Relationships & Business: The Secret to Magnetic Relationships & Business Growth | EP 471

If you’ve ever felt frustrated because the people closest to you don’t fully understand your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is for you. Today, we’re talking about how relationships—romantic, familial, and friendships—impact your ability to scale and sustain a business.

The truth? Most female founders I’ve worked with are first-time entrepreneurs in their families, meaning they’re often carving a path that others around them don’t fully understand. Instead of expecting your partner, family, or friends to get it, what if you leaned into self-trust, personal power, and the right kind of community for support?

We’re covering the mindset shift that changes everything in your relationships and your business—so you can scale with confidence, magnetism and ease.

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Transcript

Sheila: 0:00

Stop expecting the people closest to you to fully understand your business journey. When you stop looking for validation from your partner, family or friends and start trusting yourself, everything shifts. You show up differently, you lead with confidence and, ironically, that's when your relationships start to thrive. Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast. I'm an entrepreneur, self-care strategist and creator of the Season Self-Care app. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your wellbeing and build your version of a happy, successful life. Today's conversation is one that I believe so many female founders will recognize, and that is how your relationships evolve as you scale your business and what to do when they don't always grow with you.

Sheila: 0:51

One of the biggest lessons I've personally learned, and one that I work through with my clients, is that your personal relationships don't have to mirror your business trajectory. The people closest to you don't need to be fully engaged in your work for them to support you to love. Be fully engaged in your work for them to support you, to love you and for your relationship to thrive. In fact, expecting them to be as invested as you are can sometimes create unnecessary tension. Invested in the business, that is, and I'll share two key strategies that you can implement today to strengthen your relationships while staying fully committed to your business. And I'll tell you about a client who navigated this firsthand, stepping into her most empowered season after a major life shift. So let's get into it. I've seen it happen many times Someone starts their business journey and their partner is all in, excited, supportive, even bragging about them to their friends. But as the realities of entrepreneurship sink in, especially in those first few years when long hours and constant learning are required, that support can shift.

Sheila: 1:56

One of my clients lived this exact story that we were talking about recently, and she had been in a corporate career for years, working side by side with her partner, both at different companies but maintaining similar structured schedules. And when she decided to go all in on her own business, he was initially thrilled for her. He saw her passion, her talent and was genuinely proud of her. But as her business picked up, she was suddenly working later nights, she was traveling for networking events and spending weekends building something from scratch. As I'm sure you are very familiar with. The shift in lifestyle created a growing disconnect between the two of them, and he was used to her being home at the same time as him, sharing downtime the way they always had, and now she was navigating an unpredictable schedule, one that sometimes meant being away at a conference for days at a time, and over time they drifted apart. He didn't want to wait for her business to stabilize, and, of course, this time apart and all of these different elements impacted the relationship. It wasn't just the business, I think it was just more so that they saw how different they really were and they had become, and so the irony, though, of this was that now she's successful and she actually works less than she did in corporate and has more flexibility to travel for pleasure, for instance, so they would have had more time, like had they just hung in there. It's not always in the cards, though, so what's the takeaway here?

Sheila: 3:30

The first lesson is your relationships don't have to be built solely around your business for them to thrive. For instance, just like my husband is a CFO and I don't need to be fully immersed in his work world for our relationship to work, your partner also doesn't need to be fully immersed in his work world for our relationship to work. Your partner also doesn't need to be deeply involved in your business for the relationship to be strong, and same goes for your friends and family. In fact, having separate but complimentary lives can actually enhance your connection. The polarity between our professional lives fuels our relationship in a way that keeps things interesting and dynamic. For my client, the biggest shift in our coaching work was realizing that her next relationship didn't need to be with someone fully invested in her business. She could lean into a new, dynamic one where she and her future partner built something outside of their careers that kept them connected. So an action step for you is this Reflect on what you actually need from your relationships Not even need, but desire. What do you really want? Are you expecting your partner to be your co-founder when what you truly need is a cheerleader? Identify what will genuinely support you without adding pressure to the relationship.

Sheila: 4:47

The second lesson I want to leave you with is implementation. This is about managing expectations, both your own and your partner's, or your friend's. So often, founders assume that their partner should just understand their business journey, but unless they've been on this path themselves, they won't fully grasp what it takes, and that's okay. A key shift that you can make is communicating your vision without requiring buy-in, so your business isn't an all or nothing thing. Think about that, just like you wouldn't expect your partner to be fully immersed in every aspect of your friendships, hobbies or wellness routine. You don't need them to be all in on your entrepreneurial journey either. You can keep them in the loop without expecting them to be part of the day-to-day.

Sheila: 5:42

And for my client, this realization was huge. Instead of looking for a partner who would be a stakeholder in her business, she started seeking someone who would respect her passion while also bringing something different to the table. And in my own life, I've learned that my husband and I function best when we're both in our own zones of genius. We respect each other's work, we share how our days went, but we don't need to be in each other's professional worlds to feel connected, and that kind of separation actually strengthens our marriage because it allows us to bring fresh energy to each other at the end of the day.

Sheila: 6:12

So an action step for you here is have an honest conversation with your partner or friends, family, whoever it is in this role, and especially with yourself, about what are your expectations. What do you need to feel supported? What assumptions have you been making about their role in your business? Clarifying this will help you create healthier, more sustainable relationships when you stop relying on your relationships for validation and instead start trusting yourself, everything changes. You show up differently, you create from a place of fullness and the people around you can feel it.

Sheila: 6:54

If this episode spoke to you and you want to surround yourself with other women who get what it's like to build a business on your own terms, that's exactly why I created the Season's Growth Accelerator. Inside you'll find a community of founders who aren't waiting for permission. They're building with clarity, confidence and connection. You don't have to do this alone. You can learn more at the link in the show notes clarity, confidence and connection. You don't have to do this alone. You can learn more at the link in the show notes. Thank you for being here and I'll see you next time. Have a beautiful rest of your week. Big blessings, thank you.