★★★★★
I took my first real vacation in over a decade. Didn’t check email.
Steven Sullivan
CEO & Founder, Power Communications
★★★★★
One of the most vital, practical books on leadership written for our generation.
Shamus McNutt
CEO & Founder, Volare AI
★★★★★
It hands you a tool you can use in the next conversation you have.
Gabriel Siqueira
Founder, Titan Global Technologies
★★★★★
A valuable book. The presentation is clear, succinct, and eye-opening.
Norm Boyer, PhD
Saint Xavier University
The problem
You became the bottleneck without meaning to
- Everyone comes to you when things get complicated.
- Your calendar is full of other people’s problems.
- Delegation never sticks. The work comes back.
- The revenue number hasn’t moved in three years.
Chapter One
You built this prison from the behaviors that made you successful
Four patterns, none of them with a warning label. They feel necessary, which is what makes them hard to spot.
The Expert Trap
“I know best.”
Your team routes every decision through you instead of building the judgment to make it.
The Responsibility Loop
“It’ll come back to me anyway.”
You delegate the task and keep the authority, then wonder why it comes back.
The Connection Trap
“They need me specifically.”
Every relationship that runs through you is a single point of failure you built.
The Identity Attachment
“This is who I am.”
Their independence registers as a threat, because being the answer is who you are.
What’s inside
A method, the words to run it, and a workbook
Nine chapters and a five-part workbook.
The method
Pause, Point, Proceed. Three seconds interrupts the reflex.
The scripts
Word-for-word language for the reset, the repair, and the debrief.
The workbook
Five parts, plus an editable Google Doc you can work in.
About the author
Dr. Carrie LaDue
Carrie has launched, scaled, and sold her own companies. Over more than a decade of advisory work she has completed more than a hundred business diagnostics for owners facing growth, transition, and exit. Her clients have seen seventy-two percent lifts in profitability within six months.
She is chief of staff and founding advisor at Volare AI.
Early praise
What early readers said
★★★★★
I dare you to NOT find yourself mirrored in the chapters of this book.
I cultivated all the client relationships, ran all the meetings, and called it mentoring. Six months after I started following Carrie’s guidance, my team was running the work and our revenue was up 50%. You can read this book over a Sunday afternoon and watch your business change like mine did.
Steven Sullivan
CEO & Founder, Power Communications
★★★★★
Build a business that moves at the speed of trust rather than the speed of you.
Across three exits, I have watched talented founders become the biggest bottleneck in the companies they built. At under 25,000 words, this book wastes no time on corporate fluff. Her 90-Day Plan to Get Out of the Way is a weekly blueprint for moving from crisis manager to strategic leader.
Shamus McNutt
CEO & Founder, Volare AI
★★★★★
Carrie names the variable nobody else touches: the emotional state you are leading from when the pressure hits.
I run a small tech company, so I started reading as if this were someone else’s problem. The Four Traps ended that in Chapter 1. Then a client emailed asking to “discuss some concerns,” and I caught myself building the catastrophe. I said the neutrality phrase, and it worked.
Gabriel Siqueira
Founder, Titan Global Technologies
★★★★★
Dr. LaDue is a good teacher, one who shows learners how to find their own best answers.
Her account of her own physical breakdown proves she has lived what she writes about. The access phrases, like “This isn’t about me,” are short enough to recall the moment you start to backslide. I would even ask your team to read it, so they can help you back to your feet when you slip.
Norm Boyer, PhD
Saint Xavier University
Get your copy
Three formats. One afternoon.
Doing $1M+ in yearly revenue? Your copy comes with a free Business Health & Value Assessment.
Reader bonus
You already know you’re the constraint. This puts a number on it.
If your company does $1M+ in yearly revenue, buy the book and Carrie will run her Business Health & Value Assessment on it, free. She scores six areas out of 120, prices the business against your industry multiple, and shows you the gap between what it’s worth today and what it’s worth when it stops depending on you.
Already bought the book?
Get your workbook
The five parts are printed in the back of every edition. Send your receipt and the editable Google Doc comes back to you, so you can type in it, keep it, and hand parts of it to your team.
- 1Buy the book in any format
- 2Upload your receipt
- 3The editable Doc lands in your inbox
Any format counts, including the audiobook.
Questions