Why 7-Figure Business Owners Are On The Verge Of Burnout

Written by: Rachel & David Godfrey • October 10, 2023

Image Source: https://unsplash.com/@Maxim Ilyahov

What’s really so different about 7-figure business ownership, compared to those who work in corporate, or even 6-figure business owners?

Here are six reasons why your stress is unique, and how to manage it effectively.

1. You’re Large Enough To Have A Team, But Small Enough To Still Be In The Trenches Yourself

Managing a team in your business adds extra work, responsibility and pressure. You have that many more plates to spin.

You need to make sure your team is motivated, inspired, energized and performing to a minimum standard. You need to hire and fire people. You need to deal with managing humans — who are emotional and irrational by design.

On top of that, you’re responsible for the livelihoods of your staff, and the households, families and potential children they support.

But at the same time, your business is at a size, or a stage, that it still depends heavily on YOU as the person driving it forward. You’re working long, hard hours.

It’s a high stakes, high pressure situation to be in — don’t kid yourself. You’re turning over a million, maybe a few, each year, but you also have a lot to balance, including paying wages and overheads.

2. The Truth Is… The Buck Stops With YOU

As a business owner, the buck really does stop with you. You alone hold 100% responsibility for your business, and whether it fails or succeeds.

If you’re struggling, it’s your decision whether to hire consultants, coaches and/or advisors… because nobody is going to do the work FOR you, or make the final decisions. If work needs to be done, YOU need to do it, or initiate it.

You don’t have a boss, senior manager or HR rep you can speak to, and negotiate your workload, your hours, an increased budget to expand your team, or help from other departments.

You’re on your OWN and nobody is coming to save you — harsh, but true.

3. Business Leadership Is Taking Risks & Jumping Before You’re Ready

This is one of the main reasons many businesses fail. And it’s also one of the most important defining characteristics of an entrepreneur.

Most people act too slowly, spend too much time pondering, and need way too much certainty, security, stability, predictability, (fill in the blank), to be entrepreneurs.

Indecisiveness = death for entrepreneurs.

Most businesses, their industries and the market forces they’re exposed to, are constantly changing — especially in today’s day and age. You must constantly adapt and stay ahead of the curve to remain competitive, let alone profitable.

As an entrepreneur, you’re repeatedly stepping into the unknown. You’ll never have all the answers or clarity until after you’ve made some decisions and taken decisive leaps.

This isn’t to say that entrepreneurs are reckless or make decisions without doing their due diligence. But they repeatedly take bold, courageous, decisive action, put themselves and their reputation on the line, and fail on a regular basis.

It’s both a scary and confronting situation. Realistically, most people don’t have the courage to be the decisive leader their business needs, and they don’t have the self-assurance to repeatedly risk failing in the public arena.

4. You Have To Toggle Between Left Brain & Right Brain

Leadership is a right brain activity — it’s creative. You have to envision a future for the business (and yourself) that’s never existed before. There are constantly new problems to be solved and decisions to be made.

Your ability to navigate these decisions powerfully and effectively depends on how well you can imagine new futures, directions, products and services, while creatively problem solving.

Yet management is a left brain activity. You take the leader’s vision (a.k.a. your right brain) and now you create a plan, organize items into systems, and engineer that vision into reality, step by step.

You can’t just be a dreamer or an “ideas person.” You also have to be a planner, doer and (massive) action taker.

Depending on the size of your business, you also need to toggle between high-level and ground level.

You have to zoom out and take a strategic overview so you can see the big picture, all the moving parts, and your overall direction. And then zoom in, down to ground level, and make sure all details are in place and specific standards are met.

Which means that, as a 7-figure business owner, you’re constantly stretching your brain.

We all have preferences, natural strengths and weaknesses. So unless you’re consciously directing your focus, it’s easy to default to your preferences and strengths, while overlooking your weaknesses.

5. You Have Infinite Upwards Potential, But Zero Downwards Protection

This is half of the reason you’re an entrepreneur in the first place — the only thing standing between you and exponential growth is your own resourcefulness.

But the price to enter and play this game? Taking on the massive risk that it can also all drop to zero!

Now, of course, no person or business has bulletproof certainty — even long-term employed people can lose their jobs. But the risks for entrepreneurs are greater, because you don’t have a safety net.

Again, most people don’t have the stomach to handle this degree of uncertainty.

6. You Alone Have To Keep Yourself Motivated & Held Accountable

You don’t have anyone supervising you or doing a regular performance review.

No one is going to step in or hold you accountable to a higher standard if your performance is dropping. Nobody is going to point out the blind spots you’re unaware of.

When you’re a business owner, the consequences of poor performance are both delayed and severe.

