Lifestyle Business is a term I’ve learned recently that would apply to pretty much everything I’ve ever done.
I didn’t build businesses to grow exponentially, or to be sold off, or to plan for exits. I built businesses to provide for me the lifestyle I wanted.
As long as it was doing that, then it was a success. It’s also a whole lot more stress free.
In general Lifestyle Business are owner operated, and self-funded. You don’t take investors, you bootstrap it. This means then that you don’t answer to anyone.
You work as much and has hard as you want, when you want. As long as you are meeting your own personal goals, then who is to tell you otherwise?
I also began to learn to work smart and not hard. In fact, it became a goal to work as little as possible. I would automate as much of my business as possible.
I gave myself solid “focus time” where the real magic would happen and huge productivity. But if I wasn’t feeling that, then I’d not work (beyond what had to be done at that moment).
With no one to answer to other than myself, as long as I was hitting my goals, then one additional goal is to work as little as possible to make that happen.
I would not call a “gig economy” job like Uber a Lifestyle Business though. Lifestyle Businesses have way more upside and potential. You are crafting a dream life for yourself, and how big that dream is is up to you.
Some people scoff at the term Lifestyle Business, or they think it’s small thinking, and it should all be about growth, valuations, funding and exits. But those types of business take heavy personal tolls on you, and you trade valuable years of your life in service to the business.
I mean, if you want that, then great, but I’ll be with the camp of people living the lives they want TODAY.
