Mike Andes recounts a personal accident (hoodie caught in a dump truck PTO) that left him incapacitated for weeks and revealed his business relied entirely on him. From his hospital bed—FaceTiming his crew—he urges owners to build systems and procedures so the business can run without their daily presence, framing the owner as a "spare tire."
I learned this the hard way when I got caught underneath a dump truck in the pto. My hoodie did, and I was out for a couple weeks. I realized the business didn't have systems, it didn't have procedures. It was all going through me. And I'm literally at the hospital on the bed, and I'm FaceTiming my crew because I needed to walk them through the project. Build it in a way that you don't have to be there every day, because one day, one day you won't be able to be there. And whether that is your doing and you're trying to sell the business and we're all happy, or you get in an accident or. Or you have a family calamity that forces you to be away from the business, make sure you build the business in a way where you are a spare tire.
