How I Made $350K in My Coaching Business...Then Burned Out

Sep 19 in Mindset

I want to share something personal today. It’s a story of how I built a successful coaching business, made over $350,000, and then completely burned out.

Why am I sharing this? Because I learned some valuable lessons from the experience, and I want you to avoid the same mistakes.

Here’s how it all went down...

THE DREAM TURNED NIGHTMARE

A few years ago, I started coaching people on how to use YouTube for business. I was doing well—my YouTube channel was generating $150,000 a year, and my coaching business was bringing in $15,000 to $30,000 a month.

On paper, everything looked perfect.

But something wasn’t right. I felt misaligned with my work. I was tired all the time, stressed, and disconnected from the passion that started this journey.

It all came to a head on my 30th birthday. My wife and I went to a spa to relax, but I couldn’t shake this heavy feeling. I realized I needed to stop everything and figure out what was wrong.

So I did. I shut down the ads, paused the sales calls, and took a month off.

WHAT I LEARNED

After a lot of reflection, I realized the problem was me. Here’s what I learned:

I’m a Maker, Not an Operator I thrive in creative work—making YouTube videos, designing funnels, and building products. But my days were filled with sales calls, meetings, and operations work. The stuff that drained my energy. If you're a creative type like me, being bogged down by operations can suffocate your passion.
The Power of the Global Market I had built my coaching business in Danish, but my long-term dream was to reach an international audience. The English-speaking market is massive, and I was limiting my growth by staying in Denmark.
Beginners Struggle to Take Action My high-ticket program was targeted at beginners, but many of them weren’t taking the action necessary to succeed. I learned that it’s better to work with people who have some experience and are ready to scale. So in the future I would much rather sell a low ticket membership or one-off low ticket courses to beginners and then upsell them into a high ticket program when they got the hang of all the basics and KNOW what it's all about.

MY NEW APPROACH

After that month off, I completely restructured my business and my life. Here’s what I’m doing differently now:

Focusing on creative work: Making YouTube videos, developing great products, and staying in my zone of genius.
Outsourcing everything I can: From editing to sales, I’m offloading the tasks that drain me so I can focus on what I love.
Building in English: This opens up a much bigger market and allows me to grow in ways I couldn’t before.
Building the Value latter with low ticket products and memberships and then only sell high ticket as an upsell to a more experienced audience.

AVOID MY MISTAKES

I’m sharing this story because I don’t want you to go through the same burnout I did. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, misaligned, or just tired of doing work that doesn’t light you up—listen to that feeling.

Take control of your schedule and your life by structuring your time around the things that matter most.

To help you get started, I’ve put together my Ideal Week Notion Template. It’s the exact system I use to stay focused, avoid burnout, and stay aligned with my goals.

https://oblingmedia.notion.site/MY-IDEAL-WEEK-TEMPLATE-26fcd2c815e349f9894f8fe726ae5d30?pvs=4

Download the template and start designing a week that works for you, not against you.

Here’s to building a business that fuels your passion, not drains it.

Talk soon, Jacob

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