The Fire Log
Two weeks of every interruption that pulled you out of planned work, categorized by whether it genuinely required you. Turns a vague feeling of overwhelm into a fixable list.
Pre-work
Dallas, Texas · November 10 and 11, 2026 · 20 seats
The 2027 Operating Reset
Two full days with nineteen other home care owner-operators. You leave with your top constraints diagnosed and a 2027 operating plan that is finished, not started.
Founding Cohort rate of $1,495, paid in full at registration, while the first ten seats remain.
- Who it is for
- Owner-operators at $1M–$5M
- Room size
- 20 seats, capped
- Format
- Two full days, Dallas
- You leave with
- A finished operating plan
The problem
Growth stalls at the size you fought hardest to reach.
It is almost never a sales problem. It is a structure problem, and it has a predictable location.
Under roughly $1.5 million, an engaged owner can hold the whole business in their head. Every client, every caregiver's availability quirk, every referral relationship. That heroic capacity is a genuine competitive advantage early on.
Past $2 million, that same capacity becomes the ceiling.
Here is the trap. At this stage your agency needs leadership infrastructure and documented systems that current revenue does not yet comfortably fund. You need a real operations leader before you can obviously afford one. You need documented workflows before anyone has time to write them. You need to stop being the escalation point before you have anyone qualified to escalate to. So the decision gets deferred, and every deferral makes the next one harder, because the business keeps compounding complexity while the operating structure stays frozen.
The result is a very specific kind of exhaustion. Not the exhaustion of a struggling business. The exhaustion of a successful business that cannot function without one person.
You do not have a growth problem. You have an owner-dependency problem wearing a growth problem's clothes.
Room discipline
Twenty seats means we are selective on purpose.
This room is built for you if
- You own a home care agency running roughly $1M to $5M in revenue
- You have real operating infrastructure: caregivers, schedulers, payroll, referral activity
- You are the bottleneck and you already know it
- You have a leadership team, or you know you need one and have not built it
- You want a plan you actually execute, not a binder that goes on a shelf
This room is not for you if
- You are pre-launch or pre-revenue and need foundational setup first
- You are a solo advisor or consultant without an operating agency
- You are looking for lead generation tactics or a marketing course
- You want to observe rather than work on your own numbers in the room
- You cannot complete a 90-minute pre-work packet before arriving
Running a smaller agency? Say so when you reach out. There is a more foundational track coming, and your operating challenges are genuinely different.
The work
Six diagnostics run on your business, not a generic curriculum.
This is a compressed version of the paid diagnostic we run with private clients. Nobody teaches you KPIs you already know.
Bottleneck Finder
We trace one client from inquiry to first shift and one caregiver from application to first assignment, marking every point where the process waits on a person instead of a system.
Pre-workOwner-Dependency Map
Every recurring decision in the business against who can actually make it without you. Plus what only lives in your head, which is enterprise value you cannot sell.
In the roomSystems Assessment
A structured look at what is documented, what is tribal knowledge, and which gaps are actively costing you margin, hours, or retention right now.
In the roomRight Seat Blueprint
Redraw your org chart for the business you run today, not the one you had at $900K. Most plateaued agencies have roles that quietly became three jobs.
In the roomGrowth Readiness Check
Before you add volume, we pressure-test whether your structure can absorb it. Growth on a broken operating base just makes the break louder.
In the room
A revenue goal built on an undiagnosed operating constraint is not a plan. It is a wish with a deadline. Leslie Waddell
What you leave with
Finished work, not notes to write up later.
Everything below exists on paper before you get on your flight home.
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Your top three operating constraints, named and ranked Specific to your agency, in priority order, with the reasoning behind the ranking.
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A written 2027 operating plan Quarter by quarter, tied to your actual constraints rather than a generic growth template.
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A redrawn org chart with defined seats Including the one hire that unlocks the most owner capacity, and when to make it.
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A documentation and delegation sequence What to write down first, what to hand off next, and in what order to avoid chaos.
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Nineteen peers who know your business Non-competing owners in other markets who worked through your numbers alongside you.
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A 30-minute planning call after the event Founding Cohort only. We check execution once the plan meets real life.
Who is leading it
Two lenses on the same problem.
The person who built the systems, and the person who has run them for eighteen years.
Host and facilitator
Leslie Waddell
Founder, Transforming Leaders Daily
Fourteen years on the franchisor side of home care. Senior director of global talent development at Comfort Keepers, then SVP of Experience at BrightStar Care, where learning and development, talent management, change management, sales, clinical, and conferences all reported to her. More or less every department that influenced whether a franchisee succeeded.
