The Solopreneur’s reality: being your own safety net

I’ve had a couple of weeks off nursing a broken collar-bone but now finally I can manage two-hand typing I’m ready for this blog.

As I lay on a forest floor in agony waiting for an ambulance I had three hours to think. And of course it wasn’t always happy thoughts.

Unable to move without an incredible searing pain in my shoulder and neck, I started questioning what this meant for work.

In over four years working for myself I’ve never been ill, not properly. Even a short bout of COVID in 2021 barely stopped me working.

But this looked like it might.

At a really bad time; my busiest – when I’m scouting for startups for the accelerator programme I run.

Would I have to stay in hospital? Have an operation? Be cast up? I pictured myself in one of those neck braces.

Definitely unable to travel around the UK to meet startups in April as planned.

And what was worse was seeing – and sensing – my wife’s anxiety. She was worried for me of course. But she was also worried about our livelihood.

I am very glass half-full. I also believe this life I’m living is by far and away better than the one I left behind at BP.

But it’s not without risk.

I have lost the safety net of an employer.

Fortunately, my catastrophising didn’t play out, and after a bumpy ride to A&E, an X-ray and a quick check by a consultant I was in my own bed with some codeine and a sling.

One groggy day post-morphine and I was back to work talking to startups. No-one would have noticed apart from the sling.

And my clients have all been wonderful. Behaving just like the best kind of employer.

But some well-paid consultancy with a new client had to be cancelled as I wasn’t up to being grilled as an ‘expert’ for three hours. Two weeks later they still haven’t confirmed a rescheduled meeting. So that may have cost me some future revenue.

So it’s real the impact.

I never want to paint this life as a dream and my old one as a nightmare because neither is true nor fair. Both have pros and cons.

A couple of weeks on, I’m of course back to ‘normal’, including how I feel about working for myself.

But it’s been a wake-up call.

I often say I feel like I’m working in real business now, more exposed yes, but also really feeling the ups and downs of business.

That night was definitely a down.

And it won’t be the last.

But I came through it.

No regrets still; no desire to go back.

No wish to trade all the benefits of this life just to feel protected by someone else.

I am my own safety net.