The Night I Stopped Pretending the Phone Wasn’t Ringing

See Original Forbes Business Council Article 

My wife had just given birth.

It was a complicated delivery. She was finally holding our newborn. Family, music, chaos. Her smile looked forced.

Then my phone rang 

One of my largest clients. Equipment failure. I was the only person on the team who knew how to fix it. I had never trained anyone else.

Standing in that hospital room, I understood something I had been avoiding for a long time.

I had not built a business. I had built a trap.

 I had started my company to be free. What I had actually built was a job I could not quit.

That night is the reason the Sherpa Method exists. It is the reason Built for Freedom got written. And it is the reason I now ask every entrepreneur I mentor the same question.

 If you disappeared tomorrow, would your business survive?

Most founders pause. The silence is revealing.

A Sherpa does not carry the climber to the summit. He prepares the route, sets the anchors, and creates the conditions for others to reach the top without him. The best entrepreneurs work the same way. Their presence becomes a choice, not a requirement.

Forbes published the full piece today in the Forbes Business Council series, under the title How to Own Your Business Instead of Letting It Own You.

You can be inside your business every day. You just should not be trapped inside it.

That is the difference.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​