This transcript was produced by robots and left as-is. Accuracy and elegance are not guaranteed.

I set the removal criteria, a monthly revenue number for the coaching business. Hit it, and I stopped taking industrial engineering work. Clean. It was written down. It is written down.

Except I haven’t hit it. And it’s not because the numbers wrong or excessive or out to lunch. It’s because the industrial work keeps coming. And it’s comfortable. It’s what I’ve done for almost three decades, so I haven’t pushed.

That’s the episode. Not how to define your exit criteria, but what happens when you define them and nothing moves.

Back in episode five, I talked about how smart people stay stuck because they can build a convincing case for staying. That was about a role that’s draining you.

It’s the same machinery here, just a different application. This isn’t rationalizing a bad thing. It’s rationalizing not pushing on a good thing. That’s harder to see because nothing is wrong. And that’s exactly what the problem is. You build scaffolding to support a structure that can’t stand on its own yet.

Scaffolding is not a compromise. It’s not a phase you’re waiting out. It’s a structure you put up on purpose because the thing you’re building can’t hold the weight yet. Engineers don’t apologize for scaffolding in the physical world. You put it up, you take it down when the structure is self-supporting.

So the failure isn’t having it. The failure is not knowing when it needs to come down. It’s the building that’s been standing for years with scaffolding still up around it. So you write down the removal criteria. And that feels like you’ve solved it. You didn’t.

The criteria are necessary, they’re not enough. A target with no active work against it isn’t a target. It’s a wish with a number on it.

Criteria only trigger if you’re doing the thing that generates the trigger.

So the leverage isn’t in having the criteria written down. It’s not, I know exactly what my exit goal is. It’s, am I doing the work that would fire it? If the answer is no, the criteria are decoration. It’s a target you’re not aiming at.

Here’s the part that actually traps you. The scaffolding generates its own demand.

Every time you say yes to it, that yes is defensible on its own. The revenue is real, the client needs the work, you’re good at it, nobody’s being unreasonable. That’s what makes it work. It isn’t weakness. It’s a series of correct individual decisions. Each one, taken alone, is a smart play.

Aggregate them together, you get a pivot that never completes. And the cost is invisible because it’s revenue. Revenue reads as pure upside. what you don’t see is the actual cost, which is the hours that didn’t go into the thing that fires the criteria. That’s the trade you’re not pricing.

Scaffolding doesn’t come down on schedule when it keeps offering to hold more weight.

Just over three years ago, I decided coaching is what I wanted to do. Work with engineers, help them learn the lessons I learned quicker and less hard than I learned them. The industrial work was the scaffolding. The monthly revenue number was the removal criteria. Hit it, scaffolding comes down. The pivot is the plan, but I haven’t pushed.

I’ve wanted to. Then another industrial project comes up. And the schedule isn’t mine, it’s the clients. Their work executes when they need it to. So I don’t push.

Now, you’re probably not pivoting into coaching, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the same structure. You step into a new title, lead, manager, whatever it is. And you still own three or four deep technical deliverables. Every day you’re deciding whether you’re the lead here or the engineer here. And you’re burning cycles on that arbitration.

instead of doing the work on either side of it.

The technical work keeps arriving. Well, you’re good at it. Every instance is justified. It’s rewarding because you know it’s good work. And it’s the work that got you the role in the first place. You said yes to the lead role because your work landed you there. But you’ve only got a vague picture of what it actually means being a lead and what that’s supposed to look like.

So you never get there because you’re not pushing. Back in episode four, I talked about the system training itself to rely on you.

This is you training yourself to rely on the system.

So the answer isn’t define your criteria, because you’ll just nod along and do nothing. Here’s the better question.

What did you say yes to in the last month that was reasonable, that you’re good at, that paid, and that moved you exactly zero distance toward the thing you say you’re building?

Sit with that list. Don’t fix it yet.

Because if the cost is the hours, you have to be able to see the hours. Most people can’t.

That’s next.