Doing the Work Without Being Attached to the Results with Sindy Warren

 

Doing the Work Without Being Attached to the Results with Sindy Warren

 

One of the hardest parts of building a business is learning how to care deeply about the work without letting every single result determine how you feel about yourself.

This week, Sindy Warren is back on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast to talk about doing the work without being overly attached to the results.

We talked about the incredibly high highs and low lows that come with building a business, and how, with time and practice, we can learn not to be rocked quite so hard by either.

Because two people can have the exact same experience and see it completely differently:

“I’ve been in business for six months and I’ve already had six clients!”

“I’ve been in business for six months and I’ve only had six clients.”

Same result. Completely different mindset.

This conversation is about learning to hold the outcomes a little more lightly, while continuing to show up, learn, pivot when necessary, and do the work that’s ours to do.

 

Links:

Website: Blue Tree Coaching
Instagram: @bluetreecoaching

 

If you would like to learn more about the Becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our free Facebook Group or check out our CPSM Website.

Book a free discovery call to learn how you can become a Certified Sleep Consultant here.

---

 

Transcript: 

Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.

On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.

Jayne Havens: Sindy, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. It’s always so great to chat with you.

Sindy Warren: Jayne, I am so happy to be back. Your podcast is one of my all-time favorites, and it’s just a pleasure to be on again.

Jayne Havens: You’re so sweet. So, we talked on the podcast before about not waiting until you feel ready before taking action in your business. I actually went back and did my homework. I looked it up. We discussed this in Episode 231 from July 7th of this year, 2026, if anyone wants to go back and listen. And I guess I want to assume that our listeners took your advice. They’re taking action in their businesses. They are making moves, but now they’re feeling maybe a little bit attached to the results, right?

Sindy Warren: Yeah.

Jayne Havens: You reached out to me after listening to one of my most recent podcast episodes, where I had shared how I ended up drumming up a bunch of business completely unintentionally at the airport while headed out of town on a girls’ trip. You pointed out to me that I was just out there doing what I do, and I wasn’t at all attached to the results. And you’re right. I was out there just doing what I do. I wasn’t looking to land a client in the airport. I wasn’t looking to drum up business. I was just doing what I do without any sort of expectations for what would come of that.

I guess my question to you is, why do you think that the mindset of doing the work without being so attached to the results is so beneficial in our businesses?

Sindy Warren: It’s a great question, Jayne. And if I can just orient the conversation for a moment, so I have listened to your podcast. It just so happens I have a new book coming out in the beginning of the year. One of the principles in it, in fact an entitled chapter, is called “Doing the Work Without Being Overly Attached to the Results,” or something like that. And when I heard your episode, just this alarm bell went off in my head of, “Oh, Jayne is a living example of this principle.” Which, believe it or not, is actually a yoga philosophy/spirituality principle.

And so, like, your question, I love because it’s like, how does this help us? So I can answer it in two ways. First, I can explain what the principle even is, and then I can explain why I think it’s so important for entrepreneurs and for, in particular, solo entrepreneurs who are building their own service-based businesses, like your clients.

So the idea in yoga philosophy is that we suffer when our minds are overly agitated. If we understand that a turbulent mind, like you can kind of imagine choppy waters, is an unhappy mind, then the practices and the philosophy make sense. Okay, we’ll kind of try to still the waters of our mind: A, for our personal development; B, because it feels better; and C, which is really what you and I are about to talk about, because it makes us more effective in the world.

So, for me, I want to answer the question in terms of how do we cultivate a steadier mind? What does that even mean, and how does it help?

So the example, when I heard you on the podcast, and if anyone has not yet listened to that episode, it truly is one of my favorites of all your episodes. And you have a lot, so people should listen.

It was such an example of you’re there doing your thing. You’re not even thinking about business, but you were having that service-oriented mindset of accommodating a prospect who needed to or wanted to speak to you when you’re about to go out of town for this girls’ weekend. And there you were, just doing your thing, talking about what you do. Someone happened to overhear you. Certainly, hadn’t planned that.

She turned out to be potentially a double lead, both for her daughter and for herself in terms of becoming a sleep consultant. And the whole story, the vignette, was such an example of just go do your work. Just go do what you do in the world and let the results follow without clinging to them too tightly.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think I’m fairly good at that most of the time. But then there, of course, are always moments where we’re feeling that drive to attach our work to the results that we want to see, right? That happens. How do we differentiate, like, not being attached to the results to not caring about the outcome, or just being totally passive in your business? Because, you know, not caring about the— right? It’s complicated.

