The Freedom I Thought I Wanted

When I started my first plumbing company in Los Angeles, I thought I knew exactly what I was working toward.

Like many entrepreneurs, I used the word freedom all the time. Freedom was the reason I wanted to own a business. Freedom was the reason I worked long hours, took risks, and kept building. The interesting part is that I never really stopped to define what freedom meant. I simply assumed I would recognize it when I got there.

In this episode of Business Coaches Corner, I'm taking you back to those early days—running a plumbing company from a home office on a half-acre property filled with trucks, equipment, employees, and endless activity. Looking back from where I am today, I can see that the version of success I was chasing then looks very different from the life I've built now.

This isn't a conversation about business strategy. It's a conversation about the stories we tell ourselves while we're building something, the assumptions we make about what success will feel like, and how life has a way of quietly changing the destination while we're focused on the journey.

Join me as I reflect on the early chapters of my entrepreneurial journey, the businesses that shaped me, and the version of freedom I thought I wanted before I discovered what it would eventually mean to me.

And this is only the beginning of the story.

In the next episode, we'll pick up where this one leaves off and follow the road from Los Angeles to Colorado, Tahoe, coaching, and eventually a life I never could have imagined from that home office all those years ago.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Business Coach's Corner. A few days ago, I found myself thinking about Los Angeles. The thought appeared out of nowhere while I was out walking the dog. One minute I was paying attention to the trail, and the next I was standing in a completely different chapter of my life. It's funny how memories work that way. You can go even years without thinking about something, and then a random moment brings it all back with surprising clarity. What came to mind wasn't a particular customer or employee. It wasn't one of the big milestones people usually ask about when they hear you've built businesses. What I remembered was the property where I started my first plumbing company. We ran the business out of our home office. The property sat on about a half an acre and stretched from one street all the way through to another. We had a large outbuilding, room for trucks and equipment, materials, and everything else that seemed to accumulate as the business grew. The crews could come in through the back while the office operated out of the house. At the time it felt completely normal. Looking back at it now, it seems like one of those things that only makes sense when you're in the middle of building something. What stays with me most isn't the business itself. It's the feeling of that season of my life. There was always movement, trucks coming and going, phones ringing, schedules changing, customers needing something, employees needing something. Every day felt full before it even started. I never questioned much of it because it matched the picture I had in my head of what building a successful business was supposed to look like. The people I admired all seemed busy. They were growing companies, solving problems, and creating opportunities and caring responsibilities that looked important from the outside. Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that if life felt demanding, I was probably moving in the right direction. At the time, I would have told you I was building freedom. I use that word a lot. If somebody had asked me why I wanted to own a business instead of working for someone else, freedom would have been part of the answer. I wanted control over my future. I wanted choices. I wanted the ability to create something of my own. The interesting part is that I never spent much time defining what freedom actually meant to me. I don't think that's unusual. Most people have a picture in their mind that feels clear enough to chase, but becomes much, much harder to describe if they're asked to explain it. Freedom was like that for me. I knew I wanted it. I just assumed I would recognize it when I got there. Standing where I am today, that's the part that makes me smile. Because if someone had shown me a picture of my future back then, I don't think I would have understood what I was looking at. I don't think the version of me standing in that yard would have imagined living in Tahoe. I definitely wouldn't have imagined running a coaching business or even being by myself. And if somebody had shown me a photo of myself sitting in Costa Rica with a laptop after spending the morning on the beach, I probably would have assumed I was on vacation. I wouldn't have recognized it as work. More than that, I wouldn't have recognized it as the thing I had been chasing all along. I think that the version of me standing in that yard would have been surprised by a lot of things. She would have been surprised that I eventually left Los Angeles. She would have been surprised by the number of times I would reinvent myself. She definitely would have been surprised that plumbing and HVAC wouldn't be the only business I built. Why don't I think why I don't think would have surprised her was the desire to keep building. That part has always been there. After the plumbing company, life moved forward the way life usually does. One season quietly gives way to another. At the time, it never feels like you're entering a new chapter. Most of the time it just feels like you're dealing with whatever is directly in front of you. Looking back now, I can see clear transitions. At the time, I definitely couldn't. I eventually built a fitness boot camp in Los Angeles. That business looked completely different from the plumbing company, yet I remember experiencing many of the same emotions. There was excitement in creating something from nothing. There was satisfaction in watching it grow. There was also that familiar feeling that whatever I was building today was helping create the future I wanted tomorrow. I think that's why entrepreneurship becomes such an interesting journey. Businesses change, industries change, opportunities change, yet somehow you keep finding yourself in a familiar conversation with yourself. You think you're building a company, but part of what you're really building is a relationship with uncertainty. Every business introduces a new set of questions. Every season asks something different of you. The version of confidence required to start a plumbing company isn't the same confidence required to stand in front of a group of people at a fitness boot camp. Neither one looks much like the confidence required to build a coaching business. At the time, I didn't think about any of that. I was too busy living it. One of the things I noticed about memory is that it simplifies things. Years later, it's easy to look backward and see a clean storyline. It feels as though one decision led naturally to another. Life rarely feels that organized when you're living it. Most of the time, you're making the best decision you can with the information that you have in the moment. Then something changes, an opportunity appears, a door opens that wasn't there before. A different possibility starts pulling at your attention. That's more or less how Colorado happened. And looking back now, I realize that move would eventually set off a chain of events that led me somewhere I never could have predicted from that home office in Los Angeles. But that's a story for next time. This is Business Coaches Corners. I'm Bex Gold. Thank you for spending part of your day with me, and I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening.