Why freedom is harder than growing a business

I’m writing this email from Austin, Texas. Peanut and I are down here visiting some friends. And I’ve had a masterclass in balancing freedom with business since we’ve been here.

Yesterday, I wrapped my day up in the early afternoon, so Peanut and I could go enjoy Austin. But, if I’m being honest, dropping my make-sure-I-didn’t-get-any-important-emails-habit was tough.

Why is it so tough?

Well, for one, when you have a business, you always—and I mean always—have more work you can do. Which makes it easy to string consecutive 14-hour days together like it’s nothing. In fact, I did this for the first 6 months of starting my business. But it was necessary then. Today, it would drive me mad and send me down the burnout route.

For two, when you fvck up your routine, it’s hard to get back into the ebb and flow of your day.

Now, I’ve actually been waking up earlier in Austin (even when you factor in that I’m in Central time, not Eastern). So I’m getting more work done before noon strikes than I would at home. But this is a cope — I’m doing this, so I don’t feel as guilty for wrapping up my workday before 2 pm.

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

One of the main reasons I’m in Austin is to practice freedom.

I know certain things about myself—like feeling guilty if I don’t get an arbitrary amount of work done in a given day—and I want to eradicate them.

Why?

Freedom is the single most important value I hold. It’s the reason I created my business. And practicing freedom is sorta like donating to charity:

When people are broke, they tell other people about how much they’d give away to charity if they only had money. But if these people become wealthy, they almost never donate to charity as much as the broke version of themselves claimed they would. Why? They didn’t practice charity before they had money.

You must get reps in before you have it, or else you’ll squander it when you get it.

And so it is with freedom.

I could make more money by staying holed up in my office in Ohio tapping away until my fingers develop arthritis and fall off.

But I’d be miserable.

Practicing freedom unlocks happiness in my life. It leverages my laziness. And it also shows me where I’m wasting time I don’t have.

In other words:

Practicing freedom—or taking time off from work—makes me more effective, more efficient, and more profitable.

Anywho:

One of the best ways for you to practice freedom is by booking a time here, and hopping on a quick Discovery Call with your humble narrator.

If we’re a good fit to partner together, we’ll create a “freedom first” email strategy that not only spits out the kinda freedom our Founding Fathers fought wars over, but also one that fattens up your bank account like it’s the minister of health in some first-world country.

John