You Don’t Own a Business. You Own a Job.
How to Build a Business That Works With You, Not Against You
Most people who start a business aren’t entrepreneurs.
The word "entrepreneur" gets thrown around too easily today. People start a newsletter, open a coaching offer, or launch a product. They proudly wear the badge of an entrepreneur. There is nothing wrong with that, but it won’t help you building a business.
True entrepreneurs operate differently. They think differently They build differently. And most importantly they’re wired for risk and scale in a way most creators simply aren’t.
This matters. Because if you misread your own nature, you’ll follow the wrong playbook. And that’s the fastest path to burnout.
What if there’s another way? One that starts not with strategy, but with self-awareness.
That’s where the archetypes come in.
I've observed countless creators and aspiring founders begin passionately, only to hit a wall. They juggle every role, feel overwhelmed, and wonder why their business dream turned into another exhausting job. The problem? They're applying entrepreneurial strategies without having an entrepreneurial nature.
Archetypes in Business
The solution lies in recognizing your dominant business archetype. Archetypes, originally introduced by psychologist Carl Jung, offer deep insights into human behavior. We can apply this powerful tool directly to business. Though everyone carries traits of each archetype, usually one leads, significantly influencing your strengths, blind spots, and ultimate business potential.
For clarity and simplicity, I'll focus here on three primary archetypes: the Artist, the Manager, and the Entrepreneur. Understanding which one you embody allows you to build authentically, leverage your strengths, and compensate for your natural weaknesses. It clarifies key business decisions: who to hire, what systems to create, and how (or even whether) you'll scale.
Let’s break each one down.
1. The Artist
Core drive: Mastery and creative expression
Superpower: Deep talent and devotion to craft
Weakness: Struggles with scale and delegation
Artists create value through love. And that love shows.
If you're a creator, there's a good chance you're an Artist at heart.
The Artist archetype isn't limited to painters, designers, or writers. It's anyone who leads with talent, care, and devotion to the craft. Artists are driven by mastery and meaning. They want their work to speak for itself. They care deeply about their clients or audience (sometimes even more than they care about the business itself).
You can feel the Artist’s presence in any great brand. The copy that sings. The coaching that changes lives. The product that’s so good it feels like magic.
At their best: The Artist creates extraordinary value through talent, care, and connection.
At their worst: They become the bottleneck. The business is just a job with no exit.
2. The Manager
Core drive: Order and efficiency
Superpower: Building and optimizing systems
Weakness: May struggle to innovate or lead
Managers love turning ideas into action.
They don’t need the spotlight. They want results.
Managers love organizing, streamlining, and improving how things run. They're not focused on creating the product or service itself. What they want is to get a great result. They are the glue between vision and execution. They love solving process problems and keeping teams aligned.
At their best: Managers turn chaos into structure and ideas into reality.
At their worst: They protect the status quo and lose touch with innovation.
Important note: Not all Managers are leaders. Leadership requires vision and inspiration. Some Managers make amazing COOs, but not all are ready to drive the ship.
3. Entrepreneur
Core drive: Opportunity and leverage
Superpower: Building and scaling profitable businesses
Weakness: Emotional detachment from products or services, risk-taking leading to instability
Entrepreneurs don’t fall in love with the work.
They fall in love with the leverage.
Where Artists love the craft and Managers love the process, Entrepreneurs love the game.
The true Entrepreneur isn’t emotionally attached to a product, service, or even industry. They’re focused on building and scaling businesses. They’ll sell a successful company without blinking and start another one next week in a totally different space.
Entrepreneurs see opportunity everywhere. They move fast. They take big risks, make bold bets, and have a high tolerance for uncertainty.
They’re wired to build systems, hire great people, and get out of the way. For them, success looks like building a machine that prints money without needing their constant involvement. And if that machine breaks? They’ll build another one.
None of these archetypes is “better” than the others. They’re all essential. But knowing your archetype allows you to build around your strengths and proactively address identify your blindspots.
In my experience, most founders and creators are Artists at heart. That’s why the rest of this article will focus on what it really means to build a business as an Artist and how to avoid the traps that come with it.
From Operator to Owner
As an Artist archetype, I can almost guarantee that you don't own a real business. You own a job. And not a cushy CEO job where you delegate from your private yacht. No, I'm talking about the kind of job where you work your ass off, and if you stop, so does the money.
I know, because I've been there.
If you're an Artist at your core, your work isn't just work. It feels like an extension of yourself. You pour your heart into it, which is exactly why the thought of selling your business feels like selling your soul. That's also why most Artists have zero exit strategy. Most don't even know what it is, let alone why they need one.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth:
If you ever want to achieve financial freedom, you absolutely must have an exit strategy.
Wait, what the heck is an “exit strategy”? Glad you asked. An exit strategy is basically your plan for how to eventually step away or sell your business. Entrepreneurs get this immediately. They start businesses specifically to sell them later, cash out, and move on to their next big idea. They have no problem divorcing themselves emotionally from the business. They’re perfectly fine selling their life’s work because it was never about the work itself. It was always about the payoff at the end.
Entrepreneurs are willing to sell their life's work. For an Artist this sounds almost impossible to do. Instead, they end up stuck, self-employed in a stressful, inefficient, yet high-paying job. You’re basically an employee in your own company. If you don’t show up, neither does your paycheck.
And this goes on and on. Many Artists are still grinding away long after retirement age, stuck on a treadmill they can’t step off. Vacations? Good luck. Days off? Sure, if you don’t mind losing money. Sounds awesome, right?