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Expecting Your Business To Run On Your Willpower is Unrealistic

1 Aug 2026 · 0 min

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In this brief, impassioned monologue, Melissa Dlugolecki argues that entrepreneurs cannot rely solely on their own willpower and human endurance to keep a business running. She shares vivid personal experiences of severe burnout—days when she couldn’t write, couldn’t get out of bed, and even physically collapsed to the cement floor—illustrating the physical and mental toll of trying to operate a company alone. From these anecdotes, she concludes that building a team of supportive teammates is essential; without shared responsibility, the business is set up for failure. The talk serves as a cautionary reminder that human limits must be respected and that sustainable entrepreneurship depends on collaboration rather than solitary grit.

In your business, you need teammates because you're human. I always say if we expect our businesses to run on our human experience, we're setting them up for failure. Because there were days I didn't want to write. There were days I couldn't get out of bed. There were parts where it was like, can you go deeper? Oh, I'm reading a line. You know, I fell to the wood floor. No, it wasn't a wood floor, it was a cement floor. All of a sudden I'm back in that moment where I absolutely collapsed to the ground.