Can You Delegate TOO MUCH?

0:00Can you delegate too much? I can safely say that the answer to this is yes, but I want to read a tweet that I got from Matt Dahl, who says, because I went on to Twitter and I asked, is there any sort of topic in maybe online business that you really don't hear many people talk about? Because I want to talk about it. So he wrote, once I came across this, when I came across this week was with a CEO I'm helping, and it's unique, but I think it's more common than we think. He fell deep into the trap of believing he only needed to be a visionary and delegated too much, but with zero accountability and zero process in place to track anything. Everything is falling apart faster than he can fix it, and his ego won't allow him to admit that it's a failing business.

1:00If he doesn't react soon, he's done. Interesting. Well, this is a twofold problem. The first problem is that it's a problem that I fell into, which is why I said yes very quickly. The problem came from a very specific source, and the second problem is ego, and holy fucking shit man, ego is the enemy. So two books, that I can reference, that I've read that one was terrible for me, one was great for me. When I said that I delegated too much, this was a time in my life, this was back in, I want to say it was like 2018-ish, and I had read a book called Traction. I don't remember who somebody had recommended it to me.

2:00This book fucking sucks. I am not recommending this book, but at the time of reading it, I thought it was a revolutionary. I'm like, oh, it kind of reminds me of the emeth revisited, if you've ever read the emeth. That book has its flaws. It's very near sighted. However, I still think it's a good book. It has some good principles in it. Traction has some good principles in it, but it basically facilitates this idea of corporate hierarchy, and how you must put these hierarchy things in place so that you can be the visionary of your company. You can just be at the very top, and you can be the ideas man, right? You can be the one who just has all the ideas, and you have your minions executed for you.

3:01That is what Traction is all about, but it is so flawed, and I remember, here's how I know it's flawed, because I tried it, and it didn't work for me. Not to say it doesn't work for other people, but I think what it tries to do from just an outsider looking in, it tries to take corporate structures and justify them. That's what it's doing. And it's basically saying, you need someone who's always at the top having ideas. And the truth is, having ideas and being a visionary doesn't require a time. It's not like it's a time-consuming task that, oh, your CEO needs to be off on a vision quest, and having these fucking brilliant ideas, and then he comes back, and I always mention it's a man, because men have the worst egos of all time,

4:02generalizing. I am one, so I feel like I can. Anyway, they come back, and they're like, we gotta do this, we gotta change everything. And it's like, you are not a visionary. You are a disruptor of your own company. You are an asshole. Stop doing that. The business is fine. The business needs to grow. Yes, you can put people in place. You can have systems of hierarchy. But not if you're gonna be at the top ruining everything from the top down. And that's ego. The other book that I highly recommend is ego is the enemy. And this is a good book. It's stoic philosophy as, you know, told by Ryan Holliday, who I do like, and this idea of ego, it took me a while to really see it,

5:05and I don't think, I'll be honest, I struggle with this because I think, do I have an ego? And the answer is, of course, I do. But I have definitely put it aside in the most recent years. And I think that's a lot to do with, you know, some stuff that has happened to me personally in the last four or five years. And has made me, you know, basically has changed me as a person. So I think that, I'm not glad it happened, but you know, it's, it was important to happen. And I think, my daddy's just had the saying, which is like, leave your ego at the door. And that was, I had a lot to do with, when I was in a band, and we would be in the recording studio, you know, leave your ego at the door.