Sindy Warren: Yes.

Jayne Havens: Like, you want to get out there and do the work because you love it and it’s meaningful, and it serves you in some maybe heart-centered way, and also it serves families. Like, there are so many reasons to get out and do the work besides just trying to make money from it. But also, if we don’t ever attach our drive to potential results, then do we end up sometimes just being really passive in our businesses and not trying or caring about the outcome?

Sindy Warren: It’s an excellent question, and I think it requires us to clear up some definitions. So, non-attachment, which is the yogic principle, if you will, does not in any way mean not caring or being passive or having apathy more than desire. What it means is caring in a steady, equanimous way.

If you can imagine, again, like the water in a lake analogy, steady waters still care. Do the work for deeply heartfelt reasons or financial reasons, or whatever your reasons are. All reasons are welcome here in business building. And the mindset with which you do it will dictate your results.

So there’s a very deep irony here: Don’t attach to the results, and the result of your non-attachment will be better results. It’s a little bit like a Zen koan or, like, a brain teaser.

Jayne Havens: And so what does this look like in practice? I mean, I guess my example at the airport is a good one, but can you give us some other examples of what this might look like in practice in our businesses?

Sindy Warren: I think it’s also important to differentiate. Listen, you’ve been doing this a long time, and you obviously have not just subject matter expertise but a lot of business savvy. So for people who are starting out, it’s not going to look the same way. So I’m glad you asked for examples, because I think that’s going to be really helpful, hopefully, for the listener.

If you make an offer, you don’t control whether the person says yes or no. You have influence over the outcome. But sometimes people aren’t ready to say yes, or it’s not the right person for what you’re offering, or the right timing, or the right price point, or whatever. So not being totally thrown off guard by a result you don’t want.

Or another example would be someone puts together a very thoughtful social media post and they don’t— like nothing happens. The algorithm can be to blame. Your people weren’t on the app at the right time. All sorts of things can be going on that have nothing to do with you, your worth, the value of your offer, or your ability as a sleep consultant. And so we have to kind of remember that.

So keep putting the offers out there. Make the invitations. Build the business structures that need to be in place, whether it’s a simple Calendly link or a website or what have you. And then step back and don’t cling too tightly to what happens next. Because what happens next is not the end of the story.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, also, I don’t know if this is overcomplicating things or too nuanced, but where my brain is going when I’m listening to you share these examples is, I think sometimes brand-new business owners are focused on an end result that’s maybe not— we’re not there yet, right?

When you gave the example of the discovery call and not being too focused on the result because you can’t control, like, if the person is not ready to sign on with you yet, or they’re too nervous, or that financially they can’t afford it, whatever their reason might be, I’m thinking, you know, what if it’s only your first or second time ever getting on a phone call with somebody, and you’re just not great at talking about what you offer yet? And so the result that you just referenced is like the end result of the client hiring you. But where my brain goes is like, maybe another result is even just being good at discovery calls. Like, knowing what to say, right?

Sindy Warren: Yes.

Jayne Havens: And so if we sort of bring it back even a little bit, you know, if you’re brand-new and you just had your first or second discovery call and they didn’t go well, we don’t want to be attached to that result either because you literally haven’t had enough practice yet to figure out how to do that well yet. And so, really, I think the focus should just be on having those calls and just learning from them. And that goes back to what you and I always talk about. But I think it’s relatable. I think it’s relevant here. Because sometimes we focus on a result or we focus on the wrong result, right? Like, we’re not even focused on the right result.

Sindy Warren: Right. Like, before you can win a race, you have to learn to walk.

Jayne Havens: Exactly.

Sindy Warren: Absolutely. Hone the skill of discovery calls and talking about what you do, and then doing the actual consulting and becoming good at social media and growing your email newsletter skills, if that’s something you do in your business. There are so many steps along the way that I think you’re right, we can and should think of as our results that we’re growing, our skills that we’re building. And again, if I bring back just sort of like the philosophy of it, is all that will go so much better for you the steadier your mind is.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, and that I think just takes practice. It’s like a muscle to build, right? I mean, if this is a yoga principle, this is something that doesn’t just happen in a day or a week or a month or maybe even a year. This is a muscle to exercise. This is a practice to work on.

And even though I’ve been in business a while, you’ve been in business a while, and you’re probably living it and breathing it because you also do yoga and I don’t, but you are conditioning your body and mind to think and behave this way when a lot of us just aren’t really conditioned to do that.

