The Freedom Model Method: Build an Online Business in Alignment With Your Life

Are you trying to build an online business that gives you real freedom - or have you accidentally created yourself “a freedom business” that is actually just another job? If your online business strategy still has you feeling stuck, burnt out, or like something just isn't clicking.

You might have noticed a big change… Turn in to hear the full story behind the rebrand of the podcast from The Remote CEO Life to The Freedom Method Podcast, why that change was necessary after six years in business, and the exact freedom business framework I use with every single one of my clients who are building an online business from the ground up.

In today's episode, I am sharing with you my Freedom Model Method - the online business strategy you need to build your online business around your dream freedom life, instead of someone else's version of success. Because if you have quit your 9-5, or you are planning to, so you can build an online business for yourself, the last thing you want is to create yourself another job.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 - Why I rebranded from The Remote CEO Life to The Freedom Method Podcast

04:48 - What the Freedom Model Method is and how to build an online business using this online business strategy

08:58 - Clarity - why building an online business around your lifestyle goals

14:57 - Alignment - create online business alignment, and stop copying other people's online business strategy

20:51 - Aligned action - how to quit your 9-5 thinking and finally move forward

YOU’LL LEARN:

• The real reason so many people who quit their 9-5 end up building another job instead of a freedom business
• Why business alignment and freedom are not buzzwords
• The three-stage Freedom Model Method - clarity, business alignment, and aligned action - and how to use them to build an online business that works for you, not one you work for.

If you are ready to stop copying everyone else's version of success or freedom business blueprint and finally build an online business that gives you time, location, and financial freedom, this episode of The Freedom Method Podcast is your starting point!

Transcript

Sophie Biggerstaff (00:00)
Not many people want to hear this, the only constant in life is change. Change is the only one thing that we can be certain is going to happen throughout our lives. And so many people have problems with accepting change and accepting that things are moving in a different direction or shifting. And usually that is because there is a massive fear of the unknown.

a fear of what does that change bring because you're so used to and so comfortable with something that trying to think about how to change it or what it looks like when it has changed is actually really scary. And that actually keeps so many people stuck. Personally, for me, I've always been a fan of change, not so much when I was younger, but as I've grown, as I've gone on my own personal development journey, as I've been on my own entrepreneurial journey.

I've really realized that change is the only thing that we can be sure of that is going to happen. And we have to get comfortable with change. Now today you might have already noticed that the podcast name has changed. The show notes have changed and our thumbnail has changed from the remote CEO life to the freedom method podcast. And I want to talk to you a little bit why that change has happened

This podcast is an extension of me and I've changed. The things that I talk about have changed. The things that are my values have slightly changed. The things that I want to share with the world has slightly changed. The way that I want to show up has slightly changed. So as you would if you were in a nine to five job, you wouldn't just stay in one job your whole life. You would hope that you would be progressing throughout that job maybe side.

track to different company, maybe make a side move on your team, try and get to the next level, look at like a progression plan as you would in any normal nine to five corporate environment. I've also gone through that evolution in my business and where I see a lot of entrepreneurs making a mistake is not allowing themselves to adopt those changes because they think, I've built something, I can't change it now.

Like I can't go back now because I've just created this thing. I've birthed out this thing, whether that's a podcast, a business, whatever it looks like for you. And then they start getting really fearful and scared of making those changes because they think that what they've created is what they should be doing. And then they get terrified to actually shift it. Now, when I was younger, I also felt this terrified of change as well. But as I've got older and gone on this journey, like I mentioned,

I've definitely adopted to change so much better. And I can really see the signs now of when I've outgrown something and it actually is time to change because we all outgrow things. And unfortunately, the remote CEO life no longer fully resonated with me because I'm not a full-time nomad anymore. When I set that up, I was a full-time digital nomad and working fully remotely, which in theory I still am.

because I don't need to be in a physical location to do my job as an online business coach and a community builder. However, the remote CEO life just doesn't fully resonate with me anymore. But what I was speaking about on the podcast, there are still themes around the topics of conversations I was having, particularly around the word freedom and the concept of freedom, which has actually formed the basis of my entire business model.

