In my 25 years as an entrepreneur and advisor to owner-led companies, I’ve seen too many business owners be consumed by the thing that’s supposed to give them independence. They work longer hours and solve complex problems. Their company grows, yet they’re no closer to the life they wanted to create.
To be clear, growth in business is generally a good thing. But it does start to become an issue when you want to be bigger for the sake of being bigger.
It’s a problem when there’s a voice inside your head saying that if you just get to $100 million in revenue, then you’ll finally be a big shot: that you’ll get respect from your parents, your peers, and even the people you do not care about at all.
The power of ego
The subconscious reason you’re drawn to bigger is that it’s exactly what your ego wants. Ego is your worst enemy. It’s weak, frail, and emotional. It clouds your judgment by convincing you that bigger is better, pulling you toward it like a moth to a flame. It doesn’t know why you’re going to the flame, or what will really happen once you get there.
Your ego isn’t concerned about risk. It lets you become complacent, distracted, or arrogant. It disconnects you from reality, providing you with bad feedback at the very moment you need clarity most. Ego tells you that your success to date was because of talent, rather than the years of grinding and hard work. It’s the voice that discounts the important role that discipline and trial and error play in your success.
Whether your net worth is $10,000 or $100 million, the endless pursuit of more can drag you into a doom loop, a cycle of poor choices, and mounting pressure. That’s why growth for growth’s sake is always a trap.
The discipline of better
Better companies will grow because they’re better. They compound improvement across the four areas that matter most—better teams, better customers, better offerings, and better financials. Growth becomes the outcome of doing the right things, rather than the goal in itself.
Better is a choice. It means shaping your business so it enables you to live in the most rewarding way possible for you and the people you love. Better is about building a better life by design. Not just financially, but across the domains that matter: your health, your wealth, your wisdom, your happiness, and your family.
Better is about building an asset that compounds wealth, where that asset works for you. It is about having a business that excites you, that challenges you, and that you enjoy being part of. It is about being intentional with your effort.
When your focus is solely on growth at all costs, there’s no guarantee that it will result in the life you want. In fact, many times, the chase for bigger ends up creating problems—whether that’s toxic teams, indifferent customers, mediocre products, or ultimately unprofitability.
The irony, of course, is that when you focus on building better, you often end up with a bigger business anyway. But along the way, you also build freedom, wealth, and happiness.
What a better business looks like
If an owner-led company seeks to become better, what does that mean in practice? A better business needs to inspire its people. It should energize owners, leaders, employees, customers, suppliers, and even those watching from the outside.
A better business needs to earn loyalty. That means creating a real connection with customers so they trust you, stay longer, and become advocates. A better business needs to focus on what it can be the best at. That means striving to offer products that are not only good, but great.
Better businesses also need to be financially strong, and that requires a structure and operating system that can withstand tough times. Most importantly, a better business shouldn’t drain the energy of its owner. The greatest energy drains come from poor planning, poor strategy, and the absence of a system to run the business.
In the end, a better business is one that creates value, sustains itself, and gives its owner the freedom to live life on their own terms, not the one that values growth above everything else.
