Freshbooks’ 2019 study on self-employment found that the primary motivations for those pursuing self-employment were non-financial: most individuals seek a combination of freedom, fulfillment, and career control.

This has been the core question I’ve sat with for the last decade—how to balance money and meaning on the entrepreneurial path. And there are three archetypal ways that I’ve seen people approach the question:

• The deferred life plan


• Being bivocational


• Choosing to integrate