anchor your decisions on leverage

there’s always a lot of talk about hard work vs. smart work for individuals or companies, but these discussions often lack a basis - a solid philosophical ground upon which a side can be argued. i believe in grounding on leverage.

in simple terms, you should do whatever maximizes your leverage so you do the least work possible in the long run to achieve your goals. if working 14 or 16hrs a day for a time ultimately puts you in a spot where you do as little as possible to achieve your goals, then that’s what you should do. (yes, if your goals are lofty enough that the easiest way to get there is to work 100hr work weeks continuously, then maybe that’s what you should do - every other route will be more difficult). build a lever as long as necessary to minimize your day to day effort long-term.

let’s take a typical business scenario: Build vs Buy. Why buy: if the product is a commodity - not building gives you precious resource leverage. You can build more by buying. Why build: if the product is going to add to your IP - you have tech leverage over your competition.

one could apply the same filter to tons of other areas:

should you wfh or go back to office? do what creates leverage

should you rent or buy? do what creates leverage

should you network or deep work? do what creates leverage

P.S: very usually one creates leverage by being in “explore mode” in the beginning, learning, collaborating, building mastery, and then tapering effort to go into “exploit mode” where leverage kicks in.

here’s a photo summary of this post:

focus on building leverage