What Do You Need to Fire Yourself From?

I might be the world’s best idea thief. Podcasts, LinkedIn posts, Instagram reels, books, emails, and articles, I steal from all of it, then write my own version. It used to bother me to give credit, because I wanted people to think I was the brilliant one. I have come to realize that all brilliant teachers and thought leaders are, at their core, great thieves building on the knowledge of others.

This one came from a reel I saw while on vacation in Europe last week. The thought leader talked about how most leaders have things they need to fire themselves from. When I sat down to write this, the link was dead, so I can’t say for certain who to credit. My best guess, with some help from AI, is Dan Martell, whose leadership content is all over the internet.

Right now, as a leader, you are doing things you shouldn’t be doing. You are doing them because:

• You are using those things as an excuse for avoiding bigger, harder challenges and opportunities.
  

• You are better at doing them than anyone else, or think you are, which is likely a bigger problem.
  

• You like doing them. Maybe they are even fun.
  

• You hate giving up control.
  

• You have just always done those things and never really stopped to think you shouldn’t be doing them.
  

• You are not hiring competent people.
  

The first one should sting a little or a lot. It does for me because I have been guilty.

It’s a problem for so many reasons:

1. It keeps you from focusing on the most important stuff that only you can handle.
   

2. It will drive away your best team members, who also want to work on fun, important things.
   

3. It burns you out, making you feel like you are not accomplishing what you need to accomplish.
   

4. It robs you of the joy that comes from seeing team members accomplish great things.
   

5. Every hour you spend doing $20 work is an hour you didn’t spend doing $2,000 work.

For one week, at the end of each day, sit down alone for 10 minutes and make a list of everything you did. The things you worked on, the calls you made, the decisions you made, the things you spent time and energy on. After a week, look at the list and ask yourself two questions for each item. Could one of your team members have done this, maybe even better than you? And is your hourly value high enough that this task is actually beneath what you should be paid to do?

Have courage. Hand off one or two tasks and see how it goes.

You will thank me later. And so will whoever I stole this idea from in the first place.