Leverage = Power

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 Summary

There are different ways that leverage can be used in your life, whether it be to take relationships to a new level or to grow your business by utilizing current assets in your business or exploring the ability to leverage out in different areas to help the business flourish.  Focus on the important things that are life changing.
But for now, let’s look at 3 ways you can utilize leverage to improve your life.  So, you could start thinking on a different level.
1.       Task management – By grouping tasks together that have the same outcome or goal can save a tremendous amount of time.  An example of this would be what many people already naturally do when they make dinner at night.  Often by making a bit of extra you will be able to create leftovers to feed the family, therefore, saving time later in the week.  A bigger example is doing weekly food prep on Sundays so that you know what your week looks like for meals and you have done a lot of the time invasive activities on Sunday afternoon by pre-cooking some of the items that will hold and can be quickly added into other ingredients.  I know this seems like a
really basic concept and it is, but oftentimes the simplest things can be taken up a notch and you realize that you can use the same principle but in a larger context in other areas.
 
2.       Delegation…what would your days look like if some of the small meaningless tasks were handled by other people?  Let’s be very clear, we know that daily chores of laundry, grocery shopping, errands have to be done or things fall apart very quickly, but do they have to be done by you and is this a good use of your time or could you be focused on the things that truly matter to moving your life in the direction that you want?  This might be your kids, a college student that needs a few bucks, maybe a personal assistant, pool boy, housekeeper.  All of these are options that depending on your situation one might be a better solution than another. 
 
3. Leverage through your past accomplishments. It might be that you now have the expertise to speak on a particular topic and because of your past achievements you are desirable to a particular group.  What a great way to meet potential clients or network with like-minded people. You will be the voice of authority and so they will want to be around you.  There are a thousand different ways that you can use your past to grow your future.   I hope that this has got you thinking about how you might be able to leverage some pieces of your life.  Even if you start small…. just start.

Inspirational Quotes

Full Transcript

Leverage = Power… I know wow, let’s just jump in there…no hello, no nothing.   But I wanted you to stop and think about that.  Most of us think of leverage in one of two ways.  One, when we must pry something and need something longer to give us more leverage, or when we look to leverage money, like when we buy a house and we use the money we have with the leverage of a financial institution behind us so that we are able to buy that larger home that we really want.  This financial leverage is typically the way that people will refer to the definition of leverage.  In fact, if you google leverage the first page of definitions will refer to nothing but financial leverage.  However, it means so much more, and quite honestly some of the things that you can leverage in your life are so much more valuable than money.

But let’s look at this on a wider scale…think about it, leverage really does give you power.  It can give you time, better health, financial success, business growth, stronger relationships.  What do I mean by that?  There are so many ways to utilize leverage in different areas of our lives that it provides power to allow us to do so many things and to grow in almost every aspect of our lives.

If you can learn to leverage different pieces in your world you will quickly realize what you have been missing out on.   I know you may be thinking that to leverage requires capital…but it doesn’t have to.  You have a lot of resources within what you already have that can be utilized.  Once you figure this out then things exponentially start to expand which leads to more ways to leverage and on and on it goes.

For example, lets take an elite athlete who in order to get to that point in their accomplishments they had to be extremely dedicated, focused and disciplined.  Do you think that those characteristics were leveraged to get to that point…of course they were? They went through the hard work, coaching and training to get there.  Now, let’s jump ahead and now that same person is in corporate America.  Imagine if they took the skills that they learned from being that amazing athlete to the board room.  Those skills of leveraging time and discipline as well as others will prove to be amazing assets as someone is trying to climb the ladder of success. 

That is a classic example of leveraging, what we already know or have learned from experiences in our pasts.  If you think back in your past, I bet you can think of at least one if not many more times that you had developed skills that could now be leveraged in another part of your life to help you get ahead.  Many of us can likely look back on experiences in life that were not so great but provided us with amazing lessons that we have learned from as we go forward.  By doing this we can short cut some new experiences that might otherwise prove painful again.  Those experiences that were so tough the first time, are valuable tools in your arsenal.  When presented with that same situation, or one similar that negative experience can actually be a positive thing as you know how to handle it, and what to do or not do.  In this way, you are not reactive and therefore you walk through with ease this time and no anxiety.

In the coming weeks I am going to be teaching on the different ways that leverage can be used in your life, whether it be to take relationships to a new level or to grow your business by utilizing current assets in your business or exploring the ability to leverage out in different areas to help the business flourish.  We are going to do a deep dive in 4 different areas of your life that leverage can really increase your ability to do more and to focus on the important things that are life changing.

But for now, let’s look take a sneak peak at 3 ways you can utilize leverage to improve your life.  These 3 examples are more random and so I wanted to make sure I put these out there so you could start thinking on a different level.

1. Task management – By grouping tasks together that have the same outcome or goal, we can save a tremendous amount of time. An example of this would be what many people already naturally do when they make dinner at night.  Often by making a bit o extra you will be able to create leftovers to feed the family, therefore, saving time later in the week.  A bigger example is doing weekly food prep on Sundays so that you know what your week looks like for meals and you have done a lot of the time invasive activities on Sunday afternoon by pre cooking some of the items that will hold and can be quickly added into other ingredients.  I know this seems like a really basic concept and it is, but often times the simplest things can be taken up a notch and you realize that you can use the same principle but in a larger context in other areas.

2. Delegation…what would your days look like if some of the small meaningless tasks were handled by other people? Let’s be very clear, we know that daily chores of laundry, grocery shopping, errands have to be done or things fall apart very quickly, but do they have to be done by you and is this a good use of your time or could you be focused on the things that truly matter to moving your life in the direction that you want?  This might be your kids, a college student that needs a few bucks, maybe a personal assistant, pool boy, housekeeper.  All of these are options that depending on your situation one might be a better solution than another. 

3. The final one that I want to talk about is leverage through your past accomplishments. What are you talking about you ask?  I will go back to the athletic example again… Let’s take for example a famous athlete like Mary Lou Retton who was an American gymnastics idol.  Do you think that when her parents took her to the gym the first day or even when they were sitting at the Olympics they were thinking, this is amazing our little girl is going to be on a Wheaties Box and then she will be a world known motivational speaker…of course they didn’t, they just hoped to God she stuck her beam routine.  The point is, that because of what she accomplished she was able to leverage that success into a career in fitness and nutrition, motivational speaking not to mention the endorsements that have provided an income stream for years.  Now, I get it, we are not all athletes with gold medals in our pockets, but I bet that you have accomplishments or awards and achievements that you can leverage into new opportunities.  It might be that you now have the expertise to speak on a particular topic and because of your past achievements you are desirable to a particular group.  What a great way to meet potential clients or network with likeminded people. You will be the voice of authority and so they will want to be around you.  There are a thousand different ways that you can use your past to grow your future. 

So, these are just a few ways to leverage different areas of your life.  As I mentioned earlier, I am going to go into specific types of leverage in very focused areas of your business and personal life in the next few weeks.

I hope that this has got you thinking about how you might be able to leverage some pieces of your life.  Even if you start small….just start.

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Remember it is always your choice to Focus Forward.