What if the business advice everyone’s shouting at you doesn’t actually apply to your life right now?
This is the question that business coach Gwen Bortner asks her clients, women entrepreneurs in the mid-six to seven-figure space who are exhausted from doing all the things. And it’s a question that stops most of them in their tracks.
In our latest Hello Moxie conversation, Gwen shares wisdom earned from decades of experience, starting as one of the only female programmers in the early 1980s to now helping women build sustainable businesses that don’t require entrepreneur burnout as the price of admission.
The Dangerous Myth of “Should”
“The thing that I think is the fact that they think they have to scale,” Gwen tells me. “In some cases, scaling a business really is the right answer, but in some cases, it’s not. Your context matters.”
There it is. Your context matters.
Not the Instagram guru’s context. Not your competitor’s context. Not what some business book written by a man with a full-time nanny says you should do. YOUR context.
Gwen challenges the pressure women business owners face to chase arbitrary financial milestones, six figures, seven figures, eight figures. “It used to be six figures, then it became seven figures,” she explains. “At some point you hear soon it’s going to be, if you don’t have any big business, you’re not a real business.”
But here’s the real question: Who decided what makes a business “real”? And more importantly, why are we letting them decide for us?
What Money Really Means (And Doesn’t Mean)
One of the most powerful reframes Gwen offers is about money itself. “For almost nobody, even men, but I think even more so for women, the money isn’t actually a driver. It’s what the money can provide.”
This isn’t about being anti-ambition or anti-wealth. It’s about getting clear on why you want what you want. Because if you’re climbing a ladder that’s leaning against the wrong wall, the view from the top is going to be deeply disappointing.
“Figuring out what success really means to you is simple, but it is not easy,” Gwen says. “It takes a lot of self-reflection to get really comfortable because often the thing we want for us doesn’t fit society’s norms.”
And that’s exactly where the magic, and the terror, lives.
The Journey Is the Point
Here’s where Gwen drops a truth bomb that should be tattooed on every entrepreneur’s vision board: “If you aren’t enjoying the journey, achieving the goal is useless. Because the goal is a moment in time.”
She paints the picture perfectly: “I hit $500,000. OK, now what? It was the day that whatever sale happened that made it $500,000. And it’s like, it was miserable all the way up to here. Is somehow that magical day going to fix it? Absolutely not. It’s probably still miserable.”
Most of the time is spent in what we call the messy middle. The highs are beautiful, yes. But they’re brief. And if you’re banking all your happiness on reaching some arbitrary milestone while hating every day getting there, you’ve already lost.
“That’s why we really try to help our clients focus on the journey, knowing that there’s times that it’s going to be a struggle,” Gwen explains. “But if it’s miserable all the time, this is not the journey you need to be on.”
Permission granted to walk away from things that look successful on paper but feel soul crushing in practice.
The GEARS Framework: A Holistic Approach to Business Operations
Gwen’s business coaching methodology centers on what she calls the GEARS Framework, a holistic approach to business operations covering Goals, Effectiveness, Accounting, Resources, and Systems.
What makes this framework different is that it’s subjective. It’s designed to meet you where you are and grow with you. “What used to be a four is now a three,” Gwen notes about how her clients’ standards evolve. “That’s actually a good sign that you probably have a new level of standard that’s higher than it was when we first started.”
Progress isn’t perfection. It’s evolution.
Accountability Without Shame: A Game-Changer for Women in Leadership
Perhaps the most tactical gift from this conversation is Gwen’s reframe of accountability in business. Traditional accountability, the checking boxes, the “why didn’t you get this done” interrogations, has gotten a bad rap because it deserves one.
“What we’ve gotten in the habit of is moving to a shaming model,” Gwen explains. “And nobody does well under a shaming model.”
Real accountability, she argues, is about growth partnership. And here’s the communication strategy that changes everything: ask “what” instead of “why.”
“Most of the time when you don’t do something, it’s like, Nicole, why didn’t you get that done? Well, unfortunately, our brain immediately goes to that internal voice that says, well, because I’m stupid, because I’m lazy,” Gwen says. “But if you just slightly rephrase the question and say, what prevented you from getting this done? We immediately go into problem-solving mode.”
Same question. Different word. Completely different outcome.
This leadership communication shift is especially powerful for women in leadership who are trying to build teams without replicating toxic management practices.
Key Takeaways for Women Entrepreneurs
1. Your context matters more than generic business advice. What works for someone in a different season of life or with different values may not work for you, and that’s okay.
2. Get clear on what money actually provides for you. The number isn’t the goal. What the number enables is the goal.
3. If the journey is miserable, achieving the goal won’t fix it. You can’t skip the process and expect to enjoy the outcome. This is how entrepreneur burnout happens.
4. Ask “what” instead of “why” in difficult conversations. This one-word shift moves you from defensive to problem-solving mode instantly.
5. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you should keep doing it. As Gwen puts it: “Sometimes we get really good at things that we don’t really like to do very much. And so, we think that’s what we should continue to be doing.”
Your Turn: Building Sustainable Business on Your Terms
So, here’s the hard question Gwen would ask you: What are you doing in your business right now because you think you “should”? And what would change if you gave yourself permission to do it differently?
Your version of success doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. In fact, it probably shouldn’t.
Whether you’re considering scaling your business, struggling with work-life balance, or simply feeling trapped by other people’s expectations, remember that sustainable business growth starts with getting honest about what YOU actually want, not what the business gurus say you should want.
