Let’s be honest—most business advice doesn’t account for you. Like, the actual you. The person behind the strategy, the laptop, and the good hair day on Zoom. Most business advice skips over something pretty vital: your capacity to keep showing up without burning your soul to ash.
Sure, people talk about “sustainable business”—but they’re usually talking dollars. I’m talking about a different kind of sustainability: the kind that asks whether you can keep running your business model without losing your spark (or your health, or your sanity).
Every business model runs on fuel. But if the fuel it needs doesn’t match the fuel you naturally produce, you’ll run dry. So let’s take a look at two common models—and what they really cost you.
The Entertainment Model: When Attention Is the Currency
This model runs on a kind of fuel that feels both wildly abundant and maddeningly fickle: attention. If you’re a creator—say, a YouTuber, blogger, podcaster, or newsletter writer—whose income comes primarily from ads, affiliate links, or sponsorships, then attention isn’t just part of your work. It’s the model.
But here’s where it gets interesting: not every version of this model demands the same kind of attention, and not every creator experiences it the same way.
Let’s start with the classic, high-octane version.
In this model, you’re not selling digital products, courses, or services. There’s no nurture path or sales funnel behind the scenes. The attention itself is the product. And the monetization of that attention, through ad revenue, sponsored content, affiliate links, or brand deals, is what keeps the business running.
It can feel incredibly freeing at first. You make something. People watch or read or listen. Dollars follow. There’s a kind of magic in that loop—well, dopamine to be more precise—and it’s addictive. For a while, you ride the wave of performance, visibility, and reward. But sustaining that wave? That’s where things get murky.
The Real-Time Version (aka the Performance Treadmill)
In the fast-paced version of this model, content creation has to be frequent, responsive, and “on.” Think:
- Weekly or multi-weekly uploads to YouTube
- Chasing trending audio on TikTok or Instagram
- Publishing hot takes or time-sensitive commentary
- Maintaining a “presence” so your algorithmic visibility doesn’t drop off
It’s a model optimized for constant output and real-time attention. If you pause, the algorithm forgets you. If you step back, so does your income. There’s no offer quietly working in the background. No product holds the weight while you rest. The only way to keep earning is to keep producing—and not just producing, but performing.
This model can be exciting, purposeful, and creatively fulfilling for creators who feel energized by visibility, enjoy frequent interaction, and bounce back quickly after output.
But for others—especially those of us who need recovery time, who experience energy in waves, or who process deeply—it can quickly become overwhelming, anxiety-inducing, and emotionally depleting.
You’re not just making content. You’re holding up the entire business with your presence. People often think of this when they hear “the creator economy,” and it’s what burns people out.
The Evergreen Version (aka the Slow Attention Model)
But here’s the nuance: not all attention-based models are built this way.
There’s another version that runs on a completely different tempo—one that’s slower, more strategic, and far more sustainable for capacity-conscious creators. This is where blogging (and other evergreen, search-friendly content) lives.
Instead of chasing trends or staying algorithm-relevant, evergreen models focus on:
- Search engine traffic (Google, Pinterest, YouTube)
- Long-tail topics with consistent search demand
- Useful, well-structured content that solves problems
- Posts or episodes that remain relevant over time
You might still be monetizing through ads or affiliate links, but the attention you’re earning isn’t fleeting. It’s discoverable. A blog post you wrote a year ago can bring traffic (and revenue) today. A YouTube tutorial or SEO-friendly podcast episode can generate passive income month after month.
This version turns your content into an asset, not just an expression. You’re building a library, not a performance schedule.
Yes, it still takes work. Yes, consistency still matters. But it’s a different kind of work—quiet, cumulative, and forgiving. If you need to step back, your content doesn’t vanish. It keeps doing its job.
And that’s a crucial distinction.
Both versions of the Entertainment Model monetize attention.
But one runs on short bursts of relevance and relentless presence. The other runs on long-term usefulness and visibility over time.
The sustainability isn’t built into the model itself—it’s built into how you structure it:
- Are you creating evergreen, search-optimized content?
