Avoid divorce! Reverse the entrepreneur's dilemma!

Transcript

Entrepreneurs have 15% higher divorce rates than employees, making more money but losing what matters most. That’s the entrepreneur’s dilemma. And there’s a way out.

You’re listening to Lone Wolf Unleashed, the podcast for solo operators who want to switch off sooner and live larger. I’m your host, Mike Fox, and today we’re talking about the entrepreneur’s dilemma. So you got a LinkedIn message from a mate.

Hit 200k this year, living the dream with a fire emoji and a photo of him at his desk at 11pm on a Sunday. So you do what any good friend does and you stalk his wife’s Instagram her stories from that same Sunday family dinner with their two kids.

Empty chair where dad should be sitting. The kids had drawn a picture for him that was still stuck to the fridge, probably from last week. That’s not living the dream.

That’s optimizing for the wrong bloody metrics. And here’s the thing that really gets me. He thinks he’s winning. Revenue up, clients happy, industry recognition rolling in.

But he’s losing the game that actually matters while celebrating a game that doesn’t. Let me hit you with a stat that should make every entrepreneur pause. Business owners have 15% higher divorce rates than employees. 15%.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s because we’ve been sold a definition of success that’s slowly poisoning our lives. Here’s how the entrepreneur’s dilemma works.

You start a business of freedom, control over your time, your income, your decisions. Makes sense, right? But then traditional business advice kicks in.

Scale up, add services, automate everything, build systems, hire people, optimize for growth. So you do. Revenue goes up, you hit six figures. Then multiple six figures. The LinkedIn posts write themselves. But something weird happens.

The more successful you become, the less free you feel. Now let me talk to you about Mark. Real guy making $180,000 a year, works from home. No boss. Sounds pretty good, right?

Mark’s Tuesday starts at 6:47am with his phone buzzing, three urgent emails, two meeting reschedules, and a text from his wife asking if he’ll be home for dinner. He already knows the answer is probably not. By 7:30, he’s responding to emails while his coffee gets cold. His kids wave goodbye for school.

He waves back without looking up from his laptop. Mark works 65 hours a week. Hasn’t taken a real vacation in two years. Can’t remember the last time he read a book for pleasure.

His sophisticated business requires 15 to 20 hours per week just managing the systems designed to Save him time. He has created a machine that requires a full time operator. Him. And here’s the kicker.

When he calculate Mark’s true hourly rate, factoring in all the hidden time costs, the system management, the mental overhead, he’s making less per hour than many corporate jobs he could easily get. And that’s just the financial cost. The real cost is a 15% higher divorce rate. The miss family dinners.

The kids who’ve stopped showing their dad their drawings because he always is just finishing something up. We’ve been taught to measure success with metrics designed for traditional businesses.

Revenue growth, client volume, market share, system sophistication.

But these metrics create a specific type of success that’s impressive, measurable, and and completely unsustainable for someone who chose solo work for freedom. Most entrepreneurs are optimizing for financial metrics while their life metrics collapse.

More money, less time, better business, worse relationships. Professional success, personal failure. That’s the entrepreneur’s dilemma in a nutshell. Time to take you a little bit out of the depressing scene.

I know many of you there. I’ve been there. So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to grab your phone calculator. I’ll wait for you. So here’s what I want you to do.

I want you to grab your phone calculator, take last month’s revenue, divide it by the actual hours you worked. The actual hours. Okay. If you’re not tracking your hours that you’re working now, you need to begin.

If you’re not doing that, step one for you, start calculating your actual hours that you’re working. This is not billable hours. This is all the hours.

The emails, the admin, the lying awake at 2am thinking about client problems, the weekend quick checks on your phone. That’s your real hourly rate. Now here’s the hard question. How many family dinners did you miss last month?

How many date nights did you not get with your partner? How many kids events did you have to skip? How many times did your partner go to social events alone because you were too busy? Hey, Kate. Where’s Mike?

Oh, he’s probably busy recording his podcast.

