When Life Hits But the Work Doesn’t Stop
What is true Freedom?
If you go on YouTube you will see hundreds of videos about how ‘entrepreneurship equals freedom.’ You will tens of influencers telling you how great the entrepreneur life is.
If you think entrepreneurship is about riding off into the sunset with you million dollar idea, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Most entrepreneurs are in bondage. Most don’t have time to build their business because they are too busy working in the business.
Click above to comment
Here are a few scenarios…
After you spend years in the trenches of figuring out strategies, marketing, improving your craft, developing a client list, hit financial milestones, just to feel like you’ve max out your potential in year 5,6,7 or 8? Then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
When you have family drama, miss multiple birthday parties or family vacations due to a shoot that you believe will uplift your career or due to life changing money, just for a client that you thought would be a long term client ghost you; Then you’ll understand where I’m coming from.
Imagine having a deadline for you bread and butter client, and you have a death in the family, or you catch the Flu. The client still needs to present regardless of your “feelings”. Finding a last minute replacement that will represent you well because the client renewing their retainer depends on it can be mentally draining.
I’ve often felt these pressures… I usually deal with them by saying, “you don’t have a choice”. Though, I always have a choice, with a wife and children my options are very limited.
Bad news doesn’t wait for a slow week.
Stress doesn’t check your calendar.
Family concerns, grief, disappointment, unexpected life moments, they all arrive whether you have deadlines or not.
Somehow, the client still expects the edit tomorrow, the meeting still happens in the morning. The deliverables are still due Friday.
Is this toxic thinking? Maybe. Could I get better at outsourcing some of my work? Maybe. It’s hard to alter a mindset that was used as a tool to fuel your career when you felt like giving up.
Building Beyond Myself x What is true Freedom?
If I’m being honest, this is one of the clearest reminders of why I think so much about building beyond myself.
True freedom isn’t just about making more money. It’s about building a life and business with enough structure, leverage, and support
that when life inevitably demands your attention everything doesn’t stop.
A business that only works when you’re functioning at 100% isn’t freedom. It’s dependency disguised as success.
So if anything, difficult weeks remind me of what I’m building toward. A business that can breathe without me for at least a moment. A life with systems, support and flexibility.
Gene,
This is so timely for me too… as I’m working toward a life that can sustain more responsibilities, more things that need my attention, and more important work that needs to be done at the same time.. this is always on my mind. I said to a friend the other day, “I don’t want to want as hard as I did last year to make the same kind of money, it wasn’t sustainable." and it wasn’t. And I said yes to EVERYTHING, it seemed like.. to the point that my team would ask… why did you say yes to this? And only in retrosepct did it occur to me that I was doing the exact thing you mentioned and not giving myself a lot of room to deal with life as it came at the worst of times.. I’d been struggling to “alter a mindset” that had so far fueled my career which was.. “you better strike while the iron is hot.” But then there’s always this relentless chase and never feeling real stability or peace even when you’re doing well, and you do skip the birthdays or gatherings or times to rest. So, I definitely get it, bro. Thanks for this post!