The Fear That It Will All Run Out

She wants to plan a Black Friday sale--but is afraid it'll ruin her monthly recurring revenue...

That's where this episode starts — with a real conversation I had this week with a studio owner who is winning by every number you could name, and is still quietly afraid it's all about to run out. If you've ever talked yourself out of a sale, a price increase, or hiring the help you need because some part of you whispered "what if it dries up" — this one is for you.

We get into where that fear really comes from, why hitting a bigger number never makes it go away, and the loop it traps you in: the fear makes you play it safe, playing it safe keeps your studio small, and then you read your small numbers as proof the fear was right. I'll show you how to break that loop — not with a pep talk, but by becoming an evidence collector for a new belief. Plus the one simple practice you can start today that tells you whether it's safe to grow.

In this episode:

• Why the fear that it will "run out" lives in almost every studio owner — and why it's not a flaw
• The reason your best year doesn't quiet the fear (and can make it louder)
• The hidden loop where scarcity thinking quietly creates the exact result you're afraid of
• How a belief really changes — and why willpower and affirmations don't do it
• The evidence practice that retrains the belief at the root
• The one number that tells you you're cleared to make your next bold move

The one thing to do this week: Start an evidence file. Write down how many brand-new people started a membership or intro offer in the last 30 days, plus three proofs that you can keep building. Read it every time the fear shows up.

A few lines worth replaying:

• "It's going to run out is a thought, not a fact."
• "Your brain wrote down every fear and never once wrote down the survival."
• "You survived the exact thing you're terrified of, and you're still standing."
• "A belief is just a thought you've practiced so many times it feels true."

Work with Jackie Murphy

• Say Hi on Instagram @studioceoofficial
• 3 Marketing Mistakes Yoga & Pilates Business Owners Make:
  https://www.jackiegmurphy.com/evergreen-3mm-organic
• Join The Studio CEO Program: https://www.jackiegmurphy.com/studioceo

Transcript

Welcome To Studio CEO

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to the Studio CEO, the only podcast that empowers yoga and Pilates teachers and studio owners to step confidently into their role as CEO. If you are ready to show up with passion, take your business seriously, and scale to new heights without earning out, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Jackie Murphy, an award-winning certified business coach with over 12 years of experience inside the yoga industry. I have seen firsthand what it takes to build a profitable and scalable business. Join me as we dive into strategies, insights, and real-world advice that will help you grow your revenue, build a thriving team, and create a business that serves you as much as you serve your students. It's time to embrace your inner CEO and make more money without working more. This is just the beginning. To become the studio CEO. I

The Black Friday Sale Fear

SPEAKER_00 1:41

want to tell you about a call that I had with a client last week. She is on track to have the best year in her business and roughly in the year at 1.3 million. And I want to tell you about this conversation because I think you're going to hear yourself in it. By every single number that you could put in front of me, this business is set up for success. And we get on our weekly call, and she brings this to me, and I want to share it with you because it's not the first time I've heard it from a client. She says, Jackie, I want to run a Black Friday sale, specifically an annual membership sale, but I'm scared it's going to wreck my monthly recurring revenue. So I really want you to hear that. And here's the thing: this isn't about a Black Friday problem. This conversation comes up with studio owners that are making 50K a month, studio owners who are crushing it in every sense of the word. And the fear gets underneath

Why Your Brain Clings To Scarcity

SPEAKER_00 3:07

and still continues to run our decision making and our actions. So let's talk about this fear because I want to start by telling you it is not a flaw. It's not you being negative or just bad with money or weak. This fear is in almost every studio owner I've met, and there are good reasons for that. Part of it is just how you are built. Your brain is designed to feel a loss about twice as hard as it feels a win. Losing $5,000 hurts about twice as much as making $5,000 feels good. This is not a you thing, this is a human thing. Your brain is running survival software, treating a slow month in your business like a threat to your life. And part of it can be what you've lived through. Almost every studio owner I know has had a real scarcity moment. The month where they weren't sure that they were gonna cover payroll, or the year over COVID where they were existing on fumes. Something has happened where money really did quote unquote disappear, and your nervous system was taking notes. And it learned something that money can vanish. So never stop watching it. And that rule has been existing, running true, because it was true at the time. The problem is it's still running the show years later, long after the danger has passed. So when that fear whispers to you, it'll run out. You can't keep this up. There won't be enough people. I don't want you to be ashamed of it. I want you to understand it. It's old, it is trying to protect you, it's just not telling you the truth anymore. Now, here's what I really need you to see because this is the part that could be costing you money now.

How Fear Shrinks Your Studio

SPEAKER_00 5:17

When you believe deep down that it's all gonna run out, you start to run your studio like someone protecting the last of something instead of growing or scaling. Inherently, this will come through in your actions. You'll start to be a little bit more careful. Choose not to run the Black Friday sale because what if it does backfire? You won't raise your prices because what if five members end up leaving? Or you hold on to the member or the client that actually drains your entire team because losing anyone feels dangerous. You might find yourself going hunting for little things to cut in your expenses instead of big revenue streams that you could build. You keep doing everything yourself because hiring help could feel reckless when money is about to dry up in your mind. And every one of these choices can feel responsible in the moment. It can feel smart, it can feel safe, and it can easily be justified. But when a year goes by of these little moments to pull back, add up, your studio will either be the exact same size that it is, or it will be smaller. The revenue will be flat, the money will still feel tight, and you might find yourself thinking, see, I knew it. Things are scarce around here, things are hard to grow. Good thing I was careful. But you don't realize what actually just happened. The fear told you to play it safe. Playing it safe made your business stay small. And then you looked at your small business as proof that the fear was right. That is the trap. The fear of running out makes you act in a way that keeps you stuck. And then your stuck business becomes the evidence that you were right to be afraid. It's a loop. And you can work 14 hours a day inside that loop and never break it. Because the problem was never about how hard you were working, it was that one belief that's quietly running everything.

