In my last post, I gave some background about my relationship with my dog, Kailee, and Kailee’s trainer, Susan. I had been struggling with the dog training process. Kailee, Susan, and I had been out walking together when I had the thought, “This is the feeling that I used to have before I outsourced all the areas of my business that I don’t like and I’m not good at.”

I was having a de ja vu moment that all entrepreneurs go through when they hit the wall from not working in their strengths. With my clients and those I teach, I always talk about creating a business that you will love. And doing tasks that are not in your skill set will drag you down faster than anything.

In that moment I knew why I was such a champion of outsourcing.

I said to Susan, “If this were my business, I’d outsource this because it’s not fun, and I’m not doing a very good job at it. Plus I’m super frustrated!” If it were a business task it would definitely be a thing to turn over to a trusty VA, don’t you think? That was so powerful because truthfully I have such an outsourced business today, that there are very few things that I do that I don’t love. So in that moment, I felt the pain that many of you may be going through if you don’t have a team to take away some of the tasks that are dragging you down.

Now let’s fast forward. The next time Susan was over I proudly shared the parallel that dog training and delegation meant to me. And she had a brilliant response the deepened my entrepreneurial connection and understanding of what to give away. She said, “Yes Therese, you can outsource having Kailee exercised…

“But you cannot outsource being the leader.”

In that moment, it all shifted for me. I had recently watched a colleague’s business almost go down the drain because this person didn’t embrace being the leader when things got hard. And I realized that we are all at risk if we take this too far.

I’m excited to share with you in my next post the final lesson that I was able to take away from this experience, and how it has impacted my business.

Blessings,
Therese