Having a sustainable business means having a business that has a life outside of you. This doesn’t mean that you have no position in the business – actually, it means that you have whatever position you want in the business. It’s a call to action for business owners to set up a systems driven business rather than a YOU-driven business.

If you plug a bunch of things in to a power strip, and then something happens to the power strip, suddenly everything that was relying on that power strip to support them has no power and can’t do anything. If you’re being the power strip in your business, you’re in a dangerous position – for your mental health and for the sake of your team.

Having a systems driven business means that you delegate and elevate the tasks that you’d normally be doing to someone who can do them more efficiently or effectively. If I stayed in charge of each of my businesses, there is no chance I would have been able to scale each of them to where they are today.

Back in 2014 or 2015, I decided I was going to get in shape and run a marathon. Of course, I blew it in the early part of the race, ran too fast, and ended up having nothing left for the rest. That was not sustainable.

Instead, I ended up choosing a more sustainable path. Instead of doing these grand gestures - the actions of a true type A personality - opt for sustainable goals. Choose the slow but steady path. You’ll feel a lot less burned out halfway in than you would if you did something drastic!

The side effects of making these big, unsustainable promises to yourself and to your team is that you (and they) get discouraged as a result. After I tried and failed to run the marathon, I took 2 and a half years off of running. Similarly, if you are constantly coming up with grand gestures that your team isn’t able to follow through on, they’ll suffer for it as well.