How Will You Spend Your 43,245 Hours?

Did you know: on average, people spend the equivalent of 13 years and two months of their lives at work. That adds up to 4,805 days, or 43,245 hours. With those hours, the median retirement account balance in the U.S. is just $60,000, not even $2 per hour worked over an entire lifetime.

But let's be clear: working isn't just about the money, is it?

I believe we all have the opportunity to make a living using our unique abilities: to build a business based on being ourselves. I call this the point of authentic earning.

For me, creating and generating revenue is as core to my self-expression as smiling and saying hello to people I pass on the street. But I get that it's not like that for everyone.

Remember when we defined the American dream as homeownership? Thank goodness we've moved past treating that as the only valid version. Homeownership can be overrated, expensive, or tie you to a place you no longer want to be. A similarly narrow view used to be mine when it came to starting businesses.

I remember sitting at our local burger joint on bingo night years ago. The bingo caller, probably in his early twenties, was passing out cards at our table. I asked him, "Hey, is this your bingo business?" He told me it wasn't. He just loved getting paid to host games around the city. Without skipping a beat, I laid out a whole revenue plan for him to start his own bingo business and earn four times as much. As he politely stood and listened, my son kicked me under the table and whispered: "Mom, not EVERYBODY wants to start a business!"

Then, more recently, I was getting certified to teach a corporate training program, surrounded by professionals who work inside big companies. For every person who pulled me aside to ask, "How did you break free and start your own business?" there was another leaning in to say, "How can you do it? Isn't it scary and overwhelming to have your own business? I would never choose that."

Each time, I'd share the one question I had to answer for myself before going out on my own: *What do I value most about my work and my life?*

For me, it's freedom, opportunity, independence, creativity, and being myself. Those values are what make having my own business worth the risk, the overwhelm, and the uncertainty, for me.

But enough about me. Let's talk about you.

What do you value? And is your work letting you live into those values?

I'm not here to talk you into leaving your corporate job, starting a side hustle, or exploring your unique abilities. That's not my call to make for you.

I just think the question is worth asking, whatever you decide to do with the answer: 43,245 hours is a lot of time to spend on autopilot. Whether you spend them in a corner office, a side hustle, or exactly where you already are, I hope you spend them on purpose.