Years ago, at a company called Spire, I thought I was doing everything right. I worked hard, stayed late, solved every problem myself. I built the systems, handled the clients, and kept things running. I thought that made me valuable.
Then I almost got fired.
Not because I wasn't performing — but because I wasn't scalable. I couldn't hire. I couldn't train. Everything lived in my head, and that meant everything stopped with me.
At first, I was furious. I felt misunderstood, underappreciated. I held a grudge for a long time. But eventually, I realized something that changed the way I build everything now: they weren't wrong.
The Hard Truth
The truth was that I had made myself the system. I was good at what I did — maybe too good — and I hadn't created a way for anyone else to step in, learn it, or carry it forward. Every task, every client, every decision had to pass through me.
That's not leadership. That's survival. And survival doesn't scale.
When I look back now, I can see how much pressure I put on myself, trying to hold it all together. I wanted things to be perfect, to stay efficient, to keep the quality high — but in chasing that, I built a bottleneck instead of a business.
The Moment Everything Clicked
There was a conversation with the COO — one that ended in termination from his team — that stuck with me long after I left. I had been angry, embarrassed, maybe even defensive. But later, I called to apologize. I told him I finally understood what he was trying to teach me.
It wasn't about working harder. It was about building something that others could work within.
That conversation changed everything. It became the foundation of how I run JNB and how I help my clients today. Because the problem isn't that we care too much — it's that we forget to make our work teachable.
What Teachable Work Looks Like
Teachable work is work that survives you.
It's not about lowering standards or letting go of quality. It's about creating structure — naming what you do, documenting how you do it, and making it possible for others to do it well too.
You can't scale a person. But you can scale a process.
At JNB, that's become our obsession. We don't just fix what's broken; we make it teachable. Every workflow, every dashboard, every system is built so it can be passed on, taught, and improved without depending on one person.
The Real Lesson
What I learned at Spire wasn't failure — it was foundation. I learned that being irreplaceable is not the goal. Building something that outlives you is.
I used to think excellence meant doing it all myself. Now I know it means building systems that make excellence possible for everyone.
That's the heart of JNB.
Build teachable. Lead sustainably. Grow freely.
Ready to make your business teachable?
Let's build systems that don't depend on you being in the room.
Let's TalkSara Hass
Founder, JNB LLC