Five hard lessons from building a high-growth company

Executive overview

Working at full speed fills the calendar but blocks strategic thinking, drains the people around you, and leaves no room to grow a team. Seven years as COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK produced 58 reflections; the first five centre on a single pattern: doing less, better.

The founder's trap is confusing hours and activity with impact.

De-stress deliberately

• Residual stress accumulates invisibly and shifts behaviour from responding to reacting.
• Stress affects the team, not just the individual carrying it.
• Unhealthy outlets (alcohol, substances) mask stress without removing it.
• Healthy alternatives: hard stop at 5–5:30 pm, regular workouts, yoga, walks, massage.
• Awareness of the build-up is the prerequisite for addressing it.

Slow down and do less

• Working at ~80% of maximum pace increases actual effectiveness.
• Back-to-back meetings eliminate time for strategy and intuition.
• Busyness and productivity are not the same — rushing produces output, not necessarily the right output.
• Practical constraints: max 5 hours of calls in an 8-hour day, 30-minute buffers between blocks, dedicated buffer days.
• Slowing down creates space to delegate and be more thoughtful in every interaction.

Respond, don't react

• Fast reactions create ripple effects — positive or negative — across the organisation.
• Every comment or decision leaves the org in a better or worse state than before.
• Tactics for pausing: sit on hands to avoid speaking too quickly; let junior people speak first in meetings.
• Junior contributions are often better, or good enough to render further input unnecessary.
• Taking pause is not about being calculated — it's about ideas landing better and ripple effects trending positive.

Set boundaries and enforce them

• Covering for others' workload, conflict avoidance, and after-hours email are boundary failures.
• Working 14-hour days doesn't shorten the list — the company always grows faster than the backlog shrinks.
• Overwork avoids relational pain (lack of friends, hobbies, family time) rather than solving business problems.
• Clear stops: no evenings, no weekends, no Fridays; workday 8:30 am – 3:00 pm.
• Visible boundaries signal to coaching clients that the behaviour they aspire to is achievable.
• Boundaries force delegation and shift focus to the critical few over the important many.

Mentor while you work

• The default is to stop work to train people; the better method is to let them ride shotgun.
• CFO Trish Saltis demonstrated the model: Elaine joined budget meetings as an observer, then as a participant, then ran them solo by week four — with no separate training sessions.
• Benefits: no debrief overhead, faster skill transfer, learning happens in real context.
• Practical forms: CC on emails, listening in on calls, sitting in the corner of meetings.
• The mentor loses no productive time; the learner gains live exposure.