that I now share with my clients. So it made sense for me to shift away from thinking of the podcast as this tool to share tips about how to become a remote founder, how to become a remote entrepreneur, and instead share tips about actually how to create freedom. Now, the concept of the podcast is still gonna be based around that freedom. Probably if you've listened to a few episodes, you'll notice...

that I ask most of my guests, what does freedom mean to you? And ultimately, this podcast has always been about one thing. It's about helping you build a freedom first business that works for your life and not one you work for. And I'm doing that through sharing people's inspirational stories, getting them to share their advice with you. And now I want to share more of my advice with you. I feel like I've come to a point where I'm like, why am I not sharing what I know?

So the interviews are still gonna be there. The guests are still gonna be coming on. The concept of freedom is still gonna be discussed and that is gonna be our primary topic now. Even a little bit of digital nomad and remote work life will also be in there as well. But ultimately, I'm gonna be sharing way more of my knowledge with you on how to build a freedom first business. And ultimately, that is growth, that is change that's happening in my business behind the scenes. I've shifted.

away from the first iteration of the podcast, which was talking predominantly to e-commerce business founders shifted towards more online business in general. ultimately every single part of the conversations that I'm having come back to this one thing, which is my freedom model method that I've built from all of the experiences that I have had in entrepreneurship from coming out of the corporate world, starting my e-commerce consultancy.

having no boundaries, burning out completely, moving abroad, burning out again, getting chronically sick and not being able to show up for my business and realizing that my business didn't work for my life anymore and having to rebuild that business in a way that actually allowed me to have freedom. And now that's essentially what I'm going to be teaching. And that is why I've rebranded the podcast from the remote CEO life. Cause we're not just going to be talking about how you can build a business to be anywhere anymore. We're going to be talking about a business.

that actually gives you full freedom, time freedom, location freedom, financial freedom, mental and emotional freedom. Because if you are trying to quit your nine to five or you've already made that leap and you're building an online business, what I do see a lot with my clients and I've made this mistake myself is that sometimes we create ourselves another job instead of creating ourselves a business that is actually going to allow us

to have the freedom goals that we desire. And that is essentially the essence of the freedom model method. So what I want to share with you today is what does that method actually look like and how can you implement that method in your life, in your business to make sure you haven't just created yourself another job and you are creating yourself a business that works for you, not feels like one you are working for.

I posted about this on LinkedIn recently and the reaction was absolutely crazy because so many people resonated with that. think it hit a nerve with quite a lot of people because sometimes we come out of our 95, we start building this thing, we don't really know what we're doing and we just follow what everyone else is doing. We don't really think about like, what do we want out of this business? What do we want to build? How do we want to be living? And is that business model that we've created going to serve that purpose, serve that

goal nine times out of 10 I've seen that it actually doesn't in one way or another. Anybody that's built their business, that 10 % that's built their business to really help them live the best life that they want to live, I commend you because that is a skill and it's something that I've had to learn the real hard way. I've gone through some very difficult times in my business and within my own personal journey as well and I really want to be able to share.

how I have been able to transform that for myself and really find this freedom. You can see here, I'm literally living in a villa in Thailand and I'm in control of my time. I take my mornings off for myself. I start working in the afternoon right now. It is about midday here. And then I work right up until sunset. I take a little sunset break, have dinner with friends and then come back and do a couple of hours in the evening. But I've designed.

my day like that because I've designed it around my freedom model method. And that essentially is in alignment with how I want to work and how I want to live my life and structure my day. So the freedom model method is something that I have created. It's a framework that I use with all my clients, regardless of whether they're working with me one on one, whether they're in one of my courses or my online programs, whether you're reading my free ebook, the freedom founders playbook.

