In this YouTube presentation, John Briggs (Incite Tax) outlines the primary advantages and disadvantages of owning a business, framing each as a two‑sided coin. He begins with the appeal of setting one’s own schedule, warning that without boundaries the freedom can turn into a time‑draining grind and lead to burnout. He emphasizes personal accountability—owners are both to blame for success and for failure—arguing that this mindset is healthier than playing the victim. Briggs highlights the ability to choose who to hire, what work to do, and what to delegate, noting that business owners can leverage the tax code for more favorable treatment than W‑2 employees. He shares personal satisfaction from helping team members become financially successful and points out that a business can become a valuable, sellable asset if built with that goal in mind. On the downside, he discusses the isolation owners feel, the common misconception that owners earn far more than they often do, and the perpetual learning curve that makes owners feel “the most incompetent” as the company scales. He also touches on the emotional strain of constantly meeting team expectations and generosity demands. Throughout, Briggs offers practical advice—such as using forecasting tools and joining mastermind groups—to mitigate the cons, and he concludes with a reminder that profit and schedule control are choices that require courage and wisdom.
Chapters
What are the pros and cons of owning a business? Now look, you could have an entire panel of people talk about this, and there's going to be hundreds of different reasons. So I'm just going to share with you some of the first ones that come to mind. First pro, I think, is that you get to set your own schedule. Now at the same time, I think we need to understand that the con, the other side of that coin, is that if you're not careful, even though you set your own schedule, you will not have freedom of time. A lot of times when someone transitions from working for somebody to working for themselves without proper boundaries in place, you basically become a slave to all the things that need to get done because the owner's not taking the time to think through how do I actually want to grow the business. They're just so busy going from one task to the next, and then they end up burning themselves out and working 85, 100 hours a week. So yeah, you can set your own schedule, but in order to have freedom of time, you have to make a conscious effort to do that. But as a business owner, as long as you make a conscious effort to do that, that can be a pro. It is. You finally get that freedom of time that you're hoping for, which Honestly, for a lot of our clients and business owners I've dealt with, it's probably one of the top 3 reasons they chose business ownership is because of the freedom of time. But of course, we've seen a lot of those clients not actually enjoy that without some help. A pro of being a business owner is that you are to blame For your success and your failure, which also can be a con. You're, you're also to blame for your success and your failures. Now, that being said, I think this is something that actually applies to everyone in the world. I feel it's healthier to adopt a mindset that you control your success, and if there is failure It's something that you did that you can improve and control. I don't think it's healthy to pretend to be a victim. And I am not talking about scenarios from a legal standpoint where someone is literally a victim of horrendous crimes. I'm talking about work effort and what you get, what you reap from that effort. So that can be a pro and a con, but I personally like it. I like knowing that if something isn't going well, I can sit down and take an objective view at it and determine what is it that I can do to make it go better. Another pro is you get to choose who you work with. It's your company, you choose who you hire, so that's fun. You also get to choose the type of work that you do. You know, if you're working for someone, you're being paid to do that one thing or whatever it is that they're asking you to do, and you kind of, in order to keep getting your paycheck, have to keep doing that. Well, if it's your business, you get to choose the work that you want to do. And sometimes more importantly, you get to choose the work that you do not want to do and pay someone else to do that for you. That's really nice. The tax code is a lot better for people as business owners than it is if you're just a W-2 employee. The tax code is a lot more, a lot more options for business owners. I personally also get a lot of satisfaction of knowing that I'm blessing the lives of my team. It's been fun to know that I am responsible to— of making a handful of my team members millionaires. And that's really cool. So there's additional satisfaction that comes as the business owners, not just from growing your business, but also growing and helping the lives of your team members improve. And then another possible pro is that it's an asset that you're building, so someday you could choose to sell that business. Now, I mean, that's not what this video is about, but you have to be conscious about how you're growing your business so that it is worth something when you sell it. So many business owners think, I'm going to sell my business, but they haven't created their business in a way that makes it very sellable. So, Always look for guidance on that. So a couple bad things, cons if you will, 'cause we went through the pro list. You are going to feel like you're on an island. As the owner, there are certain things that are frustrating and difficult to deal with that you can't talk to your team about because they're always going to view you in the lens of you're the owner. So if you're complaining about something, To them, it's like, boohoo. Most people think because you're a business owner that you make way more money than you actually will. In the gym space, this is super common for a coach to look at the gym and say like, oh my gosh, look how much money this guy's making and he's so incompetent. I'm gonna go create my own gym. But they didn't take into consideration all of the aspects that go into owning a business. So make sure if you're gonna make that leap that you forecast properly and are taking into consideration everything. That goes involved, that is involved with owning a business. We have some tools like a forecasting tool that can help you do things like that as well. But you just, you're on an island. There are certain things you can't talk to your team about. Now there's solutions to that. I like personally am part of a mastermind group with other 7-figure-plus business owners. So we can talk about some of these frustrations and work through them. Here's an interesting thing. It's going to sound weird, but you are always going to be the most incompetent person in your business. And that's more so true if your business is continuing to grow, because here's the reality. When I first started my business, I didn't know how to run a $300,000 accounting firm. And then we are a $300,000 accounting firm. So, oh cool, now I know how to do that. But then we grew to $700,000. Well, I've never ran a $700,000 accounting firm before. I don't know what needs to happen. And you go through these different stages of business because honestly, what gets you to $1 million is not going to get you to $5 million or $10 million. And there's these kind of stepping stones as you grow your business. So as the owner, the CEO, the president, you're always going to be in a position that you've never been in before where your team You can help them to become more competent in their job. Like for us, tax returns, accounting. Yep, you do a lot of tax returns, you do a lot of bookkeeping. If we're a $10 million or $100 million company, it doesn't really matter to the team member as much as far as their daily tasks go because they're still doing tax returns and bookkeeping. So you will always be the most incompetent person. You want to make sure that you have the fortitude and acceptance that that is the case. And you might make mistakes. And you can't let that uncertainty— because you are incompetent in your position as the president of a company that you've never ran before at that size, you're in the position to make good or bad decisions, but you have to make the decisions. Don't let that cripple you or, you know, Put you in handcuffs. And then depending on how large your team gets, the other side of the coin, like, you get to positively bless the lives of your team members. Depending on how big your team gets, you're always going to have some team members where whatever you do, however generous you want to be, it'll never be enough. And that can be really frustrating, especially when you're someone like me who takes business very personally. I want my team members to have a good culture and work environment, but sometimes it's just, it's not enough. Oh, you want me to do this one extra thing? Okay, well, how much money more, how much more money you're gonna pay me because of that? Never mind that I'm also, I'm already currently well paid and that I have a really tremendous career path here that will pay me more than anything I could ever imagine. You know, there's kind of this tit-for-tat type of thing, and it, it can get frustrating sometimes when you're expected as the owner to be as generous all the time, and you put stuff out there, and there will be many times you don't get something back. So balancing that can be tough. So that's my list of what came to mind when I was asked What are the pros and cons of being a business owner? I hope that helps. Remember, profit is a choice. And I will say controlling your schedule is a choice as well. Have the courage and wisdom to choose it or to do it.
