You keep telling yourself you just need to get through this season.

But the season never ends. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re starting to wonder if you’re not actually the CEO of your company; you’re just its most overworked employee.

Your team is capable. But every decision still lands on your desk. Every fire still needs you in the middle of it.

This exercise won’t fix that. But it will show you exactly what it’s costing you (in real dollars) every single week.

1 Your rate

What is your time actually worth?

Most founders have never done this math honestly. Enter two numbers and we’ll calculate it for you.

Last year’s revenue

Hours you work per week

hrs / wk

Your hourly rate

Based on your revenue and hours worked

2 Your week

How many times did work land on you that shouldn’t have?

Think back through last week. Count every interruption (AKA decision, question, fire, approval) that pulled you in but didn’t actually need you. Use the categories below to jog your memory.

Approvals Sign-offs your team could have handled

Client questions Info requests your team already knew the answer to

Vendor or supplier issues Problems that escalated to you by default

Scheduling and logistics Coordination that didn’t need your judgment

Internal fires Team conflicts or problems that needed you to resolve

On average, how long did each interruption take?

3 Your number

Here’s what last week cost you.

This is real money. Not overhead, not payroll. Time that came out of your hide and went toward work that wasn’t yours to do.

You spent approximately

$—

Fill in your numbers above to see your cost.

That’s roughly $0 a year — every year you stay in the middle of it.

4 The real cost

What didn’t get done while you were handling all of that?

Not a trick question. Just write it down.

That number doesn’t go away on its own.

What you just calculated is what it costs to stay in the middle of your business. Every week. And the things you wrote down in step four are what’s waiting on the other side of fixing it.

A discovery call with me isn’t a sales conversation. It’s the next layer of what you just started; figuring out where the real leverage is and what it would actually take to get you out of the middle.

BOOK A DISCOVERY CALL WITH JAKE