, well, you have to do it this way, there’s no other way to do it because it’s been designed by and for extroverts. And of course we see the results, we see the testimonials, it’s working perfectly for them.
We get to step four and we’re like, oh, I’ve got no energy left to even do anything else. So it’s really important, as I say, that we build our businesses and our processes and in ways that for the most, give us energy. And then the days that they don’t, like my day last week where I had brain ache at the end of it and, you know, it felt very challenging. That’s okay, because 90% of the time I’m not doing that. I’m doing things that I love.
And so with that in mind, I always think about we’re playing the same sport as extroverts and we want the same outcome, but it’s completely different. And I would think of it like this. Imagine someone going to the Olympics to win the hundred metre sprint.
So that person wants to be the fastest runner in that race. And that is what they have trained for for the four years before that and for the many years before that, likely since they were a kid.
So they will have a mental attitude, they will have probably physical capabilities that lean them very, very much towards being a sprinter, and then they will have focused solely on sprinting and everything they do, from what they eat to how they sleep to, to how they train to when they train, for how long, who with what doing is focused on being the fastest person to run 100 metres at the same Olympics, you will have a marathon.
And if we zoom out even more at other events you have ultra marathons. But let’s stick with the Olympics. Someone is going to the Olympics to run the marathon, which is the same sport they’re running, and what they want is to be the fastest person in that race. And that race is 26 miles. So the difference in how they will have prepared, how they train, for how long, what doing their physique, their mental attitude is endurance versus sprints is like a completely different animal.
But it’s the same sport, it’s running and they want the same things, they want to be first in their race. But if you took a world class a hundred metre sprinter and put them in the marathon, there’s a good chance they’re going to be dead last. And the same with the marathon runner in the sprint.
And that is how I think about our energy. It’s, we’re building businesses. Whether you’re introvert, extrovert, anywhere in between, however you identify. But you need to choose the event that works for you long term and then you need to essentially train for that event. So if what works for your energy is something maybe a little less intense, but you see it is something that you want to keep doing for years and years, which is how I see my business, then maybe it’s more of a marathon for you and you adjust your energy accordingly.
But maybe you are someone that thrives on the adrenaline and the go and you want to push and grow really quickly and that is okay too.
But you will use your energy differently depending on the outcome you want, but whichever is not incorrect.
Right?
It’s the same thing. We are running the same race in the same sport. It’s just a slightly different pace and method and some people are more predisposed to one than the other. And that is how I think about our energy.
So it’s not, oh, you shouldn’t work too many hours because in fact some of my clients, when they cut their work hours down in their business, they feel less energised because they actually love being in their business or they cut their hours down and they try to cram everything in and they feel quite overwhelmed. Whereas by giving themselves an extra hour a day or an extra day of the week and a little bit more spaciousness, they enjoy the work. And that’s going to help them build a business that lasts longer.
So I never Think about energy as time management or productivity or how much I get done or any of these things. I think about my energy as a fuel and it has to fuel the business and life that I want and it has to be able to do that for a long time.
And when I make decisions based on my energy for that reason, that is how I know that I’m going to be able to succeed with that. Because I have run it through this filter of is this going to serve me, is this going to serve my energy, is this going to give me more or less energy, how am I going to feel in the long run?
And, and that is why it is the greatest asset in my business, because it’s something that for the most, I have control over. It’s something that, as I say, I’m always thinking about, even subconsciously. So that is how I think about energy as the greatest asset in my business, because I get to use it. However, I want to build a business that works for me.
But as an introvert, I would highly, highly recommend adopting the label of introversion without any of the other things, without the personality traits or the negative connotations that people incorrectly add to it.
Break it all down, strip everything away and realise that it’s how you recharge your energy.
Focus on making sure you’re recharging your energy and that is going to put you in a state superb, position for growing the business that you want.
Thank you for tuning in to the ambitious introvert. be sure to follow or subscribe in your favourite podcast player so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please consider leaving a quick review or sharing it with another introvert who’d love it too. See you next time when I’ll have even more insights to keep your business growing, and your energy flowing.
