The machine or the life.

Some mornings I wake up and think, what the hell did I just do?

A few weeks ago, my friend Patrick and I jumped on our quarterly Google Meet. We weren’t supposed to talk for another month, but he asked if we could move it up because something in his business was breaking.

I’ve known Patrick since he left his tech sales job in Atlanta back in 2017, at 31 years old, to build something most people would envy. He runs an agency that creates content strategy and writes and manages it for C-suite executives at Fortune 1000 companies. The business has solid recurring revenue and a team of 21 employees. I always enjoy catching up with Patrick because he’s a straight-shooter who tells me exactly what’s on his mind.

On this recent call, he told me his business is falling apart. Most of his competitive advantage has been gutted by AI, and clients who were previously paying $5,000 a month for content are choosing to do it themselves with AI tools or outsource the work to someone cheaper with those same tools. Lead generation is drying up, so he’s letting some of his team go.

At some point, a question popped into my head based on how I run my own business, that seemed to be worth asking:

“If you stripped this all back and ran it lean, just you and maybe one other person like you used to, would the business be better? Would you enjoy it more?”

He gave that some thought.

“To be honest, man, I don’t even like the work. I’m not sure I ever did. I just liked that this machine was working.”

We kept talking about strategy and what he might do to salvage the situation. And by the end of the call, he had Version One of a new plan. A leaner, different model with slightly adjusted positioning, and a bit of going back to the basics.

But after we hung up, it dawned on me that we’d spent the whole hour trying to salvage something that Patrick doesn’t even like doing. And that begs the question…should he even try?

Because it’s not the first time I’ve heard a friend say they don’t like what they’ve built.

Many of them are Patricks

I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who are everywhere online right now.

Monster personal brands, teams of people, content creators on staff, and portfolios of courses, communities, masterminds, and more. Open your laptop, and you’ll find them pontificating on stages, podcasts, LinkedIn, TikTok, newsletters, and YouTube channels. They’re everywhere. And by the looks of it, they’re winning at the game of “work.”

I see all of this from my kitchen island in the morning with a cup of coffee and a touch of envy. Not the kind that consumes me. The kind that shows up when someone I know hits a revenue milestone, and my first thought is, “Damn, I could have gotten there.”

But the truth is, many of them are Patricks.

They’re feeling the pressures of AI and the flood of competitors. And they’re worrying that their relevancy is fading. So they’re pushing harder than ever. Creating twice the amount of content and working twice as hard as before, often for half the revenue. Sure, the money still comes in, but somewhere in the last few years, the thing they loved most has become a burden.

When I catch up with them, they talk about the anxiety, the stress, how much they’re hustling, and how this is the “time to double down.”

And my envy fades.

What I traded it for

At the end of last year, I stopped promoting most of what built my business past eight figures in revenue. I still have one product that I mention occasionally. But I mostly just write this newsletter and share my ideas on social media. And I’ve drastically reduced the amount of content I’m creating.

My revenue has also dropped. Sometimes, I look at what I used to earn and feel a mix of regret and panic. There are mornings when I wake up, and the first thought in my head is, “Oh fck what have I done??”*

And then I make some coffee and sit down at my kitchen island. Jennifer’s still asleep with the dogs upstairs. I look around at the mountains and trees and quiet surrounding our house, and I realize I don’t have much scheduled. My appreciation for open creative time returns, and the panic subsides.

Some mornings there’s an immediate creative spark, and I get to work. Others, I stare at a cursor for an hour, head to the gym, and let ideas find me on the treadmill. Either way, by the end of the day, I’ve usually made something. And both kinds of mornings feel like mine. Like I own them. Those good revenue days from two years ago somehow didn’t.

For the first time in a long time, I’m not focused on maximizing revenue. I’m focused on enough. Enough to cover the life I want to live. The house, the dogs, some good meals, and a little bit of travel. We’re certainly not frugal. But we are living a much more deliberate life. And on most days, that feels exactly right.

The bottom line

The interesting thing about Patrick is that he has enough, too. He has more than enough money to close down his agency tomorrow, to spend some quiet time figuring out what he actually wants to make, and to live the second half of his life doing something he enjoys.

Nobody’s requiring him to rebuild a business he already hates running. But he’s choosing that path because the machine is familiar to him, and the alternative is uncertainty. Uncertainty can be miserable. I’ve sat with it before, and I don’t think it ever goes away. I’m just getting better at not letting it drive my decisions.

Patrick and I had a follow-up call the other day, and he knows he has a choice. But even so, his plan is to spend the next year doing a leaner version of the same business anyway. Longer after that, if it continues to “work.”

And somewhere along the road, his forties will pass by. And then he’ll be 50, and he’ll look back and realize that he’s spent the last 19 years doing work he didn’t enjoy.

I think about that a lot. Not just for Patrick, but for all of us who keep a machine running because stopping feels like a failure. Or because uncertainty is terrifying.

The question isn’t whether you’re winning by external measures. And it’s not how much you can maximize revenue, or how long you can keep a burning ship afloat. It’s whether you know what enough looks like for you. Because when you get comfortable with your enough, the machine stops being impressive and starts being a deliberate choice. And choices look different when you’re honest about what they’re costing you.

So here’s my question for you today:

Do you know what enough looks like for you? What’s the version of your business and life that feels perfectly balanced?

I hope you’ll reply and tell me about it. While I can’t respond to everyone, Jennifer and I love reading every reply.

And that’s all for this week.

See you next Saturday.