I'm The Real Jason Duncan, back with another edition of Beyond the Grind – helping entrepreneurs like you stop being slaves to your businesses. 🚀

Over the past three editions, I've walked you through the Law of the Prisoner, the Law of the Architect, and how to diagnose which law you're actually living by even when you think you already know the answer.

Now, we fix it.

I'm giving you the escape plan.

The Real Problem

Here's what I've watched happen over and over again with entrepreneurs who finally realize they're trapped: they try to escape all at once.

They read a book or attend a conference or have a conversation that wakes them up to the fact that they've built a prison instead of a business, and they get fired up – which is good, that's the right response – but then they go home and try to change everything at the same time.

They're going to delegate more and document all their processes and hire that key person and step back from sales and stop being the crisis manager and build a leadership team and take Fridays off and and and...

And then three weeks later, they're exhausted and overwhelmed and nothing has actually changed because you can't pick seven locks simultaneously.

The prison has seven locks.

You pick them one at a time.

But not necessarily in order – different entrepreneurs will find different locks are the ones holding them hostage.

The Seven Escapes

Here's the framework I want you to think about – seven specific shifts that move you from Prisoner to Architect, and the key is that you don't try to do all of them at once.

Escape #1: Stop Being the Only Closer

If every sale needs your personal touch to close, you don't have a sales system – you have a job with commission.

The escape is transferring those relationships so deals can close without you in the room.

Escape #2: Stop Being the Decision Gate

If the business stalls every time you're unavailable because every decision has to run through your desk, you've made yourself a bottleneck and called it leadership.

The escape is distributing decision rights to people you trust so the company keeps moving whether you're there or not.

Escape #3: Stop Being the Crisis Manager

If your value to the company is measured by how many fires you put out, you're incentivized to keep having fires – even if you don't realize it.

The escape is building systems that prevent problems instead of being the hero who solves them.

Escape #4: Stop Being the Knowledge Keeper

If the vital processes that drive your business exist only in your head, your business is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for access to your brain – which, if you're planning to leave, isn't much.

The escape is documenting the 20% of processes that drive 80% of your results so the knowledge belongs to the company, not just to you.

Escape #5: Stop Measuring Your Value by Activity

If you measure a good day by how many hours you worked or how many tasks you completed or how many problems you solved, you're optimizing for the wrong thing.

The escape is shifting your metric from “how busy was I” to “how little did the business need me” – which feels backwards until you realize that's exactly what makes a business valuable.

Escape #6: Stop Being Always Available

If you can't take a Friday off without things piling up, or a week without things breaking, or a month without things falling apart, you haven't built a business – you've built a life support system that dies when you unplug.

The escape is running absence audits, starting with Freedom Fridays and working up to two-week and four-week stress tests that prove your business can survive without your constant attention.

Escape #7: Stop Believing You're Irreplaceable

This one is the hardest because it's not a system or a process – it's an identity shift.

If you believe deep down that nobody can do what you do, that the business needs you specifically, that your personal involvement is what makes the magic happen, you will sabotage every escape attempt you make because part of you doesn't actually want to be free.

The escape is testing your assumptions by actually stepping away and seeing what breaks – and then fixing those specific things instead of using them as proof that you were right to stay trapped.

Why This Matters

Here's my confession, and I'm telling you this because I think it matters that you know the guy writing this newsletter is still working on parts of it himself: I'm still the closer in my business.

I'm the only one in my company who talks to people interested in joining my mastermind.

Every sales conversation goes through me, and in the language of the Seven Escapes, that lock is still holding me.

I know it.

I see it clearly.

And I'm working toward it – I have a timeline of about six to eight months before I can transition that responsibility to someone else who's being developed right now.

But I'm not there yet.

The reason I'm telling you this is because awareness is the key to recovery, and I've said that so many times it probably sounds like a bumper sticker at this point, but it's true.

You can't fix what you won't acknowledge.

I acknowledge that I haven't picked the “closer” lock yet.

I acknowledge that it's costing me time and energy and limiting the growth of my business in ways I can measure.

I acknowledge that I need to fix it.

And I'm working toward fixing it on a specific timeline with specific milestones.

That's the difference between being a Prisoner who doesn't know they're trapped and being an Architect who's still picking locks.

Every reader of this newsletter will have different locks that haven't been picked yet.

Maybe you've already transferred your sales relationships but you're still the knowledge keeper with everything trapped in your head.

Maybe you've documented your processes but you still can't take a Friday off without checking your email seventeen times.

Maybe you've delegated decisions but deep down you still believe you're irreplaceable and you keep finding reasons to swoop back in.

The point isn't perfection.

The point is knowing which locks you haven't picked yet and working on them one at a time instead of pretending they don't exist or trying to escape everything at once.

Now What?

Here's what I want you to do this week: pick ONE escape to focus on for the next 90 days.

Not all seven.

One.

Look at the list and ask yourself honestly: which of these is costing me the most right now?

Maybe it's obvious – you read one of them and felt that little twist in your gut that tells you this is the thing you've been avoiding.

Maybe you need to sit with it for a day or two and really think about where you're most trapped.

Either way, pick one.

Write it down.

And then build a 90-day plan to pick that lock.

Words of Wisdom

"Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways." – Proverb 4:26

Careful thought.

Not hasty action.

Not trying to change everything at once.

Not picking seven locks simultaneously and wondering why none of them open.

Careful thought about which path to take first, and then steadfastness – staying the course, doing the work, resisting the urge to jump to the next thing before you've finished the first thing.

The entrepreneurs who actually escape their prisons aren't the ones who try hardest or move fastest.

They're the ones who pick one lock, pick it well, and then move to the next one.

That's the path.

One escape at a time.

Until next time...

Go beyond the grind,

The Real Jason Duncan 🚀