Originally published on Medium on October 3rd, 2024 Reproduced with the author’s permission.

I opened my business, Optimist Writer, on October 23, 2015. I wanted to be a professional writer with the possibility of continuing the consulting activities I had been involved with before while working a regular full-time job.

My business will be nine years old this year, and I am far from giving it up. I will keep it until I reach retirement age and possibly longer.

To go along with the number nine, I list nine reasons my business thrives. They differ from the ones you might expect because the core of my business, my books, earns me only a part of my living. This year, as my consultancy hours moved from being a part of my business to an hourly-based part-time engagement with a local company in the city where I live, my business is not very profitable. But I still consider it successful. That is because of the following reasons.

1. It brought value from the start. And still does.

I played with the idea of becoming a professional writer for a couple of years before starting my business. Initially, I wanted to write parallel to my full-time job and read a book about writers who write and publish or have their books published while having full-time careers and often demanding jobs and families to care for. But then, I was laid off with many of my colleagues and had to think of something else. I’ve been lucky to have had a paid maternity leave before I had to make a decision.

It wasn’t an easy decision, and it felt very dramatic. But I managed it, and I wanted to bring optimism and empowerment with my writing. That hasn’t changed after almost nine years in business. To my utter joy, I see that what I do brings value. I see it with every feedback to my books, online articles and courses, coaching, training, consulting sessions, and others.

2. I got to know myself.

Like many others, I often thought I knew myself and my feelings. But that was not always the case. Founding my own business brought doubts, hope, curiosity, and much more. I didn’t only have to have hard and honest conversations with my husband, but I also had to be honest with myself.

Founding the company wasn’t hard because of the excellent conditions for starting a business where I live (Aalborg, Denmark). But, like many other founders, I wanted my company to live a long and prosperous life. So, all those conversations and others were more about the long haul.

I continue discovering myself as the worlds around me and inside me change, and my business and what I create evolve.

3. I got to learn many jobs.

When you have a business, you must wear many hats and learn many jobs and the skill sets involved. I learned the roles of a boss, employee, accountant, writer, coach, marketer, outsourcer, publisher, publicist, gofer, and many more.

I also had to learn which jobs were fun for me and which were not. I learned which jobs I couldn’t have possibly done myself and needed to outsource. I found out which jobs I could do but wasn’t good at because I didn’t enjoy them and could outsource them to someone who enjoyed them more. I found out that I loved supporting other freelancers and one-person companies.

Occasionally, I discover a new job or task that I hadn’t known or expected yet and needed to learn about. Then, I either do it myself, outsource it, or forget about it.

4. It’s a fun and never losing its depth game.

I once discovered that games are not supposed to be as fun as many would think, and as I certainly used to think. Here is a quote by Raph Koster on this:

“The destiny of games is to become boring, not to be fun. Those of us who want games to be fun are fighting a losing battle against the human brain because fun is a process and routine is its destination.”

— Raph Koster, Theory of Fun for Game Design

In a follow-up comment, Raph Koster clarifies and smoothes possible doubts from the abovementioned words. Here is what he wrote:

“Many games, of course, seem to become more fun as you learn more about them. This has a lot to do with the nature of the challenge presented in those games; they tend to present problems of a certain complexity level that reveals more subtleties the deeper in you go.”

— Raph Koster, Theory of Fun for Game Design

I am thrilled that my business and the topics I chose to write about are nothing like games, which we play a couple of times and then leave after reaching the routine. Instead, this business game I started playing nine years ago goes deeper and deeper, and it does not stop fascinating me and helping me to produce something of value that resonates with people when they come across my creations.

5. It suits my lifestyle and gives me time for my family.

I have an elderly mother who isn’t fluent in the languages most others speak well in Denmark, where we live. So, she needs my help when she has to visit a doctor and, in other cases, too. My children sometimes have events and festivities during working hours on weekdays. Having my own business and working part-time as an employee allows me to be flexible with my time and gives me time to devote to my family members whenever needed.

6. It is gentle on my health.

I have two health issues that make traveling and working outside our home challenging for me.

