When you own a business everything seems urgent and important.

Your business will consume you if you let it. It can feel like your life is literally on the line.

It’s hard to think clearly.

That’s because your brain goes into survival mode when your business is your identity.

It’s easy to spend all your time, money, and energy trying to prove your worth.

Trying to control everything can seem like a good solution.

This translates as overworking and overmanaging.

Which creates the most dangerous trap of all: a business that can’t run without you.

The more you do yourself, the more your business relies on you, which takes up even more of your time.

And the more you overmanage your team, the less inspired they are to solve problems, leaving you as the chief problem solver.

It’s like one of those finger puzzles where the harder you pull, the tighter the trap.

The solution is to rethink your relationship with your business.

Imagine someone else owns your company and they hire a professional CEO whose identity is not wrapped up in being the founder.

What would that person do?

They would set priorities, allocate resources, and objectively evaluate results.

That’s what you want to do, too.

What would they stop doing?

Wasting time feeling doubt, worry, or blame.

Your business doesn’t have to be filled with drama.

Recognize that you are not the business. It’s an asset you own.

Your worth as a person has nothing to do with the worth of your business.

Once you believe that, you’ll be able to evaluate results objectively, make faster decisions, and make even more money.

You’ll also stop working 24×7, losing sleep, skipping exercise, and trying to escape the stress.

Make your business work for you instead of the other way around.