If your business can’t survive without you–or you can’t survive without your business, it’s time to refocus.
Editor’s Note: Kristin is a business adviser whose guidance was instrumental in the growth of Between Carpools. We are happy to share her expertise with our readers.
Two years ago, during one of my most acute, intense cancer treatments, a well-meaning friend asked me, “Are you worried about your business?”
I realized I couldn’t answer the question because I didn’t know where my business ended and I began.
This is a founder’s dilemma that we seem to be afraid to talk about (raising my hand, it’s terrifying). The thing that makes you successful- complete dedication to your business mission- can also become the thing that traps you.
The Identity Merge
When you start a business, the lines blur naturally. You ARE the business. Every success is your success. Every failure is your failure. Every decision flows through you.
This works when you’re small. It becomes dangerous when you start to scale.
I’ve worked with founders who couldn’t take vacation because “nobody else understands the business like I do.” I’ve seen entrepreneurs push through burnout because stopping felt like abandoning their identity.
I’ve been that person. Too often.
The Warning Signs
You know your business has become too much of your identity when:
- You can’t imagine who you’d be without this business
- Every business setback feels like a personal failure
- You resist delegation because “nobody cares as much as I do”
- You work through sickness, family events, and exhaustion
- You measure your worth by business metrics
When I received my cancer diagnosis, I had to face a terrifying question: If I couldn’t run my business for months, would I still have value as a person?
The answer scared me because I wasn’t sure.
That’s when I realized I’d built a business that needed me to survive, but I’d also built an identity that needed the business to feel worthy.
Here’s why the identity merge is dangerous for both you and your business:
Personal Fragility: When your entire sense of self depends on business success, any setback becomes an existential crisis. Bad months don’t just hurt financially…they hurt to your core.
Business Fragility: When your business depends entirely on your personal involvement, it becomes vulnerable to anything that affects you personally. Health issues, family emergencies, or simple burnout can threaten everything you’ve built.
Decision-Making Distortion: When your identity is tied to being “the person who has all the answers,” you are more prone to make decisions that protect your ego rather than serve your business.
Learning to separate yourself from your business isn’t about caring less. It’s about creating sustainable success for both you and the company.
Here’s what healthy separation looks like:
You have interests outside your business. Not just hobbies, but genuine curiosity and investment in things unrelated to work.
Your self-worth isn’t tied to daily business metrics. Bad weeks happen. They’re data points, not judgments on your value as a person.
You can delegate meaningful work. Not just busy work, but decisions and projects that matter to the business’s success.
You have relationships that aren’t business-focused. Friends who knew you before the business and will be with you long after it’s over.
Building this separation requires intentional practice:
1. Define your values beyond business success. What matters to you regardless of what you do for work? Health, family, creativity, learning, service? Write these down and schedule time for them now…don’t let work be the reason you have to cancel these- ever again.
2. Create systems that reduce dependence on you. Document processes, train team members, build decision-making frameworks…not because you want to check out, but because you want the business to be resilient.
3. Invest in relationships outside your industry. Join non-business communities. Volunteer for causes you care about. Maintain friendships that have nothing to do with networking. I was blessed with a collection of new friends (right before I found out I was sick) because of my new puppy- she picked their puppies as friends and that’s that- we’re a fur family for life.
4. Practice being proud of efforts, not just outcomes. Some things are outside your control- market conditions, competitor actions, global events. Your response isn’t.
Here’s what I discovered: The more I separated my identity from my business, the better the business performed. When I stopped needing the business to validate my worth, I made better strategic decisions. When I built systems that didn’t depend on me, the company became more valuable.
Healthy separation doesn’t make you less committed. It makes you more effective.
Facing mortality forced me to ask hard questions about identity and meaning. What would matter if I only had six months to live? What would I regret not doing? Who would I want to spend time with?
None of the answers were about business metrics.
We didn’t know for almost 7 months if I was going to respond to the first 3 compounded treatments, and in that window I determined to NEVER let my business obligations become my entire identity again. This was the catalyst for finally building the Business Decoded Series. I wish every day that it didn’t take a life-threatening disease to give me the perspective that I needed to really LIVE, not just survive.
Today, my business matters because it allows me to serve clients, support my team, and build something valuable. But it is NOT who I am…it is what I’ve created.
Your Identity Check
Ask yourself honestly:
- If your business disappeared tomorrow, who would you be?
- What would you do?
- How would you define your value?
- What relationships would remain?
- What would bring you joy?
If those questions feel scary or impossible to answer, it might be time to reclaim some identity outside your business.
The Integration Approach
The goal isn’t to stop caring about your business. It’s to care about it as one important part of a full life, not as the single source of meaning and identity.
Your business is something you’ve created, not something you are. Your business success reflects your skills and effort, not your worth as a person. Your business is a vehicle for impact, not the destination itself.
The Strength in Separation
When you have a strong sense of self outside your business, you make better business decisions. You take appropriate risks because failure doesn’t threaten your identity. You delegate effectively because your ego isn’t tied to controlling everything. You persist through challenges because your worth isn’t determined by short-term outcomes.
Both you and your business become more resilient when neither depends entirely on the other for survival.
That’s not detachment. That’s healthy interdependence.
Here’s to freedom in a framework.
Wow, this is incredibly thoughtful and grounded. I don’t have a business yet still really appreciated this post. Thank you!