Invincible Solopreneurs - Make a living doing more of what you love

In this episode, I share an overview of the presentation materials to give you a sense of the 2-hour workshop I’ll be hosting on Feb 26th. So, make sure to play the audio, since I’m not including 2 hours of text material in this newsletter article.

"Build a Lifestyle Business to Escape Your 9-5 Job"

Scroll below to find the coupon code for my early-bird discount to get 50% off. There are limited seats for that, so grab yours today!

I've saved so much money by quitting my job 14 years ago and never going back to the 9-5 world. By my estimate, I’ve saved over $180,000, which doesn’t include getting my health back, improving my marriage, and having a much better relationship with my children. A dollar value can’t be placed on all of that!

Before I left my last corporate role, I was spending…

* 🕰️ 750 hours/year commuting to a corporate campus

* 🚗 13,000 miles/year on Bay Area freeways

* ⛽️ $3,000/year on fuel

* 💰 About $10,000/year for other expenses like meals, coffee, new clothing, dry cleaning, vehicle maintenance and repair, various services, etc.

Since then, I mostly work out of my home office. Remote work works! I wish the execs weren't trying to take it away from you. But RTO seems to be all the rage now. 😟

Becoming a solopreneur means you could avoid this whole RTO nonsense and work where, when, and how you want. It's pretty darn sweet to control your days that way! That’s probably one reason you read this newsletter and listen to my podcast.

Believe me. I love this location-independent lifestyle. 😊

I enjoy solopreneurship, and I could never return to an office.

Since you are a subscriber, I’m sure you’ve dreamed of leaving the 9-5 grind to do your own thing. Maybe you just need a little more guidance and advice. Maybe you need some live interaction and accountability, too.

Well…

I'm hosting my next live workshop on how to build a lifestyle business on Feb 26th!

🔷 "Build a Lifestyle Business to Escape Your 9-5 Job"

Just like before, I'll record the workshop and share the video later. So, if the time doesn't work for you, you'll have the workbook exercises and video to use just like a course.

The early bird coupon code to save 50% is (limited spots available):

EARLYBIRDIS202450OFF

Would love to see you there!

There will be breakout sessions during the workshop. So, the more wonderful people who show up, the better that experience will be. If you have a friend who is also dreaming of building their own thing and quitting their job someday, share the link to the workshop and that coupon code.

I’m Larry Cornett, a business coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

It’s time!

I’m opening the doors to my new Invincible Solopreneurs community for people who upgrade to the premium newsletter subscription or purchase a lifetime membership (i.e., pay once and stay as long as you want).

I wouldn’t be where I am today with my business without finding supportive entrepreneurial peers who have helped me during my journey. Solopreneurship can feel lonely at times, and running a business can feel overwhelming. Being part of a wonderful community makes all the difference in the world.

However, I know how hard it is to find the right supportive entrepreneurial community that can help you during your journey of designing, building, and growing your lifestyle business. So, that’s why I created my new community!

* I’ve tried local business communities, but they didn’t seem to understand what I was doing with my online business.

* I joined one online community of entrepreneurs, but they only seemed interested in money and talking about get-rich-quick schemes.

* Another community was mostly from a single profession, and it was also way too large to be useful. I found it overwhelming and not very welcoming.

I wanted to create a place for people who:

* Come from diverse backgrounds.

* Want to build a lifestyle business.

* Crave freedom and happiness more than excessive wealth.

* Are friendly, supportive, and encouraging.

* Enjoy a smaller, more intimate community where we get to know each other.

You can join us for $20/month (i.e., by upgrading to the premium newsletter) or pay a one-time fee of $497 and enjoy lifetime access to the community.

Where are you with your entrepreneurial journey?

* You have the business idea and know exactly what you want to do.

* You have a few business ideas, but you’re not sure how to pick the right one.

* You want to start a business but don’t have a great idea for it yet.

If you already know the business you want to build, you may just need help with planning, learning a few new things, having some supportive peers, and finding the accountability that will help keep you on track with your plan.

If you have some ideas, but need to narrow them down to one great idea, it will be helpful to attend my upcoming Solopreneur workshop in Feb this year. We’ll share a framework for assessing your ideas to pick the right one to take forward. Plus, you can bounce ideas off the community members to get feedback on your options.

If you don’t have an idea for your new business yet, I will always recommend focusing on what you already know and do well. You have existing talents, skills, knowledge, and experience that can be combined in new ways to forge a new business plan. I often refer to this as turning your job description into a business plan.

I’ve mentioned this before, but it boils down to 3 types of businesses:

* Selling what you can do.

* Selling what you know.

* Selling who you’ve become.

1. What do you already do for your job?

This is one of the easiest businesses for 9–5 employees to launch. It’s based on what you already have several years of experience doing in your day-to-day job. You have either been providing a variety of services, making some sort of product, or maybe even a little of both.

The first solopreneur business I launched way back in 1998 was based on this model. I was a senior designer at a tech startup that went through a massive layoff and then hired us all back for a new startup. I wanted more stability! Note: it’s a common myth that a 9-5 job is more stable than being self-employed. I hope the millions of layoffs over the past 4 years have changed everyone’s mind about that.

I formed a solopreneur “design agency” in about a day and was up and running in less than a week. Before I even rejected my new job offer, I had my first client. I sold what I could already do. I had been providing my software design services for years as a full-time employee at IBM, Apple Computer, and a few startups.

I encourage you to consider two different options when you use your existing job as a template for your new business. One option is probably faster and easier. The other option will make you happier.

* Copy and paste your 9-5 job.

* Only use the best parts of your job.

My first solopreneur business was pretty much a copy and paste from my previous job as a designer. It literally didn’t feel like anything had changed in my working life. I was still working with the same people, working on a very similar product, and doing the same work tasks.

Over time, I started focusing more on the work activities I enjoyed the most (e.g., creating innovative and strategic new concepts) and the things I was really good at doing (e.g., prototyping). As a consultant, I could outsource other tasks by hiring subcontractors who were better at them and enjoyed that kind of work (e.g., icon design, usability testing). So, my business slowly moved more to Option 2.

The second solopreneur business that I launched before I left my last executive job behind was completely Option 2. I did not copy and paste my Product leadership role to create my new business. Instead, I focused on the value I could deliver to startups and smaller corporations through my experience with product, design, and business strategy. It was definitely more of a thinking business that “sold my brain” than a production business that sold my time and what I could produce.

When you create a new business, you have a rare opportunity to take the best of your work experiences forward into your working life and leave the bad stuff behind. Why would you not try to make that happen? You can always fall back to Option 1 if necessary.

Here’s the cool thing about being your own boss. You can do whatever you want!

You can offer different services to different clients as appropriate. Perhaps one client just wants your strategic advice, so you provide that. Another client might want to have you take on the role of an interim employee while they look for a full-time person (e.g., an acting Head of Product).

