Redefining ROI: The Return That Actually Multiplies | EP 575

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Sheila’s Philosophy And Intent

The Hesitation After Early Success

Bioindividuality For Business

The Four Types Of ROI

Intangibles As Causal Drivers

Call To Clarity And Next Steps

Sheila 0:01

You already know how to measure revenue. What's harder to name is the return you're leaving behind when that's the only thing you measure. This episode is going to shift how you think about ROI by expanding the definition. I've worked with founders who are scaling for years, and the ones building something that lasts track more than one kind of return. Stay with me to the end because the question I close with is the one that changes the decision. Hi, welcome to the podcast. I'm Sheila Botelho, and I believe true success is built from the inside out. This mini soda is designed to help you live into what lights you up this week. So I want to talk about ROI today. And before you think, yes, yes, yes, I know, that means return on investment. Hear me out. Because I think the way we've been handed this concept is actually costing a lot of founders some of their best ideas. Here's what I've noticed. There's a moment that so many people hit, usually somewhere around your fourth or fifth year of building, and revenue is real, the business is working, and then an idea comes up, something that genuinely lights you up, something that feels deeply aligned with where you're going. And instead of moving on it, you hesitate. You go looking for the clean, provable return. You try to run it through some kind of formula. And when it doesn't fit neatly, you shelve it. Maybe you tell yourself it's not the right time. Maybe you frame it as being strategic. But underneath that hesitation, there's usually a narrow definition of what counts as a return. And that's what I want to crack open today. We talk about ROI like it's a fixed formula: input, output, dollars in, dollars out. And that framing has its place. Truly, it does. I'm not here to tell you revenue doesn't matter. It certainly does. It absolutely matters. It's foundational. But that formula was never designed to measure everything that actually compounds in a business. And when we apply it like it's the only lens, we end up making decisions based on incomplete data. And here's a concept I come back to a lot. And it actually comes from my background in health coaching. When I was studying, one of the foundational principles we learned was bioindividuality. The idea that what works beautifully for one body may not work for another. And that there's no single protocol that applies universally because every person is different. Their history is different, their season of life is different. What they need right now is different. Business is the same. Your ROI formula cannot be outsourced. Not to a framework, not to what worked for someone else's lunch, not to the five-step promise model that keeps getting recycled in your feed. The return that makes sense for your business in this season and with your specific capacity and vision. That's yours to define. So let me offer you a way to think about this that I've been using with my clients and in my own work as well. There are at least four kinds of return worth tracking. The first is monetary ROI, revenue, profit, conversion. This one is measurable and it matters. It's the foundation. We're not skipping it, of course. The second is identity ROI. This one is the return of who you become by actually executing the idea, the courage muscle that you build, the public leadership reps that you get, the version of you that shows up on the other side of doing that thing that you were scared to do. This compounds and it compounds in ways that show up everywhere, not just in one launch or one offer. The third is relational ROI, the depth of your community, the trust you build over time, the signal recognition that happens when the right people start to see you clearly and refer aligned clients without even being asked. This one multiplies and it tends to multiply quietly underneath the surface, right up until it doesn't. And the fourth is energetic ROI, alignment, internal coherence, nervous system steadiness, creative clarity. This is the one that sustains everything else. When your energy is behind what you're building, you show up differently, you think differently, you lead differently. And this is the return that makes the work feel clean instead of only being profitable. Now here's the piece I really want you to sit with. The intangible ROI, the identity, the relational, the energetic, that's often the causal layer underneath the financial return. Meaning it doesn't just happen alongside the money. It's often what creates the conditions for the money. Founders who build something that lasts are usually tracking all four, whether they call it that or not. And when you start evaluating your ideas through all four of these lenses, something shifts. You stop abandoning the thing that feels most aligned just because it doesn't fit in the conventional model. You start seeing the fuller picture of what's actually building in your business. Trailblazing is not reserved for tech giants, it's available to every founder willing to fit out rather than fit in. Before you evaluate the return on your next idea, I invite you to get clear on which kind of return you're actually measuring. I go deeper on this topic and so many others in Sheila's notes. You can go to the show notes to learn how to get on that list and receive Sheila's notes. All about my reflections for founders who are scaling. Thank you so much for being here. Have a beautiful week ahead, and I'll see you on the next episode.