How to Launch a Soul-full Takeover and Become CEO of Your Time and Energy
The Soulpreneur Series Free Issue No. 25
Does the work you do to ‘earn a living’ drain your soul?
Are you stuck between the necessity of ‘making a living’ and the yearning to create a life that genuinely feels alive?
This isn’t just about the grind—it’s often about deeper misalignment between how we spend our time and whether our work reflects values and principles that matter to us.
Every creative individual or professional feels the pull of opposing forces: the ego’s hunger for recognition and the soul’s yearning for meaning.
The ego thrives on measurable success: titles, followers, salaries, and applause.
The soul, however, craves something quieter and harder to measure: alignment, purpose, and deeper reality of work that authentically matters.
This tension between ego and soul isn’t a judgment—it’s a balancing act.
For me, the tipping point came when I realized I was succeeding in ways ‘society’ valued but failing in ways my soul couldn’t ignore.
In 2022, I made a choice—a soulful takeover of my time, energy, and purpose. That’s how Box Cutter Co. began: not just as a business but as a philosophy.
The Ego and Soul Fuelling Box Cutter Co.
Many readers know the backstory of Box Cutter Co.
If you don’t (in short), in 2022, I walked away (cold turkey) from a six-figure public sector salary and career. Not because it wasn’t successful but because it was sucking my soul.
I was a senior administrative leader in Canada’s public healthcare system through the COVID pandemic. When global restrictions were lifted, I was exhausted and done with bureaucratic bullshit.
I wanted to be the CEO of my own time, energy, and purpose—not for freedom alone but for meaning and alignment and to be a ‘living in the making’— not ‘making a living.’
I needed to create work that reflected more of who I am, not just what I could do.
Cutting Out of Boxes
For years, I played by the rules of 8-5 corporate career success:
Climbing leadership ladders in healthcare and higher education.
Earning my doctorate while balancing side teaching and consulting gigs
Tripling my salary over a decade.
On paper, and in many colleagues’ eyes, I was thriving. I was mentioned in leadership ‘succession’ planning. I was Succeeding! Succesful!
But my soul?
It was shrinking within bureaucracy, silly politics, and the endless grind. My time and energy weren’t mine—they belonged to someone else’s agenda, aspirations, and plans.
That’s part of why I launched Box Cutter Co. (and other creative initiatives)—a move against burnout, bureaucracy, and being ‘busy’ (for the sake of being ‘busy’) — against being a “bum in seat.”
A move driven by my Anti-vision — not just some aspirational dream or vision of unknown and unpredictable futures — but by knowing exactly what I intend to never return to.
It wasn’t just a business; it was a philosophy. A deliberate choice to carve out a life that honoured money as an exchange and meaning as a necessity.
The Power of Exchange
Money is often misunderstood.
It’s easy to see it as a cold, impersonal necessity—or as something to be feared or chased. But at its core, money is simply an exchange. An exchange of energy, value, or otherwise.
When you create something meaning-full, you’ve put your energy, skills, and time into it.
When someone pays for your work, they exchange their energy—often earned through time and effort—for the value you’ve created.
This exchange can be powerful. It can connect people and honour contributions.
I’ve been fortunate in a highly-varied professional career — I’ve rarely taken on ‘work’ that I didn’t see as a meaningful exchange of my time and energy.
Being an educator, working in a public healthcare system, and being a community development professional for decades brings a lot of work with ‘meaning’.
However, eventually, I found the higher I moved in the hierarchical bureaucracy, the less meaningful the work became.
It was a funny paradox: the higher I went, the more it paid, but the less the meaning and intention of why I chose that work in the first place.
I realized a fundamental principle: The energy you give needs to align with the energy you receive.
Energy Exchange
If the balance tips—if the work drains your soul without replenishing it—it’s probably time to recalibrate.
For me, recalibration meant leaving the soul-sucking grind of 8-5, of ego-centric and often manipulative leaders higher in the chain, and returning to building work that allowed me to exchange energy in authentic and fulfilling ways.
Work with soul, intention and meaning.
