When I made the decision to leave my Director of Operations role at Mirasee, I asked Danny Iny (my boss at the time, and my cousin) if we could go for a walk.
Danny and I went for walks about every other week, this was generally how we would catch up, talk about opportunities and share big ideas.
I approached the conversation open to possibilities. I knew I wanted to join Conversion Engineering (my husband’s company) but I was open to the idea of scaling back at Mirasee to 20h/week or so while my husband and I grew our MRR to a point of matching our current household income.
Danny encouraged me to either:
- Stay at Mirasee for awhile, learn and practice new skills that would make me an even more valuable asset when I’d eventually go to Conversion Engineering.
- Go 100% all-in to Conversion Engineering.
Interestingly, when his wife made the decision to join him at Mirasee, they were in a similar situation, and he gave her similar options.
He wasn’t interested in having a half-involved Director of Operations.
I made the decision to leave Mirasee and go all in at Conversion Engineering.
I suggested a 1- or 2-month transition timeframe. At the time that seemed generous relative to the standard 2-week notice.
Danny looked at me with an eyebrow raised and basically told me we needed more time.
How much time?
Until the end of December.
I was eager to start my next adventure, December was 6 months away!
But Danny had done a lot for me over the years, and my relationship with him and Mirasee were (and are) important to me, so I agreed.
Over the course of the next 6 months I’d onboard and train three new team members to take on parts of my role.
I’d create SOPs and documentation to institutionalize all the knowledge in my head.
Every week I’d go down the list of things I do and what the status of transitioning that task was — from identifying the person to take it on, to my level of confidence they could do it well.
By the end of the 6 months, the team really didn’t need me anymore.
I genuinely felt I was leaving the team stronger than it was when I had made the decision to leave 6-months earlier.
“@JoeyGourdji has done an amazing job of empowering people and creating systems so that we can keep going without missing a beat as she phases out of the organization. It’s a masterclass in how to leave an organization well.”
– Danny Iny
This did NOT happen overnight. It took practically the full 6-months.
But each month that passed felt lighter and lighter.
In fact by the time I was ready to leave, I nearly didn’t want to anymore.
The clean slate was energizing – I had lots of free time, and with that came lots if new ideas.
I wondered if it would have been possible for me to create this reality had I not been leaving. Or if it was through this experience of leaving that actually built these skills.
Either way, this taught me two valuable things:
1) Sometimes our best comes out of necessity.
2) Whitespace breeds creativity and energy.
Now, I’m not suggesting you should remove yourself from your business entirely forever.
But I do think it would be valuable for every business owner to be able to take at least 1-week off and have total confidence that it won’t impact their bottom line.
Because you never know when life will happen.
You could get sick and be in bed for a week, or maybe something good happens… maybe you win a free trip to Japan – how could you say no!?
Having the ability to reduce your hours (either to 0 for a week, or by 10h for a longer period of time) is an absolute superpower. It unlocks a whole new level of freedom.
But there’s not need to wait for necessity to unlock this power.
Plus, I promise it’ll make you more effective in your business. Having more free time lets you think bigger, come up with new solutions, have more perspective… be a better entrepreneur.
You’ll be happier. Your business will be healthier.
If you’d like some help unlocking this ability, let me know.
Joey