I hear the patter of little feet running up the stairs.
The knock on my office door.
“DAADDDYYYY!”
One of my daughters wants to show me something.
My body tenses.
Immediate stress.
Not because I don't want to see her.
I do.
I want her to know she can interrupt me anytime, that she's more important than whatever I'm doing.
But if I open that door, a little tornado is going to come in.
And then probably a second one.
I’ll lose my focus.
Fall behind.
Spend the rest of the day with weight and pressure in my brain.
This happens almost every day.
Because I designed my life wrong.
The Prison I Accidentally Built
When I started as a solopreneur five years ago, I had a bit of financial runway.
At the time it didn’t feel like it, but in retrospect I had enough space to be intentional about the business I was building.
I should have asked myself one question:
What do I want my life to actually look like?
Instead, I made reactive decisions.
Said yes to the wrong clients.
Built systems that required my constant presence.
Chose a path that led me exactly where I didn't want to go.
Now my kids are 4 and 7.
And here's what my "successful" business looks like today:
Some days my calendar fills with meetings I never wanted to take.
Client emergencies pull me away from time with my kids and wife.
I’m doing too much, across too many domains.
I’m pulled in multiple directions, many of which aren’t the way I want to go.
When someone who pays me needs something done, I feel obligated to respond, even if it's late at night, even if it's the weekend.
I traded one boss for a multiple bosses who think they own my time because they pay me.
What I Should Have Done
If I could go back five years and talk to myself, here's what I'd say:
Stop thinking about just making money. Start thinking about the life you want that money to buy.
Find a couple people who have both the business and the lifestyle you want.
Not just the revenue numbers.
The actual day-to-day life.
How many hours do they work?
What does their Tuesday look like?
How present are they with their families?
Then reverse engineer backwards.
What choices did they make to get there?
What did they say no to?
What systems did they build that work without them?
Most importantly: What do I need to believe about myself to make that life a reality?
The Design vs. Default Problem
If you don't deliberately design your business and your life, it will get designed for you.
By clients who push boundaries because you never set them.
By opportunities that pay well but demand your soul.
By the market's constant pull toward complexity, toward more meetings, toward being everything to everyone.
I see other entrepreneurs who left their jobs only to build businesses worse than employment. Their calendars packed with sales calls.
Their weekends sacrificed to other people's problems.
They have freedom on paper but feel more trapped than ever.
That's where I am now, without even the freedom on paper.
And it's harder to fix than it was to prevent.
Not everyone has the luxury of financial space to be picky.
If you're broke and desperate, you might have to take whatever work pays the bills, knowing you're potentially heading down a road that leads somewhere you don't want to be.
But if you do have any runway at all, use it wisely.
That space isn't just about surviving.
It's about having enough space to make intentional choices instead of reactive ones.
I had that space five years ago. I wasted it.
What I'm Doing Now
I'm writing this as much for myself as for you.
Because I'm trying to dig out of a hole I didn't mean to fall into.
I'm learning to say no to clients who don't respect boundaries.
I'm building systems that work when I'm not working.
I'm choosing business models that scale without my constant presence.
It's harder to fix than it would have been to build right the first time.
Some days I feel stuck between the income I need and the freedom I want.
But my kids deserve a father who's present, not just physically there but mentally available.
Not stressed about the next client fire to put out.
The Real Success Metric
The goal isn't to build a business that impresses others.
It's to build one that lets you be the parent, spouse, and human you want to be while doing work that matters.
Revenue is just a number.
Freedom is saying yes to what matters and no to everything else.
And that’s what I want.
Freedom.
If that’s what you’re after too, the way to get there is to design your business around your life, not the other way around.
Your future self will thank you for it.
Your family definitely will.
Because success means nothing if it costs everything that actually matters.
This is Letter #10 of 'Solopreneur Letters' – a series I’m writing where I share the hard-earned wisdom I wish I’d had when I started on my solopreneur journey. See the full list:
Thanks for sharing - couldn't agree more!
I've felt the same pinch recently working three different projects. Trying to reshape my life around the 20/20/20 model, where I design my week around work, family and growth in equal measures
Very valuable insights!