Life as a Solopreneur is Lonely
But Not as Lonely as When I was a Corporate Worker
Solopreneur life can be lonely - sorry for stating the obvious, but it was necessary to punctuate this realization: I was way lonelier during my corporate career.
The kicker: I was living together with my family during my corporate days, whereas today, I am away from my family as a solopreneur.
How is this possible?
Here are a few things I learned in my journey that I’d like to share with you, in hopes that if you’re in a similar situation they may help.
Going at it alone
In my past, when I created and built startups I was always was a co-founder. There was always someone else who was in the boat with me. We rowed together and found solace with each other as we hodled through rough waters and during times of darkness. We shared first-pumps and high-fives when we were blessed with sprinkles of success. There was always someone there with me, dialed-in to situation I was in who I could bounce ideas around with.
When I look back on my past startup days, I didn’t really notice such a big change between startup life and corporate life when it came to feeling companionship. Sure, there wasn’t as many people around me compared to when I used to be an employee at a large company, but there were co-founders and team members. In fact, it was the better of both worlds because all the annoying people seemed to have magically vanished into thin air from my life!
I hate to say it, but this time is different. This time, I ventured down the solopreneur path to build FoFty, with what I thought was eyes wide open (yes, I know I have small eyes, so that was a caveat from the get-go!).
Gone are the people in boat with you - you’re rowing alone. And if you you’re not careful and row only on one side of the boat, you’ll be going around in circles real quickly. Darkness becomes frightening. Anxiousness creeps in when the boat rocks amid turbulent swells. The dagger is the inability to share joy - this is soul quenching. Have you ever tried to high-five to yourself? What joy is there to share when nobody else has gone through the pain and struggles with you to understand how much that little sprinkling of success even means?
Even though I went in eyes wide open, I learned that there is simply is no way to go in heart wide open.
Leaving My Family
When my wife and I decided to embark on the journey to create FoFty, one of the difficult choices we had to make was our living configuration. We ended up deciding to trial a split arrangement where my wife and our children would be in Bali while I commuted between Singapore and Bali:
We both knew two things: (i) this would be a temporary arrangement, and (ii) this was not going to be a walk in the park. The arrangement is perhaps the costliest aspect of the whole endeavor, especially when considering my time away from the children as a father. Yet, we decided it was worth it - at least for a fixed amount of time.
In the beginning, I psyched myself up by being as busy as I could. The whole hustle culture and “out-efforting” the competition mindset came back in a flash, almost as if it was muscle memory. Pushing agendas, following up on leads, writing, recording, putting myself and FoFty out there - I was way to busy to feel lonely. In fact, when I would go to Bali to be with my family, I kept the effort and busy-level elevated to the point that I didn’t really notice a difference between Singapore and Bali.
“I got this,” I thought. I’m going to not only make it, but brute-force my way to success!
Cracks in the Wall
At first, it was my wife who began to surface the challenges - she was taking care of our children, which is a tremendous amount of work and responsibility especially during the stretches when she was alone. I’ve always felt guilt whenever I left to go back to Singapore, and I would try to remind her and myself that this was part of the plan and that it was temporary.
And then, I’d get lost in my busyness.
That all changed last weekend, when I sat down to write the next Substack post and record the next YouTube episode. This was an unusually long stretch for me to stay in Singapore for due to a portfolio company of the investment firm I am an advisor to visiting from abroad. For almost a month, I have been away from my family.
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.
I simply couldn’t get myself to write and record what I had planned to. The combination of being a solopreneur and extended absence from my family finally hit me like a liver shot to by side.
After innumerable failures to jump start myself back into action, I decided to just write about what I was feeling out of the rawness of the situation. That too, was difficult - I almost broke down while recording the video. Especially when I realized the video was really for my children to see later in life, as part of my hope that they could understand just a little bit more why their dad wasn’t with them all of the time for a while.
What Loneliness Really Is
The next day, after recording the video, I met up with friends from our FoFty community Sasmini and her husband Dulitha who happened to be in town. We were catching up over coffee when the conversation turned the loneliness I was going through. And that’s when I remembered that loneliness is not just a physical absence. In fact, the mental absence is just as, if not more powerful.
Flashbacks of my past, when I was working at a company erupted in my mind. Me and my family were all together physically, but I was so busy and engrossed with work - meeting, deadlines, and more meetings - that I was mentally checked out. My body was there, but my mind was somewhere else.
And you know what? I realized that I was even more lonely back then! In fact, it was not just me but my family who also were so lonely, even if we were all physically under the same roof. This feeling was part of the reason why I wanted to leave that lifestyle.
Thanks to that conversation, I understood what true loneliness is: isolation in the spirit and mind. Of course, physical isolation matters as well, but it can be overcome - if you are on the same page, on the same wavelength, on the same mission 100% with your closest family members and friends, then you are not alone.
I drew much strength from this reminder and realization, because my family has bonded over our commitment to FoFty - something we couldn’t do before as I meandered aimlessly working at large companies.
To anybody reading this, I present to you my humble case where once I was lost, but now have discovered a higher order than finding the way. Fixing our relationships, aligning ourselves on our mission, and engaging our cores together can connect us in ways that transcend physical distances. Conversely, the reverse can also vaporize physical proximity when our relationships are neglected and deprioritized.
After finishing our coffee and saying our farewells, I couldn’t help but smile: I may not know where the road will lead to, but that’s ok, because I’m not alone!