Goodbye hustle culture, hello feminine way of doing business

Despite being in the business world since 2016, by having tried my hand at many side-hustles over the years, it’s only in the last year or so that I have truly realised that there is actually a huge difference between doing business… and doing business.

Most of what we’ve been taught about how to run a business comes from a MASCULINE way of operating. And no wonder, because that is the dominant energy of our society – and has been for so long.

But thankfully, things are changing big time and a lot of the old masculine structures have started to crumble (and I couldn’t be more fricken excited for this!), while more and more people are ‘waking up’ and looking for new ways of being, living, and doing.

So then… what if I told you there’s an entirely different, deeply FEMININE way of doing business that is starting to emerge more and more? One that nobody has probably ever mentioned to you?

And no, I don’t mean any of that boss babe crap. I mean truly feminine, soul-led, expansive, nurturing way of running and growing a business. Not a single pushy or scarcity-driven sales tactic in sight.

(To better understand what I mean by masculine vs feminine energy and way of doing things, I wrote a post about this a few weeks ago, and I recommend you read it first if you haven’t yet. P.S. The post opens in a new tab, so you won’t lose track of this post! Yes, I’ve got you 😉

Quitting my job and starting my business

But first, let me take you back to January 2022 when I quit my 9 to 5 and went all in to start and grow my branding and web design business Sparkle Creative Studio.

After quitting my job, taking the limited savings I had, packing up my life in Sydney, Australia, where I lived at the time, and becoming a full-time digital nomad, I was so committed, so determined, so fricken ready to HUSTLE to make my dream a reality.

I went all in and there was NO going back, so I simply had to make this work.

So what did I do?

As I arrived in Bali, I started pulling 10-12 hour days, 6-7 days a week to get started with my design business. At this stage, I barely knew how to design a basic logo, so I took loads of different online courses (my favorite one linked here – an absolute game-changer for anyone considering becoming a graphic designer), worked on setting up everything in my business and creating my website.

There was so much to do, but I was committed, hungry for success, and determined to make my dream life a reality.

The only way I knew how

So guess what happened? I spent the majority of my 5 months in Bali working hard – instead of actually fully enjoying the magic of the island.

Because that was the only way I knew. The only way I’d ever been taught to succeed at anything in life… was to work hard (yes, my Eastern European background definitely has a huge role to play in it. Sidenote – as an Estonian, it’s a national pride for us to brag about how hard-working we are. I actually find it tragic… But I digress).

Anyway, it was the only way I thought I’d DESERVE success. So at that stage the rest was completely off the table, because I hadn’t EARNED it yet (how fricken ridiculous, right?!).

And where did all of that come from? Partly from my upbringing and the general societal conditioning (as mentioned above), and partly from one of my first business mentors (from 2017) who was… yep – a man. And while he was incredibly knowledgeable, inspirational and well-intending, everything he modelled and taught was through a masculine lens.

But of course, at the time – and for many years to come – I did not realise that. He worshipped the hustle and promoted it as the one and only way to succeed. And so I blindly followed the advice from someone who ‘knew better’, because he had built a multi-million dollar business after all.

Burnout, frustration, and a new perspective

As time went on, I kept following the advice from the ‘gurus’ on how to run and grow a business. Some of it worked to a certain extent, some of it didn’t… But I kept hustling and pushing. Because clearly, I just needed to DO more and then the success I so deeply desired would be mine… right?

Wrong.

Instead, my motivation started to dwindle, I started to question my business… and honestly, myself. As I was beginning to feel burnt out, I decided to slow down. 

Around this time, I learned about Human Design and the fact that I am a Projector, and suddenly I started seeing things in a new light (I wrote about this in last week’s post – worth a read, and yes, opens in a new tab so you can come back here afterwards!). 

Plus, I had already for years been learning about feminine energy and cultivating that more and more in myself in many areas of my life… so I knew I wanted to move through life differently. Yet even then, I felt there was no other way to achieve success in business than doing it the way ‘everyone’ was doing it.

Discovering a new way

It’s only in the past year or so that I have been hanging out in online spaces where women are doing business VERY differently and having massive success with it. Like million-dollar successes. Completely mind-blowing and totally opposite of everything we’ve ever been taught about business – or success in general, really.

