So… I’m rich. Are you?
Visions & Versions of Success in Online Business
This week, I fired off this text to my friend Julian:
Then I finished puttering over lunch in the kitchen, picked up my tea, walked into my office, and then it hit me: Oh my god. I’m rich.
And like... rich is a controversial word. Who qualifies as rich? What’s the $$$ threshold? Is it good, bad, or neutral to be rich?
But this rich had relatively little to do with money.
It was me realizing that in this moment I have the kind of life I’ve wanted for so long, one that didn’t even seem possible back when I was an office gal sitting on my butt all day in a converted shoe factory.
When I started this business I thought that “successful” (a close cousin of “rich”) looked like followers constantly rising, Stripe screenshots, having a team (or at least a VA to talk about), people sharing your posts to their stories and gushing over you, launching new things often, selling out fast, and being able to fill out that all-important post-it wall with new buyers. (You too?)
Welp, another biz year is ending and I don’t have any of those things… because I don’t even want them anymore. It turns out that my rich looks totally different.
I don’t actually want the kind of rich that keeps me glued to social media, in launch cycles, in constant-visibility mode, in needing-new-people mode, in calendared-down-to-the-minute mode, in managing-people mode.
What I want is what I have—making my income goals in a high creativity, low-volume, 1:1 business model, doing deep work with wonderful people. “Marketing” mostly through relationships and referrals—which happens to be the kind that’s basically invisible to the gaze and validation of the internet. Being booked ‘n’ busy but not so busy that I can’t text a client-turned-friend, saying sure, pop over tonight, park in the driveway, I’ve got time, have some soup.
Rich like “richly enough,” so I can be present to my LIFE and my community without being a desk gargoyle 24/7. And rich like “the kind of wealth that makes others stronger, too.”
And all of this is really sayin' something because idk about you, but I struggle with comparisonitis BIG TIME.
I know a copywriter who was a ruthlessly disciplined workhorse, cranked out basically a website per week, and made an annual income in her first year that I still haven’t hit (and that # lives in my mind rent-free).
I’ve followed a pro for years who built basically a “marketing empire” and makes way more than I do just through low-ticket digital product sales.
There are tons of people out there whose “rich” vision includes a four hour workweek, a fancy team keeping the wheels turning, and them story-ing from the beach, and they’ve nailed it.
And look, it takes skill and WORK to achieve the things they did! And those visions are totally valid! But they’re not mine. And they don't have to be yours, either, because they're not the only version of success.
It’s just kinda freaking WILD to send a text to a friend about lentil soup and then realize… This is it. I’ve “arrived.” I’m here right now. I’m not done yet, I’ll never be done, but the place where my two feet are standing is the exact right place I’ve been building for so long.
And I hope that, as the year ends, and you do all the planning and workbooks and forecasting and reflections (and maybe catch up on the past three or ten months of bookkeeping…), that there is a part of you that can genuinely celebrate where you’re standing now.
That, for some reason, even a small one, you can look down at the text you just sent and think, “... Oh my god. I’m rich.”
PS. In case you’re looking for some delightful art to celebrate this realization, may I recommend this series of prints?