The Calmpreneur Manifesto
Changes in the economy and in the culture seem to have hit them hard. Scott Galloway believes they need an “aspirational vision of masculinity.”
Inspired by yesterday’s post and “The Calm Business Manifesto”, I spent a few hours this morning writing out my own Calmpreneur manifesto. A bit thought exercise, foreshadowing, and call to arms.
Here’s what I wrote…
The Calmpreneur Manifesto - Oct. 11, 2023
Anti-hustle - A calm business rejects hustle culture. By definition, you cannot move fast and juggle multiple things in a calm way. We adopt the motto “Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.”
Life centered - The Calmpreneur plans his work around his life, not the other way around.
Profitable - A calm business isn’t afraid to mae money. It understands the more profitable it is, the more resources it can devote and reinvest in things to keep the business calm. This includes freelancers, tools, and automation.
Small and cozy in size - Big things require more resources to maintain. A calm business, then, needs to be as small as necessary. We have no aspirations to be billionaires or “change the world.” Bigger goals require bigger effort, and that’s stressful. (Big requires big!) Our goal is to create a career that allows us to live a calm, intentional, fulfilling life. That requires us to identify the real things that matter to us and focus on that, not just getting bigger.
No deadlines - Deadlines create anxiety. While it’s important to get work done on time, we approach it with a calm holistic solution. We learn how long tasks take an schedule enough time for the work to be done. Anxiety comes from unrealistic expectations of how fast something can be completed. If you want to wake up at 6am to feel refreshed and productive, you do it by going to bed at 10pm. Not by setting a jarring alarm to 6am.
Pays a living wage - People feel overworked when they’re underpaid. I believe in paying people a living wage (often more) when people I employ win, I win.
Timeless works - You are not the news, nor Apple. Your work doesn’t need to be the latest and most exciting. The goal should be work so good and timeless in its usefulness that you need to do less of it.
Embraces technology - Automation, A.I. digital products, mailings list, they’re all tools that allow us to create a business that needs us less and less. It serves us, not the other way around.
A calm business must be designed from the start - A calm business goes against conventional ideas of what makes a successful business. Therefore, “calm” must be planned and integrated from the start. It requires redesigning the type of work we do, the income we can make, and the expectations around all of it.
Be useful and help people - There is more than enough useless junk in the world. In order to create a profitable, calm business, we must make being truly helpful a goal.
The Calmpreneur
Chatbots can pass the Turing test—but they can’t yet handle an office worker’s inbox.
Ali Abdaal recently shared a video on what he calls “The Feel Good Business Model.”
Long time entrepreneurs might know this as a “lifestyle business.” One where work is planned around your life and not the other way around.
It reminds me of something I happened across that really resonated with me. The calm business manifesto by Kerstin Martin.
Some of my favorite points:
We don’t support hustle culture which often relies on lies, misleading information and, frankly, a lot of fluff to manipulate people into a purchase. Acting from a place of integrity, transparency and honesty is at the core of a Calm Business.
A Calm Business is a profitable business. Being anti-hustle doesn't mean being anti-money. We live in a world where money buys us ease, peace of mind, beautiful things, the ability to give back, and the freedom to make choices that are not as accessible if we are struggling to make ends meet. As Calm Business owners we enjoy making enough money to support our material needs, lifestyle and dreams.
A Calm Business is about everything you need and nothing you don’t. As such a Calm Business is well organized, lean in structure and uses a simplified technology set-up to improve and streamline processes. Which in turn reduces overwhelm and financial stress.
Reading this, I immediately started identifying (or at least desiring) the idea of the “Calmpreneur.” (I’ve come to find out this isn’t an original idea.)
If I count back to my ebay days in high school, I’ve been “in business” for 25 years now.
I’ve gone through many waves — from getting my first dollar, to opening and closing businesses, to breaking 6 figures multiple times.
My job these days gives me the unique opportunity to meet people that have made massive amounts of wealth — some in 8-figures. Outside of being able to buy a few more things, nothing is really different.
They’re all stressed. They all wish they had more time. And a lot of them wish they had smaller companies.
I’m extremely proud of what I’ve built over the last 8 years. But how I feel about my business has drastically changed in the last few years. It was great to see point 5 in Ali’s video is about periodically re-evaluating the business and pivoting.
When you’re technically successful, it’s sometimes easy to view your business or work as an outsider.
To the outsider, I’m extremely lucky to be doing what I’m doing and make an amazing living from it.
But it’s also important to remember that you are the one IN the business day to day.
And if that business isn’t serving you behind the scenes, it’s time to reevaluate and shift it into something that does.
Short-term easy is long-term hard
I love this quote from Farnam Street.
“Short-term easy is long-term hard. Short-term hard is long-term easy.
We’d rather do the easy thing than the hard thing. That's natural and normal. I call this the mountain. You can climb it, or you can avoid it, but it's not going away.
On any given day, we can avoid the climb. We can stand at the bottom, look up, and say, "I'll wait. Hopefully, the mountain isn't here tomorrow." But we all know the mountain is still there tomorrow. And instead of looking smaller, it's even larger.
The easy path today makes a hard path tomorrow. The hard path today makes an easier path tomorrow.
The choice is yours, but the mountain isn't going away.
The longer you put off the hard thing you know you need to do, the harder it becomes to get started.”
Unreasonable hospitality
I love this story from Restaurateur and author of “Unreasonable Hospitality” Will Guidara.
He’s the co-founder of one of the best restaurants in the world, Eleven Madison Park, where meals are $335 per person.
“I was in the dining room helping out the servers when I found myself clearing off the table of 4 foodies on vacation to New York…I overhead them talking:
‘What an amazing trip! We’ve been to all the best restaurants..Per Se, Le Bernandin, Daniel, Momofuku. Now Eleven Madison Park! But the only thing we didn’t get to try was a NYC hot dog…’
As calmly as I could I walked back into the kitchen and ran out the front door, down the block to the hot dog cart. I bought a hot dog and ran just as fast back into the kitchen.[We] cut the hot dog up into 4 perfect pieces, adding a swish of ketchup and swish of mustard on their plate, finishing it with a cannelle of sauerkraut, and a cannelle of relish.
We brought them their hot dog. I introduced it:
‘To make sure you don’t go home with any culinary regrets, a New York City hot dog.’
They freaked out.”
Customization is for Starbucks
The most important lesson I learned in working with 100 clients over 7 years.
I hit a milestone this week.
I started working with my 100th client.
Over the span of 7 years and 100 clients, the most challenging ones, the ones I had to “fire”, always pushed for special treatment.
They wanted services I don’t offer.
Schedule meetings on days I normally don’t do.
Messaging me at all hours of the day.
Asking for help after our time expired.
I made the mistake of accommodating them under the pretense of good service.
Ironically the quality of my service suffered because I was straying from my process.
Service based businesses have to remember that you are the expert. You know what’s truly going to help your client. If the customer knew what they needed to make change, then they wouldn’t need your help.
Exceptions to your process means one of two things.
Your process is wrong, or the client is wrong for your process. More often than not it’s the latter.
There’s a reason you can’t go into a Michelin star restaurant and order something completely custom. Sure, they’ll accommodate a food allergy or dietary restriction, but your only option is what’s on the menu.
And that trust and respect of the experts process is what creates world class work.
Leave customization to Starbucks.
Chaos