I ended a 2-year client relationship this week

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I did something scary this week.

I ended a client relationship that’s I’ve had for almost 2 years.

Let’s call him Steve.

To be clear, nothing went wrong.

There was no drama on either side, nothing negative at all… actually quite the opposite.

When I told Steve I thought it was time to end our work together, he said he was grateful for the collaboration and everything we learned.

And we did learn a lot together.

We worked together for 2 years. Steve was actually one of my first retainer clients, and helped me kickstart my life in Asia.

For that, I’m grateful.

So you’re probably wondering, if nothing went wrong… why did I let this client go?

Here’s why.

Back when I started working with Steve in 2023, I charged around $100 USD monthly to help with his email marketing (I can’t remember the exact arrangement but I believe it was 4 emails monthly?)

And it felt pretty significant.

I remember standing in a mall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, sending him a message asking about an ongoing payment retainer.

I even asked myself “Is this too much?” lol

Certainly not life-changing life-changing money, but for someone who had just moved across the world at 19 with no guaranteed income…

It was everything.

I mean, it literally covered most of my $150 per month guesthouse in Canggu, Bali in January 2023 lol.

But more than that, that $100 was proof I could actually do this. Proof that I could get paid to do work I was good at, from the other side of the world.

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We did good work together too:

But somewhere along the way, things changed that caused me to rethink things.

Not with Steve.

With me.

As my business grew, what used to be a meaningful chunk of my income naturally became a much smaller piece of it.

And the more I thought about where I want to take my business (and what I want to focus on next), the more I realized I was holding onto this out of comfort rather than purpose.

So I let this client go.

I offered to finish out through the end of the year if he wanted (so there’s no abrupt ending and he has time to figure out next steps), which I believe he appreciated.

We’re wrapping up on good terms.

And yet… it was still scary.

I know it’s only $100 a month, and I don’t rely on it anymore. But there’s something about a safety net (even a small one) that feels hard to release.

I’ve had that safety net for two years.

It was one of the first things I built when I started this whole “unconventional lifestyle” living in Asia.

Letting go of it felt like letting go of a piece of that early version of myself.

But I think that’s exactly why I had to do it.

You can’t keep holding onto things just because they mattered once. Sometimes the things that got you here aren’t the things that get you there.

This client helped me grow, helped me learn, and helped me prove to myself that I could actually build a life and income on my own terms from anywhere in the world.

And now it’s time to make room for whatever comes next.

Maybe you should do the same.

Joshua

P.S. Speaking of scary things…

I recently posted my first vlog-style YouTube video.

I didn’t record nearly as many talking-head snippets as I should’ve (and the entire thing is just under 3 minutes lol) but I posted it anyway.

Progress over perfection :)