06. You Can Build A Business That Feels Good

Burnout doesn’t always show up as a dramatic crash. 

Sometimes it’s quieter: a beautiful life, a growing business, a “dream” location, and a constant feeling of rushing, heaviness, and never being done. 

That’s exactly where productivity mentor Anne Rajoo found herself, and it’s what led her to create Peaceful Productivity, a grounded approach to getting results without overworking yourself into the ground. 

We talk through Anne’s journey from Germany to London to Mauritius, from a tourism career to rebuilding after COVID, and how motherhood intensified the pressure to do everything alone. 

Along the way, we explore the identity questions so many moms and entrepreneurs carry: Who am I now? What do I actually want? Why does success feel so exhausting? 

Anne shares why typical productivity advice often fails high performers and caregivers, and how a calmer, more sustainable framework can change the way you work. 

If you’re craving work life balance, sustainable productivity, and a definition of success that actually feels good, this conversation gives you language and tools to start. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s carrying too much, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. 

What part of PEACE do you need most right now?

Learn more about Anne and her work: https://www.annerajoo.com/

You can learn more about my work here: https://remotheringmamas.com/

Let's connect on IG: https://www.instagram.com/remotheringmamas

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to the podcast. Today we have our guest, Anne Rajou, is a productivity mentor and founder of peaceful productivity. She helps women, entrepreneurs, and teams stop overworking and start working well with a peace framework built around energy, sustainability, and doing less better. German-born and Mauritius-based, she brings a grounded, no hype approach to a space that's usually full of it. An thank you for being here. Can you tell us more about your journey and your background?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Thank you so much for having

Welcome And Meet Anne Raju<br>

SPEAKER_01 0:43

me, Sarah. I'm so excited. So, yeah, my background. Yeah, so Germanborn left Germany as soon as I could because I never felt really the German roots or the German vibes. Uh, lived in London for 10 years and met my island husband there. And then um, after our firstborn, we moved to Mauritius. And um, I was working in tourism. That was my dream job, you know, traveling the world, got to an island. That is, you know, that goal accomplished. But yeah, that career ended um because of COVID. And um COVID didn't, yeah, took my job away basically, and I had to flight something else and ended up becoming a virtual assistant, build a small boutique agency um over the years. But the true passion was really, you know, in something else. And productivity turned out to be the passion, which is funny because we we just recorded um on my podcast, uh, me and you, and we're talking about the whole journey that I had to go through because I would be that overworking type A, vermine efficiency, you know, in the DNA. What can I do? But yeah, several burnouts and came to the point of like, oh, this beautiful island life looks amazing, felt really difficult

From Burnout To Peaceful Productivity<br>

SPEAKER_01 2:03

and really hard, and um, yeah, not aligned or happy as I would have imagined it. And so I came to the conclusion that there must be something else than typical productivity, and created what I now call peaceful productivity because I just didn't feel peaceful at all in my work, was always rushing, always, you know, the next thing, always better, more, faster, and that sort of thing. But it's the peace that helps me to stay grounded these days. And and that's what I love talking about. And I'm passionate. I talk about it for hours.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Ah, I love this so much. And I actually took a look at your peace framework, and I think it's so powerful. Can you dive a little bit deeper into that framework and walk us through what it consists of and what it looks like when you work with your clients?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah, absolutely. So peace, really the word peace, and it starts with the key for prioritize with purpose. So it's quite like it's a bit cheeky because it's got two keywords in there. So priorities and purpose. But I think if we don't prioritize the right things, we end up in this weird place in life where we look up after 10 years, five years, 15 years, and we're like, how did I even end up here? That is not really the life that I had imagined because we live in this fast-based world. And if we don't really pay much attention, we just go with the flow and we end up somewhere. We have no clue. So priorities is one. We've got to prioritize the things that really matter to us. And

