How to Build a Business That Runs Without You: The Injury That Forced Me to Figure It Out

For the first six months of our construction expansion I worked 100 hours a week.

No breaks. No days off. No exceptions.

On the tools all day. Plastering, carpentry, building decks, running jobs. Then home to work on the business. Three hours sleep and straight back into it.

I used to think this was heroic. That "no one works harder than me" meant something. That the grind itself was the point and that made me special.

Then my body gave out.

I herniated the L4 L5 disc and sequestered the L5 S1 disc in my spine.

The nerve compression meant I had no feeling from my ribs down. I was lying there completely motionless when I heard the most sobering question I have ever been asked in my life.

"What are we going to do now?"

I was the sole provider for me and my girlfriend at the time. She was not asking to be cruel. She was scared. And I honestly did not have an answer.

This felt considerably less heroic.

For the next three months, between hospital beds and laying at home, I spent another 100 hours a week.

But this time on something different.

I redesigned the entire company from scratch.

Built every system. Hand designed every role. Invented every process. Rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up so that it could operate without me physically being present.

It was not easy. It was not fun. It was not fast.

But when it was done the business relied on me less than it ever had. And for the first time I understood something I had been too busy grinding to see before.

The grind is not the goal. The system is the goal.

Working 100 hours a week on the tools is not building a business. It is buying yourself a job with worse hours and no sick leave. A real business is something that functions, generates revenue and serves customers whether you are there or not.

I had to lose the use of my legs to learn that lesson.

Nobody should have to.

This is a big part of why The Sequoia Project exists. Because the information that could have saved me three months on a hospital bed redesigning everything from scratch was available. I just did not know where to look or that I needed it yet.

If you are currently working every hour you have and telling yourself that is just what it takes, hear this.

It is what it takes to break your body. It is not what it takes to build a business.

The most valuable skill you can develop as a business owner is learning how to make yourself unnecessary. Not because you are lazy but because a business that needs you for everything is one injury, one illness or one holiday away from falling apart completely.

Build the systems before you need them. Document the processes while you still have the energy. Design every role as if someone else is going to fill it tomorrow.

Because one day something will force you to step back. The only question is whether you will be ready when it does.

Lesson 14: How do you turn the worst thing that ever happened to you into the best thing that ever happened to you? You use it to build something you never would have built otherwise.

This is the lesson that started everything at the TSP Podcast with Dale Meyer. How to build a business that runs without you. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and join The Sequoia Project community on Facebook.