The freedom model method is what runs consistently throughout everything that I share with my paying clients. And today I'm going to share with you the top line overview of what that framework looks like and show you how you could potentially look at how to implement that in your own business or life if you're in your nine to five still, because this is also going to help you figure out what comes next. So the freedom model method has

three stages. Essentially, we are looking at a formula, let's say, of clarity, plus alignment, plus aligned action, equaling freedom. Those three things are what is going to allow you to build a business that truly, truly works for you and doesn't feel like a job that you are working for. What I don't understand is why we're creating ourselves.

jobs when we could have gone and just worked in a nine to five. If we've made the effort to quit our nine to five, to take a leap, to make a change in our lives and start our own thing, don't we want that to feel good? Now, most people skip the clarity piece and they go straight to the strategy because they think, I need to make X amount of money to replace my nine to five income. Now,

There's nothing wrong with going down that route, but it does usually mean that you are building your business from a place of lack and you are building your business from a place of all I need to make X amount of money, in which case, how can I make that the fastest? And again, there's nothing wrong with that, but it might mean that you sacrifice some of the things that you want in your actual day to day life in order to make that money. And long term, that's

probably not gonna be sustainable because yes, money and revenue is a huge, huge part of business, essentially we don't have a business if we're not making money, but without the lifestyle, without like the life being set up in the way that you actually want to live, what's the point? What's the point of making all the money if you are miserable in your day-to-day life? So we start off in the freedom model method by getting really clear.

on what we want that day-to-day life to look like and knowing exactly what your version of freedom looks like, not something just random like, I want to like go and move to Thailand. No, let's get really specific on what do you want your day to look like? How many hours do you want to work? Do you want to work every single day? What kind of clients do you want to work with? What kind of offer do you want to bring into the world? How much money do you want to work? Obviously plays a factor in that.

But it also comes back to how much do you actually need to live? What's the target that you would have that like pushes you over that? And then what would that goal be to like actually feel really, really comfortable and strong? Like not everybody wants to make 50k, 100k months. I meet so many entrepreneurs that have businesses of really humble desires where they're like, I just want to make X amount of money, like let's say 2000 euros a month.

so that I can rent this specific house because it lets me live in this specific location. And then it also makes me feel really comfortable with my grocery shop and my activities that I do. I can go to Pilates twice a week. Great. They don't have huge dreams and desires. Does that make them any less of an entrepreneur? No. But what is amazing for that person is that they are building a business that allows them to achieve that baseline that they want to achieve, which

whatever your financial goals are, but they're doing it thinking about the lifestyle that they want to live. And if you are creating a business around that lifestyle, you're going to have so much more satisfaction around what you're doing. And therefore, because you are feeling so satisfied with the lifestyle that you're living, you're going to have the desire probably to keep going and keep growing. Whereas if you are building a business that doesn't give you...

the lifestyle that you actually want, you're going to struggle. You're going to wake up feeling miserable and you're probably at some point, if it doesn't give you all of the things that you want, that is where people quit. That is one of the most common reasons that people quit because they're overwhelmed, they're stressed, their nervous system is going crazy because they built a business not thinking about their lifestyle. That is also one of the leading causes of burnout because when you are trying to force something to happen,

because you think it's what you should be doing, that is where things get a bit sketchy because you're constantly going to be fighting a losing battle because it's not meant for you. Whereas if you design your business around your energy, your desires, your skills, your passions, and design that based on the fact of how you want to live, it is going to be in flow. It's in flow with how you should be showing up and working. And when we talk about getting clarity,

It's essentially so that you don't end up copying out, copying someone else's version of success and wondering why that doesn't feel right for you. If you're copying someone else's business model, you're going to receive the results that they receive instead of the results that you want to achieve. And there is no one size fits all approach to business. I absolutely hate it when anybody says that online, when anybody says this is the formula to get 50K months. No, it's not.

