Episode #4 The Freedom Framework: How to Build a Life You Love After Burnout

Kara Sharon shares her transformative journey from burnout to freedom, emphasizing the importance of building a service-based business as a pathway to reclaiming personal and professional joy. She reflects on her early successes in real estate, the devastating impact of the 2008 crash, and the subsequent lessons learned during her difficult journey through bankruptcy. Highlighting the significance of defining a "freedom number," Kara encourages listeners to assess their current resources and set clear boundaries to achieve a balanced life. She introduces her "Dreams Freedom Framework," which guides individuals in mapping their financial goals and creating a support system that fosters personal growth. Ultimately, Kara's message is one of empowerment, reminding everyone that regardless of past failures, freedom is attainable through intentional action and self-discovery.

Takeaways:

• Kara shares her journey from building a multimillion dollar business to experiencing burnout and loss.

• She emphasizes the importance of defining your freedom number to achieve your desired lifestyle.

• Kara discusses the realities of starting a service-based business for freedom and flexibility.

• Establishing non-negotiables and boundaries in work-life balance is vital for personal well-being.

• The Dreams Freedom Framework helps individuals evaluate their skills, resources, and financial goals effectively.

• Kara encourages listeners to embrace their passions and pivot towards what truly makes them happy.

TRANSCRIPT 

Hey there, I'm Kara and welcome to Design youn Dream Life podcast where we dive in and explore how you can use practical personal development to up level your life.

Whether you are looking to have better or deeper relationships, fix your problems with money, learn to love yourself unconditionally, leave a dead end or high stress career, or just want more happiness in your life, my friend, you are in the right place. Are you ready? Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of Design youn Dream Life.

I am Kara Sharon, I am your host and I am so excited that you are here for today's episode. Today's episode we are going to talk about burnout and freedom, the path from burnout to freedom, my personal path and what really got me to freedom.

And I will tell you, it's a service based business and why I think that in 2025 that is going to be the best option if you my friend, are looking for freedom. So first let me just share a little bit about my story for those of you who might not know me.

I built my first multimillion dollar business in my 20s and it was in real estate. And I lost it all before I was 30 in the 2008 crash. And I remember when all, when I lost all that, I mean we had a 7,000 square foot mansion.

We were like the youngest, richest kids on the block. Actually our neighbors thought we were drug dealers like because they're like, how are you affording all this?

But we owned a lot of real estate, we got investors, we financed a lot. And where I lived in Canada is very close, right across the border from Detroit, Michigan.

So if you know how hard Detroit was hit, Windsor was hit just as hard. And I owned all my property in Windsor.

And there was actually a point, even though I had equity in my properties, commercial lending was at a halt in the city of Windsor. So I couldn't even refinance and pull out any equity. And so that was the beginning of the end for me. And it went down like dominoes.

And I do remember, I'm thinking to myself, if building a million dollar business was like this, I didn't think I wanted to do that again if it meant sacrificing my time, my stress. Our lives looked perfect from the outside.

We traveled the world, we did all of that, but it was so miserable in the sense of it was just a lot of high stress. I had a live in nanny who was practically raising my children who were babies at the time, 13 months apart.

It was just, I didn't have a lot of time for them. And I remember feeling all of the mom guilt of coming home and either from a trip or from a long day. So I had an office at the house.

But if I was running around talking to property managers or whatever, like, and just being so emotionally spent that I would look at these beautiful babies and have nothing left to give them. And I didn't want that. Like, I did not want that for my life. I was just so exhausted.

And so when we lost everything, I was like, okay, I don't ever want to build a business like that ever again. And for a while, I didn't even think I wanted to be an entrepreneur anymore. I failed really hard.

And it took me a lot of years, actually, of finding myself and navigating through that loss. All the bankruptcy crap. We went through all of the things. And really for me, I developed some skill.

I actually went to college for corporate communications and public relations. I did hotel and restaurant management in there. I also did multimedia and web design. It was one of the first programs offered way back when.

I feel like I'm aging myself here, but. And when I first finished college, I did have a successful web business where I was working from home. I actually, even in college, I.

I got a job at a summer. A summer job at a company, a Magnetic Health company and really was leading edge back then.

They had a Magnetic Health company, used to be a mail order business and they had a shop. And he took me under his wing. He taught me everything about e commerce and I help transition them into a really large online space.

And really I worked through college. Then I got to work from home while I was going to college. And then even when I had my kids, I worked all through college.

And then up until when I have my first baby, that's when I took a break from that. And then I got heavily into real estate.

And so even back then I was thinking outside of the box and finding opportunities because I knew how to look for them. And I do think that's just an absolute mindset that you can do too. I'm not special. There's nothing different about me.

As a matter of fact, I feel like I failed so many times. How many times do I need to learn lessons? I might be a little bit of a slow learner, but. But anyways, I did not.

After the bankruptcy, I did not want to have another web design company. I was really burnt out from that. I didn't want to do it. And so for me, I started learning skills.

I started learning about email marketing and digital marketing and I kept building upon those things and later on that stacked and stacked where I could then charge a lot of money for different services. And to this day, I'm still in the digital marketing space. I'm still a highly sought after service provider. I'm booked out.

I have been booked out for years. I don't accept clients.

Clients I work with are amazing people who I have wonderful relationships with and I get to live this amazing lifestyle that so many people are like, what do you do? Like, how are you living this dream? You travel all over, you've taken your kids all over and what do you do? And it's awesome.

It really, truly is awesome.

But I went through a lot of crap to even get here because even after the real estate, when I was learning skills, I worked for other people, I learned the skills, I worked for other people. I played small, I was behind the scenes. And then I eventually rose into a company where I was a coo. And that's what I always thought I wanted.

And I thought that was like the safe path because I had played in business and I had been burned. And so I'm like, okay, you know what? I'm going to be Kara behind the scenes.

I'm going to help people make a lot of money and I will get compensated well for it. And I did. And I got compensated. Okay. I wouldn't say I was compensated super well compared to the money I make now.

I didn't even realize this was even an option really when I was there. So I got so burnt out, so burned out. Like, it was just exhausting. And here's what's so crazy.

I feel like I learned a lot about boundaries when I had the real estate business and so family did become a priority.

And I would say I got burnt out and lost myself for the first time ever when I was the CEO and I lost myself professionally, not necessarily in my home life. I created really good boundaries where, yes, it did interfere some, for sure. My phone would always go off. Oh, my goodness.

I think I had post traumatic stress disorder. For anybody who knows the voxer tone, which is a voxer, for those of you who do not know, it's like a walkie talkie app.

And so the little things like it's like this loud. And I remember every time I would go, I had to silence it because it was just like, oh my gosh.

But I got really good at learning to at least turn that off and, you know, set boundaries of like, I'm not going to respond between this and this. So my personal life felt okay. But in the actual professional, I was beyond miserable. I lost who I was. I became a shitty leader.

I really pride myself on team building and connecting people.

And you can even ask some of the people I'm still friends with to this day that I worked with, they're like the carer that came in, we loved the carer who loved not so much. And I fully own that. I lost myself in all of that stress and all of the things.

And I wasn't showing up who, how I wanted to show up or who, who I was, just got lost from all of it. And man, it was just such a time in my life where I look back and I reflect and I was so unhappy, so unhappy.

But I didn't know what my next move was and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so for those of you who may or may not know, I transitioned into a different part of the company. We started a new division.

I went on a vacation, my dream vacation to Europe. Came back and I was downsized. And so that really forced me to open my eyes and decide what I wanted to do next.

And for me I was like, I don't want to work for anyone anymore. Like, I'm done. I don't know what this looks like, but I definitely don't want to do this. And I know that I can always go back and get a job.

And that's the one thing that even to this day, if I needed to in my network, I could go get a job at any point. And that has helped me secure my mindset that like, I can always create money because I'm so good at creating value and I'm really good at what I do.

And I think the reason I'm so good at what I do is because I love what I do and I'm passionate about what I do.

And so I think it took me a long time to get to finding the passions and finding the thing, but once I did and I worked the system and the framework that I created, I have been happy for many years. And I will tell you, I have been offered many jobs since working for myself.

I've been offered some very high paying jobs and I have turned them down from some very interesting big companies. And it's. I'm so flattered by that. But I love my freedom and I choose freedom over anything else.

Like money is money, it's great, but money flows, it comes, it goes. But for me, at the end of my life, I want to look back and be like I lived and I had the best Time I experienced all the things.

