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Encore Income: Part-time income you build while still working — in preparation for retirement.

Why "Company of One" Is Essential for Monetizing Your Corporate Superpowers

The online business world wants you chasing growth, scale, and seven figures. Paul Jarvis isn't having it. And neither should you when monetizing your Corporate Superpowers.

Here's what's refreshing about Company of One: Paul Jarvis spent years building a successful one-person consulting business. No team. No office. No venture capital. No "scale or die" pressure.

He made good money, controlled his time, and never had to manage anyone.

Then he wrote a book explaining why this approach is strategically superior to building an empire—especially for corporate professionals trying to monetize their superpowers while closing a retirement gap.

No guru nonsense. No growth-at-all-costs hype. Just a calm, logical case for why staying small and profitable beats scaling and stressed.

The Problem With "Growth" as the Default Goal

Every piece of online business advice assumes you want to scale. Build a team. Manage people. Raise capital. Hit seven figures. Become the next big thing.

But here's the question nobody asks: Why?

If you're a 48-year-old director with stakeholder management and process optimization superpowers trying to close a $300K retirement gap, do you actually need to build a seven-figure consulting empire? Or do you just need to generate $60K-$100K annually monetizing your Corporate Superpowers while keeping your day job?

The math is simple:

A $300K gap at 4% withdrawal rate requires $7.5 million in assets. If you invest $75K annually for 10 years at 8% return, you build approximately $1.1 million. Not the full gap, but a massive improvement.

You don't need an empire. You need discipline and consistency monetizing your existing Corporate Superpowers.

Jarvis shows you why the pressure to grow, scale, and hire is often ego-driven rather than economically rational. Especially when your goal is using your Corporate Superpowers for retirement security, not Forbes coverage.

The Core Philosophy: Better Before Bigger

Jarvis's entire framework rests on one question:

"What if you focused on getting better instead of getting bigger?"

This is the reframe corporate professionals need when monetizing their superpowers.

You don't need more clients. You need better clients who pay premium rates for your specialized Corporate Superpowers. You don't need a team. You need systems that let you deliver your expertise without burning out. You don't need to quit your job. You need to build supplementary income using your superpowers that compounds toward financial independence.

Better pricing. Not more projects at lower rates, but fewer projects at premium rates that reflect your 15+ years of corporate experience developing these superpowers.

Better boundaries. Clear scope leveraging specific Corporate Superpowers, defined deliverables, no scope creep. You're selling outcomes based on your expertise, not hours.

Better clients. Companies that value your Corporate Superpowers over discounts, results over activity, strategic thinking over task execution.

This is how you build $60K-$100K in part-time income monetizing your superpowers without sacrificing your corporate career or your sanity.

Why This Matters When Monetizing Your Corporate Superpowers

Let's be direct about your situation.

You're not 25 with unlimited time and energy to build a startup. You're 40-60 with a demanding corporate job, family responsibilities, and a retirement timeline that's getting uncomfortably short.

You don't have time to waste chasing the wrong goals. You need to monetize your Corporate Superpowers efficiently.

The "Scale to Seven Figures" Path (What Everyone Sells You):

  • Quit your $150K corporate job to "go all in"
  • Build a team (payroll, management headaches, overhead)
  • Raise capital or bootstrap with savings
  • Work 70-hour weeks trying to scale
  • Compete in crowded markets on marketing and volume
  • Maybe hit seven figures in 3-5 years (or fail and be broke)

Risk level: Extremely high. Most likely outcome: Financial disaster. Your Corporate Superpowers wasted.

The "Company of One" Path Using Your Corporate Superpowers:

  • Keep your $150K corporate job (security, benefits, 401k)
  • Build part-time consulting offering using your superpowers (6-8 hours/week)
  • Serve 3-5 clients at premium rates based on your expertise ($15K-$30K per project)
  • Generate $60K-$100K annually in supplementary income
  • Invest that income using index fund strategy
  • Build retirement assets while maintaining career stability

Risk level: Low. Most likely outcome: Financial security. Your Corporate Superpowers monetized sustainably.

One path bets everything on becoming the next big thing. The other path strategically monetizes your Corporate Superpowers to build the retirement security you actually need.

Jarvis shows you why the second path is smarter, more sustainable, and far more likely to succeed.

The Key Concepts That Change Everything

This isn't a book full of theory. Jarvis breaks down specific strategies for staying small and profitable when monetizing your expertise:

Resilience over growth: Small businesses survived COVID better than venture-backed startups burning millions monthly. When you monetize your Corporate Superpowers with low overhead and strong client relationships, you're resilient. When you're chasing growth at all costs, you're fragile.

