Hiring for agency and testing people

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In this episode of The Six Figure Author Experiment, Lee and Russell veer delightfully off-road into a “totally new format” conversation that blends tarot, business diagnostics, mindset, guided meditations, nervous system regulation, and delegation. Lee shares her two-year journey toward creating a tarot deck without spending $25K–$30K on art, and how AI helped her extract and match quotes from her own books into card concepts. That rabbit trail turns into a bigger theme: permission. Why creators freeze, hustle, or stall out when the real work is learning to believe you belong in the room. From “capitalist tarot” systems (major arcana as business phases) to talismans and rituals that anchor identity, the conversation lands on a practical delegation framework: start with the projects you will never do, hire for agency, and run 7-day experiments instead of building fragile job roles.

Topics Covered:

* Lee’s new format experiment: building a tarot deck (and why it matters)

* The real cost of a traditional tarot deck: 78 cards + art + printing

* Pivoting from full art to text-based decks: oracle/stuck deck hybrids

* Using AI to extract quotes from your own catalog and match them to cards

* “I can’t hit the trend unless I make the trend” and why creators rebuild systems to understand them

* Building “business tarot”: diagnostics designed for business, not pasted onto it

* Tarot as structured language: major arcana, phases, and shared symbolic meaning

* Tarot as poetry: interpretation as self-revelation, not author intent

* “Beyond the book” expansion: why rituals and repeat-touch objects matter

* Anchors and talismans: poker chips, degrees on walls, and belief as the real ticket in

* Permission economy vs. self-permission: how creators get trained to ask instead of act

* Lee’s guided meditations for authors: relaxing into the solution-state and letting the brain map the path

* Reticular activating system: priming your mind to notice solutions

* Hustle vs. freeze: sympathetic overload, cortisol loops, and “gas + emergency brake” burnout

* Walking as regulation: bilateral movement cues safety and de-escalation

* Play as nervous system reset: “sketch with no outcome,” look up, take a photo, be present

* Delegation as a common creator pain point: burnout + distrust + micromanaging

* Delegation metaphor: if you order coffee without running into the kitchen, you’ve delegated

* Hiring for agency: “extrapolating from known data” as Russell’s key interview test

* The recursive feedback loop: taste, questions, and improving output over time

* The “F*** List”: projects you will never do (perfect first delegation targets)

* Don’t hire for high-context roles too early: community, ads, brand voice, etc.

* Delegate low-hanging fruit first: personal life tasks and modular business tasks

* Delegation stall-out: bicycle → Ferrari transition and tolerating the temporary slowdown

* 7-day experiments over rigid goals: test, review, iterate, replace

* Zone of genius homework: notice flow states, write them down, delegate the rest

* Space creates growth: firing headaches, reclaiming runway, hiring better replacements

* Closing recap: tarot, meditations, delegating, and embracing “good chaos”

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