February 2018. Strategic Coach Workshop. London.

We were deep into Dan Sullivan’s frameworks—Who Not How, The Gap and The Gain, Unique Ability, 10x thinking. My head was spinning with new ways of seeing old problems.

Then Peter Buckle said something that stopped me cold:

“You don’t have to be a good manager of people to be an entrepreneur.”

I sat there. Pen frozen mid-sentence.

Reading that line now, you might think: “Well, yeah. Obviously.”

But for me? In that moment?

It felt like someone had just told me I didn’t have to hold my breath underwater anymore.

For 14 years, I’d been drowning—and I didn’t even know it.

The Weight I’d Been Carrying

Here’s what I believed for my entire business career up until that moment:

To be successful, I needed to be good at everything.

To grow OmniPro, I needed to master every skill required to run a business.

To lead a team, I needed to be a great people manager.

And when I wasn’t? When I struggled with managing people, when I hated having difficult conversations, when I avoided confrontation, when I let things slide because I didn’t want to deal with the emotional discomfort?

I thought I was failing.

Not just at management—at entrepreneurship itself.

Because surely, if you’re going to build a real business, you need to be good at managing people. Right?

That’s what every business book says. That’s what every leadership course teaches. That’s what I saw in every successful entrepreneur I admired.

They were natural leaders. Charismatic managers. People who could rally teams, inspire loyalty, handle difficult conversations with ease. I was good at creating a vision and painting a picture. I was good at selling people that vision. But people, management and the minutiae were just not something I was good at.

And me?

I was the guy who avoided conflict. Who hated firing people even when they needed to be fired. Who felt physically sick before difficult conversations. Who would rather work 80 hours myself than tell someone they weren’t meeting expectations.

I thought that made me a bad entrepreneur.

The Pattern I Couldn’t Break

For 14 years, this played out the same way:

I’d hire someone. Things would be great initially. Then issues would emerge—performance problems, attitude problems, culture problems.

And instead of addressing it directly? I’d work around it.

I’d pick up their slack. The team would pick up the slack. I’d redo their work. I’d convince myself it wasn’t that bad. I’d tell myself they’d improve. I’d avoid the conversation for weeks, then months.

Meanwhile, internally, I was screaming at myself:

“Just deal with it. Just have the conversation. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you do this? Every real business owner knows how to manage people. You’re supposed to be leading this company. Get it together.”

The shame spiral was relentless.

And it wasn’t just with underperformers. It was with everyone.

Performance reviews felt excruciating. Giving feedback felt confrontational. Setting expectations felt authoritarian. Managing anyone felt like I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

I thought being bad at this meant I was bad at business.

Because how can you build a great company if you can’t manage people?

What I Didn’t Understand

Here’s what I couldn’t see for 14 years:

Being a great entrepreneur and being a great people manager are two completely different skill sets.

They can exist in the same person. But they don’t have to.

Some of the most successful business owners I’ve met are terrible at managing people. And they’ve built incredible companies anyway.

How?

They found someone else to do it.

Who Not How.

But I didn’t know that was even possible. Because I’d internalised this belief that if you’re the founder, if you’re the leader, if you’re building the business—you have to be the one managing the people.

That’s just what founders do. Right?

Wrong.

The Permission I Didn’t Know I Needed

When Peter Buckle who was leading the workshop said “You don’t have to be a good manager of people to be an entrepreneur,” something shifted.

It wasn’t just intellectual. It was visceral.

Like a weight I’d been carrying for 14 years suddenly lifted.

I didn’t have to be good at this.

I didn’t have to force myself to become someone I wasn’t.

I didn’t have to feel like a failure every time I avoided a difficult conversation.

I just had to find someone who was good at it.

That’s it. That’s the whole solution.

Stop trying to be good at managing people. Find someone who’s naturally good at it. Give them the role. Let them do what they do best.

And you? You focus on what YOU do best.

