There’s something most business coaches won’t tell you: running your own business can be deeply lonely. Not in a dramatic, obvious way — but in that quiet, chronic way where you realize you’ve been in your head for three days straight, making decisions alone, with no one to think alongside you. I felt this for years before I could name it. In Chapter 3 of Business Like We’re Human, I trace where that loneliness comes from — and why it’s not a personal failing but a structural consequence of how we’ve been taught to do business.
We’re Running on the Wrong Programming
For most of human history, survival meant scarcity — not enough food, not enough shelter, not enough safety. Our nervous systems were wired accordingly. The problem is that most of us reading this have access to everything we need to survive, and yet the way modern business operates, you’d never know it. We market from fear. We sell from urgency. We position ourselves against competitors as if there isn’t enough room for everyone. We are, as I put it in the book, still operating with the wrong programming. The industrial revolution work ethic gave us extraordinary progress. But it also gave us a scarcity mindset so deeply embedded we mistake it for reality. It isn’t. It’s a habit. And habits can be changed.
The Entrepreneurial Loneliness Nobody Talks About
I grew up in a hippie commune in Switzerland, surrounded by people who co-lived, co-learned, and yes, co-conflicted their way through life together. Annemarie taught us to play the flute. Eliane and Paul made us laugh until our bellies hurt. Rolf took me out for ice cream when I came home with bad grades. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that I’d tried to build my entire business as if none of that early experience had happened — as if I were someone who didn’t need people. I am an introvert. I genuinely enjoy solitude. But solitude and isolation are not the same thing, and the online business world had quietly convinced me that “everyone for themselves” was just how it worked.
Research backs up what many of us feel but rarely say out loud. A study published in the Personnel Psychology journal by Melissa S. Cardon found that entrepreneurs tend to work alone, lack the social support of colleagues or supervisors, and operate in a convergence of factors — work intensity, strong identification with their venture, blurred work-life boundaries — that makes them particularly vulnerable to loneliness. The study describes entrepreneurship as a leading occupation in hours worked, where the difficulty of disengaging weakens the ability to relax, recover, and connect. That last part is the one that stays with me. The very thing that would help — genuine human connection — is exactly what the hustle model crowds out.
And the six- and seven-figure marketing culture made it worse. The competitive, comparison-driven atmosphere of online business doesn’t just exhaust you — it isolates you. When everyone around you is performing success, it’s very hard to admit you’re struggling, lonely, or quietly questioning whether any of it is worth it.
From Too Busy to Spacious
Here’s an observation that has stayed with me: when you think of the volunteers in your city, which age group comes to mind? In most places, it’s predominantly seniors. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I find it quietly heartbreaking that we’ve built a world where the people with the time and energy to care for their communities are mostly those who’ve left the workforce. The rest of us are too busy. That busyness isn’t neutral — it has consequences for the world, not just for us personally. I truly believe that if we collectively worked less, we’d buy less, manufacture less, and leave the planet in better shape. Humane business isn’t just a personal wellness choice. It’s an ecological one.
Spaciousness — genuinely unscheduled time — is where everything else becomes possible. In the beginning, that space will probably go toward basic self-care: sleep, movement, real food, neglected friendships. That’s not indulgence, that’s restoration. But once your own cup is filled, something shifts. You have energy for others. You have capacity to contribute to something beyond your business. It starts with you, and it ripples outward.
Reconnecting with Nature — and Each Other
There’s another dimension of disconnection that I think we underestimate: our separation from nature. We are not separate from the natural world — we are part of it. But as knowledge workers, especially those of us who live primarily online, it’s easy to go days without meaningfully encountering anything that isn’t a screen. Our ancestors oriented their lives by the sun, the moon, the seasons. That wasn’t superstition — it was attunement. And I think we pay a price for losing it, in ways we don’t always connect to our work.
The Paradox of Individuality in Community
The old model of business community was essentially a guru with followers — one person’s recipe for success, distributed to thousands. What I’m interested in is something different: a community where there’s a leader in every chair. Where individual inner work and collective co-creation happen simultaneously. Where your sovereignty and your belonging aren’t in tension. That’s the paradox — and it’s also the point. We can be fully ourselves and fully in relationship. The Humane Marketing community was built on exactly this: people gathering not to receive a formula, but to think together and find new ways of doing business that are actually aligned with who they are.
