Are You Building Something That Can Sustain You?

In 2011, having just completed my third full year in business as a real estate broker, I attended Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery seminar, a 5-day seminar for business owners and leaders.

At that event, Tony said the following:

If you can’t step away from your business and still have the business generate income without you, then you don’t have a business. You have a job.

The statement made an impact. I immediately realized that what I was building in my real estate business was a job, not a business.

There’s a difference between understanding and knowledge. Understanding is cognitive. Knowledge is embodied.

In the initial months of my recovery from a traumatic brain injury a few years ago, as I settled into a new normal of enforced rest and reduced screen time, I finally knew what Tony meant about having a business vs a job.

I had worked hard to sustain my business, but in my time of need my business couldn’t sustain me.

Ever since, I’ve taken steps to build a business that can sustain me.

Today is Earth Day. It’s a day when we remember to create sustainable practices to protect the future of the earth. This theme of sustainability is not just for earth, but also applies to your life and business.

Do you have a business or a job? There’s not a “right answer” here, but it’s important to be honest about which you have and which you want.

Will your business sustain you financially, even if you take time away or get sidelined?

Sustainability is not just financial and material. Does what you do sustain you intellectually, emotionally and spiritually?

If you are constantly giving to others to the point where you feel depleted, that’s not sustainable. You will burn out.

My experiences during my brain injury and with burnout a year later have led me to adopt sustainability as a core value.

Over the past few years, I have worked on an expansion and evolution of my business to create the foundation for a business that will eventually be able to sustain me.

As I create new rituals, I constantly check in with myself to ask weather my rituals are sustainable in their current form. I tweak them until they are.

In everything I do, from my business to my daily rituals, there are two questions I like to ask: