The Prosperity Paradox (Why Every ‘Growth Hack’ Is Costing You Something Critical)
Box Cutter Co. Free Issue No. 80
Many people believe (and promote) a faulty idea that success in business—or any endeavour—requires constant growth and expansion.
Social media platforms are polluted with the “grow, Grow, GROW!!” mentality (including here on Substack).
The assumption is if you don’t grow, you’re not successful—you’re on your way to failure.
But what if that mindset is completely backwards and utter Bullshit?
What if the key to prosperity isn’t growth but constraint, focus, and intentionality?
This is The Prosperity Paradox.
The Prosperity Paradox
When reading posts, articles, and stories online, one can quickly assume growth, scale, and expansion are the conventional routes to riches and prosperity.
The incessant, often bullshit posts:
“How to Grow on Substack!”
“Gain 1K Followers on X in 30 days!”
“Quickest way to 10K Followers on LinkedIn!”
The paradox is the more you chase traditional BS ‘success’ metrics (growth, scale, expansion) — the more fragile, dependent, and constrained your business or enterprise becomes.
Prosperity comes not from chasing more but from designing and building systems intended to flourish within constraints.
The paradox occurs when all your efforts to “grow, grow, grow” result in less freedom, stability, and fulfillment.
Meanwhile, strategic and intentional limits can actually create more autonomy, resilience, and long-term success.
(Note: This past week, I travelled from western 🇨🇦 to St. Louis, MO — Why? Well…. Why not? I’ve included pics throughout this post from my days of walking)
The Trap of ‘Growth’ Obsession
Business culture glorifies scaling up (often at all costs).
More revenue
More clients
More reach
But more is often the enemy of better.
It’s undoubtedly the enemy of thriving.
Growth creates fragility
More clients = more overhead, more complexity, more stress
More revenue = more expenses, more dependency, more risk
More content = more pressure, more noise, less originality and creativity
Paradoxically, many people scale their way into failure—not because they don’t grow fast enough, but because they scale beyond what is sustainable, necessary, or valuable.
For example, the startup raising funding, hiring rapidly, and scaling quickly—only to collapse under the weight of its overhead when projections don’t match reality.
I have seen repeatedly — and am currently watching— as colleagues scale businesses in utterly unsustainable ways. Caught in the false notions of “growth, growth, growth…” will bring more satisfaction and glory.
Measuring ‘success’ by ever-increasing revenues.
Yet…a balloon overinflated will eventually burst — and revenues don’t always equal profits. They certainly don’t equate to prosperity.
Instead, Define Your Prosperity Threshold
Prosperity is a pretty wonderful word.
At its most ancient roots, going back thousands of years, it means: “to thrive.”
But modern business culture has warped the idea of prosperity into something transactional: more revenue, more clients, more reach—growth for growth’s sake.
What if, instead of asking: How can I grow more? We asked:
✅ How much is enough?
✅ How much do I actually need?
✅ What does prospering (thriving) look like for me?
Prosperity isn’t about growth for growth’s sake. It’s about designing systems that:
Generates enough revenue (and profits) to sustain you comfortably.
Provides enough work to be fulfilling and creative but not overwhelming.
Creates enough visibility to attract the right opportunities without chasing attention.
This is your Prosperity Threshold—the point where your business or work provides income PLUS freedom, sustainability, and fulfillment.
What is a Prosperity Threshold?
Your Prosperity Threshold is an ideal balance of revenue, workload, and visibility, which allows you to flourish without excess stress or complexity.
It’s the point where:
You make enough income to live well without pressure to scale endlessly.
You have enough work to feel challenged and fulfilled but not overwhelmed.
You have enough visibility to attract opportunities without chasing (or demanding) attention.
It’s not about hitting arbitrary financial targets. Or meaningless ‘follower’ or ‘subscriber’ counts.
It’s about designing an enterprise that fits your life—not vice versa.
How to Define Your Prosperity Threshold
Your Prosperity Threshold isn’t just about money—it’s about your total load: workload, stress, commitments, responsibilities, etc.
For example, in my decade-plus career in the corporate public sector, I almost tripled my annual salary.
However, this also meant I nearly tripled my work responsibilities, potential stressors, and various obligations.
Paradoxically, it took me less than two years as CEO of my time and energy to build creative enterprises generating revenues and income well beyond what I left on the table in the corporate public sector (in April ‘22).
And!… my stress levels are a fraction of what they were when managing multi-million dollar budgets and teams. My sleep patterns are better. I walk nearly daily. I choose my hours of work and the intensity of them
(including having the freedom to travel, like last weekend to St. Louis)
What’s your Prosperity Threshold?
Here are some prompts to assist you in outlining your Prosperity Threshold.
1. Define Your Enough
Ask yourself and write out some notes on these:
If your income doubled tomorrow, what else would double? Your workload? Your stress? Your obligations? Would it improve your life—or just make it more complicated?
What’s the right balance of work and rest for you? Do you thrive with deep, focused work, or do you need more space and flexibility?
Are you adding responsibilities energizing you—or draining you? Are you taking on clients, projects, or commitments because they align with your vision—or because of external pressure to “do more”?
If you stripped away unnecessary obligations, what would remain? What work matters to you? What could you let go of without sacrificing well-being or fulfillment?
Your Enough Threshold is far more than a financial number. It’s about designing a business or career enhancing your life instead of consuming it.
