Lifestyle Entrepreneurship - Having a Business So You Can Live Your Life…

I’ve heard the term “lifestyle entrepreneurship” chatted about quite a bit recently. Namely, from great entrepreneurs and bloggers like:

• Tim Ferris
• AnyWired
• Yanik Silver
• etc.

To me, “lifestyle entrepreneurship” is all about creating a business (or businesses) that allows you to truly lead the life you want to live.

For me, that life is one where I’m able to make enough income to make it so I don’t HAVE to work everyday (although, us entrepreneurs tend to love what we do… so it’s not work), where I can spend more time traveling with my wife and family, where I can technically not work for a week and still have that income coming in whether I work or not, where I’m able to golf during the week anytime I want, and where I’m truly making a difference in other people’s lives.

That’s me. That’s why I am an entrepreneur and do what I do.

Am I In My Ideal “Lifestyle Entrepreneur” Position Yet?

Right now… probably not. I DO believe that I’m on my way and will be there pretty damn soon… but I’m still trying to work my way out of my previous mindset of what it is to be an “entrepreneur”.

I graduated from college with degrees in Marketing and Entrepreneurship (yes… that’s a real degree). In college we were taught what it is like to run a traditional company… with the “entrepreneur” working tirelessly for the rest of his/her life to have that “freedom” we all look for as entrepreneurs.

After college I carried that mindset forward… and even worse… I carried the mindset that “If I can do it… I’ll just do it myself… heck, it’ll save me a ton of money”. After 2 years of “entrepreneurship” doing it “myself”… I began to look at what I had created.

Here’s what my “entrepreneurial” efforts created me:

• 15 hour+ days (no biggie… I love what I do so it’s not USUALLY work)
• A decent income… but not all that much
• Trading time for dollars
• Burn out just around the corner… I was doing EVERYTHING myself… EVERYTHING
• A devalued impression of what my time was worth to myself and my clients
• Lack of clarity on what I really wanted out of life

Wow… sounds like quite the “entrepreneurs lifestyle” huh?

We As Entrepreneurs Need To Do One Thing…

I’m trying to keep this post on the shorter side… so I’ll sum up what the heck I’m getting at.

We as entrepreneurs need to figure out why we are entrepreneurs… and what we really want out of our businesses deep down in our core beings. More work, less free time, and less value on your time isn’t what I wanted out of entrepreneurship. That’s a load of crap that I for some reason let take over my brain.

So, to get what we really want… we need to go after “lifestyle entrepreneurship” rather than the “entrepreneur lifestyle”. To me, the “entrepreneur lifestyle” almost has a bad connotation to it right off the bat. When I think of that term, I picture what I had been doing for the last 2 years… not much of a lifestyle.

However, “lifestyle entrepreneurship” on the other hand is just that… you form your entrepreneurship efforts based off of the lifestyle you want. Your lifestyle isn’t directed by your entrepreneurship efforts. Thin line… but in my mind it’s quite a big difference.

For me, I’m not quite where I want to be yet… but I know I’m on the verge. One of my favorite things to do is hear fellow entrepreneurs tell their stories of when they finally created their reality “lifestyle entrepreneurship” goal.

Let’s hear it… are you after “lifestyle entrepreneurship”? If so, have you reached it… when did you finally realize that you reached it?

One Last Thought…

Money is cool… but lifestyle is better. My goal in life is to use entrepreneurship to help me live the best lifestyle possible in this one life we get here on Earth… and to meet the most amazing people I can. That’s it. Pretty simple really…

A Collection of Great Articles on The Subject…

• Check out the article over at AnyWired … excellent collection of articles and resources on the topic.

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