They're strategies that you can absolutely use. However, it is not going to be the strategy that works for you if you don't agree with half the things on that list. If you're trying to force yourself to show up on Instagram and you hate Instagram and you don't even consume Instagram, but you're trying to force yourself to post twice a day, seven days a week, wow, you're gonna be really frustrated by that. So we sometimes fall into the trap of because there's so much.

information online and it can feel very overwhelming and over consuming, we sometimes feel fall into the trap of, they're doing that. So I must or should do that. Now, if we get the clarity on what we actually want our lives to look like, that is where we start building differently because we can see that that might not be in alignment with the lifestyle that we want to live. And that brings me onto point number two, which is getting into alignment. Now,

If you have been building your business outside of what actually feels good for you for a really long time, this is going to feel like a very foreign concept and a concept that maybe feels super out of reach for you right now because you've gone so far in the other direction. Now, when I talk about alignment, I'm talking about you feeling like you are flowing through business. Things are coming to you easily. Now, don't get me wrong, there will be challenges still that present, but they're challenges that you're going to come out.

from a really calm, neutral, nervous system playing field because you have the capacity to deal with the challenges because 70, 80 % of what you do feels good for you, which means you've got more energy to show up when that 30 % shit hits the fan. So when I'm talking about bringing yourself into alignment, we're gonna look at that clarity piece and say, right, what is it that I want? Now, if I want to build...

a life that allows me to travel the world. I can't set my business up where I'm doing one-on-one face-to-face course sessions with clients. I need to think about how I set that up to allow me to be anywhere, at any time, in any different time zone. So when we're thinking about alignment, you need to look at every single area of your business, your offer, your pricing, your business model, how you work, who you work with. It all needs to go back to that clarity piece.

If even one part of that doesn't align with your vision for your life, it's actually going to feel very difficult for you to take the actions that you need to take to move your business forward. And being in alignment, business alignment isn't just this buzzword or something that is created just for social media. It's actually a real thing that gives you the difference between a business that fully drains you and one that genuinely works and allows you to let you live your life in the way that you want to live.

And as I mentioned before, burnout mostly comes from misalignment and building something that looks great on paper and maybe fits someone else's version of success, but feels really wrong for you to run. So when we're looking at the freedom model method, figuring out what would be in alignment with you and the way that you want to show up is exactly how you should bring your strategies to life. And there is strategy within this alignment piece. This isn't just some airy fairy advice.

This is actually very grounded and practical advice because we're going to build the strategies in alignment with what you want to do. That's not saying don't have a marketing strategy. It's about finding the marketing strategy that you love to execute. So just to give you an example, I don't like Instagram. Like Instagram is not my thing. I don't really consume Instagram other than stories.

Because I'm not a very visual person. I don't like creating carousel content. I don't really like creating videos. Can I do it? Yeah, sure. Does it feel like I am literally butting my head against the wall when I am doing it? Yeah, absolutely. So going back to what I said at the beginning around why are we building businesses that don't feel good for us to run, me showing up on Instagram for ages was like, I felt like, you know, when someone like,

pulls the nails down a chalkboard, like every time I was doing it, was like, I'm so uncomfortable. Like this isn't what I want to do. And that is not from me lack of trying. I mainly marketed on Instagram, my business for the first four years. I've now been in business for six years. And that was me really going all in trying. And I definitely got clients from Instagram. It's not that it didn't work, but it didn't feel good for me.

Now, when I sat down at the beginning of 2025 and when I was pivoting my business from the e-commerce consultancy into coaching and helping freedom first online business founders, I realized that one of my greatest strengths and one of the platforms that's consistently worked for me over the whole time that I've been running online businesses is LinkedIn. And the reason LinkedIn is working so well for me is because I'm a natural writer. I'm good at writing.

It makes me happy to write. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to spend six hours brainstorming ideas for reels. I can literally sit down at my laptop and start writing away and then have a couple of posts smashed out in about an hour, two hours. That's me sorted for the week. I don't even think about it once I've written those content. When I was creating for Instagram all week, I'd be like, oh, how did this post perform? How did this do? Should I have changed this?

I would overthink it because it's not my strength. It wasn't my skill. I was forcing myself to do it because I thought everybody else is doing this, so I should too. And that is not the way to build a business in alignment. Now that I run my business predominantly the marketing through LinkedIn, that is my primary channel. And then yeah, sometimes I repurpose my LinkedIn content to Instagram, to whatever else platforms, but...