- Are you letting old work carry some of the weight?
- Are you choosing topics with staying power, not just trending appeal?
- Are you building systems that support your output instead of draining it?
Because when you shift from real-time content loops to long-term visibility systems, the whole equation changes. You move from perform to earn to plant and tend. From dopamine hits to quiet dividends.
And for many quiet creatives, that’s the difference between burning out and building something that lasts.
The Deep Work Model: When Transformation Is the Offer
Now let’s shift into a different gear.
This model doesn’t rely on visibility or volume. It’s not about going viral or being top-of-mind every week. It’s about going deep—creating one high-touch, high-trust offer that meets a specific need for a small, intentional group of people.
Think ghostwriting. Think brand strategy intensives. Think book development packages priced at $15K or more. The kind of work where the outcome is tangible, tailored, and carries emotional weight for both parties.
Let’s look at what this looks like with no sales funnel. No back-end upsell waiting in the wings. Rather, there’s just you, your offer, and the quiet power of a strong fit between what you do and who you do it for.
What sustains this model?
- Trust—often earned through referrals, reputation, or long-form visibility over time
- Long-term creative collaboration, sometimes spanning months for a single project
- Capacity to hold space for complexity—other people’s ideas, emotions, and expectations
- A nervous system that can support intensity, without needing it to be constant
The beauty of this model is that you don’t need hundreds of customers. You might only need a handful of the right ones to sustain your income for the year. And if you’re someone who thrives on focus, depth, and fewer, richer relationships, it can feel like a dream.
However, let’s not pretend this model is “easy” just because it’s not flashy. It’s energetically dense. The work is often intimate, immersive, and demanding in ways that aren’t always visible from the outside.
It requires emotional labour. Not in the performative sense, but in the real, soul-holding way—the kind that comes with stewarding someone’s vision, processing their resistance, translating their tangled thoughts into something clear and tangible.
And if you’re not careful, it can eat your energy just as quickly as the content treadmill—especially if you don’t have boundaries, buffers, or time to come back to yourself between clients and projects.
It’s deep, beautiful work. But it’s not neutral. It takes something from you every time. And if you don’t have a way to refill that well, this model can quietly hollow you out.
Is This a Sustainable Model for You?
The Deep Work Model looks calm from the outside. You’re not flooding social media with daily posts. You’re not launching a new offer every quarter. You’re not selling to the masses.
But behind the scenes, this model has its own kind of intensity that’s rooted in relational depth, emotional presence, and creative endurance.
So, how do you know if this model is a sustainable fit?
Let’s break it down.
Attracting Deep Work Clients
Despite the quiet outward appearance, this model still requires visibility. The difference is that your visibility builds slowly and consistently over time. Most clients don’t stumble onto a $10k+ offer and say yes on a whim.
What tends to work:
- Relational marketing (referrals, collaborations, thoughtful outreach)
- Thought leadership that shows how you think and why it matters
- Long-form trust-building content (like essays, podcast episodes, case studies)
- A body of work or track record that speaks for itself
This kind of marketing can feel grounded and authentic. However, it’s not instant. You’re playing a long game. The timeline from first encounter to signed contract might be months or even years.
This is a good fit if you:
- Like to write or speak at length about your process or ideas
- Prefer a smaller audience who really gets what you do
- Are willing to be visible consistently, even if it’s not flashy
- Don’t need fast feedback or instant traction to stay motivated
What the Workload Looks Like
This model doesn’t require daily content creation or a jam-packed calendar, but it does require depth of focus, emotional availability, and solid project management.
You may find yourself:
- Holding multiple complex ideas in your head at once
- Deeply invested in someone else’s creative process
- Managing timelines that stretch over weeks or months
- Alternating between immersion and administrative work
Even with only a few clients per quarter, this model can stretch your capacity, especially if:
- You don’t have clear scope boundaries
- You struggle to stop thinking about client work after hours
- You take on too much emotional labour without recovery time
- You feel guilty protecting your own time or creative energy
This model is low-volume, but it’s not low-effort.
