Welcome to issue #043 of Unsubscribe. Each week, I send one essay that helps you step off the default path to build a life you love, supported by work you enjoy. If you need support on your entrepreneurial journey, join our network of over 950 entrepreneurs. You’ll instantly join our group chat, bi-weekly live Q&As, monthly workshops, and private in-person events.
Most of the lifestyle entrepreneurs that I know started their business because they wanted to make good money, but ultimately work less.
Now? Most of them are working far more than they ever did at their last corporate role or startup gig. Except this time, there’s no HR rep reminding them they have vacation days to take.
Scroll through X or LinkedIn and you’ll see what I mean. There’s a ton of content about entrepreneurship as a vehicle to spend more mornings with your partner, go for long afternoon walks, and actually finish the books you’ve been meaning to read for years.
But I get a sneaking suspicion that the majority of these folks don’t live this way. Instead, they open their laptop, see the speed and volume from everyone else, and go harder.
There’s always someone exploring a new platform, telling you it’s the next “big thing.” Another person is posting five times a day and swears it’s the secret sauce to success. A creator just announced their fourth big launch this year, and your feed is crammed with challenges, summits, cohorts, and masterclasses all at once. Not to mention all of the revenue screenshots.
So, they hit the panic button.
It’s time to start a YouTube channel, launch a podcast, build another course, write a book, start coaching, and on and on it goes. And you’d better get the message out. Time to amp up the content creation from once a day to twice. Or, hell, even three times.
And suddenly, the business that was supposed to free you? It’s got you trapped in your office chair, wondering when you’ll finally get to take those lovely walks you’ve been writing and posting about for three months.
The problem is that the internet tends to reward speed, quantity, and presence. More content, more channels, more launches, more everything. The algorithm doesn’t care if you’re burned out. It’s looking to be fed.
But the people winning this race are miserable. I’d argue they’re not actually winning at all.
They have the numbers, the revenue, and the audience, but they’re completely exhausted. They built a machine that requires constant feeding, and now they can’t step away without the whole thing crumbling.
Meanwhile, there’s a completely different group of people you never hear about as much. They run small online businesses that don’t require them to be online 80 hours a week. They make enough money. They have enough customers. And they’re not trying to be everywhere at once.
They’re living the life they built the business for.
They take Fridays off, go for walks, and read books. They show up for dinner without their phone sitting next to their plate like they’re an on-call surgeon.
You don’t need to move faster. You need to decide what you’re actually building.
A business that eats your life? Or a business that supports it?
The internet will always move faster than you. There will always be someone doing more. That’s not going to change.
What can change is whether you care.
What’s your take on today’s topic? Do you agree, disagree, or is there something I missed?
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The pivotal problem with being an entrepreneur is the same as with employed corporate work: boundaries. In both cases there are none, unless you set and protect them yourself.
But while it’s obvious when the boss is making unreasonable demands, it’s less obvious when you’re making unreasonable demands of yourself. Instead, you only realize you’ve been doing it when the symptoms become apparent: agitation, impatience, indigestion, altered sleep.
The trick is to spot the snowball and stop it before it gains momentum and becomes an avalanche
Justin, I feel this DEEPLY.
So deeply that a few months agoI just gave up.
I'd see ads or posts in my social feed and just loathe the message and the person for promoting the hustle and grind.
It's why I joined Unsubscribe...to see if I could reconnect with you and the others and maybe map out a different way.