Sindy Warren: And even though I study and teach this philosophy, and I’ve been in business for a long time, I still get disappointed and wrapped up and like, oh, darn, that didn’t go the way I want. Now I have to go have a private pity party for myself for a day or whatever. We’re not trying to escape the human condition, so to speak, but we are looking to, when we’re growing business, I think business is such an unbelievable laboratory for personal development and growth. And so this is just one aspect of it.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. I love the way that you said it. I want to talk a little bit about the way all of this makes us feel, like how it impacts us emotionally.

I get messages all the time from brand-new business owners that are just mentally struggling because they are attaching a lot of value to moments and sort of micro-experiences in their businesses that, really, I can see because hindsight’s 20/20 and because I have a lot of experience and I’m on the other side of it. I can see that those moments don’t necessarily deserve the energy that some brand-new business owners are attaching to those moments.

How do we work ourselves through that when you post on social media and only three people like the post? It’s like your mom, your husband, and your sister, right? Maybe you put out an offer for a free training and nobody even registers, right? These are moments that happen to us in the beginning of our businesses. How do we not get so emotionally attached to these moments and results, if that’s what we’re going to call them, so that we can carry on?

Sindy Warren: I don’t want to whitewash our emotional experience. Because sometimes we just have to feel the disappointment or the sadness or the embarrassment—legitimate things to feel as a human and certainly as one is building a business. And then I think a useful framework is to say, okay, what is mine to do here and what is not mine to do?

So it’s up to me. I can continue to post. I can learn what the algorithm is liking. Maybe it’s carousels this month and reels next month, and oops, I did a static post, or whatever. And I can keep going. So there is definitely—this is a skill as well—to just keep going, but not blindly. We have to really use our intellect and say, what’s working? What’s not working and why? And then what can I do?

Jayne Havens: And what feels good and what doesn’t feel good, right?

Sindy Warren: Absolutely.

Jayne Havens: Because I think that to tell someone to keep going, doing something that just doesn’t really feel good in their business is really advice that I’ve personally never resonated with.

You know, I see sometimes people will hire a social media coach, and that person will say, “You need to make a reel every single day. You need to be on Stories every day. You need to make three carousels a week” or whatever, right? It’s all of this content creation, and they’re going and they’re going and they’re going. And maybe they are getting a little bit of traction. Maybe they are seeing movement in the right direction, but it just doesn’t feel good, right? It has to feel good too. Like, of course, sometimes work is no fun. Like, work is hard work. Work is hard work, right?

But also, if we’re talking about how do we know when to keep going versus when to pivot, I think on some level it has to feel good. And I think that goes back to showing up before you get the results. Because if you’re quitting because you’re not getting the results, it’s because it’s really no fun to do work that’s not resonating with you, and it doesn’t feel great.

Sindy Warren: That is such an excellent point you raise. I think I feel very strongly that there’s no one right way to grow a sleep consulting or any kind of business. So, to your point, keep going doesn’t mean keep posting the reels if you hate social media and it makes you unhappy. There are a million other ways to get the message out.

So keep going in the sense of don’t give up. Keep iterating. But you’re absolutely right in that there needs to be an alignment in the manner in which you’re trying to grow your business. And so much of business growth is trial and error. And then you may also find one way of attracting business works for a while and then it doesn’t. We’re always having to iterate and reiterate.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I mean, I’ve had to do that myself many times over the years. There were things that used to work really, really well for me in my business that don’t anymore. And then there are also things I’m now doing that I wasn’t doing before that work really well. And so I think it’s a constant evolution.

That really just goes back again to making sure that you find a way to, on some level, find joy and satisfaction in the work that you’re doing, because it can feel really hard at times. And it can feel, I think sometimes it can feel a little bit like a personal attack on your own level of success. Like when your business, when you’re having a hard time, I think it can make you feel as like you’re a failure.

Sindy Warren: Absolutely.

Jayne Havens: Personally, right? Like, we take our hard moments in our businesses very, very personally, I think.

Sindy Warren: We do. We do. And I think that’s especially true for the solopreneur who is a service provider. Because you’re literally the face of your business, and I’m the face of my business, and it’s hard not to take it personally.

But that’s again where the non-attachment piece comes in, which again, does not mean don’t care or don’t act like you don’t care. It’s neither of those. But it is, can you hold it a little more softly as you iterate, experiment, test, get support when you need support, and then keep going in a way that feels aligned with who you are and how you want to communicate with people?

Jayne Havens: So when we’re trying to grow our businesses and we care a lot, we’re also trying to not attach these moments directly to our own psyche, right? We’re trying to keep them a little bit separate. What’s going on in my business is this, and that’s not a reflection of my value or worth personally, right? It’s so hard. What are we telling ourselves? How are we talking ourselves through these moments?

