The Holiday That Showed Me How Broken My Consultancy Was
We'd been planning the North Queensland trip for months.
Just my wife and I.
We needed it.
I'd been pouring everything into building our engineering and built environment consultancy — and we were both ready to finally breathe.
But within 24 hours of landing, my phone hadn't left my hand.
Client calls.
Text messages.
Problems that were supposed to be handled by the people I'd left in charge.
Projects were drifting.
Clients couldn't get answers.
And instead of escalating things internally — they were calling me.
On holiday.
With my wife.
Thousands of kilometres away.
She watched it happen for two days.
And then she told me exactly how she felt.
She wasn't angry at the business.
She was angry that I couldn't let go.
That we'd come all this way and I still wasn't present.
And she was 100% right.
So I deleted the email app off my phone.
And turned the phone off completely.
I chose to be present with her - the person that ACTUALLY mattered the most.
The business kept going.
Not perfectly. But it kept going.
And that was the moment I had to face the truth:
I had built a consultancy that only worked when I was in it.
No clear processes.
No one empowered to make decisions without me.
No systems that could hold things together when I stepped away.
So when I got home, I got to work on the actual problem.
I stopped being the answer to every question.
I delegated properly — not just tasks, but real responsibility and authority.
And I built the processes that meant my team could handle things without me.
If the only way your consultancy runs smoothly is when you're in it —
That's not a badge to wear with honour.
That's a sign something needs to change.
And it starts with you deciding to let go and not be in the middle of everything.
To your success,
Josh
PS: If you’re interested, here are 4 ways I can help you right now:
- Grab a copy of my new book | Profitable Engineering Consultant | 9 strategies to grow with confidence, get your time back & consistently hit 30% plus net profit margins – Click Here
- Subscribe to our podcast | Learn how to run a more profitable consultancy and grow successfully – no fluff, just actionable and practical advice from someone who grew a consultancy to $30M and exited successfully – Watch Here or Listen Here + make sure you subscribe!
- Download our free Business Plan template | Map out your Business Plan & grow your consultancy with confidence – Click Here to download now
- Book a 20-minute Business Audit Call | We’ll do a full review & audit of your business, uncover the #1 bottleneck that's holding you back right now & develop a 3-step action plan together for how you can get results faster. You'll leave this call with a clear and actionable plan for what to do next in your business – Book Here
