Separation Sunday: How High Performers Build Million-Dollar Businesses Without Burnout

Introduction

What truly separates high performers from everyone else in business? In this enlightening conversation with Doza, a successful entrepreneur who transformed from corporate employee to million-dollar business owner, we discover it's not about effort or time invested—it's about working towards outcomes. Doza shares his journey from selling pizza slices at school to building and selling multi-million dollar fitness studios, and reveals his powerful "Separation Sunday" system that has helped countless entrepreneurs design businesses they don't need to escape from.

From Corporate Dropout to Entrepreneurial Success

Doza's entrepreneurial spirit emerged early. As a school student, he recognized an opportunity when Pizza Hut announced their delivery service. Noticing long lines at his school cafeteria and students' dissatisfaction with the food options, he implemented a simple but brilliant business model: buying whole pizzas for $5 and selling individual slices for $5 each—turning $5 into $40.

Despite this early business acumen, Doza initially followed the traditional path, spending 15-20 years in corporate roles at some of Australia's largest enterprises. However, he never felt he belonged.

"I was just looking around the room and I was like, this isn't for me. I feel like I'm in some sort of a mold here."

His eventual transition to entrepreneurship came with significant challenges. Opening his first gym in Sydney led to a series of mistakes that nearly ruined him financially:

"That first year I made every single bad decision I could make...I hit every branch on the way down, every single one of them to the point where we were broke."

The turning point came during a particularly desperate moment. With his wife Michelle eight months pregnant, a new home with a million-dollar mortgage, and zero dollars in the bank, Doza faced his first "defining moment." Instead of giving up, he took complete ownership of his business's outcomes. He stayed up all night learning digital marketing, created his first ad campaign, developed his sales script, and secured his first client—a pivotal experience he describes as feeling "like when Peter Parker realized he was Spider-Man."

What High Performance Actually Looks Like

According to Doza, the fundamental difference between high performers and everyone else boils down to one principle: working to outcomes instead of focusing on effort or time invested.

"The difference for us in high performance isn't their mood and how they feel about how they're going. It's quite simply they work to outcomes."

High performers understand what winning looks like and do whatever it takes to achieve those results. This outcome-focused approach has become a core principle in Doza's business, both internally and with the clients in his academy.

The high-performance mindset requires:

1. Setting clear, measurable outcomes
2. Taking complete ownership of results
3. Developing systems to track and achieve those outcomes
4. Finding solutions rather than making excuses

Doza emphasizes that this approach must be applied consistently: "If you win more weeks than not, I promise you your life will completely change. You'll be driving a different car, you'll be in a different house, you'll be making different kind of money."

The Separation Sunday System

The cornerstone of Doza's success philosophy is what he calls "Separation Sunday"—a 20-minute weekly ritual that has transformed his business and personal life. The name comes from the concept of separating yourself from both the competition and "a previous version of me that I don't want to be anymore."

The system consists of four key components:

1. Review-Preview

Begin by reviewing the past week through three lenses:

• Diamonds: Your wins
• Rocks: Your losses and lessons
• Stars: What you're excited about for the week ahead

2. Win the Week

Decide in advance what needs to happen across four dimensions for you to consider the week successful:

• Work
• Personal health
• Wealth
• Relationships

3. Time Blocking

Schedule exactly when you'll complete each task that contributes to your "win the week" goals.

4. Commit to Three

Identify the three most important tasks to accomplish each day of the upcoming week, assigning specific days and times to create momentum.

The culmination of this system is what Doza calls "F**k Yeah Friday"—reaching the end of the week with the satisfaction of having accomplished your most important goals. As he explains:

"I want everyone in my team to get to 5:00, 5:30 on a Friday and just go 'f**k yeah, I did it.'"

Doza's clients who implement this system consistently report dramatic improvements in their businesses and personal lives—and they immediately notice when they miss a week.

Balancing Business Ambition with Relationships

One of the most challenging aspects of entrepreneurship is maintaining healthy relationships while pursuing ambitious business goals. Doza candidly shares his struggles to balance work with being a supportive husband and father.

The key to navigating these challenges, he discovered, is establishing "prior agreements" with both business partners and family members. Instead of feeling guilty or asking for permission after the fact, Doza recommends:

1. Setting goals and terms together: At the beginning of the year, sit down with your spouse or business partner to align not just on what you want to achieve, but on the terms needed to make it happen.
2. Being explicit about expectations: Clear communication about when you'll be working, when you'll be available, and what support you need helps prevent misunderstandings.
3. Creating structure around important activities: For example, Doza schedules three separate CEO retreats throughout the year, pre-booking the dates and arranging family support in advance.
4. Having uncomfortable conversations: When tension arose with his business partner, a forced conversation revealed they were both harboring misunderstandings. Clearing the air transformed their relationship.

"Everyone almost needs to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and having tough conversations with your business partner or any partner in your life to make sure that you guys are fully in alignment."

Building a Mission-Led Business

Doza's philosophy has evolved beyond personal success to creating businesses with deeper meaning. He observes that "once you've solved money problems, there's other bigger opportunities to serve and to contribute to society."

This shift in perspective is reflected in how he measures success:

"What genuinely is more of a reflex for me is not that I become better, but do my team become better under my leadership? Under my umbrella, do they become better, do they achieve and unlock different parts of their life?"

The power of having a clear mission is evident in how Doza's team has flourished. In just one month, team members bought houses, became investors, and moved into forever homes—accomplishments that Doza finds more fulfilling than simply hitting financial targets.

The foundation of this mission-driven approach comes back to clarity of vision:

"If there's anything that I'm shaking your people with right now, it's just decide what do you want. Once you decide and you write it down and you tell people, something magical happens."

Conclusion: Design Your Life and Business Intentionally

The overarching message from Doza's journey is that entrepreneurial success requires intentional design rather than reacting to circumstances. As he powerfully states:

"Everything in life is either by design because you've intentionally designed it as the chief designer of your own life, or it's by disappointment and regret."

The Separation Sunday system provides a framework for that intentional design—a way to build "a life and a business that you don't need to escape from." By consistently focusing on outcomes, establishing clear agreements with partners and family, and creating meaningful missions that inspire teams, entrepreneurs can transform their businesses while avoiding burnout.