Sindy Warren: Yeah, there’s one concept I was talking with a client about this morning, actually, who’s growing a business, just about the idea of creating a sense of safety for yourself.

So I think having emotional, psychological safety—whether that means going to the gym, or walking your dog, or going to the yoga studio, or reading a book—we have to have things that feed us and our nervous systems outside the business so that we can come back with more energy. It’s such a dance. Just like there’s no one way to build a business, there’s no one way to self-regulate as you’re building a business. Much of this is going to be trial and error.

But I think if we all hold the outcomes and our goals—I love goals. We should have goals, but just hold them a little more lightly and not tie them to our self-worth or our success—not only is the experience going to feel better, but as I was saying before, we’re going to be more effective. We’re going to be able to analyze our objective results more objectively and say, “Well, that didn’t work. What should I try next month,” or what have you?

Jayne Havens: I also think that so much of it is just personal mindset. And again, this takes a lot of work, but I’ve received emails from Center for Pediatric Sleep Management graduates who, let’s say— I’ve received an email where somebody says, “I’ve been in business for six months and I’ve already had six clients. I’m so excited.” And then I’ve received an email from other graduates who have said, “I’ve been in business for six months and I’ve only had six clients. I’m so frustrated.” That’s just an example.

Sindy Warren: That’s a great example.

Jayne Havens: But you know, two different people could have the same results and are attaching very different feelings and worth and value to the same journey, you know?

Sindy Warren: Yes.

Jayne Havens: And if I think about those who are sort of most successful inside of the CPSM community— success is very relative because, again, what one person deems success, another person might deem a failure. The people who are having success in their businesses, whatever their goals may be, I feel like so much of it boils down to their frame of mind and how they’re just sort of approaching the journey and whether they are attaching so much weight to every little thing in their business.

I just interviewed on the podcast a couple of weeks ago a teacher who is, this is her first year out of the classroom. She’s totally left teaching.

Sindy Warren: Oh, that was a great episode.

Jayne Havens: She was just so positive and so radiant and really truly took every single experience in her business as a learning experience and as a stepping stone to get to the next place.

She’s been in business for a few years. It didn’t happen overnight. She just has led with so much positivity and joy and just excitement for her work and not attaching her work to the outcome, just like doing the work. And look at what happened for her. She’s rocking and rolling. And so I think so much of it is mindset, you know? Am I going to consider my experience to be a—? Am I doing well or am I failing? You get to decide. There’s no—

Sindy Warren: 100%.

Jayne Havens: Right?

Sindy Warren: 100%. Yes.

Jayne Havens: You’re the one that decides you’re a failure. Nobody else gets to label you as a failure. Only you get to label yourself that way. And success, I think, is the same. You get to label yourself successful. And so you get to decide, am I successful? And if you say yes, then carry on. Keep going.

Sindy Warren: And that will feel more success, by the way.

Jayne Havens: Yeah.

Sindy Warren: But it all comes down to the power of our thoughts and feelings, which you’ve articulated so well. But whether we believe we’re a success or a failure is just a thought.

Your example is two people, six months out, six clients each. One has a very positive thought; one has a very negative thought. The thoughts create the emotions—either excited, joyful, et cetera, or sad and discouraged and depleted maybe. So we have to be very careful about the way we speak to ourselves about our work, what we’re doing, how we’re interpreting things. And I think the whole larger message of not being attached to our results speaks to cultivating a more positive, growth-oriented, journey-focused mindset. That’s what helps us in the long run as business owners.

Jayne Havens: What do you think are some practical ways to distinguish between what is ours to do and what’s truly outside of our control?

Sindy Warren: Yeah, I mean, I actually think we should all get out a piece of paper and make a list. What’s mine to control is literally the effort I am putting out into the world: what am I doing via email, via conversations, via social media, via all these different ways in which we can spread our message and tell people what we do and offer to help them. And then what is literally not in our control: whether a particular individual says yes, whether your ideal client happens to see a post or not. It can be very objective in terms of what’s in your control, what’s not in your control. I think it can just be helpful to remind ourselves to even think of the distinction.

Jayne Havens: Do you think there’s value in measuring success literally by the actions that we’re taking rather than what the actions actually produce?

Sindy Warren: Yeah, I think it’s helpful to measure success in both ways. And if we go back to your discovery call example, even if someone hasn’t yet had a discovery call convert into a paying client, you should know if you’re getting better on discovery calls. And that’s success. There are all these stepping stones. You don’t become Jayne Havens in the airport having this conversation and then converting without a whole lot of practice and beginner and intermediate steps that have happened in between.

