Hey Reader,

Welcome back to Little Leadership Lessons, my (now) Monday newsletter sharing quick, powerful insights from coaching seven-figure creators. These lessons help you grow as a leader so you can grow your business—with more clarity, alignment, and peace of mind.

Happy Monday. I hope you had a peaceful, adventurous, or relationship-filled weekend -- whatever you needed to fill up your cup for the week ahead.

This week I'm training a new batch of coaches in the Presence-Based Coaching methodology. It's my first cohort as CEO and steward of this company and I'm excited to finally get to do the underlying work I signed up for.

What are you working on right now? Feel free to drop me a note and let me know.

Now let’s get to it.

A Beautiful Photo to Quiet Your Body and Mind

Y'all... last time I sent the newsletter, I forgot a peaceful picture and it bothered me nonstop for a week. So with apologies, here is a beautiful photo representative of the emerging Spring season and all that it offers.

The Situation

A familiar topic came up in a recent session with a wellness entrepreneur who earned nearly $2M in top-line revenue last year.

Tell me if it sounds familiar:

There's something in your business that you know, without a doubt, you're the best at. Maybe you're the most skilled, perhaps you have the best taste, or maybe you just have the grit to do it better than anyone else.

And that thing has become something you're proud of. Something that provides value for the business and makes you feel valuable in return. It's something "no one else can do like me."

That's the conversation we were having. You know you have one of those things too.

For this client it's making Instagram reels, but it could be anything that you've become great at.

There's just one tiny little problem: it has become a huge burden. If my client doesn't make reels, nothing goes up on Instagram. And Instagram is a key driver of revenue for the business.

The Emotional Blocker

This client really is great at making reels. In fact, she's so good at making Instagram work in her favor that she's grown her audience there to almost a million people. A MILLION PEOPLE! I feel like I've worked harder than I should just to get to a thousand.

She's rightfully proud of the accomplishment. Where would she be if she hadn't been making reels for so many years? And what if she were to stop or the quality were to go down to the point that the audience stops paying attention? Then what?

And that's why it comes up as "no one will ever be able to do this better than I do."

But here's the thing: if we have a rational conversation about basically anything you do in your business other than being the founder (and if you're a creator, the face of the brand) then we'll land on a universal truth.

There's almost always someone you can hire who can do any one thing better than you. Even making Instagram reels with you in them!

My client agreed, but we were still stuck. Why?

There was something deeper going on there and we landed on it with a simple question: "What's really at stake here?"

"If I'm not the one that makes reels, and I really do find someone else to do it better than me, what will I do instead?"

I could feel the truth in her comment because I've heard this from founders, executives, and almost every other kind of leader I've worked with. "If I give up the thing I'm great at, what will I do with my time? How will I know I'm valuable?"

This is the edge of leadership. Every time you become great at something, it almost always ends up being better to hand it off to someone else to keep it running.

The Breakthrough

We needed a way to break free of the idea of sitting around doing nothing, with everyone on her team resenting her for providing no value to the business while making all of the money.

It started with a simple question that she had already asked: "Well, what would you do with your time? If you knew for certain that someone you hired was producing and posting home run reels that were at minimum maintaining your audience, but ideally growing it rapidly... what would you do with your time?"

Silence. A bit more silence.

"I would feel so relieved if I found somebody like that."

Before she knew how she'd go about it, she felt relief in her body. And then the answers started to rise up from within:

With a growing team, she needs to more actively lead that team. She could spend an hour every month helping each teammate grow as a professional.

The team also produces more work as it grows, so she'd have time to give it proper review and to maintain the standard she expects through feedback and sharing examples.

But most importantly, one of my client's key goals is to take better care of her body and mind by setting stronger boundaries on work so she can work out, take walks, and spend quality time with her family.

It was that last bucket that made her realize: it's not that I won't have anything to do, it's that I'll be able to reallocate that time I've been spending making reels to the people and priorities that made me want to build a business to begin with.

Once she realized how much capacity she would get back for herself, her mind was set. It's long past time to hire for a social media manager who can make better reels than her. And it's time for her to stop working nights and weekends.

Coaching Questions to Apply This to Your Business

• Where are you carrying something primarily because you’ve always been the one to carry it?
• What part of your identity feels tied to doing this yourself?
• If support actually went well, what would become possible—for your work and your life?

You don't have to prove your worth by doing something you've outgrown. And you're really not the only person in the world who can do it with a high level of quality. You might be scared to let it go because you're not sure what you'd do instead.

And that's ok. But it's not a good reason to keep going if it's not working for you anymore. You don't owe your business your burnout.

Much love and respect,

PS: I have coaching sessions like this 8-10x per week with high level entrepreneurs like you. In the process, my clients experience transformations that lead to alignment between their inner and outer worlds. And in the process they experience more peace, more well-being, and often more revenue. Apply to work together here.