Who Tends to Thrive on This Model
This model can feel incredibly fulfilling when:
- You crave depth and dislike superficial engagements
- You’re energized by one-on-one collaboration
- You naturally build trust through conversation, insight, or consistency
- You’re good at managing complexity (emotionally and logistically)
- You find satisfaction in seeing something all the way through
It’s especially well-suited to people who have:
- A clear container or process that protects their energy
- A way to filter for right-fit clients before committing
- A supportive environment or a spacious schedule to balance immersion
Who Might Struggle
Even if you love this kind of work in theory, it may be unsustainable in practice if:
- You don’t have clear boundaries between work and rest
- You internalize your clients’ urgency or emotional stress
- You struggle to say no, even when a project isn’t aligned
- You rely on real-time energy (rather than pre-planned systems) to deliver
- You’re in a life season where you can’t easily recover from emotional fatigue
And if you’re still building your audience or reputation, this model may feel slow to gain traction. Not because it isn’t viable, but because trust is the currency here, and trust takes time.
The Deep Work Model can create incredible stability for folks who value quality over quantity and who build their business around a strong fit and meaningful results. But it only works when you protect the conditions that make this kind of work possible: emotional spaciousness, time to recover, and systems that help you manage the weight of being someone’s trusted creative partner.
In other words, boundaries are required for this business model, but the rewards are worth it if you’re drawn to this type of work.
The Question Isn’t Just: “Can This Work?”
Most people approaching business model decisions ask: Can this make money?
Fair. Revenue matters.
But I’d argue the more honest, more useful question is:
Can this model keep working for me with the energy, capacity, and values I can consistently bring to the table?
Because here’s the truth: sustainability isn’t just about income. It’s about structure and how a model makes you feel doing the day-to-day work.
You could have a thriving ad-based model and still be burning out quietly behind the scenes.
You could be booked out with premium clients and still feel creatively numb.
This isn’t about which model is better. It’s about what kind of demands each one makes of you—and whether those demands match the fuel you actually have and want to give.
Your Right-Fit Business Model
The pressure to pick the “right” model can be stifling, especially when you’re in transition, recovering from burnout, or just coming off a chapter that asked more of you than it gave back.
So if you’re standing at a crossroads wondering what kind of business to build next, start here:
- What do you need your business to give you, aside from money?
- What are you no longer willing to sacrifice, even for success?
- What rhythms feel good in your body, not just your schedule?
FAQs – Because this post is getting long 😉
Can a business with just one offer really be sustainable?
Yes—but only if that one offer doesn’t demand more energy than you have to give.
What if I need both attention and depth to feel fulfilled?
Then you can design for both. You’re not required to choose one forever.
Do I have to be on social media to make an ad-based model work?
No. Social media isn’t required for having a business. If you can get results for your clients, they won’t care whether you spend your time on social media or not. How you find your clients will need to come from somewhere, but that doesn’t have to be social media. In fact, you might find it easier to connect with your audience elsewhere.
How do I know when to change models?
When the business you built starts feeling like a job you dread, or a life you didn’t choose, that’s usually a clue. Just know that it’s not unusual for small business owners to close up a business to start something new, only to find they are doing the same work in a different way. Usually, the skills are applied in a similar fashion, but the offerings or audience are what change.
Is it okay if my “dream business” no longer feels like the dream?
More than okay. It’s normal. Dreams evolve. And so do we.
What if I don’t know what I want next?
Curiosity will take you farther than certainty ever did. Look into getting to know yourself better, look for clues about what you naturally do (for example, what do you do when you procrastinate?), and start looking for problems that you could solve for people you wouldn’t mind being in conversation (or collaboration) with.
Final Thoughts: You Are Not a Revenue Stream
You are not a productivity machine.
You are not here to scale endlessly or shrink quietly.
You are a whole human being—a tender, brilliant, evolving ecosystem of thoughts, feelings, and needs.
And your business? It can reflect that. It can support that.
So build a model that lets you stay human.