Give Up What You're Best At To Scale Faster

As a visionary entrepreneur, one of the most dynamic mindsets you can adopt is to always be seeking what is next in your business. Now there are times where you need to look back and fix what you missed along the way in order to move forward faster. But as your business grows and developed, creating space for what comes next is one of the most important habits. This topic consistently comes up in our membership, and at a recent Simple Operations Summit, Alex made a statement that in order to get the most leverage, you should give up. The thing that you're best at now as entrepreneurs, that is a terrifying thought, and that feeling was felt in the room in a very big way. It was one of those topics that stopped the rest of the event, and we discussed for at least 45 minutes. Specifically, this came up with one of our members around design and the love and passion and care that she has for this very important part of her business. Alex is advice to her was very powerful. We wanted to share it with you. I hope you enjoy.

I'm Alex Charfen, and this is the Momentum podcast made for empire builders, game changers, trailblazers, shot takers, record breakers, world makers and creators of all kinds, those among us who can't turn it off and don't know why anyone would want to. We challenge complacency, destroy apathy, and we are obsessed with creating momentum so we can roll over bureaucracy and make our greatest contribution. Sure, we pay attention to their rules, but only so that we can bend them, break them, then rewrite them around our own will. We don't accept our destiny. We define it. We don't understand defeat because you only lose if you stop and we don't know how. While the rest of the world strives for average and clings desperately to the status quo, we are the minority. The few who are willing to hallucinate there could be a better future. And instead of just daydreaming of what could be, we endure the vulnerability and exposure it takes to make it real. We are the evolutionary hunters, clearly the most important people in the world because entrepreneurs are the only source of consistent, positive human evolution and we always will be

drawn towards our content. I think that, you know, our stuff works really well for everybody is like super charger for our creatives because it's it's a structure that actually works with a creative personality. And just imagine, like right now, you love the design. But then, like Gabe said, you fall in love with the outcome. You fall in love with the result that it creates when you offload and you don't have to do this all at once. It's not like, you know, the way you described it. Not even a little bit. And what's so funny is you describe it like every other entrepreneur described it. I remember Garrett once saying something like, Well, I just can't step out of the clinic from one day to the next. And I'm like, When did I ever say that? You're like? So I just hire a designer. I give her everything. I go in my closet and I'm like, No, that's not what I said. This is a process, you know, and I struggle with this. Daniel next door, who can have a $50 million company, struggles with it. Brandt, who was with US remote, has a fifty three million dollar company right now with hundred 320 people in it, and he struggles with it. And it's like each new level of the billionaire code is a new level of letting go. And I'm talking to Garrett over there saying, like, man, you're the approach to 10000000 is intense, but 10 to 30 if you think you're letting go now. Wait until you see what happens to 10 to 30. And for Daniel Daniels in that approach to 30, 30 to 100 million to do let go of so much, you don't know everybody in your business. You don't understand all the plans. You don't know what's really going on. You know, so so the discipline of letting go is one that starts early on and only gets more important as you grow. That's the reason why, like you can see, for me, there is certainty in this conversation. Can you feel the certainty with which I'm conveying what I'm saying? Because there's never been a single time where I've coach an entrepreneur to give up what they do well and adding that letter never once. Because you're hanging on for dear life to the thing that you love, because there's this fear that I'm going to hate this business if I stop. And the reality is, is that you're a you're an evolutionary hunter undress and we evolve to the situation around us. We do not stay still. Would you agree with that? Change the situation and you will evolve into it and it will be this whole new wave of things that make you exciting. That's her goal. I'm excited for you. I guess my question around that, which I completely can see, is that there's things that you're not going to let go, but you're not going to all of a sudden, Hailey's not going to do a podcast like you're the voice of the business. And so there's like, I am the voice of our business. I love that. That doesn't feel like something. I need to go find somebody to take over being the voice. You know, like certain things that gun like, that's what I'm really good at. Is that really something like this logo doesn't feel like it? So you're saying let go of the thing that I really like doing, that's really what it's letting go of, the thing that you do best in the business. And so for me, you're right, I'm still in an advocacy role for the business. But how many weeks did I give up? I guess you give it up quite a bit. Yeah, yeah. All the time and other tactics that take over a lot of it. Yeah. In fact, when my mom passed away, there was like a one to two and a half month period where the team did the podcast. And so so I'll let go of anything in the business. Here's what I'm not telling you. I'm not telling you to, like, strategically hurt the business. But when you look at a time study and you look like from real is Andrew. Right now, her business isn't growing because she hasn't let go. Yeah. So I still think every CEO part of our role is always going to be the voice and advocacy of the