What possesses highly skilled professionals to stay intentionally small? It’s one of many questions that pops into your head as you have fantasize your escape from the corporate jungle. You picture starting your own business.

The reasons for leaving line up like dominos: you can do a better job at ‘this’ than your current company; you are underutilized, under-appreciated, sometimes your ideas are ignored completely; or you’re not getting paid your worth.

If you left to go out on your own, you wouldn’t keep your business small, no way! Go big or go home!

Then you run into that gal who left corporate several years ago. You wonder how many employees she has by now. Did she get an office in that new renovated warehouse where all those entrepreneurs hang out?

You’re floored when you realize she’s stayed intentionally small.

What we want to ask the ISB (Intentionally Small Business) Owner.

A laundry list of questions comes flooding into your head:

• Don’t you want to make as much money as possible?
• Wasn’t one of the reasons you left the corporate world to remove the ceiling of your potential success?
• Didn’t you want unlimited earning potential?
• Isn’t one of the reasons you left the cubical farm was to have more free time?

From the outside looking in that solo-preneur:

• Has limited earnings because there’s only one person in the business.
• Works 24/7/365 – no holidays, no vacation, no sick days.
• Must learn everything about everything about running a business.

As your brain starts listing questions and limitation, something snaps and you say out loud:

Are you insane?

As an intentionally small business owner, I can answer that: Maybe. Maybe I’m insane or maybe I’m just different – or a little weird.

Choosing to stay small needs to be a conscious decision.

• Where others see limitations, I see focus.
• Though it may appear I’m working 24/7/365, I see as a passion.
• What you see as obstacles, I see opportunities.

Choosing an intentionally small business is more than choosing a business structure. It’s knowing yourself, your strengths, your values, and the type of work (and it’s structure) that will enable you to thrive.

Challenge:

What do you need to do your best work?
Who do you work with? Where do you work? What do you want to learn? What environment nurtures your creativity and productivity?

These are just a few questions that help you define and then live your work as part of a life that has purpose.

Think about it.