Run your life like a business.
There was a period in my thirties where my life looked stable on the outside but felt strangely un-led on the inside. I wasn’t falling apart per-say, but I wasn’t moving toward anything either. My days were full but directionless. I’d wake up, handle whatever felt urgent, deal with whatever landed in front of me, fall asleep exhausted, and then repeat the whole cycle the next morning. Nothing was “wrong,” but also nothing was being steered in any sort of meaningful direction.
It took me a long time to understand what was going on;
I simply hadn’t stepped into the role that my own life required of me.
There was effort, but zero strategy.
Motion, but no leadership.
Hope, but no direction.
I think a lot of us run our lives the way junior employees run their first job - reactive, unsure, hoping things “settle down,” waiting for instruction, tolerating chaos, relying on bursts of motivation that never last. We drift along. We cope. We survive. But we do not lead.
A business with no CEO will eventually collapse. Spectacularly.
A life with no CEO will stagnate. Indefinitely.
At some point you have to stop being the overworked employee in your own company and become the person responsible for steering it in the right direction. And the moment that shift happens, everything else begins to organise itself around that decision. Your habits will become operational. Your decisions become structural. Your identity becomes the brand.
The following is about stepping into that role properly. Not as a metaphor, but as a workable operating system for adulthood. Because when you finally take ownership of the seat at the head of your own table, your life stops happening to you and starts responding to you.
Strategy: What Game Are You Playing?
Businesses have a mission. A USP. A direction. A reason to exist.
Most adults don’t. We confuse movement with progress; a blur of messages, small fires, emotional labour, and “urgent” tasks that feel productive but build nothing. We work hard with no strategy, and strategy is the only thing that turns effort into results.
A CEO would never let a company run without a plan.
Yet many of us run our life without one.
Strategy is not a five-year fantasy or a Pinterest mood board. It’s three questions:
Who are you becoming?
What are you building?
What future are you steering toward?
These questions give structure to your days.
Without them, everything defaults to whatever screams for your attention the loudest.
When you have a north star, your days become investments.
When you don’t, your days fade into reaction.
Leadership starts the moment you decide what game you’re actually playing.
Metrics: What Gets Measured Improves
No serious business runs without tracking performance. This isn’t because numbers are exciting, but because your reality matters more than your feelings.
I think historically I avoided measurement because I didn't want to confront the truth - that I’d rather maintain the illusion of “I’m doing okay” than see the data that might prove otherwise.
I’m assuming that if you’ve read this far, you feel the same about your own data, or lack thereof.
But your life already has metrics:
How often you train.
How well you sleep.
How much deep work you actually produce.
How much time you waste.
How often you keep promises to yourself.
How quickly you get derailed by emotion or distraction.
Dan Koe describes attention as RAM - the limited bandwidth you have each day. Without clarity, entropy eats that bandwidth alive, and you find yourself exhausted by things you can’t even remember doing.
Measurement isn’t pressure.
Measurement is awareness.
Most people don’t lack motivation.
They lack data.
Once you begin tracking your behaviour, things stop being vague. Habits become visible. Patterns become undeniable. And your time stops leaking into the cracks of an unconscious routine.
Systems: Rely on Structure, Not Mood
Businesses don’t rely on motivation because motivation is unreliable. It fluctuates. It evaporates when things become difficult. Instead, they rely on systems - a stable, predictable framework that operates independently of mood.
Your life works the same way.
If you rely on how you feel, you will lose. Your feelings are inconsistent. Systems are steady. Systems prevent the daily negotiation that drains your willpower - “Should I train today?” “Should I focus?” “Should I start?” - and replace it with simple, repeatable sequences.
We think they have a discipline problem, but really we have an environment problem. Our mornings begin in chaos. Our phone is the first thing we see. Our priorities are borrowed instead of chosen. We spend the first hours of the day putting out emotional fires and then wonder why the rest of the day collapses into chaos.
Systems eliminate the decisions that exhaust you before you begin.
A system might be:
A grounding morning routine before the world intrudes.
A training schedule that happens regardless of enthusiasm.
A deep-work window without your phone in the room.
An evening routine that signals to your nervous system that it’s time to decompress, not scroll.