She designed the operating systems owners were handed. Now she helps independent owner-operators actually run them.
Featured guest
Dr. Lori Eberly
Owner-operator, four Comfort Keepers locations
Eighteen years owning and operating home care in the Charlotte market across four franchise locations. She delivers the Owner's Chair session: what the plateau actually felt like from the owner's seat, which decisions she would make differently, and what it took to stop being the escalation point in her own business.
This is the counterweight to franchisor-level theory. Every framework in the room gets tested against someone who has lived it.
A working session on agency financials is also included, covering the numbers owners most often misread at this stage.
The actual time commitment
Two full days, and I want you to see that clearly before you pay.
This is not a day and a half with a soft finish so people can catch afternoon flights. It is two complete working days, and the work only holds if you are there for all of it. Here is everything you are agreeing to, including the parts that happen before and after Dallas.
- Two weeks before Pre-work packet 60 to 90 minutes at your desk, pulling real numbers and answering questions about your own operation. Owners who skip it spend the first morning gathering information instead of making decisions.
- Two weeks before · VIP Your private diagnostic session 45 minutes by video with me or Dr. Lori Eberly, walking your scored results before you travel. You arrive with your primary constraint already named, so Day 1 starts at decisions instead of discovery.
- Evening before · VIP Welcome dinner Roughly 6:00pm to 9:00pm. If you are VIP, plan to be in Dallas that afternoon, not the next morning. This is the one piece that changes your travel, so book accordingly.
- Day 1 Full day, morning through evening Diagnosis. Your fire log, your bottlenecks, your owner-dependency map, and the financials session. Expect to work past the end of the scheduled day, because owners keep going.
- Day 2 Full day, ending late afternoon The Owner's Chair session, the right-seat work, and writing your actual 2027 plan. You leave the room holding a finished plan, in your own hand. Do not book a flight before evening. If you can stay the night and fly out the next morning, do that instead.
- By December 4 · VIP Your plan produced and returned Every owner leaves Dallas holding the plan they built. VIP seats also get it back typed and formatted, with my written synthesis of what surfaced in your diagnostic and in the room, plus a sequenced ninety-day order of operations. Something you can hand to your leadership team without transcribing it first.
- After Follow-through calls One 30-minute planning call for every attendee. VIP adds three more at day 30, day 60, and day 90.
Standard seat: two full days in Dallas, plus about two hours of work outside the room.
VIP seat: the evening before plus two full days, plus about four hours outside the room, spread across the two weeks before and the ninety days after.
Owners who cannot protect two consecutive days should wait for a later Reset rather than attend half of this one. Half of this does not work.
Reserve your seat
Founding Cohort pricing, while the first ten seats last.
Founding Cohort
First 10 seats
$1,495
per owner
Paid in full at registration. Your seat is confirmed the moment checkout is complete.
- Two full working days in the room, capped at twenty owners
- Full diagnostic toolkit and owner pre-work packet
- The Owner's Chair session with Dr. Lori Eberly
- Agency financials working session
- Your completed 2027 plan, built in the room and yours to carry out
- A 30-minute planning call after the event
- Locked Founding rate into the Home Care Performance Group
Secure checkout via Stripe. Transferable seat under the terms below.
The room holds twenty. The first ten seats go at the Founding Cohort rate, and the price steps up from the eleventh owner on. That is not a marketing device. The first ten are taking a bet on a new room, and that deserves to be worth something.
| Founding Cohort | Seats 1 to 10 | $1,495 |
|---|---|---|
| Early Bird | Seat 11 on, through October 24 | $1,995 |
| Regular | Through November 5 | $2,495 |
| Late and walk-up | If any of the twenty remain | $2,795 |
Add the VIP upgrade to any tier for $1,000. Ten VIP seats across the whole room.
VIP upgrade
Add VIP to any tier for $1,000.
Ten VIP seats across the entire room. VIP is for the owner who does not want to leave with homework. You walk in already knowing your primary constraint, your plan comes back to you produced two weeks ahead of the room, and then someone holds you to it for ninety days.
- A private diagnostic before you travel 45 minutes by video in the two weeks before Dallas with me or Dr. Lori Eberly, walking your scored results and your top constraints. You arrive with your constraint already named instead of spending Day 1 finding it.