I had amazing relationships with my husband, my kids, my family, my friends. I got to do all of these incredible things. And I have absolutely no regrets. And that's how I want to live my life.

I know so many people who have a shit ton of money, and they were so miserable. And that is not something I desire. I've been down that path, and I don't want it.

And so I made a really big conscious decision that freedom is first for me. And yes, I want money, and I want lots of money, and you should too, but you should never sacrifice your freedom to get it.

And so that is why I feel like for me now, there's a lot of options. I've always said, like, there is a million ways to make a million dollars. The question is, what path do you want to take?

And you can get stuck in that. And I get it, my friends, because I think it's even harder for me because I'm so skilled at so many things.

I could go in a million different directions.

But it really took a while for me to hone in on what lights me up and what makes me happy, because you could create a large business and you could be completely miserable. I have worked with people who have done that. I've helped them change all of that.

Because at the end of the day, you do have to focus on you and what lights you up. And so many of us aren't programmed to do that. We really just fall and become a victim to life in circumstances and what we think is the right path.

And somewhere along the line, we get lost and we look up and we're like, where the fuck are we? What? How did I even get here? I don't even remember how I got here. All I know is here doesn't feel right anymore. And it doesn't.

I feel like there's a better way. And so for me, I was very committed to that. So, see, I did it a few times in my life. I had the.

The business, and then I was like, okay, I'm gonna play it safe and I'm gonna go get these skills and work for other people, and I'm making them a ton of money. And then I completely burnt out and lost who I was.

And that's the thing that really moved me forward to trying to create a freedom, like, freedom style, freedom lifestyle, I should say. So I want to talk to you about this framework that I came up with, because it's called the Dreams Freedom Framework.

And I think it's something important that everybody should Review.

If you're thinking that I want more freedom in my life, I want to have the ability to have more freedom, and I want to give you permission to validate that thought and know that you're worth it and that you can go and create. I don't care where you're from, what has happened to you. If you desire to have more freedom in your life, you, my friend, can achieve it.

If I can do it, you can do it. I promise. If I can. If I can fail at it multiple times before I actually created it. And that doesn't matter, right?

Like your past doesn't dictate your future. And as long as you are learning lessons from that, that's all that matters. And I did. I learned the lessons and now I'm on the other side.

And so it doesn't matter where you are right now. It doesn't matter about your past.

It doesn't matter how many failures you may have had, or it doesn't matter that you have been paralyzed or crippled so much by fear that you've never taken any action at all. That does not matter. I don't care where you are. If you want freedom in your life, you can get it.

So let's talk quickly about this framework that I came up with, which I'm loving. I literally just came up with it not too long ago. And yeah, I'm going to share it with you. So the Dreams framework.

So the D stands for define your freedom number. I. In order to become free, you need to get focused. You need to calculate your exact number that you need for your dream life.

So you need to map out your current, like, your current income, your current expenses versus your desired lifestyle costs. Right? Because how can you even set a goal if you don't even know what you're aiming for?

So I remember way back when I was like, if I could just make $10,000 a month, I would be happy and life would be amazing and I would just be on top of the world. And now I make way, way more than that. But I remember hitting that first 10k. I was like, 10k is the number. 10k allows my husband to retire.

And if you. Here's the thing. Define your freedom number and what that means for you. Do you want to retire your husband or your spouse? I did. So I put that.

That literally was a goal in part of my freedom number. I wanted to hit this freedom number for X amount of months before my husband could retire. And when we hit it, he left.

Because he was always the breadwinner and so he was making six figures and was the breadwinner for so many years. And so it was really scary. And that's a whole nother episode of mindset of becoming the breadwinner of your family.

But what I needed to do was get clear, right? Like how much exactly do I need and what are we realistically spending and so what does that look like? So you've got to define your freedom number.

The second thing is you've got to reality check your resources. So I want you to take an inventory of your existing skills, your connections, your assets, your passions and identify what is unique about you.

What do you love doing? What skills do you think you can build upon? So for me, I was already in marketing, loved marketing and I could stack and build upon that.

I really enjoyed that. And it took me a long time to find what I am truly passionate about. But that is one of the skills that for me has been such a game changer.

So you need to look inside and what are the resources that you have and what lights you up? And listen, you're not going to necessarily get this right the first time. And it's okay, you can start playing with things.

