The Responsibility Stack

Hi.

In my last year of college, I was finishing up my MBA, working three part-time jobs (one of them was literally eight hours a week), and competing for the track and cross-country team.

I sat down to write about the idea that the more you do, the more you can do. I planned to talk about stacking responsibilities and habits to create a system of compounding value. But as I started writing about my fifth year in college, I realized I didn’t truly thrive in any of my responsibilities. The more I divided myself, the more I divided my ability to excel in any individual area.

The easy lesson here is:
"Keep the main thing the main thing."
And "Saying no to one thing is saying yes to another."

But we’re not in the business of easy answers. We like to be contrived and difficult.

In my junior year of high school, I decided to quit playing basketball for the school team to focus on running. It was the first time I hadn’t done three sports since fifth grade. I had all this free time, so what did I do? I became the assistant coach of a fourth-grade select basketball team.

Practices were only three times a week, and games were on Saturdays—shouldn’t have been a big deal, or so I thought. The one issue? I didn’t have a car, and practices started at 7 PM. That meant when I got dropped off at school on M-W-F, I was stuck there until 8:30 PM. No downtime.

This sounds like another version of my first story—except, this time, I thrived. My GPA went up 0.2, I got all my offseason training in (leading to a couple of school records that spring), and the basketball team went on a 13-game winning streak.

So, in one story, I was busy, and everything suffered. In the other, I was busy, and everything flourished.

Here’s why: The hours I would’ve spent at home, I spent at school, which meant I:

• Went to more office hours,

• Got my homework done before the late practice, and

• Had access to better running routes.

Each responsibility benefited the others. It wasn’t the time constraint that limited my success—it was that my responsibilities didn’t stack well.

The subtext: Responsibilities can work together to raise all boats if they are complementary.

"Keep the main thing the main thing" doesn’t mean erasing all other responsibilities. It means taking inventory of what they require and seeing if they compound—or if they compete.

That’s enough reliving the glory days. Let’s dive in.

The Hero’s Journal

Last week, we talked about the bad side of agencies. This week, let’s talk about the good side.

One of the fun parts of running a business is that every problem in the business is your problem.

• Books out of whack? Your problem.

• Need more ad creative? Grab the tripod, buddy.

But just because all problems are your problems doesn’t mean you’re the one who has to solve them. That’s why we hire people who are better than us at specific things.

When you hire an agency, you’re outsourcing an entire segment of your business’s problems to someone else. In theory, that’s a good thing—and sometimes, it actually is.

In August 2021, Cash flow was lagging. We were struggling. One weak spot? Our email marketing.

We had built a pretty large list but had no real strategy. Enter: Josh and AMB.

One of the biggest issues with agencies is that they lack business context. They’re experts in their field—but not necessarily in your business.

Josh was different. He used to be an accountant and now does email marketing. He’s seen multiple sides of business. Also, he’s from New York, so you never question whether he’s telling the truth.

Within a few months, AMB wasn’t just helping with email—they were talking Facebook ads, bookkeeping, shipping—every aspect of our business came into question. And it made us better.

Why? Two reasons:

1. The biggest hidden problem in business: not knowing something is a problem in the first place.

2. We had someone better than us tackling one of our biggest bottlenecks.

You probably thought there was no way I’d tie this back to my first example. Dead wrong.

Starting a business is like having an infinite number of part-time jobs.
You’re the bookkeeper, the marketer, the warehouse manager, etc.

Hiring good people lets you focus on the problems that stack—so instead of being mediocre at everything, you can be great at what matters most.

Atypical

This week, I was reflecting with Trey about how he started his newsletter a year ago. Fifty-two newsletters is no small feat. And because of it, he’s grown—not just his channel or business, but himself.

Basketball is the headline of Atypical. The product? Intentionality.

When Trey sits down to write, he takes inventory of what he’s done to improve. When he brainstorms video ideas, he’s looking forward to the stories yet to happen. When he creates products, he’s thinking about how they serve the people consuming his content.

At first, he had a justifiable fear:
"What if making content makes me look like I’m not working on my game?"

But the reality? The forced introspection of telling his story every week made him better at his craft.

The stacking here is obvious.

Reading

The On Coaching podcast has an episode called:
"Workouts Are Only 40% of the Equation: A Podcast About the Other 60%."

No matter who you are, it’s worth a listen. We often overvalue the hardest thing we do—and undervalue the little things that make it possible.

Coffee

I saw a guy selling a coffee roaster. My mind went into a fantasy spiral for a bit. I will not be purchasing it. But a boy can dream.

Also, I drank too much coffee today.

Sounds like a good day.

Conclusion

This newsletter is a responsibility that compounds my other work. It forces me to reflect, which helps me see how things connect.

As of about six weeks ago, I started working part-time for my buddy Steve’s business coaching company. My job? Onboard new clients and help them get the most success from the program.

The upside (outside of money)? I get to look under the hood of 5–10 businesses a week. Seeing what works for them helps me see my own business with fresh eyes.

If that’s not responsibility stacking, I don’t know what is.

Happy Friday.

Kyle