Everyone dreams about starting their own company, but what they don't see is the millions of people who have imprisoned themselves in the process.

They started a business for freedom, but over time, the business has consumed every waking hour of their life. It sounded like fun because being an "entrepreneur" is cool, but what most successful people don't talk about is the harsh reality of running a successful company.

Millions of business owners, whether they're a solopreneur, a five-person firm, or an operation with fifty heads, owners are often working in "their" business.

Maybe that's you right now.

Any business that relies on one key person or even a few key people is at risk.

It's a myth to think that a business needs your time and attention every second of the day.

When it does, your business and quality of life suffer. Building a successful business doesn't require you to hustle your face off or track every hour your employees spend "at work."

That was me.

I'd spend fourteen hours a day working in my business until I realized that all I did was get sucked into the daily whirlwind of tasks and problems that relied on me to execute.

I was building a thriving company, but in the process, I constructed four walls around me that held me captive to every significant function and procedure.

Once I started to build a successful company without me, everything began to change. Focus and results are all that matter in building a great business (or career).

These principles are counter to what most people preach, but they're imperative to the success of any small business.

Move from working in your business to working on your business and optimizing it to succeed without you.

It's possible to build a thriving, highly optimized operation, but it requires changing your thinking.

Start with these core principles:

1/ Focus on priorities over productivity.

If you focus on everything, you focus on nothing.

The number of hours your team spends in the company is irrelevant. All that matters is whether results are being produced per the company's big objective and playbook.

Learn to do less, not more, and focus all your attention on the few things that matter the most.

2/ Automate yourself out of a job.

Doing manual work is never a high-value activity.

You should automate as much of the daily redundancy as you can. If you can get to a point where almost everything you do is automated, imagine where you can invest your time.

3/ Outsource before you insource.

Now is an incredible time to hire exceptional people from all over the world.

You should never hire or do business non-essentials. Outsourcing is crucial for a company to manage its finite resources while focusing on what's most important.

Jason Calacanis says, "If it's administrative or repeatable, outsource it," but remember to automate first.

Here are some examples he gives:

• Outsourcing product development / engineering (BAD)

• Outsourcing sales (BAD - sales should be founder-led in the early days!)

• Outsourcing HR (GOOD!)

• Outsourcing other administrative work (GOOD!)

4/ Delegate or die.

If everything is reliant on you, you're the biggest bottleneck, and your life will likely suffer as a result of it.

Jeff Seibert says it best:

"As the founder or CEO, you have one job. Look at where you're spending your time and fire yourself from that position."

"Perform the role, then hire someone better."

5/ Standardize everything.

Nothing should be left to memory or people making judgments on how to execute a routine procedure.

Every function of a company that's done at least once a year must have a Standard Operation Procedure (SOP)

6/ Focus on results, not time.

All that matters in business is if results are being produced.

Results vary depending on the company, which is clearly outlined in the company playbook.

Don't manage people's time; manage results.

7/ Complacency will slowly kill the company.

Never become blind to operating on auto-pilot.

Hiring great people and building incredible systems is essential, but they should always be stress tested.

Having more time to focus on the things that matter will allow you to continually innovate and eliminate waste.

Working hard is a thing of the past. Instead, what's vastly more important is working smart.

Anybody can work hard at useless priorities that don't have a massive impact.

Instead of letting work consume your life, focus on the things that matter the most. Once you have a clear picture of what's most important, you can build people and systems around those priorities.

Remember: if everything is important, nothing is.

You can build a great business; you just need to reevaluate what you're doing and make small changes that compound over multiple quarters and years.