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We spend much of our lives chasing more. More money, more success, more status, more opportunities. In business, that instinct is treated almost like a moral virtue. Growth is celebrated, while saying no can feel like failure.
I believe that mindset becomes dangerous when applied to service businesses built on trust, expertise, and long-term relationships.
There is a point where pursuing more clients and more revenue starts taking away the very things that made the business valuable in the first place.
I learned to think about entrepreneurship through three questions: Who am I? What do I stand for? What do I really want?
Those questions matter because a business eventually reflects the choices of the person who runs it.
Every entrepreneur wants financial success. I certainly do. Money can provide a better home, better health care, memorable experiences, and greater freedom for ourselves and the people we love.
But money cannot purchase additional hours in a day. It cannot create memories with our families after those moments have passed.
Research has highlighted the importance of that distinction.
A 2022 study of 32,087 working adults in Abu Dhabi, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that job satisfaction, mental health, satisfaction with personal relationships, and the size of a person’s social support network were directly associated with happiness and life satisfaction.
Clear and Present Danger
For entrepreneurs, the danger is easy to recognize. Say yes to every client, every opportunity, and every demand, and eventually there is too little time and energy left to serve anyone properly.
A 2026 cross-sectional study of 250 entrepreneurs in Thailand found that entrepreneurial addiction was associated with both burnout and a greater intention to exit their businesses. The researchers’ statistical model indicated that burnout partly mediated that association.
There are two forces that make this trap particularly powerful: greed and comparison.
Comparison makes the problem worse. We see someone with a bigger house, faster car, larger company, or greater public profile and instinctively assume they must be happier.
We rarely stop to ask whether we would actually want their life, or what their success costs them.
Value is Personal
I spent part of my previous career in trading, where I learned about Market Profile. At its simplest, it describes how market activity concentrates around prices where participants perceive value.
That market price, however, does not necessarily represent the underlying value of an asset for every investor.
Business works similarly: Revenue has a number. Growth has a number. But value is personal.
A business can reach a point where another dollar of revenue costs more in time, relationships, culture, and peace of mind than that dollar is worth. At that point, saying no becomes an act of strategic discipline.
The stakes are even higher for service businesses. Relationships require attention. Expertise requires energy. Trust takes time. There is a finite amount of each. Pretending otherwise eventually damages the client experience and the entrepreneur’s life.
Company Culture
The same principle applies to company culture. Harvard Business Review has warned that companies which grow beyond their organizational capacity can weaken service quality, innovation and the culture that previously distinguished them.
The utopian version of entrepreneurship is therefore surprisingly simple.
A company grows at a pace its people can sustain. Clients receive excellent service. Employees understand the mission. The founder has time for family, health, and life outside work.
Financial success becomes a tool for living rather than a score that must perpetually increase.
The dystopian version is equally clear. The company grows beyond its capacity, relationships become transactional, culture fragments, and the founder becomes exhausted while still chasing the next milestone.
Eventually, the business may have more revenue while producing less of the life its founder originally wanted.
One Question
I believe entrepreneurs need to redefine what winning means.
That starts with three practical decisions. First, define the values that your business will never compromise.
Second, calculate the real cost of every major growth opportunity, including time, energy, culture, and relationships.
Third, establish clear criteria for saying no to clients, revenue, and opportunities that conflict with those values.
Working hard for something you genuinely care about is a choice. Sacrificing your relationships, your culture, and your internal peace for an ever-moving definition of “more” is also a choice.
Before pursuing the next client, the next million dollars, or the next expansion, every entrepreneur should ask one question: What will this growth cost me, and am I genuinely willing to pay the price?
If the answer is no, have the courage to say no.
That may be the most valuable business decision you ever make.
Maria Psarra is a London-based financial adviser and founder of Iris Wealth Management, an appointed representative of St. James’s Place Wealth Management. The views expressed in this article are her own.
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