And my soul has been whispering to me so clearly (or actually, more like shouting to my ear through a megaphone, LOL) that THIS is the only way I want to do business.

Because I no longer align with the push, force, hustle, need-to-do-this, need-to-do-that mentality. And while the new way is a little ‘scary’ – as is everything new we try, and it should be, as that is a tell-tale sign that we are growing and evolving – it just feels like an absolute TRUTH in my body. And if you haven’t noticed yet – I’m highly committed to living my truth, every day, in every way.

Masculine vs feminine business energetics

By now you might be asking yourself – okay, Liis, I get it, but what exactly do you mean by masculine versus feminine way of doing business.

I’m glad you asked 🙂

First, I’d like you to take a look at these 2 lists below. They break down some of the main masculine vs feminine business approaches. And once you have, I will share specific examples from my own journey to put things into context for you.

MASCULINE ENERGY	FEMININE ENERGY
Linear, structured, goal-oriented	Cyclical, intuitive, fluid, responsive
Action, achievement, outcomes	Ease, pleasure, alignment, resonance
Speed, growth, scaling	Organic growth, divine timing
Logic and strategy-led	Intuition and inner knowing-led
Highly scheduled and task-driven	Allows for creativity, flow, inspiration
Productivity, hustle, busy = success	Rest, pleasure, and play are essential
Push energy – chasing, launching, closing	Magnetic energy – attracting, receiving
Single focus, one niche, one thing	Multi-passionate, creative, expressive
Control, predictability, certainty	Trust in unfolding, surrender, receiving
Pushy, persuasive bro marketing	Authentic attraction marketing
Competition-driven	Community, connection, collaboration
Data and analysis-based decisions	Feelings, resonance, and desire-led decisions
Scarcity mindset	Abundance mindset
Sees emotions as distractions	Embraces emotions as wisdom
Expects consistent output, no matter what	Respects natural cycles, seasons, and energy levels
Structure as rigid rules	Structure as supportive scaffolding
Rest is earned after results	Rest is an intentional, strategic act

Where do you fall on this spectrum?

Looking at this list, if you have a business or a side-venture, I’d love you to reflect on which of the categories you mostly fall into? And even if you don’t have a business (yet) but are in a corporate career, these breakdowns provide a lot of insight into the dominant energy you are in, day in and day out.

Now, let me be clear – as a woman, you can absolutely run a successful business the masculine way. Many women do. However, those even the slightest in touch with their true feminine essence will sooner or later feel burned out or lose their spark… by constantly doing it all the masculine way. Because it simply goes soooo against our inherent intuitive, expressive, flowing way of being. 

And yes, the feminine in us definitely needs some masculine structures to keep the energy contained and supported… but there is absolutely no need to do everything like a man would.

How I started shifting into feminine business

So let me share some of the main ways I’ve started making shifts away from a masculine approach and towards a more feminine approach in business. Because there are so many.

The first one, and perhaps one of the biggest ones, is not tying myself to be just ONE THING only. 

You see, the business space loves promoting this message. “Focus on ONE thing only”. “Become good at ONE thing.” Which works well for a man who is built to be single-focused, but can feel REALLY limiting to a multi-faceted and multi-passionate woman with diffused focus. 

Because here’s the thing – as women, we are not here to be put in a box. We are here to express ourselves FULLY – which is one of the core characteristics of the feminine essence.

It was some time in 2024, around 2 years in my branding and website design business that I realised the work was starting to get a little repetitive and therefore energetically draining. And while I loved designing beautiful brands and websites for visionary entrepreneurs (and still do!), more of me wanted to be expressed and shared with the world. 

I realised I didn’t want to be known as JUST a designer. I also wanted to talk about other things I am passionate about, like liberating women from average lives and helping them see their own magic, sharing my thoughts on spirituality, personal growth, deconditioning, my travels, business in general and so on. Which is why I started A DELIGHTFUL LIFE – the blog you are currently reading.

Behind starting A DELIGHTFUL LIFE was also the realisation that I wanted to create for MYSELF first (which is the ultimate feminine way). I want to create and contribute in a way that feels fun, joyful and meaningful to me, rather than going about it the masculine way and focusing on what the market wants or what people are willing to pay for.

