I keep hearing a version of the same question lately. A former colleague, over coffee: “So, taking a bit of a break before the next thing?” A LinkedIn DM: “Excited to see what you get up to once you’ve had some time off!” My mother, less diplomatically: “You’re sure you don’t want to rest first?”
I get why they’re asking. I’m in the middle of stepping back from a long, stable run in corporate marketing and communications — 25-plus years of it — and moving toward working for myself. When someone at that stage starts making that shift, the assumption is automatic: there’s a gap coming. A pause. A breather before the “real” next thing starts.
Except there isn’t a gap. There’s a plan. And a fresh pile of data says my plan isn’t the outlier — it’s the mainstream.
According to the latest 2026 solopreneur numbers, there are now 29.8 million solo businesses in the US — 82% of all small businesses in the country. Together they generate $1.7 trillion in revenue, roughly 6.8% of US GDP. And 77% of them turn a profit in year one.
Read that again. Eighty-two percent of small businesses. Not a side-hustle fringe. Not a pandemic blip that corrected itself. A structural fact about how a huge share of experienced professionals now choose to work.
The economic reality has moved. The cultural script hasn’t caught up. We still talk about leaving stable work the way we talk about leaving a marriage — something you need time to recover from before you’re presentable again. “Taking some time off” is the polite way people say “I assume you don’t have a plan yet.”
I do have a plan. It’s just not a company logo.
What I’m walking toward isn’t blank space. Coaching is the part I’m most energized by right now — I’m a certified Communication Coach and an associate guide at the School of Meaningful Experiences, and it’s honestly where a lot of my attention already lives. I’m also working on a book, Assume Nothing, about the assumptions we make without ever testing them — one early chapter, “The Machine Is Doing It,” is already up on this blog if you want a preview. And with a co-founder, I’m building something early-stage in the AI-adoption space; it’s real, but it’s still finding its shape, not a finished practice I’d claim a client roster for yet. None of this switches on overnight. It’s already in motion.
That’s the part the “time off” framing misses. Going independent, for someone at this stage of a career, isn’t usually a leap into the unknown. It’s closer to a change of address. The skills, the relationships, the point of view — all of it travels with you. What changes is who signs the paycheck, and how much of the value you create you actually keep.
I’d go further: for a lot of senior professionals, staying inside one organisation for an entire career is now the riskier bet. You’re betting on one roof staying stable, one set of politics staying survivable, one strategy staying right. Independence spreads that risk across multiple relationships instead of concentrating it in one. The data on solo profitability suggests the market agrees.
None of this is a knock on employment — most of my career was built inside organisations, and I’m grateful for it. It’s a knock on the assumption that stepping away from one, at this stage, requires an apology or a recovery period. It doesn’t. It requires a plan. I have one.
So here’s the reframe I’d offer anyone watching a senior colleague make this kind of move, or thinking about it themselves: stop asking if they need time off. Ask what they’re building next. Those are very different questions, and only one of them respects what’s actually happening.
I’m being deliberate about who I take on as this shift plays out. If communication and leadership coaching is something you or your team need, if you’re a boutique consultancy looking to sharpen your positioning and pricing (ask about the Clarity Sprint), or if you’re weighing your own move away from stable work and want an outside read on it — let’s talk: calendarhero.to/callpartha. More of my writing lives at parthans.com.