My initial posts have all been centered in some way on the magic of compounding with respect to our financial lives. There is another concept which has always made me wonder and that is Leverage. Aristotle once said – Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which it can be placed and I shall move the world.

I have been listening to Dan Sullivan on multiple podcasts, one with Joe Polish (100X) and another with Dan Jackson (Joy of Procrastination) over the last 2 weeks, since I came back from my vacation in Canada (more about that in a later post).

Dan has not been one of the people whom I have known or written about earlier. But now after reading his books and listening to his podcasts, I find some of the things that he talks about very simulating ideas which are worth implementing.

During one of the episodes, Dan spoke about how when he analysed his successes over 30 years, the key turning points were not where he acquired new knowledge/talent/skill but where he met someone “WHO” helped change the direction of his life.

That got me thinking about my own 30 years. I have always believed that because I utilised my so called “down years” to prepare myself for the “when my opportunity comes”, I have been able to grow to where I am today in my job.

However after listening to the podcast I started co-relating the inflexion points which I had, to see if there was a “WHO” that helped me leverage on my knowledge. Dan’s premise is that if you have to grow yourself exponentially, then rather than working on the “HOW”(which is growing my own abilities in various areas) you should always first find a “WHO” that has these capabilities available.

So there were some positive things that came up which have helped me reach where I am today. For example my technical abilities aligned with my ability to present solutions , was recognised by one leader within the company, who then got me moved into a different division. In this division, for the first time my manager -gave me the free hand to build out a relationship with IBM which helped me blossom. Seeing my capabilities I was transferred to manager who actually took this capability of mine to propel me in a different orbit. Then during that time a couple of relationships in IBM helped me grow the business so dramatically. Now in all these situations my managers and colleagues in IBM also grew dramatically while I was growing.

After analysing these time frames however also got me a little pensive. You get connected to people when you meet them. As you meet more people the possibility of being able to connect with someone who can become the “WHO” also increases. So as I grew in my job positions, with my internal interactions taking up more time, I actually reduced my external meetings and therefore the reason for not getting the next set of “WHOs”

However Dan also brought out another aspect about using the “WHO” (he’s actually written a book Who not How) to launch any new idea faster. His suggestion is that you should actually first break down any new idea you want to launch into small pieces and then deliberately find the “WHO” to partner with and get all the work done by them. One should only focus on the “Unique Ability” one has, because then one is the happiest which results in things getting executed faster.

While I think this is a perfect idea, having been brought up with the idea of always improving personal capability first, this seems hard to implement….Do you think you would ascribe to this idea

Carpe Diem!!!