You built yourself a prison...

Somewhere along the way… you traded one cell for another.

You didn’t mean to. You didn’t wake up one morning and say, “You know what? I’d love to work 14 hours a day doing admin, moderating Slack groups, and explaining to people why my $57 membership is actually worth it.”

You left your job because it was killing you. Now the thing you built is draining you faster. You ask yourself "which is worse?"

Was that business you’re running today ever really yours?

You copied someone else’s blueprint. The community builder. The creator path. The membership model. The cohort thing.

The “one-to-many” scale-bro formula that looked good on Instagram.

"Ai Arbitrage blah blah" its so easy to make $50K a month.

You got the Alex Hormozi books and found the business model that scaled well.

It felt like freedom at first.

ChatGPT even agrees:

"Yes, that's exactly the thing you should be doing".

These days it feels like someone took your calendar hostage.

You did it to yourself.

There’s this invisible momentum that pulls new founders into a weird kind of performance.

“Everyone’s building a group offer.”

“You should do a low-ticket community too.”

“You don’t need systems yet, just stay consistent. ”

The top creators and “scale-up” people say these things even now.

And it sounds good, because hey … if it worked for them, why not me?

So you build. Not intentionally. Not joyfully. Just constantly.

You layer things on.

A weekly live call. A daily post. A new lead magnet. A private forum. Three more courses. An onboarding sequence. Multiple tiers of pricing.

Until one morning, you look up… and you’re running a business that barely pays you, doing work that doesn’t inspire you, serving people who probably don’t value you.

All while doing the jobs of five people.

But you can’t pause.

You can’t pivot.

You are committed.

You must keep going… right? Because you’ve already told the world: “This is who I am now.” That’s the guilt trap.

But Freedom doesn’t scale because you have to design it.

Every “dream business” should be a custom fit - like your favorite hoodie (if you wear stuff like that). Not a borrowed suit.

Most of us inherited someone else’s business model. Or we stole it. Or “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.

And we’re trying to squeeze ourselves into it like it's our only shot. What for? You spend all your creative energy doing work a teenager could do better… just so you can “stay visible.”

Your content is a full-time job. Your systems don’t exist. Your days feel like triage. Even coffee isn’t helping anymore and that used to fix everything. Linkedin sucks now so you are posting on tiktok. "It's new". Your 8 followers are loving your posts.

So let’s call it what it is: You’re exhausted because you’ve been surviving on hope + hustle, with no capital, no systems, and little clarity.

If you don’t enjoy the thing you’ve built… it doesn’t matter how scalable it is. You didn’t start this to be a social media manager. You didn’t leave your job to be the community therapist. You didn’t dream of “time freedom” so you could build a second job that doesn’t pay benefits.

My Dream, Too.

What you wanted was… to wake up and not dread your inbox. To serve people who make you feel alive. To be well-paid for work you love — and only that work.

You’re not alone in this. This exact script - the stuck-ness, the burnout, the resentment: I lived it. I used to think I had a “marketing problem.” I thought I just needed better messaging.

More content. Better hooks. Sharper positioning. Turns out, I didn’t have a messaging problem. I had a model problem.

I was selling access. Selling time. Selling “support.” Selling anything I could deliver with caffeine and a Google Doc.

But none of it scaled, none of it sparked joy, and none of it reflected what I was actually great at. Because it wasn’t mine.

So I flipped it. I stopped trying to be helpful to everyone. Stopped “justifying” the value of my time. Stopped undercharging and overcompensating.

And I started over. A simple, elegant structure to work with premium clients, on repeat… without content debt, admin hell, or 9 touchpoints just to close one deal. It wasn’t easy, and I still look in the rear view mirror all the time. “Did I miss out?”

No. Because if you take away the money - for just a minute - and look at what you built - it is the thing? Or is it an impostor?

You’ve done more than most people ever will. You quit the job. You made it this far. That’s no small thing. Most people dream of a better life growing a business and building a future that isn’t tied to the whims of a CEO looking to trade your wages for a $.03 stock price increase.

Are you going to keep running a business that owns you? Or are you ready to build one that finally feels like yours? It won’t happen overnight. It will take new thinking. And you’ll probably need someone who’s already walked this exact road. But I promise the next version of your business? The one that feels light, clear, and actually fun again? It’s not a fantasy. It’s just one layer of clarity away.

This isn’t a pitch. This is a check-in. If you felt even a whisper of recognition in this I’d love to hear from you.

What part hit home?

Where are you stuck?

Send me a voice note if that’s easier. Let’s talk.

Your next chapter doesn’t write itself. It starts with a single honest sentence. What do you want instead?

Matt