Entropy plays a part too; the mind’s natural slide into disorder when left unmanaged. Without systems, entropy wins. Your attention scatters. Your intentions dissolve. Chaos becomes your default.
But with systems, the opposite happens:
Effort compounds.
Identity shifts.
Momentum becomes sustainable.
Systems don’t restrict you.
Systems free you from the chaos of your own mood.
Leadership: Think Like a CEO, Not an Employee. Employees wait.
CEOs decide.
Employees need accountability.
CEOs create it.
Employees want permission.
CEOs give it.
I think most of us would admit, we are terrible employees for ourselves. We break our own deadlines. We cancel on ourselves. We prioritise other people’s expectations over our own future. We show up for everyone else and abandon anything that would meaningfully improve our lives.
Leadership is not perfection.
Leadership is clarity.
The CEO version of you sets direction.
The employee version of you executes it.
A successful life that is moving in the right direction, requires both versions to show up consistently.
Decisions matter. Habits matter. Time matters. Treat yourself as someone whose future is worth protecting.
Boundaries: Protect the Asset
A business that allows unlimited demands to flow through its doors inevitably implodes; not because its team is weak, but because its resources weren’t protected.
Your life is built on the same principle.
You are the asset.
If the asset is exhausted, distracted, or quietly resentful, nothing grows.
It seems to me that a lot of people treat their attention like a public resource - accessible to anyone, at any time, for any reason. A message appears and they answer. A request arrives and they comply. Someone offloads emotional weight and they absorb it out of habit, not intention.
Your life can’t scale if everything gains access.
Protecting the asset isn’t selfish.
It’s structural hygiene.
It’s knowing that your future depends on the quality of your present attention.
This means cutting access decisively.
It means saying no without diluting it.
It means walking away from environments where dysfunction is normal.
It means designing your surroundings so the stronger version of you is the default, not the exception.
Think like a founder:
Every “yes” has a cost.
Every “no” has a return.
Your boundaries determine your bandwidth, and your bandwidth determines your trajectory.
Your future simply cannot afford an unprotected asset.
protocol; (Quarterly Reviews)
This is where leadership becomes a system.
Every 90 days, sit down with a notebook - not your phone - and run a personal audit with the honesty of a CEO reviewing the quarter. No performance is meaningful without reflection, and no reflection is meaningful without honesty.
Forget intention.
Forget excuses.
Look at reality.
Ask yourself;
What direction did I actually move in?
Where did I waste time?
Where did I perform?
What improved because of me?
What declined because of me?
Which habits strengthened me?
Which patterns sabotaged me?
What truth did I avoid?
What did I tolerate that cost momentum?
The goal isn’t to judge yourself - it’s to notice where you’re drifting off course.
Quarterly honesty prevents yearly regret.
It course-corrects your behaviour before it calcifies.
It keeps you in the CEO seat.
Every 90 days, return to reality and let it shape your next quarter.
Long-Game Thinking: Build Identity, Not Dopamine
When you run your life like a business, you stop thinking in terms of days and start thinking in terms of decades. You understand that the work you do today is not about immediate reward - it’s about building a sustainable infrastructure.
Weak businesses chase trends.
Weak people chase dopamine.
Strong businesses build systems.
Strong people build identity.
Your habits are assets that appreciate.
Your skills are capital you reinvest.
Your attention is currency - and once you see it that way, you will stop spending it on things that weaken you.
Long-game thinking frees you from the constant hunger for excitement. You stop mistaking boredom for failure. You understand that most real growth happens quietly, subtly, in the boardroom of repetitive effort.
The gym doesn’t feel transformative day to day.
Neither does deep work.
Neither does self-respect.
But everything that is strong is built slowly.
The purpose of running your life like a business isn’t to become hyper-efficient, it’s to create a structure that protects you from chaos, withstands pressure, and compounds your efforts into long-term freedom: physical, emotional, financial, psychological.
Identity outlasts emotion.
Infrastructure outlasts impulse.
Freedom is built, not found.
Stop living like an employee in your own life.
Step into the boardroom.
Your future doesn’t need more motivation.
It needs leadership.
Take Care
- James
