Can my own emotional attachment to the business distort what it's actually worth?

Yes, and this is one of the most common and understandable ways sellers end up with an asking price the market won't support. A business you built yourself, or have run for years, carries meaning that has nothing to do with its financial performance — the effort it took, the relationships you built, the identity it gave you — and it's natural for that meaning to bleed into what you feel it should be worth, even though a buyer is only ever paying for its earnings and risk profile.

The nuance is that this isn't a flaw to feel bad about; it's simply a reason to get an independent perspective before setting your price. A valuator or broker who has no emotional stake in the number can assess the business on its own financial merits, giving you something concrete to weigh your own sense of value against, rather than relying solely on how it feels to you.

If you notice yourself resisting a professional valuation that comes in lower than you expected, it's worth pausing to ask whether that resistance is about the numbers themselves or about what the business means to you. A business lawyer or valuator can help ground the conversation in evidence rather than sentiment.