Now, take a moment to reflect:
Are you working toward a sustainable balance—or away from it?
2. Assess Your Workload & Energy
What’s the ideal amount of work that keeps you engaged but not exhausted?
If you had to cap your weekly hours on ‘work,’ what would you prioritize and what would you cut?
When does your business or career feel energizing, and when does it feel like a drain? How do balance these?
3. Measure Success Beyond Metrics
What could a thriving business or career look like—without using numbers?
What kind of impact do you want your work to have? On you? On others?
How do you want to feel about your ‘work’ five years from now? Do you want to be doing similar work as now?
4. Calibrate Your Visibility
Do you need a large audience or just the right connections?
Is visibility (e.g. on social media) leading to real opportunities—or just feeding an endless engagement and posting loop? Fuelling the dopamine cycles?
If you stopped posting today, would your business still run?
It’s easy to assume that progress means expansion. That prosperity means more clients, more revenue, more reach.
But, more isn’t always better.
Prosperity isn’t just about what you gain. It’s often more about what you refuse to carry. What if less is the real path to more? (this is part of the paradox)
Why More Isn’t Always Better (And Enough Is Powerful)
Your Prosperity Threshold is about building a system supporting the life you want rather than forcing you to constantly chase more.
Because the reality is:
Prosperity isn’t about hitting bigger numbers (financial or followers)
It’s about building something sustainable, fulfilling, and freeing.
Now, step back and ask:
What does my Prosperity Threshold actually look like?
And am I designing and building toward it—or away from it?
Engaging The Prosperity Paradox
Here are some ways I’ve applied and thought through the “Prosperity Paradox.”
1. Engaging Constraints as a Business Model
Instead of scaling for the sake of it, I’ve intentionally designed limits in my work. These constraints create freedom, not restriction.
✅ Fewer, higher-value clients over mass volume
I don’t need 50 clients, nor do I ever want that. All I need are the right ones.
By keeping my client service work highly selective, I can deliver at the highest level without burning out or sacrificing my principles and values.
I work with people and organizations I value and respect — and on issues and causes I am passionate about.
✅ Selective, strategic content over endless posting.
I don’t chase algorithms or post just to stay visible.
Instead, I create content with longer-term value (for others and myself). I utilize a creative ecosystem approach, posting across many platforms and using many formats (short to long and everywhere in between).
✅ Deeper relationships over shallow, growth-only ‘follower’-building.
I don’t measure my online marketing and posting success by followers or subscribers—I measure it by the depth of conversations, collaborations, and opportunities emerging from my work.
As well as the personal meaning for me that comes with writing, posting, and sharing nearly daily.
For example, Box Cutter Co. isn’t optimized for mass appeal—it’s built for people who want substance over noise.
(The open rates and responses tell me something is working.)
2. Measuring What Actually Matters
If you measure the wrong things, you optimize for the wrong results.
Here’s what I focus on instead:
✅ Not followers, but meaningful engagement.
I don’t care if a post gets 100,000 views if it leads to nothing. I’ve had this happen with several LinkedIn posts.
What matters is whether the right people engage with, think about, and act on the ideas I posted.
✅ Not revenue, but profitability + autonomy.
Making more money isn’t the goal — keeping more while working in a way that feels good, sustainable, and principles… is.
A high-revenue business with large overhead and stress isn’t better than a lean, profitable, and fulfilling one.
For example, this past weekend, I was able to spend 5 days exploring St. Louis, MO — including catching a hockey game between the St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks (the team I tend to cheer for).
My client, educator, and creative work are designed so that I can do them from virtually anywhere—as long as I have a periodic connection to the Internet.
We are also a dual Soulpreneur household — this gives us flexibility and freedom.
✅ Not scale, but stability and sustainability.
I’d rather have a business thriving over decades than one growing too fast and collapsing under its own weight.
Long-term resilience OVER short-term hype.
My consulting and Ghostwriting work is structured to avoid feast-or-famine cycles.
Rather than chasing unpredictable, one-off gigs, I focus on repeat clients, retainer work, and well-structured contracts.
I also still support some university-level online courses, which provide steady revenue and other creative opportunities. For example, I’m currently designing a fourth-year Communications course on “Policy Writing.”
3. Redefining Prosperity Beyond Work
Build and design work fuelling your life—not consuming it.
This means success isn’t just about typical business metrics—it’s about how well your business supports the life you want to live.
Freedom of time OVER Filling the calendar – I’ve built my business to allow for deep work, creative space, and time off without guilt or delayed buildup.
Mental clarity OVER Hustle mode – Work that depletes you isn’t worth it. I optimize for work keeping me engaged, not exhausted.
The ability to say “No” OVER Chasing every opportunity – Just because something is lucrative doesn’t mean it aligns with my vision, principles or values.
My consulting work allows me to write, travel and pursue creative projects—not just work for the sake of working.
This past weekend, I spent 5 days exploring St. Louis, MO and in March, my wife Lisa and I are attending the South by Southwest SXSW Festivals in Austin, Texas.
For me, this is real prosperity and thriving.
Why Growing Less Can Create More Prosperity
Much of the world pushes growth (as default).
The Prosperity Paradox challenges this by asking:
What if your best path forward isn’t scaling up, but refining what already works?
True success isn’t found in chasing more.
I have found it in building better, refining smarter, and thriving on your terms.