A business that runs without you is different from a job that owns you. If your employees take vacations and weekends while you can't, you don't have a business yet. Owners should earn more than staff because they carry the risk, not less.
How do I know if I'm building a business or a very demanding job? Yeah, it's really simple. If everybody else who works for you gets to take vacations, if they get to leave at 5, if they actually get to have their weekends off, but you don't, then yeah, you've got a really crappy job with a really crappy boss because you're never giving yourself any time off. It's one of the reasons that we insist that our clients and our portfolio company CEOs take extended vacations. It's not just because we need the rest and we need the reset. It is evidence that the business has the systems in place to be able to run without them. At some point as a business owner, you should be making a lot of money. I think we forget this very often. We adopt this entrepreneurial martyrdom where we say, oh, it's okay that I'm making a lot less than everybody who works for me. That's fine in the beginning, but at some point you should make a lot more because you're taking on more risk. If you're working harder than everybody else and making a lot less money than everyone else, then yeah, you just got a crappy job. You don't have a business.
