Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Ditching Hustle Culture: The Journey to Aligned Entrepreneurship with Stef Carlstedt

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Ditching Hustle Culture: The Journey to Aligned Entrepreneurship with Stef Carlstedt · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  So I did the scariest thing.
• 0:06
  Having three little kids.
• 0:08
  I walked out of that corporate job, and I never looked back.
• 0:13
  Today's episode features Steph Carlstadt, an entrepreneur, coach, and fellow podcaster with a truly transformative journey.
• 0:22
  After launching her career in the corporate world and earning that perfect job, Steph quickly realized she was meant for something more.
• 0:30
  Faced with personal challenges, including her father's early onset Alzheimer's, she boldly stepped away from the traditional path to pursue entrepreneurship and build a life and business on her own terms.
• 0:43
  In this episode, we'll dive deep with Steph to explore how she moved from burnout and misalignment to discovering her passion for human design and how she now helps other coaches and entrepreneurs build authentic, thriving businesses by aligning with
• 0:58
  who they truly are.
• 1:00
  If you're curious about leaving the shoulds behind and you want to unlock your unfair advantage in business, you won't want to miss this conversation.
• 1:08
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:13
  All right, Steph Karlstadt, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:17
  Thank you.
• 1:18
  I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:19
  I appreciate it.
• 1:20
  Yes, absolutely.
• 1:21
  We're excited to talk to you.
• 1:23
  So, Steph, you are a coach for entrepreneurs, also a podcaster, and you've had this coaching practice for a number of years now, and you've got quite an interesting journey because you were in corporate and then you left to
• 1:39
  become an entrepreneur and you faced some challenges that totally put you in a different direction.
• 1:47
  Can you just tell the viewers your backstory and how you got to where you are right now?
• 1:52
  Yeah, for sure.
• 1:53
  So I always like to say that I always felt like I was never meant for the norm.
• 1:59
  I was never meant for the normal trajectory of life.
• 2:02
  You know, college, graduate school, perfect job, retire and.
• 2:08
  But I followed that trajectory in the beginning.
• 2:10
  I got the graduate degree.
• 2:12
  I got the quote, unquote, perfect job.
• 2:14
  And I immediately felt like I was shrinking and something was missing.
• 2:18
  I felt unheard.
• 2:20
  I felt that I didn't fit.
• 2:22
  And my dad was actually diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's about two months after I got that perfect job.
• 2:29
  And it was that point where I realized that I didn't want to work for anybody anymore.
• 2:35
  I needed to build something on my own so I could be with him through the trajectory of the disease.
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  Join MOVERS dispatch board So I did the scariest thing.
• 3:12
  Having three little kids.
• 3:13
  I walked out of that corporate job and I never looked back.
• 3:17
  I dove into entrepreneurship.
• 3:19
  I learned, I hustled, which we'll talk about.
• 3:22
  I don't love that word anymore, but I hustled.
• 3:25
  I worked 12 hours a day and really built a big business, helping hundreds of people step into the online space.
• 3:35
  But I was, I built it completely misaligned in myself.
• 3:38
  And I now know, looking back, it was the reason most of my clients never had success or didn't find the success that they could have was because I was giving them the same blueprint.
• 3:48
  I used the same thought process I used of building a business.
• 3:52
  And then full circle moment I lost my dad.
• 3:55
  And it really forced me to kind of grieve and go internal and really understand that I was building a business based on everybody else's shoulds.
• 4:03
  And I lost myself in the process.
• 4:05
  I say I slowly died inside that business.
• 4:08
  And it was that moment where I was actually introduced to human design.
• 4:13
  It's.
• 4:14
  Human design is a.
• 4:16
  It's an.
• 4:17
  From lots of ancient modalities.
• 4:18
  It is based on your birth information.
• 4:21
  It has transformed my life in every area of business, of relationships, of life.
• 4:26
  And I realized this is the ticket to helping people build businesses.
• 4:31
  So I stepped back into that space, completely revamped.
• 4:35
  And now I help people build businesses by infusing their human design into all aspects of their business.
• 4:42
  Okay, wow.
