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There’s a bit of a joke among my friends that I never leave my house, and honestly, it’s mostly true. What can I say? I love being home! 

But recently, I said yes to a spontaneous trip to Nashville, and that quick decision ended up reshaping how I’m leading my business this summer.

Between an inspiring fireside chat with Amy Porterfield and a powerhouse presentation from Stacy Tuschl (who was on the podcast back in 2023!), I walked away with one clear mission: we needed to overhaul how we operate behind the scenes. 

I’m talking about building playbooks: the kind that document every process, so nothing gets lost and no team member feels like the business falls apart without them.

And trust me, I didn’t come to this decision from theory alone. It took a full-on tech emergency, a broken ankle, and a scramble during launch week to make it crystal clear that our business needed to be able to run with or without us.

The Launch Meltdown That Changed Everything

Picture this: we’re mid-launch for The Pinterest Lab, one of our biggest programs, and one of my most trusted team members (aka our tech wizard) breaks her ankle the weekend before our live webinars kick off. 

Surgery, recovery, pain meds… the whole nine yards.

She’s so loyal, she’s texting us about getting the work done while she’s recovering! And while I’m in full boss-mode telling her to rest and heal, I’m also panicking internally….

Because she’s the only one who knows how all the tech connects.

In that moment, I realized the issue wasn’t about her: it was about the lack of systems. No one else knew the intricacies of what she did. And that wasn’t fair to her or to the business. That’s when I knew it: we needed detailed playbooks, not someday, but NOW.

The Shift That Made Systems Sexy

For the longest time, I believed SOPs and systems were for stuffy corporations, not for creative entrepreneurs like me. I saw them as creativity-killers! That was until I read Dan Martell’s book, Buy Back Your Time.

Dan talks about $10 tasks versus $10,000 tasks, and how documenting tasks allows you to focus on your zone of genius. I ended up sending the book to my entire team and told them: this is how we’re moving forward.

What I once saw as rigid and boring now feels liberating. Systems are the thing that make space for more creativity, not less. And they’ve officially become the sexiest part of how we work.

The Playbook Project: What We’re Building and How We’re Testing It

Enter Stacy Tuschl again, who didn’t just encourage creating playbooks, she challenged us to test them. So that’s what we’re doing this summer!

One team member builds the playbook, and then another team member steps into their role to test it out without any help. That’s how we know if our documentation truly holds up.

Right now, we’re prioritizing creating 3 playbooks for:

• Refined blog standards which integrates everything we’ve learned about SEO and formatting. Listen to Episode 177: The Entrepreneur’s Guide To SEO: How-to, Hacks, and Tricks to Get Traffic to learn more about this!
• Support so the inbox runs smoothly even when our team members are offline.
• Tech systems so there’s no more guesswork during launches.

Each one includes step-by-step instructions, helpful links, Loom videos, and checklists… the works. 

The end goal? One searchable, streamlined hub that can even integrate into our own custom GPT to answer internal questions in seconds.

The Ripple Effect of Getting It All Down

This isn’t just about process, it’s about peace. 

Since kicking off this initiative, I’ve felt a massive shift in my leadership. I’m still intuitive and creative, but now I’ve got structure to match. 

The team knows what’s expected. We’re not guessing or overlapping. We’re not anxious about time off. We know the systems have our back.

The ripple effect is real. From internal clarity to external consistency, we’re operating with more confidence than ever. And I believe that will be felt by everyone who comes into contact with our business.

Ready to Build Your Own?

So here’s your invitation: whether you’re flying solo or leading a small team, let this be your Playbook Summer!

Pick one repeatable task, record yourself doing it, and turn it into a doc. Then test it, refine it, and repeat!

You don’t need to overhaul everything at once… just start.

Playbooks aren’t just systems. They’re freedom. They’re clarity. And they’re how you buy back your time and protect your peace!

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