You Don’t Need to Build an Empire
Other paths to fulfilling & lucrative self-employment beyond being an entrepreneur
Humans love sharp contrasts. We instinctually see the world as a set of binary choices: good versus evil, left or right, hot or mild, and employee or entrepreneur.
But reality is more complicated. The actual world is full of nuance and innumerable options. I haven’t received a paycheck from someone else in more than twenty years. I undertook my first stint of self-employment almost thirty years ago, when I was 19. If you total the time that I’ve spent as an employee since my first job selling corndogs at Great America at age 16, it totals less than five years.
For most of my life, I’ve worked for myself and been quite happy and financially stable — and for most of that time, I have not been an entrepreneur. I’ve never built an empire. Instead, I find joy, personal fulfillment, and financial stability doing the work I love.
The dream of being an entrepreneur means building something that allows you to make money while you sleep, with other people doing most of the work. The idea of being an entrepreneur is exciting — but the reality can be quite different.
Building a business is hard. Building a business that does not need you in a day-to-day…
