Howdy!
In today’s blog, I want to talk about one of the most overlooked growth levers in leadership: learning to fire yourself.
Most founders think scaling means adding.
Adding more people, more tools, more projects. But real scaling comes from subtracting.
Every stage of growth requires you to stop doing something you used to do well.
The hardest part of it all? You’ve built identity and comfort around those things.
You’re the Bottleneck You Can Fix
There’s a moment in every founder’s journey where the company is ready to grow, but you’re still doing too many of the same jobs you did when it was just you.
You’re approving designs.
You’re editing copy.
You’re still running that weekly ops call “just to make sure.”
What started as leadership becomes interference.
Firing yourself from one job a month has nothing to do with being lazy, it’s actually all about leverage. You’re making space for others to lead, and for the company to mature beyond you.
How to Do It Without Chaos
Here’s the cadence I use:
- Document on Monday: Write a one-page SOP. What’s the goal? What are the steps? What’s the standard of “done”?
- Train on Wednesday: Walk your team through it. Explain why it matters and what success looks like.
- Observe on Friday: Watch the handoff in real time. Resist the urge to jump in. Coach, don’t correct.
By the next week, you’ve freed one lane on your leadership highway, and your team has one more lane of ownership.
Scaling by Subtraction
If you fire yourself from one job a month, that’s twelve lanes cleared a year.
Twelve systems documented.
Twelve people empowered.
That’s how you compound trust, capacity, and clarity.
You don’t scale by holding tighter, you scale by letting go intentionally.
Important Question to Ask Yourself This Week:
Which role do you need to retire from before it retires your growth?
