Now that you’ve spent some time looking backward, we can start looking forward. This is where most people jump straight to the business. They start asking which niche to choose, which product to sell, or which platform to build on. I want to slow that down for a moment, because before you decide what kind of business to build, you need to decide what kind of life that business is supposed to support.

When people say they want freedom, the word can mean almost anything. One person might mean waking up without an alarm and working from a café near the beach. Someone else might mean earning enough money to support a family without constantly worrying about bills. Another person might want to travel for years, while someone else wants to stay in one place, know their neighbours, and have enough time to be present with the people they care about. Without more detail, it stays a vague future that sounds good but says little about what you’re actually trying to build.

So I want you to make it real for a moment. Imagine that the business has worked. Imagine it works well enough to support the life you chose. Where are you living? Maybe it’s a city apartment where everything is happening around you. Maybe it’s somewhere quiet with a bit of land. Maybe you’re close to the ocean, living in another country, or moving around throughout the year. Try to see the setting before you think about the business.

Then think about an ordinary day there. What time do you wake up? What do you do in the first few hours? Do you work all morning and take the afternoon off, or do you prefer a slower start and work later in the day? Are you surrounded by people, or do you need long stretches of alone time? Do you want meetings, calls, and a team to lead, or does the idea of a small business with very few moving parts sound better?

This matters because people often copy someone else’s version of success without thinking about whether they would actually enjoy living it. You see someone travelling every month and decide that must be freedom, then realise you hate airports and want your own kitchen. You see someone running a company with fifty employees and think that must be success, then discover that managing people all day drains you. 

Money should become more specific here as well. How much do you actually need for the life you’re picturing? There’s a big difference between wanting enough money to live comfortably and wanting as much money as possible. Neither answer is wrong, but they create very different businesses. If you want a quiet life, a nice home, time to train, a few trips a year, and enough savings that money stops controlling every decision, the business you need may be smaller than you think. If you want to build companies, employ people, invest heavily, and create something at a much larger scale, the path will ask more from you.

Think about the people in your life, too. Who do you want around you? Do you want a partner, children, close friends, a large social circle, or a small group of people you know deeply? How much time do you want to give those relationships? It’s easy to design a future around income and location while forgetting that your time has to come from somewhere. A business can give you more choice, but it can also consume every hour you let it.

This is why I don’t want you designing the most impressive life you can imagine. I want you to design one you would actually want to wake up inside.

Parts of that life may surprise you. You might realise you don’t care as much about being rich as you thought. You might realise you want more money than you’ve been willing to admit because you genuinely want to build and experience things. Maybe you thought you wanted to travel forever, but when you picture your best day, you keep seeing the same home, gym, coffee shop, and people. 

Spend some time with that. Don’t build the answer around what looks successful online or what would impress someone else. Think about what you would choose if nobody was going to see it.

Then write it down in enough detail to start making decisions. Where do you live? What does a normal week look like? How much do you earn? How many hours do you work? What kind of work fills those hours? Who is around you? What do you have time to do that you currently don’t? What experiences do you want your life to make possible?

You don’t need every detail figured out, and this picture will probably change once you start moving toward it. Right now, you’re creating a direction. You’re giving the idea of freedom a shape that belongs to you.

And once you can see your dream life more clearly, we can ask the question that usually gets left out of this kind of exercise. What will that life actually ask from you?

What Will That Life Cost?

Once you can picture the life you want, this is a good time to start asking the harder questions. Not just what that future will give you, but what it may ask you to leave behind. The further you move from the life you know, the more likely parts of your current world won’t come with you in the same way.

When I decided to start walking my own path, I pictured everyone climbing the same mountain. There was already a path there. People knew where it went, what you were supposed to do, and what a good life looked like if you stayed on it. Get a job, build a career, earn more money, buy a house, keep moving upward. I knew that if I stepped away from that mountain, I was choosing something very different. No one might be beside me. There might not even be a path. I could spend months or years trying to find my way up something that nobody around me could see.

For me, that part wasn’t as scary as it might be for someone else. I’ve always been comfortable spending a lot of time alone. I could go days without much social contact because I knew what I wanted to do with that time. I needed to learn marketing, web design, sales, content, psychology, and whatever else became useful along the way. Every new problem showed me another skill I didn’t have yet, and I knew the only way to learn it was to give it time.