You focus on finding your unique ability and play to that.

For me, that’s vision. Strategy. Relationships. Content. Business development. Connecting dots others don’t see.

I’m exceptional at those things. I don’t have to pretend about that.

But managing people? Performance conversations? Day-to-day team leadership?

Not my unique ability. And that’s okay.

What Changed Immediately

After that meeting in London, I stopped trying to fix myself.

I stopped reading books on “how to be a better manager.”

I stopped forcing myself into roles that drained me.

I stopped believing I was failing because I wasn’t naturally good at something that wasn’t even necessary for my role.

Instead, I got clear: What am I actually exceptional at? What energizes me? What creates the most value?

And then: Who can do the things I’m not good at?

We didn’t make drastic changes overnight. But the permission to think differently? That changed everything.

Over the next few years, we built a structure where I could operate in my unique ability—and others could operate in theirs.

The business didn’t suffer because I wasn’t a great people manager.

It thrived because I stopped pretending I had to be.

The Lesson

This connects to Your People and Strategy in the ProfitPro 6 Step Success Pathway.

1. Strategy — Mission Vision Executable Plan
2. The 4 Ps — Proposition, Product, Price, Payment
3. Your Customer — Red Velvet Rope Policy & Ideal Clients
4. Business Development — Marketing Sales Retention
5. Your People — Who not How and the Org Chart
6. Leverage and Scale — SOPS, Technology, Automation, AI, Leadership

Because here’s what accountants get wrong about building firms:

You think you have to be good at everything to be successful.

You’re brilliant technically. So you started a firm.

But now you’re also supposed to be great at:

• Managing people
• Business development
• Marketing
• Sales
• Operations
• HR
• Finance
• IT
• Client service

And when you’re not naturally good at all of those? You think you’re failing.

But here’s the truth:

You don’t have to be good at everything. You just have to be exceptional at YOUR thing—and find the right people for everything else.

That’s Who Not How. Find the WHO’s to help you solve your How.

As Dan Sullivan teaches – thinking WHO not How is collaborative exponential thinking, whereas thinking How I solve every problem creates a burden and can be isolating

Thinking WHO not How is about finding your Unique Ability.

That’s how you build a business that doesn’t require you to be someone you’re not.

What This Means for Your Firm

Most firm owners I meet are carrying the same weight I carried for 14 years.

They think they should be better at managing people. Or sales. Or marketing. Or operations.

They read books. Take courses. Try to “improve” in areas where they’re fundamentally mismatched.

And they wonder why it feels so hard. Why they’re exhausted. Why they can’t seem to get it right.

Here’s why: You’re measuring yourself against the wrong standard.

The standard isn’t “be good at everything.”

The standard is: Be exceptional at what you’re exceptional at. And build a team around your gaps.

That’s it. That’s the whole game.

Ask yourself:

• What do you do that creates the most value?
• What energizes you?
• What are you naturally brilliant at that others struggle with?

That’s your unique ability. Do more of that.

Everything else? Find someone who’s naturally good at it.

You don’t have to be a great people manager to build a great firm.

You don’t have to be a natural salesperson to grow revenue.

You don’t have to be operationally minded to run efficient processes.

You just have to be honest about what you ARE good at—and build around it.

Your Turn

Be honest: What are you forcing yourself to be good at that just isn’t you?

What skill or role have you convinced yourself you “should” have mastered by now—but it still drains you every time?

And more importantly: What would happen if you gave yourself permission to stop trying to fix that gap—and just found someone else to fill it?

I’m curious: What’s the thing you think you “should” be good at as a firm owner that you secretly hate doing? And what’s stopping you from finding someone else who’s actually good at it?

Let me know what you think. You can connect with me on social or directly via my linktree – https://linktr.ee/desoneill

Tomorrow: Letter 11 – “The Marathon I Ran to Prove I’m Not a Quitter” (October 2018) – When “I Can and I Will” Becomes Pathology