Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You didn't become a solopreneur to build a business that runs your life. You did it so your business could serve it.
The Life-First Solopreneur is the twice-weekly podcast at the heart of the Life-First Movement. It's for solopreneurs who believe the business should be designed around life, not the other way around.
Hosts Joe Rando and Carly Ries, co-authors of Solopreneur Business for Dummies, sit down each week with solopreneurs who are building Life-First Businesses and experts who are helping others do the same.
Every episode explores what it really takes to design, run, and evolve a one-person business with your life at the center.
Basically, what we're trying to say is:
Life First. Then Business.
You quit your job to get your life back. So why does your business own you? In this episode, Joe and I unpack the lifestarr manifesto and the ownership trap. Sixty five percent of people start a business for freedom, yet 80% lose sleep over it. And the fix isn't motivation, it's design.
Speaker 1:Learn the three mistakes keeping solopreneurs trapped and how to build a business that serves your life instead of consuming it. You're listening to the Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business. I'm Carly Reese, and my cohost, Joe Rando, and I spend every episode with solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first, then business. So let's get right to it.
Speaker 1:Hey solopreneurs, feeling like the boss, the employee and the IT department all before lunch? Well, it's time to get some backup. Check out Lifestarr Intro. It's a free hub built just for one person business owners like you. You'll get access to a community of fellow solopreneurs.
Speaker 1:You'll get access to virtual brainstorming and educational sessions to spark new ideas every month. And you'll get access to a weekly newsletter and blog packed with tips that actually move the needle. Oh, and a heads up, there's a new app coming soon to help you stay productive and organized because let's be honest, sticky notes aren't a business system, and that will also be included in LifeStar intro. So join free today at lifestarr.com/intro. Again, that's lifestarr with 2r's.com/intro, and we hope to see you there.
Speaker 1:So, Joe, in a lot of our soundbite episodes over the past month or so, maybe two months now, we've been talking about our pivot into really focusing on life first businesses.
Speaker 2:And I don't I don't think of it as a pivot, Carly. I think of it as niching down.
Speaker 1:Thank you. No. That's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I
Speaker 1:like it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I I I don't feel like we changed direction. I feel like we just we as we as we got to know more and more solopreneurs, we started to realize kind of what the people that we resonated with wanted, and what we really thought we could help with, at least for service based solopreneurs. And so, yeah, I I think it's I think we're following our own advice and niching down.
Speaker 1:I think you're a 100% right, and that's how I'm gonna say it moving forward. But we put in a lot of time and effort. You especially have put so much time and effort into really niching down both with the podcast, but also with Lifestar and how we are not only marketing things moving forward, but how we're running the business, how we're just everything. It's impacted every single part of our whole ecosystem. And because of that, you've created a manifesto that's basically like, this is it.
Speaker 1:Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I I well, I've created a manifesto, but I'm not it's not like one of those crazy people, like Unabomber manifestos. It's short.
Speaker 1:A short manifesto. Thank you for the clarification on that. Do know what that connotation? But can you walk us through that today? What does this manifesto look like?
Speaker 1:Like, take us through the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you know, it's it really comes down to this concept we've been talking about of the ownership trap. Right? If you build a business, and I think you said it first, Carly, based on your skills instead of on the life that you want, then the business will pretty much take up your life because you didn't set any parameters around your life. And that's just the nature of of things that are, you know, complex like building a business. It's hard, and there's a lot to it.
Speaker 2:And if if the life aspect is is second or third on the list, it's gonna get eaten up. So the concept here starts with, life first, then business. And we've said that. I I know I've said that in a number of blogs and and emails and things. So but, you know, the idea here, this ownership trap is that you, you know, you go from maybe you're working in corporate and you don't like something about it, and you say, you know what?
Speaker 2:I'm done. I I wanna take my life back because I'm sick of my my boss or my hours or they're making me go back to the office or my coworkers are all gossip. I you know, whatever it is or or many of those things, but you've made a decision that you don't wanna work in corporate, and you build your own business. And the next thing, you know, I used to joke when I first started, you know, I started a business at one point and I said, my boss is a real jerk. I'm self employed.
Speaker 2:And, you know, what happens is that you wind up building a business, and it owns you instead of you owning the business. And it it takes your time, and it's really, really hard. So the idea here is to, you know, we've got to identify this this trap, and what is it doing? So here's a few statistics for you. Sixty five percent of people that start a business do it for freedom and quality of life.
Speaker 2:They're not doing it to become multimillionaires or billionaires. They just want a life that they wanna live. And that's 65%. And a lot of those are solopreneurs. Right?
Speaker 2:Because it's a lot easier in theory to have a business that kind of revolves around your life if you don't have employees that you have to, you know, support. In theory, you know, eighty percent end up losing sleep over their business. So that doesn't sound like, you know, quality of life and freedom. Eighty percent of small business owners, this isn't just solopreneurs, but small business owners report poor mental health. Eighty seven percent.
Speaker 2:And one in three of those hit full burnout. So, you know, the issue here is we're not talking about an issue of motivation. It's a design problem. We we we are not designing our businesses in a way that's going to allow them to serve the life we wanna live. So that's what we call the ownership trap.
Speaker 2:So there are really three causes to the ownership trap, but that first one that no design is is the biggie. And it's the one that you know, I I don't know what the statistics. I'll make one up. Ninety seven percent of people don't design their business around their life. You know?
Speaker 2:I don't know what it is, but it it happens all the time. They design it around their skills. I can do this. I'm good at this. People will pay me for this.
Speaker 2:Let me build a business. But never think about, gee. You know? And what do you how do you say, Collie? What what some of what did your Tuesday look like?
Speaker 2:Is is that it?
