Welcome to another edition of the Business Insights Series. Here, we listen to people building businesses in ways that reflect their values, constraints, and lived experience, often without fanfare.
This series focuses on real decision-makers navigating day-to-day trade-offs, uncertainty, and ambition in motion, people whose strategies are shaped by constraints, real feedback, and lived experience. This is the second interview with Henal Chotai, a UK-based coach and entrepreneur who previously ran a family-owned café.
Our first piece, titled “Where empathy shapes the business plan“ looked at Henal’s journey through hospitality, emotional intelligence, and steady leadership in times of change. It focused on how he built trust, community, and meaningful experiences by staying grounded in his values.
In this follow-up, we look closer at what keeps him going now. How does he keep building after the café? How does he stay motivated without burning out? How does he measure progress when the road is unclear?
Creating motion with minimal goals
Henal structures his work around small, achievable actions that help him stay in motion. This is part of a larger mindset that values movement over magnitude. One of the examples he gave was his daily walk:
“My minimum is five laps. I end up doing eight, nine, ten laps. But the bare minimum is five.”
This might seem like a personal habit, but it’s a principle he applies to his business mindset. Setting a minimum standard gives him an early sense of completion and control. That small commitment removes the mental friction of starting. And once he starts, he often ends up doing more than planned.
“If I can keep my baseline to the minimal while still trying to achieve more… that motivation comes from the small steps.”
Henal’s intuition is backed by research on motivation. Even tiny victories can create outsized momentum. As one Fast Company article put it, “Small wins matter big… They signal to our brain that progress is happening and big results are just around the corner.” In other words, that five-lap routine is a spark that makes you want to do lap six, seven, and beyond.
Business owners often deal with challenges that don’t offer quick fixes. Things like cash flow strain, retention issues, or inefficient systems don’t always respond to inspirational goal-setting. In those moments, a bold target might feel out of reach, while a stable foothold, something clear, doable, and suited to the moment, can offer a more reliable place to begin.
Henal uses structured habits and practical benchmarks to guide his decisions. He’s not driven by urgency or scale for its own sake. His idea of sustainability involves boundaries, a manageable rhythm, and keeping things aligned with real capacity. In this space, ambition takes a practical shape. It reflects the day’s energy, the available resources, and the progress that fits within those limits.
Client-based businesses often operate within shifting demands and unpredictable timelines. In those conditions, developing a structure that can flex with the flow of work, without creating burnout, is a valuable asset.
A steady flow works best when supported by a system that absorbs variation and adjusts to changing conditions without losing momentum. Working with this pattern allows progress to build gradually. A structure that holds under pressure helps movement continue even when the path ahead isn’t fully visible.
Why action leads and motivation follows
Some entrepreneurs delay action until they feel more confident or until circumstances seem ideal. Henal works from a different cadence, where doing comes first, and understanding often follows from there.
“Motivation comes once you start doing action. Confidence comes once you start doing action. It’s not the confidence that you need beforehand to do it.”
Psychologists have observed the same pattern: motivation often follows action, not the other way around. If you always sit idle until you “feel ready,” you might never begin. As one psychologist wrote, “if you’re always waiting for motivation to hit, you may be waiting your whole life… because committed action comes first and motivation comes second.” In plain terms, confidence builds after you start moving, not before.
Rather than plan out the full shape of a project, he picks a small place to begin. When writing his first e-book, he didn’t worry about the structure or final draft. He wrote one page. Then another. Eventually, it became a finished piece.
At the same time, he was exploring what worked on social media. One post didn’t get much engagement, so he examined the timing, rewrote it with more emotional connection, and posted again. That second attempt resulted in more than 500 likes and five new coaching bookings overnight.
What Henal demonstrates is the value of short feedback loops. By acting early and adjusting often, business owners can avoid the trap of overthinking and under-delivering. His philosophy prioritises testing in real time over pressure to deliver perfect results. He treats each action as an opportunity to learn, rather than a measure of performance.
“Sometimes things are not working. It could be that next one that you do, which is the one that will push you forward.”
