How to Scale Your Business Without Burnout with Lia Dunlap

Kathi: Hello there and welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about how to create a system to scale without burning out. Lia Dunlap is my guest, and she's an intuitive business architect, CEO of Oracle On Purpose, international speaker, best-selling author and podcast host, and also the founder of the 7 Figure Wellness Business program. She did this because she knows the market's expanding, but most women are not scaling with it. Wellness professionals hire her to scale to seven figures without burning out. That's the important thing. How do you scale and not burn out? Lia helps you install the strategy, the systems and the energetic recalibration to become the CEO you're meant to be. You do this so you can have more freedom, joy and profits. So let's meet Lia. You're going to love her. Hi, Lia. I'm so glad to have you on the show. Thank you for joining me.

Lia: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you having me here today, Kathi.

Kathi: We do a lot of similar things, and that's why I really wanted to talk to you. You do different modalities than I use. For those listening who don't know you, give us a little bit about your backstory. What are you doing, where are you from, what's going on?

Lia: Absolutely. I am an intuitive business architect, and I have been doing this work, or some version of this work, to be correct, since 1994. I'm really committed to helping people find and follow their purpose, specifically focused now on working with people in the health, wellness and transformation space, because I think they're the ones making the biggest difference in the world today. Something we definitely need to bring more of is more balance, clarity and health to our lives. So that's who I focus on working with now. I am deeply invested in helping people understand that they do have a unique life purpose, and that they can use that to become more prosperous and more fulfilled in their lives, and by doing so make a bigger difference.

Kathi: What was the path that got you there?

Lia: I would say the final path, because it's been a long, winding road. Originally, when I was very young, I was going to become a therapist, actually a psychologist, and I took my very first psychology class. As an intuitive my whole life, I got used to getting these little insights, little nudges. In my very first class, the gentleman teaching our class, his name was Raul Guzman, I still remember to this day, said, you need to know now that it could take people years and years to ever get results from the work that you're going to be doing. I always like to tell the story that at that moment the oracle said, get out of this class. Get out now. So here's a little truth telling: I am a college dropout, because I got very clear that I needed to follow that nudge. I went off and said, okay, I still need to help people, I still want to serve people, what do I do? I continued to follow the nudges, and the thing I was brought to was hypnotherapy. So I trained as a hypnotherapist. I'm a certified clinical hypnotherapist. I do NLP, EFT. I got trained in a lot of different modalities, always with the hope of helping people find true joy in their lives and feel like they were here on purpose. So that was the beginning.

Lia: However, I should also say, part of my family, being in school, getting a good job, all the boxes you need to check off to be a good, young, upstanding citizen, put me on a split path. The second path was that I started to work in the corporate world. I worked in sales, marketing and operations, always to show up at the dinner parties with my family and say, I'm getting all those boxes checked. Until eventually the roads divided, and the universe gave me what I like to call a two-by-four moment and said, that's enough. I thought I was having a heart attack, and I was stuck going back to my office to ask for permission to leave. In that moment it was clear as a bell: this is it. That's enough now. You have to stop. You have to choose the work you're meant to do. I had to start doing what I was telling everybody else to do, which was do what you're here to do. Do what you came to do. Be on purpose. So I stepped away from the corporate world in 2008. Never looked back. Fired my alarm clock, and took on the work of really growing my business authentically through the work that I do, helping people. I've been doing it ever since.

Lia: I serve people through all different modalities, but ultimately the goal for me is to help people find not only their true work in the world. It's really about prospering. I've become much more attuned and committed to helping people find wealth and wholeness in their lives and their businesses. I think so many people in the health, healing or transformation space get trapped thinking that in order to be of service, they must become givers beyond the pale. They must always give things away. They struggle with the idea that they can not only be sustained, but that they can actually be wealthy. Wealth is not something to hold against themselves. It's not something bad. It's something good. It helps them do more in the world, help more people and stay prosperous. That is my goal.

Wealth is not something to hold against themselves. It's not something bad. It's something good. It helps them do more in the world.

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Kathi: Okay, so back up here, though. You were having a heart attack, literally, and you had to go ask, can I leave? I feel terrible.

