Busy building your business to escape the 9-5?

Hey friend,

The internet is ripe with advice on building your 9-5 exit strategy by established creators like Justin Welsh, Dan Koe, and Alex Horomozi.

It boils down to launching a service business for the people you choose to serve.

Building it around your domain of mastery/skills.

But noone talks about how to avoid replacing your 9-5 with a 9-9.

Sacrificing your well-being and burning out in the process.

Did you miss last week’s newsletter on the Guru/Impostor syndrome in purpose-driven entrepreneurs? Tune in to resolve the “integrity vs. business” dilemma. 

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TLDR;

Skills or Mastery are prerequisites for building a purpose-driven business and launching a service offer. Without it, you’re of no service to anyone.

But how do you start without prior evidence or the confidence you need to succeed (without burning out)?

It’s the age-old Chicken or Egg question.

Take a bite out of more than you can (currently) chew and not suffocate.

Because this is a fact.

When you’re doing things you’ve never done before.

Or doing things you’ve done before (and are relatively good at) but doing them differently.

You’re signing a temporary pain contract with yourself.

You agree that you’ll take on additional stress from being bad at something for a time.

Until you get better at it and start enjoying what you do.

And here’s the kicker.

This one was the hardest lesson of 2023 for me.

DOING WHAT YOU LOVE CAN (AND WILL) LEAD TO BURNOUT IF YOU OVERDO THE THING THAT YOU LOVE. 

Let’s ensure you’re not trading in a "comfortable” 9-5 for a gut-wrenching 9-9, shall we?

Forget the 10,000-hour rule

If you want to build a purpose-driven business as a vehicle to live a life of freedom and purpose, you’ll need to develop mastery.

Not only mastery of 1 particular skill. But several. A skill stack if you will.

And you’ll want to do it in a way where you don’t end up sacrificing your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

It’s the ultimate form of mastery, and arguably the only existing form of mastery. Mastery over yourself.

SELF-MASTERY.

So how do you go about developing it?

By entering a temporary contract with your future self.

Embracing a level of pain or stress that eventually gives way to the development of a skill.

Is it possible to make the level of pain or stress you took on counterproductive?

Glad you asked.

Yes, it is.

There’s such a thing as too much stress/pain.

Where you’re way over your level of competence and comfort.

Instead of developing mastery over time in a Flow-like state, you’re causing too much stress on your mental, emotional, and physical being.

It leads to burnout.

Which forces you to pause and hit reset.

It takes time to reset your mental, emotional, and physical state of being.

Rendering you (effectively) useless for the work you set out to do until you recover.

You don’t want that.

It’s what most aspiring entrepreneurs struggle with in their corporate 9-5 gigs.

If you’re not in charge of your calendar (or tasks), you have little to 0 control over hitting and maintaining your optimal FLOW state.

That’s the ZONE OF MASTERY. Where you develop skills over time optimally.

The good news is, there’s a sustainable way of developing mastery over time.

It’s called tactical stress.

Mastery isn't about time, it's about tactical stress and intentional discomfort

You’re intentionally drawing outside your comfort zone and maintaining “manageable levels of stress” in your work.

An example would be my taking on digital writing stacked on top of relationship-building and sales skills.

Not as an entirely new career as a writer where my livelihood (and that of my family) depends on it.

But as an additional component to it.

Like starting a newsletter or using social media as a platform to start building a personal brand and a service business.

You could say that I started developing mastery over entrepreneurship as a nested set of skills (like marketing, copywriting, design, media creation, community building,…) with effectively 0 prior experience.

But that’s not the full picture.

Sales and Relationship Building are components of Entrepreneurship domain mastery.

They’re also “adjacent” Skills with universally transferable principles.

The beauty (and art) of mastery is unlocked with the awareness of immediately transferable principles that apply to all domains of mastery.

Read that again.

Once you master one thing. You are more quick to master another thing.

And here lies a subtle trap (You’d best avoid)

Developing a degree of mastery and failing to increase the difficulty level.

It leads to boredom.

You become comfortable at your current level and submit to complacency.

Put differently.

A lack of tactical stress.

This is a surefire way to regression.

Regression is entropy.

Your mastery degrades over time if you don’t continue to practice.

It’s a real thing, trust me.

It happened to me frequently when I changed jobs and landed less challenging roles.

It required less mastery and I could do it on autopilot. (Without sufficient challenge)

Profits fill your pockets, but purpose fills your soul. Let’s talk about the ultimate ROI

Now that we looked at the SKILL acquisition component of The Mastery Matrix and the level of enjoyment that only comes with MASTERY, let’s examine the 2nd one.

WILL.

This is as far as your 9-5 WILL usually take you.

You can hone your skills and become masterful.

Your WILL to withstand challenges and overcome obstacles drives your ACTION.

You’re able to make a living and save a lot of money (if you’re not busy upgrading your lifestyle).

But what happens when you “arrive”? When you achieve a goal driven by your desire(s).

Let’s assume money is not your primary driver.

You may say and honestly think it is.

It’s not.

It’s its potential, what you can do with it.

The lifestyle it enables.

The level of freedom it unlocks.

It’s almost like saying you embarked on a corporate career or entrepreneurial path as a means to an end.

As a vehicle for living the life of freedom, you so desired.

A deeper desire driving your behavior to:

• Actualize your potential

• Build a financial safety net

• Take care of your family and friends

• Prove your value and establish your worth

• Build generational wealth and leave a legacy

Whatever it may be, your ACTIONS are always fuelled by your WILL.