You get to decide.

2. What do you know?

This type of business is more of an advisory role than behaving like a contractor or consultant. You’re not selling what you can do. You are selling what you know — the knowledge and experience you’ve accumulated during your entire life (e.g., from work, school, life, etc.).

My current solopreneur coaching business is probably most of this model, with a dash of selling the best parts of my previous leadership jobs. I’ve been in different management and leadership roles since the late 1980s. Over the decades, I’ve learned a lot about managing people, dealing with employee issues, coaching folks, motivating and inspiring teams, etc.

So, creating a career coaching practice over seven years ago felt like a natural extension of my experiences and leveraging what I already knew very well. In fact, many of my clients have been people who used to work for or with me during my tech career. I coached them when I was their boss inside a company, and now I coach them from the outside of a corporate environment.

You will create a more scalable and profitable business when you sell your knowledge and talent instead of your time. There are only so many hours you can work in a week. But you can sell what you know to an infinite number of customers (e.g., courses, training, books, digital products).

What valuable knowledge do you have locked up inside your head? Who could benefit from that the most?

3. Sell your success

This type of business works if you’ve achieved a level of success doing something that others dream of doing and accomplishing. This could be as an employee or a business owner.

I recently had a guest on my podcast who is doing exactly this as part of his side business, Nate Davis. He is a talented and successful real estate agent. So, he has become a coach who offers mentorship for aspiring investors and a program that paves the way for success for others interested in real estate investments.

This is the most challenging business of the three to build, and not everyone can do it. It goes beyond what you used to do or even what you know. It’s based on who you are, your career and life path, your notable success, and the resulting lifestyle you now enjoy.

Ryan Holiday is a good example of this type of business. He used to work in the corporate world in marketing. Then, he went on to build his own agency and wrote numerous books that have sold millions of copies.

Aspiring authors who dream of “becoming him” — and having his success — pay thousands of dollars for his advice. Without his publishing success, would he have so many loyal followers who hang on to his every word and wish they could be a writer like him?

Probably not.

However, you don’t have to reach the level of a bestselling author to build a business like this. You simply need to have reached a level of success in your career (or business) that others aspire to achieve. For example, I was a vice president at one of the top internet companies in the world, so some people hire me for career and leadership coaching because they want to become executive leaders and find my advice helpful.

What have you achieved that someone earlier in their journey would find useful?

Join my Solopreneur community!

If you’re serious about quitting your job and starting your own business, we can help. As I mentioned earlier, there’s nothing like having a supportive entrepreneurial community on your side. Every business owner benefits from having like-minded peers who can help with encouragement, advice, answers, guidance, and more.

I’m going to open the community up to the public soon, and the membership price may increase later. So, this is your chance to lock in a lower rate (or pay once for lifetime access).

This year, I’ll be offering live workshops and short workbook exercises to prepare for those events. These will include short, simple actions you can take vs. some of the more complicated and detailed challenges I’ve shared over the last few years.

Premium subscribers will have free access to the workshops throughout the year. However, I will also open up these workshops to the public to join us and attend for a fee. Of course, you can remain a free newsletter subscriber and simply choose to sign up for any of the paid workshops you find interesting.

The workshops will follow the arc of choosing an idea and then designing, defining, building, launching, and scaling your new business. For example:

* What is a lifestyle solopreneur business?

* Identifying your new business idea

* Transforming your job description into a business plan

* Setting your business up online

* Defining your ideal customer

* Attracting your ideal customers

* Creating your Invincible Content Factory

* How to position your products or services uniquely

* How to sell to your customers or clients (a sales strategy you won’t hate)

* How to design your business around your ideal life

* Scaling your lifestyle business

One big change I’m making is to offer a lifetime membership in my private Invincible Solopreneurs community on Discord. Now, you can pay once vs. a monthly subscription fee, and I’ll invite you into my private community, where you can stay for as long as you want!

Note: A lifetime membership is good for the lifetime of the community (i.e., not your lifetime). If you cancel and request a refund, the refund will be equivalent to your payment minus processing fees and the monthly subscription fee for the number of months you’ve been in the community (normally $20/month).

The Invincible Solopreneurs Community is a peer group of ambitious business owners to help you accelerate your business success.

What do you get with your membership?

* An invitation to my exclusive community. Get the advice, feedback, and support you need to grow your business!

* Weekly office hours in a private Discord channel.

* Free access to the live workshops to discuss the topics mentioned above.

* Engage with me and the community to get additional advice, feedback, and support.

Of course, not everyone wants or needs a lifetime membership, so I will still provide a monthly subscription for only $20/month. If you upgrade from your free subscription, you’ll receive:

* A group business coaching experience with free access to my paid Solopreneur workshops.

* An invitation to my private Discord community, where you can stay as long as you are subscribed (vs. the lifetime membership).

* Immediate access to the full archive of newsletter issues and podcast episodes.

Share this with an entrepreneurial friend you think would benefit from joining us in the community!

I’m Larry Cornett, a business coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

My guest for this episode is Nate Davis. He’s a top real estate agent in my county and also a real estate investor and coach.

Nate is an old friend whom I met through our local CrossFit gym. He has a fascinating story about his career path, personal development, and reinvention.

As a solopreneur, I always recommend you diversify your income streams. So, I think you’ll be interested in what Nate has been doing with his investments and coaching to augment his income as a realtor.

Nate is a standout figure in El Dorado County’s real estate domain, boasting a decade-long record as a Top Producer, earning a Lifetime Achievement Award and consistently lands in the top 1% for sales. Nate’s production has earned him a spot in Real Producers Magazine's top 25 agents under 35.

Nate’s expertise extends beyond transactions. He is an accomplished Real Estate Investor who specializes in Wholesale and Fix & Flip ventures.

He is also a passionate real estate coach and offers mentorship for aspiring investors, offering a program that paves the way for success in today’s dynamic real estate investing opportunities.

We talk about

* Why it’s so important to look at the people above you on your career ladder and decide if you like what you see.

* The approach Nate took to pivoting his career.

* How important it is to surround yourself with people who inspire you to be your best self.

* The power of continuous self-education.

* How he has diversified his income streams.

Where to find Nate

* Instagram

* Navigate Realty

* Facebook

* TikTok

I’m Larry Cornett, a business coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

Planning a new business can already feel a bit scary.

It’s even more overwhelming if you tell yourself that you need to come up with a multimillion-dollar business idea. Or, even worse, a billion-dollar idea.

True story: I experienced that last bit of stress when I met with a potential investor to discuss a startup I was planning back in 2011. I still think it would be a cool product and business, by the way. Imagine backstage access to your favorite performance artists during their informal practice sessions, for example. Yeah, I still want it!