• 4:43
  Appreciate that.
• 4:44
  And a whole lot to unpack there.
• 4:47
  Let's.
• 4:48
  Let's go way back.
• 4:49
  So you said you followed the traditional path, which was go to school, get a degree, get that perfect, safe, secure job.
• 4:58
  Right.
• 4:59
  And Even now in 2025, it still seems like that's the conventional wisdom.
• 5:05
  So many, so many young people that are out there trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives, that, that was, that's certainly the route you took back when, when you were in school right now.
• 5:17
  Why do you think that it, like, even after we've seen.
• 5:19
  Because I.
• 5:20
  You hear the stats too, and there's really this conversation now, like, is college even worth it?
• 5:24
  When you look at the cost, when you look at the jobs that are out there and whatnot, why do you think that's still so prevalent in, in.
• 5:32
  In the world?
• 5:32
  Well, it's slowly shifting.
• 5:34
  I've done a lot of study, a lot of Research in what we're calling the new era, which is what's happening right now.
• 5:41
  This is why everything's so shaky.
• 5:43
  The education system is breaking down, the healthcare system is breaking down.
• 5:47
  All these things are breaking down because they can't sustain the way they are.
• 5:50
  So when you're talking about education, it's.
• 5:53
  It's the conditioning.
• 5:54
  Conditioning.
• 5:55
  Society taught us that this is the normal trajectory of life.
• 5:58
  We need to build workers, not thinkers.
• 6:00
  And.
• 6:01
  And that's what we fell into as society.
• 6:03
  But it is breaking down.
• 6:04
  And you see, there are astronomical amounts of people who are now being homeschooled.
• 6:11
  There are people who choose not to go to college.
• 6:14
  A lot of places, Microsoft included, hire people without college degrees now.
• 6:20
  So it's slow, it's shifting.
• 6:22
  It doesn't hold the.
• 6:25
  I guess you don't need it anymore as much as you used to, which I'm super excited about.
• 6:30
  But, yeah, so it's.
• 6:32
  It's really cool to see that shift.
• 6:33
  But it was.
• 6:34
  It is the conditioning of.
• 6:35
  Of just what we were taught, and people just fell into it blindly.
• 6:39
  Okay.
• 6:40
  All right, so now you.
• 6:41
  It sounds like you realized this very early because you said after you were in that perfect job for just a couple months, you realized you were shrinking, and you were just like, I'm done.
• 6:50
  Yeah.
• 6:51
  Yeah, okay.
• 6:53
  Yeah, yeah.
• 6:54
  And when I started reading my human design, I understand why it was always my design trying to come through.
• 6:59
  So, for instance, I'm not meant to do the same thing every day.
• 7:04
  I will literally die in that.
• 7:07
  In that part.
• 7:08
  Like, that part of me will die if I do the same thing every day.
• 7:11
  I meant to move fast, pivot.
• 7:12
  Often entrepreneurship is written in my design.
• 7:17
  And I.
• 7:19
  I just will not thrive in a place like corporate.
• 7:22
  I don't need other people, other people around me to get where I'm meant to go in life.
• 7:27
  And so I have a very individual human design.
• 7:31
  So that was really eye opening for me to see that when I knew it was always the truth.
• 7:36
  Okay.
• 7:37
  All right.
• 7:37
  And so many people, even if they're feeling unfulfilled, or even if they know they're not happy, they know to me, they need to make a change.
• 7:46
  They stay with that job or with that situation they don't like because they.
• 7:50
  Need to pay the bills.
• 7:51
  Now, you said you had three young children and you felt like this.
• 7:55
  This feeling like I'm shrinking and I can't take it anymore, and you walked out.
• 8:00
  So what.
• 8:01
  What was that like?
• 8:02
  Yeah.
• 8:03
  Well, so take you back to the.
• 8:06
  The day my dad was diagnosed I actually went back to that job the following Monday, and I couldn't stop crying.
• 8:11
  And I remember my coworker putting me into my office and telling me to come out when I was done crying.
