Leverage
“Leverage” is the use of resources to exponentially improve your results while decreasing your labor and costs.
I use Amex for all my travel planning, and they’ve been able to enable me to walk down an airport concourse and take another flight rapidly after mine has been cancelled. I use the FlightView app to let me know where my flight is arriving from, so I can tell if there are any delays. My graphics work is outsourced to experts, as are my monthly bookkeeping and annual taxes.
I use limos at both ends of my trips rather than trying to find a cab or rent a car and drive. I hold Zoom meetings on my desk top or lap top with simple but effective lighting. I minimize the bells and whistles. (People participate because of me, not the accoutrement.) We have financial advisors and investment experts, I don’t trade securities myself.
The toughest find was a “handyman,” harder than a good doctor or attorney! But we found one of those, too, and I’m not climbing ladders or fixing stuck windows. And the snow plower also shovels our walks.
In 30 years of coaching executives and entrepreneurs there is, from that day to this, a wasteful tendency to spend inordinate amounts of time on work and chores best suited to others, especially from a qualitative standpoint. (I don’t do my own dental work and I don’t do my own taxes.)
Archimedes said, “Give me a lever and I can move the world.” I just want to move the obstacles to a good life out of my way. The world can wait.
