Can You Really Grow a Business—Effortlessly?

In this episode, we dive into a question that's on the minds of many aspiring entrepreneurs: Can you really grow a business effortlessly? We’re surrounded by messages that make success look easy and instant, but what’s the real story behind those polished reels and highlight reels?

I’ll be sharing some hard truths about the intersection of hard work, ease, and what it really takes to build something sustainable—especially when life throws challenges your way. Whether you're questioning your own journey, dealing with personal or professional setbacks, or wondering if there's a secret to making it all feel easier, this episode will bring some much-needed clarity.

Here’s what you’ll hear in this episode:

• Why 2024 has been one of the hardest years in my journey (and what I learned from it).
• The truth behind "effortless success" and why it’s not what it seems.
• How joy, ease, and pain can actually coexist in the process of growth.
• Why your hard work and struggles aren’t just valid—they’re essential for real, lasting success.

Tune in to hear my own reflections, aha moments, and some real talk on what growing a business truly looks like behind the scenes. Let’s rethink what “ease” really means and why your hard work and struggles matter more than you might think.

Chapters

• 0:04 Navigating Business With Chronic Illness
• 14:18 Setting Boundaries for Self-Care
• 26:53 Thriving Business Program and Opportunities

Transcript

Nikita Williams: 0:04

Welcome to Business with Chronic Illness, the globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness who want to start and grow a business online. I'm your host. Nikita Williams and I went from living a normal life to all of a sudden being in constant pain, with no answers to being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses and trying to make a livable income. I faced the challenge of adapting traditional business advice to fit my unique circumstances with chronic illness, feeling frustrated and more burned out than I already was. While managing my chronic illness to becoming an award-winning coach with a flexible, sustainable online coaching business, I found the surprisingly simple steps to starting and growing a profitable business without compromising my health or my peace. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to create a thriving business that aligns with your lifestyle and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for women with chronic illness and how we make a living.

Nikita Williams: 1:35

This is Business with Chronic Illness. Hello, a long time in a very long time, a long time in a very long time, and it must be something to do with the thirties, because when I think about this, I think about Adele, her song, like her last album, I think about some of the folks that I follow and just women I talk to who are around my age, that are like mid thirties, and I think you may relate to this or you may be surprised to even hear me talking about this. I first wanted to say to anyone who has listened to this podcast when it was she's Crafted to Thrive, crafted to Thrive to Business with Chronic Illness or maybe you're new here I want to say for anyone who has seen this or listened to my show, who has engaged with my content, and for anyone who thought or perceived that I am in some way, shape or form, perfect or make this look easy or tout, that this journey of living with chronic illness, running a business, being a woman, of living with chronic illness, running a business, being a woman, being a Black woman, being a wife, being a sister, being a friend, is somehow, with all of my frameworks, all of the lessons I've learned, all of the personal development I've done is easy. I am sorry. I am sorry if that is the perception I gave you and if it's not, thank you. I'm thankful that that is hopefully not the perception I gave you. And often when I hear from you all, whether you're my clients, whether you're my past clients, whether you are in some kind of magic bullet, if you will, for making this journey so easy that you feel no pain, you experience no pain. It's just like a switch.

Nikita Williams: 4:30

And I had a realization this year, even more so. I've never felt like anything that any human does is effortless. I just really think that's a sales term, a copywriting term. I believe that we can create ease in the work that we do and the healing that we do and the transformation that we do, by the way we bring ourselves to that work or to that circumstance, by how we treat ourselves, how we love ourselves, how we honor ourselves and give ourselves dignity and self-compassion. I think we can find ease in the work that we do. But don't get me wrong, don't get it twisted that ease does not mean there is no hard work. Ease does not mean that there is not pain. Ease does not mean that it doesn't take time. Ease does not mean that it is going to come easily, right, and I know by definition that word is basically meaning effortless or with no effort, and I really don't think there is a English word that I have found that really describes what I am trying to express in this episode, which is when things are hard and you're going through challenges, and I think this just goes to also my own belief system, my own spiritual belief system on why hard work and peace and joy can coexist.

