Dan Martell - Build a Business that Runs itself ｜ Buy Back Your Time Book Summary

00:00:00.000 stop wasting your time successful people don't rely on discipline or willpower to be more

00:00:05.200 productive these are the 15 principles that they follow to get done even when they don't feel like

00:00:10.640 it they're the same principles i use to go from an adhd mess to a hyper productive 100 million

00:00:15.760 dollar ceo so without further explaining it these are the 15 principles to buy back your time

00:00:20.880 starting with chapter one how i buy back my life my friend stewart had a panic attack at the

00:00:26.240 happiest place on earth at disneyland why he was working 100 hour weeks he wasn't taking care of

00:00:31.760 his health he asked his family if it was okay to miss dinner and not be there in the morning so

00:00:35.840 they could work on this massive project and because of that pressure his body said screw

00:00:41.200 you essentially he hit his pain line and most entrepreneurs hit that about 12 employees or a

00:00:46.160 million in revenue because it's a point where more growth feels painful so most people do one of the

00:00:52.160 three s's when they hit their pain line the first s is to sell it's so painful that they'd rather

00:00:57.760 sell the business go get a normal job or do something else because the grass is greener on

00:01:01.840 the other side but i've learned that sometimes the grass is greener because it's actually fake

00:01:05.280 but selling is not an option second is sabotage right they sabotage themselves by taking on new

00:01:10.560 projects new product lines hiring bad people only to give themselves permission to fall back so that

00:01:16.880 it's not their fault that they're not succeeding in their business well the third one is to stall

00:01:21.200 Stall means drag their feet on making decisions or stay small because not growing means slowly

00:01:26.840 dying. Now that you understand what the pain line is, what do you do once you hit it? It's called

00:01:31.520 the buyback loop. And there's three simple steps. The first thing is you have to audit your time

00:01:36.740 for things that suck your energy that would cost very little to pay somebody else to do.

00:01:41.340 Second is to transfer those things in that bucket to somebody else that loves to do this. There's

00:01:47.000 actually people that play at the things that you consider work. And once you transfer and give them

00:01:51.500 the playbooks, which I'll talk more about in a sec, then they'll be able to take that off your

00:01:55.500 plate to open up your calendar, which brings you to step three, which is to fill. This is the thing

00:02:00.280 that brings you the most joy, the most energy, and makes you the most money, which I'll double

00:02:04.880 click on when we get to the drip matrix on how to invest your newfound time, which brings us to

00:02:09.580 chapter two, the drip matrix. I believe in life, there are two categories of things that you do.

00:02:15.040 There's things that feel like math class for me,

00:02:17.480 which is boring and I hated it

00:02:19.040 and it felt like every second just went super fricking slow.

00:02:22.780 Or there's art class where when I was in art class,

00:02:25.260 what I felt was five minutes was more like an hour,

00:02:27.740 the clock goes off and all of a sudden I'm done.

00:02:29.760 It's like time flew by and life can be that way.

00:02:32.700 Not all tasks are created the same.

00:02:35.040 The way you look at your work will dictate how long it feels.

00:02:38.900 And I'm always looking to invest it, not just to spend it.

00:02:42.900 So that's why I created the drip matrix.

00:02:45.040 which is a very simple x and y axis of things that light you up that give you energy to things

00:02:51.660 that make you money that produce the most income in your life and you got to move from the bottom

00:02:56.060 left quadrant all the way to the top right so in the bottom left is d for delegate what are the

00:03:00.400 things that when you look at your to-do list you should just delete it or defer doing it this week

00:03:05.740 this month or give it to somebody else that can do it and just learn how to delegate then you move

00:03:10.860 up to the R, which is replacement. That quadrant is all about looking at the key people you need

00:03:16.120 to hire on your team and build that team of people that can replace you from having to do the work.

00:03:21.460 And that's why I teach the replacement ladder, which we'll get into in a second, but understanding

00:03:25.240 the right sequence to do that will equal success. The second quadrant on the bottom is investment.

