Why Business Owners Don’t Have a Money Problem—They Have a Peace Problem
“We have such an allergy to boredom. We have such an allergy to peace. We keep duct taping and complicating everything. When it falls, it falls from higher. Sometimes you just have to solve for peace.”
Dr. John Deloney was talking about the idea of practicing peace over complexity with Chris Williamson on his podcast & the dots connected for me with more recent conversations I’ve been having about the next ladder to climb.
The next problem to solve.
The next deal to ink.
The next sale.
When working through financial plans, the angle taken is typically one of solving for ways to decrease tax burden, increase net worth, and accelerate the timeline for all these items to occur.
But all this takes work - it’s coordination with other professionals, managing timelines, and stoking action to move things across the finish line.
When managing multiple business ventures, with employees, in different locations - it’s easy for complexity to rise.
Towards the end of a recent review with a client, they leaned over and just nonchalantly asked, “so when do I get to pull back?”
The paradox here is the drive to solve for more growth leads to more complexity reducing the peace and freedom you’re striving to achieve.
High achievers have an allergy to boredom.
Even if you wanted to pull back, how would you spend your time?
“I’d be so bored if I sold the business(es)”
This is a common thread I hear with business owners.
It’s a socially acceptable way to pass time that also happens to financially provide but comes at the expense of peace.
Many business owners don't have a money problem, they have a peace problem.
It’s easy to hire the best professionals to dig up ways to continue to accelerate your economic machine.
The much harder (& deeper) question is:
What’s the money for?
Is it freedom? Time? Change of pace?
Or is it you’re afraid of what others might think of you if you hang up the cleats? Maybe they'll think you didn’t get enough from the sale. Maybe they’ll throw shade on your legacy because you did things different than they’d prefer.
I’d imagine what is being chased (or what’s being run from) isn’t another zero in your bank account or another deal to ink.
But rather the freedom to breathe without guilt, to choose stillness without shame.
Planning isn’t just about solving for zeros - but about designing a life where peace isn’t perpetually poisoned by the complexity of the chase for the next milestone.
Does your next plan solve for added peace or complexity?