The 'Having It All' Trap
I couldn't shake this quote I saw on LinkedIn.
Some business guru harping on about how successful founders need to 'embrace the grind' and 'sacrifice everything for five years to win forever.' The post had thousands of likes. People in the comments gagging to share how many hours they'd worked that week.
I found the whole thing quite depressing.
Here's what that advice misses: 49% of founders are already considering quitting their startup. These aren't people who need to work harder. They're already working themselves into the ground.
The real question isn't 'How can I do more?' The real question is 'How can I build something that doesn't break me in the process?' We get one life. We have one family. We need rest and play. They matter.
The Growth Myth We've All Bought Into
Somewhere along the way, we started confusing 'fast' with 'good.'
Rapid growth became the only acceptable goal. You're apparently not serious about your business unless you're scaling aggressively, chasing VC funding, and burning the midnight oil every night.
Complete nonsense.
The hustle narrative assumes every business should be aiming for unicorn status. They're exceptionally rare. Less than 0.00006% of startups actually achieve that billion-dollar valuation. The rest are either building solid, profitable businesses or they've burned out chasing something that was never realistic in the first place.
Think about it like your investment portfolio. You could put everything into Tesla stock - exciting, dramatic, potentially lucrative. Or you could build something well-balanced that's considerably more likely to still exist in ten years.
I work with founders every week who are absolutely serious about their businesses. They're just also serious about still being alive and functional when those businesses mature.
What 'Having It All' Actually Costs
Have you noticed what the hustle culture brigade don't mention in their inspirational posts?
47% say running their business has negatively impacted their physical or mental health. Nearly 40% of startup founders work more than 60 hours per week, and 80% report feeling overwhelmed.
I've seen what this looks like up close.
A founder who hadn't taken a proper holiday in three years because they were 'too busy growing.' Their marriage was barely hanging on.
Someone who turned down a perfectly good acquisition offer - it 'wasn't ambitious enough.' Two years later, drowning in debt and struggling with their mental health.
The Alternative Nobody Talks About
Sustainable growth won't make for good LinkedIn content. Nobody's going to write a think piece about the founder who built a solid £2M business over eight years while also managing to see their kids and sleep occasionally. That founder is probably going to outlast the 'hustle harder' crowd by quite some margin, though.
I've been on the vendor side of an eight-figure business transaction. I've seen what actually makes a business attractive to buyers. The founder who's worked themselves into the ground and built something that collapses the moment they step away? Not attractive. The business with solid foundations, sustainable growth, and systems that actually work? That's what buyers want.
Sustainable growth means making decisions based on what your business can actually handle right now. Building systems before you desperately need them. Saying no to opportunities that would stretch you too thin. Accepting that slower can sometimes mean stronger.
You also need someone in your corner who can look at your numbers and tell you the truth about what's working and what's not.
The Questions Worth Asking
I'm not here to judge anyone in the 'hustle harder' camp. Sometimes rapid growth is exactly what your business needs. Sometimes you genuinely are in a sprint phase where long hours make sense.
The trick is being honest about whether that's actually true, or whether you're just following a script someone else wrote.
Questions worth asking yourself:
Am I working these hours because my business genuinely requires it right now, or because I think I'm supposed to?
Where will I be in two years at this pace? (Be brutally honest.)
What would 'successful' look like without copying everyone else's version?
Am I building something sustainable, or something that only works when I never stop running?
Do I actually know what's profitable in my business, or am I just assuming more revenue equals more success?
The Bottom Line
You don't have to choose between growing your business and having a life outside it. There's another way. Less dramatic, takes longer, requires you to actually understand your finances and build proper systems rather than just working harder. Also considerably more likely to result in a business that's still functioning (and that you still have the warm ‘n’ fuzzies for) in five years.