My days became quite simple. I’d wake up, go to CrossFit, talk to people there, enjoy the class, say good morning to everyone, and then go home. That gave me enough social time that I didn’t feel cut off from the world, but I could spend the rest of the day building myself up. I found comfort in that routine. I didn’t need to go out drinking, have dinner with friends every night, or fill every free hour with something social. Those things aren’t bad, but they cost time, and at that stage of my life, I knew what I wanted to do.

This is where I want you to be honest with yourself. If the life you want requires a few years of learning, building, failing, and trying again, what are you willing to give up to make room for that? How much social time do you actually need? Would you be okay watching some of your friends keep living the life you used to live while you stay home working on something they may not understand? If no one around you cared about your business idea for the next 2 years, would you still want to build it?

The harder part for me wasn’t being alone. It was what that change did to some of my relationships.

For a long time, my parents didn’t understand why I was changing the way I spent my time. They aren’t the kind of people I could sit with for hours talking through business ideas, strategy, psychology, or whatever problem I was trying to solve. Their conversations were often about the weather, what someone else was doing, or whatever was happening around them. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just became harder for me to spend hours in those conversations once I understood how much my time mattered to me.

From their side, all they could see was my behaviour changing. I didn’t want to sit around for as long. I spent more time working alone. I became more protective of my time, and for a while, they saw that as me becoming disconnected from them. From my side, I was trying to build something that didn’t exist yet. I could see the future I was moving toward, but they couldn’t. And expecting them to understand something they couldn’t see or feel was probably unfair.

That caused a lot of friction between us for a while. They thought something was wrong with me because the version of me they knew was changing. I thought they were getting in the way because they couldn’t understand why I cared so much about what I was building. Looking back, both sides were responding to the same thing. My direction had changed, and that change affected the relationship.

This is one of the costs people rarely imagine when they picture a new future. You assume the people around you will understand because the vision feels so clear in your head. But they aren’t living inside your head. They don’t see the years ahead in the same way you do. They see how your choices are affecting your relationship with them right now.

So ask yourself what may happen if you really change.

What happens if you stop caring about the things your friends care about? What happens if you no longer want to spend your weekends the same way? What happens if your family thinks the risk you’re taking is stupid? What happens if becoming more disciplined makes someone close to you feel judged, even though you never judged them? What happens when someone tells you that you’ve changed and, deep down, you know they’re right?

Because you will change.

That’s part of what you’re asking for.

You’re asking for a life different from the one you have now, which means part of you also has to change. You may need to change your beliefs about money, work, time, risk, relationships, or yourself. The values that helped you fit into your current world may not be the same values that help you build the next one.

The higher you want to climb, the more you may have to put down.

That doesn’t mean cutting everyone off or deciding that you’re somehow better than the people you grew up with. It means accepting that growth can create distance. Some relationships will adjust. Some people will understand once they see what you’re building. Others may never understand it, and you’ll have to decide whether you can keep walking without their approval.

So before we move any further, ask yourself whether the trade is worth it. If building this life means spending more time alone for a while, are you okay with that? If some friendships change, can you accept it? If your family doesn’t understand what you’re doing, can you keep going without needing them to believe in it? If the beliefs you grew up with start falling apart, are you willing to question them instead of running back to them because they feel safe?

You don’t need to know exactly what you’ll lose. I didn’t. A lot of these costs only become clear once you start moving.

What matters is understanding that you aren’t simply adding a business to your current life. You may be building a life that asks you to change how you spend your time, the people you spend it with, what you believe, and who you think you are.

Once you’re willing to look at that trade clearly, we can start asking what kind of business could support the future you’ve chosen.

What Must the Business Make Possible?

Now that you’ve looked at the life you want and what it may ask of you, we can finally bring the business into the picture. But I still don’t want you asking, “What business should I start?” Not yet. That question is too early, and asking it too soon can lead you to build something that makes money but pulls you away from the life you actually wanted.

A better question is this: what does the business need to make possible?

If the life you pictured gives you location freedom, then the business needs to work without tying you to a single location. If you want more control over your time, the business can’t depend on you being available every hour. If you want to build something large, the business will eventually need people, systems, and enough profit to support that growth. If your idea of a good life is quieter and simpler, you may not need a huge team at all. You may need something smaller that provides enough income while leaving you time and energy for everything else.

This is where the life you designed starts to put limits around the business, and that’s a good thing.

Limits help you make better choices.

If you know you don’t want to spend your entire day on calls, then a business built around back-to-back coaching sessions probably won’t suit the life you chose. If you want to travel often, a business that depends on you being in one physical location may become a problem later. If you know you want to stay small, there’s no point copying someone whose whole plan depends on building a massive team.