6:05Meaning, if you're going to walk in this room, and we're going to be creative, together, and we're going to collaborate. And this is the way I interpret it now. Then, now is not the time for you to like, you know, be an ego maniac and be the one who thinks he knows everything. Be collaborative. That's basically what it is. You're not, the end all be all smart as person in the room. Put your ego aside. Maybe fucking learn something. And this is something that, I had an episode earlier in 2025, where I talked about, how to shut up. You know, it's like, when you're in a room with people, and you're talking, and you're the only one talking, pretty clear sign that you have an ego problem. Now, you may not believe it. But for me, I can tell you that there was a lot of times

7:06I would walk into a room, and I would just be on. And all eyes had to be on me. And a lot of times I would think, well, okay, I'm just a clown. Like, I like being an entertainer, and so I'm just being an entertainer. And it's like, no, you're not listening. It's not, sometimes like, it's best to just be quiet, but not just be quiet and check out. Be quiet and keep your ears open. Listen to what people are saying. React. Ask questions. Don't come in thinking you're some hot shit, and you have something to teach everybody, but no one has anything to teach you. Even in situations where, maybe you are. Maybe, maybe, you know, quantifiably, you are the smartest person in the room. But if you don't have an ego, you walk in there,

8:07and people are unassuming, no one would know. Why would they know? Be that person. So it's interesting to hear this CEO who fell into this trap of believing that he needs to be a visionary and delegated too much. Can you actually delegate too much? And I would say perhaps, yes, but also, it's probably because you, it's my guess, is that you are already doing, your business is doing too many things, or you are doing too many things. And before you delegate, you need to edit. Saying that out loud reminds me of a time when I was starting this business.

9:08It was back in 2011, 2010, 2011, for real. Like I had always had Zoom University. I started it technically in 2006. So I've had it for, you know, almost six years prior to this happening, or five years. But again, I'd never really spent all of my time on it. And then, I did. I got laid off for my job, and I was like, okay, well, I'm getting laid off, I'm collecting unemployment. If I'm going to start a business, now is absolutely the time because I kind of have a runway. Like I wasn't one to save money prior to doing this. I wasn't proactive like that, or I guess, yeah. Preactive. I wasn't, I didn't think ahead. It was in the moment. And so I was like, well, I'm, I'm my basic needs are taken care of right now.

10:08So let me spend this time building a business. But there was one thing I had to solve before I thought I could even, or I really solved it at the same time, which was, well, I don't think I'm going to be good at running a business if I'm not even good at managing my own money. If I can't master personal finance, how am I ever supposed to master a profitable business and be able to hold on to that money? So, having that thought at that time, changed my life. I mean, completely, I mean, I'm so grateful that I don't even know why it came up or how it came up, but it happened. And I spent the next, I don't know, three to six months editing my life. So, at the time,

11:09when I got laid off from this business, I owned a BMW on a 2008 BMW, but it was a car that I'd always wanted. I had it. I loved it. I had a condo that I owned. I had all new furniture in the house. I had, I had a nice house. A nice condo. And I said to myself, okay, well, there's no way I'm going to be able to start a business on unemployment and be able to keep all of these things. Like, I just can't sustain. This is too many things to manage. This is too much. So, I went through a period of editing hard. I sold my car. I went. I traded. I sold that car. And I ended up getting like a Honda Civic coupe, which is like, it was like, oh, still a reliable car,

12:10but like way cheaper per month. I rented out my condo. Like, I left my condo, gave all of my furniture to my brother, moved in with my brother, and I had a choice at this point. I could either move in with him for 500 bucks a month, or I could move in with my parents for free. And I chose my brother just because, at the time, I'm like, you know what? I guess, in hindsight, I should just move back in with my parents, because I think, you know, my ego is too large at that point. I couldn't do it. But I ended up dropping my monthly expenditure from $4,500 a month just to live, and mind you, live well for a 25-year-old, you know, with no college degree, that was like, I lived well. $4,500 a month to $13,000 a month.

