Security outside the company

For years I ran businesses without this kind of clarity.

I wasn’t born knowing it — far from it; it took me a few years to really get it. 😊

Always exposed

A company can do very well and still be inherently risky.

History is full of founders who built huge businesses and then watched them crumble fast, left with nothing.

Not necessarily out of incompetence: a business is exposed to dynamics you often don’t control — market, customers, suppliers, timing, external shocks.

And if you raised your personal lifestyle counting only on those revenues… what happened when the revenue stopped?

Your own oxygen mask

Back to me.

After a few years in business — about a decade ago — I made my top priority to get myself safe.

Like on a plane 😅: before helping others, you put on your own oxygen mask and life vest.

So I started thinking: my main priority was to grow in a controlled way, earn sustainably, avoid draining the company to fund a higher lifestyle, and gradually turn income and accumulated savings into real assets, with a long-horizon investment lens.

Until passive or semi-passive cash flow could cover at least my current expenses.

Frugality and bricks

Whenever money landed in my pocket, I didn’t park it “to feel safe” and I didn’t spend it to impress anyone or on trivial things — I didn’t do a lifestyle upgrade.

I did the opposite.

I kept living frugally (exception: I didn’t skimp on food quality 😜), saved with a clear goal, and moved out of cash as soon as I could, turning it into bricks — real estate that would work for me.

In steady state: lifestyle below passive income, active income reinvested — still true today.

Personal, not corporate

This matters: it was a personal strategy, not a corporate one.

It’s not about the company’s cash position or my operating decisions in the business.

But it’s obvious that a founder with solid footing outside the company thinks more clearly inside it too.

Idle cash can calm you (inflation still eats it), but it doesn’t really protect you. Cash flow from the right assets does.

Posture

Once you have that outside the operating business, your posture changes.

You can be selective; you don’t live in panic mode; you don’t chase the current month — and you don’t offload anxiety onto the company.

And you work more for others and because you want to be useful.

Looking back, that’s how I see it: building companies gave me momentum; building cash flow removed personal risk and lets me take bigger risks today without betting my standard of living.

So I’ll ask you: how much of your peace of mind depends on the business versus what you’ve built outside it?