It’s easy to miss your weaknesses in the beginning. Then it’s easy to overlook them, ignore them, or bury your head in the sand. And then, all of a sudden, you’re bankrupt!

THAT’s why the stress of a 7-figure business owner is different…

You’re in a unique position where your business can feel like a runaway train at times. It’s big enough that the pressure, numbers and stakes are HIGH.

But you haven’t created your exit strategy or maintenance strategy yet — where your business can effectively operate without you, and you can either sell, or hire a CEO to keep running it.

This is a critical point in a business’ lifecycle — the business owner's mindset is everything. It’s also usually when the cracks start to appear… When stress becomes chronic and overwhelming.

Some stress and moments of overwhelm are natural feelings in entrepreneurship. It’s a high pressure, high stakes landscape, and you kind of love it!

Maybe you…

• Have always thrived under pressure…

• Love the buzz, the thrill, the challenge…

• Enjoy taking on difficult things and winning…

• Like the variety, the fast pace, the blue sky thinking, the impact…

…but only up to a certain point. Everyone has their limits.

Perhaps you’re at that limit right now.

As your business has grown, so has the workload, the stress, the number of problems, the decisions and the emergencies — every. single. day.

Until now, there hasn’t been a problem you couldn’t outwork.

You’ve caught a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel numerous times — a project wrap-up, the launch ends, a phase of recruitment, or a round of raising finance.

But at best, you briefly celebrated, and, before you knew it, you were right back in yet another chaotic period of firefighting, emergencies, high workloads, unrelenting pressure, unreasonable expectations and impossible deadlines…

You’ve now been through enough cycles to recognize this is NOT a one off… It’s a recurring pattern.

You may have big dreams and ambitions for your business and your life — which is great — but at this stage, it seems like more of a fantasy than anything else. If you can’t sustain this level of business growth, how the hell are you going to sustain the next level?!

But don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom. As high-level business coaches, we’ve heard it all before…

“What’s the point?”

“Is this worth it?”

“There has to be a better way?”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“What if I fail?”

“What if I have to downsize?”

“What if I burn out?”

“What if something happens and I can’t work anymore?”

“I can’t let my team / staff / employees down!”

“Everyone is depending on me! It’s so much pressure!”

“What if I have to settle for less?!”

But here’s the thing…

You’re playing at a level that’s, quite frankly, beneath you.

The REAL reason for your stress isn’t the workload, the to-do lists, the staff, the marketplace, or anything else “out there.”

Yes, business is hard. Yes, there are big demands, responsibilities and pressure. Believe us, we get it. We’re in the trenches with you.

BUT, while stress and periods of overwhelm are part of the entrepreneurial deal…

The REAL reason chronic, overwhelming stress never seems to go away, keeps returning again and again, and feels like it’s consuming your: mind, happiness, personal life, relationships, sanity, etc. is…

YOUR MINDSET. The blind spots and subconscious limitations that you’re oblivious to, or only partially aware of, like…

• Indecision

• Procrastination

• Hesitation

• Paralysis by analysis

• Imposter syndrome

• Fear of losing it all and letting people down

• Self doubt or confidence issues

• Unable to handle uncertainty

• Driven by a subconscious need to prove yourself

• Can’t switch off from work and always being “on”

• Feeling like your business is consuming your personal life

• Lack of self worth, like not feeling good enough, or you don’t deserve success

• Monkey mind: Your mind is constantly jumping from one thing to the next

• Constantly feeling behind and like there’s so much more to do

• Perfectionism: Constantly looking for mistakes in yourself, work and decisions

• Fear of failure, making bad decisions, losing your reputation, looking bad

• Feeling like you’re in survival mode, unable to do the important things

At this point in your business growth, YOU, unfortunately, are the biggest bottleneck. Your business will never grow beyond this point until YOU grow.

As a business owner, operator and leader, you need the mental and emotional foundations to be a high performer every day:

• To take everything in stride

• To be resourceful and purposeful

• To make high quality decisions everyday

• To have good mental and physical energy

• To take bold, courageous, decisive action

• To make the important decisions that move your business forward

• To be the calm, certain, stable leader your staff need you to be

• To be confident and unflappable when problems, setbacks and uncertainty arise

• To prioritize important tasks, instead of the tasks screaming for your attention

• To maintain and BUILD your cognitive function

• To be able to switch OFF from work, so you can thrive AND properly recharge

You need to think of your brain the same way that an athlete thinks about their body. As we often tell our clients…

Build a high performance brain.

And it’s IMPOSSIBLE to do so without the foundations of emotional fitness.

If you now know that…

• This is a significant gap in your skillset…

• You need this sorted out ASAP to save your business (and your sanity)...

• You need to get out of YOUR own way so your business can grow…

• You’re playing at a level beneath you (and that PISSES YOU OFF)…

We can help.

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