Not Every Fire Is Your Fire

Some weeks, everything breaks at once.

A key staff member quits. An important customer complains loudly. Cash is tighter than you'd like. A supplier stuffs up. Something breaks in your process or product.

You wake up already behind. Your brain's running at 200km/h before you've even had coffee.

For a long time, my default mindset was: "If I don't fix all of this right now, I'm failing."

So I'd:

• Jump into every problem personally
• Try to "solve" everything in one go
• Snap at people because my nervous system was fried

I was operating like a frantic firefighter, not a founder.

The business didn't thank me for it. The team definitely didn't. My family often paid for it.

What I've learnt since is this: The problems aren't the real issue. The way you think about them is.

The mindset shift that changed everything for me was simple:

"Not every fire is my fire."

Read that again.

You're the founder. Your job isn't to sprint into every room with a hose.

Your job is to:

• Decide which fires matter
• Decide when they matter
• Decide who deals with them
• Decide what you're willing to let smoulder for a while

That's mindset, not tactics.

The old mindset: all-or-nothing panic

When I was in panic mode, my thinking sounded like this:

"If I don't respond to this customer today, we'll lose them."

"If I don't jump in on this shift, the team will hate me."

"If I don't answer this message now, I'm a bad leader."

"If I don't fix the whole system this week, we're screwed."

Everything was binary. Everything was catastrophic. Everything was about me.

It's exhausting. And ironically, it makes you worse at solving the actual problem.

You're not thinking clearly. You're working from fear and guilt, not from priorities.

The new mindset: operator triage

These days, on the weeks where everything blows up, I try to default to a different internal script:

"What actually moves the needle if I fix it?"

"What is truly urgent versus just loud?"

"What can I let be imperfect this week without the business dying?"

"Who else can own this?"

That's triage.

Hospitals do this every day. They don't treat a paper cut and a heart attack the same way.

But in our businesses, we often do.

We treat an annoying email, a minor complaint, a side project, a low-impact request with the same urgency and emotional energy as a cash crisis, a key person issue, a product failure, or a regulatory problem.

No wonder it feels like you're drowning.

A simple way to reset your head on bad weeks

Next time you hit one of those "everything's on fire" weeks, try this.

Take 10 minutes. No laptop. Just a pen.

Split a page into three columns:

Critical: If this doesn't get attention this week, it damages the business in a meaningful way.

Important: It matters, but it can wait a week or two without major damage.

Annoying: It's loud, uncomfortable or inconvenient, but the business will not collapse if it's parked.

Then:

• Put each problem into a column
• Circle one or two in the Critical column
• That's it

Decide what you'll personally handle, what you'll delegate, and what you'll consciously leave alone.

You're not "dropping the ball" on the things you leave in Important/Annoying.

You're choosing what to carry this week so you can stay useful.

That's what good operators do.

This is about identity, not just productivity

This three-column exercise looks simple. But it only works if you accept something uncomfortable:

You are not more "committed" because you suffer more.

You are not a better leader because you put yourself in every fire.

You are not your business's feelings for the week.

Underneath all of this is ego. And I had to face mine.

My job is to stay in the game long enough to make good decisions, build systems, and grow people.

I can't do that if I'm properly F’ed.

So on the weeks when everything feels urgent, the mindset I try to come back to is:

"Not every fire is my fire. I decide what burns, and for how long."

It sounds cold. It isn't.

It's what lets you:

• Protect your energy
• Protect your team from whiplash
• Protect your standards long term

So, while the competitor down the street is still running laps with an empty bucket, you're putting out the right fires and building something that lasts.

I hope this helps!