I Had a Six Figure Year And All I Got Was This Lousy Blog Post

This blog and its accompanying video (at the bottom of this post) were inspired by the inimitable Aliza Stein of A Freaking Great Company. (Yes, that’s the actual name of her biz. Yes, it lives up to its name.) 

My first year in business I made three thousand dollars. (Or $3,047 to be exact.)

That’s $3,047 total. Before taxes. Before costs and overhead. Before my business was even legally considered a business. (At that point, the government still considered my biz a “hobby” so, in presidential fashion, I paid no taxes!)

From the vantage point of that first four figure year in business, a six figure year was in the same category as private jets and bathtubs full of hundred dollar bills.

Six figures meant “making it.” Six figures and I wouldn’t have to worry. Six figures and I’d gladly pay taxes just for the honor of being taken seriously by the IRS. (Ah, youth.)

Luckily, this was before every marketer (and their mom) started selling six figure formulas and funnels and other various and sundry six figure flibbertigibbets.

I say “luckily” because, had I started a business today and not before the season of six figure sensationalism, I don’t think my biz would have survived. Knowing myself, I might have followed some shiny haired “guru” down a very expensive funnel shaped rabbit hole and not had any money left to make my way back. (Note: one man’s funnel is another man’s empty bank account.)

Instead, I chased my first hundred thousands the “old fashioned way.” (Sobbing over a spreadsheet with coffee in one hand and ramen in the other.)

And, sure enough, those four figures slowly turned into five and, finally, six.

I made it! I was a real, legitimate, take me seriously dammit, tax owing business owner!

Not only that, but I had nearly tripled my revenue from the previous year. (Look at me go, world! I’m on fire! I’m basically Bill Gates for a new generation, bishessssss.)

After I called my mom (and my best friend, my second grade teacher, and that jerk who made fun of me in 1998 – the VIP list, really) I ran the numbers again and realized that, while I had nearly tripled my revenue, my profits had actually gone down.

I had worked harder, put in twice the hours, gained thrice the pounds, and…made less money.

*record scratch*

Oh, I had “made it” alright. Made it all the way to six whooooole figures only to swiftly and painfully realize that I had put my desire to feel like I was “making it” over actually making good business decisions.

And it cost me.

Because, while I may not have sold my soul to a shiny haired “guru” with unrelenting Facebook ads, I still made plenty of bad business decisions in my quest to crest that coveted six figure mark. I took on projects that weren’t right for me. I hired the wrong people too fast. I said “Yes!” when my gut screamed, “Noooooo!”

And, when all was said spent and done, my first “six figure year” was also the year that almost broke my business.

And me, if I’m being honest. It almost broke me, too.

Whether I could admit it to myself or not, deep down I thought that a certain amount of dollars (one hundred thousand of them, to be exact) would finally make me feel like I “deserved” to do business. Heck, I thought six figures would make me feel a whole lotta things. Smart. Talented. Strong. Capable. Worthy. The list goes on.

Even without following the shiny haired “guru” into his funnel shaped rabbit hole, I still managed to buy into the notion that, without a certain amount of money, I wasn’t enough. (Capitalism, am I right?!)

But – and here’s where the story turns around – as painful (and humiliating and expeeeeeensive) as that year was, it didn’t break me. In fact, despite my apparent “failure” of a six figure year, little did I know that I really had “made it” after all!

Yeah, I sure as sh*t felt like I wasn’t enough. It’s a feeling that never fully goes away – a feeling that grows bigger and stronger the more we fight it (or feed it money).

Yet despite those feelings, I “made it” all the way to rock bottom and it didn’t ruin me.

I “made it” to my breaking point. And I didn’t break.

And as it turns out, living through that lesson was worth a whole lot more than six figures.

Yeah, I wish I didn’t have to go broke to realize I’m unbreakable.

At the same time, the broke brokenness that befell me in my first “six figure year” also freed me from chasing figures so I could re-focus myself on making smart business decisions and doing good work. The kind of work that I don’t just feel, but know, is enough; helping my clients — smart, talented, strong, capable, worthy small business owners — see past the shiny haired gurus and their funnel shaped rabbit holes so they, too, can continue doing work that enriches the world around them.