In July I had breakfast with a business owner in Milton Keynes. He'd just come back from holiday. One of his team was going away next. Nobody really switches off, he said. Everyone checks in.
He left his old job because his boss treated him as a resource. So he runs his own place flat. Under ten people, no hierarchy. Which means everybody owns everything and nobody owns anything, and when someone's away nobody's sure who's picking their work up.
We pushed the plates aside and drew a chart on the napkins.
Six weeks later it's on the wall. Rows are people, columns are status. To take time off you move your card into someone else's row. You can't give work away, it has to be accepted, and accepting means you own it until they're back.
It worked. His team can take a fortnight now.
Then I looked at where the cards ended up.
Everything in that business passes one gate before it ships. Quality assurance. One signature. His.
By the end of August there were 18 cards in that box. He was spending the weekend clearing them, because he had a golf tournament the following week.
Eighteen cards, one weekend, one signature. That's the owner's tax: the price of running a business that still depends on you the way it did on day one.
It isn't a character flaw. It's a decision from year one that nobody has gone back and redesigned.
Yours isn't on a wall, so it's harder to see. It's the thing that can't ship without you, and you stopped noticing because you've always been the one doing it.
Find it before your next holiday, not during it.
He left a boss who treated him as a resource, and built a business that treats him as one.
PS: If you want to find your own box, that's what the Owner's Tax Strategy Session is for. https://lifestack.studio/book-a-call