A lot of the things one gets told in this field sound contradictory. Just consider these: Work very hard and be serious with your business. Don’t take yourself too serious. Get fully enmeshed in what you are doing. This business is not your whole life, run it like a business and detach yourself. The problem is you need to do all these and then you wonder how to go about that.  How can you possibly work as hard as advised without the business taking over your entire life? How do you detach yourself from a business that takes almost all your waking hours especially at the early stages?
I wish I have answers to these questions. I also sincerely wish I could see this business with the eyes of my workers. They have a way of justifying inflated expenses; they’d quietly tell me that ‘it is company money’.  I always reply ‘it’s my money, not company money’. They are truly detached, exactly the way I want to be but how do I bring myself to call this place just ‘company?’ They remind me of the detached way we view other people’s businesses while in paid employment and how we keep saying ‘let this business die if it wants to or survive’.  Is there any chance I might progress to that one day? That, to me is true freedom. Most businesses actually start doing very well when the owner is able to operate in this wholesome mental state
I have my good reasons for shying away from seeing things this way: I know what it took to raise money for setting up the place. The way things go here, I will be the only person to carry the can if things go burst. Now, this also is my source of livelihood, what happens to me if I give in an inch and then things go bad and I lose all the money? Now tell me, don’t I have cogent reasons for making this my life?
I took it that way for a long time, but not quite that way anymore. I am yet to let go but I am engaged in a titanic struggle to detach. At least that is a good sign, I mean the desire to let go and let this be a ‘company’ albeit, my company. Now why did I suddenly decide to develop some level of emotional and physical detachment from it all?
The other way is an invitation to disaster and stagnation. It is the easiest route to burnout. I walked that road; it was interesting but exhausting as well. It has the unacceptable potential to rob one of all good life. It is also not sustainable. Humans are not fabricated to function under such level of stress for too long. It also makes you incapable of answering the big question, to wit, what is in this for me?
Yes, even you the owner must always find out and take what is in the business for you at all stages of its development. Early in the day, you might not feel bad about toiling all the time without getting any very personal gains out of the business but resentment sets in over time. Is that possible, after all this is your business? Yes, it is a real feeling. You might even start hating the business, exactly like your employees would if you owe them salaries. This is the reason why old hands in this business insist you must pay yourself. This is in the best interest of the business.
Not striking a balance or middle ground; at which you work very hard but also stand aside and see things from the eyes of an employee would lead to running a business whose true worth, strengths and weaknesses may never be determined. It leads to recording profits for a company that is losing money. Not standing aside to properly assess progress will also not let you push the business to the limits of its potentials and to the level of real profitability.  It leads to a total incapacitating of the soul of the enterprise exactly the way things turn out when you over-pamper a child. You might even start getting in the way of rapid progress by not seeing things with eyes other than that of an owner. Most of the time, it ensures you do not see the need to re-strategise until it is too late since you were unaware you’ve been wasting resources. You may also not be aware of the gradual erosion of your self-worth as you slave away for nothing.
As to the question of being able to think, ‘this is not my whole life, this is just a company’, I’d say this is hard. I mean some people put in twenty hours a day so what is left of life? It’ll naturally seem as if you are looking at your whole life while looking at the company. But then why allow anything take over your life in that way? You must get rid of this way of thinking or your every mood will be dictated by the happenings in the business. You may stop eating, laughing, living well or thinking straight when things are going wrong. This in turn ensures you don’t get out of tight corners easily since you will be too depressed to think straight. Learn not to let the day to day challenges rob you of the joys of life. It is really not your whole life even if all your life savings are there.
I was ruminating on all these with a friend and he replied that detaching does happen naturally if the business is being run professionally. He says anyone who doesn’t find a way of standing aside to look at the business and chart its course will ultimately lose. He insists that you must get the business to offer you some very fulfilling rewards and that this is often hard to handle until you start seeing things from the eyes of a detached but highly dedicated employee. He also says to sometimes clear the business out of your head so you could refresh and come back and see it with brand new eyes. That, to him, is the only way some business owners can get to see the areas that need attention. He is of the view that having it fill your entire being all the time is not healthy for the business.
He, however, cautions against standing aside at some points. The early stages are critical, he says, and not a time to detach. He says to keep constant watch then and at other rough moments like during a depression or other rough economic weathers.