He said, “I don’t think we’d be interested. At most, that idea would generate $50M/year. We only invest in startups that have the potential to reach a billion.”

Ok then…

Let’s not set a ridiculous goal like that for your business. Hey, if you do end up making millions and billions from your idea, kudos! But I know a more realistic goal will set you free from your 9-5 job more quickly and give you an enjoyable life during your business journey.

Do you know what that goal is?

Just replace the income you receive from your current 9-5 job.

The first lifestyle business I created did that easily within the first few months. Even better, it started generating a greater annual income than my previous 9-5 salary by the end of the first year. I was doing well enough to be the only income earner supporting my family of four. We were renting a house, bought a new SUV with cash, and felt pretty darn comfortable with our lifestyle.

However, maybe you’re not familiar with the term “lifestyle business.” So, let me start with a nice definition from WallStreetMojo:

A lifestyle business is a type of business that is designed to support the owner’s preferred lifestyle rather than solely focusing on maximizing profits or achieving high levels of growth. Owners of lifestyle businesses prioritize personal goals, such as flexibility, work-life balance, and the pursuit of their passions, over the traditional business objective of maximizing profits.

I like the point they make about the owner prioritizing personal goals over business goals. That’s a tremendous difference from being an employee at a traditional company. There is no way your personal goals would ever be more important than the business goals of the company. Even when someone is a founder and owner of a traditional business, they often put the company’s goals ahead of their own needs. That’s a recipe for burnout if you ask me.

Here’s my shorter definition of a lifestyle business:

A lifestyle business generates profit equivalent to the compensation you’re currently receiving from your job, and it immediately enables you to live a better life right now.

That last part is essential. This isn’t about building a business that may eventually generate millions in revenue so you can live a lavish lifestyle later, but you’re miserable now working yourself to death to—hopefully—get there before you die.

If you reach this level of revenue, you can maintain your current lifestyle without a hitch. For some people, that’s easier than they would imagine (e.g., they’re currently working a minimum-wage job). For other folks (e.g., a tech executive), that number might be a lot higher and perhaps more challenging to achieve.

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

You get to define what “lifestyle” means for you.

For example, I made pretty decent money as a tech exec in my past life. I also lived in one of the most expensive parts of the U.S.; the Bay Area of California.

So, if I had stayed in the Bay Area and had to replace my executive compensation, I would have had to create a business that generated considerable revenue and profit.

I did that for a while, but it was pretty stressful. I considered grinding harder to make it work.

However, I finally realized that my life could be much easier and better if I reduced my cost of living. So, we sold our house and moved to a more affordable location. We downsized our home and life, which was a good idea anyway, as we became empty nesters. What’s the point of an enormous house when it's only two of you?

It wasn’t only about reducing our cost-of-living expenses, though. I was tired of the city life, crowding, and traffic jams. We had always dreamed of living in the country with more land, near the mountains for skiing, and close enough to a forest to go for quick hikes.

So, I intentionally designed the life I wanted and a business to enable it. It wasn’t about getting rich. It was about being free, controlling my time, and living a good life while I was still young enough to enjoy it.

“When you make a company, you make a utopia. It’s where you design your perfect world.” — Derek Sivers

So, be creative and explore different models of what your potential business would have to generate to support different lifestyles. Let me tell you, I don’t mind living a little leaner since it means never having a boss again. I haven’t had a job in over 13 years and the freedom to decide how I spend my days is pretty darn sweet.

5 creative examples of lifestyle businesses:

* Copy and paste your job description

* Fill an empty seat as an “interim employee”

* Dog walker

* Life coach

* Calligraphy business

1. Copy and paste your job description

One of the fastest and easiest ways to build a lifestyle business is to leverage your current job description. Get paid directly by clients to do the same work you do every day for an employer. This is exactly how I created my first solopreneur business.

In my last year working at Apple, a startup wooed me away. However, I don't think I worked there even a full year before a much larger company acquired us. The new parent company took our technology and patents and then laid all of us off. 

Our founder and CEO relaunched the company as a new startup a few weeks later. Most of the employees rejoined that new company, but I saw this as an opportunity to work with them as a consultant instead of becoming an employee again. 

I had been working with several consultants at the previous company, and we became good friends. They encouraged me and helped guide me as I ventured into the solopreneurial world for the first time.

My lifestyle business was a solopreneur design agency that offered web and application design services to startups. As a design consultant, I delivered the same work to my clients that I had been providing as an employee (i.e., I copied and pasted my job description). My very first client was the new startup (i.e., my former employer), and I started working with more clients later that year.

Of course, running a business is more complex than being an employee, but this is an excellent example of using your job description to define a business plan. You're still doing what you did before in your 9-5 job, but now you're providing those services as an independent business owner. 

2. Fill an empty seat as an “interim employee”

This business is a slight modification of the first one. I often tell my clients that a job opening is a chance to pitch your services to fill that seat. I’ve had a few engagements like that.

One tech startup wanted to hire a full-time CPO and approached me about the role. Unfortunately, it would have required an international relocation for my family. So, I said that I wasn’t interested in becoming an employee, but I could play the role of the interim CPO until they hired their full-time person. I consulted with the company on retainer for years.

Another company wanted to hire a full-time Head of Design. Again, I wasn’t interested in full-time employment, so I offered to consult with the company as their interim Head of Design and help them find and hire my replacement. That gig lasted about 1.5 years.

When you’re experienced and good at what you do, you can build a business around being an interim employee (e.g., an interim CPO) or providing fractional services (e.g., a fractional CFO). Offering a fractional role is great for companies that don’t need—or can’t afford—someone in a full-time position. For example, smaller startups need someone to play that role at key points in their lifecycle (e.g., raising funding).

3. Dog walker

I’m going to keep sharing fun and unexpected examples of solopreneur businesses over the coming months. The intent isn’t to give you an exact example of a business you should create. I’m really just trying to inspire you and spark your creative thinking about what is possible.

For example, who knew that a dog walker could earn over $100,000/year?

Earlier this year, the New York Times reported that some dog walkers in NYC are earning six figures. They suggested that this is due to people getting dogs for companionship during the pandemic, which was all well and good. But, now companies are asking employees to return to the office (Boo!). So, these dog owners need someone to take their pets for walks while they are stuck at work.

Entrepreneur shared more information about Bethany Lane. She founded her dog-care business Whistle & Wag back in 2014, and charges around $35 for a walk. She was looking for a way to pay rent and pay off some loans she’d taken on while pursuing a public health career.

I’d say her lifestyle business has worked out well:

* Her business is in the six-figure range (she wasn’t specific).

* She paid off her loans.

* She’s hired more dog walkers (so no longer a true solopreneur, if they’re employees).

* She was able to purchase a vacation home!

