From Beginner to Pro
The strategy of next-level solopreneurs.
When you’re just starting out, your goal is to have your business be easy.
That’s true for most solopreneurs.
First, solopreneurship is (falsely) advertised to be an easy way to make money.
Second, we’re looking for external rewards and want the least friction in proving our business model.
That’s how we end up:
Offering cheap services.
Working with any clients who’ll have us.
Copying trends.
Using cheap materials to sell products with better margins.
Avoiding conversations with (potential) clients.
Automating before you understand what works manually.
Building your business model around someone else’s success.
Hoping platforms will save you.
Easy feels productive, but it’s mostly reactive. You react to external feedback and adjust to get the results you aim for.
But when you’re busy reacting, you can’t lead. You follow. Over time, reacting becomes exhausting. You start spinning your wheels and wonder how to get to the next level.
So what will get you to the next level?
Find something that gets you excited.
Being excited means you have an internal pull that will keep you working even when external results don’t show up.
Exciting gives you energy. It pulls you in when motivation runs dry.
Exciting isn’t easy. In fact, it may seem impossibly difficult for some—but when it’s right for you, it feels easier than any other shortcut.
For example:
Writing long, thoughtful posts every week sounds like a grind unless you're someone who loves writing to think.
Hosting live workshops can feel intimidating until you realize you come alive when teaching others.
Spending months crafting one perfect digital product seems slow unless it scratches your itch for depth and mastery.
Working with “difficult” clients is a joy when you charge them enough to go deep and deliver excellence.
That’s the difference.
Exciting is energizing. Easy is depleting.
When you choose what's exciting, your strategy becomes more you, so you don’t need another personal branding webinar.
So if you're feeling lost, stuck, or just plain tired of doing “what works”…
Don’t look for the next hack. Instead, go deeper into what excites you. That’s where your real leverage is.
“Working right trumps finding the right work.”— Cal Newport
Till next time,
Maya
Maya, perfect timing as always! feeling a huge shift, not only in the world, but here in the substack community. Seeing people form all these sub- communities within the Substack community with all these like-minded people whether it's a professional health group or writers, etc..
Where is the individuality? Where's the getting out of a corporate type model?
That's why I came to Substack - well one of the many reasons.
i've worked around like-minded Medical people for almost 30 years. It's a system and what I see being formed. Here is the same system just within substack .
I've even seen some called themselves "holistic" and they're not really holistic. They may have a few ideas when you get down to the root of it. but honestly, it's the same stuff.
I believe that to be successful that one of the things you need is your unique ideas, personality, quirkiness- whatever it is. I'm not saying that's the only thing to be successful - no far from it.
But what really makes one different? What can you offer that someone else doesn't offer because you know as a healthcare professional myself and I am holistic and really I prefer "whole-istic", we can all talk about gut health, mental health, high blood pressure, stress - you name it.
at least that's what I'm seeing and that's what I'm feeling ...
Thank you Maya, valuable reflections. That's what I need right now