Will is determined by what you CARE about.

If you’re anything like me and money never was your primary care.

But instead, a means to an end.

My WHY, my PURPOSE, what I CARE about:

• continuing to learn and grow as an individual (Personal Development)

• knowing myself and those around me on a deeper level. (Psychology)

• connecting with like-minded & like-hearted people (Community)

• doing meaningful and purposeful work (Entrepreneurship)

• Truth (both Philosophically and Practically)

• Freedom (both time and money)

Making money was always secondary to those deeply anchored values.

This is the main reason why I suffered in my corporate journey until I became self-aware to the point of knowing what makes me tick.

Because deep down I despise the game of profit for profit’s sake.

And I can’t find meaning in meaningless platitudes adorning office spaces and onboarding HR videos.

Because I see them as insincere at best. Outright malevolent at worst.

I was stuck in an endless Burning out vs. Regression cycle.

Until I decided to merge what I CARE about deeply with what I THINK about and ACT on daily.

You want to find your WHY sooner rather than later.

Imagine a business tailored perfectly to your values and strengths—no guesswork, just growth

I was in my 2nd year of College and hungry for growth. An opportunity came up and I took it.

I got an entry-level retail sales job at a local Telecommunications brand.

With 0 experience in sales and all the confidence in my ability to speak, it was a defining moment in my life.

One that would take me on the path of (sales) mastery.

From:

• an awkward college student to closing $ 60 million in deals in my last corporate job

• unknowingly seeking greater purpose in life to defining purpose in everything I do

• suffering from a lack of self-worth to knowing my inherent value in my bones

• feeling stuck like a perpetual student in tutorial hell to knowing where I am at and enjoying the process

Was it easy?

No. Nor was it fast. It took almost a decade and a half.

And most of that time, I hated what I did. Sales. (and dared not speak it out loud).

I saw it as a fallback for those who aren’t good at anything else.

I couldn’t see for the longest time how domain mastery translates to life mastery.

Nor why it's important.

I was blind to the fact that all mastery or craftsmanship is a form of self-mastery.

“How you do 1 thing is how you do everything.”

Seeing how mastery is a prerequisite to fulfillment and joy.

And knowing that mastery is how you respond to your environment.

AKA, self-mastery.

My lack of self-awareness led me to (falsely) perceive what I did for Money as a curse.

Like Sysiphus, unable to escape his fate.

Rocking those corporate boulders uphill indefinitely.

Until one day, I stopped rolling boulders.

And started thinking more deeply about my predicament.

To arrive at a point where I saw that I got to choose my boulders.

And genuinely enjoy the process of rolling them uphill.

Forget the cliff-jumping advice from your internet guru. It's about taking the stairs (or elevator), not the leap.

Instead of trying to overhaul your entire strategy. Or jumping off the 9-5 cliff and building a parachute as you fall.

Why don’t you try the following approach:

Map out your VALUES, what you CARE about.

Those are your primary drivers and indicators.

Showing you precisely what to optimize for in your purposeful business architecture.

If you feel energized and excited about connecting with others on a deeper level.

Then you shouldn’t listen to your LinkedIn Marketing Guru telling you to eliminate discovery calls from your calendar and automate your funnel.

If you feel at your best when in a community of like-minded people walking a similar path and holding a common vision.

Then you shouldn’t listen to your Business Guru telling you not to build a course and supporting community in your business architecture.

There’s no 1 size fits all business advice.

Once you’ve mapped out your values (and consider how they inform your architecture)

Get clear (objectively) where in the Mastery Matrix you rank in terms of skill and will.

There’s a good chance you’ll have to start developing new skills.

Identify what those skills are.

And prioritize them in terms of potential impact on your business.

Commit to picking 1 low-hanging fruit.

For example, if you’re determined to build a purpose-led 1 person business.

You’ll probably need to develop persuasive writing.

Commit to mastering it over the foreseeable future.

And choose a vehicle to drive this practice.

It could be a daily journal.

A weekly newsletter.

A social media platform to build a personal brand.

Or all of the above.

The trick is not to overcomplicate it and get going.

With a minimum viable commitment.

You’ll start out writing a lot of objectively bad lines of text.

And learn to appreciate:

• the process of making the writing relevant for your audience

• the process and importance of creating headlines

• the distinct process of writing a first draft

• from the process of editing

I promise if you follow this simple approach, your path of self-mastery will not only become enjoyable but allow you to build a highly valuable purpose-driven business.

Summary

• Map your values (what you CARE about deeply)

• Get clear where you rank in terms of skill and will

• Identify your skill gaps and prioritize them by impact

• Commit to mastering 1 skill over the foreseeable future

• Choose a low-hanging fruit activity that will drive your practice

I hope you’ll give this a try!

See you next week.

Want to Dive Deeper?

If you're ready to take your purpose-driven business to the next level and launch a sustainable service-based offering, consider working with me 1:1.

In a done-with-you service, we’ll distill the essence of your personal brand (visuals and messaging). Define WHO you help do WHAT, and what OUTCOMES it has for them. Within the first 2 weeks, you’ll get a full business blueprint and content strategy to start executing and signing on paid customers immediately.

DM me “Creation Codes” and we’ll find time for a free 45-minute consultation call to see if we’re a good fit. I’m able to take on 1 new client in May.

In Your Creative Corner,
Aleksander Brankov

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