I think we can agree this mode of business isn’t for everybody.

And yet… Uber makes for a great news story.

Now, you probably know by now that do-or-die startup culture is not exactly my jam.

The reason:

It’s relatively straightforward to make millions as a solo entrepreneur and have an enviable quality of life while you do it.

So there really is no need to aspire to be Elon Musk, sleeping under his desk in the offer. (At 52.)

But more importantly: If you don’t have your ego in check, you’ll make poor business decisions (at best), or destructive ones (at worst).

The best business decision is the one that’s best for your business – not the one that strokes your ego. That’s why detaching your ego from the business is so crucial.

The lesson: Taming your ego is the first step towards non-attachment.

2. Lifestyle

When I went full-time on StoryLearning, I was cradling a 3-month-old baby, sharing a flat with my brother-in-law, and counting down the weeks till a big wad of cash I brought back from Egypt would run out.

All I could think about was surviving. Work was all-consuming. It’s now 3 years later…. A lot has happened.

I ride out highs and lows, grow more resilient. But also exhausted. I have a team. 5 people. Then 10. Then 15. 

(We have two weddings and a newborn baby in the StoryLearning team. They feel like family.)

It’s the “personal development” ride of a lifetime.

I take a holiday, but it doesn’t really work.

I’m on my phone the whole time.

Too many projects on the go… and anyway, This s** is fun, man!* so I’ll just check my email, ok?

The years pass…

A campaign goes well – I feel amazing.

A campaign goes badly – I feel depressed.

And one day, the strangest thing happens…

I turn up to a team meeting and realize I don’t even know what’s going on.

I try to make a helpful comment… 

It’s not helpful.

F*** me – I’m not actually needed any more.

Perhaps I’ll go out this afternoon and chill.

So I go out.

What do I like doing again?

I’ve forgotten.

I should check my email.

But all I see is a bunch of emails from my accountants asking for clarification on a £500 restaurant bill, and was it really for business purposes?

I could go and do something useful…

Generate some more income…

But then, what’s the point? Making more money isn’t going to make a difference to me. But how dare I think this? I hope no-one else hears me think such a thought.

Entrepreneurship is addictive and teaches you so much.

Work is essential and noble. But when you rely on your business for your sense of purpose and wellbeing, there’s a conflict.

There’s so much more to life.

Of course, you know this, but when you’re the one at the helm, it’s hard to come to terms with the fact that you’re not needed. Until one day you realize that you’re really not. What’s more, things are running a lot smoother without you!

If you’re trying to build something bigger than yourself, you shouldn’t be surprised when you succeed. Success can bring you to a weird point where you have to reevaluate life, and what you want from it.

Of course we don’t want to turn into a tech founder “fake-Buddha” CEO, preaching enlightenment from a penthouse in San Francisco…

It’s just that, let’s be honest…

Business isn’t everything – quality time with friends and family is all that ever mattered.

All those golden moments you missed, because you were never really present.

You don’t get those back.

The lesson:

Living a fulfilling life outside your business is step two to become unattached from your decisions.

3. Financial

Last, comes money. In startup mode, you’re not trying to get rich. You’re trying to get from zero to one.

For most people, “Just get me the f— away from my boss!” is a win.

But when you start making money, nobody’s more surprised than you. All you need is to keep going… So you take a deep breath and plough on.

In the middle years, business is good. You have cash – perhaps for the first time in your life. But it’s company cash, not personal cash…

Now have house payments, a couple of cars, and the family’s got used to things being good. So you might be making money, but you’re not keeping much.

You certainly can’t stop paddling.

You’re 10 years in.

You’re objectively successful. The holidays are getting nicer. Maybe the cars too. People are noticing.

But then you ask the question…  “How much do I need to retire?”

It all becomes a Catch-22

There’s a huge tension between building your personal financial resources vs investing more into a business that’s hungry for growth.

The bigger your business gets, the more precarious your personal finances can feel.

You know – eggs in baskets, and all that?

It’s uncomfortable having to choose between taking money personally and investing in the growth of the business.

Of course, you can do both. But that doesn’t remove the tension…

I grappled for years over the best way to manage the tension. For years, I pretended it didn’t exist. Just grow the business, bro! 

But then I would start to feel in a precarious position personally, and I didn’t enjoy that. So, I experimented with taking money personally, and suffered the guilt at depriving the business of what it could use for growth.

What I noticed throughout:

As long as I relied on business performance for my personal sense of security, I would make bad decisions.

Looking back, there were many occasions I could have invested into a new business initiative, but didn’t, because I was too swayed by a personal financial attachment of some kind.

It’s crystal clear to me now. Because of my attachment, I made bad decisions.

It was only once I reached a point where I wasn’t financially dependent on that business any more, that my behavior changed.

I suddenly felt free to reinvest boldly into the business. To hire expensive mentors, expand the team, fund new experiments.

Now look…

I’m not blind to the fact that this last bit is easier said than done.

But there are a few ways to do this:

1. Profit mode – If your business has come off the back of a growth period, it may be possible to enter a period of “profit mode” while you stabilize operations. This is entirely legitimate – don’t feel guilt around it.
   
   

2. Adapt your lifestyle – If downgrading your lifestyle gets you closer to autonomy, you may consider it a price worth paying for more flexibility and less stress. (This is the principle of the FIRE movement, but obviously don’t go so extreme.)
   
   

3. Work on your money beliefs – Our beliefs about money are programmed from childhood. It’s perfectly possible to reach a place of non-attachment to money by working with a practitioner on this, and this can be enough to re-program how you treat finances within your business. Most people are attached to the idea of making money, not the reality of it.

The lesson:

Developing a business that provides true independence in your life is the final step to removing attachment.

Conclusion

In this newsletter, we’ve talked about becoming “unattached” to your business, in three dimensions:

1. Ego

2. Lifestyle

3. Finances

The reason attachment is a problem is that it can lead you to make faulty decisions – decisions that are in the best interests of you personally, but not the business.

This becomes a real problem once your business starts to outgrow you, because you’ll starve it of oxygen when it most needs it.

I believe we should all strive to reach a place of non-attachment – however we manage it.

Because then you can reach a place of making genuine, honest decisions in the best interests of the business.

And guess what – You’ll enjoy it a lot more!

But — if you told me this stuff five years ago, I would have understood it all “in theory”….but I can only really appreciate it now having gone through it.

Like so many things, you’ve got to live it in order to understand it.

I suppose by writing about this now, I’m speaking to those of you who are at a similar stage, or maybe see it on the horizon, or at least are aware of these tensions like a dull ache in the back.

Hope there’s something in there that was thought-provoking.

Namaste,

Olly