MBA1299 Are You Happy with Your Business?
2 Feb 2026 · 10 min
A ~10-minute coaching podcast episode by Omar Zenhom (The $100 MBA) that asks listeners to evaluate whether they are happy or content with their business. The host defines happiness as overall contentment rather than constant bliss, recommends writing down what you enjoy and what you dislike about the business, suggests delegating unpleasant or non-core tasks, instructs listeners to diagnose whether lack of sales/money is the primary source of unhappiness, and to either create an action plan (hire help, improve product/sales) or exit if the business is irredeemable. The transcript contains ad reads for USAA, Dell, and Capella University.
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USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and Sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. Ready to save on new tech? It's time for Dell Tech Day's annual sales event celebrating our customers with fantastic deals and benefits. Perks include Dell Rewards, free shipping, premium Support and more. PCs like the Dell 14 with Intel Core Ultra processors will help you do more faster and with a premium suite of monitors and accessories, you can upgrade your whole setup with amazing savings. Visit Dell.com deals. Hey O welcome to the $100 MBA show where your business gets better the minute every day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn Are you happy with your business? This is a truly important question that you need to answer from time to time. Often we start our business, we have a lot of energy, a lot of motivation. We start rolling, we start making some money, we're starting to scale, we're starting to get better. Two, three years down the line, we look around and we're sitting in a business we may not recognize. We don't even understand how we got here. And it's important for you to ask, are you happy? Are you happy with the business that you built? Why is it important? Because you have the opportunity to change the answer. If the answer is no, if you're not happy, we're going to talk about what are some strategies to change that around? What are your options? If you are happy, we'll also talk about how to maintain that happiness. Listen, you might think, what does this have to really do with the growth of my business? Well, if you are not enjoying the process, if you're not having a fulfilled life, if your business doesn't give you joy in some fashion, it's just not going to be sustainable and the business will suffer. And what you want to do here is catch it before it's too late. And that's what we'll get into in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. How you feel about your business greatly affects the entire business. If you're demotivated, if you're depressed, if you're upset, if you're frustrated, those Emotions will seep in to your team, your product, your service, because you're at the head of it and everybody is looking for direction. Everything is influenced by you. So answering this question is important. Now, I want to be clear. I want to define the word happy. I think maybe a better term or a better way to clarify is, are you content? Are you proud? Are you happy to have this business, to be running this business? This doesn't mean that every wakeful hour, you're in complete bliss and you're totally excited every minute. No, there's going to be moments in your day, in your week, in your month that are tough, that are hard, that you don't look forward to. But we're talking about overall. Overall, would you rather be running a different business? A good question to ask is, could you take a year off right now and not feel upset or feeling like you'd miss the work, miss the business, miss your team? A year is a long time. So I wouldn't say a month. Cause a month is, you know, a solid break, a pretty long one, but it's still considered a break. But a year is like, wow, I haven't spoken to these people. I haven't worked on this for a while. It's not part of my life anymore. So I. So that's a good way to measure it. Let's begin with the easy answer, which is yes. If your answer is yes, ask yourself this question. Is it a hell yes? If so, why? What do you do every day? What are the things that make you happy? What are the things that give you that joy and that satisfaction and that pride? Identify these things. Write them down. Writing things down makes them real. And it gets ideas out of your head and gets them into reality. So write the things down that make you happy, that give you joy in your business. Why? Because you want to continue to do those things. You want to double down on those things, triple down on those things. And you want to also see how you can continue to do that and grow those activities in the future so it doesn't get boring. It's also good to write these things down to know what makes you happy as an entrepreneur. So later down the line, five years from now, when you sell the business or something like that and you start something new, you know what to do to be happy. Now, if the answer is no, you're going to do the same thing. You're going to write down why? Why aren't you happy? What are the things, what are the tasks? What are the aspects of the business you don't enjoy that you don't like that is causing you unhappiness. This is so important. Write it down. Don't get lazy. Type it out, whatever it is. Why? Because it could be a lifesaver. It could be a business saver. You might think you're in a horrible business. You might think that you hate your business, but in fact you don't. You actually like it, but hate a few things that you have to do. Sometimes when we write things down, we realize, oh, I actually just don't like these three tasks. These are the things that cause me the most anxiety and the worry and all the pain. What if I get somebody else to do these tasks? What if I hire somebody to do these tasks or a couple people do these tasks? You might find, hey, this is pretty enjoyable. I love being an entrepreneur. I love this business. I love this market I'm in. Sometimes we confuse the business with what we actually do. Every day. A lot of us, we get stuck somewhere along the line when we're growing our business where we don't know how to offload a few things on our task list, on our to do list. A lot of these things are menial, difficult tasks that take a long time, that are boring or maybe just things are just not in our wheelhouse or in our strengths. Maybe