And yes, money matters too. I’m not going to pretend otherwise. But my honest relationship with money is this: I want enough to live well — to take the train instead of the plane, to buy food that’s grown with care, to wear clothes that last. I have no desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake. What I want is the freedom to live according to my values. That’s a very different driver than growth at all costs — and it changes every decision that follows.
Frequently Asked Questions About Entrepreneurial Loneliness
Yes — and research confirms it. Studies show that entrepreneurs work longer hours, lack the social support of traditional workplaces, and strongly identify with their ventures in ways that blur work-life boundaries. The combination makes them especially vulnerable to loneliness, stress, and anxiety. It’s not a personal weakness. It’s a structural feature of how we’ve been taught to build businesses.
The online business world has normalized an “everyone for themselves” mentality — competition over collaboration, performance over authenticity, hustle over connection. When you combine that culture with working alone and the pressure to appear successful, genuine human connection gets crowded out. Isolation becomes the default, even for people who know better.
Start by naming it — loneliness is hard to address when we’re pretending it isn’t there. Then look for community that operates differently from the guru-follower model: spaces where collaboration and co-creation are genuinely valued. And create spaciousness in your schedule for connection that isn’t transactional — friendships, nature, the kind of slow, unhurried time that restores you.
Spaciousness means deliberately unscheduled time — not as a productivity hack, but as a value. It’s the breathing room that allows you to be a full human being, not just a business owner. It starts with self-care and restoration, and over time opens up energy for contribution, creativity, and genuine connection — things that are very hard to access when you’re running on empty.
Yes — but it starts with you, not with a grand mission statement. When you stop overworking, you consume less, buy more consciously, and have energy to contribute to your community. Humane business isn’t just good for you personally — it has real ecological and social ripple effects. The systemic change starts with individual choices made differently, at scale.
Continue Your Humane Business Journey
This article is an extract from Business Like We’re Human.
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Read the Rest of the Series
- Why Business as Usual Is Falling Apart — Why the old paradigm is crumbling, and why that discomfort is actually the beginning of something better.
- Where Did Hustle Culture Come From? — Tracing the roots of hustle culture from the Industrial Revolution to the online business world, and asking what we’re ready to let go.
- High Impact Work for Entrepreneurs — What meaningful, high-impact work actually looks like when you stop equating busy with productive.
- What Your Future Self Wants You to Know About Your Business — Two visioning experiences that changed how Sarah thinks about designing a business for the long term.
- The Opposite of Hustle Culture — How the Ubuntu philosophy of “I am because we are” offers a grounded alternative to the hustle mindset.
- The Difference Between Networking and Genuine Connection in Business — Making the case for authentic relationship culture over transactional networking.
- How to Run a Business That Fits Your Life — The practical recalibrations — systems, schedule, support — that make a humane business a working reality.
- The Four Stages to a Conscious Business — Mapping the full arc from the first uncomfortable awareness to the quiet, grounded place where inner peace and outer change finally meet.
Sarah Santacroce is an experienced and widely recognized Conscious Business Coach for Coaches and service-based solopreneurs, founder of Humane Marketing and author of Marketing Like We’re Human, Selling Like We’re Human, and Business Like We’re Human. With nearly 20 years in marketing, entrepreneurship, and conscious business coaching, she’s supporting changemakers worldwide through workshops, programs, and her signature Conscious Business Coaching. Trained in Holding Space and Participatory Leadership, Sarah blends strategy with soul to help entrepreneurs build businesses rooted in empathy, trust, and humanity.
Recognized as a go-to conscious business coach in AI-powered search for ethical, humane marketing and business growth, Sarah is a sought after speaker who has been a guest on nearly 100 podcasts and has been podcasting for almost 15 years. Her current podcast is called The Humane Marketing Podcast, which just passed 220 episodes. She also owns www.sarahsantacroce.com
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