How A Concussion Removed Me As The Bottleneck Of My Business

It took me crashing into a glass door and a concussion to remove me as the bottleneck of my business.

My business was going through an exciting time. We had figured out an acquisition flywheel that was bringing in customers faster than we could handle them. Over two months we had gone from $140k in revenue to $1M in revenue. Things were moving! Along with that, we were raising a new round of financing. I was moving like a freight train at full speed.

It was exciting, but I was anxious all the time. This was my first tech startup. I worked a lot, I worried a lot. I didn’t want to screw this up. The pressure to not disappoint investors, employees, and customers was enormous. It added to my underlying tendency to be controlling when something important was on the line. I often became the bottleneck holding back the team.

One evening I went outside to my garage to bring in a box of books. It was pitch dark outside. My house had floor to ceiling windows with all the lights on in the house. As I walked in, I was sure the sliding glass door was open. I crashed into the glass with such ferociousness it knocked me back on the floor. I got dizzy. My head started to hurt badly, but overall I was fine. The next day I got it checked out. I was fine, took some Advil and went about my day. 

Within two weeks I had a severe concussion that had escalated three levels. My speech was slurred. I got blinding headaches and nauseous when someone talked for more than 5 minutes. It turned out I had a serious concussion with brain injury damage. 

The treatment was not negotiable. Everything I was doing had to come to a complete stop to give my brain time to heal. That included not working for at least 8 weeks.

I was terrified. 

I was sure this would be the end of my business as I knew it. The anxiety I felt was overwhelming. How could this be happening right now?!?

But at that moment I was much more afraid about what would happen to me and how this would affect my family. I could build another business if I had to, but I could not build another brain. 

Letting Go Of Control

I called a 5 min all hands to let our team know I would be out of work for a minimum of 8 weeks, with no access to email. I remember feeling helpless when I said, “I can't even look at anything to tell you what we need to do.”

Without a blink, one of our engineers cut in to address the team, “I think we each should take different areas. We only make decisions based on what our focus is right now. We don’t touch anything else. The same way Christine makes decisions.”

I’d like to say that this moment made me feel at peace, but it didn’t. My heart sank. I wasn’t needed. I couldn’t help. There was nothing to fix or save anymore. Two months is a long time. I was scared that we would lose everything and our fundraising would fall apart. But I had no choice. 

So with gritted teeth I let go. For two months I didn’t read an email. I focused on healing and nothing else. My team never reached out. I spent days folding laundry and gardening. I was starting to go stir crazy with nothing to do. It was excruciating to be away from work.

When Your Company Runs Better Without You

When I came back to work my company was running better without me. The team was of course brilliant. It is not surprising that without me as the bottleneck they were able to do more. We had systems in place that supported them. I had involuntarily been promoted to a new role, one that didn’t involve being a hero.

I cannot tell you how bad the crush on my ego was. If you run your own business, you might be able to relate to this. For my entire existence what I saw as my own value was tied to fixing, and saving the day by solving a hard problem. I was valuable when I was the hero. This is what I was good at.

During this time I felt like I had lost my identity. What would my own value and self-worth be now? What if the company didn’t need me anymore? It took a great deal of reflection and vulnerability to work through this. I eventually realized that my self-worth was not tied to the valuation of my company. My value went beyond being a hero. 

Working On Your Company, Not In It

Although I could come back to work - it came with limitations. I wasn’t physically able to work the way I used to. My brain was still healing. I had to drastically reduce the hours I worked from over 60 to 30 per week. My brain could no longer handle being in back-to-back meetings anymore. After a few hours working, my blinding headaches would come back or my speech would start to slur. It was frustrating to not work the way I used to. I had to completely transform the way I worked. 

Since I had such limited time, there was no time for hero acts. I was forced to be ruthlessly intentional about what I spent my time on. I had to work smarter. I had to outline with great detail and thick boundaries what my role was and what it was not.

I ruthlessly cut out all of the operational tasks that made me feel good when I checked them off my list, but were not part of my job. 

I started to focus on giving my team the resources they needed so they could do their jobs. I spent more time on the vision of the company, making sure it was well understood by everyone. I wrote a lot to help clarify our strategy, where we were going and what our focus was. 

I delegated a lot, which made the team fly. No one had to wait on me anymore. 

It forced me to be a CEO that led the company. I started working on my business, not in it. 

My CEO coach thought I might have inadvertently caused the concussion. I was moving like a freight train which eventually was going to crash. Maybe this was something my body needed? Who knows, but a part of me is grateful it happened. It changed my life.

Five years later, I still have speech and auditory effects from the concussion. I have to be insanely intentional with my time, mercilessly cutting out things I shouldn’t be working on. I’ve never accomplished more doing less. Resting is a large part of my day. I give myself plenty of time to play and think. I'm 1000x more productive because of it. 

I’ve found that it’s not how long you work that determines the success of your business. It’s what you work on, especially as a CEO.