“That’s just the way it is in business.” Long hours, constant emails, tight deadlines, always reachable. Say it enough times and it stops sounding like a complaint and starts sounding like a job description. Gabor Maté’s book The Myth of Normal makes one argument that we think applies directly to business owners: common isn’t the same as healthy. Just because most entrepreneurs run themselves into the ground doesn’t mean that’s what running a business actually requires.
What “Normal” Often Looks Like for Entrepreneurs
Here’s what it tends to look like in practice: saying yes to every opportunity even when it stretches things too thin. Tying your self-worth to revenue, or to whether a client is happy with you. Working through illness because “the business can’t run without me.” Feeling guilty about a day off you genuinely earned. None of this is a character flaw. It gets rewarded, at least at first, which is exactly why it’s so hard to stop.
Four Ideas From the Book, Applied to Business
Stress Isn’t Just a Scheduling Problem
Maté’s point isn’t “you’re too busy.” It’s that stress happens when demands outpace your actual capacity to meet them, and chronic stress makes you a worse decision-maker, not just a more tired one. It shows up as avoiding the hard conversation, rushing a call you should have slept on, feeling stuck despite never stopping. Protecting your ability to think clearly, through boundaries, delegation, or just a different structure to your day, isn’t a soft skill. It’s what keeps the rest of the business functioning.
Ignoring Your Own Needs Has a Cost
Override your own needs long enough to meet everyone else’s, and you lose touch with your own judgement. Sometimes with the reason you started the business at all. A client with a big budget and values that clash with yours might look like a win on the balance sheet. If it costs you your energy and your integrity to keep them, it isn’t one. We’ve watched clients keep accounts like that out of fear, and watched the fear cost more than the client was ever worth.
Past Patterns Shape How People Lead
You don’t need one dramatic event to carry old instincts into how you run a business. Ongoing instability leaves its own mark, and it shows up in how people invest, spend, and manage risk years later. Someone who grew up short on money might hoard cash “just in case,” turning down opportunities that would genuinely help the business, not because the numbers say no, but because an old fear does. Naming the pattern is the only way to stop being run by it.
Authenticity Holds Up Better Than It Sounds
This isn’t a feel-good idea we’re including to round out the list. Businesses that actually operate in line with their values keep good clients and good people longer, because both can tell the difference between a business that means it and one that’s performing it. That’s a real, measurable advantage. It also happens to let you sleep at night, which counts for something.
Where the Numbers Come In
None of this is separate from the finances. It’s the foundation the rest sits on. Paying a team fairly and on time requires stable cash flow, not good intentions. Clear, current numbers free up the headspace to make better decisions generally, not just financial ones. You don’t have to choose between a business that does well and one that treats people well; done properly, each one funds the other. See our piece on reimagining what accounting can look like for how we try to build that into how we work with clients.
Putting This Into Practice
A few starting points. Track wellbeing and sustainability alongside revenue, not as an afterthought once revenue is sorted. Get visibility into your actual numbers early: up-to-date bookkeeping is usually what surfaces a stress point before it turns into a crisis, not after. Let your values actually inform who you work with, not just what your marketing says. Build a culture, even a two-person one, where someone can raise a concern without it being awkward. If stress is becoming harder to manage day to day, HSE’s mental health supports are a genuine starting point, not just a business one.
Ready to Build Without Burning Out?
If you’re looking to put financial systems in place that support your wellbeing rather than add to the pressure, we’re happy to talk through what that could look like for your business.