February 13, 2025 • 17 mins
Building a thriving business isn’t just about going viral or chasing short-term wins—it’s about playing the long game. In this episode of You Are The Magic, business coach and PR veteran Christine DeHerrera shares hard-earned insights from 23 years in business to help high achievers build companies that last. Discover why true longevity isn’t about more strategies, more hustle, or the latest marketing hack—it’s about you.
Christine dives into three powerful pillars of business longevity: mastery of your craft, deep customer relationships, and resilience. Through compelling stories—including the meteoric rise and fall of Nasty Gal’s Sophia Amoruso—you’ll see why evolving as a leader is the key to sustainable success. Plus, Christine gets personal about how burnout almost derailed her career and how she reclaimed her energy to build a business she still loves two decades later.
If you want a business that flourishes for years—without sacrificing your well-being—this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for actionable takeaways, reflection prompts, and the mindset shifts you need to stay in love with your work for the long haul.
Questions To Ask Yourself When You're Building A Business That Lasts
If you’re serious about building a business that stands the test of time—one that not only survives but continues to inspire and energize you—self-reflection is key. These journal prompts will help you identify the areas where your business is calling you to grow, evolve, and create long-term success on your terms. Take some time to explore these questions and see what insights unfold.
1. Mastery: Evolving in Your Craft
- What part of my business is demanding that I grow right now?
- What skills do I need to develop or refine to sustain long-term success?
2. Customer Retention: Setting Clear Expectations
- How are my client or customer relationships shaping my personal growth?
- Am I showing up in a way that honors my personal and business values?
- Where am I letting my business shape me into a person I don’t want to be?
3. Resilience: Managing Energy & Avoiding Burnout
- If my business is a self-development program, what lesson am I currently learning?
- Am I resisting change, or am I allowing myself to evolve?
- How am I neglecting rest and recovery in a way that’s impacting my resilience?
If you're loving You Are The Magic, please follow the show and leave a five-star review.
Did this episode get you thinking? I'd love to hear from you. Text me at link at the top of the page.
Follow Christine on Instagram
Learn more Christine and how she helps high achievers reach next level business success on her website.
Thank you for listening and just remember, you are the magic!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christine DeHerrera (00:00):
You're building something really
special and I know you want itto last.
I've been in business for 23years, first as a publicist,
booking clients in magazines andon television, and now as a
business coach who helps highachievers reach next level
success.
And I'm going to let you in ona little secret Building a
business that lasts isn't aboutmore strategies and tactics.
(00:21):
It's about you.
Welcome to, you Are the Magic.
I'm so excited you're hereToday.
We have a juicy topic, and thatis something that people don't
talk about enough, which islongevity in your business.
Sure, people talk all the timeabout how to 10x your business
(00:42):
or how to go viral, but there'snot enough discussion about how
to play the long game in yourbusiness, so that this beautiful
thing that you have built fromnothing is still around in 5, 10
, 20 years.
Who wants to put in all thiseffort and learn all these
skills to just have it burn downor fade away?
(01:02):
I know you don't, and that iswhy I knew that we had to
(03:00):
Sophia started Nasty Gal out ofher apartment.
It basically was a wonderfulvintage clothing company that
became an eBay business rightwhen eBay businesses were
becoming a thing Now.
Sophia had no formal businessexperience, which is fine.
Nobody needs that.
She was super scrappy, creativeand absolutely obsessed with
(03:22):
what she was doing.
She spent a lot of time takingreally great photos and writing
descriptions, and people ate itup.
Stuff sold off of the Nasty GaleBay store so fast and the
business simply exploded.
She essentially had built thiscult following and it grew to
$100 million in revenue businessreally quickly.
(03:44):
It was the perfect story ofwhat an online business could be
at that time.
But then the business grew sofast and it grew faster than she
did.
As a leader, she had troublewith delegation leadership,
infrastructure and inside thecompany, inside the Nasty Gal
(04:09):
culture, it became reallychaotic.
There was a lot of turnover,leadership was falling apart and
unfortunately, in 2016, nastyGal filed for bankruptcy and it
wasn't because people didn'tlove the brand.
