It’s 6 AM. I’m opening my laptop, first caffeine of the day in hand, thinking I’ll get a head start.
What do I do first? Check my calendar, of course.

It’s a kaleidoscope of colors and blocks. Double-booked. Triple-booked.
Meetings stacked like a bad game of Tetris.
People fighting for time on my calendar like it’s the last lifeboat off the Titanic.

And I won’t lie—I liked it. It felt important.
They wanted my opinion. My approval.

So I even tried to tame it.
Color-coding systems. Rules about how many I should attend, how many I could skip.
Making sure I spread myself around “fairly.”

But really?
All it did was help me manage chaos more politely.
It was like taking children’s aspirin for a massive migraine.
Sure, it dulled the pain a little, but it didn’t fix a damn thing.

Because the meetings weren’t the problem.
They were just the symptom.

Because every time I said yes, every time I gave them the answer—because I thought it was faster, safer, better—I was training them to keep coming back.
Jim was the answer man.

Need a decision? Ask Jim.
Not sure about the next step? Ask Jim.
Nervous about owning it? Ask Jim.
Shell had nothing on me if you remember those old ads.
I was the human solution to everything.

And the real joke?
The more problems I solved, the more they lined up to hand me.
It felt good at first—like I was the glue holding everything together.
But glue isn’t leadership.

Leadership is designing your role so things run without you hovering over every step.
Leadership is teaching people to make good decisions on their own, not turning yourself into the Oracle of Slack, Teams, and late-night texts.

But I didn’t see that yet.
I just kept saying yes, kept being available, kept feeling essential.

And my reward for all that?
More fires to put out.
More approvals.
More babysitting.
And less time to do the work I was actually paid for—thinking strategically, aligning the team, setting direction.

And what did I do?
I griped to anyone who’d listen that the place was out of control.
I moaned that the company was sucking the life out of my veins like some corporate vampire.
I ranted about how there just weren’t enough hours in the week to get it all done.
Because it wasn’t my fault, right?

Or…was it?

Because every time I said yes, I built that monster one brick at a time.
Every meeting invite I accepted.
Every answer I handed out.
Every approval I insisted on giving.
It was easier to blame the culture than admit I was shaping it with my own behavior.

I started to realize my calendar wasn’t the enemy.
It was just the mirror.
It showed me exactly what I’d taught everyone to expect.
That Jim would always be there to solve it, fix it, approve it.
That Jim was the safest bet to get things moving.

No wonder they kept coming back.
I hadn’t built a leadership system.
I’d built a dependency.
One that felt good at first. Made me feel needed, important, indispensable.

But the cost?
My focus. My strategy time. My sanity.
And ultimately, the team’s growth.

So I had to ask myself the question I’d been avoiding:
What if the real job wasn’t showing up everywhere?
What if the real job was making sure I didn’t have to?
Not because I didn’t care, not because I was lazy, but because that’s what leadership actually is.

Designing the roles. Clarifying the decisions.
Building the ownership so the team could run without me holding their hand.

The work wasn’t in managing my calendar better.
The work was in redefining my role—and theirs.

So if you’re staring at your own rainbow-splattered calendar, wondering how you’ll survive another week of back-to-backs, maybe ask yourself:
Is this really the job?
Or is this the cost of never clarifying what only you should own?

Because every “sure, I’ll be there” teaches them to keep asking.
Every “I’ll handle it” guarantees you will.

If you want to lead like the CEO, you don’t need better time management.
You need role clarity.

The Real Reason You’re Drowning
The trap is sneaky, but it’s yours.
✅ You fix things because it feels faster.
✅ You approve everything because you're “just protecting the team” (sure you are).
✅ You own every problem to make sure it “actually gets done.”

Congratulations.
You’re the Executive Bottleneck and Chief Human Fire Extinguisher, making damn sure they can’t move without you.

Sound familiar? That’s how smart, capable leaders burn out.

What Only You Should Do
Here’s the uncomfortable shift:
Stop asking “How can I get this done?”
Start asking “What should ONLY I be doing?”

✅ Only you should define direction.
✅ Only you should make the strategic calls.
✅ Only you should hold the vision steady.

That’s the shift I help leaders make.
Not with another productivity hack or fancy app to color-code the chaos, but by defining the job only they can do.
By designing a system that lets their team actually lead, without waiting for constant permission.

Because it’s not about managing your calendar better.
It’s about making sure your calendar isn’t managing you.

✅ Try This #1:
Block 30 minutes this week to look at your calendar like an outsider.
Don’t justify it—just ask: If I were the CEO of this team, would I actually pay me to be in this meeting?

✅ Try This #2:
Pick ONE decision you keep getting asked about.
Next time, don’t answer. Ask your team how they would decide without you.
(Then shut up and listen.)

✅ Try This #3:
Write down the 3 things only you should own.
If you don’t own it—how will you delegate it, automate it, or eliminate it?
If your week doesn’t match that list, congratulations: you’ve got your first clarity experiment to run.

If any of that stung a little—good. That means you’re paying attention.
Your calendar’s a symptom, not the disease. The real fix is role clarity.
Because leadership isn’t about filling every box on your schedule.
It’s about designing your role so your team can actually lead.

Want to stop playing Chief Fire Extinguisher?
Schedule your free Leadership Clarity Call.

We’ll use my 28-point Leadership Diagnostic to figure out exactly what’s eating your time, what only you should own, and how to lead without babysitting.

It’s not another pep talk. It’s a real working session to design the role you actually want.

👉 Book Your Leadership Clarity Call