“Deciding what not ot do is as important as deciding what to do.”
– Jessica Jackley
One of the hardest things you will ever do in life is teach your kid to tie their shoe laces. Lots and lots of knots. If you have to say “bunny ears” one more time you will spontaneously combust. Think about some poor Egyptian builder in 2,550 BC. Pharaoh comes along and draws a pyramid on some papyrus. “I want you to make this for me.” That’s teaching your kids to tie their shoes.
You know slip-ons and velcro shoes are just a dodge. But some days you succumb. Then you imagine your child as a grown adult walking around in strap-on shoes…You step back in the ring for another beating. I still remember one day my youngest proudly showing me their shoe laces. They looked like braids. Somehow, some way, we got it done. The last thing I tied for either of my sons was a necktie for prom. Sweet victory!
For whatever reason, many entrepreneurs equate delegating almost anything to giving a kid lacing credentials.
The problem with that is that when we fail to delegate we are forever stuck in job income instead of business income. So long as you are doing the work, you’re earning “job income” instead of “business income.” You’re trading your time for money. And that doesn’t scale.
Twenty Percenters like you know that business is defined by people leverage. When you succeed through others, you buy back your time, magnify your impact, and earn “business income.” In business, we’re always paying someone to do the work. We either pay someone at their pay rate, or we lower our pay rate to the task.
Let’s be honest. The real reason many decide people leverage isn’t for them is that they had a bad hiring experience. We can all think of someone who put the “rage” in “leverage.” That’s a topic for another newsletter. This one is about a simple mental hack that helps business owners lean into leverage – “The 30x Rule.”
Back in 2015, I interviewed author and coach Rory Vaden. He’d just writtenProcrastinate on Purpose,a book about ways to buy back your time. He shared that on a plane flight he met an executive who shared the 30x Rule. The executive cites it as a reason many entrepreneurs do low wage work and lose invaluable time doing it. Basically, the 30x Rule states that if it takes you an hour to do a skilled-based task, it will take you thirty hours to train someone else to do it to a level you’ll accept. Week to week, most chose to “save” time and just do it themselves. The harsh reality is that each year we do this we waste 22 hours. (52 weeks x 1 hour = 52 hours vs 30 hours spent training someone to do it for us.)
Look, I can’t vouch for the 30:1 ratio. Yet we’re all convicted. We all do things daily that would be better delegated to save time today at the expense of all our tomorrows. We become business people when we we choose to invest our time training others to do “lower-wage work” so it’s done without us and we can focus on “higher-wage work.” Every time we invest in delegation, we create business income. And simultaneously we maximize our job income in the business.
We have two business lives and our second begins when we realize we can delegate!
One question to ponder in your thinking time:What’s one regular, low-wage job you can start delegating now?
Make an impact!
Jay Papasan
Co-author ofThe One Thing&The Millionaire Real Estate Agent
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