It wasn't built to last.
Sophia had built this rocketship, but she didn't know how to
(04:30):
fly it.
But Sophia was not one to creepaway from her failure
Absolutely not.
After Nasty Gal collapsed, shewent on to figure out what
didn't go right and what sheneeded to learn.
She, essentially, is theperfect rising from the ashes
(04:50):
story, because her next businessventure, girlboss, was launched
and she took everything shelearned and made this brand new
media company, which is stillthriving today, into an iconic
brand.
At Girlboss, she hiredexecutives who knew what they
needed to do and she took adifferent approach to leadership
(05:14):
.
She evolved and because of thatshe was able to rebuild and
rebuild even greater.
So it's not just about beinggreat at what you do, because
that has to evolve, and that isthe first area that you need to
look at in your business whenyou're building for longevity.
(05:36):
So here's a question you couldask yourself what part of my
business is demanding that Igrow right now?
What skills do you need todevelop or evolve to sustain
long-term success?
Spending time in this kind ofwork is really important to
(05:57):
being in business for a longtime, and sometimes it's hard to
carve out that time, but youreally need to do it.
I will put these journalprompts, these questions into
the show notes and I hope thatyou will look at them and do the
work, because this is how youand your business are going to
continue to thrive for years tocome.
(06:19):
So the next area in yourbusiness that is based on you
that we're going to talk aboutis the importance of customer
retention.
Yes, customer retention.
What does this have to do withyou?
It's all about creating thecustomer experience and the
journey and really digging in sothey know.
(06:39):
But what makes a customerexperience great is that your
person knows what to expect fromyou and your business, you and
your brand.
And again, this doesn't matterif you're a service-based
business or product-basedbusiness.
If you're making jewelry,people want to know what to
expect.
Is it well made?
What is it made of?
(07:00):
How will it be shipped to me?
If they're ordering it online?
Will the shipping take two days?
Will it take a week?
Will it take a month?
Expectations are what drivecustomer retention, and when you
don't meet people'sexpectations or you change
things in your business withoutletting them know, that can
(07:22):
cause problems in the longevityof your business.
But how does this relate to youas the person running the
business?
Right, because all of thosethings are things you can work
on.
The challenge, as you grow andyour business changes and you
evolve, is that a lot of timeswe don't change, and I had to
(07:44):
learn this the hard way myself.
So, early in my business, Isaid yes to everything.
I basically had no boundariesbecause I was building something
from nothing and when peoplecalled and needed something last
minute, I did it and I loveddoing it.
This was a way to keep myclients happy and ensure the
(08:06):
entire success of my business.
But in reality, after a fewyears, it was starting to cost
me, not in my time not only inmy time, but in my ability to be
really present in my life.
So one of the biggest wake-upcalls happened when my daughter
was six and my son was one andmy family was on vacation at
(08:27):
SeaWorld.
And I get a call from my clientand of course, I answer because
that's what I was doing at thatpoint and I ended up missing
the entire show.
My family went in, watched thebeautiful whale do his thing.
I ended up spending 20 minutestalking to a client.
Now why did this happen?
Had I told them I was going tobe at SeaWorld?
(08:48):
Had I told them I was going tobe on vacation Absolutely not
because I said yes to everythingthen Would they have called me
if they had known I was onvacation?
No, probably not.
It's all about letting themknow what to expect.
They don't expect you tonecessarily answer a
non-emergent call while you'reon vacation, but you do have to
(09:11):
set up the expectations.
And why this becomes a youproblem is because in the
beginning of your business youlikely were like me and said yes
to absolutely everything.
But as the business grows andchanges, you need to grow and
change and your values will growand change, and so you have to
be open to that and starting topay attention and make those
(09:33):
changes.
So my question for you aroundcustomer retention is how are
you letting your client orcustomer relationships shape
your personal growth?
Are you showing up in a waythat honors your personal and
your company values?
Because in the beginning itmight be all hustle and grind
(09:56):
and that's okay, because I callthat the grit and determination
phase and you kind of have to dothat to get things off the
ground.