Lia: Yeah. I spoke about this in a magazine I was highlighted in. Now that I think back to the moment it happened, this was when I was working in sales. I'm in Portland, Oregon, and across the river, in another state, Vancouver was where my office was. This particular boss was very intense about having us come in and check out at the end of the day. So despite the fact that, as I was sitting stuck in the middle of a bridge between the two states, I started to have palpitations, my heart started hurting, I started sweating, I had a sharp pain in my left arm. I literally thought at that moment, as I was sitting on that bridge, this is it. I'm dying. I'm having a heart attack. All of a sudden, I remember thinking, and someone asked me in an interview what that was like, I thought, I am not dying on this bridge. This is not how it ends. This is not what I'm supposed to be doing. This is not my life.

Lia: And still, not to be too dramatic about it, I had this feeling about that particular job that was so intense, and I was so fearful, that weirdly enough I needed to get there to have them tell me it was okay that I could leave. I think part of it was this thought that they held all the power. That's where my health insurance was. If I got fired, I'd lose my health insurance. All these things were tied up in this moment.

Kathi: Yeah, it's like that.

Lia: It was a really strange time. I'm grateful that I did end up going to the hospital. I found out there was something, thankfully not a heart attack, but something severe enough that I had to stay home and have some surgery. As I was recovering from that surgery, I got a laundry list from my boss about what he needed me to do when I got back. I typed him a message, and it was simple: I am not coming back. I quit my job sitting on my sofa, and then sat in the dark for the whole afternoon going, oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did that. When my husband came home and said, what's going on? I said, I quit my job. And he said, it's about time.

Kathi: Yay. Good guy.

Lia: He's such a good guy. And really, he saw what I'd been struggling with. The ultimate reason I was having so many problems, and I think behind all health-related things, is so much stress, how it affects us and how it affects our bodies. I was literally pulling myself apart.

Kathi: It was dis-ease.

Lia: It absolutely was. I think that's why I'm so passionate about helping people in that realm, because I know how important it is for people to find their own version, whatever it is, of feeling healthy and supported and strong in their bodies. I look at it like a 360-degree wheel. It's not just the stress, it's all of the things we do. A big part of that for me is knowing who you are and being on purpose. It feeds you energetically. It feels good to do your work, and that's a good thing.

Kathi: That's exactly why the tagline on my first book is get organized and live your purpose. Add space to your life, purpose. Purpose is so important, because we should do what we love and be on purpose with our gift, whatever that might be. So okay, you quit your job, husband says yay for you, it's about time. Then what happened?

Lia: Oh, it was so easy. Then they started throwing me money. No, it wasn't. Let me be honest. The reason I say that jokingly is that if you look at my life today, I'm very well off and do very well. I have a great business. But I had to take a giant leap. I had to say, whatever it takes, I'm going to do it. So I started off by literally throwing up my shingle. I already had my certificate as a hypnotherapist, so I was like, okay, I can throw up my shingle and start helping people. And I had written a book. It's called The Power Plan, and that book was, prior to all of this mess, how I had gotten out of my first marriage and got my life started again in 1994. So I had the book, I had the information, I had the program I'd been running for years, now I have a shingle. I just started telling people what I was doing, and they would say, oh, I need help with this thing, or I need help with that thing.

Lia: At first I was very adamant that I was not going to work on business with anyone. I was like, I don't do that anymore. I shut that door. Unfortunately, God, the universe, had different plans and said, look who I'm going to send you. I'm going to send you all of these people, and everything they're going to talk to you about is really about their work and what they're doing and how it's going. And I was like, okay, I get it. So then I started really helping people who were in business. I loved working, and I still do, with women who were starting their own businesses, like I was at the time, and didn't have the business background that I had, or weren't really taught in their practitioner school. I work with massage therapists and others, homeopaths. That training wasn't really developed for them when they left school. So they were kind of drowning and floundering in that part, but they really believed in the work they were doing. I love being able to put the two things together and help support them. And then of course, using my tools in hypnotherapy, as well as my intuitive gifts, I'm able to find some of the gaps where they were struggling and help them overcome them, so they could really prosper and feel good about what they were doing.

Kathi: Do you have a story about one of your clients that spells out that cycle?

Lia: Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite clients really moved from an environment where she was an employee to opening her own clinic. I guess I'm giving away the story a bit, but she now has a clinic in Scotland, as well as a business in California. When we first met, she was just leaving working for a major medical firm. She knew she was unhappy with how things were running and how she wanted to do her work. That was the key for me when she and I met. She just didn't think it was possible. She said, I want to work this way. I want to work in this natural, organic, really invested way with my clients, my patients, and I can't do it in the confines of the system that I'm in.