Jayne Havens: Is this something that you feel like you’ve gotten a lot better at over time? If you think back to the beginning of your business, was this something that was hard even for you? Is it something that you look at as something that you’ve gotten better at, or is it just that your brain just works differently now? Does that question make sense?

Sindy Warren: It 100% makes sense. I don’t think my brain works differently. I still have the same impulses and emotional reactions, but I’ve gotten better at kind of smoothing the whole thing out.

When I first started business, it’s like I was on cloud nine if a new client signed up for life or business coaching. And if someone didn’t want to work with me, I would be in the depths of despair. It was all very dramatic. And now I still care if I get a yes or a no. But again, I just sort of picture the water on the lake. It’s a little smoother. And so I do think that’s my progress as a business owner, and my progress is just a person trying to grow in my life and in my work.

Jayne Havens: I like the analogy of the calmer waters because I think that in business development, sometimes, especially in the beginning, there are so many incredibly high highs and incredibly low lows. We just feel like we’re out to sea, if we’re going to carry on with that analogy, in these really rough waters that don’t feel like we have much control, right? When it’s really, really high, that feels great. When it’s really, really low, that feels terrible. We’re just on this ride and can’t quite figure out how to calm it all down, right?

Sindy Warren: Yeah.

Jayne Havens: I think that it is with time and experience and just more moments under your belt that it’s not that the high highs and the low lows aren’t there. They just don’t feel as extreme.

Sindy Warren: Exactly.

Jayne Havens: Right? It just all feel a little bit more in the middle. It’s not that those big, exciting moments and those really slow times don’t exist. They still do. It just doesn’t rock you the same way. You just know that when you’re in a slow period, you know that it’s going to pick back up again. Right? I know that. I had such a busy first half of—what month are we in—September. I had such a crazy first half of September. Literally, I have 13 or 14 families on my roster right now, which is almost probably double what I like to be supporting at any given time.

Now my calendar for today is dead. Other than you, I’m not really talking to anybody today. Tomorrow is slow as well. I don’t really have a ton on my calendar for next week. I just am not worried about it because I know that it will pick up again. It’s not that the highs and the lows aren’t there. It’s just that they don’t have the same impact on my psyche that they used to.

Sindy Warren: That’s so well said, and that’s what we’re going for. Again, it’s not to be a flat line to take away the highs or the lows. They’re still part of life and business, but to be a little less, like, capsized by them, I guess.

Jayne Havens: Yeah. What do you hope that someone listening to this conversation takes with them the next time they put something out into the world and maybe don’t immediately get the result they were hoping for? What do you hope that they take away from this?

Sindy Warren: The idea of feeling a sense of pride, gratitude, accomplishment, or success just by knowing you did your thing. You put it out there. You did what was yours to do, and then letting go of the rest, at least for the moment.

Jayne Havens: And then doing it again, right?

Sindy Warren: Doing it again tomorrow. Exactly. This is not one-and-done work.

Jayne Havens: I want to hear a little bit more about your book. I don’t know anything about it. I’m so excited that you’re writing a book, so I want to hear more about that.

Sindy Warren: Thank you.

Jayne Havens: Where can people learn more from you in the meantime, before this book is released?

Sindy Warren: Yeah, so the book is called The Way Back: How to Move Forward When You Don’t Know What’s Next. It’s a very coachy, forward book using an ancient spiritual text called the Bhagavad Gita. It’s kind of like where I’m pulling lessons from. One of them is doing your work without attaching to the results. And then in the book, I’m using coaching stories, like composite clients, and just telling how the principle helps people move forward in life, in business, in relationships. Because life is hard and we all face change and challenge and transition. So the book is really, hopefully, kind of a how-to move ahead in life with a little more skill and equanimity.

Jayne Havens: Love it. And where can people learn from you in the meantime?

Sindy Warren: Yeah, so my website, which is bluetreecoaching.net. I have a Substack account, which is called The Way Back. I am @bluetreecoaching on Instagram. Those are my typical places where I hang out.

Jayne Havens: Thank you so much, Sindy. It’s always a joy to speak with you. I just always feel better after we talk. It’s almost like therapy. It sort of calms me down and brings me back to center. So I really appreciate you jumping onto my calendar to have this chat, and I can’t wait for everybody to hear this conversation.

Sindy Warren: Thank you so much, Jayne.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.

If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode.