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396: Designing a Life-First Business In An Uncertain World

Today’s topic is at the heart of the Quiet Builder philosophy. The question is, “How do we design a business that supports our lives, not swallows it?” This becomes increasingly important as the world grows more uncertain and our responsibilities grow daily. This episode is for anyone building a business that fits into real life, and not the other way around.

You’ll Learn:

  • My pandemic story of stepping back and reassessing my business
  • 3 anchors for building a life-first business in an uncertain world:
  • Design for margin, not maximum.
  • Clarity comes from creating margin, not hustling.
  • Designing for margin is how we stay well enough to serve others.
  • Build products that don’t require your constant presence.
  • Design for asymmetry, where value isn’t tied to one-to-one time.
  • A life-first business scales impact, not just hours.
  • Plan around what you can’t plan for.
  • Your business should be designed to absorb disruption, not collapse under it.
  • Strategies that work for me are “Walden months,” a hard growth ceiling on STC, and allowing maximum flexibility to travel when loved ones need extra help. 
  • To sum up today’s topic: “A resilient business doesn’t break when life happens; it bends with grace.”
  • Need help in this area? Check out 50 Free ChatGPT Prompts for Quiet Builders on our website.
  • Sign up here for our new newsletter, The Quiet Builder, that comes out twice monthly. 

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About the Podcast

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Selling the Couch
Impact And Income Beyond The Therapy Room

About your host

Profile picture for Melvin Varghese, PhD

Melvin Varghese, PhD

Hi. I'm Melvin. I'm a psychologist, girl dad, and online creator living in Philadelphia, PA.

In 2014, I began to think about how to use our therapist skillset in different realms besides clinical work (e.g., podcasting, consulting, online course creation, writing, etc).

This allows us to serve others on larger scales while diversifying our income beyond 1 to 1 work.

I make podcasts and videos about business, tech, productivity, and lessons I'm learning from becoming the CEO of a lean, mean 5 person 100% remote team (we're not really mean..it just rhymed =P).