"If I would have told my younger self I can make a living caring for dogs, I never would have believed it."— Bethany Lane

Pretty cool to make a comfortable living doing something you love, isn’t it?

4. Life coach

Life coaching is an unregulated profession. You don’t need a license to become one, although some people do get certified. There are no oversight boards, no standard curricula for training, and there really isn’t a standard code of ethics.

Basically, if you want to say you’re a life coach, you can. No one can stop you from putting up a website to start finding and working with clients.

From Verywell Mind:

Life coaches can help you clarify your goals, identify the obstacles holding you back, and then come up with strategies for overcoming each obstacle.

They tend to work with people on life issues (e.g., how can I break this bad habit?), financial challenges (e.g., I can’t seem to stop wasting money), relationship problems (e.g., why do all of my dating relationships end in disaster?), and even career coaching (e.g., why am I struggling so much at work?).

Stacey Smith is a life coach who built a six-figure business before she even had a website. She did hire a coach and got certified before getting the business up and running (Note: many coaches have their own coach, too). She’s location-independent and does everything via Zoom or phone, which is the same way I operate my coaching practice.

I’ve seen life coaches offering sessions for anything from $65 to $600/hour. Obviously, coaches with more experience, specialty services (e.g., executive coaching), and credentialed backgrounds tend to charge more.

5. Calligraphy Business

One of my business group acquaintances has over 40 years of experience as a professional calligrapher. Her lifestyle business directly provides calligraphy services (e.g., beautiful custom calligraphy on invitations). But, she has expanded and diversified her business to sell books and courses on calligraphy, too.

It reminds me of this Forbes article by Adam Coffey. He described his sister’s calligraphy business as the “quintessential lifestyle business.” She earned money by teaching calligraphy seminars all over the world.

However, she wanted to diversify her income streams and eventually be able to retire and sell her business. That can be challenging as a solopreneur when you are your business. However, she was able to come up with ways to scale her business and transform it into an asset that could be sold later.

She built a studio other artists could rent, began teaching online seminars to reach a larger global audience, recorded her seminars to create online courses, etc. Now, she doesn’t have to worry about taking breaks or even retiring.

This is a great example of why it’s so important to get out of the model of selling your time for money. I love my 1-on-1 coaching, but I knew I had to scale and create diverse income streams. That’s why I started my private community, a paid newsletter, courses, and more.

Always be looking for ways to scale your business and create products that can sell 24/7. You need to sleep, take vacations, and retire someday!

I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

It is so hard to open a new restaurant when you need to find a physical location to rent, hire staff, acquire licenses, get inspected, etc.

It takes a long time to set up a new retail store, which is almost as complicated.

It’s challenging to launch a tech startup when you have to hire employees, find office space, and secure funding.

However, it’s pretty cheap and easy to test a location-independent solopreneur business idea. The biggest barrier is you.

Yep. The biggest barrier standing between you and your new business is you.

* Your perfectionism.

* Your fear of failure.

* Your ability to focus.

* Your time management.

* Your pride.

The tipping point will occur when the pain of your current situation is greater than your fear of the unknown. When the alternatives are so unpleasant, you blast right past your risk aversion.

I remember hitting that tipping point over seven years ago when my tech startup failed. I had spent a year winding things down, saying goodbye to my partners and employees, and working with my accountant and lawyer to turn off the lights for good.

It was sad, painful, and depressing.

The pain of staying in that situation was greater than any fear of the unknown. Anything was better than wallowing in my depression, thinking about my failed startup, and having no income to pay my bills.

I considered the alternatives.

* Found a new startup and try to raise funding again.

* Return to a job with a Silicon Valley tech company.

* Take a job with a tech company somewhere else and relocate my family. Again.

* Take a basic 9-5 job at a local business, but make way less money.

Or a fifth option, take a swing at launching a solopreneur coaching business and see what happens.

What did I have to lose? The first four alternatives seemed so unpleasant that I just went for it.

* I crushed my perfectionism into a tiny ball and shoved it to the back of my mind. I could always make the business better and tune it as I went along.

* My fear of failure? That was funny. I had already experienced a massive failure and the gut-wrenching embarrassment of my startup failing. Failure no longer had any power over me.

* It’s a lot easier to focus when you fear you’re going to lose your home and won’t be able to feed your family. Everything became crystal clear.

* I was “lucky” in one way, I guess, that time management was no longer a big issue. I could focus on building my new business, but I was spending some time exploring alternatives.

* I swallowed my pride and closed the door on my 23-year tech career. It really did help to focus on helping other people. Being outwardly focused instead of inwardly obsessed.

So, if you’ve been thinking about starting a business but waiting and waiting for the right moment to do it, I highly recommend launching something smaller right away to test your ideas.

Do not wait until everything feels perfect. Do you know why? You are most likely going to change things, anyway. There is nothing like reality to shake up your business dreams.

Nothing beats interacting with real customers to figure out what they really want, what will really sell, and how you really want to operate your business. The sooner you get that feedback, the better.

My example

I soft-launched my coaching business about seven years ago in October of 2016. I started when I wrote a Facebook post about defining the “Business of You” on Oct 14th.

When I talk about defining and creating the "Business of You," it's really about taking control and intentionally designing the career you want and the life you deserve.

All too often, I think we let the river of life take us where it will. Early in life, we build our little boat and set off from the shore where we think we want to go.

Then, life happens.

The education you choose pushes you in one direction.

The jobs you take push you even farther downriver in another direction.

You make minor course corrections as the river of life continues to flow. But, you start to realize that you're being carried inexorably towards a destination that you couldn't see when you first set off. And you now know that it isn't where you want to go.

Turning around and trying to row directly back upstream results in failure. People try. But, it's too hard, the flow is too powerful, and they tire and just give up.

That's what a lot of people do. They stay in the unpleasant "known" because of inertia and fear. It is just too hard to change.

I'm not going to lie and tell you that you can start over from scratch. You are no longer 18 years old with your entire future in front of you, standing before a blank slate.

You have decades of knowledge and skills and experience. You may think that can only be applied very narrowly to what you currently are and always have been. But that's not true. The "Toolbox of You" is invaluable and can be leveraged with great success in so many different ways.

You get to decide that. You may not be able to return to the beginning, but you can also do a lot more than just make minor course corrections.

It won't be easy. It will take effort and willpower and some bravery. But, you can adjust now and aim for a new destination. Use everything that you know now and make a better choice of where you want to be.

How do you want to live the rest of your life?

Where do you want to end up?

That can start today.

10 days later, I cross-posted the same content to create a native LinkedIn article. This time, I added a more specific call to action (i.e., CTA).

Ready to redefine your career and reclaim your life? I provide one-on-one career consulting for a limited number of clients. Let's talk to see if I can help you with your career transformation. 