But after you're in businessfor a while, you have to learn,
you have to grow into adifferent person.
So answer those questions Again.
I'll drop them into the shownotes.
Where are you letting yourbusiness shape you into a person
(10:19):
you don't want to be, shape youinto a person you don't want to
be, and that will affect yourcustomer retention?
Which brings us to the thirdpoint.
In business, it's all aboutresilience.
There are going to be ups anddowns.
Some of them may be personalups and downs.
Maybe you have children thatyou didn't have when you started
(10:41):
your business.
Maybe you have to take care ofa sick parent or an ailing
spouse or who knows what youmight have to deal with on a
personal note.
Or you have to deal with thingsin your business that are
outside of the business, like,for example, I started my
business just a few months after9-11.
(11:02):
I went through the GreatRecession and etc.
Etc.
So resilience is really, reallyimportant in business, and that
resilience comes from learningwhen to pivot.
When I started my business, Ihad exactly zero children.
I was just pure ambition andenergy.
(11:23):
I absolutely loved what I did.
I did all the things like Imentioned, but it was around
that time that my son turned one, but it was around that time
that my son turned one thateverything had started to change
.
Looking back now I can see thatit was probably burnout and
maybe some undiagnosedpostpartum depression.
(11:45):
But of course I didn't knowthat at the time, because for
years I had absolutely thrivedon the adrenaline rush of
helping people.
The constant demands, the lastminute media requests, the way
my team and I could pull off theimpossible was just thrilling.
Meeting all these unreasonableurgent deadlines made me feel
(12:08):
superhuman.
But over time, truly it nearlykilled me and at first I ignored
all of this and I just keptgoing because that's what I was
conditioned to do.
Nobody talked about slowingdown or burnout or failure or
any of the things that we alltalk about now is just part of
the conversation.
(12:29):
But deep down what washappening is I had changed.
It's not that the business wasbad, I had changed.
I did not love the constantadrenaline rush and I just
didn't realize it.
But eventually I completelyfried my nervous system and at
that point I had never heard theterm burnout before.
(12:50):
And one day on a podcast ofcourse it was the Tim Ferriss
podcast, to be exact I heard theterm burnout for the first time
and learned what it was, and itwas like a switch flipped in my
brain.
In the movie version of thisstory, I would have stormed out
of my office, tossed my phone ina fountain and sashayed away to
(13:12):
freedom.
But in reality it took a lot oftime and I slowly and
tentatively took back my lifeand my power.
It literally took years tounwind the tension that had
happened from all of thosehundreds and hundreds, thousands
of deadlines, but over time Igot my resilience back, and I
(13:34):
don't want that to happen to you.
I don't want you to have to getcompletely burned out.
So when you start to notice thatyou're not feeling as resilient
as you used to, you need topause.
Remember, your business is aself-development program and
when you are running on fumes,it means you're not operating
from the best energy.
And remember, our main theme onthis podcast is that you are
(13:58):
the magic in your life andbusiness and when you have your
energy coupled with strategy,you are unstoppable.
So when you are findingyourself lower and lower and
lower and all the way flat onthe floor, that is when you know
your resilience is at anall-time low.
Don't let that happen.
(14:18):
Catch that sooner, becausebeing in business for 23 years,
like I have, has taught me that,out of all of the things.
Resilience is super importantbecause your business thrives on
your energy and even if yourbusiness has grown to a size of
having hundreds of team members,if you're still in the business
(14:39):
as the CEO or the person withthe vision who's driving the
business?
It's on you and your energy.
So always be thinking aboutyour resilience, which starts
with managing your energy.
If your business is aself-development program, what
lesson are you currentlylearning?
Are you resisting change or areyou allowing yourself to evolve
(15:04):
?
How are you not allowingyourself time to rest and
recover so that you can beresilient?
To rest and recover so that youcan be resilient?
So, if you want to build abusiness that lasts, if you want
to play the long game and notwant to burn down your business
or your life, the three areasyou need to concentrate on, of
(15:26):
course, are be great at what youdo, build long-term
relationships with your clientsso they stick around, and have
resilience.
