Right now, owning my own business means I don’t make very much money. I knew this would be true when I started the company, but that doesn’t always make it easier. I am fortunate to have family that financially supports me so I can stay in the game, but I have to be careful about not falling into the trap of comparison to others or to a theoretical, alternate universe version of myself that has lots of cash and clients. Obviously, I do need to have some sort of income, but to not completely fall apart and quit in the early days of Spearpoint Strategies, I had to come up with other ways of measuring success than just the final number in my bank account.

This is true for many businesses, especially startups. Learning to value other indicators and identify the feedback that comes is valuable. The number of leads and signed contracts, the presence of Spearpoint Strategies online, the impact I am making on clients, the personal and professional growth I experience… These are all signs of progress and success. Notably, some of these signs are not quantifiable. Feeling that I have developed professionally isn’t something that shows up in a KPI. It is an internal sense based on how I experience my work life, such as confidence in attending events, ease in giving my elevator pitch, and so on. A founder who wants to stay in the game for a long time will have these alternate priorities. If money is the only goal, then I have no reason to persevere through the trials of entrepreneurship. Of course, someday I will be making more money and getting more clients (fingers crossed here). But when that day comes, I will still need other metrics of success to guide my next step.

As a sustainability consultant, this is especially relevant. I am constantly urging my clients to identify what impact they want to have and how they want to measure it – people, planet, and profit, not just the last. I have to make sure that my services are having the intended impact as well. When I work with a client, do their emissions go down? Is their company culture transparent and accountable? Do they have the best labor practices in place? Are there established and engaged stakeholder mechanisms? How much money I make or how many clients I have does not directly speak to the quality or outcome of the work done.

This need to reimagine success extends beyond my time at work. The things I assumed would mark my successful entry into adulthood are not happening for me. I do not plan to buy a house in my hometown any time soon. This is in part because I have gone the entrepreneurship route, thereby delaying my financial independence, but also because the houses where I live are expensive. Even if I had a 9-5 comparable to that of the peers with whom I graduated, buying property could still be out of reach. So many other markers to ‘success’ or ‘doing adulthood right’ are not available to me in the present moment. I am not even sure that a career exists in the way that I assumed it would. Everyone around me seems to be job hopping or being continually laid off. The path to predictable progress has been disrupted, and it doesn’t seem to be coming back. For myself and my peers, other signs of wealth, such as friendship, leisure, and community, are prioritized in part because the traditional markers aren’t an option.  

I spend a lot of time thinking about success. As a business owner, I want to make sure I am making the choices that will grow the company. As someone who was basically born as an embodiment of ambition, I am always trying to be the best, even to my own detriment. This worked well for me for the most part until I developed chronic migraines. All of a sudden, the most important thing I could do was (drumroll) lie down on the couch and be very still. Chronic illness is the defining guide of how I spend my time and where I put my resources. It is the largest factor in the life decisions I make. And living a life that values and prioritizes my health is deeply contradictory to living a life devoted to financial and materialistic ideas of success. Many entrepreneurship influencers will valorize the grind to make their millions, but my body is physically incapable of any sort of hustle. I have had to accept my limits so that I can enjoy and maintain my capabilities. If I want to stay at least somewhat happy and content in my life, I need to reimagine a personal and professional life that is supportive of my health.

A sustainable lifestyle can sometimes feel contradictory to a successful one. Many external signs of wealth, such as frequent trips abroad, luxury vehicles, and ever larger houses, are inconsistent with my values. I want to create a world where living sustainably is the impressive thing to do. Bringing it back to the business context, some businesses operate better at a small scale, with just the founder and no employees. Sometimes scaling up farther would mean a reduction in life quality for the owner, so even if it is more profitable, it is not worth it. My challenge to you is to not accept another person’s idea of success for yourself or your company. Imagine what success looks like to you and don’t get distracted on your journey to get there.