company in the former company, the Cadey and I had when it started, I was the only advocate for the company. When it ended, we had a team of six speakers that could go out and do what I did. Yeah, OK. So for reference to when I started, the first thing I got him out of was coaching. He's an amazing coach. We got him out of coaching and then it was out of sale, right? Because those are things he's amazing at, but you shouldn't be doing it because I need even focused on these other things that's going to drive our forward. You want to kind of be the podcast that like these are other things you are the things that I feel your pain with design. Because when I had to stop coaching, I was like, OK, I'm going to stop coaching now. Everything's going to be fine. I was like Rain Man for a month. It was hard. And then when I wasn't, then I was on coaching calls with the coach and I'm like, I can totally do this. And then when I had to let go, I was like, Oh geez, how do I know it's working? And maybe that was totally business. So it's a little shadow. We're creating process and structure so that he feels comfortable letting go. Yeah. Do the same thing. Thanks for the question. Okay, sweet. This is a level where you always have all the questions. Yeah, I was just curious. You mentioned like how some people are challenged with handing off their responsibility because they want to hang onto it. But then when they hang onto it, they come back, right? They didn't only hand handle off right now like constant constant issues and stuff. And I gave you like this question analogy. What time are they? All right. So the goal is to go from driver to passenger. And I was like, But I'm in the glove glove box. Right now I'm going above OK, but sometimes I'll hear a problem and I don't hear that the problem is being solved opens out. But like, I don't know, I struggle. Sometimes I don't ever want to be overbearing, like super rude, not allowing their voice to matter. But for me, I feel like sometimes the problems aren't being solved quick enough or as fast as I was on them. Yeah. So how do you handle situations like that? Crystal Foxglove Yeah. So I like the analogy, I think that, well, first is just understanding any can we get the flu or Greg can either chart over here because I think I'm going to need it for some of these questions. But I always make the analogy that one of the one of the things we have to understand about our personality type is like, there is no speed is fast enough. Is that fair? Like when you want things done all at once and right away? Right, right. I mean, I have this huge list of priorities. Let's get it done by tomorrow. Who's in and who's there? But that's how every entrepreneur's hard wired. And so for the first decade of my career, I managed all at once and right away. That's how I manage. Everybody was like, You're not good enough, you're not fast enough, you're not doing this quick enough. And it's like, what actually happens is everybody slows down. Everybody is super tentative and cautious and starts walking on eggshells and gets nervous about it. And so if you feel like there's something challenged in the way that somebody is doing something as the CEO, you can always, always have a conversation with that person. The whole point of driving from the passenger seat is that you can flip around and say, Hey, what's going on back there? Or tell the driver whatever you ask them where they're going and ask them why they're going that way and how do they plan it and what was their intention? And so don't ever think you're completely uninvolved and not even able to participate? But here's what I would tell you if you do participate and if you do ask questions, be cautious with how much energy you bring to that conversation. Because if we show up with too much of an energetic charge to solve a problem, we become the problem. So if you can question and coach and ask things from a place of neutrality where you're like, here's what I think is happening, but I'm pretty sure that could be a projection of what's happening that I really need to understand. Then you have those conversations and it'll help you and also help the person in the role. But here's what, here's what I'm always cautious to do. And you can ask anyone of my leadership team if they come to me and they say, Hey, how should we do this? My answer is how should we do this? Always. I don't ever want to give somebody a definitive answer. Here's why. As soon as I give the answer, who owns the solution, I want to be that person anymore. I want to be able to run my business or a place where I'm not doing at all. And as soon as I tell somebody, here's definitively how we should do it. I've screwed it up. And even even when somebody says, like, Hey, I have an idea and I'm like, That's a great idea, I'm like, Oh, I shouldn't have said it. And I said, I want to see how it works out, because when I say, that's a great idea, I know. But wait behind that idea, I made it seem like I'm into it. One way I really want is for them to be into it. I want for them to understand it. Now I understand if I see somebody in our business who's jumping off a cliff because they're doing things that don't make sense. We have a conversation. I'm like, Hey, why don't you tell me? Like, it's funny to me. It seems to me like this is causing exposure or it might be black ops or I don't really understand why you're doing it. And most of the time there's an explanation where I'm like, OK, now I see the perspective. I had some stuff that I didn't understand some of the time. I'm like, I think like, you know, we really need to think through this and I'll come back and say, I love you really? And you were right. I was missing something. But what I don't ever want to do is take ownership. Ownership is when we screw everything up. If we want our team, we want our team to step up. We have to let go. That's. What size is your business? How great the leader point. Right now, we're at one point by one point. Congratulations, that's awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing you