The New Way to Gain Velocity in 2026

⏱️ 5–6 minute read (I know you’re busy. Save it, skim it, or read it while avoiding one meeting.)

Quick heads up before we get into it.

If this email looks a little different, that’s because The Huddle officially moved from Kit to Beehiiv. New platform, same voice, same goal. I figured if I’m constantly telling marketers to evolve, I probably shouldn’t be afraid to do the same.

Alright…story time.

Back in late 2024, I wrote a Huddle about a really simple exercise that a lot of you emailed me about afterward. It was the four-box exercise:

Nothing revolutionary. But the point was clear: if you want to expand your impact, you stop trying to be good at everything and start leaning harder into the things you’re actually great at. Everything else? You delegate it, offload it, or flat-out stop doing it.

That Huddle came back to me last week in a way I didn’t expect.

I was in a two-day Annual Planning session with a client, run by an EOS Implementer. I’ve been around EOS and its principles for about eight years now, and I’ll say it again…I genuinely like it. Not because it’s trendy or complex, but because it forces decisions. Problems get solved in the room, not parked in a doc to rot for six weeks.

One of the tools we worked through is called Delegate & Elevate.

If you haven’t seen it, the idea is simple: leaders should be doing the work that only they can do. Not the stuff that’s easy. Not the stuff they’re comfortable with. The work that actually moves the organization forward.

It forces leaders to confront the uncomfortable truth that a lot of what fills their day is either beneath their role or something they’re clinging to because delegating feels risky.

Leaders are supposed to lead and develop. Not just do.

During a break, I was talking with the Implementer, someone I’ve known for almost ten years and who was also my CEO at a former company. We were talking through the Delegate & Elevate exercise, and he casually said something that completely shifted how I was thinking about it.

He said, “We always talk about delegating to people. We should probably be talking about delegating to AI, too.”

And that was one of those annoying comments. The kind that’s obvious once you hear it, but you’re mad you didn’t think of first.

Because he was right.

When we talk about delegation, we default to humans. New hires. Freelancers. Agencies. But if you’re a solo marketer, that advice often hits a wall pretty fast, usually a budget-shaped wall.

So instead, you keep doing everything yourself. The reports. The drafts. The cleanup work. The repetitive tasks that don’t require your best thinking but somehow eat most of your week.

You stay busy. You stay tired. And from the outside, it still looks like you’re “just executing.”

That’s the real problem.

When we don’t Delegate & Elevate (especially now) it isn’t just burnout. It’s stagnation.

You become the bottleneck.

Strategy gets squeezed out by tasks.

AI feels intimidating instead of useful.

And the people who do figure this out quietly pull ahead.

Here’s the shift that finally clicked for me.

Delegate & Elevate doesn’t have to mean “give this to another human.”

It can also mean asking a better question: Should a human be doing this at all?

AI doesn’t replace your judgment, your experience, or your leadership. But it absolutely can take first drafts, summaries, data cleanup, variations, outlines, and repetitive execution off your plate.

For solo marketers, this is a big deal.

If you’re a late adopter, this is your on-ramp.
If you’re already using AI, this is how you scale.
If you’re early, this is how you quietly build a personal agency without hiring anyone.

Before you touch a tool, there’s some prep work.

Look at a normal week and write down what you actually do. Not what your job description says…what fills your calendar. Then get honest about which tasks:

Ask yourself one uncomfortable question: “Does this need my thinking… or just a thinking partner?”

That’s where AI belongs.

Not running your strategy.

Not replacing your voice.

But supporting your execution so you can operate at the right altitude.

Recreate the Delegate & Elevate worksheet, but make it personal. Then add one more column: AI.

For every task, decide:
Is this me?
Is this another human?
Is this AI?
Or should this just disappear entirely?

Then pick one task this week and officially hand it to AI. Not as an experiment. As a decision. Pay attention to what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d change next time.

That’s how this stops being a novelty and starts becoming leverage.

Yes, this new version of The Huddle will include ads. And yes, there may be a digital product coming. That’s intentional. Sustainability matters, especially if we’re all trying to play the long game.

Because the marketers who gain velocity in 2026 won’t be the busiest ones.

They’ll be the ones who know how to delegate smarter, elevate their role, and use leverage instead of willpower.

See you next Sunday!

— Jeff

PS: If this way of thinking resonates and you’re trying to create more results without adding more chaos, let me know! I do work directly with a small number of solo marketers and teams each year. No fluff. No generic playbooks. Just practical strategy, systems, and leverage based on what’s actually working right now.

If you want to talk it through, you can grab time here: https://calendly.com/jeff-forestcitydigital/marketing-coaching-discovery-call