On the last Saturday in September, I spent the whole day snooping through bookstores in Edmonton.
Rick had a union meeting, so we’d driven down from Northern Alberta the day before. While he sat through it, I wandered from shelf to shelf and stopped for nice coffees in some cool little coffee shops and picked up a few books I’m looking forward to reading very soon.
It was the start of two weeks where I barely opened the laptop.
On Sunday we drove the rest of the way to my mom’s. Rick went off fishing with his friends for four days, and I settled in with Mom.
Mom is 84 now, and she needs help with different things these days.
So the days found a shape. I’d wake up and spend a little time in my journal, writing down what happened the day before. Then I’d make a coffee and sit back with Mom for a good long chat before we made a plan for the day.
The middle of the day went to her errands and small projects. The afternoons and evenings were just us. Hanging out and enjoying the time I had with her.
There’s no big dramatic moment in this story. It bubbled up, the way things do when I give myself open space. Somewhere in one of those mornings, coffee in hand and journal open, I noticed that the week I was living already looked a lot like the life I want.
And none of it needed a bigger business.
You can’t see what enough looks like from inside a full calendar. It shows up in the white space.
For a long time I’d been telling myself I had to build something much bigger. More products and more sales.
I’ve been in business since 2008. I started out wanting to be a life coach, and that didn’t pan out. So I became a virtual assistant, because that’s where my skills were. Then a tech VA, then a boutique website designer, then the person who keeps websites running and secure.
Each one grew out of the one before it. This year is another turn.
What I can see now is that the big number was never the point.
The industry treats six figures as the mark of a successful business. But a six-figure business with six-figure costs can keep less than a smaller business that holds on to most of what it makes. What I keep is the number I care about.
What enough looks like right now
Enough, for me, looks like a small, sustainable, very profitable business that fits whatever my life looks like at the time. Just me. Something I can run from anywhere.
Right now, that means slow mornings and lots of white space to sit, think and read. It means being present with the people I’m with.
Rick retires in 2031. By then I’d like this business to be a choice, the work I do because I want to.
It also means a shift in the work itself. For years I’ve done things for people, one site and one client at a time. What I want now is to help more people at once, in a small, cozy way.
Why I’m starting a Journal
That’s what this is.
Every Tuesday, I’ll write here about what I’m actually doing as I build the next chapter of this business. The decisions and the experiments, including the ones that flop.
A lot of business advice runs on hustle and bro marketing. I’d like to show you another way by letting you watch it happen, step by step, so you can see what’s possible for you too.
It’s free, for now. My hope is that it’s the email you’re a little curious to open on a Tuesday.
Finish this sentence for me: “Enough, for me, would look like…” Rough is fine.
You can leave yours in the comments below.
If you’d like to see which stage your own business is in, the Quiet Business Compass is free and takes about two minutes.
Build quietly, rebel loudly.It’s your business, your energy and your rules.