June 17, 2025 • 11 mins
What if joy didn’t need justification? In this episode, I call out the sh*tty, toxic pressure to monetize every moment and be productive at all costs. From a simple Pilates practice to dancing alone in the kitchen, I shine a light on what we lose when everything becomes a performance — and why reclaiming your time, mediocrity, and autonomy is a radical act of self-leadership. If you’ve ever been made to feel like your hobbies need a purpose (or a paycheck), this episode is your permission slip to stop performing and start living. This isn’t about anti-capitalism. It’s about coming back to yourself.
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The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello blasphemers,welcome back.
You want to know what'sexhausting Feeling like.
Every decision you make has tobe productive, has to be
(00:46):
strategic, has to be monetizable.
Let me give you some real liferage fuel.
Okay, I told someone recentlythat I started Pilates twice a
week, 50 minutes, nothingintense, just a way to feel more
present in my body, move alittle, breathe a little, show
up for myself a little, and I'mdoing it with my older daughter,
which is great because it givesus time to do something
(01:09):
together and bond and we bothreally enjoy it.
And, to be honest, I haven'treally moved my body in any kind
of a meaningful way since myyounger daughter was born seven
or eight years ago, so I sharedthis and they looked me in the
face, dead serious, and said oh,that's not really enough to
lose weight.
Though, right, when I tell you,it took everything in me not to
(01:31):
flip the fucking table, becausewhen did we start needing to
justify joy?
Why can't it be enough to dosomething that simply feels good
?
And I want to talk about thattoday.
I want to talk about how theworld keeps trying to turn every
spark of joy into a businessplan and why saying no to that
pressure is a radical act ofmuch-needed self-leadership.
(01:55):
I want to get somethingstraight.
Okay, this is not aboutcapitalism.
I'm not ranting on capitalism.
This is about autonomy andidentity and self-leadership.
There is this cultural obsessionright now where the second you
enjoy something, people rush into ask well, what are you going
to do with it?
What are you going to do withit?
(02:15):
You learn to bake bread or youmake really good recipes oh, you
should sell those.
You should start a restaurant.
You should start an Instagramchannel.
Get into watercolor oh, youshould open an Etsy shop.
You go hiking oh, you couldstart a wellness brand.
And I get it right.
I get it.
We live in a world that rewardsproductivity and performance,
but the consequence that fewpeople think about?
(02:36):
We've been trained out of doingthings just because we want to.
We've been taught that anythingthat doesn't serve our image or
our brand or our bank accountis somehow a waste of time.
And that is a dangerous belief,particularly for leaders and
especially for ambitious womenwho have internalized the idea
(03:01):
that every hour must earn itskeep, that unless you are doing,
you are not productive andsomehow your value does not
exist.
And here's what we're losing inthe process.
When we frame everything aroundoutcomes, we lose three very
powerful things.
Number one we lose the abilityto be present.
(03:22):
When you are always thinkingabout how something might pay
off, we lose the ability to bepresent.
When you are always thinkingabout how something might pay
off, you're not actually in theexperience.
You're half a step ahead.
You're calculating ROI, you'rewondering if this moment will
translate into content orinfluence.
It's kind of like if youlistened to a few episodes back
where I lost my phone.
I didn't lose it, it was stolen.
My phone got stolen in Spainand I did not have a phone for a
(03:45):
week and a half of my two-weektrip and it forced me to sit and
be present.
I had an entire contentcalendar planned out.
I knew exactly which pictures Iwas going to take and what I
was going to take pictures infront of, and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
And when I lost my phone, letme tell you, it forced me to sit
down and actually be in themoment, to enjoy the flavors in
(04:08):
a cup of tea, to enjoy naturewhen we were at the lake,
instead of worrying about takingpictures of the swans and
setting it up so that it wassomething I could post on
Instagram.
Presence is the foundation ofclarity and that presence that I
was forced to have.
It was the catalyst for all ofthe clarity and all of the
(04:30):
changes I've been making in mybusiness and, for the first time
in years, I feel so aligned andso in myself that it is
freaking unbelievable.
So, like I said, presence isthe foundation of clarity.