The biggest issue is my multiple food intolerances, one of which affects not only me regarding the foods I consume and the natural chemicals these foods might contain but also when these chemicals are in the air around me. I am speaking specifically of salicylates, which you can find, among others, in perfumes. Our home is mostly perfume-free, but being outside makes it more difficult. Carrying a little bottle of perfume-free soap in my purse does not remove the perfumes in the air, especially in enclosed public transport environments. Plus, if I need to stay longer in a hotel or holiday house, I often deal with bed linens and towels washed with regular detergents, which often contain perfumes and, thus, also salicylates. The combination of all that — the presence of these and other chemicals I am intolerant towards — leads, among others, to headaches, extremely dry eyes and nose, frequent sneezing, and intense eczema.

Working from home makes the situation more manageable. That comes also for another reason. I don’t drive a car. I have a driver’s license, but I haven’t driven a car for years because of the other condition, the root of which the doctors found only recently. It is called monovision, which, for me, happened to have developed by itself over the years, as opposed to the vision correction technique, also called monovision. I developed it probably because I hadn’t worn glasses right from the start of my short-sightedness, but only a couple of years later. Now, if I wear glasses for more extended periods, which can be as short as ten minutes, I get migraine-like headaches, nausea, my vision waves and darkens. That led once to a fall that required stitches on my chin.

Monovision happens when one of your eyes focuses best on long distances (for me, this is the left eye), and the other sees better when you focus on things close by, like the text of a book you’re reading. When I wear glasses and see well both near and far, my eyes can’t decide which should take the leading role in focusing, which overpowers my brain and vision.

So even if driving a car would solve the problems with perfumes in public transport, the combination of short-sightedness and monovision makes it impossible.

So working from home is the best solution for my health, too.

7. I learned patience.

When you start your own business, it takes effort to be patient. You have so many ideas, and you want to pursue them — many of them simultaneously. But many of them take time to realize. I have a special love for books; authoring and bringing them to life takes time. My latest book was two years in the making. All these and other projects, as well as waiting for and getting customer feedback, require patience.

I am more patient today than when I first started my business. Still, I will always be able to continue learning in this area because impatience exists, and it is my permanent companion. I wish to bring value and hope that what I do can reach more people who might need it and that it will happen as soon as possible.

8. I met so many amazing people, especially among other freelancers.

There is probably not one product anywhere in this world that can be done solely by one person. Even writing this article and bringing it to you, the reader, took more than one person, the writer. The people behind the tools I use to make it happen are part of this journey, too. I might not have met them in person, but I appreciate them and what they do sincerely. And then there are people whom I met during my business journey. I outsourced some of the work to them, and some hired me to do it for them. I might not have met them without this journey, and I will always treasure the experience and look forward to more in the future.

9. It’s mine. That makes me both proud and humble.

When somebody criticizes you for your actions, you might reply, “It’s my business.” You become defensive. However, this exact phrase will sound different when discussing the business you founded and developed. Then, there might be vulnerability and pride in your voice because you put what you do out there to be viewed, evaluated, and judged. This takes courage but also humility.

I don’t expect anyone to continue the work in my business after me. My children will discover their paths. And Optimist Writer feels so personal to me. When you try to find it online, you will discover that its domain points to the domain name with my full name. Optimist Writer could be seen as my business identity and my mission. One of my fondest memories from the first days of my business is what my husband told me when I shared with him that I worried whether I would make it with my business, and he replied, “Look at the name of your business and keep going.” I might have found my mission in life with this business. And that makes me both proud and humble.

Words in conclusion:

Some would read this article and say that the reasons above are not enough to define the success of a business. They might say a business failed if it did not produce enough profit within nine years of its creation. I am of the other opinion here. I will continue creating things for sale. But I am not chasing profit, even if I hope for it. Yes, I hope my writing will pay most of my bills one day instead of a few smaller ones as it does today. However, all the reasons listed above are priceless because, without my business, I might not have been able to have a rewarding job in my current circumstances.

If you decide to start a business, be ready for a wild and incredible adventure. Enjoy the ride, and make it gameful!

P.S. I invite you to subscribe to my mailing list here.

Related articles:

What is the Ultimate Tool to See Your Business as a Game?
Calling businesses being games is not new. Many say that our lives, including what they do at work, are games.medium.com

What Businesses and Games Have to Do with Fractals
And why it mattersmedium.com

Who Is the Best to Give Me Time to Write?
Honesty and kindness are mutually inclusive and cannot be true without one anothermedium.com