You are not your business.  I own The On Purpose Group, the entity that holds Business On Purpose, but that is not who I am.

I heard a late-middle-aged woman recently say something that made me sad, “I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t own this business… this has been my identity for so long.”

It is ironic that amount of time and focus that we spend trying to protect our digital identity (identification, credit cards, passwords, etc.) and yet spend very little time trying to maintain a distance between ourselves and the identity that is created from our work.

You are not your work.  Today you can serve ice cream, tomorrow lead a class on pottery, and the next day lead a congressional hearing.  Of course acumen in any trade or profession is, in part, gained through right repetition over long periods of time.  So if you wish to have impact through your work, then it will likely require longevity and focus.

Where we must be careful is when longevity and focus begin turning into obsession and idolatry along with a healthy dose of “what else would I do if I didn’t do this.”

Anything valuable thing taken to an extreme is at risk of becoming a liability.

Hence the woman who has allowed her business to become her identity.  Her community might look at her and say, “Wow, what an impact”.  While her family and friends might look at the same person and think, “Wow, what a missed opportunity.”

How do you ensure that you and your business remain two separate organisms working in tandem for the health of your surroundings and avoiding becoming one in the same?

Build your business with an opened hand realizing that you not owning the business is always an option on the table.

Although I own The On Purpose Group, I want to operate with a mindset that I manage the business as a General Manager or Steward who is always looking out for the best interest of all stakeholders, and to build the backend of the business in such a way that someone else could come in and manage if and when that time were to come.

Recently, Gerrick Taylor, owner of Taylor’s Landscape Supply and Nursery left his five location business for two weeks to go serve as an employee at similar business about five hours away.  He wanted to go see how a similar business is managed day to day.

While Gerrick is gone Taylor’s will continue to operate because it has been built in such a way where multiple team members can operate or steward the business in the owner’s absence.

Derrick is not Taylor’s, Taylor’s is an organism running, operating, and growing even while he is away because the team is empowered to grow the business.

It is always better to have a sellable business, even if you choose not to sell.

How do you build a sellable business that can run without you and free you from the prison of being tied to your business…whether you wish to sell or not?

First, you must decide that you will not be synonymous with your business.  It is more of a mindset than a checklist of tasks to be accomplished.  Ask yourself right now, do people know me for anything other than my business?  If you have a hard time answering that, you must take action.

What are the things that makes your sense light up?  What are the things you dream about doing if you didn’t “have to work all of the time”?  Brennan Manning once asked, “what makes you cry?”  

What is it?  What makes you tear up at the mere sight of a thing?  A child jumping into a father’s arms?  A homeless woman on the street begging for money at the stoplight?  A legislative policy?  Ensuring that couples are well equipped before getting married?

For some, we must begin radically separating your identity from your business.  Imagine this, we are all standing at your funeral, and on your headstone it reads, “He owned a great company”.

Of course, that great company can do great things for people like providing great jobs, great products that serve needs, and the rest.  But I would dare say that your life is of more value than the jobs you created or the products you served.  Even without the company, you are important. 

Wouldn’t you rather have your headstone read, “He loved well”, or “His family was crazy about him”?

Second, you must commit to building purpose and systems that build people that build the business.  One of the reasons that you are synonymous with your business is because most of the systems of the business are in your head.  What happens to the business if something happens to you?  

That was the question TJ Anderson asked driving down a four-lane road in 2015.  TJ owns Atlantic Spray Foam and had that sobering thought when thinking about his future.

He began radically committing to building systems, process, and purpose into his business.  He went from being the dominant business developer in his business, to rarely selling, servicing, or scheduling any jobs and instead investing in a team that invests in the customer.

Finally, you need to surround yourself with third-party wisdom mentors who are not going to blindly cheerlead.  You need truth-tellers and advisors who can help you properly forecast what is coming, and thoughtfully plan how to equip yourself, the business, the people around you.

A Jewish proverb tells us that “without counsel. plans fail, but with many advisors, they succeed.” (Proverbs 15:22)

I might go a step further and say, “without (objective) counsel plans fail, but with many (wise) advisors they succeed.”

You are not your business.  Your business is a valuable asset, and you are of even greater value.