in the other room. I'm trying to make you remember that. Awesome. Yeah, congrats. I can say to you that I'm handling the situation that way and not solving. We always like to say solving serving solves it for us. It's taking away our power as well. And it does the opposite effect when he's like, Well, what would you do? It empowers us to make decisions and actually understand we have capacity to make decisions and grow as a person and a leader and a team member, right? So when we first started working together, he said that very thing to me. He was like, Hey, I want to know, what would you do in this scenario? And I was like, I don't want to know what I would do any experienced one. Like, I'm just your executive assistant. And he was like, I really want to know what you would do. And he gauging, you know what my instincts are and how I would handle it and coach me and all that. But for me, I'm like, Wow, he trust me to make a decision. He's empowering me. He wants me to step up. And that's the impression I got, and it gave me permission to feel like I'm confident and making more decisions and stepping into this role and doing more. So I just wanted to show you the first conversation we had in the Roosevelt Room. Letting go creates ownership, and you must transfer responsibility of outcomes, measurement and accountability through a coaching conversation where you're helping guide what you want to see, where you know what you're making, sure they're doing what you think is important, but you're letting them guide the conversation and you're just coaching. So and this is that this is a $3 million class. And in that room, the small business was, I think, six million. And this is the conversation. Almost every time we started growing scale, somebody asked a question where we have to go, have this conversation again, because in that room, people are in accelerated growth curves. And every three months when we get together, somebody is in a place where they're letting go of something that's grow comfortable. And so when you when you let go of that for yourself, when it's like, I'm going to get in shape, what's the what's the easiest way you can do it with the least amount of effort to get the biggest result? And you know, I think as entrepreneurs, one of the things that we should look at everything in our business. Here's what we ask ourselves all the time. How do I make this grow? How do I make this more intense? How do I affect more people? You know, we don't ask, how do I make this easier? That's a really good question. How do I make this easier? How do I get the biggest result with the least effort? And you know, it's interesting for entrepreneurs, to be honest in that question, just make you uncomfortable. Yeah, exactly. It makes you uncomfortable because because we are like, how do I absolutely kick my ass? And then standing on stage as the hero? Well, here's why you always know that you did it right, and enough metrics used was interesting when I can get an entrepreneur, said Daniel Rosen is Robert just started working with Daniel? Daniel Rosen said on this stage two years ago, now it's over two years ago, right? Almost three years ago. Years ago. So and he had gotten into the passenger seat in his business, and he was in this place where you there? He was in this place. We put him on a panel to talk about the passenger seat. I didn't realize we could start crying, and he literally started crying like, Man, I'm not doing too well. You know, my team is is now doing everything. They don't really need me. I don't need to be involved anymore. And so are like, How do I fix this? And he he entered this like existential crisis because he didn't feel like he was important anymore. And the conversation we had was, Daniel, how many people is affected now? And it's like, wow, like way more than I could have done. And he, you know, he was saying it. He's actually making the argument for what he needs to be paying attention to. And what we were able to walk Daniel through was like, Look at the impact you're making. Look at the movement that's been created. And then we had his team give him a very tight role of what they felt like he needed to contribute to the company. And he is one of the happiest entrepreneurs I know now. And so and prepared to ask the question over and over again, how do we make this easier? Like Robert, they're not trying to climb Mount Everest and throw, and we are projects and stuff. They never they can't because they won't let him. But it's just it's it's a different perspective on running a business and doing it is when you're willing to lean into the conversation of how do we do this easier with less leverage? We all get the outcome we want. Here's what I know about everybody who attends our events. One hundred percent of the businesses in our room are mission based businesses. Is there anybody here who's not on a mission to change the world? Is there anybody here who doesn't feel like the impact is just as important as the income? That's all we attract. And so and the problem is, as the person in charge, we keep building Mt. Everest instead of saying, how do we make the biggest impact with the least effort so that we can crush? How do we change the most lives with the little amount of energy so that at the next level, it's even easier? If you start thinking like that by the next time we see you here, your business will transform.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Momentum podcast. We hope you join us next week as we continue this conversation around offloading what you do well in order to create space for what comes next in your business. If you're looking to simplify the operational systems in your business, we're here to help you. If you go to Simple Operations dot com right now, you can fill out a survey to get on a call with a member of our team and find out how we can best help you implement simple and effective systems into your business so that you can scale quickly that simple operations. Dot com. Fill out a survey we would love to talk to you. Simple operations dot com.