13:11And that was the first thing I did before I even, like, really, I mean, I did that kind of at the same time. I started really working on Zoom University. And, yeah, it meant, I mean, the reason I tell that story is because I didn't just figure out, okay, well, here's my, here's my life as is, I need to support this life. And so, like, I need to make a ton more money in order to, you know, so you're already kind of, like, working uphill, and that feels really stupid to me. It's like, hey, make this easier in yourself. Like, before you go out and delegate, figure out how to do less. If you're the person in your own business, if you're a solo pranour at this point, and you're like,

14:11I got so many, you know, you're busy all the time. There's a problem. You should not be busy all the time. There's probably only like one to two core things that you need to do as a business owner. And you just need to do those. Looking back in hindsight, again, I am not, I'm not somebody who's like, who has this all figured out. I certainly don't. But back in the, but like back then, I was doing fucking everything. But if I look back now, with what I know now, I can safely go, oh, well, shh, man, if I, if all I did was just focus on writing articles, I would have been way more successful today, at that time. But I just couldn't, I couldn't do it, couldn't focus, had too many things, thought I had to do everything, didn't really know what I know now. Had a big freaking ego.

15:13And, you know, to my detriment. Now, I don't truthfully like, I'm sure there was somebody out there who had already got to where I wanted to be, and I could have just asked them, and I could have just listened, and been like, oh, okay, is that what I have to do? Great. All right. That's all I'm going to do that. But I was young, I was dumb, I didn't know. But what I did know was that I couldn't sustain my lifestyle and the business that I wanted to create. So, at the very least, I was able to solve that problem. This person, and again, I don't know the CEO that you're talking about, but I'm assuming that he delegated everything. Everything that he was doing in the business, he delegated. Which means he's probably paying somebody way too much money to do something that really does not move the needle

16:15in this business. And for some reason, things that, oh, I need to be the one having ideas. And I said, I get that. But, you don't, the visionary part is, and I, look, if I had to guess, I'm guessing this CEO red traction. Because that's the kind of language they use in this book. Which is like, you need to hire people under you so that you can get into the, into the position of being the visionary. But here's the thing. Like, that's not what CEOs do. If you, like everyone just points to Elon and Steve Jobs. Right? As like, oh, they're like, they're visionaries. Do you honestly think? Like, seriously, as I'm saying this, do you honestly think Elon must

17:15came up with sending rockets to Mars? No. He did not come up with that. He did not come up with the electric car. He's not some visionary. He's just the guy who, he's the guy who, he's the catalyst. He's the igniter. He's the one that lit the fuse. And he's the one that keeps it going. But he's not this fucking genius. Sorry. The same is true for Steve Jobs. Is Steve Jobs a genius? No. No. Is he a visionary? No. No. You don't, there's, but look, I'm not saying this to demean these two people. I'm saying it because like, what does that even mean? How much time do you think they need it to, if you believe that, oh, I need time to be a visionary.

18:16What are you going to do? What are you going to do at that time? It's like, oh, I'm going to go to India and take, you know, drugs and having a piphany that, oh, we need to invent a flat screen that people have in their pockets. It's like, no, that's not, that's not how, that's not how ideas come together. Like, that's, that's storytelling. That's not real. A visionary, which, again, I'm not even going to use that term anymore. I'll say this. I am in the process of delegation. I am in the, I'm in the mode of, I mean, not delegation, but like, I'm in the mode of scaling in 2026. I'm in the mode of removing myself as the person who is the leader of the company.

19:16I, if I become the linchpin, if, if the business does not work without me, it's not a good business. So, if the business needs the visionary to run, no matter how much you delegate, you have a shitty business. You have a bad model. You're bad at this. That's the thing. It's like, it's so, it's so self-aggrandizing. It's like, oh, God, like toned down, Tony, what the fuck's his name? Who's Iron Man? Stark, Tony Stark? Like, Jesus Christ. Like, think about, think about, people think like, oh, Tony Stark, like, that's who it is. It's Elon Musk. It's like, all right. Look at Howard Hughes. Right?