Nikita Williams: 6:24

And so this goes to a point that I feel like in the last year and a half or so, in my own journey of creating content and supporting you all, I had an experience. I had an experience about I want to say it's been about a year ago where I was shook a little bit, off of my foundation a bit. I was shook from an experience where I was taken aback by an experience, and it made me not fall out of faith or fall out of love or fall out of caring for people, but it did make me question my motives, it made me question who I really am deep inside and and it really took me aback, okay, and that led to a lot of aha moments that led to me really going into therapy. That led me to going really deep into my spirituality. That also led me into a new physical, chronic challenge flare ups. It's led me into a depression that comes and goes that I've never really experienced, other than when I had my hysterectomy. It led me to a burnout that had nothing to do with my business, but everything to do with me and how I hold space for people and how I care and love, and how I care and love.

Nikita Williams: 8:21

So I'm sharing this to say that the healing and the growing and the business journey is exactly that, our journey. And if you are looking for it to be easy, with no pain, there will be no growth. You will stay where you are, and I recently had this huge aha moment and it's still hard for me to work through. I'm still working through, but this is the beauty, I think, of growth and also the reason why I came to this realization hard work does not mean that you can't have ease, but it also doesn't mean that you don't have pain and joy at the same time. So if you have been feeling like you're going through a healing journey, you're going through a really difficult time and you're learning about yourself.

Nikita Williams: 9:16

Maybe it's in your personal life, maybe it's in your business, and you realize you need to take a step back. You need to reevaluate where things are. You need to identify what really is the thing that lights you up, what really is your strengths, what really are the things you're good at, and you're questioning those things. When you're in that season of questioning, I want you to remember that, questioning who you are and what you're going through, like who you are at the core ultimately, like if you're questioning who you are at the core, like your identity as a person, love on you some more. Remember why those things are part of you yes, life and things that didn't go necessarily the way that were the most the best way for us, the most the best way for us. There is aspects of our identity that was shaped or that was fostered or created in that earnest, if you will. That help you survive and they can help you to thrive. And also remember that aspects of those things might look different now because of the unhealthy way you may have been leading into that identity as a safety, and now where you are now, you need to lean in a different direction in order to thrive, in order to heal, in order to feel more joy and peace. It doesn't mean, at the core, your identity has shifted. It just means your perspective of that identity has.

Nikita Williams: 11:02

Okay, so you know, it's kind of like when we think about different qualities about ourselves or just different qualities in general. Let's just not even put ourselves in it like different facets of love. Some people are, there's different love languages, some of us have certain ways that we love connecting with people, love to receive love, and it looks different. It just doesn't mean that there's one type of one version of what love looks like. Right, when it comes to the generalness of that word love, and depending on what you're going through, you might see it appear or be present in your life in different ways, but you couldn't have seen it unless you had gone through something previously. Right, and I'm about to get really spiritual with you guys for a minute here, but I think it's really crucial for me to kind of lean into this for a moment to describe why I think our identity is so important when it comes to this journey of entrepreneurship and living with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 12:07

The Bible says that God is love. That's it, point blank. Is love the personification, like if we were looking up the word it says. He is that, however, we are seeing or not seeing, some of us, different reflections of that love that we may not have had an opportunity to see had certain things not had happened. So just give a little history real quick here. God is love. We know that when he created Adam and Eve, in the beginning, they had none of this stuff that we deal with today, right, they didn't have any of the drama, the imperfection, death, sin, all of that stuff. They didn't have all of that. They were brought into a beautiful paradise and that is a beautiful representation of God's love, right. And then they decided to sin. Like they decided to sin, they decided to disobey God and in that instant of their decision to not reciprocate and show that appreciation for that love that was shown them, they then therefore completely missed the whole point of the love that was shown them. However, when they took that action, today us we get to see a different aspect of that love, because of their imperfection or because of their sin. We get to see a different aspect of God's love because now we get to see how it works in our behalf personally and not just personally but like over time, what that has looked like and how that love, what that has looked like and how that love if you understand the Bible, how that love has transcended time, will transcend death, will transcend every horrible thing we've seen on this planet and undo all of it, right. But that's at the identity, the core identity of God. He is love. The core identity of God. He is love. But the perspective and the situation makes us see it differently, and that can happen with us.