*  Schedule a free 15-min discovery call with me * 

I landed my first retained client about two weeks later. About a month after that, I started hinting about my coaching topics on Twitter. I knew I was onto something that people needed, so I scaled up my writing and marketing efforts in a big way.

A few things to note:

* I didn’t spend money on a new fancy coaching website. I just updated my WordPress site I had already been using for corporate consulting.

* I was marketing for free by posting on LinkedIn and Facebook, then tweeting links to my LinkedIn articles on Twitter. Later, I started writing lots of articles on Medium.

* I spoke to people’s emotions. How they might be suffering. How much better life could be.

* I didn’t spend money on ads.

* I didn’t do an aggressive sales pitch in my discovery calls. I just asked questions, listened, and helped people as much as I could during that call. Most people would then ask me how they could continue working with me.

* I coached my first client over the phone (e.g., no Zoom).

* I had no fancy payment gateway (e.g., clients mailed checks or used PayPal).

* I didn’t have everything figured out. I learned and adapted while learning from each new client engagement.

You could research, study, and theorize about your business forever and still not know if it will really work. Or you can set aside your perfectionism, test some ideas, get feedback, and learn from the real market.

If your offer is helping people solve a problem, they’re happy and want more, and you’re attracting new clients, you’re onto something! If something isn’t clicking, make changes and try again. And again.

It sure is nice to dial in your business model and strategy while you’re still receiving a 9-5 paycheck. That keeps you from panicking, rushing things, and making poor decisions. Test and evolve things until you’re getting traction. Then, scale and decide when you’re ready to go all in.

It’s faster, easier, and cheaper than ever before to launch and test your business idea. I’m here to help and support you. My community of solopreneurs is here to encourage you. My workshop will help you get started.

What are you waiting for? 😊

I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

During my lifetime, I’ve had thousands of business ideas. I’m not exaggerating. I ran small businesses to earn extra money when I was a kid. I’ve been buying books on business and entrepreneurship since I was a teenager. Even then, in the back of my mind, I knew I would never be happy working for someone else.

However, I spent most of my career doing precisely that: working for someone else. For over two decades, I moved from employer to employer (e.g., IBM, Apple, Ridge Technologies, Adaptec, eBay, Yahoo) and tried to be a good little employee. For the most part, I succeeded. I performed well, got promoted often, and climbed the career ladder to executive roles.

But I was always dissatisfied. I never really enjoyed being told what to do. 😂

I left the corporate world in 2010 and started consulting independently again. I then founded a startup and tried to create a “real business” with a product, employees, investors, a board, and all the bells and whistles.

It failed.

“From the ashes, a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring…”

— J.R.R. Tolkien

After a few months of depression, I decided I just couldn’t return to being someone’s employee, so I started a new business about seven years ago. But, after the pain of my startup’s failure, I vowed not to repeat the same mistakes. I would not push another boulder up a hill.

So, what do I mean by that?

Building and operating a new business is already challenging enough. Running a business when you don’t have everything you need to be successful is frequently a recipe for disaster.

I’m sure you’ve seen this happen. How many small businesses and restaurants have you watched launch and operate for a few months (or even a few years) but ultimately fail? I’ve watched five restaurants come and go in the same retail space in my small town over the past seven years.

I often see new business owners and startup founders creating a business that requires much more than they personally can deliver. For example, they need:

* Investment or loans.

* Talent, knowledge, skills, and experience the founder or owner lacks.

* Education or credentials the founder or owner doesn’t have yet.

* Employees to deliver the products or services for the customers.

* Expensive office or retail space.

* Expensive equipment.

They’re pushing a giant boulder up a hill by trying to create a business they can’t even begin to operate by themselves. Now, I won’t say that companies like that never succeed. Of course, they do. Mega corporations abound!

However, I’m not that type of business owner, and I’m not that type of business coach. If your dream is to build a massive corporation that generates billions in revenue, plenty of entrepreneurial resources already exist to support you. I can’t help you with that.

Instead, my mission is to help people like you—if you’re still reading—break free of the 9-5 grind and build a solopreneur lifestyle business to support you and your loved ones. I love simple businesses that let you focus on enjoying your life instead of working hard 24x7.

I want to maximize your odds of success. That means eliminating variables and complexity that will make your life harder and increase your chances of failure.

I remember a conversation with someone who wanted to open a new restaurant. As we talked, I discovered they had zero experience in the restaurant industry!

* They had never worked in a restaurant.

* They had no connections in the industry.

* They didn’t know how to cook for a restaurant.

* They wanted to take out a huge loan to build a new one.

* They didn’t even know where to begin.

Now, I can’t predict the future, but I had a pretty good sense of how quickly this business would fail. I encouraged them to pursue a business idea closer to their existing talents, strengths, knowledge, and experience.

While my tech startup failed, my other three businesses were (and are) pretty successful. I was able to support my family on just my income from them. We weren’t wealthy, but we were comfortable and happy.

I’ve mentioned them before, but I want to talk about those businesses in the context of this article. My first business offered my design services to software companies. I already had 95% of the skills, experience, and equipment needed to succeed. I had to learn some sales and marketing, but that was about it. I landed my first client in less than a day. That business doubled my annual income from what I had been earning from an earlier employer.

I created my second business in about a week as a potential side hustle after I quit my corporate job in 2010. Again, I had about 98% of the skills, experience, and connections I needed to succeed. This time, I deliberately avoided a production job requiring me to create deliverables (e.g., design work). I was selling my knowledge as a consultant and advisor. I immediately landed a part-time client with a retained engagement of $10K/month.

I built my third business in about two weeks after I shut my startup down. I’ve been running this business for almost seven years now. This time, I had about 99% of what I needed to succeed. I intentionally designed my solopreneur business to require no employees, special equipment or software, or a physical location. I can—and have—run this business from anywhere in the world from my phone and laptop. It gives me the ultimate freedom to live life on my terms.

Unless you have ambitions to be the next Amazon or Google, I encourage you to be realistic and build a business that you can operate successfully with low risk from day one. Don’t try to push a boulder up a hill and set yourself up for failure.

Thank you for reading Invincible Solopreneurs. This post is public so feel free to share it.

I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

Working for yourself has many incredible benefits (e.g., freedom, flexibility, control over your calendar). But there is another beautiful side effect of solopreneurship. I discovered it a few years after leaving the corporate world in Silicon Valley and working for myself.

I'm finally allowed to grow older and have gray hair.

No more worrying about looking "too old" for the job, being the victim of ageism, or dyeing my hair to get through an interview. I did for several years toward the end of my corporate career. I didn’t go wild with it, but I knew people judged my ability to be energetic, innovative, and creative by my appearance. I was treated differently as my hair turned grayer.

I always told myself I’d stop doing it and that it was ok to age naturally. Right? I mean, it should be.

