If you’re on the road to freedom, you may as well turn off now.

Entrepreneurship is often idealized as the ultimate path to freedom, promising autonomy, financial independence, and the ability to live life on your own terms. It’s a dream that draws a lot of people in, mainly because all of those things are true! However, the reality of the situation is much more complex than simply building a business and reaping the rewards.

One thing I’ve noticed is that many early-stage entrepreneurs aspire to have more freedom as an end goal—a destination to be reached once they’ve “made it.” But, in reality, the only way to obtain true freedom as an entrepreneur is to embrace the process of acquiring freedom and make it a fundamental part of your everyday life.

In other words, if you’re only focused on where you want to end up, you’re missing out on the most important, pleasurable, and worthwhile part of entrepreneurship: the journey itself. Yes, it’s cheesy AF. But having listened to countless podcasts with big shot CEO guests, they all say the same thing: “It’s not about winning; it’s about playing the game.” They can’t help themselves! No matter how many millions of dollars they make or hundreds of thousands of users they get, it’s never enough. They’re addicted, and they friggin’ love it.

I’m a classic example. It’s 3:35pm on a Saturday afternoon and my schedule is clear. What do I choose to do and feel excited to do above all else? Write this blog post! There’s honestly nothing else I would ever rather be doing than working on my business. This statement is true around 98% of the time. Though, you won’t see me taking pictures of myself writing blog posts and bragging about it on social media. I’m posting pictures of the “fun stuff” because that’s what people actually want to see. The reality is: that “fun stuff” is just a nice side-effect; the real win is being able to work on my business every day, all the time, and loving the HECK out of it. See the difference?

The end goal last weekend wasn’t to take a nerdy tour of Kingston Penitentiary, go for a stroll, watch the sunset, put on a face mask, and binge watch TV—that was the fun side-effect. The best part was that I could take an impromptu drive down to Kingston (~3 hours), avoid traffic because I set my own hours, get the hotel pool to myself twice a day while everyone else was at work, bring my cat for on-demand cuddles, and stay up ’til 3am watching Love Is Blind ’cause once I start a new season, I want to see it through. Even on that stroll, I was talking about my business. In between those activities, I was working on my business. As soon as I got home, I worked on my business. My business gives me the freedom-focused lifestyle I’ve always dreamed of, but my business is always #1 to me.

Many people start businesses with the belief that if they just have the right idea and follow a solid plan, success and freedom will follow. They think entrepreneurship is about executing a perfect strategy and watching it unfold seamlessly. But that’s not how it works. What makes entrepreneurship both rewarding and challenging is that it’s a constantly evolving process. The freedom you’re seeking is not a finish line you cross once your business hits a certain milestone. And because of that, the focus needs to shift from where you are trying to get to to how you are going to adapt, pivot, and grow along the way.

To build on this idea further, I want to highlight a misconception first-time entrepreneurs tend to have around what sets one business up for success and another for failure. A common belief is that any good idea will be fruitful so long as it’s nurtured and well-executed. However, a major flaw in this way of thinking is that when you remove the person who’s going to be running the business out of the equation and focus on the logistics, you’re taking the heart out of the business, so it will probably die in its infancy.

Not only does the human inject energy and drive into the business, fuelling it and meeting its needs at all hours of the day (akin to caring for a newborn baby), the human also has to continually assess ideas and try to distinguish the good from the bad. You could make the most balanced and nutritious meal for your toddler and set them up for the rest of the day, but not the rest of their life. The same goes for business. Just because something seems promising or excites you doesn’t mean it will work in the real world, or forever. It’s not enough to believe strongly in your ideas—you also have to evaluate them through the lens of what actually works, rather than what you think should work.

I’ve certainly had moments where I thought an idea was brilliant and was excited to implement it, only to discover that it was actually a dead end. When you reach those dead ends in a business, you have several choices:

Being able to pivot in real-time is a vital skill for any freedom-focused business owner. You can’t get too attached to any single idea or outcome, no matter how much potential it seems to have. Entrepreneurship is about constantly testing, adjusting, and letting go of seemingly great ideas that no longer serve you or your company. That’s where true freedom lies—in your ability to recognize when something isn’t working (even if it worked before) and adapt your offers, collaborators, and operations when necessary.

Now, you must ask yourself: Are you seeking a freedom lifestyle, or are you chasing freedom as an end goal? If you think freedom is something you’ll eventually achieve after building the perfect business, you’re likely in it for the wrong reasons. True entrepreneurship isn’t trying to reach a point where you no longer have to work or everything runs on autopilot. It’s finding joy in the daily challenges and the constant evolution of your business. Are you agile? Do you respond to real-world feedback? Can you create new solutions on the fly? Do you hang onto ideas even when they aren’t working anymore?

Do not fall prey to the belief that if you keep pushing forward, you’ll eventually achieve the freedom you crave. You won’t. The most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who could have already “won” and decide to put all their chips back on the roulette ’cause that’s how they roll. They find joy and fulfillment in the little things—not material things. They take setbacks and letdowns in their stride. They take full responsibility for their successes and failures. They love nothing more than to solve problems for people they care about. They are pragmatic about what will move their business forward, even if it’s challenging. They’re focused on the journey; not the destination.

So, if I have any advice to you, it’s this: do whatever you’ve got to do to make it so that you LOVE every ounce of your business. Be so obsessed with it that you have to tear yourself away by scheduling things like food, sex, and sleep 😆. When that’s the road you’re on, who cares where you end up?

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