00:03:30.480 Once I've got time back, then I got to invest in developing the skills, the relationships,

00:03:35.360 the mindset to become a better person for my team so I could grow. And then the top right is

00:03:40.720 all about production this is where you want to do the work that gives you energy that lights you up

00:03:45.600 that truthfully you would do for free that makes you the most money if you don't know what that is

00:03:50.040 you'll figure it out over time but that's why the drip matrix is such an important map for you to

00:03:54.880 understand where are you spending your time and if you're not moving your way through it then you'll

00:03:58.980 always feel stuck but to start buying back your time you need to understand how much it's worth

00:04:03.300 and that's why i created the buyback rate formula so for example if your current income in your

00:04:07.880 business is $200,000 a year, you divide that by $2,000, then take that number by four, that equals

00:04:13.620 $25 per hour. Anytime you spend money to buy back your time, you want to get a four times ROI on that

00:04:20.740 money. So if you can spend $25 an hour paying anybody to take anything off of your plate,

00:04:26.760 that'll give you the best return on your time. If you don't fight for the value of your time,

00:04:31.220 nobody else will value your time. So you need to understand what it's worth. If I don't know that

00:04:35.020 my time's worth $100 and I keep saying yes to doing things that are $10 tasks and I'm never

00:04:39.920 going to be able to grow my business. What most people don't realize, the cheapest way to buy

00:04:43.820 back your time is to stop doing things that suck your time. Which brings us to chapter three,

00:04:48.160 the five time assassins. Most people waste their time by just delaying decisions. It's like getting

00:04:54.180 an email for an opportunity and instead of just replying to it right away, they just mark it as

00:04:58.620 unread or start and eventually they'll reply on some Saturday morning when they're feeling good

00:05:02.820 about themselves and say, oh, let's talk about it. And that opportunity is gone. I see people

00:05:07.340 sabotage their success all the time like this. And that's why I've distilled it into these five

00:05:11.900 time assassins. The first one is the staller, just like I just described. That's somebody that

00:05:16.480 can't make a decision. Any decision is better than no decision because no decision is still

00:05:21.320 a decision to just stall and not feel like you're making progress. The second is the speed demon.

00:05:26.200 And this is somebody who thinks under the guise of I'm productive and I'm moving forward and I'm

00:05:30.140 making decisions fast. They don't stop to reflect. They take the easiest path. For example, they hire

00:05:35.280 their cousin because he can fog a mirror, not because he's the best hire, but because he's the

00:05:39.580 easiest hire. The third is the supervisor. This is the person that micromanages everything. They

00:05:44.720 look at everything and they scrutinize it and they criticize it and nothing can ever be done as good

00:05:49.820 as them. So they're always there trying to be involved, which is weird because they hire people

00:05:54.200 and then do their job for them. The fourth is the saver. This is somebody who penny pinches

00:05:59.140 every penny. They never invest in themselves. They never invest in getting more time back.

00:06:03.800 They don't invest in their business. They think if I spend a dollar, it's a dollar I didn't make.

00:06:07.940 So every time I save money, essentially it's money I made. That sounds like a winning

00:06:11.140 proposition, but it also means you can't grow. The fifth is a self-medicator. And this is the

00:06:15.720 person that self-sabotages their growth by using food, alcohol, drugs, video games, whatever

00:06:22.000 addiction they've got to self-medicate their feelings instead of confronting them head on,

00:06:26.680 which causes them to always hit a ceiling of complexity

00:06:29.740 instead of breaking through to become more for their team.

00:06:32.540 The reason why you need to understand these

00:06:34.300 is because without spending a penny,

00:06:36.600 you can get back tens of hours a week.

00:06:39.400 Now the question is, where do you invest it?

00:06:41.300 Which brings us to chapter four,

00:06:42.780 the only three trades that matter.

00:06:44.920 Most people think once I get there,

00:06:47.080 then I'll have time to do the thing.