However—inevitably—I noticed the reactions and received passive-aggressive comments (e.g., “Oh, letting your hair go, huh?”, “Have you always been this gray?”). So, back to dyeing, I went—until I finally broke free from that rat race and launched my independent business.

To hell with changing your appearance for employers. Many of my friends still do it, but I'm happy to leave it all behind. It is incredibly freeing.

My older career coaching clients are experiencing ageism in the industry. They are no longer receiving promotions. It’s taking much longer to land a new job than ever.

One friend recently told me their boss said they don’t hire anyone over 40. Some employers and leaders deny it, but there are too many documented incidents for it to be our imagination.

* Making ‘Dinobabies’ Extinct: IBM’s Push for a Younger Work Force

* The median age for Google’s workforce is 29, compared with 42.8 years for computer programmers and 41.7 years for computer-hardware engineers nationally.

* Is Verizon's Voluntary Separation Program An Attempt To Layoff An Older Generation Of Workers?

Personally, I know it happens. I used to be on the hiring side of the table and hear interviewers making ageist comments about why we shouldn't hire an older candidate (e.g., "They're too old to be innovative,” “When did they graduate from college?!”).

A good friend of mine would be in the job market and navigating interviews. Mind you; this person is so incredibly talented. I worked side by side with them for years. Potential employers rejected them repeatedly until they remembered it was time to dye their hair again. One dye job later, and voilà! - they received a job offer.

How ridiculous is that?

I experienced this discrimination when we raised a seed round for our startup. A partner at one firm said we were too old to have the energy for startup life again. A partner at a different firm walked into the meeting room, looked at us, and said, "There sure is a lot of gray hair in this room."

No, I didn’t punch him in his smarmy little face. I wanted to, but I didn’t.

I will admit it took me quite a few years of running my solopreneur businesses before I realized I could stop being fake with my appearance. Old habits are hard to break, I guess. I kept thinking it would hurt my chances of success with my business. But, slowly but surely, I noticed my clients valued me precisely because I was older and had “been there, done that.” They didn’t expect me to be some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngster with sparkling stars in his eyes. They wanted my battle scars, war stories, and wisdom from years of being knocked down and getting back up.

My message is about learning from my mistakes so you can avoid them with your business and career. Use my pain for your gain. Sidestep the landmines. Reach your goals more quickly with less stress than I experienced.

Solopreneurship is so damn amazing because I get to be ME. I don't have to pretend to be someone else. I don’t have to look younger to coach people who need my help and advice.

What a relief!

I wish the corporate world would change overnight, but it won't. Sadly, you will most likely reach a point in your career when you feel the unforgiving hand of ageism holding you back, too.

That may be the day you bid a fond farewell to all of the broken corporate cultures and strike out on your own.

Do you know why?

Because you are so damn good at what you do precisely because of your age, accumulated knowledge, and decades of experience. You have deep wisdom, and your advice is so valuable.

You can set yourself up as an advisor and consultant, so everything you offer can be provided to clients who will value you. And, let me tell you, that feeling of being appreciated for who you genuinely are is oh-so-sweet. You’re gonna love it!

Oh, and throw away those bottles of hair dye. You won't need them anymore.

Ways to turn your age into an asset

There are many ways you can transform what you’ve learned and accomplished over your lifetime into valuable assets for your business. Here are some examples of folks who achieved success—often reinventing themselves— at a later age.

* Raymond Chandler was 51 when his first book was published.

* Ray Kroc was 52 years old when he started McDonald’s.

* J.K. Rowling was 32 when Harry Potter was published.

* Colonel Harland David Sanders was 65 when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken.

* Julia Child was 49 years old when her first cookbook was published.

* Bob Ross spent 20 years with the U.S. Air Force and only started his famous painting show on PBS when he was 41.

Your knowledge

If you’re one of those people constantly learning and growing, you’ve acquired a fantastic amount of valuable knowledge. Every year, you know more that can help others and be applied to solve their problems.

Expertise matters, and this continues to develop throughout your life and career. For example, a study of radiologists found that their “interpretations of screening mammograms improve during their first few years of practice and continue to improve throughout much of their careers.”

Can younger people also have valuable knowledge? Of course, they can! I’m not saying they don’t. But you’ve had more years to accumulate even vaster amounts of it unless you’ve been resting on your laurels and stagnating. Note: never let that happen.

Your experience

No one has precisely the same life and work experiences you have had. Everything you have experienced impacts who you are and how you think. You can bring your unique perspective to bear on any problem that needs to be solved for your customers and clients.

One way to maximize your experience is to get out of your comfort zone and try new things. Step up into bigger roles and take on more responsibility.

Do things that scare you. Growth happens when you stretch yourself to do and become more.

Your unique experiences enable a diversity of thinking that no one else can replicate. They have not lived your life.

They have not walked an identical career path (my path is kind of crazy). Embrace this, recognize how your experiences contribute to your unique value, and leverage it to your advantage. Clients love it when you have a deep well of stories that can help them navigate their problems.

Your wisdom

Knowledge alone does not solve problems. Wisdom helps you understand how and when to apply your knowledge.

If knowledge is information, wisdom is knowing when to apply that information to solve a problem and how to look across all of that knowledge to create a metal-level solution rather than some micro application of a tiny piece of information in isolation.

You may have heard some variation of this anecdote that illustrates the power of wisdom. This can be applied to your own consulting business, by the way. Charge for your wisdom, not just for the work completed.

A town’s electricity generator failed, and various engineers were unable to fix it, so an elderly professor was summoned. He examined the generator carefully, then tapped it lightly once with a hammer, and power was instantly restored. He submitted his bill for $1,000.02 and itemized it: “Tapping — $.02. Knowing where to tap — $l,000.” (Source)

Older folks do gain more wisdom. Yes, yes, I know. We are suffering some types of decline. But wisdom improves with age and survival. The bold young buck steps into the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle. The older and wiser buck has the wisdom to recognize and avoid hunters.

Your network

Your network's breadth, depth, and power all grow as you age and keep active. My network is quite valuable from my years at IBM, Apple, eBay, Yahoo, and all the consulting I did in Silicon Valley. I also traveled the world and spoke at events in other countries. I keep active with my online network and build friendships everywhere!

You can tap into your network as a business owner; the more valuable your network is (as an older person), the better the results.

* Looking for talented people to help you with a project (e.g., a great engineer).

* Seeking investors for your business (e.g., having multimillionaires and billionaires in your network is nice).

* Finding smart partners who might want to join you in a new venture (e.g., almost all of my startup partners were old friends and colleagues).

* Helping introduce your clients to well-connected people (e.g., for a job).

* Getting an intro to someone to help close a deal (e.g., selling into a corporation).

My network was so small and weak in my 20s. Luckily, I had a few great people who helped me get into graduate school. But my network didn’t really grow and become more powerful until my 30s and 40s. Now, in my 50s, I feel like I know someone at every tech company (or someone who knows someone).