Autonomy as the goal: You're not monetizing your Corporate Superpowers to trade one boss for another (clients, investors, employees). You're building supplementary income to increase autonomy and financial security. Growth often reduces autonomy. Staying small preserves it.

Efficiency before expansion: Before you take on client #6, make sure you can deliver exceptionally well to clients #1-5 using your superpowers. Better systems, better processes, better results. That's what justifies premium pricing for your expertise.

Questioning every assumption about "should": You "should" hire. You "should" scale. You "should" raise capital. Says who? What if you systematically question every "should" and only do what actually serves monetizing your Corporate Superpowers efficiently?

Example from the book applied to Corporate Superpowers:

Jarvis profiles a consultant who was told he needed to hire to grow. Instead, he got better at saying no to non-ideal clients, raised his rates 40% based on his proven expertise, and reduced his client load.

Revenue stayed flat. Profit increased 60%. Stress dropped dramatically. Retirement savings accelerated.

That's the power of better before bigger when monetizing your Corporate Superpowers.

How This Connects to Your Corporate Superpowers

If you've identified your Corporate Superpowers through the assessment, you know which expertise you have that's monetizable. Let's say you can generate $3,000/month, or $36,000/year using those superpowers.

Using the 4% rule, you need to build approximately $900,000 in assets to generate that income in retirement.

The "Company of One" approach directly impacts how fast you close that gap by monetizing your superpowers:

The Math on Staying Small and Monetizing Your Superpowers Profitably:

  • 3-5 premium clients who value your Corporate Superpowers at $20K-$30K per project
  • Annual supplementary income: $60K-$100K
  • Time investment: 6-10 hours/week (part-time)
  • Keep corporate job: Stability + benefits + 401k
  • Invest supplementary income: Index funds, consistent contributions
  • Build $900K in assets: Approximately 8-12 years

That's how you close your retirement gap by monetizing your Corporate Superpowers without gambling your career.

You don't need to scale. You need to execute consistently over time using your proven superpowers. Jarvis shows you how.

What I Like About This Book

Jarvis doesn't just make the case for staying small when monetizing your expertise—he backs it up with research, case studies, and his own experience.

He's not anti-business. He's anti-growth-for-growth's-sake. There's a huge difference.

The book directly challenges the toxic hustle culture and "scale or die" mentality that's destroyed countless professionals' financial security. It gives you permission to build a profitable, sustainable business around your Corporate Superpowers that supports your life instead of consuming it.

And unlike most business books that assume you want to build an empire, this one assumes you want financial security, autonomy, and the freedom to work on your own terms using your existing expertise.

That's exactly what corporate professionals monetizing their superpowers need.

What I Don't Like

I'll be honest about the limitations.

Jarvis is a designer/developer by background, so some of his specific examples skew toward creative fields. Corporate professionals will need to translate his principles to monetizing their specific Corporate Superpowers through consulting, advisory work, or expertise-based services.

Also, the book is light on specific tactics for client acquisition. It's more philosophy than playbook. You'll need to combine this with books like The Win Without Pitching Manifesto for the positioning piece and Million Dollar Consulting for the pricing piece when monetizing your superpowers.

But these are minor quibbles. The core philosophy is sound and directly applicable to building supplementary income using your Corporate Superpowers.

The Bottom Line

Is this book going to make you a millionaire overnight? No.

Is it going to give you a magic formula for instant success monetizing your Corporate Superpowers? Also no.

But will it give you permission to ignore the growth-at-all-costs nonsense and build a profitable, sustainable, part-time business using your superpowers that actually closes your retirement gap?

Absolutely.

If you're tired of being told you need to quit your job, scale fast, and build an empire, this book is your antidote.

Stay small. Stay profitable. Stay sane. Monetize your Corporate Superpowers sustainably. Close your retirement gap.

That's the Company of One approach. And for corporate professionals building Encore Income using their superpowers, it's exactly what you need.

Get the Book

Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business by Paul Jarvis

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Discover Which Superpowers to Monetize

Before you build your Company of One, identify which of your Corporate Superpowers are actually monetizable. Know what expertise to build your small, profitable business around.

Take the Assessment (Free)

Calculate Your Freedom Number

Know the philosophy of staying small. Now see exactly what retirement income gap you're trying to close by monetizing your Corporate Superpowers. The Freedom Number Calculator shows you the target.

Calculate Your Gap

Fortune favors the bold. But fortune also favors those who ignore the pressure to scale and focus on building what actually matters: monetizing their Corporate Superpowers for financial security on their own terms.

— Scott Fulbright

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