If you cannot be where yourfeet are, you cannot trust your
thoughts, your needs or yourboundaries, and without that,
(04:51):
your leadership becomes reactiveinstead of intentional, and
this is a really big one.
Being bad at something hasbecome taboo, especially for
people who are used to beingexcellent, gifted people.
(05:12):
But the truth is, mastery isborn in mediocrity.
If you're only willing to dothings that you're good at,
you're never going to grow.
And maybe you don't want tohear this, but you don't build
success by staying safe.
You build it by sucking atsomething, staying with the
discomfort and learning fromthat, growing from that.
Mediocrity is not failure.
It is actually freedom.
(05:32):
It's a stepping stone tosomething greater and it's proof
that you're stretching beyondyour current identity, which is
where the evolution happens.
But we are so worried about whatpeople are going to think.
People are not thinking aboutyou.
They don't give a shit.
You think of yourself way morethan anybody else does, and you
have to allow yourself to be badat things in order to be good
(05:53):
at things and then eventually begreat at things.
And number three we lose arelationship with ourselves when
everything becomes performative.
You stop asking yourself, do Ilike this?
And you start asking willpeople approve of this?
I want to say that again youstop asking do I like this and
(06:15):
you focus on whether people willapprove of it.
Instead, you start buildingyour life based on optics
instead of alignment.
You start making choices tomanage perception instead of
honoring the truth that you knowdeep down.
And here's where it becomesreally really critical True
leadership, true success.
Whatever your end point, yourend goal is, it doesn't come
(06:38):
from external affirmation.
It comes from knowing who youare.
It comes from knowing what youvalue.
It comes from knowing how tomove through the world in a way
that feels like you, even whennobody is watching.
And we don't do that enough.
We really really need to stopand come back into relationship
with ourselves, and that has tostart with allowing ourselves to
(07:01):
do things for joy, to do thingssimply because we want to do
them, with allowing ourselves todo things for joy, to do things
simply because we want to dothem.
That's real, honest-to-goodnessself-leadership.
And self-leadership is thecatalyst for any goal
achievement.
It's the catalyst for anyhappiness, it's the catalyst for
better boundaries, forliterally everything.
Self-leadership is what ittakes.
But a lot of leadership expertswill talk about self-leadership
(07:24):
like it's this polished thing.
Right, you journal, you havevision boards, you have high
performance routines, you'repart of the 5am fucking success
club.
I have a whole rant about that,I'm not going to get into today
.
But no, self-leadership isactually messy.
It's doing the thing anyway.
Right, doing the thing anyway,even if it's inefficient, if
it's imperfect, oh God,especially if it doesn't scale
(07:47):
right.
It's choosing Pilates twice aweek because it makes you feel
good, not because you're tryingto get lean or
post-transformation pictures orbuild a fucking brand or content
strategy around it.
It's baking cookies and burninghalf the batch and still
enjoying the process.
It's sketching in a notebook.
You know no one is ever gonnasee.
God, I'm getting emotional.
It's it's dancing in yourkitchen at midnight because you
(08:13):
want to.
Those things matter and thesecond you tell yourself they
don't unless they produceresults.
You have lost your compass,your inner guide, you have lost
your true north.
So here is the radical ask thatI'm making of you this week Can
(08:40):
you let yourself do somethingjust because you want to?
Can you give yourselfpermission to be mediocre, to
fall on your ass, to not finish,to not monetize?
Because that is where realgrowth happens, that is where
(09:01):
identity gets built andreinforced, that is where your
capacity expands and that is howyou start separating who you
are from what you produce.
Like, I'm not going to tell youto journal about this.
I'm going to tell you to dosomething useless this week.
(09:23):
I want you to carve out timefor one thing that has no ROI,
no social value, no path tomonetization, just joy and you
know what.
Don't turn it into content.
In fact, put your phone inanother room.
Don't explain it to anybody.
In fact, put your phone inanother room.
Don't explain it to anybody.
Don't even tell them you'redoing it.
(09:44):
Just let it be yours, let it bemessy, let it be pointless.
Because in a world thatmeasures everything, choosing
not to be measured is its ownkind of power.
I'm Sarah Kahn.
