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Equity, Lifestyle, and My Escape from Golden Handcuffs

Getting laid off after 10 years at Microsoft doing a job I loved has been bittersweet. I’m sad and angry, sure. But I’m also excited. It feels like the Golden Handcuffs have finally been unlocked. Better yet, they’ve been handed to me on a silver platter … and I can sell the whole shiny package on Ebay and live off the proceeds for six months.
Since the layoff, I’ve spent a lot of time pondering my future. Specifically, the various entrepreneurial ideas I obsessed about but never had (or made) the time to pursue while I worked full time. Each day brings with it a sense of freedom and possibility I haven’t felt since I was a kid at home on a snow day.

I’m finding though that time is moving much faster than it did back then. Each day is over before I know it, and with each day goes another tiny chunk of my life. I keep finding myself giddily sketching out mental cause-and-effect diagrams leading to wild success in one endeavor or another. Yet every time the end point resembles a “job” in any way I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and go back to the drawing board.
I’ve done enough reading lately to know that what I’m wrestling with is how I define success. Do I define success as an increase in the value of my business over time? Or as an increase in satisfaction with my life? Do I want to be an equity entrepreneur, or a lifestyle entrepreneur?
A few years ago in The First Year, her blog for entrepreneurs, Mary Sullivan explored these questions. She also revealed that the term “lifestyle entrepreneur” was coined in 1987 by William Wetzel, a director emeritus of the Center for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire. A decade later Tim Ferris brought the term “lifestyle design” into popular usage in his book The 4-Hour Workweek, referring to the process of becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur.
Today, there’s a vast collection of blogs, books, and articles devoted to the art of lifestyle design and lifestyle entrepreneurship. As I embark on my own journey, I thought I’d share some of the best resources I’ve come across. I’ve already added many of them to the Personal Development and Career Planning page in the Resources section of this site. I’ll add more as I find them.
One resource in particular is worth pointing out here. If you want to spend a few hours link-hopping your way to a basic education on the topic of lifestyle entrepreneurship, start with Skellie’s Anywired blog post on the topic. You’ll learn about three types of lifestyle entrepreneurs, and find more than 40 relevant books and Web sites to explore.
You know, the strangest part about my recent escape from 9-5 is the realization that the Golden Handcuffs were never really locked at all. I put them on each day voluntarily, becaused I really did love my job. As an ex-coworker said to me recently: “It’s sort of a relief to know that I can finally do something else other than this one thing that I loved.”
Thoughts like that are what lifestyle design—and lifestyle entrepreneurship—are all about. Don’t wait until you get laid off to start designing the rest of your life.

{ 1 comment… add one }
  • Jennifer Mitchell May 17, 2009, 12:00 pm

    Mike,
    I’m pleased but not really surprised to find you here, in this particular set of circumstances. What does that say?
    Jennifer Mitchell
    IKG ’91

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