You're allowed to fail forward. That is allowed. You were allowed to pivot. You are.

But in order for us to get to freedom, we really need to go in and see what are, what's the reality check here? What do you got? What are you starting with? Let's do an internal inventory, so to speak. And then the next thing is E.

So the E stands for evaluate your non negotiables.

So I want you to get so good at setting clear boundaries around family time, defining your must haves for work, life balance, and identifying your core values that guide your decisions. And so we can do a whole nother episode about creating your core values.

But you really, if you don't have any, you should and really establish like you need to establish like there are no compromise zones, right? There's just, they're non negotiables. What are your absolute non negotiables? Right. So for me, family was always first.

And so I also, when I was rebuilding my service provider business, listen, in my industry, you could ask anybody, there are a lot of people who think that you are at their beck and call. Work all hours, day, night, weekends, holidays, all of the things.

And so for me, when I was starting in attracting my ideal clients, I was so clear about my boundaries.

I was like, hey, first of all, if you want to work together, here are some of my core philosophies and if you don't agree with them, that's totally fine. That just means that we're not going to be a good fit. Number one, I don't work evenings and weekends and I'm not on call 24 7.

Now will I answer an occasional evening message? Sure. But it's not the norm and I want to set that expectation really clear. I have a family. I, my children are competitive.

Well, at the time they were in competitive sports. They're older now but. And so that's just non negotiable for me. I'm a mom that's there.

I go to all my kids field trips, I am at all their sporting events. And so I want to make sure I will address things as quickly as possible. And again, if there's an emergency, I will look, but do not, don't.

If you're going to harass me and if you're going to micromanage me, then this is not going to work for me.

So if you were that type of person, like I work with people who trust my ability and again, I get it at the beginning, I might need to earn that trust for you. Maybe that's not a natural muscle for you and you have to learn how to build that.

But at the end of the day I want to work with people who don't micromanage me that give me the freedom and the ability to do my job right. And so the other part too was that like, and, and they do my clients absolutely amazing freedom. Now again, I've earned that trust to them.

And at the beginning, some of them might, I did have to hold their hand a little bit and I'm totally fine with that. I would set that expectation right. But for me also would say to them too, I'm in marketing, I'm like, we're gonna, this is.

Listen, they all know I say that we're going to fail a lot. So if you're afraid of failure, then I'm not your girl.

And marketing is a lot of failure and I fail 80% of the time, but 20% of the time, when I knock it out of the park, we win big and it makes up for everything else. So I need you to be okay with failing and with losing some money here and there, knowing that we're going to gain it later.

And obviously we don't want to consistently lose money. But I also don't want you to freak out if we do.

And so again, because there are clients who would be like, oh my gosh, I can do this, but I can only spend $5,000 and if we don't make 30,000 from this 5,000, like I'm just. You're not my person. You're not my person. And being able to walk away from that money because this is part of my non negotiables.

I've been there too many times. I will not do that to myself anymore.

So I think being able to identify that and really believe in the boundaries that you want to set makes it really easy for you to just stand your ground. And so a is architecture time. So I want you to design your ideal schedule first and then what is, how does your business fold into it?

Do you have a morning routine? Do you drop your kiddos off at school? Do. And I know when my kids were younger, like that was super important to me.

Like my mornings were my kid, my kids and I spent quality time with them. I would walk to school with them. I yeah. And when they got home from school I would be like, so it was just being able to design business around now.

And some of you listen, you're like, and maybe you're already working and you're feeling the burnout and all of that. And then you're like, how am I going to add this other thing in?

I promise you, if you can architect your time and you can become a master at your time, it's incredible because that's the vision that you can hold, that you can achieve.

So maybe getting up with your kids and getting them off to school is something that you dream about that you can't do right now because you have a job. And that's totally fine. That's one of the reasons you're going to work towards it.

So you're going to have to find, can you find two hours in your day or even one hour in your day? And that's how you need to start looking at your time. There are so many of us who Netflix binge.

And listen, I am with you, I am a good Netflix binger. But I also know how to work and I know how to be super productive. And so there are times for Netflix binging or just like wasting your time.

Okay, everyone needs that. But overall, if you want to actually create the freedom that you desire, you gotta be good with time management. So the next thing is the M.

So map your money moves.