Many people do the opposite. They see a business model that looks successful, chase it, and only later realise they've built themselves into a life they don’t even enjoy.

That’s the part I want you to avoid.

Go back to the future you just created and look at the details. How much money does that life actually need? How much time do you want the business to take from you each week? Do you want to work alone, with a few people, or with a larger team? Do you want to be the face of the business, or would you rather build something where the brand can stand on its own without you being visible every day? Do you want to sell your time, build products, create systems, or eventually have a mix of those things?

You don’t need perfect answers. You just need enough direction to stop treating every business idea like it has the same value.

Because it doesn’t.

A business can be profitable and still be wrong for the life you want.

I think this is where many people get trapped. They start a business for freedom, then make every decision with more money in mind. The business grows, but the freedom never comes. They get more customers, more staff, more messages, more things to manage, and suddenly they’ve created a job that follows them everywhere.

So ask yourself what the business is actually there to do for you. Is it there to fund a life you already know you want? Is it there to give you room to travel? Is it there to create enough income that your partner can stop working? Is it there to support a family, give you time to train, let you move countries, or give you the resources to build something much bigger later?

Once you know the answer, business decisions become easier because you have something to measure against.

You’re no longer asking whether an idea can make money.

You’re asking whether that idea helps create the life you chose.

And once the business has a clear job, we can move into the question that matters even more: who would you need to become to actually build it?

Who Do You Want to Become?

You’ve spent time designing the outside of your life. You’ve thought about where you want to live, how you want your days to feel, how much money you want to earn, what kind of business might support that life, and what you may need to give up along the way. Now turn inward and look at the person actually living that life.

Because the future isn’t only a place.

It’s also a version of you.

Imagine yourself five or ten years from now, living the life you just described. When you wake up in the morning and look in the mirror, who is looking back at you? How do they carry themselves? How do they dress? How do they take care of their body? What kind of father, partner, friend, or leader have they become? How do they speak when they’re under pressure? What happens when someone disagrees with them? How do people feel around them?

This is where I want you to get personal.

Maybe right now you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see. You don’t feel healthy. Your clothes don’t reflect the person you want to be. You may feel physically weak, tired, or disconnected from your own body. That matters. If the person you see in the future is strong, healthy, well-dressed, and proud of how they carry themselves, then that is part of the design too.

Maybe the gap has less to do with appearance and more to do with how you act when life gets hard. You might hate how quickly you react when you’re stressed. You might shut down, get angry, say things you don’t mean, or agree with people because you’re scared of conflict. Then you picture the person you want to become: someone who can sit through a difficult conversation without losing themselves.

That person can listen.

They can let someone speak.

They can understand why the other person feels the way they do without immediately becoming defensive. And after listening, they can still say, “I understand where you’re coming from, but this is the direction I need to move in.”

That is a very different kind of strength.

You might see yourself becoming someone people come to when life gets hard. Someone who can hold space without trying to fix everything. Someone who can have deeper conversations about fear, love, money, failure, identity, or meaning without feeling like they need to hide their own story. Maybe the person you want to become has lived enough of their own life to sit across from someone else and say, “I understand this because I’ve been there too.”

Maybe that eventually becomes part of the business.

You start by building an online business because you want more freedom. Ten years later, the business may look completely different because you’re different. You might become a mentor. You might teach people the things you had to learn the hard way. You might build products, write books, create content, or coach people through problems that once felt impossible for you to solve in your own life.

The business can become an extension of who you are.

That is why this part matters so much.

If you only design the external life, you can create a future that looks good and still feels wrong once you get there. You could build a business that makes a lot of money while becoming someone you don’t respect. You could become successful online while still hating the person you see in the mirror.

So I want you to design both at the same time.

You’ve already started designing your life. Now design the person.

How does this person treat their body? How do they dress when they leave the house? How do they treat their partner when they’re tired? How present are they with their children? Can they admit when they’re wrong? Can they apologise? Can they hold their ground without trying to destroy the other person? Can they be kind without becoming a pushover?

Think about how they speak, too. Can they explain what they believe without needing everyone to agree? Can they tell their story without shame? Can they sit in a room with people who think differently and stay curious instead of feeling threatened? When someone comes to them with pain, can they listen long enough to understand what the person is actually trying to say?

Then think about their relationship with themselves.

What happens when they fail?