• 8:15
  And it was almost like I, I felt like I was put against a wall that I need to be who they want me to be, or I need to leave and, and find out who I actually am and
• 8:28
  step into what I meant to do.
• 8:29
  And I, I, I personally felt like I was against the wall where if I stay here, I will miss being with my dad.
• 8:38
  And that wasn't an option for me.
• 8:40
  I think that for me, I have worked on my money mindset a lot, and it's.
• 8:46
  I didn't allow it to stop me from being.
• 8:49
  Being who I knew I needed to be in that time.
• 8:52
  Okay, all right.
• 8:54
  So you, you're put against the wall.
• 8:57
  You realize that being with my dad is more important than this job, regardless of circumstances.
• 9:02
  So you make the decision to walk out.
• 9:05
  What happens next?
• 9:08
  I dove into entrepreneurship.
• 9:09
  I tried all of the things that were out there.
• 9:12
  I really trust, learn to learn to trust myself, and learn to tune out all of the noise, because I didn't have, and I still don't have any friends and family around me that are entrepreneurs.
• 9:24
  It just is what it is.
• 9:25
  I am different in that.
• 9:27
  And I just put the pedal to the metal.
• 9:30
  I worked, like I said, I worked 12 hours a day.
• 9:32
  I got up super early, I stayed up late, and I built a business.
• 9:36
  Yes.
• 9:37
  But it was completely misaligned to myself.
• 9:39
  And so it.
• 9:41
  At the end of the day, I wasn't happy in it.
• 9:43
  And I, and I understand that now, but I had no other option.
• 9:49
  Like corporate.
• 9:49
  Going back to corporate was not an option for me.
• 9:52
  Okay, all right, so this is with the three young children, and you're working all types of hours, and you're.
• 9:58
  I guess you were helping people.
• 9:59
  It was like an online marketing business.
• 10:02
  Is that right?
• 10:02
  It was health and fitness.
• 10:04
  Okay, all right.
• 10:05
  So like, helping people get.
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  Get in shape, that type of thing.
• 10:08
  Like online coaching.
• 10:09
  Okay, all right.
• 10:10
  So you're working all different types of hours, and you have the kids, and you're saying long, you know, up early, up late, long hours.
• 10:18
  But you, you were financially successful but just burnt out.
• 10:22
  Yeah.
• 10:23
  Okay.
• 10:23
  Okay.
• 10:24
  All right.
• 10:24
  And then at what point did you realize?
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  Because from the outside looking in, it probably looked in some respects, okay, she built a business, she's making good money, she's her own boss.
• 10:36
  Right.
• 10:36
  From some definitions, you'd be a successful entrepreneur, but you Said that you were burnt out and like when did you realize that this was not the ticket?
• 10:48
  Well, I really realized it when I lost my dad.
• 10:52
  But it started to, I started to see that I was.
• 10:56
  Everything that I was feeling, the frustration, the resentment towards my business was seeping out into my relationships, into my marriage, into my kids.
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  And I couldn't sleep at night.
• 11:08
  I woke up not wanting to do the work that I needed to do.
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  And that's not normal.
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  I think we normalize frustration or not frustration, we normalize overwhelm, exhaustion, that type of stuff, but it's not normal.
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  And I think that I was at that point where I couldn't keep going like that in order to just sustain a paycheck.
• 11:33
  It wasn't, it didn't work for me.
• 11:35
  Okay, one other quick question too is like, so you mentioned you don't have any friends or family close to you that are entrepreneurs, right?
• 11:44
  And so often like the entrepreneurs I talk to feel misunderstood by the people that aren't, aren't entrepreneurs or aren't on that same journey.
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  So what, like, what's that like in terms of like your closest family and whatnot?
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  Are they more like, oh, that's risky.
• 12:01
  Or you know, is it, is there kind of, is it, is it harder that you don't have people maybe that can relate to the journey that you're on?
• 12:10
  In the beginning it was, and I'll keep going back to my dad, he was the only one that really ever asked me about it.
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  I have close friends who don't acknowledge it at all.
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  And at first I was hurtful, you know, and, but when I learned my own human design and the more I became aligned with who I actually am and how I meant to build, that stuff fades away and you
• 12:33
  really don't care anymore because the people that are brought into your life are meant to be in your life at that time.
