Starting a business is challenging! You give, and give, and keep on giving. It seems like there’s never enough of you to feed the never-ending demands of building and growing a business. 

If you’re not careful, you will find yourself running out of gas. You give until there’s nothing left to give. You may be experiencing “Founder’s Burnout.” Here are 3 signs of this dreaded disease.

When you first start a company, everything does depend on you. You carry the company weight on your shoulders. As the company grows, you can’t sustain that weight. If you try to do so, you will find yourself exhausted, discouraged, and questioning if you can continue.

As the company grows, you must grow as well. What got you going will not get you to the next level. In the beginning, your passion and energy empowered you to start a company. You capitalized on your expertise and hustle. 

When the company starts to grow, you will soon discover that you only have so much hustle. No matter how much or how long you work, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. 

It is very easy to build a company that cannot survive without you. Although doing so may stroke your ego, it will exhaust your mind, body, and emotions. You don’t want to carry the company on your shoulders. You have a key role that will change over time, but it is not the only role in the company. It may not even be the most important role.

Touching everything in your company may be essential in the beginning, but as the company grows, you want your touch to become less essential. 

Trying to touch everything in the company will quickly cause your company to “cap out.” You will reach a point that even if you try, you cannot touch everything personally. You shouldn’t even try to do so.

Trying to touch everything will limit your growth, reduce the quality of your products or services, and wear you out.

When’s the last time you got away for a couple of weeks? Many business owners build their companies in a way that limits their freedom to take a break. Even if they do get away, they worry constantly how things are going in their absence. 

It’s really hard to enjoy time away when your mind is constantly thinking about what may be going wrong without your presence. 

Some owners choose not to even take a break. It’s just not worth it. They just trudge along hoping that one day they will be able to get a few days that they can truly call “vacation.” 

Living that way is not much fun. Your company intrudes into your life and restricts your ability to enjoy life, your family, and the benefits of your hard work.  

If any of these signs resonate with you, there’s a better way to lead and grow your business. Let me suggest two initial principles that will free you up, allow your company to continue to grow, and demand less of you.

Principle #1 is to position yourself in your company to work smart, not hard. You want to determine what is your greatest value to your company. It might be sales, creativity, or financial management. Most leaders are good at a couple of areas. Very few leaders are good at many things. 

Determine what you are really good at doing. Use your time in that area about 80% of the time. If you give yourself deeply to one or two areas, your contribution will be impactful. Your personal ROI (return on investment) in your company will produce substantial results.  

Once you position yourself wisely in your company, Principle #2 is to hire people who complement your gifting with theirs. Hire key people (dream team members) who have strengths where you are weak. Train and develop them to handle sizable segments of your company. By spreading the responsibilities in your company among several people, your dream team members will carry most of the daily load. Disperse authority and responsibility among several people. Because each person has a specific area in which to work, he or she becomes extremely proficient in that one area. 

Executing these 2 principles doesn’t happen overnight, but when properly done, they provide space and room for the company to grow. Your personal load gets reduced, and the company can breathe and scale. You also become much more profitable.

If reducing your “day to day” load, having some space and time to get away, and continuing to see your company grow appeals to you, schedule a call to discuss things in more detail. You can do so here: https://penncoaching.com/meetwithdave.