Kathi: What was her modality?

Lia: She's a naturopathic doctor.

Kathi: Okay, perfect.

Lia: She's a naturopathic doctor, and she's also a midwife and a medical intuitive. The medical intuitive piece she had in her back pocket, hiding. So we sat, as we do, and I always start by looking and taking a 360-degree view of the person. I said, here are all these facets of you. How would it feel if you got to include them in what you do every day? Not hide parts of yourself, or hold parts of yourself back, but really fulfill this purpose of who you are as a unique individual. To remind everybody, it's a one in 400 quadrillion chance that you exist. That's a four with 17 zeros behind it. This is not an accident. This thing you are, this person you are, this way that you are. So we start there, and we look at, what is that for? Why do you have all these magical things? We sat down and looked at what she was doing, and got her to the place where she allowed herself to dream about what could be possible. And then I said, great, let's go do it. She was like, wait, no, really? I said, yeah, let's do it all.

Lia: I take my clients through a process to show them that everything you truly desire, that comes from that known place in you, already exists for you. We're just driving to the destination. Sometimes that means we're going to come along some bumps along the way: old thoughts, old beliefs, old ideas that don't really serve you and aren't helping you get there. So we'll work through that. Of course, we worked through that piece, and she started to really build her clinic in California and was able to see it thriving. I think back to the original time we started working together. She tripled her rates in the first few months of us working together. That allowed her, and this is why it's so important to me, to continue to invest in her company and give more back to the people she was working with. Then we moved from that to her being able to hire someone to work for her, so she could free up her time.

She tripled her rates in the first few months of us working together.

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Lia: By the time we started doing that, the other little secret piece that she was holding back in her heart pocket was, I've always wanted to live and work in Scotland. And I said, that sounds fun. Let's do that. Again, we put that on the list of things we were working towards. Sure enough, much sooner than she expected. I think she was thinking three years, and I want to say it was less than a year, almost six to eight months, that she moved to Scotland. Then within a year of that, she had opened her wellness center in Scotland. She's one of the only naturopathic doctors in all of Scotland.

Kathi: Wow.

Lia: Thriving. She has yet again continued to increase her rates and have more ability. She's spoken on stages with amazing people in London. She's working on some cancer research. She's just phenomenal. Everything that has come from that has come from the chance that we always bring her back to: what is your purpose? Why are you doing what you're doing? It allows her to make choices about what's next from a place of being supported and engaged in her life and her business as a way of being.

Kathi: I love that. Instead of fear and insecurity and I'm not sure. That's an incredible story. Does she still have her agency in California?

Lia: She does.

Kathi: That's amazing. So it's like, oh, I've always wanted to live in Scotland. Well, let's just live in Scotland. I feel so strongly about that. I've lived in many, many places, and I'm always sad when people feel like they're stuck where they are, whatever their locale, their house, that they're stuck there. I'm like, you can live anywhere you want to live. You can live anywhere in the world. No holds barred. Come on.

Lia: Absolutely, especially these days. The technology alone has made it so much more viable. And that's the beauty of it. Part of what we did for her was to create that path, but now she's like, oh, now I'm going to go build up more in California. She's seeing how living that lifestyle and putting that as the priority adds a different dimension to how we make choices. How we organize our lives is really up to how we prioritize what's most important to us. If you are someone who's looking at what you do and how you create something in your life, the priorities matter, and whether or not you're choosing them intentionally is a big factor in what the outcome looks like. You're always making choices, and sometimes you're not making them intentionally. For me, with the work I do with my clients, we are very intentional about what we're creating together when I work with them. It's very important, especially for the healing modalities, number one, feeling like they're valuable, and number two, charging what their value is, knowing that they can, and that people do pay for their expertise.

The reason I have all of these tools is so that I can relax into the structure.

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Kathi: Okay, so you said the word organizing. What systems do you use, Miss Lia, to keep yourself organized as you grow your business, as you work your business?

