The “Adulting” Ladder — some levels of Growing Up are totally optional 👑

Here are the levels of Adulting, as I see them:

Level Negative 1— Someone else pays your bills, feeds you, clothes you, picks your schedule, and gets you to appointments on time. They prompt you to do chores (or do them for you).

Level 0 — No one helps you. You get your own butt out of bed. You suffer through class. You work the minimum amount to support your consignment clothes and ramen lifestyle. You lack insurance and never pay taxes. You’re off the street but not happy. You can have kids here, btw.

Level 1— You’ve embraced full-time employment as a lifeline. Whether or not you like your job, you go. You maximize the value you personally provide to your company.

Level 2 — You manage Level 1 adults. When they show up to work, you pay their bills. You feed them, pick their schedule and dress code, and follow up on their appointments. You prompt them which chores to do.

When I first started a business, I assumed entrepreneurship would be like a massive group project where a bunch of Level 1 adults all came together and pitched in. Like equals.

For nearly a year, I floundered in shock and frustration when wonderful Level 1 adults showed up to help me… and we got nothing done. I built a clear vision… but trusting they’d extrapolate next steps based on their roles caused consistent project meltdowns.

Eventually, I realized what was missing: Structure.

You know how adulting sucks? You know that ache to return us to a simpler life where things make sense, someone tells us what to do, and we have responsibilities but we also don’t have to think too hard about it?

Well, Level 1 adults get that wish.

Managers and business owners make that wish possible. We adult on behalf of adults, taking the pressure off you. At Level 2, we stare economic uncertainty in the face, looking for fertile patterns in the chaos, pioneering multi-adult stability out of literally nothing.

👑 School and fantasy books distorted my understanding of leadership. School made me think leadership meant being the smartest of my peers. That’s BS. The crowns and ballgowns of fantasy made me think leadership means you’re more important than other people. That’s also bull.

I finally understand why teachers encouraged sports and community hobbies to “round out” my resume. No one gives a crap that I like soccer, and I knew that as a teenager. But what does matter is knowing how to amplify the value of others.

Now that I bear the weight of a small team, I see balls in fantasy stories differently. A trust-fund princess who didn’t build the kingdom might preen like a peacock at balls, but that’s not why the first queen who built the city instituted them. Founding kings and queens invent balls to rejuvenate Level 2 adults, giving them a moment of joy amid the stressful responsibilities of fueling aqueducts with constant clean water, fighting off plagues, and stabilizing food supplies.

Which reminds me… There’s one more level I’m aware of (so far):

Level 3 — You’re a civil engineer, scientist, or public servant working to generate structure that eases struggles of Level 2 adults, so they’re stable enough to support Level 1 adults.

Consider who you work for. Yes, half of you work for billionaire corporate tycoons. But 46.8% of the modern workforce is employed by small business owners — who are just barely able to adult harder than you.

To survive sustainably, payroll in a company should sit between 15–30% of all revenue (average 22.5%). So, for every $1 you bring home, you need to be providing about $4 of value to your employer.

Most labor doesn’t have a scalable ROI. There’s a limit to how much you maximize your personal value to a company because there’s a limit to the raw hourly production value of human beings. The main path to earning more is to maximize the value of other humans.

TLDR: Embrace adulting, especially by building warm structures that enable other people to sit back and work mindlessly. Converting ambiguity into accountability is a rare skill worth bank.

And the next time your manager gives you line-by-line spreadsheets, just remember — that’s how they show their love. They made you a goddamn spreadsheet.