The wake-up call always shows up uninvited
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The Solopreneur Copilot P.S. read an web version of this email here: barrontech.kit.com/posts/ This past week I got a text from an old college buddy. He told me about a mutual friend of ours who lives in Houston. Reminded me that I randomly bumped into him a couple years ago. He looked older than he should. Hair thin. Stressed in a way you feel before you see it. Two young kids will do that to you. Anyway - the text read that our mutual friend’s wife passed away in her sleep right after their 40th birthday celebration. Kids are 7 and 4. I sat with that for a minute. I didn’t know what to say. Just felt horrible for everyone affected - a life cut short, kids without a mom…and my friend who now will be shouldering an even bigger load. He’s a grinder. Probably still working 60 to 80 hours a week downtown. Doing what he believes he’s supposed to do because that’s what society told him, what his parents told him, and nobody ever offered an alternative. Still got to figure out school drop-off and pickup. Still got to be present. Still got to make money. Was thinking about it the rest of the day. Here’s what kept rattling around in my head. You spend more than 50% of your awake time away from your house. Often for an organization that genuinely doesn’t care about you. With people you don’t enjoy being around. Doing things that grind down your body and your head. Just to provide. That’s the default deal. Most people I know signed it without reading the fine print. And the brutal part isn’t the trade itself. It’s that most people never even picked the target they’re running at. They’re chasing quotas, titles, promotion ladders, bonus structures, all of it built by someone else for someone else’s benefit. If you don’t have your own goal, you inherit theirs by default. And you will never run as hard for somebody else’s vision as you would for your own. I know this because I lived it. I was that guy in 2023. I was a high-functioning conduit for somebody else’s quarterly target, and my actual life was happening in the background while I was distracted. So here’s the fix. And it isn’t complicated. First, identify what you actually want. Not what your parents wanted. Not what your company tells you the next step is. What do you want your days to look like in 5 years? Where do you want to live? Who do you want to be around? How much do you actually need to earn? Most people skip this step entirely and then wonder why nothing feels right. Second, build income outside your normal career path. The internet plus AI is the greatest gift working parents have ever been handed. You can serve real clients from a laptop. You can build a product. You can ship something useful and get paid for it. The tools are basically free. The leverage is unreal compared to what existed 10 years ago. Third, stop romanticizing the grind. Working 70 hours a week for somebody else’s company isn’t noble. It’s just what was available before the alternatives existed. The alternatives exist now. Whether you take them is on you. I’m not saying quit your job tomorrow. I’m saying build something on the side that gives you optionality. So when life sends you the wake-up call you didn’t ask for, you’ve got a move. Because the call is coming. Maybe not your wife. Maybe a layoff. A diagnosis. A parent. A kid. Something will arrive uninvited and ask you what you actually built with the time you had. You don’t want to answer that question with “I hit my number.” Play the decade game with me. To your solopreneur success, Matt Barron P.S. All previous emails can be read here: barrontech.kit.com P.S.S. - follow me on all my socials here: |