This is Business Blasphemy and,like I say every single week,
(10:07):
you can have success without theBS.
But sometimes you need toremember that not everything
needs a strategy.
Some things just need space.
I'll talk to you next week.
Some things just need space.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
(10:29):
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello blasphemers,welcome back.
You want to know what'sexhausting Feeling like.
Every decision you make has tobe productive, has to be
(00:46):
strategic, has to be monetizable.
Let me give you some real liferage fuel.
Okay, I told someone recentlythat I started Pilates twice a
week, 50 minutes, nothingintense, just a way to feel more
present in my body, move alittle, breathe a little, show
up for myself a little, and I'mdoing it with my older daughter,
which is great because it givesus time to do something
(01:09):
together and bond and we bothreally enjoy it.
And, to be honest, I haven'treally moved my body in any kind
of a meaningful way since myyounger daughter was born seven
or eight years ago, so I sharedthis and they looked me in the
face, dead serious, and said oh,that's not really enough to
lose weight.
Though, right, when I tell you,it took everything in me not to
(01:31):
flip the fucking table, becausewhen did we start needing to
justify joy?
Why can't it be enough to dosomething that simply feels good
?
And I want to talk about thattoday.
I want to talk about how theworld keeps trying to turn every
spark of joy into a businessplan and why saying no to that
pressure is a radical act ofmuch-needed self-leadership.
(01:55):
I want to get somethingstraight.
Okay, this is not aboutcapitalism.
I'm not ranting on capitalism.
This is about autonomy andidentity and self-leadership.
There is this cultural obsessionright now where the second you
enjoy something, people rush into ask well, what are you going
to do with it?
What are you going to do withit?
(02:15):
You learn to bake bread or youmake really good recipes oh, you
should sell those.
You should start a restaurant.
You should start an Instagramchannel.
Get into watercolor oh, youshould open an Etsy shop.
You go hiking oh, you couldstart a wellness brand.
And I get it right.
I get it.
We live in a world that rewardsproductivity and performance,
but the consequence that fewpeople think about?
(02:36):
We've been trained out of doingthings just because we want to.
We've been taught that anythingthat doesn't serve our image or
our brand or our bank accountis somehow a waste of time.
And that is a dangerous belief,particularly for leaders and
especially for ambitious womenwho have internalized the idea
(03:01):
that every hour must earn itskeep, that unless you are doing,
you are not productive andsomehow your value does not
exist.
And here's what we're losing inthe process.
When we frame everything aroundoutcomes, we lose three very
powerful things.
Number one we lose the abilityto be present.
(03:22):
When you are always thinkingabout how something might pay
off, we lose the ability to bepresent.
When you are always thinkingabout how something might pay
off, you're not actually in theexperience.
You're half a step ahead.
You're calculating ROI, you'rewondering if this moment will
translate into content orinfluence.
It's kind of like if youlistened to a few episodes back
where I lost my phone.
I didn't lose it, it was stolen.
My phone got stolen in Spainand I did not have a phone for a
(03:45):
week and a half of my two-weektrip and it forced me to sit and
be present.
I had an entire contentcalendar planned out.
I knew exactly which pictures Iwas going to take and what I
was going to take pictures infront of, and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.
And when I lost my phone, letme tell you, it forced me to sit
down and actually be in themoment, to enjoy the flavors in
(04:08):
a cup of tea, to enjoy naturewhen we were at the lake,
instead of worrying about takingpictures of the swans and
setting it up so that it wassomething I could post on
Instagram.
Presence is the foundation ofclarity and that presence that I
was forced to have.
It was the catalyst for all ofthe clarity and all of the
(04:30):
changes I've been making in mybusiness and, for the first time
in years, I feel so aligned andso in myself that it is
freaking unbelievable.
So, like I said, presence isthe foundation of clarity.
If you cannot be where yourfeet are, you cannot trust your
thoughts, your needs or yourboundaries, and without that,
(04:51):
your leadership becomes reactiveinstead of intentional, and
this is a really big one.
Being bad at something hasbecome taboo, especially for
people who are used to beingexcellent, gifted people.
