What if my life was a business?

You can listen to this blog post below! Scroll down to see links to other posts.

I recently watched a movie - pure Jason Statham action. It was compliments my bank account who has given me a bunch of free movie tickets. I know, I know, nothing is free - especially from the bank. But these days I take what I can get. 

When I was walking out of the cinema, I saw an ad for a health insurance company that also gives out free movie tickets. Since I probably have more than I'll ever use, given that I have a very particular taste in films - I think I'll pass. But it got me thinking about business models. Clearly the bank and the cinema and the insurance company (mine gave me free coffee and I'm drinking one right now) have been trying something new when it comes to business models so that's fun.

I spent most of my career being self employed and if I'm honest, I kind of hated it. It felt unstable - like I didn't have control over what came into my account every month, and I dreaded being sick. I didn't even enjoy vacations that much as it felt like it was costing me - twice. It kept me highly strung for years, even though in hindsight, I earned a decent amount of money, and sometimes I wonder what I might have thought was possible if I wasn't so stressed all the time. 

During that time I took several attempts at starting a business. There were times I thought I might replace one income with another but I often felt as if I was replacing one problem with another - or rather - with the same problem. So it never stuck, and eventually I found other ways to fill my time and spend my energy. 

During COVID my pay was cut significantly, and I no longer feared a job change, so I took the opportunity to move and try something new. On the upside - I was salaried. At last! Some stability! I hadn't realised how dysregulated I was feeling around being self-employed, and the ups and downs that came with it, and this might have been “happily-ever-after”. 

Security. 

Stability. 

Calm.

And then - a couple of years into the job, we went through a round of layoffs and I found myself stressed all over again. The day some of us found out we were still employed, we sat debriefing about what we could learn from the experience. One person vowed to work harder (this would need a whole other blog post to unpack but let's just say it wasn't my lesson). Another said “we should always have multiple streams of income!” This was closer to what I was feeling but not quite (although I am definitely putting this into practice). 

My lesson came to me early one morning as I lay in bed half- listening to a podcast, and thinking what I’d do if I no longer had this safe, salaried position and had to go back to being self-employed. Instead of being filled with dread, I had a different thought. 

What if my life was already a business?

This question made me pause. I spent so long feeling like security only lay in being salaried, and feeling opposition to being in business for myself. But if in my simple terms a business is - income Vs spending and overhead, brought together by some type of business model, then my life is definitely a business. More questions arose.

What is my current business model? 

What if I don’t like it?

What else could it be? 

What are some other business models that I could swap it out for?

Are there any business models that suit my seasonal nature?

But other questions also came. Specifically around security. If I couldn’t get security even from a salaried position in a place which felt like it SHOULD be secure, then what?

What is security anyway?

How can I create it for myself?

How does security align with freedom - particularly creative freedom?

How can I have security and creative freedom?

And more.

These were some of the questions that got me to think differently about my relationship with money, and to think more creatively about what was possible. It also got me hella curious about other business models, and I started lightly observing them. I was surprised to hear about:

A fireworks store that earned 90% of it’s annual income in one week, and spent the rest of the year dreaming up new types of fireworks, collaborating with other stores, and doing things that wouldn’t be possible without the mental space.

A ski instructor who earns his money for the year during winter.

Someone who runs a crop-over band in Barbados, who earns their money for the year during the season.

Creatives who earn their basic-needs money in certain seasons, and then they have gigs in between.

And more.

These are only a few of the many, many business models, but I found it interesting to see how other folks were making it work in different ways. How they were creating some level of stability for themselves along with a level of creative freedom. Did I want to do any of these things? Probably not (although selling fireworks does sound interesting!), but it definitely got me out of binary thinking mode when it comes to money and stability, and got me thinking about how I could create my own stability and what stability was to me anyway. It was after this that I came up with my “break glass” figure which I’ll write about soon. And it made me wonder if it wouldn’t be so bad to try self-employment again if I could approach it in a different way.

I don’t know if I would have been able to reach this thought process without first having some stability with a salary. Who knows. But the reality is, here I am now, and so every time I see a business model that I haven’t seen before, I smile. 

It’s a reminder that there are so many ways.

A reminder to stay open and alert, and release binary thinking.

And a reminder to ask more questions and see what ideas they bring.

If your life was a business model, what would it be? And what are some questions that changed your relationship to your finances or other area in your life?

I can’t wait to hear!!

And I send you big love.