This week, I was being interviewed by a prospective client, a man who has been running a multibillion-dollar asset-management firm for more than twenty years.
At one point, he asked me,
“Why do you work on your own? Don’t you miss the big banks?”
He told me he’d been doing the same job for two decades.
And I said, “You haven’t been doing the same thing for twenty years. You’ve been working for the same entity for twenty years, but you’ve had several different roles.”
Then he asked again, why I work this way, what I like about it.
That question stayed with me long after the call, because my answer explains everything about the season of life I’m in, and the one so many of us are stepping into together.
Quote of the Week
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Mary Oliver
The Season We’re All In
Lately I’ve been having a lot of conversations with clients, peers, and friends, and there’s a clear theme.
We’re all looking for flexibility.
Not a slower life, not retirement.
Just ownership.
Ownership of our calendars.
Ownership of how we spend our energy.
Ownership of the space to pursue things that truly matter.
One of my long-term clients, in his fifties, is now partially retired. He spends half his week restoring old cars and the other half learning to code, Python of all things.
Another contact, nearly sixty, has been running his own business for twenty-two years. When I asked him what he loves most about it, he didn’t talk about revenue or clients. He said, “Creative freedom.”
And a friend of mine, fifty-five, is doing a PhD and learning how to code in Python.
Different stories, same heartbeat.
If this weren’t a newsletter, I’d say they’re all happy as pigs in sh*t, but since we keep it classy around here, let’s just say they’re as happy as kids in a candy store.
Because they’ve built lives that finally feel like theirs.
Why I Work the Way I Do
There are a few reasons I work the way I do.
One is that I work best in big, uninterrupted blocks of time. The start-stop-start-stop rhythm of corporate life costs so much time and energy.
Research backs this up. A study from the University of California, Irvine, found that after every interruption it takes an average of twenty-three minutes and fifteen seconds to regain deep focus. Harvard Business Review has shown that constant context switching can cut productivity by up to forty percent.
That’s not lost minutes, that’s lost meaning.
I also need creative freedom. I need to let my mind wander because that’s when my best ideas come, the ones that later pay me quite handsomely. But that kind of thinking can’t happen in an open-plan office or on a trading floor.
I need space. I need silence. I need to walk around and do nothing for a while so that something brilliant can surface.
And I like to own my calendar. I like to work furiously when I’m inspired and to take a nap when I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.
That rhythm doesn’t fit inside someone else’s meeting schedule, and I don’t want it to.
What Makes It Worth It
There’s also a different kind of respect in consulting relationships. Clients listen to me more because I’m external.
When you hire an external advisor, it’s not because you can’t do the work yourself, it’s because bringing in an outsider forces you to actually do it.
He agreed immediately. He said yes, that’s exactly it, there’s accountability when someone external is involved.
And that’s the part I find most rewarding, working with people who listen, act, and change because of what we do together.
What I’m Optimizing For
I have no wish to build a team.
No wish to have a seven-figure business.
I’m not optimizing for scale, I’m optimizing for my life, for how I feel every day.
I want the flexibility to work when I’m in flow and to rest when I need it. To play Uno with my kids and wipe the floor with them, or be taught humility at Scrabble or Mikado. To volunteer for financial-literacy charities. To organise the school Christmas fair. To spend two unhurried hours trying a new tiramisu recipe. To read what I want, when I want.
That’s the point of it all.
I’m not optimising for revenue, I’m optimising for rhythm. For ownership. For the ability to do work that feels meaningful, and to have a life that’s wide enough to hold everything else I love.
Because the goal isn’t more.
The goal is mine.
So I have to ask you:
What part of your week still feels owned by someone else?
What would change if you reclaimed even two of those hours?
What do you want your work to fund: time, art, causes, connection?
Write it down. Name it. Protect it.
Maybe you don’t need a bigger business. What you need is a business that fits your life.
When you’re ready to design a business that pays you in both income and autonomy:
Book a call and let’s map what “enough” truly looks like for you.
We’re all redefining what success looks like after forty, and I’m grateful to be figuring it out alongside you.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s half term, my kids are home, and those pumpkins are not gonna carve themselves. So happy Halloween if you’re celebrating. And I’m just gonna grab my usual coffee and see you next Wednesday.