The PEACE Framework Explained<br>

SPEAKER_01 3:35

there always needs to be a little bit of purpose in what we do because eventually, what's the purpose of life? What are the goals and why do we have these goals? And all these like deeper questions, they really help us to stay productive. So prioritize with purpose for the P. Then Ease energy management. So I don't talk a lot about time management. I think a lot of people are actually quite good in time management. I mean, we we taught time management so early, school, you've got to be there on time, you have an hour for a test. Study that. Like we we know how to manage our time. And especially as moms, we tend to be amazing at managing our time and other people's time. But energy is a different question because that's something that we get taught. And we spoke about it again on my podcast about the energy piece, which is just so critical if we don't have energy. It's not good for anybody, it's not good for our children, not good for ourselves, and not good for the work that we're trying to do. And then the A is allow rest. When I say allow because that's one of the biggest learnings I had to do. I really struggled with resting. Rest for me meant I was lazy. Rest meant for me that I'm not actually creating any value, and I took that as my my own worth. And so I had to learn that rest is productive, and I had to really allow that for me to happen, to receive the rest, to enjoy rest. That was a big uh part for me to actually really just give myself permission to need rest and to celebrate rest. And then C is compassion, because again, I'm I'm somebody who's like very, very strong, you know, like needs to be really good at things, and then type A, and I would beat myself up. And the the women I work with are very similar to me. Obviously, we always call in the people who are very aligned with us, and so we need some compassion here. Like, okay, not every day is the same, we're doing great. Um, yeah, we we don't need to constantly produce to actually be valuable in this society. And then the E, the second E is enjoy the journey because it is a journey. I haven't figured it out. It I'm still learning. That's why I love being on podcasts to speak to other people, because we always learn something. And what works for me doesn't work for other people. We spoke again about seasons. What works right now might not work in a year, in a month, in six months time. And so it's always evolving, but we've got to somehow enjoy the journey. So that also includes celebrating little wins, small, tiny little wins. We've got to celebrate those. Um, and that's peace framework. And that's what I work through with clients to really just dive into different angles and see maybe where there is some work that can be done to lift things up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah, I love this. When I read it, I was like, it's so in alignment with the work that I've done, the harsh inner critic and having that self-compassion, actually allowing the rest and how there's different types of rest. So much of the time we can think, oh, I'm just gonna scroll on my phone. Well, how do you have mental rest? How do you have emotional rest? How do you have social rest and really allowing it to replenish your energy, right? You talked about energy management and allowing that energy to come through. So I really love that. Can you share with us your journey in motherhood and some of these deeper learnings that you had, especially in becoming a mom and owning a business and all that goes along with that?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yeah, definitely. I mean, motherhood really was one of the big catalysts of like something needs to change. I think until becoming a mom, being that um type A person, you know, working hard, thriving, it worked quite okay. It never really seemed to be a problem. But in motherhood, I was obviously trying to do the same. Um, I definitely had this weird experience of really wanting and needing to do everything myself. I remember early motherhood days of like not even wanting my husband near the baby. It was my baby, and I needed to feed, I needed to bath, I needed to change clothes, I needed to be awake at night.

Motherhood As The Breaking Point<br>

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Um, it was really this like deep sense of that's my role. And obviously, I loved it as well. I mean, having this baby was just so beautiful. But um, it it really came to the point where I had shut my husband alone. And it really came to the point where I was so exhausted that I needed help, but I didn't dare to ask for it because again, like, but I wanted this. This is who I'm supposed to be. A mother who is, you know, like fully dedicated and and and all of that, like all these stories I had in my mind. Um, and then yeah, obviously that faded out a little bit. Husband gets involved, does the things he does. Um, but then baby grows up a little bit. I go back to work, we move over to Mauritius, and um, we would put the little guy into daycare, and life just keeps going on like that, you know, nine to five work, pick up the child, be with the child in the evening. We can fully motherhood family mode. And along the way, I just really felt lost in the sense of like, who is Anne? You know, Anne used to be a runner. I completely stopped any exercise after having a child because I just didn't have the time managing the child and the work at the same time. Um, before a child, I wanted to have a big career. So I was still trying to work towards that, but I didn't feel aligned anymore. It also just didn't really happen in the way of like, you know, I just didn't have the time to stay longer in the office, to show up at evening functions and do all these extra things that sort of felt like I needed to do to climb the career ladder. So that didn't quite work. Husband and I got really sort of like estranged because there was the baby or the little guy by then who just needed all this attention. And so it kept going on for years in terms of like what are we doing here? Like, I'm you know, in the limbo of like just going with the years, and you look up and you're like, Where am I? What happened? This is you know, supposedly the life is is is is in paradise and it just didn't feel great. Um, and then I had a second child and COVID came. I like I like since I had lost my job, needed to start a business, let these two little people in the house lock down, tried to build an online business, and yeah, I was just constantly working crazy hours. My my a lot of my clients were from America, and and the same difference is really not easy to manage. And at the same time, it felt really good to have the work as this identity part of like, okay, yes, I'm a mom, I've got these two little kids, but I have my work and I'm an entrepreneur and I'm building something for myself, and I'm building something that will give me flexibility, but at the same time, it did give me no flexibility at all because it was literally just kids work, kids work, kids work, and and that's it. And and yeah, and that's really I think it was really hard to come to this realization of like, oh, I like a lot of this I'm actually taking on by myself, like just really because I'm I think I can. And I needed to start questioning questioning if I actually want it, and that then opened this can of worms of like, what do I actually want from life and who do I want to be? And all these questions that I've never asked myself that really came through motherhood of like putting the piece, the puzzle pieces together of the person that I'm still becoming, I think. So yeah, I think I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, I love it because motherhood brings on right this new role, these new responsibilities. And it's this evolution of ourselves, right? And like you said, who you're becoming, what do you want your life to look like? And like we talked about, the first P in peace is prioritizing your purpose, right? Really having that clear vision on what matters to you and what do you want to prioritize to drastically change your life? So uh, I love this. If you could share words of wisdom with a mom who's in the trenches, owning her business, doesn't feel like she knows up from down, what words of wisdom would you share with her to help her take that next step?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, I think I think at the end of the day, it is the slowing down really makes a big difference of actually just giving it a little bit of time to to think and to tune in. You spoke about it on my podcast about how does it feel in the body, how does it feel in the mind? Is

