“Hiring is Prophecy”

The emotional reality of building a team

…because you’re not just filling a position. You’re making a prediction.

The moment you hire someone, you’re making a bet on the future. Not just on their skills - but on yours company’s survival, your revenue, your judgment, your ability to manage others and your capacity to lead someone through the fog of uncertainty.

“That’s why it’s so hard”

“That’s why it’s so financial”

“That’s why it feels like a small leap of faith… and a large dose of fear”

The first time I hired someone, I remember that day I hired my first contractor. It wasn’t a full-time employee - just a freelance bookkeeper to help me sort through a mess of transactions from a client in the real state sector. I thought it would feel like expansion. Like relief but it felt like fear.

I wired the first 3,000 usd to someone I barely knew and then spent two hours rechecking the bank balance.

What if they don’t deliver?

What if I just created more problems than I solved?

But that wasn’t just anxiety - it was accounting.

My mind was calculating burn rate. Margin erosion. Risk exposure. My hands were sweating but my brain was doing math because hiring is a Financial Statement in Disguise.

Every hire is a number. Payroll expense. Onboarding cost. Training time. Margin pressure.

But deeper than that, every hire is a line item in your future Income Statement. You’re saying: “Because of this person, we will make more money. We will move faster. We will survive longer.”

But you don’t know that

You hope that

That’s why hiring is a prophecy.

That’s why Accounting for the Unknown.

One of the biggest mistakes I see in early entrepreneurs is ignoring the hidden cost of hiring:

• The learning curve

• The miscommunication

• The time you don’t bill because you’re coaching

You can’t always record that in QuickBooks (Accounting Software).

But it 🩸 bleeds into your profit margins anyway.

Hiring mistakes don’t show up clearly in your books at first. They show up in you.

In the stress you feel. In the moments you say, “I should’ve just done it myself.” And later - they show up in losses.

Remember that you’re not just hiring skills, you’re hiring beliefs.

A résumé might show technical ability but it hides danger. ⛔️

I once hired someone with impeccable credentials - fluent in English, sharp excel skills.

Within two weeks, he was blaming the client for every problem and defending every mistake with bureaucracy.

Great technician. Terrible teammate.

I let him go but it cost me 6,000 usd, a client relationship and a small piece of my energy that two months.

Since then, I look for beliefs not just skills.

• Do they take ownership?

• Do they listen?

• Do they ask smart financial questions?

You can’t teach belief systems. And in accounting and finance - attitude is leverage.

Cash Flow is the Real Boss. It’s easy to say “hire slow, fire fast” until you’ve got cash flow gaps and deliverables due.

You compromise because of time.

You overlook because of stress.

I’ve seen small business owners delay payroll for themselves just to pay someone who turned out to be toxic.

I’ve seen entrepreneurs keep someone for “just one more week” because they felt guilty - even though it was strangling the company.

Your team can’t afford dead weight.

Your mission can’t afford mediocrity.

Your books will tell the truth eventually and that’s what the P&L won’t show you.

There is no line in the profit and loss statement for “culture damage.”

There is no KPI for “team energy.” But if you ignore them, they show up everywhere - in your client retention, your turnover, your mistakes and your mental bandwidth.

Hiring is prophecy, YES. But it’s also chemistry. Hire people who multiply your attention, not subtract from it. People who care about the mission, not just the money.

Accounting & Finance track results but hiring is one of the few decisions where you must act before you have data. The break-even point of Trust.

I have learned to think of hires like investments:

What is the payback period?

How long will it take for this person to free up my time and generate more revenue than they cost?

It’s a simple equation:

Some hires pay off in 30 days. Some never do.

Your job is to keep enough margin - financial and emotional - to fire before it’s too late.

Trust is earned, but the investment in trust must be profitable.

That lead us to why hiring is the first step in scaling and the most dangerous.

People say “if you don’t hire, you’ll stay small forever.” True. But hire wrong and you may not survive at all.

Hiring forces you to confront your systems:

• Do you have SOPs?

• Can you delegate cleanly?

• Can you articulate what success looks like?

If not, don’t hire. You’re just paying to export your chaos.

You must understand that you’re not building a team. You are building a future.

When you hire, you’re saying…

“This company will exist tomorrow and we need you to help it become real.”

That’s a bold thing to say.

In Finance, you don’t make promises you can’t cash but in leadership.

You sometimes have to bet on tomorrow - even if today feels uncertain.

“Hiring is Prophecy, you speak it, you write the check and you hope the future listens.”