Episode
Farmers Never Hurry: Michelle MacNeil on Building a Business That Lasts
- Published
- Jun 10, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2619
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Summary
What happens when you get everything right on paper... and still feel like you are running on fumes? Michelle MacNeil is a Systems Business Coach® running her practice from a small hobby farm in rural Alberta, Canada. She works with small business owners who are doing well by most traditional measures: billing is solid, clients are happy, and on paper things look fine. But “are too successful to quit and too exhausted” to actually enjoy what they have built. Her take: it is not an ambition problem. It is an infrastructure problem. And those, she will tell you, are her favorite kind of problem to fix. In this conversation, Michelle talks about what it actually means to fail forward (not the poster version), why building your business on the leftovers of your day guarantees you will stay stuck, and how quarterly planning changed the way she shows up for both her business and her farm. We also get into the hard question: if you are going to build yourself a really crappy job, why are you doing this at all? This one is for you if you are showing up every day, giving it everything, and still wondering why you feel like you are behind. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to the Scenic Route: Introducing Michelle MacNeil 01:17 Too Successful to Quit but Too Exhausted to Enjoy It: Who Michelle Works With 02:55 Where Did You Think Your Life Was Going? Michelle's Non-Linear Path 04:30 Baby, Puppies, COVID, and a Farm: How the Big Life Shift Happened 09:40 How Running a Farm Taught Her to Work Differently With Clients 14:26 Why Every Coach Needs a Coach: The Problem With Being Too Close 15:17 Failing Forward Was Just a Poster Until the Farm Taught Her What It Actually Means 19:15 Farmers Never Hurry: The Pace Strategy Her Neighbors Taught Her 22:28 If One Hiccup Derails Your Plan, Your Plan I…