Waiting for the right conditions can delay learning. By moving forward with what’s available now, entrepreneurs get actual responses from their audience. That response becomes the material to build on. This approach is a habit of experimentation grounded in small, consistent trials. A way to stay in motion, even when outcomes are uncertain.
Failing as a learning pattern
Henal talks openly about failure and how he reframes it in daily practice. On the wall behind his desk is a note that simply says “FAIL,” which he defines as:
“Further Attempt In Learning.”
That small reframing is doing serious work. For Henal, failure can act as a starting point for reflection and learning, especially when a result doesn’t go as expected. When a new offer doesn’t gain traction or a post falls flat, he doesn’t label it a dead end. Instead, he treats those moments as signals worth investigating.
“If you know that if I do fail, what did I learn from it? What can I do better for next time?”
This mindset supports consistent action. It also protects emotional energy. When mistakes are treated as opportunities to refine rather than reasons to retreat, it becomes easier to keep showing up. That approach reduces the sting of uncertainty, especially in digital spaces where feedback is instant and often public.
Henal’s viral LinkedIn post, one that brought in over 500 likes and multiple new coaching clients, followed an earlier post that didn’t resonate as strongly. Rather than viewing it as a failure, he adjusted the message and tone, then tried again.
The difference wasn’t drastic. But he adjusted the message, shifted the tone. That willingness to experiment without overcommitting to an outcome is part of what keeps his ideas moving.
For entrepreneurs, this creates a framework for progress that doesn’t require perfect timing or approval. It just needs reflection, response, and one more attempt.
When small goals create real change
When people are overloaded, they often drift into distraction, scrolling, watching, avoiding the pile-up of decisions that quietly generate stress. What often looks like inaction can come from scattered attention and unclear direction. In these moments, complexity can crowd out focus, making decisions feel heavier than they are, and delaying any forward motion.
Rather than encouraging big changes or dramatic declarations, Henal works with people to uncover what already exists in their routine that can be slightly redirected. It might be a habit, a goal they’ve shelved, or even a feeling they haven’t yet put into words. His role, as he sees it, is to help them reconnect those threads, without adding pressure.
“They might not come back to me tomorrow, next week, next month. But in three months’ time, when they’re facing something… they might remember that one thing I said that helped.”
This idea of quiet contribution sits at the core of how he sees his work. And it raises an important point for service providers: impact doesn’t always show up when you expect it. The most helpful interaction might not be the one that lands a sale, but the one that changes a thought process. And that shift often happens days or weeks later.
Henal’s method values delayed results because he’s built trust into his process. He listens without rushing, responds without an agenda, and gives people something useful to carry forward. This work builds depth through presence, timing, and care, rather than aiming for visibility.
A mindset built to last
Henal’s current work in coaching continues the mindset he developed in hospitality, one rooted in steadiness, attention, and practical follow-through. His shift from running a café to offering coaching sessions hasn’t changed the way he sees people or progress. He still values the small interactions that build trust. He still shows up without theatrics, and he still prefers doing over declaring.
Rather than chasing milestones that sound impressive, he focuses on actions that actually support his values and the people he serves. When something works, he repeats it. When something doesn’t, he adjusts and moves on. That rhythm of consistent testing, paired with emotional awareness, creates a working environment that’s both flexible and grounded.
There are no formulas or performance scripts in his process. He relies on curiosity and consistency. Some steps spark insight. Some reveal new problems to solve. And each one builds on the last, even if the results take time to show.
For anyone building something slowly, whether it’s a new service, a shift in direction, or simply a way of working that feels more aligned, Henal’s approach offers reassurance. Starting small keeps things grounded. It encourages presence, honesty, and the willingness to act even when the path ahead isn’t fully clear.
If your momentum has stalled or the path feels uncertain, try finding one small step that feels doable and take it. That single move can often be enough to start a useful shift.
Want to explore what your version of small, steady progress could look like? Book a Discovery Call and let’s talk about how clarity, action, and trust can support your next step.
About the Author
Vlad writes about automation, operations, and the little tweaks that make a big difference in how businesses run. A former game designer turned founder, he now helps teams fix broken workflows and spot the revenue leaks hiding in plain sight.
About Serenichron
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