This is what scrubbing toilets has taught me about all of this!

Jul 6
4 min read

Sunday CEO Journal: What Cleaning My Own Studio Has Taught Me

PS: I know it's not Sunday, but I am writting it anyways, imperfect and ugly, but committed to consistency!

A few months ago, if you would have told me that one of my biggest lessons as a CEO would come from cleaning toilets, vacuuming floors, and wiping down equipment every Sunday night with my kids… I probably would have laughed. But here we are.

Last year, I learned a lot of hard lessons as a business owner. One of them was learning the difference between cash accounting and accrual accounting (a lesson they definitely don’t teach you when you open a business because you just want to help people 😅).

Because of some mistakes, growth, and learning how to manage the business differently, we had to make some changes — and one of those changes was letting go of our cleaning service. Eventually, I hired someone new. And after multiple conversations, chances, and unsatisfactory cleanings, I had to do something else I had never done before as a leader…

I had to fire someone.

Not because I was angry. Not because I didn’t care about them.

But because I finally understood something: You are allowed to have standards for something you love. And you are allowed to communicate those standards without guilt.

That was a hard lesson for me.

So every Sunday night now, you’ll find me and my kids at StrongSelves deep cleaning the studio.

And honestly? It has become one of my favorite rituals.

Because I don’t walk in thinking: “I have to clean.”

I walk in thinking: “I get to take care of her.”

This studio has held so many women through some of the hardest and most beautiful transformations of their lives.

She has held tears. Breakthroughs. First push-ups. First moments of confidence. Women finding themselves again.

So every Sunday I get to love her back.

I get to slow down enough to notice what she needs. What corners need more attention. What areas have been overlooked. What needs care before it becomes a bigger problem.

And isn’t that exactly what we teach within the program with our own bodies?

For so long, women have been taught that health is about losing.

Lose weight. Lose inches. Lose fat. Lose yourself trying to become some version of “better.” But what if the entire goal was never actually to lose?

What if the goal was to gain?

Gain strength. Gain muscle. Gain trust. Gain confidence. Gain boundaries. Gain consistency. Gain respect for yourself.

That small shift changes everything. Because think about it… When we lose something, what is our first instinct? We try to find it again.

If you lose your keys, your brain immediately goes into panic mode until you get them back.

But when we gain something we value?

Love. Confidence. Strength. Connection.

Our instinct is to protect it.

To keep it.

To care for it.

Maybe this is why so many women spend their whole lives losing the same 20 pounds over and over again. Because deep down, we were never meant to build a life around loss. We were meant to build one around growth. And I know that shift isn’t easy. There is a lag between the moment you plant a new belief and the moment you finally see the evidence of it in your life.

A seed doesn’t break through the soil the second you plant it.

But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening.

The roots are growing first.

So if you are in a season where you are showing up, doing the work, changing your thoughts, building new habits — but you don’t see the “results” yet… Keep watering your seed. Keep caring for it. Keep loving it... and what ever you do, do NOT take it out of soil to compare it to the seed next to you to see if you are growing at an "adequate" pace. You do not set the time the seed will grow, she knows when it's the perfect time to sprout. So trust the process and believe that you are the woman you are planting at the moment and that one day your flower will bloom and be the brightest, most beautiful flower you've ever seen, because you'll finally see yourself fully!

Because the woman you are becoming is already growing underneath the surface.

With patience and pleasure, enjoy the process of discovering who you are capable of becoming.

Not because you lost something.

But because you finally allowed yourself to gain everything you deserved. ❤️

Amanda Matos,

StrongSelves Studio LLC

Janitor, CEO, Coach, Mother, Friend