The root word of business isn’t lifestyle or control, it’s just “busy”. Solopreneurs set out to build businesses around their passions, only to discover a world far more complex than anticipated. When I set out to create the video, I had one key thing in mind: “Get across what overwhelms me, share that with my peers, and then begin to talk about ways to deal with it effectively.”
In the write-up I want to cover the key themes from the video but extend them. Drawing on our experiences in running Modus Cooperandi and Modus Institute, I wanted to extend even more practical strategies for surviving your own business.
The Solopreneur’s Landscape: Drowning in Expectations
The Video:
Solopreneurs are driven to do work that has meaning for them, but they quickly find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume and variety of expectations. In my short time with David Dugan (see the video), I met jewelers, hair stylists, lawyers, real estate agents, manufacturers (one who moonlit as a Ninja Warrior), all of whom were driven, exciting, and more than a little worried.
There they were, on their own, dealing with personal, customers’, and the business’s demands, timelines, and emotional baggage. They weren’t just doing the work they loved loved (fun part); they were fielding confused customer calls, managing bewildering interruptions, and navigating a negotiation soup of desires and promises.
Extension:
This is a classic trap of invisible work. Most solopreneurs underestimate the cognitive load of managing not just tasks, but relationships and emotional labor. In Personal Kanban talk, you’re not just tracking “to-dos,” you’re carrying the weight of expectation debt. Making these expectations visible is the first step toward regaining your own agency in your own business. (Who would have thought we could self-disenfranchise?)
People: The Overhead of Emotion
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