- Your plan produced, with my synthesis Every owner leaves with the plan they built. VIP is the only seat that gets it back produced: typed, formatted, with my written synthesis and a sequenced ninety-day order of operations, by December 4. Team-ready, not a photograph of your own handwriting.
- Three accountability calls after the event Thirty minutes each at day 30, day 60, and day 90. This is the difference between a plan you wrote and a plan you ran.
- The welcome dinner the evening before Invite only, ten people maximum, with me and the featured guests. No programming. Just the conversation owners cannot have with their own teams.
- Reserved seating and first look at what comes next Front of the room for the keynote and deep-dive blocks, plus a seven-day head start on the Home Care Performance Group Founding Cohort before it opens to the rest of the room.
Your $1,495 seat plus the $1,000 VIP upgrade, paid in full at registration. Already registered? Email me and I will add VIP to your seat while VIP seats remain.
Paid in full at registration
One payment confirms your seat, with nothing to chase later.
Non-refundable once registered
The venue and catering are committed against confirmed seats, so registrations are non-refundable from purchase.
Your seat is transferable
If something changes, send another leader from your organization or another owner who fits the room. Give me a name seven days out and the seat is theirs at no extra cost.
If I have to move or cancel
If Transforming Leaders Daily cancels or reschedules the Reset, you choose a full refund or a seat at the new dates.
Questions
Before you register.
When is the Reset?
The Reset runs Tuesday, November 10 and Wednesday, November 11, 2026, in Dallas. Both are full working days, and Day 2 ends late afternoon, so plan an evening flight home. Registered owners receive the hotel and venue details directly, with enough lead time to book travel comfortably.
What is the pre-work, and how long does it really take?
Sixty to ninety minutes, due two weeks before we meet. It is an operating and financial snapshot, the Bottleneck Finder, and a two-week Fire Log you keep as you go.
This is not busywork. The pre-work is what makes two days enough. Owners who skip it spend the first morning gathering information instead of making decisions.
Will I be in the room with a direct competitor?
No. Seats are reviewed for market overlap before they are confirmed. Peer value depends on owners being able to speak openly about numbers, staffing, and referral sources, which does not happen if the person across the table competes for the same clients.
Is this a sales pitch for a bigger program?
There is a next step if you want one. Founding Cohort members lock a Founding rate into the Home Care Performance Group, and some owners go on to private work.
But the two days stand on their own. You leave with a finished plan whether or not you ever work with me again, and nobody will be pitched from the front of the room.
Do I need the VIP upgrade to get value out of this?
No. Every seat gets the full two days, the complete diagnostic toolkit, the pre-work packet, the financials session, a 30-minute planning call afterward, and a finished 2027 plan you built yourself and carry out of the room. That is the whole point of the two days, and it is complete on its own.
VIP buys three things. A private 45-minute diagnostic before you travel, so Day 1 starts at decisions instead of discovery. Your plan produced for you afterward, typed and formatted with my written synthesis and a sequenced ninety-day order of operations, rather than the version in your own handwriting. And ninety days of someone checking whether you actually ran it.
If your honest history is that you build good plans and then Tuesday happens, that last part alone is worth the thousand dollars. If you execute well on your own and do not mind working from your own notes, save the money.
What if my agency is smaller than $1M?
Reach out anyway and tell me your numbers. The honest answer is that a $600K agency and a $3M agency have genuinely different constraints, and putting them in the same room serves neither well. A more foundational track is in development, and I would rather point you there than take your registration for the wrong room.
Is there a virtual option if I cannot travel?
Not for this one, and I want to be straight about why rather than pretend it is a scheduling problem. The room is the mechanism. The value is not the slides, it is nineteen non-competing owners looking at your actual numbers, and two days where nobody can reach you. A version of this on video with your office door open is a different and much weaker product, and I would rather tell you that than sell it to you.
If November genuinely will not work, email me anyway. There is a path to get the diagnostic done one on one, and I would rather have you in the next Reset than in a watered-down version of this one.
Can I send my operations leader instead of attending myself?
The owner needs to be in the room, because most of the work involves decisions only the owner can make about authority, structure, and their own role.
Bringing your operations leader alongside you often works well. Ask me about a second seat when you reach out.
Founding Cohort open · first 10 seats
2027 feels a long way off right now. It is not.
Time moves differently when you are in the trenches. You will blink and it will be Q1, and the reason the plan never got built will not be that you disagreed with any of this. It will be that Tuesday happened, then another Tuesday. Block the two days.
Paid in full at registration. Twenty seats, Founding Cohort rate for the first ten.