Speaker 1:What does your what does your Tuesday look like? Like, a middle of the week, not a Friday or Monday that you could take off for a holiday or something, but middle of the week, what does your day ideal day look like?
Speaker 2:Right. And that's you know, if you can identify that, the things that, you know, you'd be happy at the end of the day that you got to do instead of like, oh, I can't believe I had to do that. Or guess what, you know, 06:00 comes and I'm not done. You know, it's just, these are the kinds of things. So this lack of design.
Speaker 2:But then another thing that can catch up, even if you have design, and if you don't, it's even worse, is that you don't have a system. Right? You if you worked in corporate, you you know, you had all these pieces in place. I mean, corporate corporations have managers, and their job is just to make sure that everybody's doing what they're supposed to be doing. And it's really great, you know, if you have a good manager, it's really great because it keeps you on track.
Speaker 2:But when you're a solopreneur, you know, you don't have a manager anymore. And a lot of solopreneurs are running their business and what we call their commitments on communication channels, emails, Slack, text messages, and whatever. And the idea is that you've got commitments that you're making to yourself, you've got commitments you're making to other people, and most importantly, commitments other people are making to you that you're not usually doing a very good job of tracking. Right? You might have your own to do list.
Speaker 2:You're doing a nice job there. Keep a track of things, but, know, where things are at in these things is tricky, but that stuff that other people are supposed to give to you, I a lot of people don't track those, and then they wake up one day and find out that that was something was due last week, and now they're late on something that they were supposed to do. So, you know, this is the accountability gap, we call it. There's there needs to be accountability, and you can't do that, or at least most mere mortals can't do that managing all the stuff they're doing in a business through their email inbox. It's just not feasible.
Speaker 2:So that's another another issue. And then the the last one is this idea that you have built a business, I'm just gonna run it, but there's no plan to evolve. And the issue there is that things are changing. I mean, the world's obviously been changing like crazy. I mean, AI has made everything different.
Speaker 2:But there's other things are changing and technology's changing, and you're changing, you know? So I've talked to a lot of solopreneurs. I oh, I had this great business, but, you know, I just didn't wanna be in that I didn't wanna do that anymore. I it'd run its course, and I wanna do something new or something different, and they're creating new businesses from scratch. But or it might just be, you know, given, you know, some things that and my kids I'm an empty nester now.
Speaker 2:I wanna tweak my business so I'm spending, you know, some time traveling because I I kinda like to travel even for business. You know, whatever it is, but there's you're you're you're changing, the world's changing. You need to have this process of every once in a while stepping back and saying, you know, how do I evolve the business? And and part of that is, you know, keeping track of the things that are are not working for you as you run the business. So you can have those to work from as you go on to the next step and evolve it.
Speaker 2:So that's really, you know, the process that most solopreneurs aren't following, some or all of those steps. So that's one of the other things that this manifesto is talking about, that these are the problems. So what we can say then is that if you have a life first design, and you actively manage your commitments in an effective fashion, and you plan the evolution of your business as you run it, go forward with it, you then create, in our case, a life first solopreneur business. Right? You're creating a business that works for your life and not the other way around.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, does any of that not jive with you, Carly? Does it make sense?
Speaker 1:I mean, I I feel like I'm the wrong person to ask that because I've been on this journey with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But you're the only person to talk to.
Speaker 1:The only person. I know. But I I I'd be curious, listeners, what you think about all this. You can comment. You can send us an email.
Speaker 1:We will actually respond either at carly, carly,@lifestarrwith2r's.com, or Joe, spelled Joe lifestarr with two r's dot com, or send us a message on YouTube or LinkedIn because we do wanna know what you think about this. I I will sit here and Joe and be like, I think this is the smartest thing in the world. But I've also been a part of this journey. But I mean, I think the thing that drive home is at this point in the show and in LifeStarr, we've worked with thousands of solopreneurs and spoken to them, and these are the three things that they struggle with. Like, we we now have evidence.
Speaker 1:If you came on here after episode 10 of the show and year one of Lifestarr and came up with the manifesto, you'd be like, well, let's see if we prove our can prove our point. But this is this was developed because of what we do see.
Speaker 2:It's empirical.
Speaker 1:Exactly. We have the evidence now. Now we're over 300 episodes into the show. I just like, we just we have the data and and for LifeStarr, we have countless community members and everything. So, yeah, that those are my two senses that this is not just a hunch.
Speaker 2:I mean, I could go on forever, but I think that kinda covers the big picture. And this is what we exist for now. We we exist I mean, to help any life for a solopreneur, you know, most of our educational stuff is kind of focused on the the, you know, service based businesses. Right? The coaches, the consultants, the contractors, and people who take their skill.
Speaker 2:But, you know, I mean, some of this some of this stuff applies to anybody, whether you're a content creator or a, you know, an influencer or, you know, an app developer. These these philosophies apply as well. But like I said, we we can't we focus on the the you know, our educational aspect at least focuses heavily on the on the, you know, service based solopreneur business. But things like the LifeStarr app will work for anybody.
Speaker 1:Yep. Absolutely. Well, Joe, thank you for putting that together, and so concretely. We've talked about this for a while, but I'm so glad we have it out. I'll link to the manifesto in the show notes of this episode, so that all of you can go find it.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, you can find it on the LifeStarr website. But if if this episode brought you clarity and you like, it really struck a chord with you, we would love a five star review because it'll help spread the word to other solopreneurs who might be in your shoes. You could also share this episode with a friend who you think might be struggling with one of these three things that we could really help with. And if you're like, gosh, now I wanna know more, then subscribe to our our podcast on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube, and we'd so appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on the Aspiring Solopreneur.
Speaker 1:You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.
Speaker 1:That's community.lifestarr,with2r's,.com.