20:16Yeah, he did some stuff. But like, not good. Like, he just spent money. Because he was like, such a ego maniac that it's just like, guy. And Elon's doing the same thing. Such an ego maniac. Like, what are you doing? Your company is now failing again. Like, because your ego got the best of you. What do you, like, there's no, it's just so silly. It's just so silly. It's just so like, childish, honestly. Anyway, I hate the harp on this person I don't know, but God, it makes me furious. When I was, there was a point in time and I've told the story recently where I hired a bunch of people. I hired a C,

21:16a C, O, O, because again, I read this book traction. So I hired somebody to, quote unquote, replace me in the operations of the business. And I hired, I had an editor-in-chief. I had multiple writers. And so I was like, I was still doing articles. But I had like, added this layer between me and the editor-in-chief. And it only lasted about three months. But it was such a like, clear, hard-know. Like, why did you do this? And I'm like, oh, I did it because the books that I had to like, I needed to like, separate myself as the visionary. And so like, I needed this buffer between the day-to-day and me having visions. And it's like, no, that's so stupid. Have your visions. You can have your visions anytime. You can be working on something in the business. Have your visions. But every time you have a vision, and you, and you throw a monkey wrench into your own system because your ego demands

22:17that you are the smartest person in the room and you have to change the business, because you know better than everybody else, even the own, even the own, the thing that you built, well, now you're just an asshole. Like, now you're just a troublemaker. Don't do that. And I've learned this. In this past like year or two, I have learned, and again, like, look, I'm doing this for 20 years. I still learn in this shit. But I learned that like, I've learned that, you need to spend time making the right decision. Right? Yes, the faster you can make the decision, the better. But spend the time to like, think through everything. Every idea, like, again, ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are crazy important, right? And there are good ideas, and there are bad ideas.

23:18And then, but like, everyone has them all the time. There's so many of them. And your job, I think your job, as a CEO, is to be patient and stoic enough to kind of see everything at a high level. And not just use your own ideas, but listen to everyone else's. And the best idea wins, and your job as a CEO, is to pick the good ones. They're pretty obvious, as long as you listen, as long as you understand everything. But if you're just sitting there, like thinking, oh, we now have to do this. And it's like, all right, minions, you go do this. And it's like, I had a former boss who used to do this all the time. It's like, we were all just working. We were all just doing our normal stuff. And then he would come in, like a bulleted China shop, and go, all right, we got to do this now. I'm like,

24:18yo, yo, we run a retail store. All right, I'll tell you this story. And this is just like, what he used to do. And it's very clearly now, I didn't understand it at the time. I just knew it was stupid. But I was like, oh, it's ego. So what would happen is, like, it would be a busy day. Right? We, we, we, we ran a, I ran a pool store. We had to have customers to deal with. You know, we had to stock shelves. Like, there's normal, daily operations that happen in this retail environment. Right? Not a lot of employees, handful, employees. He would come in. He isn't even work there. Right? He works in the corporate office. He would come in. Right? Again, bull in a china shop. And just pull people off their normal duties. And have everyone completely reorganize the warehouse.

25:18It's like, all right, you know what we're going to do today? We're going to reorganize the warehouse. I'm like, okay. Well, hmm. Fine. That's going to be tough because we are currently running a store. And you're doing it in the middle of like work hours. And okay. So now, you leave one person at the counter. And they're helpless. And everybody else is doing this like crazy grunt work. And the question is like, why are we doing this right now? What's the point of this? Because truthfully, what it was, is that he needed to have some, something always needed to be done. Always. There was no systems. There was no processes. It was just, I'm, I need this to happen when I see it. And it has to be done right now. Or in his words,

26:18yesterday. And it's like, okay, guy. Look. If, and let, like, you shouldn't be here. Why are you even here? This is just one of the many stores you own. Like, go in your office, build a process, write down an SOP, hand it to your managers, delegate properly. If you really want this done. Also, give a reason why. What is, is there, is there an actual problem? And if you were to solve that problem, how much of the, how much of the bottom line gets improved? Like, seriously. And it's like, no, it's busy work, man. Just needed something to do. I'm like, all right, well, this is stupid. This is dumb. It's a waste of time. It's like he, I know he spent, like, so much time making sure that his employees didn't go on the internet.

