Why I drink coffee at 10:47 AM on Thursdays.

Last Thursday at 10:47 a.m., I was standing in line at a coffee shop when it hit me: This is what freedom actually looks like.

Not living on some beach in Thailand. Not some $100M exit that means I’d no longer have any responsibilities. Just me, in a small coffee shop in Stone Ridge, NY, getting coffee at an odd hour on a random Thursday because I felt like it.

As I waited for my cup, I looked around and noticed retirees reading newspapers, twenty-somethings working on (what appeared to be) a screenplay, and a handful of other people clearly not rushing back to any office.

That very specific moment felt better than most of the big business milestones I've hit over the last few years. And after six years of coaching thousands of online solopreneurs, I finally understood why.

We've been sold a lie about what freedom looks like.

The big freedom myth

The script around freedom usually goes a little something like this:

Quit your job, build a seven-figure business, and work from a villa in Bali!

You probably see these stories everywhere on your social feeds because they're overly dramatic. They make killer LinkedIn posts. But while you're waiting for that mythical "someday" when you can escape to paradise, you're missing the freedom that's already available to you right now.

Real freedom happens when you grab coffee at 10:47 a.m. on a Thursday without asking anyone's permission.

Micro-freedoms

I call these moments micro-freedoms, and I think of them as the real markers of entrepreneurial success.

• Closing your laptop at 2 p.m. to help your kid with homework
• Seeing a client email at 4:45 p.m. and deciding "I’ll reply back tomorrow"
• Taking Zoom calls from your car parked at the beach
• Working from bed until noon because you were up until 3 a.m. chasing an idea
• Saying "I don't work Fridays" and then sticking to your guns

Each time you enjoy one of these moments, you're rewiring years of conditioning that taught you someone else owns your time.

The anxiety is real

I know what you're thinking. That knot in your stomach when you imagine stepping away at 2 p.m. on a Monday? That's corporate PTSD. The ghost of every manager who gave you the side-eye for leaving at 4:59 p.m. or heading out to a dentist appointment.

"What if a client needs something?" "What if I miss an opportunity?" "What if everything falls apart?"

Literally nothing will fall apart. I’ve never had a client fire me for having boundaries. I’ve never missed an opportunity because I wasn’t sitting directly in front of my computer at 2:37 p.m.

The only way to prove this to yourself is to start taking these micro-freedoms one at a time. Until one day you realize that corporate anxiety isn’t needed anymore.

These micro-freedoms make you happier and make you better at business.

A few months back, my wife and I left for Portland, Maine, on a random Friday morning. Four and a half hours of highway driving, no music, just talking. Somewhere around hour two, we started riffing on this idea for a partnership with a company I had invested in. We didn’t have a laptop out, and we weren’t taking any notes. It was just the two of us chatting in a car. By the time we hit Maine, we'd figured out a mutually beneficial structure I likely never would have thought of sitting at my desk, consumed with some other project. That random Friday drive turned into one of the largest partner deals I've ever closed.

Don't recreate corporate life

If you're going to walk away from corporate life, don't recreate it in your own business.

Please write that on a Post-it, stick it to your monitor, and read it every single day.

Don’t enforce a mandatory 9-5 schedule on yourself. Don’t have guilt about taking breaks. And don’t ask permission to go enjoy your life.

Micro-freedoms keep you honest about whether you're actually living differently or just working from a different location with the same mental chains.

If you’re not sure how to start embracing these, here’s an exercise you can do this week:

Tomorrow at 2 PM: Close your laptop, announce to yourself that you're done for the day, and go do something totally unrelated to work for the rest of the afternoon.

This Friday: End work at 3 PM without a big explanation or feeling guilty about it. Call a friend and meet up for a happy hour, a jog, or whatever else you feel like doing.

Next week: Pick one morning, clear your calendar, and go for a hike or long walk with your partner or friend.

The true freedom of owning your life

Big freedom gets all the press and all the engagement on social media. The dramatic exits, the seven-figure success stories.

But micro-freedoms make your life actually feel free.

It might take thousands of small choices over a few years to feel the full impact, but one day, it'll click. Some random Thursday morning, you'll find yourself standing in a coffee shop at 10:47 a.m., and you'll know that this is exactly where you're supposed to be.

Your first micro-freedom is waiting. Maybe it's tomorrow at 2 p.m. Maybe it's right now.

Close this email and go claim it.

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You've spent months (maybe years) thinking about building something real. Reading newsletters like this one. Telling yourself "someday."

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