Self-Made

17Reclaiming your freedomRemembering the purpose of your business beyond stress and overwork

As I sit in the morning sun on the alfresco deck at Victoria's at Wategos in Byron Bay, I'm staring at the picturesque backdrop of palm trees, birds of paradise and clear blue skies. The smell of sunscreen is in the air and the sound of the water fountains gurgle away. I am suddenly reminded again why I started Shhh Silk all those years ago.

It was never really about making $50 000 000 or sailing off into the sunset, which are some of the empty goals I believed were a measure of success back in 2015. At the time, my ego believed that if I achieved these things, it meant I had made it — there was no greater success (or so I thought).

Admittedly, when starting a business, it's easy to think you need to set a monetary goal for success. That number will be different for everyone, but for me, it was $50 000 000. I don't know where that number came from; it could have been from a millionaire mindset course I attended, or it could have been a number I just plucked out of my head that sounded big enough and scary enough to drive me to aim higher than I believed possible at that moment.

I am not suggesting that having monetary goals in business is a negative thing. You need some measures in place to be able to grow your business and track your progress. But I really believed it was the dollar amount that the business would generate that would end up being my personal measure of success as a ...