So this is just planning your strategic income streams, setting your pricing, creating and thinking about your financial safety nets and even designing your wealth building plan. So for me even I have making my money in the digital space, but you would think I was Afraid of real estate. But I'm not.

Like, we're, we've purchased property and we want to buy more property and we want to have some. In fact, like, that's part of our wealth strategy. So you need to constantly think about your money and where you're going.

And so many of us don't because we're so caught up in all of life and everyday stress that we don't even think about what that future holds. But I want to give you permission to dream and I want you to think about that. What does that look like for you?

If you had a service provider type business and you picked a skill and you were crushing it and you were meeting all your income goals and you had this money, what next?

What would you invest in which beyond spending the money and being like, oh, I'm gonna travel or do the other things, like, what would be your next level wealth? So that's part of mapping your money moves.

And then the S is structure your support system, which is so important, my friends, because let me tell you, people will not understand your freedom lifestyle, your family won't. Some of your friends might leave you. And you know what? Here's the thing that is okay. Jealousy is real and I don't have time for it.

So I will tell you, I'm a, I'm pretty, pretty successful. I hang out with some multimillionaires and where I'm like the poor one in the room and it.

And I'm happy to be the poor one in the room, let me tell you. Because you can just learn so much from these people. But I. If you are a person that finds yourself naturally jealous, and that's fine.

Listen, I don't want to shame you into thinking that jealousy is not okay. What I want to do is I want to encourage you for your own sake, how to turn jealousy into motivation instead.

Because it doesn't feel good to be jealous of other people. So really what I worked on in my mindset is I used it as motivation.

So if somebody hit an income goal or if somebody went on a trip or if somebody bought a new car or somebody bought their dream house, I'm like so happy for you. Because if you can do it, I can do it too.

And I firmly believe that it is so much now in my system, there are people who on this path might get so jealous of you. They don't want to be around you because you trigger them. And guess what? That's a them problem. That's not a you problem. That is all their own shit.

It has nothing to do with you. And you need to be okay with it because why should you stay small because someone else is jealous of you or you might lose their friendship?

No friend is worth any of that. My friends are my biggest cheerleaders. And anyone in your circle should be. Now again, family, you don't get to pick which kind of sucks.

And some family members will get it and other family members never will. And it's okay. Release them. Release that. Just because they're family doesn't mean you have to be super tight with them. Sure, you can respect them.

And whenever you're at a family event, maybe you trigger them because just you being in the room pisses them off. Why?

Because you have all the things that they've never had and they work hard and they are victims and they haven't taken ownership of their lives and are like in a victim mentality. And I don't want you to ever be in that mentality. I want to empower you to be your own hero, because you can be.

And so when people are getting things and acquiring awesome things and maybe it's taking you longer, just be like, it's okay. I have faith. I'm gonna get there too. And if they can do it, I can do it. That's awesome. And generally try and be happy for people.

That's literally one of the things that I pride myself on. I'm like, oh, now and I might catch myself. Oh, I wish I could. And then I'm like, you know what? Karaoke, you're good.

And it's so great that they get to do that. And guess what? You can do it too, if you really want. What would it take for you to do that and really explore those types of thoughts?

So that's it for today, my friends. We have really talked about the dreams framework. Why I personally think a service provider business to me is the easiest thing to launch.

When you are in a job already. It's. There's other ways to make money. Certainly you could. There's influencers, there's E Com stores, there's digital products, there's all of that.

But for me, the biggest thing to replace an income and when you're trying to replace a decent income man to be a service provider and learn a high paying skill, you only need a couple clients and then boom, you're out. And then after that you can develop the digital products, the E. Com store, whatever.

But if you are wanting freedom, to me, the quickest, fastest way to freedom is really figuring out what that skill is. That you want to learn that is fun for you and being able to monetize it. So that is all I have for you today my friends.

I am doing a workshop about this on a deeper level and so if you want to learn more about this you can come to the workshop just go to designyourdreamlifetoday.com and there will be a button on there. I think I named it masterclass and not workshop but you can go read all about it.

We are going to dive in and really map out personally your freedom blueprint and so if that's of interest of you I want you to go over there I want you to sign up for right now it's free.

I don't know that it will always be free because I am providing a ton of value that I probably should be charging for but I want to get this information out there so you can go check it out and I will see you on the next episode.