you don't like running meetings, for example, can't stand it. But it's a part of your job and that's what you've been doing for years. And the business has been growing since you've been doing meetings and all that kind of stuff. Why not hire somebody to do the meetings? Why not hire a manager, a vp, somebody that can do that task for you and in fact do it better than you. And it doesn't mean you can't participate in those tasks when you like. But it's optional now. You can jump into a meeting if you like and see how things are going. And you could focus on the things that you do enjoy. And you may want to write those things down too. But write everything down. Every aspect that you don't enjoy, you don't like. That is not causing you happiness, it's causing you grief. And some of those things could be like the market you're in. Your customers, you don't enjoy speaking to these customers or your clients may not be proud of your product. This is why it's so important to write these things down, because then you can focus on the biggest pain points. Let's say, for example, you're not proud of your product. You're not happy with the results, the next thing you need to do is ask yourself if you were proud of this product, if this product was amazing. And I'm just using this example in terms of what you don't like or what's causing you grief. If the product was amazing, how would you feel? You would feel great. Okay, so if you could solve this problem, you could salvage your business and your happiness, right? So you want to do this with all the things you're talking about here, and you want to create an action plan of how you can turn things around and start enjoying your business again. Listen, as the leader of your business, you have to be the most motivated, the most pumped, the most inspired, the one with the vision, the one that communicates that vision. No one's going to do that for you. So if you're not feeling good about the business, you need to fix that quickly. And this is why this exercise is so important. Now, some people might be saying, you know what, Omar, I did my list, and the biggest pain point I have is that the business is just simply not doing as well as I would like it to. Now, some of you are listening and saying, you know, Omar, I wrote down my list. I'm doing all the exercises you're talking about. But my biggest pain point, the reason why I don't enjoy my business or I'm unhappy is because it's just simply not doing as well as I want it to. I'm not making enough sales. I'm not making enough money, and that's causing me a lot of problems. And I'm looking at other opportunities and saying, hey, maybe there's another business around the corner, another idea, another thing I could pursue and get the money and get the results I'm looking for. And I'm the first to say that money matters. You have to have some sort of financial success in your business, some level of profitability to feel like this is fun, that this is enjoyable. It stinks when it's not doing well. It stinks when you're not making sales. And this is a valid concern. But I want you for a moment to suspend disbelief and ask yourself, if you were hitting your sales targets, if you were actually making the money that you want to, would you be happy? Just ask that question first before you move on, because it's important, and the answer is no, then it's not just about the money. It's about something else. But if the answer is yes, then let's solve that problem. You might need some help. You might need a sales advisor. A business coach. You know, hiring a business coach for a few thousand dollars to help you out for a month or so could be life saving, business saving. He or she might be able to guide you and tell you, hey, this business is worth saving or not move on. Sometimes you just need some help. And that help can help you get over this hurdle. Because there's tons of entrepreneurs out there that are not making lots of money, that aren't hitting their sales targets. But they love their business. They enjoy the process. They enjoy the work. So this is why it's important to define these issues and address them.
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One of my favorite things of going on vacation, going on a break, traveling for a little bit is that feeling after a bit, a few days a week, 10 days where we're flying home and I say to myself, man, I miss getting to work. I miss the team, I miss working on the business. For me, it's a good feeling because it means, hey, I like my job, but it means that I'm evaluating, I'm reflecting, I'm self aware about how I feel about the business. Now I'm not saying it's always going to be that way. Things may change and my feelings towards it may change and I have to evaluate things, I have to write things down and, and see if I can improve things or not. I want to wrap up by saying that, hey, if you try this exercise and through the exercise you realize, you know what, this business is just a mistake. It's not for me and I want to move on. If you're already sold on that idea, if your heart is not into it, if you don't believe in it, then the decision's already made. You just haven't actually acted upon it yet. And it's better for you to make that decision and move on now before you waste any more time or money on something you just don't believe in. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. Every day we deliver a fresh lesson Hit subscribe right now if you want the next episode to download automatically to your device so it's ready for you when you're ready to listen. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Business is hard. We work hard. We hustle. We have long hours. We sacrifice. We give up a lot of things to have a business, to be entrepreneurs. At the very least, you should be happy. You should give yourself that. You got to make sure of that. You got to make it a priority. And this is why doing this exercise is going to be one of the best things you can do in terms of spending your time working on your business. Because if you're sacrificing and spending money and working hard and doing all this and you're still not happy, then something's wrong. You got to make sure that you get joy out of what you do. Thank you so much for listening to the Hunter Ombay show. I'll check you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. I'll see you then. Take care.
At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella Eduardo.
