A few weeks ago, I read an article about Flight Story CEO Georgie Holt. It said:

“I’m trying to kill myself [with AI] in 60 days. Can I remove myself entirely from the organisation, and could it run without me, is what I’m trying to test.”

Georgie co-founded Flight Story alongside Stephen Bartlett and Christiana Brenton - the media powerhouse behind Diary of a CEO. And after reading about her audacious AI experiment, I knew I had to get her on How I Work to dig into the nitty-gritty.

Georgie's goal wasn't to overcome burnout or engineer an early retirement. She wanted to see if she could automate the soul-sucking operational bits of her role to focus on what actually mattered: people, purpose, and the long-term future of her business.

The result? She's very much alive (thankfully), but the operational "old Georgie" has been well and truly retired.

Here's what I learnt from her experiment.

Step one: Find your operational kryptonite.

Georgie started by taking a hard look at her calendar - and if you're anything like most leaders of fast-growing companies, you'll relate to what she discovered. Her biggest time vampire? Hiring.

Interviews were devouring 20 to 30 hours of her week. She was preparing, drafting feedback, juggling admin, and basically living in interview purgatory.

Instead of accepting this as the inevitable price of leadership (which, let's be honest, is what most of us do), Georgie built Scout. This tool takes candidate CVs, cultural fit assessments, and referrals, then instantly generates candidate summaries, suggested interview questions, and post-interview reports.

What previously chewed up hours of her life now takes 45 seconds. Yes: forty-five seconds! This freed her to be fully present in the actual conversation with candidates (i.e. the bit that actually matters).

Step two: Don’t outsource your brain. Instead, outsource the scaffolding.

One of Georgie’s fears was that AI could dull our most human skills, like storytelling and critical thinking. So she built a Writer’s Room GPT: a virtual group of Hollywood-style “writers” she can call in to challenge her work. One persona questions the emotional arc, another adds jeopardy, another checks clarity. It's like having a team of creative challengers at her beck and call, but without having to provide snacks or deal with "difficult" personalities.

The key here is that the AI doesn’t do the writing for her. It strengthens her ideas by giving her multiple perspectives in seconds. AI handles the scaffolding so she can stay sharp. It's basically the ultimate thought partner, except it never interrupts you mid-sentence or steals your lunch from the office fridge.

Step three: Reinvest the time wisely

Once Georgie killed the operational part of her role, she didn’t simply fill the space with more admin. She reinvested it in two things:

1. People – using those found hours to check in with her team, build trust, and coach.
2. Future planning – lifting her head out of the weeds to think about 2030, not just next quarter.

As she told me: “Every minute that I save, I spend back with people and on future planning, because if I’m thinking about the future and understanding their experiences now, I’ll only plan for a better future towards the purpose we’re building for.”

Which, when you think about it, is basically the opposite of what most of us do with reclaimed time (hello, getting lost in our inbox and scrolling through social media).

What you can try this week

If Georgie’s story resonates, here are three practical takeaways you can experiment with:

1. Audit your week. Look at your calendar and ask: which tasks drain me, repeat endlessly, or don’t really need me?
2. Pick one to automate. Tools like ChatGPT, Zapier, or even scheduling apps can save you hours. Start small, like drafting follow-up emails or summarising meeting notes.
3. Be intentional with your reclaimed time. Don’t let it disappear into inbox zero. Decide ahead of time: will you spend those hours on your team, your strategy, or your own learning?

Killing off your operational self doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility. It means designing your role around what only you can uniquely do.

So, what part of you could you “kill off” this week?

And if you want to hear more about Georgie's AI experiments, listen to the full interview here (and a bonus interview, where we go behind the scenes of Diary of a CEO, right here).

Cheers

Amantha

​