Lia: As I grow my business, I will always say to everybody, even the clients I work with, I have teams. We have teams. We have people that are good at what they do. The basics and foundations of that are somebody on your finance team. That could be as little as a bookkeeper, a CPA. Having people who can take the visions you have and help you make them possible with their own expertise. So I definitely believe in the standards of business organization. It's weird for most people to hear me say that, because they think, oh, you're an oracle, perhaps you're flighty, and everything's just oracles and crystals. And I'm like, I'm a yes-and girl. So yes, and I have foundations for the things I do. I'm organized in the way I even hold a session with someone. There's a form. There's a way we do that. The reason I have all of these tools is so that I can relax into the structure. I know what we're going to say next. I have a podcast as well, and I have a flow to it. Why? Because if I have a system for all the things I do, then I can just relax into it and know this is what's going to happen next. There's not a lot of wasted energy trying to make things happen.

Lia: In my day-to-day work, I have a time block system that's very weird for most people, and it starts with me first. The joke around town is you won't talk to me usually before 10 o'clock. People say, you don't talk to people before 10 o'clock? I'm like, yeah, because I have a huge list of things I do for me to be prepared for my day and my people. That requires that I sit quietly, that I have time to meditate, that I eat well, that I have space to really let the powers that be speak to me and give me inspiration. Then I can be a hundred percent with my people, and I know I'm giving them my best. So people think, you time block? I'm like, yeah. And the first time block is mine. It's mine. Then everybody else afterwards, and I will be there for you 100 percent, but not until usually 10 o'clock.

Kathi: Me too. Me too. 9:30 is the stretch, right?

Lia: Perfect. So those are some of the things: systems within the business itself, the time blocking piece, and then having teams. Not everybody has to have every team at once, but like I said, there are some fundamentals for business that most people overlook that really do give you more time and freedom back.

Kathi: Well, yeah, you said bookkeeping. Delegate what you hate. Delegate what you hate, delegate what you don't want to do, delegate what you can't do, and delegate what's below your pay grade. Why would you be doing bookkeeping when you can bill out much more for your services yourself, for your expertise?

Lia: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kathi: That's fantastic. Okay, so if you could look back, and isn't it so cool that you actually got sick on the bridge, and it was like the whomp in the head. If you could look back and tell your 18-year-old self, give her a little piece of advice, what would you tell Miss Lia when she was 18?

Your purpose leaves clues, and it should be followed.

Lia: Oh, that's such a great question. I'm fortunate enough to have had a moment in my life, about 10 or so years ago now, where I sat across from someone like me, and I gave her that advice, because I knew. I'm like, oh, let me tell you something. At that age I already had this gift, and I had a lot of the talents that I use today. I didn't believe they were valuable. I didn't believe people would pay me to do what I really loved doing and what felt so easy and natural to me. I didn't understand. And that is why I spent so much time in the corporate world. Of course, today I say all that knowledge still helps me, and that's great. There are no lost learnings. However, if I went back to her, I would say, make sure that the thing you love so much, that feels so easy to you, stays in your life. That becomes one of those priorities. Because that's the magic, that's the secret, that is your purpose. The rest of it is less important, really, and someday you'll know that. I would definitely say your purpose leaves clues, and it should be followed.

Kathi: Absolutely. I love that. That's one of my favorite things a guest has said. It follows right along with what I believe. I say your gifts and talents are what you can do standing asleep on your head. That's your God gift, so to speak, or source gift, and that's what you're meant to bring into the world. So, little Lia, don't doubt that, because that's what you've got, and that's what you can get paid for.

Lia: Absolutely. I would say the same exact thing. I give the same advice. It was fun, the moment I told that woman who was sitting across from me. She was in her 20s, a little older, and she said, I'm just not sure if I could get paid for all of this. We were sitting at a group table, and I was like, oh, excuse me, wait, sorry, I have to talk to that girl right now.

Kathi: Yes, please do it. Don't wait.

Lia: We need people to do the work we do. Whatever is so easy and joyful for you, that's it.

Kathi: That's it. They say do what you love and the money will follow. Well, yes, but you do have to have the systems in place, and you do have to have some grounding. Just like you said, Lia, you have to have the teams and all that. But if you spend the time to set up that base, you can do anything you want.

Lia: Oh, absolutely. I totally agree. And I think that's part of it. It's not a yes-but, it is a yes-and. Yes, and it takes stuff to get things done. That's okay. It takes stuff to go to work. We pretend like that's not a challenge, but I'll tell you what, when everybody started working at home, they started realizing, oh, it's hard to go back to work now. There's a commitment there. There's a lot of stuff that goes into that too. So it's not that being an entrepreneur, or going out on your own, is necessarily harder. It's just different. But it all takes structure. It all takes things that you do have to pay attention to if you want to succeed. The good news is, when you're on your own, you can create your own structure that works for you. Like you, we start our days at 9:30 or 10 at the tops with clients, because we have our own stuff to do.

