ISSUE 50 | MAY 30, 2025
35 things we stopped doing—from mindset to tech stack.
My previous post, “I hit pause on obsessing about rapid financial growth. Here’s why…”
covered our “Be Well Business” formula and heart centered approach to 10x’ing. I heard a lot of lot exhaling from people who are done with the hard push. Sanity is trending. I promised to show you our Stop Doing List.
Even if you’re not doing the entrepreneurial hustle, there’s wisdom here for you—Stop Doing Lists are always a good idea. I first wrote about the official Stop Doing List in The Fire Starter Sessions. She stands the test of time.
NOTE: In the podcast version of this post, I explain why we stopped and started what we did. It’s worth a listen for the philosophy behind the actions.
This business + lifestyle renovation spans over 24 months. Holy smokes, we took it down to the studs and rebuilt while we were in motion.
CONTENT + CREATIVE
We stopped doing:
I stopped letting editorial content fall to the bottom of the priority list with the team. I’d gotten into the habit of creating in a silo and handing my work (writing, audio, courses) over to be marketed. It was always a race to launch day, and I often felt alone in the creative process.
Now, content is Queen. I get a vision, so to speak, then we ideate as a team (everything is so much richer!) We talk editorial at the start of meetings, not the end. We overhauled our editorial SOPs (standard operating procedures). We operate more like a magazine than online marketers. Praise be.
We stepped back from a coaching contract with a billion dollar consultancy. Not aligned.
We stopped designing digital guidebooks every month for our membership. They were gorgeous, but a huge design lift. Switched creative focus to video + audio delivery. SUCCESS: Heart Centered Collective is growing organically. Engagement with the teaching material increases monthly.
We decided to sunset the licensing model on our Heart Centered Leadership Program ($1,000/year). Felt like a barrier to entry for the material.
Sunset Nourish System Program ($300). It’s brill, but it distracts from our Heart Centered Collective offering.
I was doing a stand-alone weekly blog post. I merged that with my podcast. So, I podcast about my weekly post (which you’re reading right now, or you can listen to the elaborated version on WITH LOVE, DANIELLE!) SUCCESS! My podcast ranks in the top 2% in the world. Wowza, thank you.
Cleaned up our mailing list. It’s a painful, ego-wrenching process of scrubbing stale emails from a list of 222,000 subscribers (built up over 8 years) down to 65,000 active subscribers. And you know what happened with fewer, but engaged subscribers? Our open rate shot to 47%, and our deliverability went to an A+ ranking! This is gold standard. And! the majority of our click through rates doubled.
Running our day planner business on a pre-order basis only.
Chose not to renew in a high ticket mastermind I was in to save on travel commitments.
WORK + LIFESTYLE
We stopped doing:
No more team meetings on Mondays. Not ideal energetically-astrologically.
No more working 6-7 days a week, or 12-hour days.
Paused twice-weekly podcasts (but they will be coming back!)
Stopped doing “cart close” membership campaigns 4 times a year (the door is always open now!)
Stopped caring too much about Instagram growth. Kissing up to that algorithm is not a healthy dynamic. SUCCESS! My Instagram grew. (Ignore a toxic boyfriend and he gets nicer to you.)
I switched from doing LIVE classes in the Heart Centered Collective to pre-recording the monthly teaching. This way, I can create shorter segments of content and the usability + learning transference increases. We still do a monthly live call for Q+A and connection.
Team D was leading co-working sessions—we retired that.
We backed away from New Year “start strong” pressure, and committed to Lunar New year kick off and aiming to have plans in place by Spring.
PEOPLE POWER
We said thank you and farewell to some roles and the people in them. Of course, some of these partings were natural phase outs, and there were also some stressful changes:
12 specialized positions on the team
Fractional CFO
Design agency
Facebook ads agency
Podcast agent + podcast network
Literary agency
We said hello to a Director of Marketing + Impact, a Membership Specialist, and a Content + Community Director—who is also the first man on the core team—so blessed by that masculine energy. The right amount of AI for optimizing SOPs.
SUCCESS! When I began the business reno, monthly payroll + contractor payments averaged $90k/month. Now, it’s $41k/month. That’s a savings of $588k USD/year.
TECH STACK
We stopped using:
Asana. SUCCESS! Once we let go of our task management system, we quickly became a self managing team. It’s each person’s job to track their tasks; no one is waiting to be told what to do.
Viber
Mailchimp
Klaviyo
Kajabi
Shopify extended version
Later
Our webhost
AddEvent
Calendly
Zoom extended
Carbonite backup
We said hello to:
Mighty Networks
Kit (formerly ConvertKit)
Shopify ($100 USD/month version)
Slack
Notion
Metricool (social scheduler + analytics)
Canva
Substack (big things brewing here!)
Team D is:
1. Danielle, Vision + Content
2. V.S., Metaphysical Practitioner
3. Dana, Chief of Staff
4. David, Content + Community Director
5. Lea, Marketing + Impact Director
6. Jenn, Operations Manager
7. Mellissa, Membership Specialist (¼ time)
8. Kelly, Podcast editor (¼ time)
9. Accounting agency + legal firm
And THAT is our tour de force of stopping doing! Again, there are more details and inspirational BTS in the podcast episode.
NEW NEW! I’m doing one-on-one strategy work with entrepreneurs. High value, deep dives. INFUSION SESSIONS are booking and I’m thrilled to help people stop in the right ways and up their prosperity in all the right places. READY WHEN YOU ARE. xo
“Danielle is a Jedi of business. She has a way of asking the right questions and guiding you to transcend your limitations and perceived blocks and business. Having her as a guide can deepen your connection to your own intuition. Not only will you transform your business, you’ll be transformed too.”
– Mark Groves, The Mark Groves Podcast, and author of Liberated Love
WHAT’S WORKING
Couples counselling with Dr. Karen Doherty has helped my man and I work some things OUT. She specializes in couples with one neuro-normie (hi!) and a neuro-diverse (my ADHD Mr. Man.) She’s seasoned and deftly direct… and she’s booked months in advance. But! She’s doing a webinar on June 3, 2025, “Is my relationship impacted by Neurodiversity? If so, how?” You can find out more here. Tell her I sent you.
WHAT’S NOT WORKING
Well, as per above… neurodivergence can push relationships in all kinds of ways. In Karen’s experienced words: Communication: unclear messaging heard in multiple ways and often full of assumption. Emotional deregulation, including RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) and its reactive responses. Executive function: the unequal mental load leaving one partner overloaded and resentful.
But healing and happiness is oh-so-possible. Deeply so. Awareness, communication tools, and tenacious love for the win! If you can’t make Karen’s webinar live (it’s UK time), the recording will be available. Xo
NEXT FRIDAY… I’m switching gears and I’ll have a beautiful audio track for ABUNDANCE declarations ready for you! xo
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