In this solo episode of the Leveraged CEO Podcast, host Matt Dart outlines five warning signs that a business has taken control of its owner rather than the owner controlling the business. He explains each sign with concrete examples: (1) reacting to messages instead of being proactive, which keeps the owner in a constant stress loop; (2) team members constantly seeking permission for decisions, indicating a lack of empowerment and preventing the owner from taking time off; (3) the owner memorizing every password and system detail because nothing is documented, creating a bottleneck; (4) canceling family events because only the owner can handle certain tasks, eroding personal relationships; and (5) revenue rising while the owner’s work hours stay high, showing a failure to reinvest in people, processes, and automation. For each sign, Matt offers practical remedies—delegating authority, creating SOPs and knowledge bases (even chat‑bot‑driven), hiring, automating, and systematizing—to reclaim time and achieve true freedom. He concludes with a call‑to‑action for owners generating $250K‑$3M+ annually to apply for his consulting services, emphasizing that time is the most valuable asset and that scaling revenue should coincide with scaling personal freedom.
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Welcome to podcast episode 135 of the Leveraged CEO Podcast. My name is Matt, and I'm excited to share with you the 5 signs that your business owns you. We've been having a lot of conversations about this topic recently, so I thought I'd give my opinion and give you my insights on the 5 reasons why I think your business might own you. and also what you can do to fix that. So let's get straight into it, shall we? So I've got 5 things written down here and I'm gonna just touch on a few of them and then give you my insights. So the first one is you wait for people to message you with problems rather than you being proactive. So a lot of people that I'm talking to, they're just kind of reacting to emails that they're getting, Slack or messages that they're getting from clients. that they're not actually being very proactive in their business and with their time. So they're just kind of reacting to everything that's happening. That's not good for your mindset or your brain. So you never really get into like a flow state where you can be creative or you can really make really good decisions when you're— or you can't make really good decisions when you're not in this type of state of mind and environment. And you feel you're always nervous, you're always stressed. Maybe you're, you know, even if you— I've had these times before where, I'm just thinking about things of business when I'm just lying in bed, which you are going to have those times. But if it happens all the time, you're probably waiting for something to happen for you to jump in and fix it. You're like, you're the problem solver type of thing. Don't get me wrong, you're always going to have problems in business. There's always going to be things to fix. But if you're the only one that can fix them, then you're the bottleneck, you're the problem. So that's the first one. Second one is your team asks permission for decisions they're already capable of making. This is a huge one, huge one, because there is zero chance you can go away or take holidays with the family or do, do take a day off if you're the one making all the decisions. Not only do, or will it make your team feel like they're not capable, but for you personally, you always have always things going on in your mind all the time. If you've got kids like I do, you'll never be able to fully switch off and enjoy the moments with your kids because you're always thinking about work. What things do I need to do? What things do I have to do? What things do I have to respond to after this? Or am I going to be able to lose— am I going to lose this client because I haven't responded to them within A couple of hours or within 24 hours. So you will never be able to truly have freedom and the life that I've been able to experience in the life that I have now. Like, I literally do not miss a single thing for the kids, um, or my wife really. Like, obviously I work from home, I drop the kids off at daycare every day, I pick them up every single day, I mean, I'm with— I have dinner with them every single day, I have breakfast with them every single day. I guess they go to daycare to socialize and for me to obviously, you know, do the stuff like this. But, um, yeah, if they got any extracurricular activities, like our daughter had a dance concert which I went to, um, like I've got the flexibility I've got. Um, but don't get me wrong, I'm still working. Um, because I've obviously got the brand new business now with the Leveraged CEO. I'm still working. Um, but I'm working on the business and I'm choosing When I work, because I've got a really good team. I've got a really good team that helps me as well. And if you don't have a team and you're doing everything yourself, then you're never, you're never, you're just never gonna experience the type of business that everyone gets in business for, like freedom, right? You just, you just got a very expensive, sorry, you got a very high-paying job. Essentially, if you're gonna be like this. So let's go to number 3. You know every password in every system by memory because none of it is actually documented anywhere else. So, you know, you know, business owners that want all the control. This is, this is, this is them. Everything is in their head. Everyone has to come to them. Yeah, come on. Yeah, ask me more questions. Ask me more questions because I want to feel needed. And they get like super stressed that people aren't messaging them. Like, oh, something needs to go wrong. Something needs to go wrong so I feel needed. So, yeah, a lot of people get into this trap as well, where not so much about the passwords, but every system is done by memory. And, you know, people still come back to them. Yeah, I was talking to someone else that we're working with, and they said, you know, they said, oh, all the team keeps asking me questions, and it's really frustrating. It's so annoying. Like, why can't they just figure it out on their own? And we ended up, we ended up making like, we uploaded their, their, their system SOPs onto like a chatbot. So the team could actually message the chatbot now if they got any questions because it refers back to the document. And then it's freed up so much time for the manager to actually focus on stuff that a manager should do, not just Always answering questions. So this is a really big one. If the team keeps asking you question after question after question, then, you know, the business is relying on you, and that's a problem. Okay, number 4, you've canceled something with your family because, quote, only you can handle it. This is the worst one. You cancel something on your family because you're the only one that can handle it. Well, you couldn't, couldn't make it for dinner. You had to do work. It's the worst one when you have to let down your family and say, hey, I've gotta, I've gotta put work first. Like your family's not important, not important enough. That's the worst one. And then the last one is your revenue keeps going up, but your hours never go down. So when your revenue goes up, it just means that you do have the flexibility to reinvest into the business and hire the people to Get your time back. As your revenue goes up, you should be working less and less and less, not more and more and more. It's usually the opposite for most people. People that we work with, they're doing $500K, $1 mil, $2 mil, $3 mil, and they're working 50, 60 hours a week. Now, if this is you, click the link in the description and we need to have a conversation because you're the perfect fit for us. Someone that's doing $500K, $1 mil, $2 million a year, usually you have to work with, usually you have to do at least $250K a year to work with us. But yeah, if that's you, drop it, give us a message or click the link on the, in the description on the comments and apply to work with us. Let's have a conversation because, you know, these are the things that should be happening in your business. You've got the cash flow to reinvest it back into the business to get your time back, which is the most important asset. Don't just think you can just make all this money and have no time to do it. do anything with it, or your family's not going to see you until they're, until they're, you know, grown up. And by that, by that time, until it's all, it's all too late now. You don't have the relationship, you don't have the, um, you know, the, the, the established, um, connection with your family for long-term success. And then, you know, once they're 18 and grown up, they just do their own thing. They don't need you anymore, and all that sacrifice was for nothing. So Even more when you've got the revenue there and you choose not to hire the right people or to automate certain things or to systemize certain things. Like, yes, that's gonna take some time and effort for you to do, but once it's in place, then you can obviously step back and get your time back. So that's what we help people do. You know, it's pretty clear on this show, we help people get their time back. So if you feel like you're working a bit too much, you want more time with your family, But you still obviously want to grow the business as well because we help people scale their revenue while getting their time back. So if that's you, let's have a conversation. Click on the link in the description and I'll see you in the next episode.
