lifestyle business

How You May Find Balance in a Lifestyle Business with Nick Murphy BtR 184

Former NFL player, Nick Murphy, discusses how you can stop trading time for money and start your own lifestyle business with success.

The Business Lifestyle

The first question you may be asking yourself is, “What is a lifestyle business?” The short answer is that a lifestyle business is one that is set up to provide you with enough income to sustain a particular lifestyle that is free of the 9-to-5 grind.

You may have read about this type of business lifestyle through a famous book titled The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.

The lifestyle of a businessman like Tim Ferriss or Nick Murphy is one where income is being generated to cover the expenses that allow you to travel where you want to go with whom you want to travel. For Nick, this means being able to spend more time with his five children and his wife. 

Systems were created by Nick to provide and sustain the income he needs.

Stop Trading Time for Money

We traditionally trade time for money. This is an antiquated concept that comes from working in factories. Life is not too different today. Many of us trade 40 hours a week for an hourly salary. Some of us trade in more than that in an attempt to earn more. 

lifestyle business stop trading time for money
Maybe it is time to stop trading time for money and create a lifestyle business.

The bottom line in this equation is that you can only earn more by adding more hours to your schedule or convincing your supervisor to increase your income through a pay raise or promotion. 

In a lifestyle business, the amount of income Nick generates has nothing to do with the amount of time he spends at the office. The 9-to-5 grind was exchanged for speaking engagements, coaching services, consulting, book sales and more.

Examples of Lifestyle Businesses

You may be looking for some lifestyle business ideas. Here is a very short list of ideas to get your creative juices flowing. There is really no limit to what you can do to generate the income you need. The key to this kind of life is that you create the lifestyle you desire whether it is spending more time with family, having time to write a book, travel, ministry, going on a mission trip, and so on.

  • Professional blogging
  • Online stores, selling either digital or physical products
  • Rental real estate
  • Freelance creative work: writing, journalism, photography, etc.
  • Teaching or coaching online

A lifestyle business does not necessarily need to be online. Remember what makes a business a lifestyle business is one that gives you exactly the level of freedom you desire.

The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future by Chris Guillebeau will give you some ideas of side hustles that became lifestyle businesses.

Nick Murphy Bio

Nick Murphy

Former NFL player, Nick Murphy, helps people win in the game of life. Nick walked away from a stable $185,000 per year job in 2015 and set out to create a lifestyle business that gave him his life back!

The challenge he faced was to have a life where he could spend time with his family while still bringing in a six-figure income. Through a series of trials and successes, Nick found that it is possible to live in the game of life.

It is possible to live a life on your own terms whether that means creating a business lifestyle or reframing how you look at your own career. 

lifestyle business

Nick Murphy is also the author of Unboxed: An Unfiltered Guide to Creating a Career on Your Terms, and host of the Building a Lifestyle Business Podcast. He has appeared on Fox News, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Inc.com, Yahoo!, Business Insider, HR.com, MSN and many other national outlets have featured his insights on career and building a lifestyle business. 

He splits his time between Omaha and Scottsdale with his wife and five children. When he’s not writing, speaking, coaching or creating content, Nick can be found traveling, at the gym, or cheering on his beloved Arizona State Sun Devils.

Resources and Links

Check out more resources from NickMurphy.io to help you build a lifestyle business.

Some of our links to Amazon are affiliate links. You can read about our affiliate disclosure here.

Listen to these past episodes on entrepreneurship:

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Music Attribution

“Oceans Apart” is our theme song composed and performed by Scott Ian Holmes.