The thing that we get wrong isthinking that those things are
external to us.
Instead, your business is apersonal development system
designed to make you into theperson you were meant to be.
(15:48):
So take the time, do the workand see what magic can unfold.
So, as you go out and you keepbuilding the business and the
life that you want, I want youto remember what one of our
great teachers, maya Angelou,said.
She said, success is likingyourself, liking what you do and
(16:09):
liking how you do it.
And it's that last piece that'sreally important in business
the liking how you do it.
And it's that last piece that'sreally important in business
the liking how you do it.
Because, at the end of the day,longevity isn't just about
staying in business, it's aboutstaying in love with the work
that you do.
That's the real magic.
Thank you for listening in.
I'm excited to bring you abrand new episode next week.
(16:32):
If you're enjoying theseepisodes, please follow the show
, give us a five star review andalso text me.
At the top of the show notesyou can find a little text me
button and I'd love to hear fromyou.
Are you enjoying it?
What would you like to hearmore of?
Or just send me some goodwishes, because you are the
(16:52):
magic and you are why I amrecording this show.
You, you.
You're building something really
special and I know you want itto last.
I've been in business for 23years, first as a publicist,
booking clients in magazines andon television, and now as a
business coach who helps highachievers reach next level
success.
And I'm going to let you in ona little secret Building a
business that lasts isn't aboutmore strategies and tactics.
(00:21):
It's about you.
Welcome to, you Are the Magic.
I'm so excited you're hereToday.
We have a juicy topic, and thatis something that people don't
talk about enough, which islongevity in your business.
Sure, people talk all the timeabout how to 10x your business
(00:42):
or how to go viral, but there'snot enough discussion about how
to play the long game in yourbusiness, so that this beautiful
thing that you have built fromnothing is still around in 5, 10
, 20 years.
Who wants to put in all thiseffort and learn all these
skills to just have it burn downor fade away?
(01:02):
I know you don't, and that iswhy I knew that we had to
(03:00):
Sophia started Nasty Gal out ofher apartment.
It basically was a wonderfulvintage clothing company that
became an eBay business rightwhen eBay businesses were
becoming a thing Now.
Sophia had no formal businessexperience, which is fine.
Nobody needs that.
She was super scrappy, creativeand absolutely obsessed with
(03:22):
what she was doing.
She spent a lot of time takingreally great photos and writing
descriptions, and people ate itup.
Stuff sold off of the Nasty GaleBay store so fast and the
business simply exploded.
She essentially had built thiscult following and it grew to
$100 million in revenue businessreally quickly.
(03:44):
It was the perfect story ofwhat an online business could be
at that time.
But then the business grew sofast and it grew faster than she
did.
As a leader, she had troublewith delegation leadership,
infrastructure and inside thecompany, inside the Nasty Gal
(04:09):
culture, it became reallychaotic.
There was a lot of turnover,leadership was falling apart and
unfortunately, in 2016, nastyGal filed for bankruptcy and it
wasn't because people didn'tlove the brand.
It wasn't built to last.
Sophia had built this rocketship, but she didn't know how to
(04:30):
fly it.
But Sophia was not one to creepaway from her failure
Absolutely not.
After Nasty Gal collapsed, shewent on to figure out what
didn't go right and what sheneeded to learn.
She, essentially, is theperfect rising from the ashes
(04:50):
story, because her next businessventure, girlboss, was launched
and she took everything shelearned and made this brand new
media company, which is stillthriving today, into an iconic
brand.
At Girlboss, she hiredexecutives who knew what they
needed to do and she took adifferent approach to leadership
(05:14):
.
She evolved and because of thatshe was able to rebuild and
rebuild even greater.
So it's not just about beinggreat at what you do, because
that has to evolve, and that isthe first area that you need to
look at in your business whenyou're building for longevity.
(05:36):
So here's a question you couldask yourself what part of my
business is demanding that Igrow right now?
What skills do you need todevelop or evolve to sustain
long-term success?
Spending time in this kind ofwork is really important to
(05:57):
being in business for a longtime, and sometimes it's hard to
carve out that time, but youreally need to do it.
