Foolishly Trading Time for Money in the Age of Leverage

How do you move from this mindset of trading your valuable time (services) to selling products (or productized services)? 

This is something I wrestle with all the time. Trading time for money. This idea of Industrial age legacy mindset is due to a dated 20th century education, and societal indoctrination. This is why the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” was such an eye opener for me. Many business owners end up building businesses that are no worse than a job (or even a mental prison) with little freedom. They don’t know how to build systems around them and scale themselves. 

You scale yourself by either hiring people to do this for you or building a product. 

There is a big element of knowing the time for money works and I can do it all day long (and at really high rates too). I believe my conservatism in knowing and relying on the tried and true is the big problem. 

I honestly still have a mental block around this even though I know this is the only way to scale yourself. The big secret of many of the most successful business people in the world is they are able to break the chain of time equaling money. 

Easy to say, hard to do. 

I see many early stage founders fight this as well. They know they are the best people to do everything, at least in the beginning. But as you scale and or/raise money, you need to bring new people and build out the processes and start focusing on core areas. Also more importantly you need to devolve authority and to get out of your people’s way. Your job as leader is to set the tone and unblock your people from doing their best work. 

As uncomfortable as it is in the beginning, this is how you get leverage and freedom. It also allows you to focus on what you are good at and what you enjoy doing (in business or out). This is the GOAL. Independence, Achievement (ie. putting a dent in the universe) & ultimately Freedom. 

I hope this acts as a good reminder for founders. Remember WHY you are building what you are building. If you do, this might help you remove that mental block and makes scaling yourself much easier.