In 2007, Tim Ferriss published a book that changed business forever.
The 4-Hour Workweek took the world by storm.
In a few hundred pages, Ferriss dismantled the outdated ‘corporate hustle’ mentality. Out went long hours, endless hustle and playing politics as the way to ‘get ahead’ in life and business.
In its place, he preached a simple gospel of delegation: build systems, automate what you can, and then get the work off your plate.
Do those things, he promised, and you’ll be able to “break out of the 9 – 5 trap, live anywhere, and join the new rich.”
There’s only one problem:
It doesn’t work.
If it did, you wouldn’t see so many multi-6 and 7-figure business owners saying things like this:
Just a few of the behind-closed-door conversations I’ve been privy to over the years.
Okay, to be charitable, maybe Ferriss’ approach worked at one point.
Back when online business was new … when there were only a few people in the industry … when all it took to make your millions was a landing page, an email list, and a well-positioned ebook or two.
Back then, maybe one person really could run a multi-million dollar business in four hours a week by delegating everything to of a handful of underpaid, overseas VAs.
Then again, once upon a time, a rocket ship held together with little more than duct-tape really could take you to the moon.
The point is, regardless of what worked “back then”, the truth is, it doesn’t work NOW.
Of course, when you think about it …
It’s only natural that this would happen.
After all, if you’re like most of the people I talk to every day, you started your business because you were good at “doing the work.”
Not because you were good at delegating. Not because you were a great manager. Certainly not because you wanted to become “the boss”.
And that was fine…
Until it wasn’t.
Because eventually, your client roster increased, the volume of work grew, and you simply couldn’t keep doing it all by yourself.
And while hiring and delegating worked for a time…
Eventually, you needed more and more people just to get the work done.
This is where things usually start to fall apart.
With more people relying on you, more people waiting on you, and more people expecting things from you…
The work starts to pile up.
I mean, just take a look at what happens when you do everything you’re supposed to:
Is it any wonder that, at this point, folks start looking to the traditional business world for advice?
- Reading “scaling” books like Rocket Fuel, Traction, and The E-Myth,
- Spending $$$$ on middle managers, Integrators, PMs and DOOs,
- Investing endless hours hiring writing pages upon pages of SOPs for every little thing,
- Installing complicated operating systems that were designed for teams of 150 people or more…
Thing is, these approaches assume you’ve got a marketing department, and a sales department, and a product department, and a finance department …
(Not to mention, an entire executive leadership team to run the whole thing)
Which is why they ultimately leave you more or less where you started…
Just more tired, more frustrated, and with a lot less cash in your pockets.
This is the dirty little secret that everybody knows but no one wants to talk about:
📸 Behind the stunning vacation photos:
An agency owner who can’t step away without things grinding to a halt.
🏖 Behind the high-end masterminds & retreats:
A coach who had to skip paying herself to pay her team and cover expenses.
💰 Behind the ‘7-figures in sales’ screenshots:
A business in chaos, with only duct-tape holding everything together.
See, here's the thing:
As a solopreneur with some helpers, you can delegate the low hanging fruit and maybe get some time back…
And if you’ve got a massive org chart, delegating like a Big Corporate Executive might be just the right thing…
But the truth is that these approaches don’t work when you’re in the “in between.”
When you’re doing anywhere from 300k per year to 300k per month, supported by a small-but-mighty team, not big enough for middle management, but too big to try to run it all yourself…
When the stakes are higher, the decisions are bigger, the responsibilities are greater, and there’s no one but you to make it all happen…
Old-school "delegation" isn't the solution.
The good news is that once you understand why delegation sends you right down into the weeds and turns you into the bottleneck, you’ll also be able to break free from this pattern once and for all.
I’ll share more in a second, but if you want a hint …
Have you ever noticed that the more you delegate, the more things seem to end back up on your plate?
Just so happens, there’s perfectly reasonable explanation for this – and on the next page, I’ll explain what it is and what you can do about it.
Continue to Part 2:
Why delegating ALWAYS creates bottlenecks—and how to break yourself free of the Delegation Trap for good.
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