Lean into your advantages as you grow older. Don’t let someone tell you you’re “too old” to do something. And that’s the beauty of solopreneurship; you are in charge. No one else can tell you what you can or cannot do!

I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

Are you thinking about starting your first business? It can feel overwhelming, and it's too easy to focus on the wrong things.

In this article and podcast episode, I talk about:

* Ten things to forget about.

* Ten things to obsess about.

* Ten things you must do.

I talk with many folks interested in quitting their 9-5 jobs and launching their own business. They look for helpful information online, but it frequently recommends many activities that aren’t that important when you’re first starting.

In fact, spending too much time on them is such a waste of energy that it jeopardizes your success. Many years ago, I was part of an entrepreneurial community. Everyone was excited, energetic, and bursting with cool business ideas.

Unfortunately, people love to spend too much time on the fun parts of designing and defining a new business. They focus on those activities so much that they don’t spend enough time on the fundamentals that will make or break the business. For example, a cool logo is fun to design but won’t keep your business alive if your customers aren’t happy.

Several years later, one of my friends from that community remarked, “I think we’re the only ones still in business with our original ideas.”

She was right. Most of the businesses had already failed and disappeared. A few people had shut down one or more business ideas and moved on to something new. Many folks went back — or stayed — in 9-5 jobs.

I will share more details in the podcast audio for this article. So, scroll up and listen to hear everything. There’s just too much I want to share, and I don’t want this newsletter to get too long.

Ten things to forget about — for now

Aspiring business owners should stop worrying so much about the ten items I share below.

Note: There is a big difference between a virtual business (e.g., career coaching) and a physical business (e.g., retail store, restaurant, bar, auto repair business). For example, some items below can be put off for the future when you’re running a consulting business online. But, if you have a physical business, you must deal with them before you can open your storefront.

Will they be necessary for every business at some point? Sure, some of them are necessary to address in a growing company.

But, some of them are still not that important for solopreneurs. So, it’s a waste of time and energy to focus on them before your business is even off the ground!

* Your business name.

* Your business structure (e.g., sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation).

* Your logo.

* Your branding elements.

* Professional photos.

* A fancy website.

* Business cards and letterhead.

* Scaling your business.

* Hiring employees.

* Being popular on social media.

Many of these things are putting the cart before the horse. Most waste your precious time and money when you can least afford to spend them.

With my first business, I had a paying client before I even had a business name, domain, website, or business email address. With my second business, I operated profitably for many years before forming an LLC.

One of my favorite local bakers creates gluten-free pastries, breads, and other delights. I’ve watched his business launch and grow over the past few years.

He did it the right way.

While other local businesses struggled or died during the pandemic, he thrived. He didn’t make the mistake I see many small businesses make. They dive right in and spend lots of money on a storefront, remodeling the space, hiring employees, etc.

This guy bakes out of a home kitchen certified under the Cottage Food Law monitored by the California Department of Health. He doesn’t have a storefront or retail space. He has no employees. It’s just him.

He started by delivering baked goods to your doorstep. Then, he partnered with local coffee shops, cafes, and restaurants to offer his treats in their retail space. He caters and holds events at wineries in their venues as a win-win.

His business is slowly growing, thriving, and expanding into more products when he knows customers want them — and he’s perfected the recipe. He’s always asking what we want next to ensure demand before wasting time and money on something customers won’t love.

Don’t focus on the wrong things when starting your business. There will be time to reevaluate and deal with them later. Right now, there are more important things you should be obsessing about.

Ten things to obsess about

Here are ten things you should obsess about:

* Your ideal customer.

* The problem they have.

* Your solution to their problem.

* What your core offer is.

* Your elevator sales pitch.

* Your product-market fit.

* Making customers happy.

* Building your email list.

* How you’re feeling.

* The lifestyle you’re creating.

I was talking with a friend about many of these items. You should always be customer-obsessed, but it’s the only way your business will survive in the early days. You won't last long if you don’t deliver value and make them happy.

That’s why it’s essential to fixate on who your ideal customer is and their problem that only you can solve with what your business offers. Also, selling feels easy when you know you have something that can genuinely improve someone’s life.

Why would you keep it a secret? Why would you not use it to help people?

And, when you have happy customers, you don’t want to lose touch with them. Don’t let social media, search, and other companies come between you and them. That’s why you should obsess about building your email list. You will always want a direct connection with your customers and potential customers.

Finally, one of the reasons I love solopreneur businesses is that you get to design your lifestyle. You decide when, where, and how you work. You can choose who you spend time with and how hard you want to work.

So yes, I want you to obsess over how you feel during this journey. Are you on the right track? Do you love what you’re building? Is it giving you the kind of lifestyle you want? And I’m not just talking about the money you’re making. I’m talking about the freedom and flexibility to live your life on your own terms.

With all of that being said, there are some things you must do if you want to run a functional business.

Ten things you must do

Here are some items you'll need to take care of to operate your business and get off to a good start. Some of these overlap with the obsession list.

* Talk with an accountant and lawyer to see what’s required for a new business where you live.

* You may need legal agreements and contracts ready, depending on the work you do (e.g., consulting with corporations).

* Have somewhere online where people can learn about your business and what you sell.

* Help potential customers discover you (e.g., marketing and maybe ads).

* Have a way for potential customers to contact you.

* Prepare your offer and create your pitch.

* Have a way to accept payments connected to your business bank account.

* Deliver real value to your customers.

* Get testimonials and reviews from happy customers.

* Retain your customers for repeat business and get those referrals!

I live in California in the U.S., so my experiences running my businesses here are pretty different than what others deal with in other U.S. states and certainly quite different from what you may experience in your country (e.g., stricter regulations).

Please take my advice with a grain of salt and speak with a local accountant and lawyer. They will help you navigate the legal requirements for starting and operating a business where you live. I don’t want you to get into trouble!

The items above are the critical components of any sustainable business model. People have to know your business exists, they have to be able to contact you and buy from you, and you have to be able to accept payments.

I know some of this sounds silly and obvious. But, you’d be surprised by the number of new business owners who don’t have an online presence, set up a new bank account, or have any way for them to accept payments from customers.

Then, they’re scrambling later when potential customers ask:

* “Where can I learn more about your services?”

* “How do I hire you?”

* “How do I buy from you?”

* “Where do I make a payment?”

Get the basics right with your new business first, then focus on your obsession list to build a thriving customer base. Reevaluate and deal with that first list later, after you’re up and running and ready for that level of detail.

Thank you for reading Invincible Solopreneurs. This post is public so feel free to share it.

I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop. I live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

I hosted another live fireside chat via Zoom last month. In this podcast episode, I share some of the questions and answers we discussed.