Slowing Down And Asking For Help<br>

SPEAKER_01 12:57

this life really what you want, or what what what is happening here? What doesn't feel good? And then to to dive into and you spoke about it as well, to ask for help as well. We don't have to do everything uh on our own and and and to also probably strip back. I mean, in these, like what is it now, six, seven years that I've had my business. I had at least three major pivots. I did at least uh four or five overhauls of sort of everything, all the processes, all the tools and systems. I'm a bit of a system ski, but you know, like just at the end of the day, I removed so many things in terms of like all these expectations, how I thought maybe I should be running my business, or what you see on the internet, of like what a successful entrepreneur does, or how your career is supposed to look, and to just really try to strip it down to something that feels good, that brings joy, that you know potentially works with the zone of genius, so that you really it would just enjoy the work that you do. And with that, it just becomes a lot lighter. And then, yeah, we had this conversation on the podcast asking for help and bringing in the community and not trying to push through everything by yourself. So I think that would be slowing down to really tune in what it is that you desire and what you want and how you can build it and not be afraid of pivots, restructuring, redoing things, but really trying to do it from this place of the purpose and the intention rather than just constantly 500 miles per hour speed just so that you somehow end up somewhere that looks like success, because that's often not really where you actually want to end up, I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

So yeah, really right, clarifying what success feels like for you and aligning to that. I actually thought of this book series, and I Dan, I can't think of the author, I'm pretty sure his first name is Dan right now, but a couple pieces, right? And these are written by men, they're concepts by men, but I think it applies so much to what we're talking about. It's like in order to 10x your business goals or 10x your life, you have to simplify. And like you said, you have to focus on your zone of genius and what feels good. And when getting support, when you want to grow, when you want to have right more outputs, it's the who, not the how. Instead of trying to figure out how to do something and all right, the nitty-gritty details, find the who. You find the person who's an expert in it. And if you have to

Simplify Growth With The Right Support<br>

SPEAKER_00 15:43

pivot or revamp something, how can they help you set up those systems, set up those processes? Because it really is about the sustainability and longevity of what you put into place to what feels like success.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Absolutely. Yeah, I can't agree more to that.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Thank you. Where can everybody find you? Um, the links will be in the show notes. But if you can share with our listeners, yeah, where they can find you and learn more about your work.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, so the podcast would be the best place because if you're listening to this podcast, you like podcasts, and mine is called the Productivity Sweet Spot. And it's available on most of the major platforms. Then I have a website that's anraju.com. And on social media, I'm most active on LinkedIn, and there you find me as well as Anne Raju. And um, I have a couple of different newsletters there. One is very focused on teams and work structure and design, and one is very focused

Where To Find Anne And Closing

SPEAKER_01 16:43

on the individual peaceful productivity aspect. So that's places where I hang out.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.