Here’s something nobody in the business world actually wants to say out loud: knowing exactly what you should do does not mean you will actually do it.
And even if you do, it definitely doesn’t mean you’ll do it well.
If it did, every entrepreneur who has ever bought a course, attended a webinar, or read a business book would be wildly, embarrassingly successful.
And yet… here we all are.
Back in my OBM days, that’s online business manager, for those who weren’t around for that chapter of my career, I worked with a couple who were genuinely brilliant.
Two people I would never beat in a battle of wits on any given day.
(neither, by the way, were Sicilian, but still…and if you got that Princess Bride reference, you and I just became BFFs)
They understood their industry, they had built something real, and they knew, at least conceptually, exactly how a product launch was supposed to work.
Things got done, but at the last minute, a little spur-of-the-moment here, a lot of controlled chaos there.
Technically, it worked, and while they were happy with the results, the experience itself wasn’t all that great. In fact, it was downright stressful and haphazard.
After I became their online business manager, we launched again. Different product, smaller audience, and honestly, fewer sales.
But here’s what happened when we debriefed: they looked at me and said, “This felt so good!” Not because the revenue was bigger, but because this time, they felt prepared going into it.
One step at a time, nothing scrambled, nothing dropped on their laps at the last second.
And because it ran cleanly, they could actually sit down afterward and evaluate what genuinely worked and what didn’t, making informed decisions going forward, instead of just collapsing in relief that it was over.
Same two people. Same knowledge. Completely different experience.
It Was Never About Ability
The difference between those two launches had nothing to do with my client’s intelligence, their expertise, or how much they cared about their business.
The difference was that in launch two, someone put a system in place and held their feet to the fire to actually follow it. That someone was me and that was literally what I was hired to do.
They didn’t need to become systems people. They needed someone whose brain is wired that way to carry that load for them.
I want you to sit with this for a second instead of just glossing over it…
There is this idea floating around the entrepreneurial world that if you know what you should be doing, you should be able to just go do it.
And if you can’t, something must be wrong with YOU. Not enough discipline. Not enough focus. Not enough grit.
We love to make ourselves feel like we are the problem when the real issue is that when we started our own businesses, we were handed a dozen jobs that we just aren’t good at doing.
Here’s what I know from years of working inside other people’s businesses: some brains are wired to eat the elephant one bite at a time. Mine is. I genuinely enjoy it.
But some of the most brilliant business owners I have ever worked with? Their genius lives somewhere completely different!
It’s in their vision, their ability to build relationships, the way they deliver their unique area of expertise.
And asking them to be great at implementation and systems on top of all of that is like asking a world-class chef to also be their own accountant.
They could probably figure it out. But at what cost?
The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t the ones who figured out how to do everything themselves.
They’re the ones who got honest about where their genius lives and then had the courage and self-awareness to hand the rest off.
Getting help is not a confession that you failed. It is a CEO-level decision.
Your Weekly Challenge
Remember last week’s challenge, where you were defining your zone of genius and committing to your lane?
Good. Hold onto that answer, because this week we’re doing the flip side. Now that you know what you are wired for, let’s get honest about the rest.
Grab that same notepad or open that chat up and answer these two things:
- What are you spending time on that you dread, avoid, or white-knuckle your way through?
Tasks you keep telling yourself you should be handling yourself, even though they drain you every single time.
- For everything on that list: what would it realistically look like to hand it off?
Pass it to a contractor, a tool, a system, an AI assistant? You don’t have to solve it all this week. Just get honest about what it would take.
Friend, the goal isn’t to outsource your whole business. It’s to stop pretending that every task on your plate belongs to you just because it needs to get done.
Speaking of Things That Don’t Have to Live on Your Plate Anymore…
If “systems” or “operations” showed up on that list, and honestly, for a lot of you it will, then I want you at my training on May 21st.
It’s called There’s an AI Team Waiting for You in Notion. Let’s Put Them to Work.
We’re going to talk about what it actually looks like to build a CEO dashboard inside Notion and hand the daily operational grind over to AI so you can stop doing the things you’re not wired to do and get back to the work that is genuinely, unapologetically yours.
If you’ve been wondering whether Notion AI could actually help you get your business out of your head and into a system that runs… this is the training for you.
Register here.
And yes, I am fully aware of the irony of you reading an entire newsletter about the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it… and then not registering. Don’t be that person.
I say that with love and a very full cup of coffee.
Thanks for reading. Keep showing up, keep taking the next step, because the caffeine is strong… and so are you.
Till next time!
