I STOPPED Hustling & My Life Changed.

This may trigger some of you but...

🤐The hustle is overrated🤐

2 years ago, I was up to my ears in social media management & PR clients with my company, Marsolluna + Co., to the point where I had to have two phones on me. (At this point, Instagram only allowed 5 accounts per device.)

This was what I wanted. I wanted to be so busy, that everybody would see what a success I was, because I built this company myself.

I needed that recognition to feel loved and worthy. I wanted to be selected for a local top 40 under 40 competition because I thought that recognition would fulfill me, and somehow explode my business even more so that I could stop worrying about how I was going to pay my bills. I was told I still wasn’t quite good enough to make the cut. #ouch

So I hustled even HARDER.

The moment this photo was taken, we were doing a winery tour with friends. I couldn’t even allow myself one day - one HOUR - to be present with the people in front of me. 

What you didn’t see behind this “GRINDING AND HUSTLING BOSS BABE” was illness. Shingles. Anxiety 24-7. No self worth except for when I signed a new client. Obsessing over diet because the only other way I received love and praise from others was when my physical body was shrinking.

I wish someone told me it didn’t have to be this way. But hindsight is 20/20, right?

I’m so grateful for these lessons, and I am still really proud of myself for all of the business success I had at this moment.

But now I know I am SO MUCH MORE than the girl with her nose in 2 phones 24-7.

I have learned the importance of boundaries, being intentional with time spent working, cutting off the leeches, and most powerful for me - no one else will respect my time and my value, if I don’t do it first. 

There is a time to hustle, and there is power and reward that comes with hard work and a job well done. But don’t let it consume you, and don’t let it be your only measure of who you are as a person.

Love, Leslie Jespersen