Do they tear themselves apart for three days, or can they look at what happened, learn from it, and keep moving? What do they do when they’re scared? Do they hide from the thing, or have they learned how to move while fear is still there? When life becomes uncertain, do they immediately look to someone else to tell them what to do, or have they built enough trust in themselves to decide and live with the result?

These are all parts of the person you’re designing.

And once you put life and person side by side, you may see contradictions.

Maybe the life you designed requires you to travel constantly, but the person you want to become is a deeply present father who wants to be home most nights. Maybe you pictured yourself building a huge company, then realised the person you want to be values quiet mornings, deep relationships, and time to think. Maybe you said you wanted to work alone forever, while also imagining yourself becoming a mentor and leader who helps other people grow.

Those contradictions are useful.

They show you where the plan needs more thought.

The goal here isn’t to build a perfect future version of yourself. You don’t need to create some imaginary person who never gets angry, never feels fear, always looks perfect, and has every answer. That person would be useless to you because they aren’t real.

You’re trying to create a direction for your identity.

You’re asking, “When I look at the person I’m becoming, what qualities do I want to strengthen? What parts of myself do I want to leave behind? How do I want the people closest to me to experience me? What kind of man or woman do I want to be when nobody is impressed by what I’ve built?”

That question goes deeper than business.

And I think this is where the blueprint starts to become much more powerful, because you now have two futures sitting beside each other. You have the life you want to live, and you have the person you want to become while living it.

Now we can start comparing them.

Does the life support the person?

Does the person fit the life?

And if those two things don’t match yet, what needs to change?

That is what we’re going to bring together in the first version of your Telos Blueprint.

Building Your First Telos Blueprint

Now you’ve got the two sides we need. You’ve designed the life you want to live, and you’ve started designing the person you want to become while living it. This is where we bring those two things together and turn them into something you can actually use.

Think of the Telos Blueprint as a working map. It isn’t a promise that your life will unfold exactly as you’ve planned, because it won’t. You’re going to change. The business will change. What matters to you may change. You’ll learn things about yourself that you can’t know yet because you haven’t lived through the experiences that will reveal them. The blueprint gives you enough direction to start making sense of your next choices.

Start with the dream life.

Write down the things that matter most to you about the future you just designed. Where do you want to live? What do you want your days to look like? How much money do you need to support that life? How much time do you want for your health, your family, your relationships, and the things you care about outside of work? What kind of business would fit inside that life without slowly taking it over?

Then place the person beside it.

Who are you in that life? How do you carry yourself? How do you take care of your body? What kind of partner, parent, friend, leader, or mentor are you? How do you respond when life becomes stressful? What do you believe about money? How do you speak when someone disagrees with you? What kind of conversations are you capable of having? What do people experience when they spend time around you?

Now compare the two.

This is where the blueprint becomes useful, because the life you designed and the person you designed may not fit together yet.

You might see yourself living a life with a lot of freedom, then notice that the person you are becoming wants deep roots, strong relationships, and more time with family. You might picture a large company with lots of money moving through it, while the person you want to be doesn’t want to spend most of their day managing people. You might want to become calm, present, and emotionally available, only to realise you’ve built a business that keeps you stressed and distracted every hour.

If you find a contradiction, don’t treat it like you’ve done the exercise wrong.

That’s what the exercise is for.

You’re trying to catch these problems while they’re still ideas, before you spend years building something that takes you somewhere you never really wanted to go.

Then look at where you are now.

What is the gap between your current life and your future life? What is the gap between the person you are today and the person you’ve just described? Maybe the business requires skills you don’t have yet. Maybe your health needs work. Maybe you need to become better at speaking, listening, selling, managing money, handling stress, or saying no. You don’t need to turn every gap into a problem you have to solve today.

You just need to see it.

Your first blueprint should show you four things. It should show you the life you want to build, the person you want to become, the kind of business that could support both, and the areas where your current life doesn’t yet align with that direction.

That’s all.

You’re not trying to plan the next ten years down to the month. You’re trying to create a direction strong enough that when a decision comes up, you have something to compare it against.

Does this move me toward the life I chose?

Does this help me become the person I said I wanted to be?

Does this business decision support both of those things, or am I starting to build something that pulls them apart?

Those questions will become more useful than trying to predict every outcome.

And now that you’ve got the first version of the blueprint in front of you, we can finally move into the present.

This is where the ideas stop living on paper.

This is where you start building.

Part Three — The Present