When you factor in the relationship costs, the conversations you missed, the connections you didn’t make, presents you didn’t give, what are you really earning per hour of life lived? This isn’t about making you feel guilty. It’s about getting real about the true cost of traditional success. This is what I’ve learned.

Most entrepreneurs would gladly pay their current hourly rate to get their earnings back. To be Present for family dinner, to go to bed without checking emails one more time. You’re paying that hourly rate.

Right now, you’re just paying it with your life instead of your money. So here’s the pack question of the week. I’m making more money than I ever have, but my partner says I’m never really present anymore.

Even when I’m home, I’m on my phone or thinking about work. How do I know if I’m actually successful or just really busy? That’s the question that nails the entrepreneur’s dilemma.

When business success comes at the cost of personal relationship quality. You’re not successful, you’re just well paid and increasingly alone. The stat I mentioned about entrepreneur divorce rates.

It’s not because we’re bad people. It’s not because we don’t love our families. It’s because we’re optimizing for metrics that have nothing to do with what actually matters.

Your partner isn’t complaining because they don’t understand business. They’re complaining because they can feel you disappearing even when you’re physically available. So what’s the brutal truth?

If your definition of success is destroying your most important relationships, it’s not success. It’s just expensive failure. Let me tell you about Marcus, a creative director from Sydney. Classic entrepreneur’s dilemma case study.

Before making $95,000 annually, working 50 hour weeks, constantly stressed miss family dinners because he was just finishing something up. His wife felt like a single parent. His kids have stopped asking him to help with homework because he was just too busy. What was his wake up call?

His eight year old daughter drew a picture of their family. Four figures. Mum herself, little brother and the family dog. Dad literally wasn’t in the picture.

And when he asked why, she said, oh, you’re always working, so I drew you at work. Instead, she drew a separate picture of him at his computer. That hit different. So Marcus did something radical.

He looked at his service offerings and he eliminated 80% of them. Kept only brand strategy for tech startups. The work that energized him and paid the best. Then he doubled his rates. What’s the result?

Revenue goes up to $130,000, a 37% increase. Working hours dropped to 35 hours a week, a 30% decrease. And he’s present for school pickup. Now he’s got energy for weekend family activities.

But here’s the one line that got me his wife said, I got my husband back. Marcus didn’t just save his business, he saved his marriage by changing how he defined success. Revenue up, hours down relationship stronger.

That’s what real optimization looks like. So what’s the switch off move for this week? It’s simple, but it might be harder than you think.

Have dinner with your family or partner or hell, by yourself if you have to, without checking your phone once. Put it in another room, turn it face down whatever it takes if that feels impossible.

If you’re twitching to check emails between courses, if you’re thinking about the client response you need to send, that’s your answer right there. Your business is eating your relationships. Real success isn’t being able to work anywhere anytime you’ve been sold a lie with the laptop lifestyle.

Real success is being able to choose not to work on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s being present for the people who will matter long after your business is gone. The family dinner test isn’t about dinner.

It’s about whether you own your business or whether your business owns you. Try it. See how it feels. Notice the urge to check messages.

Notice whether you can actually be present for conversation, or if part of your brain is always somewhere else. Because if you can’t switch off for one hour to connect with the people you love, what exactly are you working for?

Do you want a full framework for escaping the entrepreneur’s dilemma or increasing revenue while actually saving your relationships? The Lone Wolf Unleashed newsletter breaks down exactly how to build a business that supports your life instead of consuming it. Real strategies.

No motivational fluff. No 47 step frameworks links in the show notes it’s free because I’m not trying to scale a newsletter empire.

I’m trying to help solo operators get their lives back. But fair warning, it’s not about working harder, adding more systems. It’s about the counterintuitive stuff that actually works.

Remember, the goal isn’t to build a business that impresses strangers while alienating the people you love. Don’t optimize for LinkedIn post metrics while your kids forget what you look like without a laptop. Build something that gives you your life back.

Switch off sooner, live larger. See you next episode.