“We only get one go at this thing we call life.”

That thought hit me hard a few weeks ago when I lost someone close. It happened tragically and without warning. It forced me to pause, to ask whether I was spending my days and my business energy on what truly mattered.

When we lose someone we love, our lasting regrets aren’t about missed deals or late proposals. They’re about the unspoken words and the roads not taken. At the end, our only regrets will be:

• Not carving out enough time for the people we love.
• Not chasing the passions that get us out of bed in the morning.
• Not daring to take the risks that make life, and business, worth living.

That realization is the spark we need for living in alignment—where your personal “why” and your firm’s “why” point in the same direction.

Start with You: The Core Circle of Influence

Scott Adams, in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, describes concentric circles of influence: you at the center, then family, friends, community, and beyond. You can’t change the outer rings until you first master your own life.

At my first agency, I poured everything into serving my team, often at my own expense. Burnout followed, and I realized that a “people-first” promise means little if the leader is running on empty.

This doesn't mean that you take care of yourself at the expense of your people, but it is your job to find a way to take care of yourself while you take care of your people, in service of your clients.

The words "people-first" are present on hundreds, if not thousands, of consulting firm websites. While some of these are just lip service, many are genuine visions of how the founders want to run their firms. But when you look under the hood, you find that many of these founders are running on empty, just like I was. As a leader, I recommend you create incentive systems that reward your well-being as much as client success, and guard your energy fiercely; your ability to lead depends on it.

Different Life Stages; Different Needs

When my family moved from Minneapolis to Scottsdale—and we were about to welcome our second daughter—the agency model I’d built no longer fit my life. The democratic decision-making we’d cultivated slowed every pivot. Key clients and staff resisted a shift toward consultancy. In the end, I had to make tough staffing and delivery changes to regain alignment.

I look back and see how unclear everything felt in the moment. I wasn’t just reworking a business; I was reshaping my life.

I have now ran a business through several life stages: a major family health crisis, the birth of two children, a cross-country move, and turning 40 (that pesky mid-life crisis) and I can tell you that your needs will inevitably change, and it is important to keep yourself in alignment as that happens.

You need to ensure that you continuously align your needs to the needs of the business, and when that gets out of alignment, you need to either adjust your business, or your role within it.

When I do posotioning work with my boutique firm founder clients, I ask them what work is required for them to effectively position (or reposition) their business in the desired way. And then I ask them whether they are willing to do that necessary work, based on where they are in their life.

The gut reaction is often "yes, of course!" But when I ask them to really reflect about their owner's intent, sometimes their answer changes, and that requires some serious self-awareness and difficult decisions to be made. I have had clients who after this decided to bring on a partner, sell their business, or promote a few key employees to leadership positions and relinquish a certain amount of control.

Your Stakeholders Sense Misalignment

When you’re out of sync, your team and your clients feel it—even if they can’t name the cause. Your people may sense you’re distracted; clients may feel you’re half-present.

As a leader, you need to watch for soft signals: delayed feedback loops, muted enthusiasm, client grumblings. These symptoms can have many causes, but if you see them, use the opportunity to check your own alignment, rather than firing off more to-dos and giving yet another motivational speech.

If you don't take care of yourself first, your business will struggle.

It's OK to Be Selfish (With Purpose)

Your business is your baby, and you may have a need to do right by your people no matter the cost. That may be an admirable trait, but at the end of the day a boutique firm exists to serve its founders’ vision—delivering exceptional client work while sustaining the people who make it happen.

That means it's ok to put yourself first. Remember, when it comes time to call it quits on this life, You won’t regret how many late nights you pulled. You will regret the dinners skipped, the trips canceled, the conversations postponed.

Practical Steps to Stay in Alignment

Life is never in perfect balance. The pendulum is always swinging. Alignment is not the same as work-life balance. It's about ensuring that you are able to generally take care of yourself, meet your owner's intent, all while living and operating by your values. This will require hard work and sacrifice.

You can make this happen by doing the following:

• Play to your zone of genius. Find the things you really enjoy doing in your business, and the things you are also uniquely best at, and do as much of these things as possible. Delegate as much of the rest as you can.
• Curate your team. Identify the types of people you really enjoy working with, and those who are uniquely good at their jobs. Hire as many of them as you can, and empower them to make decisions.
• Own your calendar. Block time for deep work, family, and personal passions. Build backwards to maximize these three things. Build the business model, build the systems, build the schedule that allows you to focus on these things. I personally block off time for a morning walk with my dog, a daily workout around lunchtime, and school pickup and dropoff for my oldest daughter, as well as all her dance recitals, piano performances, and school events.

Final Thought

Alignment isn’t a one-and-done exercise; it’s an ongoing discipline. As your life and your firm evolve, so too must the match between them. Clarity about who you are and why you do this work will keep you, and everyone you lead, on a path that’s not just profitable, but profoundly purposeful.

How aligned are you with your business? If you want help clearly defining your owner's intent and creating personal alignment, reach out. I have recently found myself helping some of my clients with this.