In a lot of ways, creating a business is much like being an artist. There is no one way to create art, and certainly no one way to create a business. You can even fail at it, junk it, try again. Develop your craft and get better each time.
For me personally, I’ve always followed my own path for how I wanted to do it. Most of the time I made it up as I went along. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. A lot of times it didn’t happen as quickly as I wanted.
If I had to come down to it, there are 2 metrics that probably mean more than anything else:
1) Money. Are you making any? How much do you want?
2) Quality of life. Are you living the life you want?
How you achieve those 2 can happen any way that works.
When I watch business shows on TV, again and again I see entrepreneurs that have paid huge sacrifices to their families, missed big events, ruined their marriages, and just had huge personal costs.
My experience was the opposite. I’ve always lived the life I wanted in service to my family and personal life.
I’m home every morning as my kids go to school and I see them off, and I’m here at home when they get home from school.
My wife and I will often have “lunch dates”, where we spend some time together during the day.
Overall I’d say my quality of life is pretty good.
Now for the money component, I used to feel guilty that I didn’t grow my businesses bigger. That I didn’t pivot to a different model that was bigger than what I was doing. I took money out of the business for “today” instead of looking at some long-term growth and a big payout at the end. Sacrificing my life, family, and time, waiting for that big payout.
But then I have to ask, why? If I’m living the life I want now, why go bigger just because you can, and at what cost? Does more stuff improve my life?
A lot of the narrative seems to be because you are “supposed” to. Supposed to keep building. Supposed to seek growth. Supposed to burn away years of your life.
So I’ve concluded I’m meeting my criteria for #1 and #2. Forget about the rules and what you are supposed to do.