I will put these journalprompts, these questions into
the show notes and I hope thatyou will look at them and do the
work, because this is how youand your business are going to
continue to thrive for years tocome.
(06:19):
So the next area in yourbusiness that is based on you
that we're going to talk aboutis the importance of customer
retention.
Yes, customer retention.
What does this have to do withyou?
It's all about creating thecustomer experience and the
journey and really digging in sothey know.
(06:39):
But what makes a customerexperience great is that your
person knows what to expect fromyou and your business, you and
your brand.
And again, this doesn't matterif you're a service-based
business or product-basedbusiness.
If you're making jewelry,people want to know what to
expect.
Is it well made?
What is it made of?
(07:00):
How will it be shipped to me?
If they're ordering it online?
Will the shipping take two days?
Will it take a week?
Will it take a month?
Expectations are what drivecustomer retention, and when you
don't meet people'sexpectations or you change
things in your business withoutletting them know, that can
(07:22):
cause problems in the longevityof your business.
But how does this relate to youas the person running the
business?
Right, because all of thosethings are things you can work
on.
The challenge, as you grow andyour business changes and you
evolve, is that a lot of timeswe don't change, and I had to
(07:44):
learn this the hard way myself.
So, early in my business, Isaid yes to everything.
I basically had no boundariesbecause I was building something
from nothing and when peoplecalled and needed something last
minute, I did it and I loveddoing it.
This was a way to keep myclients happy and ensure the
(08:06):
entire success of my business.
But in reality, after a fewyears, it was starting to cost
me, not in my time not only inmy time, but in my ability to be
really present in my life.
So one of the biggest wake-upcalls happened when my daughter
was six and my son was one andmy family was on vacation at
(08:27):
SeaWorld.
And I get a call from my clientand of course, I answer because
that's what I was doing at thatpoint and I ended up missing
the entire show.
My family went in, watched thebeautiful whale do his thing.
I ended up spending 20 minutestalking to a client.
Now why did this happen?
Had I told them I was going tobe at SeaWorld?
(08:48):
Had I told them I was going tobe on vacation Absolutely not
because I said yes to everythingthen Would they have called me
if they had known I was onvacation?
No, probably not.
It's all about letting themknow what to expect.
They don't expect you tonecessarily answer a
non-emergent call while you'reon vacation, but you do have to
(09:11):
set up the expectations.
And why this becomes a youproblem is because in the
beginning of your business youlikely were like me and said yes
to absolutely everything.
But as the business grows andchanges, you need to grow and
change and your values will growand change, and so you have to
be open to that and starting topay attention and make those
(09:33):
changes.
So my question for you aroundcustomer retention is how are
you letting your client orcustomer relationships shape
your personal growth?
Are you showing up in a waythat honors your personal and
your company values?
Because in the beginning itmight be all hustle and grind
(09:56):
and that's okay, because I callthat the grit and determination
phase and you kind of have to dothat to get things off the
ground.
But after you're in businessfor a while, you have to learn,
you have to grow into adifferent person.
So answer those questions Again.
I'll drop them into the shownotes.
Where are you letting yourbusiness shape you into a person
(10:19):
you don't want to be, shape youinto a person you don't want to
be, and that will affect yourcustomer retention?
Which brings us to the thirdpoint.
In business, it's all aboutresilience.
There are going to be ups anddowns.
Some of them may be personalups and downs.
Maybe you have children thatyou didn't have when you started
(10:41):
your business.
Maybe you have to take care ofa sick parent or an ailing
spouse or who knows what youmight have to deal with on a
personal note.
Or you have to deal with thingsin your business that are
outside of the business, like,for example, I started my
business just a few months after9-11.
(11:02):
I went through the GreatRecession and etc.
Etc.
So resilience is really, reallyimportant in business, and that
resilience comes from learningwhen to pivot.
When I started my business, Ihad exactly zero children.
I was just pure ambition andenergy.
(11:23):
I absolutely loved what I did.
I did all the things like Imentioned, but it was around
that time that my son turned one, but it was around that time
that my son turned one thateverything had started to change
.