Kathi: I love creating my life how I want it to be. That's what entrepreneurship is all about, and that's why I really wanted to have you on the show, because you work with people that feel they can't necessarily do it. For those of you out there who are in the middle of this feeling, the spiritual modalities, yes, there is such a path forward for you. You can do it, and you can make a lot of money at it. If you charge money for it, you can make the money for it. Feel worthy. I spoke with one of my other podcast guests the other week about, don't be in guilt about money. No guilt for the dollar, baby. You're here to do that.

Lia: Yeah, absolutely.

Kathi: Well, that's pretty cool. Okay, so I know you have something you would like to offer out to the audience. Talk to people about how they can get in touch with you and all that.

Lia: Absolutely. One of the things I came across, as I was just saying, is that one of the struggles is a lot of people want to scale. They want to scale their business, they want to grow their businesses, and they don't know where they are. The structures of your business have to make sense for that. However, there are people out there feeling like, oh, well, I want to make a million dollars. And I love that. I love that for you, I absolutely do. And the question is, are you ready yet? You could be there, but you might not be yet. The frustration people get when they think they're doing all the things and it's not working, and underneath it is, oh, you're just not there yet. There are some systems you have to have in place first, or some structures, like we said. So I thought, how do I help them figure that out? How do I help more people figure that out?

Lia: So I created a program. Actually, it's not a program, it's a survey that helps you answer some questions and get a really clear idea very quickly, automatically returned to you, so you can hear, oh, here's the biggest bottleneck right now for you to get there, and here is the next step. How nice would it be to have just one thing? I'm going to deliver it back to you in an email, and you can focus on this one thing now. It will also tell you where in the lane you are as far as being ready to scale. Sometimes people are at the foundation stage. Some people are right at the cusp of scaling and they just need a little something extra. So this will say, here's where you are. It doesn't mean that you can't. It only means this is where you're starting from, so you know what to do next to get there. It's called the 7 Figure Wellness Business Readiness Survey, and it will take them through the process. They can utilize the answers themselves. They can do it themselves. Or if they need help once they get the information back, and they're like, okay, now I know this answer, what do I do? They've got a link there where they can schedule a strategy call with me to go over that information and give them some additional resources and support. So that's it, the 7 Figure Wellness Business survey. It's really easy. I think we've given you the link, so you can take them there, or it's included here on the podcast. And if they're lost, anywhere on any platform you can find me, Coach Lia Dunlap. Reach out, and I will happily reach back out to you and get you started wherever you need to go next.

Kathi: Well, you're a valuable resource, and I will attest, you gave me some great direction and insights. So thank you, Lia. I really appreciate you and your work. It's incredible for people who are doubting, especially in the healing modalities, that they can do what they want to do, because they can. So anything that I should have asked you? Did we cover everything? Anything else?

Lia: There are so many things, but in relation to what we're talking about, I'd like to encourage people. The thing that I know for sure is that really, truly, everyone's here on purpose. So if you're not feeling that, if there's some part of you that feels lost or confused or frustrated right now with what you're doing, don't stay alone in that. Find support, whether that's me or someone like Kathi, who can help you with your organization. There are so many wonderful people out there doing this kind of work. No one should be stuck or left behind. So if you are feeling like you're not sure you can find that place in you, please reach out. We're here to help.

Kathi: Yeah, we are here to help. Absolutely. Thank you. This has been amazing. So gang, if you're listening and you love it, please give us a thumbs up, give us a comment, share it with a friend who might find this valuable and help them scale and help them reach their dreams. That's what it's all about, sharing the love. I am this close to a thousand subscribers on my YouTube channel, so close, so please subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is Kathi Burns. If you're listening to the podcast from YouTube, just subscribe, please, and share this with your friends. The most important thing is to share love, give valuable resources to each other and to your friends, and you'll get it right back. So thank you, Lia. I so much appreciate your time.

Lia: Thank you. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure.

Kathi: Until next week, you guys, we'll see you then. Stay healthy, stay strong, stay organized, stay energized, and we'll see you then.