And I’m not going to stop with just the blog. I already offer VIP Days in London (or elsewhere in Europe) for women who want to turn their ‘meh’ lives into amazing, and I have another gazillion ideas that I want to bring to life underneath the A DELIGHTFUL LIFE brand. Plus – I have recently also expanded into low-effort, low-investment passive revenue streams to supplement my soul’s work, so I don’t need to keep exchanging time for money forever (you can get in on it too – message me about it!)

And this, right here, beautiful soul, is the honouring of the multi-faceted, multi-passionate essence of the feminine.

Redefining marketing and consistency

I’ve also realised that there are 1 million ways of doing marketing and not one is better than the other. Instead, the best way is the most ALIGNED way – for me. Because they all work… but only if they work for ME. 

You see, I don’t believe that just posting for the sake of consistency and to please the social media algorithms is a long-term, sustainable strategy. Not for us, feminine beings, anyway. 

Instead, I believe creating content from a place of joy and feeling lit up (like this piece you are currently reading), which makes it more authentic, powerful and magnetic than any piece that has been produced just out of obligation.

Overall, in all aspects of my business, I have stopped the hustle, the force and the constant doing. I’ve stopped believing that the more I do, the more success I will have. Instead, I’ve adopted the belief that the more I follow my joy and the more heart-centered, soul-aligned moves I make, the more I will be rewarded – not just in life, but in business, too.

A real-time test of my new approach

Now, full transparency – this pivot towards feminine way of doing business is new to me. But by starting a A DELIGHTFUL LIFE a few months ago, I thought it was the perfect timing to make a shift and try a different way… because the old, masculine way was no longer working for me anyway. So this is a bit of an experiment, and you, my dear reader, are invited along for the ride. 

And guess what? Without a fault, after declaring my new approach to myself, a few weeks later, I was already tested on my commitment to doing things a more feminine way.

You see, when I initially launched my blog, I had the ambition to publish new posts weekly. Which I soon after found out, was actually not in alignment for me. 

Having posted my initial 3 posts as I launched this website, a week passed, and it was time to write a new post. But between having had my mum visit me in London over the weekend and being a full-time tour guide… and struggling to stay awake after sleepless nights during a London heatwave, all my body wanted was rest. I felt completely uninspired to write and sensed myself getting cranky at the thought of having to produce something.

Fear was secretly running the show

Thankfully, I completely caught myself in the moment. I realised the old, fear-based, masculine pattern was still very much alive in me, telling me that if I didn’t post regularly enough and consistently enough, I wouldn’t get the SEO benefit of regular posting and my entire blog project would fail (SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, basically making sure that my blog is visible to Google and gets ranked in search results). 

I also noticed how the notifications of an SEO plug-in of the website platform almost made me spiral into self-doubt, as it kept telling me my posts were not enough ‘optimised’.

But I realised that I didn’t want to run a business based on fear. I decided I wanted to create from overflow, joy, and what feels true and authentic to me. I mean that is the entire ethos behind the A DELIGHTFUL LIFE brand, and integrity is everything to me.

So yes, I will still keep writing new posts regularly, but it’s by no means the end of the world if I don’t publish a new post every single Thursday.

And let me tell you, when you have been running on a completely different program the entire time, this new approach takes courage. A lot of it. But I’ve done more uncomfortable things in my life than I can count, so I might as well keep going at this point, LOL.

Doing business on your own terms

So I rested, as my body was asking me to do, and decided that a bi-weekly posting schedule would work much better for me, with an occasional weekly post when I feel inspired. And I made the decision to ignore the very data-driven notifications of the SEO plug-in entirely and focus on writing from my heart and soul above everything else.

And so, as you read my posts on this blog, I hope you can feel it.

I hope my posts get you thinking or maybe even evoke an a-ha moment, a new insight or a realisation. Because that’s really what I care about – not pleasing the algorithms, the data or the metrics. And while important, they will no longer be running my business show.

I also hope this post has opened your eyes to a different way of doing business that you may have been accustomed to. And while you might be asking yourself – will this work? I can reassure you that I have seen it working for many incredible women. And I aim to become the next walking evidence.

As I’m navigating this newfound path myself, it is my commitment to share what I’m learning with you, my friend, along the way, so that we can all break free from the deep conditioning keeping us trapped in unaligned businesses – and lives.

Remember – we get to do life and business OUR way – however that looks for every single one of us.

And I’m here cheering you along.