Why Bigger Numbers Don’t Help

SPEAKER_00 7:31

So let's talk about how to get out. And I'll tell you what doesn't work first because I watched myself try this for years. Hitting a bigger revenue number doesn't work. You think once I get to X amount per month, once I break a million, then I'll finally feel safe. But you get there and the goal line just moves. The fear goes with you because the fear is never about the number, it's about your sense of safety. And here's the kind of funny little twist: the more you build, the more you have to lose. So the fear can get louder and louder as you succeed, not quieter. Saying all of that to say, you cannot earn your way out of this fear that it will run out or dry up, or at some point in time you will lose. So we have to stop trying. Sometimes just because you've thought it 10,000 times. But most of the times, the clients that are bringing me this fear, we actually look at their data and everything points to they're growing, they're profitable, they're on the right track. And their studio, their numbers, the opportunity sitting right in front of them. They can't even see it because of this thought, it's going to run out, blinding them from it. So all of your success can not mean anything until you decide what it means. You are the one deciding you always have been. So I want to encourage you

A New Belief That Changes Actions

SPEAKER_00 9:32

to decide to believe something else. What if you looked at the same business that you currently have, the same studio, the same opportunity, and you thought I build faster than I could ever run out. Feel the difference in that. From the first thought, it's all gonna dry up, it's all gonna run out. I won't have enough people to sell to. You protect, you shrink, you guard the jar. From this thought, I build faster, I innovate, I grow faster. I am the CEO leading this business growth faster than it could ever possibly run out. From this one, you build, you run the offer, you add the next thing, you raise the price, you bring in more visibility, you do more PR, you bring in a team so you can grow. And those actions, the building actions, they end up creating more. More members, more revenue, more proof, which makes it easier to believe again the next time. That is how this works. Your revenue grows in layers. Your members, then people stick around for years, then you grow what each person spends, the lifetime values, you grow the offers that you're delivering to your clients, and then you're growing the new faces that are coming in the door. If all of that is happening, you will truly never run out because you're stacking layer after layer on top of the next one. And the fear of that running out can keep you frozen, clutching just one small layer when you could be building and staying on five different layers. Instead of just focusing on new students that are coming into your door and clutching onto I need more, I need more, I need more, you would be saying, yes, we have our new students going, we have our members converting, we're increasing lifetime value from each member. We're offering a premium value offer,

Growth Happens In Revenue Layers

SPEAKER_00 11:44

and those layers stack, and that is where your growth comes into play. So I want to be clear, I'm not just trying to tell you to just decide that you're abundant and believe that it'll work out. Your body, your brain won't believe or buy into a thought that doesn't feel certain, that doesn't feel true to you. And if the thought doesn't feel true to you, it's not gonna do anything for you. So here is the work I want you to do. The thought it's all going to run out, or it could run out, or it may run out one day, is a thought that you have rehearsed again and again and again so many times that it feels like a fact. So if we want to believe this new thought, this new belief, we have to do the same thing on purpose. We have to start collecting evidence for this new thought. How do you know you're building and growing faster than it could run out? How do you know that you're innovating? How do you know that you are growing and scaling at a quicker pace than you are running out of leads to sell to?

Build Proof With Data And Evidence

SPEAKER_00 13:09

The more proof that you have, the more you can answer those questions, the easier it will be to really feel this in your body and believe it. So think about how many brand new people have walked through your doors in the last 12 months. How many members have stayed with you for years and years and years because they love it? When was the last time you raised a price and it actually worked out? People bought. You have already survived the exact thing that you're terrified of, and you're still standing. And not only that, you're still growing. So start by writing all of this down and look at your data, look at your numbers. I have a client who just signed up 33 brand new members in one month. This is more than she was used to getting for long periods of time. I have another client who is holding all of her members at a 95% retention rate where people just stick around. They're just not leaving year after year after year after year. I've had clients who have run this Black Friday sale that I teach within my programs, the one that my client came to me so scared of running, and her recurring revenue didn't drop at all. It just went up.

Real Client Results That Rewire Fear

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Sales just went up. The proof that you can keep building is not wishful thinking. It is sitting right there in the data. You have to start looking at it. And I can't tell you how helpful it is to be in a room of other studio owners who have that data to show your brain if it's possible for them, it's possible for me. If they're growing like that, I can grow like that. And then you start to track your own data of how you are growing at a pace that is faster than you quote unquote running out of people to sell to or the business drying up. So let me leave you with this. Your business data, your business right now, doesn't mean anything until you decide what it means. So if you keep thinking it's gonna run out, it's gonna dry up, that's one thing you could believe, but I want you to think about how does that disempower you? What happens to you when you have that belief? And then flip that on its head and start to think if I build faster than I could ever run out, what happens from that place? Because it's just as available and it's gonna take your actions somewhere completely different and your results somewhere completely different. So I encourage you to choose the one that builds, the one that's gonna help you grow, the one that empowers you the most, and start the evidence of how that one is just as true.

Decide What Your Data Means

SPEAKER_00 16:35

If this episode hits home with you, do me a favor, send me a message. It's at studio CEO official on Instagram, and I will talk to you guys in the next episode.