MSL 112 - How Being a Solopreneur is a Choice
Being a solopreneur is a choice. A choice for freedom to create, do business the way you want versus how a "boss" or "employer" wants you to do it. Freedom to charge what you believe is fair for the value you create. Freedom to work with the right type of client that meshes with your personality, style, and appreciates your talent.
I remember vividly—with all five senses—a conversation I had with my brother years ago about business. I was in a lull in my work, feeling stifled that I wasn't growing my clientele or business the way I thought I was supposed to by hiring employees and focusing on creating a larger creative agency.
Frustrated complaints were flowing from me and when I took a breath, he calmly said, "If it was me, I'd never hire an employee. I'd earn around $100K a year and be happy with that."
My brother had a large business with employees and complexity, following in my family's business "footsteps" of fastener distribution to OEMs throughout the US. He was very successful, but in the midst of his advice, I sensed a yearning for simplicity and his envy of my solopreneurship.
I realized in that moment that where I was in my business was perfect. That what I'd created—almost out of default—was exactly the right fit for me and how I wanted to live my life and earn a living.
Sometimes we need a "course correction" in our thinking to realize we actually have it pretty darn good right where we are. And that was what came to me in that lovely conversation.
I looked at his growth, success, and business experience as my goal. He looked at my one-person consulting business with envy toward a more simple business.
It was what I needed to hear at the time, and it freed me from the self-imposed expectation to create a bigger business that invited complexity into my life which wasn't what I wanted.
I wanted the opposite. Freedom. Simplicity. The ability to make my own choices. To build a business the way I wanted, and I did.
That was nearly two decades ago.
Episode prompt
Regardless of where you are in your work/life right now, you put yourself there for a reason. You have your own path to follow, not anyone else's. The more you are serving YOU the better you can serve others. It's not selfish, it's the healthiest and most loving thing you can do. How do you feel about your choice now? Write about it.
What is it about the business you've created for yourself, or if you're a wannabe solopreneur, the business you're dreaming of creating for yourself that is truly perfect, that fits your personality, fits your skills, and experience fits your passion, fires up that passion? Make a list of the things that are so awesome about your business, how you're running it, or how you wanna run it, about your clients, about the tools you get to use.