It's not whatever I'm creating for. I'm not creating for Instagram anymore. I'm creating to my natural strength, my natural ability. And the results speak for themselves. Like I have doubled my LinkedIn following in the past six months. I'm now nearly on 10,000 followers back in, I think it was June, 2025. I had four and a half thousand followers. So really like me focusing and going all in on that LinkedIn strategy has allowed me to double my follower count in just six months.

and I'm growing every single day. I can see the results are directly translating because it's something that I enjoy and I'm really good at doing. So when we talk about bringing your business into alignment, that's what I'm talking about. It is building with your natural strengths, the energy that you've got to show up and how you actually enjoy consuming and creating content.

The final stage of the Freedom Model Method is to take aligned actions. So we already know what we're aiming for with our clarity piece. We already know what actions are going to be in alignment or the strategies that are going to be in alignment with us. You actually still have to take the actions in alignment. And sometimes this can be the hardest piece because we think still that we should be doing something else. So even if we know that Instagram is not our marketing platform and that we should be showing up on LinkedIn instead,

Sometimes it's a whole process and we'll continue to just keep trying and keep going because that's what we think we should be doing. We've been conditioned, but actually we want to start taking action that does fit in alignment with us and not just like do things for the sake of doing things. Yes, in some case we want to try new things because how do we know if we don't try? But actually we want our actions to be really intentional and when we take intentional actions that are aligned that allows us

for our business to become a long-term plan, a long-term strategy, something that is going to see you through for years and years to come. And that's not to say things won't change in those years and years to come. They will, but it's gonna be easier because you've already built from a place of alignment and it is gonna be way more sustainable for you to carry quite a lot of the strategies and things that you're putting in place now for a lot longer time because you can see the results that they're giving you.

and allowing you to live the freedom first life that you wanted to build for yourself. essentially, clarity plus alignment plus aligned action is what is going to give you freedom. And this is how you build an online business that actually moves you forward towards your freedom focused goals. And it is not about doing more or working harder or even worse. It's all about working smarter by doing the right things that

work for you and flow for you in a logical order. So the freedom model method is essentially what I'm going to delve into in more depth, in more detail, in more specific episodes over the course of this podcast, over the next episodes that you're going to hear. And it's going to be a mix of solo episodes. And then it's also going to be a mix still of the guest in.

interviews because I really strongly believe in we need expansion in order for us to be able to take action on the things that we want to be able to see as possible for us. So those guest episodes are going to be really expansive for you. You're to be able to see other people that are similar to you, have similar values, sharing their stories and then I will teach some more of the strategy.

Because at end of the day, people think that freedom is this fantasy buzzword and it's not freedom. It can be created through having the right method and the right structure in place.

This is the Freedom Method podcast. And if you want help implementing the Freedom Model Method in your business right now, there are multiple ways you can work with me, depending on what stage you're at in your journey. If you are still in your nine to five and you want to explore what options you actually have and how you can make that transition out of the nine to five into entrepreneurship in a really aligned and straightforward way where you feel really safe and secure financially whilst you make that transition.

My Freedom Founder Playbook is going to be perfect for you because it literally shares and documents my entire journey and how you can implement the Freedom Model Method in your transition. If you've maybe already left your 9-5, you're planning to leave your 9-5 or build an online business alongside your 9-5, but you're not really sure which online business is going to allow you to create the freedom that you want and deserve, you can take my Freedom Seekers quiz and I will give you the results of...

based around the goals that you've put in and your strengths and your passions to make sure that you are building a business in alignment with the lifestyle that you actually want. And if you already have a business and you are thinking, my God, it is totally out of alignment right now, you can get in touch with me and we can do a either one off one to one session to recreate your strategy. Or I also offer a 30 day strategy recalibration for people that are in that.

You know, they've built the business. They're scared to change what they've already built, but they know something needs to change in order for to actually live the freedom life that they set out to get when they first started their business. So you can get in touch with me about any of those services that I offer. All of the links are in the show notes. And I want to thank you for listening to the very first episode of the Freedom Method podcast.

I'll be back very soon. If you love this podcast and you want to hear more freedom focus tips, please make sure you like and subscribe and I will catch you in the next one.