In this advisory talk, the speaker explains that moving from working in a business to working on it isn’t a sudden switch but an incremental dial‑turn. He references Michael Gerber’s The E‑Myth to stress the importance of building repeatable systems that let others duplicate your work without error. He contrasts that with Netflix’s “freedom and responsibility” culture, where talented employees are given autonomy but must perform or be let go. In both models the goal is to free the owner’s time by delegating tasks to people, software, or AI. Once time is freed, the owner must deliberately use it for strategic business work rather than leisure. The speaker argues that profitability is the engine that enables this delegation—cash is needed to purchase tools or hire help. He advocates the Profit First methodology, urging entrepreneurs to focus equally on revenue and disciplined expense management, cutting unnecessary costs and ensuring every expense drives client acquisition or retention. The core message: incrementally build systems or grant autonomy, ensure profitability, reinvest cash to outsource or automate, and consciously spend the newly‑available time on growing the business.
Chapters
How do I get to the point where I can work more on my business than in the business? That's the question for today. Um, I think the first thing to note is what we're talking about here is not a flip of the switch. It's more like turning a dial. Um, I know someone who knows Michael Gerber firsthand. He's the author of The E-Myth, and he made that comment to Mr. Gerber, because his book, The E-Myth Revisited, um, makes it feel like you can just flip a switch and all of a sudden you're working completely on the business, and that's not the case. So no matter where you're at, the goal is to figure out how to free up more of your time so that you can work more on the business. But do it in increments. Don't wait until you somehow have magically been able to replace yourself from all the day-to-day working in the business stuff. Focus on a little bit, step at a time, step by step, right? Now, that being said, there's not a wrong or right answer here. It really does depend on your situation. Let me give you 2 examples. In The E-Myth Revisited, for example, which I think is a great book, it highlights the importance of systems. The focus is create a system so that someone else can duplicate your process without making mistakes, so that you're delivering the same type of product or service and it's repeatable. On the other hand, you have companies like Netflix who have a what they call freedom and responsibility culture, more of a freedom and responsibility culture, and that's where A company has really talented team members, gives them freedom to do their job, and lets them own the responsibility of it. Now, if you're not a good team member, you will be let go very quickly in that type of environment. So while some may feel it's supportive, there's also a very element of cutthroat mentality there. Systems, giving people autonomy and freedom. Ultimately, the goal is in both those, the result is you have freed up more time because somebody else or some AI, some software, something else, somebody else is doing something you were doing. So now instead of doing that thing, you freed up the time and then you should use it to work on your business. That in spirit of the question, I'm guessing this question is coming from somebody who hasn't accomplished that yet, which means when you free up your time, you have to make sure you're using that freed up time to work on your business and not just take vacation. There's a time and place for it. I'm a big proponent of not stressing ourselves out. The hustle and grind mentality, I don't love it. Um, So with all that being said, you still, especially if you're at that stage where you're wondering, how do I work more on my business? You have to use up your free time to work on the business. And then the last part is, in order to free up your time, the best way to do that is to make sure you have profitability. If you're going to pay for software you currently don't have to do something unique, that costs money. If you're going to hire someone, whether that's a full-time person, part-time, outsourced, that is going to cost money. You're now leveraging your money to free up your time, which is awesome. That's what businesses do. But in order to do that, you have to have the cash available to leverage to free up your time. The best way to do that is through profitability. We love the Profit First methodology. Pay attention to revenue coming in, but also give equal focus to expenses to make sure every expense is necessary, it's productive, it's helping you retain clients or add on new clients, and we're getting rid of all the other expenses that we don't need. So that is in a nutshell how you free up more of your time to work on the business, have profitability so you have the cash to then Pay for software or hire out help to help free up some of your time, and then use that freed up time to actually work on the business. Profitability is a choice. Have the courage and wisdom to choose it.