27:18Like, he spent so much mental energy and time, physical time, building infrastructure for the sole purpose of spying on his own employees. That was what he wanted. And guess what? All of that cost time. It costs money. You erode the trust of your own employees. No one wants to work for you. It's like, it has this cascading effect of failure. And it's annoying. That's not how to run a business. I'm sorry, but it's just not. And again, it took me so long to understand this. But it's like, here's the, here's what I would do in that situation. You call a meeting. Okay? Here's the problem we're facing. Here's the, we have a constraint. It's very clear.

28:18Does anybody have any ideas? How do we solve this? And everyone's going to give you their idea, as long as you're collaborative and you're open to listening. Okay? Not a bad idea. And then the best idea in the room wins. You as a CEO go, now that. Does everyone agree? That? Well, he just said, that's a great idea, right? All right. Who wants to be in charge? Like, let's get this solved. All hands on deck. Because if we, if we, if we fix this problem, man, it's a, the rising tide lifts all boats, right? Like, that's a good thing. And that kind of like energy is it requires a level of putting a side or ego of maybe a little bit of stoicism and like, and understanding your business in a very clear way.

29:18The only way you can really understand your business, I think, is by spending some time editing. Removing things that do not help or that help very marginally. Like, oh, this, yeah, we do this and it's fine, but like, it's not really doing anything. And so like, if we were to remove it, we'd save money and not really hurt the business whatsoever. So it's like, okay, it's probably a good, that's, editing is a good move. Editing is always the first thing you should do. And then once you have your core jobs in place and you, and you understand like, look, this is so core to our business that it's like, it's absolute priority. It's important. It's like, that's the needle mover. Well, now you know exactly what to delegate.

30:18And the more that you delegate, the better you are at that delegation. Like, that's how you scale a business. I'm still learning this, but it's something that we're doing this year. And I know from listening and recounting my past experiences, that I've been guilty of it, and I see where and why. I've also worked for other people, and I've seen where they have been guilty with it, and why, and I can see it. I can safely say that I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about. I'm not some goddamn genius. Most of the time, it's, most of the time, the best ideas in our company come from conversations, and I'll go away. I'll come up to stuff, and I'll be like, hey, I have this idea. And she'll go, mmm, that's,

31:18I don't agree with that one. I think it's this. And then, huh, okay, interesting. I don't go, you don't know what you're talking about. And the smartest, let's do what I, I'm the CEO, what are you gonna do when I say? I know guides like this, by the way. One I just mentioned. And so, but hearing that, I'm like, okay, hold on. Now, it's like, oh, I thought I, I thought I was really, I thought I had something. Somebody questioned it. Okay, somebody that I respect questioned it. Then, even if I don't respect, you know, even if I don't respect them, you should respect everybody you work with. But anyway, even if I'm like, hmm, all right, all right, you brought up something, you brought up a challenge. It wasn't a, wasn't a slam dunk, my idea. I think on that. Let me start gathering more information. Maybe it's not fully fleshed out. All right, I'll accept that. I will always accept that.

32:20And then, you go back and forth, you tell it, you know, you figure stuff out, you go, okay, you know what? Actually, all this. It's kind of a waste of time, right? Do we all agree? All right, moving on. Forget it. Don't bit. Let's move on. Sometimes, it happens that way. You as a CEO got to be okay with that. Not every idea is gold. I have them all the time. I have ideas all the time. I think, oh, yeah. That'll really change stuff. And it's like, will it, though? And it's like, is it a guess? Or do you know? I'm like, oh, it's kind of a guess. And it's like, yeah, the guess makes everyone's job harder. And it may not actually work. So, why are we going to do it? It's like, yeah, it's like, hey, what if we just continue doing what we're currently doing? And maybe, you hire somebody to help us do that.

33:21Instead of this new thing you want to do. And it's like, yeah, probably. That's so boring, right? It's like, yeah, that's, that's, that's, yep, yep. Name of the game. Anyway, let me know what you think. Shoot me an email. I'm going to say just, shoot me an email or DM me on any social media platform. I'm around and I'll talk to you next time. And I'll talk to you next time.