Nikita Williams: 14:18

If you are a really kind person, you know deep down in your heart you want to care for people, and maybe part of that was created in a world where you were in an environment where you had to take care of other people because they weren't taking care of themselves, and so it became to feel like a way of taking care of others meant a way for you to keep safety for yourself. So it was a thing you had to do, but innately it's just a thing that's in you. And as you've grown up, you've had trauma responses to some of those things, right, and what I mean by trauma responses? You've sought out people to care for. You'll put yourself at the end of the list of to-dos, but you will ultimately take care of yourself on the very bare minimum, right.

Nikita Williams: 15:11

So your identity is to care for others. That is a beautiful part of your identity, but when you are healing and going through a journey of shifting, you might start losing the fact of who you are because you're like. Well, I no longer identify as someone who wants to care for people, because now I see that when I've taken care of people, I've taken care of people who only wanted something from me or I was seeking some kind of validation, and now I no longer need that validation. I no longer need to serve people in that way and I no longer am okay with being taken advantage of, right yeah? So you might think, well, then I'm not any longer a person who loves to care for people. Is that really true? Maybe you are innately a person who cares for people, but now you're doing it with boundaries. Now you're doing it with an equal amount of way of taking care of you and being okay with not being the take care of all of those people and you can fall in love more and more with the identity of like.

Nikita Williams: 16:27

I know how to take care of people in a way that's good and safe, and more than safe allows me to have joy and peace, while also having boundaries in place, or having my own peace in place while I do that for others, right? And so I'm sharing this to say that, wherever you are in your journey, and if you've been on this journey with me and if you've ever felt like Nikita, you have it all together, nikita, you're doing everything perfectly. Or if you were listening to this podcast this year and I literally jumped off the face of the earth there for a minute for about two and a half months and start recording and producing episodes, and start recording and producing episodes and you might feel disappointed or like, oh, if she can't do it, then I can't do it. I want you to remember that I am not perfect and I really do talk my walk, walk my talk. However, you say that in the sense that when I need to take time for myself, I am not afraid of pressing pause. It might be abrupt, it may not be planned. I like to plan my pauses, I like to have a strategy around that, but sometimes life doesn't work like that and as much as we hear on social media and other podcast hosts and other things that people are talking about, like, you want to schedule this and you don't want to burn out this and you want to do all that.

Nikita Williams: 18:03

We are human beings and we are constantly in and out of flow of healing, getting out of burnout in different areas being triggered in different areas circumstances, burnout in different areas being triggered in different areas, circumstances. But you find the ease when you give yourself permission to flow through them. And that is my point and that is part of my whole mission, of why I named the show in the beginning Crafted to Thrive, why it's still a tagline for me, because, no matter where you are in the ebbs and flows of our journey and your journey, of how you view yourself, you still have the capacity to thrive because we can be resilient and we can thrive. And it can come with ease when we allow ourselves to do it without worrying what other people think, say or do or believe, because we have no control over them None whatsoever. And as I'm in my journey and this year has been really one of those like, leaning into this belief of like this can be easy if I let it be and I know I talk I have episodes where I'm like let it be easy, let it be easy.

Nikita Williams: 19:22

This is so true. I'm living in that right now. Let it be easy, let it be light, let the work be the work and just go through the work and let it happen how it needs to happen Press pause, take a stop if you need to. There's no giving up unless you literally never try anything ever again. Okay, so give yourself that permission if you need it. If you wanted someone to say that to you, I'm giving you the permission, not that you need my permission at all. Okay, so I'm sharing this because when you come into my containers, if you come into any of my coaching programs, my private coaching programs, I have frameworks, I have tools to help you to have more ease and everything.

Nikita Williams: 20:13

But the biggest thing, I want anyone to know who is a creative, who is a woman living with chronic illness, who is a person trying to just live their day-to-day with whatever upside down life circumstances or are wanting to start and grow a business. Don't let the noise of other people's so-called success that looks perfect fool you to think that it was easy or make you think that they somehow have some kind of magic, something they don't. They don't. They've just given themselves permission to do it the way that works for them and it may look like a reel of exciting, happy things happening all the time, but I can guarantee you, in behind the scenes, the 99% of the rest of their life. There's so many things you don't see and you don't know, and they're sharing with you a way that you could potentially have more ease and capacity for doing it, based on what they've learned, and it can work. It may not work and it has a lot more to do with us implementing that work than it does them right. So I take a responsibility for doing everything in my power to make it easier for you to take steps, to take action, to create whatever version of success that looks like for you. But I cannot take responsibility for the work, the actual work that you decide to do and the permission you decide to give yourself and how you do it. That is on you. I can tell you all day. I give you permission to slow down. I give you permission to take it easy and give you permission to let it be easy and give you permission to do what you can when you can, but only you can actually act on that. So if you're finding yourself in a situation where you're stuck, you've been doing, whatever it is you're doing by yourself.

