This one is for any firm owner who feels like everything runs through them, who is quietly drowning, and who keeps promising to sort it out once this busy patch passes. If you cannot remember the last time you properly switched off, this is for you. And it does not matter whether you sell tax returns, cakes or software, the trap is the same.
I want to start with a question. If I asked you to take two full weeks off next month, phone in a drawer, no emails, no quick calls to put out a fire, could you? If your stomach just dropped, this episode is for you, and so is the whole series that follows it.
This is part one of a five part series I am calling Your Way Out. It is a step by step plan for taking yourself out of the day to day, so your firm can run, and actually grow, without you sat in the middle of it holding every thread together.
Before I teach you anything, I tell you the truth about the three years James and I spent in survival mode. The 5am starts, the twelve hour days, and the time we filed a client’s VAT return in the car on the way to give notice for our own wedding. I am honest about what it cost me, my friendships, my family, and a health scare I ignored for far too long.
Here is the reframe I want you to sit with. Your capacity problem is not a hands problem. It is a you problem. And you do not have the time not to fix it.
Today, we simply name it. Everything else, we build from there.
Key takeaways
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Your capacity problem is rarely about not enough people or hours. It is that everything has to route through you, and you are the bottleneck all the hours are stuck behind.
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The more your business needs you, the less it is worth. A firm that only works when you are in it is a very stressful job you happen to own, not an asset.
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Name your type before you try to fix anything. Most owners are some mix of the doer, the decider, the rescuer and the holder, and you cannot step out of a role you have not honestly named.
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Track one normal day in four buckets, doing, deciding, delegating and designing. Almost all of it will be doing and deciding, and the tiny sliver of designing is the part that actually grows your firm.
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Use the holiday test as your measuring stick. There is a world of difference between a business that merely survives without you and one that grows while you are gone.
Mentioned in this episode
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The free bottleneck diagnostic, a two minute quiz that tells you your type and your first move. It is the front door to the whole series.
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The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, check it out here
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Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz, where the four buckets of time come from, check it out here
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The full series behind the paywall, where we build your plan layer by layer:
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Part 2: Why you keep pulling yourself back in: Build your way out, listen here
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subscribe to get the full series here:
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Please do hit reply and let me know how you found this episode and don’t forget, if you’ve missed an episode of the pod so far, you can see all past episodes on demand here.
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Thanks for being the very best internet friends,
Rach X
