Happy Friday, all!

Ten years ago, I was asking a very different question about my business: Can I make this work?

Can I find clients? Make enough money? Figure out pricing? Run a business without a safety net?

Those early years were about survival. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Survival is an important phase of entrepreneurship.

But after celebrating BTF’s tenth anniversary, I’ve found myself asking a different question: Do I want to keep building this?

That shift—from survival to sustainability—has me thinking less about what my business could become and more about what I actually want it to become. As I shared on this week’s podcast, five questions are helping me think through that:

1. What do I want to keep?
2. What am I ready to leave behind?
3. Where can I create more impact?
4. What kind of life does this business need to support?
5. Who do I need to become?

That fourth question feels especially important.

It’s incredibly easy to build a business that becomes another job—or even a job worse than the one you left. There’s always another email, project, opportunity, or shiny new idea demanding your attention.

So rather than only asking what I want BTF to look like in 2036, I’m asking what I want my life to look like in 2036. What does an ordinary Tuesday feel like? How much am I working? Who am I spending time with? Am I healthy? Curious? Still enjoying what I do?

Life comes first. Then I can build a business that supports it.

To make that vision tangible, I did something inspired by Bonnie Wan’s The Life Brief: I wrote a letter to my 2036 self. It was surprisingly vulnerable, but it also reminded me that I don’t need to know exactly where I’m going.

The letter isn’t a forecast. It’s a compass.

You can figure out the route later.

Questions of the Week

1. If your business doubled over the next ten years, what would you desperately want to protect?
2. What are you ready to leave behind because it no longer fits the person, business, or life you’re building?
3. Picture an ordinary Tuesday ten years from now. What does that life look like—and what needs to change in your business to support it?

Tool of the Week

A Letter to Your Future Self

Skip the spreadsheet and ten-year strategic plan this week. Pick a date ten years from now and write yourself a letter.

Describe where you are, who surrounds you, the work you’re doing, what you’ve kept, what you’ve stopped doing, the impact you’re creating, and who you’ve become.

Don’t worry about whether it all seems realistic. You’re not predicting the future.

You’re giving yourself a compass for building it.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Best,

Brian