• 12:39
  And so it was in the beginning.
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  But I don't let it stop me anymore or I don't let it dim my light anymore.
• 12:48
  Okay, all right, so you're at this point where you have this, this health and fitness business, but you're burnt out, you're not happy.
• 12:57
  And then how did you find human design and get on your current trajectory?
• 13:02
  Yeah, so my sister in law actually text me and she said, have you, do you know your human design?
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  And I, and I said no.
• 13:09
  I had chalked it up to being like a personality test, like enneagram strengths finders, Myers Briggs and those never resonated with me.
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  And so I, that's what I had chalked it up to that, and she said, you need to read it.
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  And so I got my free chart and I started reading my profile and my energy type.
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  And I finally felt like I knew why I always felt the way I did.
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  And I felt seen, I felt heard, I felt validated.
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  And then I got into a certification program where I learned how to build a business with my design.
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  And I was like a light flipped on for me.
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  And I said, I thought, this is how we're meant to build and we are being inundated every day with how to do things and we're losing ourselves in the process, and this is going to bring people back home.
• 13:55
  So I, I reached, you know, this is, I say I'm reaching back to the community of entrepreneurship to say, hey, this is actually how you're supposed to do it, not the way I did it in the past.
• 14:08
  So they can skip that.
• 14:09
  Yeah.
• 14:11
  Okay.
• 14:11
  All right.
• 14:12
  So you take the, you, you get the human design chart, you read it, you get your certification, it resonates with you.
• 14:20
  You feel validated, you feel heard, you realize this is what I'm meant to do.
• 14:24
  And you learn how to build a business around your human design.
• 14:28
  So then like, what did that look look like, the path from there?
• 14:33
  Yeah, so it was really just learning every single piece of it.
• 14:36
  My energy type, my profile, my decision making process, um, the, the way I, the people I'm meant to help, the, the traits that they have, the way I'm meant to market to them.
• 14:48
  Because that's one thing that we're all taught is to market as, say, the same way.
• 14:51
  And we're actually meant to say things differently based on our design.
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  And so I just slowly learned myself and came back to life.
• 15:01
  I say I came back to life in my business and now I have people who are therapists who are, who want to have a coaching business now and they're building it with their design.
• 15:11
  I have health and fitness people who are now rebuilding with their design.
• 15:15
  And it's just, it's really cool for me because my human design says that again, I'm not supposed to do the same thing every day.
• 15:22
  And pivoting often and moving fast is where I live.
• 15:26
  And so every single client is different, which is cool to me.
• 15:29
  It's not cookie cutter at all.
• 15:32
  So that's why it's, I'm living out my design in that process too.
• 15:37
  Okay.
• 15:37
  All right.
• 15:38
  And so your, your coaching business, you work with various service provider entrepreneurs to basically help them expand is, is expand their business.
• 15:47
  Is that what you do?
• 15:48
  Yeah, most of my clients are coaches, all different types of coaches, but they have a coaching business and yeah, I help them build, build it with, you know, using their design, infused in it.
• 16:03
  Okay, all right, and then how, how long have you had this current company?
• 16:07
  Probably it's been about two years and I've pivoted here and there.
• 16:13
  I like to, that's, that's my design.
• 16:16
  But it's.
• 16:17
  Yeah, it's been about two years.
• 16:19
  Okay, all right, and then so when for people come to you, like when, when the coaches like the coaching industry too, right.
• 16:27
  There's a lot of different certifications, there's different niches or whatnot.
• 16:31
  Like, what are some of the common problems that, that you see coaches have and, and that, that you basically help them solve?
• 16:39
  Every single client comes to me having tried all the strategies, all the formulas, you know, the high ticket model, the digital marketing, the.
• 16:49
  This is how you're meant to market.
• 16:50
  This is how you need to niche down.
• 16:53
  Some, some designs actually aren't meant to niche down.
• 16:56
  And, and so it, it really suffocates them.
• 16:59
  But, but all my clients come to me with, I've tried this for years and nothing has worked.
