I am reading the 4 Hour Work Week which honestly I am finding to be slightly torturous. During my reading, I’ve been thinking about the whole idea of the term lifestyle entrepreneurship. Ferriss’s thesis is more focused on “lifestyle by design” but since there is a relationship to how you design your life to meet your needs and how you design your business to meet your needs, I was inspired to examine my own relationship with the term. On a side note – and to why I find the book so torturous – I do not find Timothy Ferriss to be that impressive in terms of his accomplishments (tango champion, and other feats) and he spends many pages repeating himself and being generally self-aggrandizing. Yes, I get that’s part of the responsibility of an author but there’s a bit overkill here. Of the few things that he says that I agree with, I do not find the thinking to be original. It is a little disturbing that so many have hitched their wagon to his star. That being said, I do think he is a master self-marketer and self-promoter so go Tim!
The term “lifestyle entrepreneur” used to make my skin crawl. It felt like a second class description of entrepreneurship. Like there were “real” entrepreneurs and then “lifestyle” entrepreneurs. I felt it implied entrepreneurs that took themselves less seriously or that did not see their business as a “real business”. As I reflect on my own brand of entrepreneurship, I would describe my love of business ownership as stemming from the autonomy and freedom that it provides: creative freedom and autonomy over my time. I love knowing that I can work when I want to work and when I work best. That I can focus on spending the majority of work time working on things that I do best. That I have room for other important things in my life (my family, friends, travel, yoga, the list goes on…). And that I get to decide the balance. That I do not have a boss or office face time to adhere to. My business(es) are incredibly important to me and I take them very seriously as they are my livelihood and afford the opportunity to do fun things with my family, travel and pursue my other interests. But my business is not important to me in the way that it would be at the expense of me cutting off all of these other important areas in my life. When I think of the new found taxonomy of entrepreneurship that is hyped up, with its myth of working 24/7 for several years and then selling out, I feel totally uninterested. I cannot imagine having no life outside of work just for a payoff. I realize that this is appealing to some and totally respect that population. However, I am in a world where the entrepreneurs that are “my people” have a business and a life. And they hope to have that business for many years and focus on building a sustainable business that allows them to have a life in addition to a business. So I guess, that is what “lifestyle” entrepreneurship is really about – having a business that fits into a lifestyle that you want (one with friends, family, hobbies, interests, etc). That being said… sign me up.
-Amy