(It’s also not lost on me that there is privilege in this undertaking)
Soul Metrics, Not Just Ego Metrics
Building and publishing Box Cutter Co. hasn’t been about chasing validation. It has been about creating from a place with more soul-full alignment.
I focus on what I call soul metrics, here’s a few:
Sustainability: Does my work energize me, not deplete me?
Alignment: Does my work reflect me and what I value?
Impact: Is it meaningful to me and those I create for? (and work with)
This doesn’t mean ignoring external metrics.
Ego metrics—followers, income, or recognition—have their place. They’re not inherently bad. They’re tools, just like social media is a tool.
Lessons from a Soul-full Takeover of My Time
Becoming the CEO of my time and energy wasn’t just a shift in how I worked—it was a shift in how I lived (and how we lived in our household).
It meant rethinking and recalibrating what my time was spent on, why, and for whom.
This wasn’t just a career pivot—it was an act of reclamation and reconstruction.
A deliberate and often uncomfortable process of questioning how I spent my time and why I was using it the way I was.
We all only have so much time on the planet.
I’m in my fifth decade, meaning I have less time left than I’ve already lived.
This meant I’d far rather be the CEO of my time, as opposed to someone else (or an institution) telling me what hours I needed to be within their walls, in their ‘meetings,’ and ‘creating’ what they tell me to.
It’s an incredibly powerful driver and motivator to take back one’s time and schedule.
Here are some lessons that have emerged from this recalibration and restructuring of time, energy, and meaning, which continue to shape how I build and live my work and energy exchanges.
1. One’s Time and Energy Are Finite Resources, Not Checklists
When I became CEO of my own time, I realized productivity wasn’t the ultimate goal. Alignment and meaning were.
Now, my schedule and creative output are tools to support my life and purpose—not forces controlling them. I also choose care-fully who I work with.
2. Money Isn’t the Enemy—It’s a Resource
I redefined money not as something to chase but as an exchange, enabling me to create, grow, and support others. When viewed this way, earning becomes a way to sustain and amplify soulful work.
If you look at the etymology (roots) of the word earn, it comes from Old English earnian "deserve, earn, merit, labor for, win, get a reward for labor," which comes from Proto-Germanic *aznon "do harvest work, serve" (Online Etymology Dictionary)
3. Soul Work Evolves
What feels meaning-full today may not tomorrow. I’ve learned, and continue learning, to remain open and flexible, adapting my work as I grow and change.
We are all, always, in times of transition. Second to second, hour to hour.
The Soulpreneur’s Questions
It’s important to remember — neither soul nor ego carries labels of ‘good’ or ‘bad.’
The ego drives ambition and external engagement, while the soul is more about authenticity, meaning, and depth. Both are essential forces —the challenge is not to judge but to balance them in service of a life with meaning and intention.
The journey of building soul-aligned work is full of questions — most aren’t quickly answered (if ever). Here’s a couple:
👉 Am I creating for validation, or am I creating for meaning?
👉 Does this work honour my soul, or does it simply check the next box?
These questions don’t label ego or soul as good or bad—they’re about balance. They’re about Both/And.
The ego drives ambition and engagement, while soul anchors us in authenticity and depth. Both are vital forces, and the key is finding harmony in their push and pull.
Navigating the Spaces Between Validation and Depth
Money is a tool. Meaning is a foundation.
Together, they form paradoxes any entrepreneur, solopreneur, Soul Proprietor must navigate.
For me, becoming the CEO of My Time and Energy wasn’t a career pivot—it was a soulful takeover.
It has been about reclaiming my energy, realigning and restructuring my work, and creating exchanges honouring money/exchange and meaning.
Authentic freedom is not just leaving the 9-5, and it doesn’t require walking away from it either.
It’s about designing a creative life in which your time, energy, and creativity flow toward what matters most—your soul’s work.
What about you? How do you navigate this paradox in your work?
That’s it for this issue. Thank you to those who have become paid subscribers. You are vital in keeping this work supported with some energy exchange.
If you are not a paid subscriber, please consider becoming one. The next issue of Box Cutter Co. will be out shortly.