Why I Want to Build a Business Bigger Than Myself

It’s taken me years to understand the real worth of privilege

Here’s a phrase I said repeatedly in my twenties: “I don’t have an entrepreneurial bone in my body.” I truly believed that. This was during the chapter of my life when I sold insurance in a cubicle for 10 hours a day.

Then I took the big leap and quit corporate life to learn podcast production and moved to LA to work for a rising star. I still didn’t think of myself as an entrepreneur, but I felt okay about being a freelancer.

Then I took another leap after 4 years and left the podcast producer job and moved to Salt Lake City and ended up starting my own business. But I planned on keeping it super small. Just me.

Then I grew my client portfolio for a couple of years and realized I was hitting the limits of what I could do by myself. So I hired an editor as a contractor to do the time-consuming part of my job.

And then I started thinking deeper about the why behind my work. And what I was really built to do (and not do). And what good I could create from all of the privilege I’ve been given my whole life. I started listening to women who had built and grown businesses that were much larger than just themselves and their personal brand. They were talking about the importance of generational wealth and financial independence and creating high quality jobs for other women and being the change they wanted to see in the workplace. And I started to think bigger again.

So here I am, at 34 years old, learning how to expand my business beyond me, my name, and my ideas. Beyond my own needs and into the world of opportunity-creation for others. Sure it’s going to help me make more money and free up my time eventually. But much more importantly it’s going to help me share the opportunities I’ve been given so that others can help make something much bigger and more impactful than I could on my own.

The best part is, the business I am working on creating now is going to be something that can live beyond me. It can be bought or passed on or taken over by someone with new energy and ideas at some point down the line. It can expand to include people and concepts and work that I’d never think up on my own. And it can become the kind of work culture and product that I’ve always wanted to be a part of.

I haven’t figured it all out yet. But I do have a new vision. And it means I’m building a business bigger than myself.