“As agency owners, I think we're fixers… And we've made a career where we get paid to fix other people's… And doesn't mean that we're always so good at fixing our own problems… So everything that has plagued you throughout your life that's held you back as an individual is going to show up in your business as well.”
Build a Better Agency Podcast · Agency Business · October 2026
Asked what universal lessons came out of nearly two decades running an agency, the author lists the patterns her book covers: rescuing the team too often, perfectionism, and getting stuck on decisions only the owner can make.
Transcript
…was developed through failure and through actually trying things and through years of opening doors and seeing what was good, what was bad behind them, where I needed to actually shore myself up, or where I needed to get someone to join me in whatever that battle was that would be forthcoming.
…this that whether it's my decision making, your decision making, brand new agency owners' decision making, are there some universal things that you've learned that help you shortcut to the instinct or the right decision now that you've done it for, you know, like you said, 18, 19 years as an owner?
…they can actually step forward and continue without you having to spoon feed them everything along the way? Those are all the issues that we all have with that. But there's so many other universal truths that exist in life. You know, why would you have any challenges in life if they're not actually caused by other challenges, other traumas, other everything that we're all trying to work through? So everything that has plagued you throughout your life that's held you back as an individual is going to show up in your business as well.
For sure.
And you're bringing your lens now to your team and all of your team members, they have their own traumas, they have their own issues from a very early day. Day one, when they were born, they got instilled by all the things that their parents taught them and all the things that their parents taught…
Culture things, good things, strengths. Absolutely. Right.