Hi,

I was taking a few days off as my parents were in town.

This is the best part of running your own business: if you automate it well enough, you can take time off whenever you feel like it.

Even when you take time off because you 'feel like it', money keeps coming in.

Magic.

As we boarded a boat for a sunset sail in Lisbon, I was looking at my parents holding hands. They have been together for over 35 years.

A good business is like a good long-lasting marriage.

The main currency is predictability, safety, reliance, and NOT butterflies, emotional roller-coasters, or excessive romance.

‍And yet many of us start a business thinking of it as a creative project, seeing it almost as an extramarital affair…‍

‍It’s going to be dynamic, ever-changing, fun…‍

‍It’s not going to be as tedious as my 8-to-5 job…‍

‍It’s going to give me variety I haven’t had in corporate…

‍And it’s true for the first couple of years - the initial phase.

But by the second or third year - just like in any relationship - the novelty and adventure will have worn off. You probably will have worked out how to get repeat sales and customers and have some processes mapped out.

‍And this is where you should be going for more commitment and more of the same instead of more variety.

‍Securing repeat customers…

Automating processes…

‍Making the business more boring, not less…‍

‍And this is what will pay you dividends - figuratively and literally.

‍Once I understood this 7 years ago, I did all I could to make my online language schools predictable. They didn’t have to fulfil my life’s purpose, be this amazing thing I was mega proud of - they only had to be predictable. I took my need for an adventure elsewhere (and started building a new business on the side).

‍Today, this new business is no longer new and is maturing too, and I’m totally okay with continuing on the same path of building predictability, safety, and boredom.

And if I ever feel the need for adventure, I’ll probably write a novel, pick up my samurai training again, or run a retreat.

*Clichè warning: But when I see my dad scramble to get tissues for my mum when she spills her drink on the boat, I realise there’s romance in predictability too.

Best,

Darius