Looking back now I can see thatit was probably burnout and
maybe some undiagnosedpostpartum depression.
(11:45):
But of course I didn't knowthat at the time, because for
years I had absolutely thrivedon the adrenaline rush of
helping people.
The constant demands, the lastminute media requests, the way
my team and I could pull off theimpossible was just thrilling.
Meeting all these unreasonableurgent deadlines made me feel
(12:08):
superhuman.
But over time, truly it nearlykilled me and at first I ignored
all of this and I just keptgoing because that's what I was
conditioned to do.
Nobody talked about slowingdown or burnout or failure or
any of the things that we alltalk about now is just part of
the conversation.
(12:29):
But deep down what washappening is I had changed.
It's not that the business wasbad, I had changed.
I did not love the constantadrenaline rush and I just
didn't realize it.
But eventually I completelyfried my nervous system and at
that point I had never heard theterm burnout before.
(12:50):
And one day on a podcast ofcourse it was the Tim Ferriss
podcast, to be exact I heard theterm burnout for the first time
and learned what it was, and itwas like a switch flipped in my
brain.
In the movie version of thisstory, I would have stormed out
of my office, tossed my phone ina fountain and sashayed away to
(13:12):
freedom.
But in reality it took a lot oftime and I slowly and
tentatively took back my lifeand my power.
It literally took years tounwind the tension that had
happened from all of thosehundreds and hundreds, thousands
of deadlines, but over time Igot my resilience back, and I
(13:34):
don't want that to happen to you.
I don't want you to have to getcompletely burned out.
So when you start to notice thatyou're not feeling as resilient
as you used to, you need topause.
Remember, your business is aself-development program and
when you are running on fumes,it means you're not operating
from the best energy.
And remember, our main theme onthis podcast is that you are
(13:58):
the magic in your life andbusiness and when you have your
energy coupled with strategy,you are unstoppable.
So when you are findingyourself lower and lower and
lower and all the way flat onthe floor, that is when you know
your resilience is at anall-time low.
Don't let that happen.
(14:18):
Catch that sooner, becausebeing in business for 23 years,
like I have, has taught me that,out of all of the things.
Resilience is super importantbecause your business thrives on
your energy and even if yourbusiness has grown to a size of
having hundreds of team members,if you're still in the business
(14:39):
as the CEO or the person withthe vision who's driving the
business?
It's on you and your energy.
So always be thinking aboutyour resilience, which starts
with managing your energy.
If your business is aself-development program, what
lesson are you currentlylearning?
Are you resisting change or areyou allowing yourself to evolve
(15:04):
?
How are you not allowingyourself time to rest and
recover so that you can beresilient?
To rest and recover so that youcan be resilient?
So, if you want to build abusiness that lasts, if you want
to play the long game and notwant to burn down your business
or your life, the three areasyou need to concentrate on, of
(15:26):
course, are be great at what youdo, build long-term
relationships with your clientsso they stick around, and have
resilience.
The thing that we get wrong isthinking that those things are
external to us.
Instead, your business is apersonal development system
designed to make you into theperson you were meant to be.
(15:48):
So take the time, do the workand see what magic can unfold.
So, as you go out and you keepbuilding the business and the
life that you want, I want youto remember what one of our
great teachers, maya Angelou,said.
She said, success is likingyourself, liking what you do and
(16:09):
liking how you do it.
And it's that last piece that'sreally important in business
the liking how you do it.
And it's that last piece that'sreally important in business
the liking how you do it.
Because, at the end of the day,longevity isn't just about
staying in business, it's aboutstaying in love with the work
that you do.
That's the real magic.
Thank you for listening in.
I'm excited to bring you abrand new episode next week.
(16:32):
If you're enjoying theseepisodes, please follow the show
, give us a five star review andalso text me.
At the top of the show notesyou can find a little text me
button and I'd love to hear fromyou.
Are you enjoying it?
What would you like to hearmore of?
Or just send me some goodwishes, because you are the
(16:52):
magic and you are why I amrecording this show.
You, you.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.