Nikita Williams: 22:26

Do a couple of things. Seek that which is greater. Seek that which is greater, greater than us. Okay, it's one of the most grounding and literal science. Science has proven that we all have a spiritual, that which is greater need. Okay, all of us seek it in different ways. I'm not going to get into more in that, but all of us seek in a different ways. I'm not going to get into more than that, but all of us seek in different ways. Find the way. That is true, okay. Second, ask for help. Get a therapist, work with a therapist, get a coach. Those are the two people.

Nikita Williams: 23:17

The reason why I don't say friends or family. I love friends or family as like a community kind of thing, but most of us need a third party that is not connected to our life to really bounce the things that we need to see, without us being alarmed or triggered too badly, to be able to get the support we need. So this is why I believe, especially for my creative entrepreneurs and especially, especially for those of us living with chronic illness, we need therapy. And if you're a woman of color, you need therapy. Okay, we need therapy. And number three. Number three is again, that community, who you surround yourself with, who you allow to be in your space, can affect you in so many different ways, and it may mean putting boundaries up to protect yourself from the people that you want to be the closest to you, but they just aren't there yet. Okay, loves, this was a little bit different than all of the things, but I just thought I'd share this with you.

Nikita Williams: 24:36

I know this year has been a little weird for the show. There will probably be some more changes as far as the show is concerned, but you can expect episodes as frequently as we can do them so far. We'll have some interviews coming up over the next couple of weeks. You'll hear some solo episodes from me in the future. I know the next episode is going to be an interview with a I think we're going to be doing it's about money, money, money, money. We're talking about money. There's a future episode I'm really looking forward to sharing with you all. It's about eldest daughters. So if you are the oldest daughter in a family, I love that episode that I recorded with. Nikkei is the person that we did that with and there's just a lot of like life stuff coming up for the show and business conversations. Like I said, the next episode will probably be about money or it will be about self-care. The next one will be about self-care, I'm sorry. After that will be money and then after that you'll just have to stay tuned. But definitely more episodes coming out soon and, of course, the Chronically you and Profitable program is live and kicking. We'd love to have you. If you have any questions, go to the show note.

Nikita Williams: 25:50

This is our community where you can start and grow an online service-based business or coaching business and get support.

Nikita Williams: 25:56

If you are starting or if you are stuck in your current business right now and you're not seeing the things you want to see in that business, we're here to help you create what that looks like for you in a way that honors your health and your life, and we do it in a way specifically for my chronic illness warriors that help support you in your journey living with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 26:18

So it's not harder for you. We're actually working. I'm going to be working on something fun, which is a quiz for my folks that are inside of the program to have, kind of like a quiz to let you know if you're feeling this or this this way. This is what you will have capacity for today or this week. Here's where you focus, so I'm really excited about that. And we're working on a new portal, but just a little bit refreshed with shorter videos to make it a little bit easier for you to consume. So a lot of cool things are in the works, and the program itself right now is still amazing Like it is amazing and the folks that are in there works. And the program itself right now is still amazing Like it is amazing and the folks that are in there are amazing. So we would love to have you, but in the meantime, as always, we look forward to seeing you in our next episode and thank you for joining me for this one.

Nikita Williams: 27:14

That's a wrap for this episode of Business with Chronic Illness. If you would like to start and grow an online coaching business with me, head to the show notes to click a link to book a sales call and learn how to make money with chronic illness. You can also check out our website at wwwcraftedtothrivecom for this episode's show notes and join our email list to get exclusive content where I coach you on how to chronically grow a profitable business while living with chronic illness. Until next time, remember yes, you are crafted to thrive.