• 17:04
  And then we unlock why within their design.
• 17:09
  Okay, all right, and then also along the way, you started a podcast.
• 17:16
  Yes, tell, tell us about that.
• 17:19
  Yeah, so it's called the Human Design Advantage.
• 17:21
  And that's really what it is, is it is that your human design is your unfair advantage in your business, is what I say, because you will grow faster and you will be more aligned in that business.
• 17:33
  And so, you know, 2026 and 2027 are calling us to be more authentic in our business because we are, we have AI everywhere.
• 17:45
  People don't.
• 17:45
  There's a huge trust recession going on.
• 17:48
  And so we have to really build within our design in order for us to go from shouting out into the void to really being heard and seen by the people that need to need us to help them.
• 18:00
  Okay, all right, now that's it.
• 18:02
  I have not heard the term trust recession, but certainly very applicable.
• 18:07
  And yet, like you mentioned, AI is everywhere now and just advancing and accelerating so fast.
• 18:15
  And you know, like, like you said too, right, like initially when it came on this, we came on the scene, maybe people, you know, probably, probably people feel differently about it now than they did a couple years ago.
• 18:27
  But certainly I think there's a, a thirst for realness, for authenticity because there's so much, there's so much fake stuff out there.
• 18:38
  Right.
• 18:39
  So what, what would you say, because again, right, there's, there's a school of thought is you got to use AI and of course, we should all know how to use it, learn it, implement it, wherever it makes sense.
• 18:49
  Absolutely.
• 18:50
  But what would you say to people in terms of how to, how to tap into their authenticity in this age of AI?
• 19:01
  Yeah.
• 19:01
  So, well, as far as AI goes, I give my clients trained bots that are turned off from the Internet and know everything about human design.
• 19:10
  And so that's, that's one thing.
• 19:12
  If you're building a business, I believe it should be turned off from the Internet and it should have everything that you've done in your voice, in your, you know, whatever you've worked through in your business and give that
• 19:25
  to your G B T so it understands it and that's the best way to use, to use ChatGPT or whatever AI you use.
• 19:34
  But as far as authenticity in, in your business, that goes into everything, into your human design.
• 19:42
  I'll just give you an example.
• 19:44
  So for instance, as far as the marketing goes, in your business, there's something in your human design called a vibe of tribe, which means that you're meant to market to a specific fractal line of society.
• 19:59
  You're meant to market to a specific person.
• 20:01
  And that doesn't mean like blonde hair, blue eyes, 25 to 30 years old.
• 20:06
  That means, for instance, I have a line one.
• 20:09
  So my marketing needs to be very.
• 20:12
  They need to know all the details of everything.
• 20:14
  They need all the FAQs, they need every single thing that they're going to get because they have, they need to dive deep into everything that they will get from me.
• 20:23
  Whereas if someone has a line four, they need to really talk about in their marketing, that their people will be a part of a community and that, that you're going to take care of them.
• 20:33
  So they're completely different.
• 20:34
  But unfortunately we have been taught to market in a specific way to, by a lot of people and that literally shuts off our magic and what had how we're meant to speak.
• 20:45
  So that's just one example.
• 20:48
  Okay.
• 20:49
  All right.
• 20:50
  And Steph, so if people are hearing this and they're in the coaching profession and they're frustrated with where they're at and then this is resonating with them, what's the best way that people can, can find out more about
• 21:01
  you and get in touch online?
• 21:04
  Yeah, so hopefully we can put it in the show notes, but I always like to start people with stephcarlstad.com HD report and that's really where you're going to get your free human design report, your PDF that explains your
• 21:19
  profile and your energy type in your in your business, and then a 10 part audio series where I walk you through exactly what human design is, why it's your unfair advantage and the pieces of it that will transform
• 21:31
  your business.
• 21:33
  Okay.
• 21:34
  All right.
• 21:34
  And we will absolutely link that in the show.
• 21:36
  Notes for everyone.
• 21:38
  Great.
• 21:38
  All right.
• 21:38
  Well, Steph, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this incredible wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 21:44
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 21:45
  Thank you.