I started with a conversation about the power of writing and publishing. It’s not just good for your career as an employee. It’s also powerful for solopreneurs to connect with their ideal audience and clients/customers.

As usual, people sent me questions ahead of time. But in this session, we also covered questions raised during the Zoom.

For example:

* “What is the best industry for generating case studies for my new business?”

* “How do investors and VCs evaluate startups and founders?”

* “How should I describe what I do so it resonates more with CEOs and founders?”

* Why it’s so important to talk with potential clients to understand how they talk about their problems in their own language.

I recorded the call and uploaded it for this newsletter’s podcast episode. Scroll up, hit play, and enjoy!

By the way, if you’d like to attend the next fireside chat, I’m hosting it on May 30th. Sign up here to save a seat.

I’ll be sharing feedback on LinkedIn profiles and answering other questions you submit using the form on the event page. There’s still time to send me yours!

Hi, I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop (coming soon). I currently live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and our Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.

Many years ago, I was miserable.

When I was still an executive working for a corporation in Silicon Valley, my life was not my own. My long days comprised 2-4 hours on the freeway for my daily commute, running from meeting to meeting, and going where my calendar told me to go next. It started with early-morning standup calls, and it ended with late-night calls with teams around the globe.

I left all of that behind in 2010 when I quit the corporate world and started my own consulting business. Life was certainly better after that. I worked with amazing clients, and I worked fewer hours. I had more control over my schedule, so I spent more time with my family.

However, I was still trapped in a familiar cycle of a daily work schedule, commuting on freeways, working in clients’ offices, and not taking much time off for vacations. Even after I founded my own startup, I followed a similar routine (e.g., commuting, long hours), although I had way more control over my “coworkers,” working hours, and how I spent my days in the office.

I guess I had considered nothing very different because I had spent decades in a traditional 9-5 model. Although I was the boss, I essentially replicated many of the old patterns of “having a job.” It wasn’t until years later—when my startup failed—that I challenged my conventional notions of work and running a business.

I had always lived my life in the margins around my jobs. I also lived my life around my first businesses. But this time, I designed my new business around my life instead. I challenged myself to create an operational model that let me have a good life while I am still young enough to enjoy it. Ok, young-ish. 🤣

Here are a few of the must-have elements of the new business I created:

* A solopreneur model with no dependencies on anyone else (e.g., no employees, partners, or investors).

* No more daily commutes!

* No expensive office space in a fixed location.

* A location-independent business that can function anywhere in the world.

* No equipment or resource demands other than a laptop, phone, and internet.

* No requirement to meet with clients in person.

* Complete control over who I decide to work with as a client.

* No set hours other than what I choose to work.

On that last point, I recently applied “Day Theming” to further improve my life and design my business around it. About 5 months ago, I decided to block off Wednesdays for outdoor activities with my wife every week. We went skiing every Wed morning this winter, and now we're doing long hikes and trail runs on that day.

Why Wednesdays? I don’t enjoy crowds. After much experimentation, we discovered we often have the ski slopes and mountain trails mostly to ourselves when we go on Wed mornings.

Roughly, here is how I’ve structured my week to give each day a theme and focus:

* Mon: Live meetings with my communities (here’s a video from one)

* Tue: Business writing and podcasting

* Wed: Outdoor activities and fiction writing

* Thu: Client meetings and business tasks

* Fri: Client meetings and business tasks

* Sat: Running and fiction writing

* Sun: Walking and business writing

Of course, this doesn’t detail every single little task I do, and some emergency stuff comes up that I have to take care of, even if it doesn’t fit a day’s theme. But you'll notice how much of my time I dedicate to my personal life. And yes, I’m having some fun writing fiction for the first time in my life!

I’m now considering taking this concept of theming and designing my business around my life to another level. There are times of the year when I just need to set work aside, recover, and be with my family. I want to take summer vacations with my wife, visit my children, and see my extended family, too. I want to take time off during the holidays in November and December. So, I have some more business design work to do. Creating that healthy balance is an ongoing task that requires maintenance, evaluation, and tuning.

I also structure my days to have time to work out every day, spend mornings the way I want (e.g., coffee, journaling, workouts, and breakfast), and enjoy meals with my wife. I don’t take client calls at night or over the weekend. I’ve had to establish some rules to maintain my quality of life, which I sadly never did with the old corporate jobs that almost killed me.

You deserve to live a good life! Now. Not later. Right now.

Yes, you need to make a living. We all do. But you don’t need to “sacrifice living” to make enough money to have a good life. If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I believe in establishing what “having enough” means for you.

If you are seriously focused on becoming a multimillionaire or billionaire, then I’m not the business coach for you. My goal is to help you replace the income you make from your 9-5 job so you can break free and be independent. Heck, if you do build an amazing business that generates even more money and still allows you to have a great life, then go for it!

I’m not opposed to making a lot of money. But I am opposed to pursuing money with such a vengeance that you give up enjoying a good and healthy life now.

What’s the point of wealth if you sacrifice your health?

What’s the point of becoming rich if you sacrifice your relationships along the way?

I want you to build a business that gives you the balance of making enough money to be comfortable and still enjoying your daily personal life. As Invincible Solopreneurs, we believe in creating business models that give you everything a 9-5 job took away from you:

* How you spend your time.

* How much time you spend working.

* The freedom to live where you want.

* The freedom to control your calendar.

* The power to choose who you work with every day.

* How you make your money.

* How much you get paid.

We believe you should design your business around your life, not your life around work.

In this article, I intentionally said this is about designing your life in harmony with your business, not “lifestyle design.” The word lifestyle has been ruined by the rich and shameless.

People think an ideal lifestyle means living like an obscenely wealthy person. You can’t have a great lifestyle unless you own a mansion, summer house, ski cabin, high-end sports car, yacht, etc.

Bullsh*t. That’s all about material possessions. It’s not really about your life and how you live it every day.

So, instead of focusing on the shallow and superficial, I’d rather have you focus on the deep and meaningful. How can you design your business to enable you to live a life of fulfillment, happiness, purpose, health, love, and meaning?

If that makes me sound like some happy California hippy, then so be it. I am happy. I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. You should be able to make a good living, work less than you did as an employee, and deliver amazing value to the clients you help with your unique talents, skills, knowledge, and experience. When you build the right business model for you and them, it’s a win-win-win for everyone.

Don't treat your life like an afterthought by squeezing it into the margins of time around your job.

Instead, design your work around your ideal life.

This post is public, so feel free to share it with someone who needs more balance in their working life.

Hi, I’m Larry Cornett, a coach who can work with you 1-on-1 to design, launch, and optimize your business. You might also be interested in my “Employee to Solopreneur” workshop (coming soon). I currently live in Northern California near Lake Tahoe with my wife and our Great Dane while running my businesses 100% remotely.