(05:12):
But the truth is, mastery isborn in mediocrity.
If you're only willing to dothings that you're good at,
you're never going to grow.
And maybe you don't want tohear this, but you don't build
success by staying safe.
You build it by sucking atsomething, staying with the
discomfort and learning fromthat, growing from that.
Mediocrity is not failure.
It is actually freedom.
(05:32):
It's a stepping stone tosomething greater and it's proof
that you're stretching beyondyour current identity, which is
where the evolution happens.
But we are so worried about whatpeople are going to think.
People are not thinking aboutyou.
They don't give a shit.
You think of yourself way morethan anybody else does, and you
have to allow yourself to be badat things in order to be good
(05:53):
at things and then eventually begreat at things.
And number three we lose arelationship with ourselves when
everything becomes performative.
You stop asking yourself, do Ilike this?
And you start asking willpeople approve of this?
I want to say that again youstop asking do I like this and
(06:15):
you focus on whether people willapprove of it.
Instead, you start buildingyour life based on optics
instead of alignment.
You start making choices tomanage perception instead of
honoring the truth that you knowdeep down.
And here's where it becomesreally really critical True
leadership, true success.
Whatever your end point, yourend goal is, it doesn't come
(06:38):
from external affirmation.
It comes from knowing who youare.
It comes from knowing what youvalue.
It comes from knowing how tomove through the world in a way
that feels like you, even whennobody is watching.
And we don't do that enough.
We really really need to stopand come back into relationship
with ourselves, and that has tostart with allowing ourselves to
(07:01):
do things for joy, to do thingssimply because we want to do
them, with allowing ourselves todo things for joy, to do things
simply because we want to dothem.
That's real, honest-to-goodnessself-leadership.
And self-leadership is thecatalyst for any goal
achievement.
It's the catalyst for anyhappiness, it's the catalyst for
better boundaries, forliterally everything.
Self-leadership is what ittakes.
But a lot of leadership expertswill talk about self-leadership
(07:24):
like it's this polished thing.
Right, you journal, you havevision boards, you have high
performance routines, you'repart of the 5am fucking success
club.
I have a whole rant about that,I'm not going to get into today
.
But no, self-leadership isactually messy.
It's doing the thing anyway.
Right, doing the thing anyway,even if it's inefficient, if
it's imperfect, oh God,especially if it doesn't scale
(07:47):
right.
It's choosing Pilates twice aweek because it makes you feel
good, not because you're tryingto get lean or
post-transformation pictures orbuild a fucking brand or content
strategy around it.
It's baking cookies and burninghalf the batch and still
enjoying the process.
It's sketching in a notebook.
You know no one is ever gonnasee.
God, I'm getting emotional.
It's it's dancing in yourkitchen at midnight because you
(08:13):
want to.
Those things matter and thesecond you tell yourself they
don't unless they produceresults.
You have lost your compass,your inner guide, you have lost
your true north.
So here is the radical ask thatI'm making of you this week Can
(08:40):
you let yourself do somethingjust because you want to?
Can you give yourselfpermission to be mediocre, to
fall on your ass, to not finish,to not monetize?
Because that is where realgrowth happens, that is where
(09:01):
identity gets built andreinforced, that is where your
capacity expands and that is howyou start separating who you
are from what you produce.
Like, I'm not going to tell youto journal about this.
I'm going to tell you to dosomething useless this week.
(09:23):
I want you to carve out timefor one thing that has no ROI,
no social value, no path tomonetization, just joy and you
know what.
Don't turn it into content.
In fact, put your phone inanother room.
Don't explain it to anybody.
In fact, put your phone inanother room.
Don't explain it to anybody.
Don't even tell them you'redoing it.
(09:44):
Just let it be yours, let it bemessy, let it be pointless.
Because in a world thatmeasures everything, choosing
not to be measured is its ownkind of power.
I'm Sarah Kahn.
This is Business Blasphemy and,like I say every single week,
(10:07):
you can have success without theBS.
But sometimes you need toremember that not everything
needs a strategy.
Some things just need space.
I'll talk to you next week.
Some things just need space.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
(10:29):
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy rating thispodcast, and don't forget to
share the podcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
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