During the course of my career, I’ve worked on over 200 business sales and most of them were founder/owner/operators.
I always felt moved by the range of emotions on display as an individual made one of the biggest decisions of their life.
I guess I also appreciated the privileged position I was in, and made the point of asking the following question…
“Do you have any regrets?”
Almost all of them did and the answers followed a very familiar pattern;
“I sacrificed my marriage/relationship with kids/health for this business and it wasn’t worth it”
“I wish I’d really gone for it with this business”
“I wasted the opportunity”
On and on, the same pattern, these people dedicated their lives to their businesses, over time they got into habits and those habits kept them where they were. It was all a journey, but it wasn’t a grand adventure and I feel like there’s a huge difference.
As a business owner, you get to decide the level at which you will play. You set the vision, the goals, the standards of behaviour you will and won’t accept. For many the limits imposed are largely down to the individual, not the market.
Whether you are trying to create an optimised lifestyle business or build an enterprise, do yourself a favour and do it intentionally. Make a plan for your life and then your business (10 yrs, 3yrs, 1 yr, quarters, months, days, hours) and make sure the two are aligned. Then get after it and keep the poison away.