July 28, 2023

210: ⛵️Knot a Care—Sailing the Free Time Seas with Joy and Ease

24 minutes

“My little pirate.” That’s the nickname Michael has given me this summer, as it feels like many of my corporate (client) income boats have burned these last few years. At the same time, he says he has never seen me so happy and free. “You’re not in a raft anymore,” he said. “You’re in a sailboat. You don’t want to be in the big cruiseliner anyway.”

Not to be confused with Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds (I clearly love ocean metaphors!), today’s episode is all about embracing the agility and freedom that small business owners have to Sail the Free Time Seas. Heck, even one of the richest men in the world, Jeff Bezos, chose to buy a sailing yacht (albeit the world’s largest) rather than the more mechanized superyacht.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways / Goldilocks

Three business vessel metaphors: the superyacht or cruise liner (large corporations), the sailboat (agile small-medium businesses), and the raft (struggling micro-businesses); the Goldilocks ideal lies somewhere in the middle.

Relationship with Risk: A super yacht-like small business, due to its size and resource intensity, may be less willing to take risks, akin to how a super yacht cannot afford to take on dangerous waters. On the other hand, a sailboat-like small business can quickly change its course and can be more open to taking smart risks, seeing them as opportunities for learning and growth.

Sail la Vie! Celebrate and embrace the full autonomy you have to set your own course—what you work on, with whom, and how you get there.

📝 Permission: Embrace your agile sailing yacht status as a Free Timer—we don’t all need to be (or buy or build) a superyacht :)

✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Celebrate how far you’ve already come from your earliest days in the rickety raft stage of running a business to where you are now.

🔗 Resources Mentioned

Articles: New Yorker—The Haves and The Have Yachts, NYT—5 Deaths at Sea Gripped the World. Hundreds of Others Got a Shrug.

TV Shows: Below Deck and Below Deck Sailing Yacht

JB’s Secret Substack: http://itsfreetime.com/secret

App: Substack (for reading others you subscribe to)

Community: BFF (promo code PODCAST)

📚 Books Mentioned

Love with a Chance of Drowning and The Worrier’s Guide to the End of the World by Torre DeRoche

Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

SPARKED: JB on SPARKED with Jonathan Fields (Spotify playlist)

Pivot: 304: Through the Crux—Pivoting from Acting to Entrepreneurship with Ryan Devlin

Free Time:

050: Business-Building Metaphors—Are You Running a Machine, House, or Restaurant?

028: When the Financial Tides Recede

138: ⛵️ Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds

🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review

❤️ Join our private BFF community for Heart-Based Business owners

💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter: http://itsfreetime.com/join

🛠 Get instant access to the Free Time Toolkit: http://itsfreetime.com/toolkit

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey

☎️ Submit a voice question or comment: http://itsfreetime.com/ask

🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts

📝 Check out full show notes and share with friends: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/210

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

...more

View all episodes

By Jenny Blake

4.9

4949 ratings