If you’ve ever caught yourself asking, “Am I working to live, or living to work?” you’ll feel right at home in this conversation with systems strategist Melissa Rich of Virtually Done Systems. Melissa’s story is a tender, honest look at what it takes to design a flexible business as a creative entrepreneur—one that actually supports a life you love.

A Shift from Hustle to Human

When Melissa started her entrepreneurial journey, she did what so many of us do: she built a career on hustle and high standards. After 17 years as a full-time wedding photographer, she realized she loved the behind-the-scenes far more than the shoot days themselves. The quiet satisfaction of order, clarity, and flow lit her up. Systems felt like home.

Life, of course, was reshaping her perspective at the same time. In the span of a year and a half, she lost both grandparents and her father-in-law. Grief has a way of cutting through noise; it made her ask different questions. What is all this work for? What matters on a random Monday? She began to articulate a new dream: “I really want to work to live—to support the life that I have and that I love.”

What a Flexible Business as a Creative Entrepreneur Looks Like

For Melissa, “life” looks like small, sacred things. It looks like packing up the corgis and her husband for a month in Colorado when the air feels easier to breathe. It looks like taking a Monday morning to eat breakfast with her dad. It looks like being the aunt who can say yes—yes to a preschool sleepover, yes to school drop-off, yes to being there.

Her youngest niece was born blind and attended programs ten minutes from Melissa’s home. Without fanfare, Melissa reworked her client days around pickup times and therapy appointments. The schedule flexed because the priority was clear. That quiet courage—to bend a business around what matters—asked something new of her work.

Breaking Free from Perfectionism

As a wedding photographer, the weekends disappeared first. Then came the endless editing, the lure of perfect tones and vanishing outlets in the background. As a systems pro, perfectionism simply disguised itself in different clothes: a funnel that could always be smoother, a client journey that could always be more “on brand,” an email that could be rewritten one more time.

She laughs about it now, the way she and her coach had the same conversation across careers: “Done is better than perfect. Progress is better than perfection—otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done.” Still true. Still hard.

Building Flexibility Through VIP Weeks

The choice to build a flexible business as a creative entrepreneur also meant rethinking how she delivered her work. Traditional multi-month projects weren’t honoring her value of timely results or her clients’ real needs. She kept bumping into the same friction: when projects stretch, everyone loses trust in the timeline—especially a results-driven brain.

So Melissa experimented, then committed, to VIP Weeks. In one focused container, she could meet with a client, map the journey, build the core systems, test the handoffs, and turn the whole thing on. That structure didn’t just help clients; it protected her energy and created the kind of flexibility that lets you work mornings and wander Disney solo in the afternoon while your spouse is in a conference room down the street. It made space for Colorado. It made space for real life.

The Mindset Tools That Keep Her Grounded

Of course, there’s a human under every strategy. Melissa talks openly about imposter syndrome and the mind’s favorite tricks. There’s the version of her that wants to run a million miles an hour and the one that knows results arrive one day at a time.

She keeps a list in her planner—things that make her feel human. Walks with the dogs. Time with her nieces. Fresh hair, a little movement, a little sun. She tapes spicy little notes on her desk, the kind that nudge and hug at the same time: You can and you f-ing will. And the one I loved most: Be f-ing nice to yourself. It’s funny how often the most effective systems start with something that simple.

What She’d Do Differently

When I asked what she’d do differently, the answer came quickly: “I wouldn’t have pretended to be somebody else to make other people happy.” In her early systems work, she said yes to everything—every platform, every request, every “could you also…?” The stress, the fear, the tears.

Now she trusts her lane. She knows her genius and her joy. She honors them. And in that honesty, she’s easier to love—by her clients and by herself.

Proof in the Hardest Moments

There’s a story she shared that I keep replaying. Years ago, she and her husband reached a day where the numbers were brutal: taxes due, money gone, the math not mathing. They spent their last thirty dollars on margaritas and tacos (as one should), came home, and found three client payments waiting.

“It’s going to be okay,” they realized. That moment didn’t fix everything. But it became proof. Proof that starting from scratch is hard—and survivable. Proof that you can learn to slow down to speed up. Proof that the road opens when you stay kind and keep going.

Pride in Doing the Thing

When I asked what she’s most proud of, she didn’t talk about revenue or followers or the frictionless onboarding sequence (though I’m sure it’s a dream). She said she’s proud that she did the thing. Proud she didn’t turn back. Proud that she stopped chasing a script that wasn’t hers and started listening for a life that was.

“I’m still building it,” she said. “It’s not done. It’s not perfect. I’m not making the money I wish I were—yet. But I’m doing the damn thing.”

That’s the heartbeat of a flexible business as a creative entrepreneur: not the absence of ambition, but the presence of courage. The courage to let your operations serve your values. The courage to let your business make room for breakfast with your dad. The courage to pick up the corgis and go.

The Takeaway

If you see yourself in Melissa’s story, sit with this: Your work can be built around your life. Not perfectly. Not instantly. But truly. You can choose containers that protect your energy. You can ask your systems to carry more of the load. You can be relentlessly kind to yourself and still be excellent. And you can measure success in Mondays with your dad as much as you do in dashboards.

Melissa is still walking this out—building her team slowly, holding the strategy while letting others take the build, letting her business widen to fit the shape of her days. It’s humble and hopeful and deeply practical in the way that real, lived stories are. And it’s the kind of story I want more of us to tell.

Connect with Melissa: Website – Virtually Done Systems – Instagram @virtuallydonesystems

Want support building a flexible business as a creative entrepreneur? Work with me! I help creative and neurodivergent business owners build flexible, life-giving businesses that work with their brains, their energy, & their REAL life. I offer a Membership Program, 1:1 Coaching, and a Free Toolkit!