00:06:49.020 Cleaning of the garbage or processing my inbox

00:06:51.880 or managing my calendar,

00:06:53.180 all these things that don't generate a lot of income,

00:06:55.880 they're just busy work and what you need to do is think about spending more time in the production

00:07:00.440 quadrant today there's really only three trade levels when it comes to time level one is an

00:07:05.240 employee you're trading your time for money people pay you for your expertise which is always tied to

00:07:10.680 your time it's not tied to an outcome level two is entrepreneur which is where you trade your money

00:07:15.720 for time because all of a sudden now you get paid for a result so if you can get more results for

00:07:20.280 people then you take the money they pay you to then invest in you and your capacity so that you

00:07:25.000 essentially buy back your time with the money you have but level three is empire builder and this is

00:07:29.720 when you start figuring out how to trade your money for money and we'll talk about this later

00:07:33.400 but that is a big idea to really create the empire most people they start off in level one and they

00:07:39.400 take that mentality to level two so even though they're an entrepreneur they're still acting like

00:07:43.960 an employee when it comes to the value of their time and then people that are in two will stay in

00:07:48.280 two because they don't understand that there's a completely different paradigm shift to build their

00:07:52.760 empire where they have their money work for them so they're not always having to work to generate

00:07:56.920 money but how do you decide what tasks to spend your money on that's why i created the time and

00:08:01.400 energy audit it's very simple but massively impactful first thing is we want to write down

00:08:06.360 every task that we're currently doing i like to tell people to have an alarm go off every 15

00:08:10.120 minutes to log it because most people don't realize how much time they've been spending on

00:08:14.200 social media or taking these got a second meetings from their team that turns into got an hour so we

00:08:19.000 We always wanna write it down to do a true audit

00:08:21.820 of where we're spending our time.

00:08:22.900 And then what you do is once you've got this detailed list,

00:08:25.180 go through each one and give a dollar sign of value

00:08:28.600 of what it would cost to pay somebody else to do it.

00:08:30.680 $1 is like an administrative task

00:08:32.600 and $4 is like hiring somebody to do your job.

00:08:35.240 And you write that next to each one.

00:08:36.940 Then you wanna highlight in red anything

00:08:39.020 that sucks your energy that you hate doing

00:08:41.260 or green things that give you energy.

00:08:43.760 Once you've done that,

00:08:44.820 you now have a bucket of things that cost very little

00:08:47.820 that are red in nature and that is the only next hire you should make. You shouldn't bring anybody 1.00

00:08:53.000 else on your team until you grab all those red low-cost things and give it to somebody else so

00:08:57.580 you can free up your time. Now that you know what to take off your plate, how do you sequence it?

00:09:02.460 Which brings us to chapter five, the replacement ladder. Most people mess this up. They feel

00:09:07.780 overwhelmed. They read a book and it tells them you need to hire somebody that can help with

00:09:12.120 operations. You're the visionary and have somebody else come in and run your company for you. The

00:09:16.900 problem with that is that you have no skillset for delegating yet. You've never done it before.

00:09:21.600 You're going to pay somebody six figures plus to essentially have a non-revenue generating role

00:09:27.200 on your team. And it's going to stress you out. And in six months, you're probably going to fire

00:09:30.840 them or they're going to quit because they're annoyed working with you because there wasn't

00:09:33.440 enough business for them to stay busy in the first place. So most people don't realize that

00:09:37.260 the sequence that you hire equals success or failure. That's why I've outlined the first

00:09:42.780 principle of this whole methodology called the buyback principle which states you don't hire to

00:09:47.340 grow your business you hire to buy back your time it's a capacity over calendar problem if you do

00:09:52.700 the first then you'll just add a bunch of overhead that you need to manage but if you only hire people

00:09:57.420 to buy back your time then you get your time back to go be more valuable to your team to generate

00:10:02.540 more revenue and do things that light you up so here's how the replacement ladder works it's all

00:10:06.940 about the hire you need to make the feeling you're probably having right now and the ownership of

00:10:11.420 outcomes that they need to take off your plate the first rung of the ladder is you might be feeling

00:10:15.900 stuck in your business because you don't have the time and that's why you need to go hire an

00:10:19.660 administrative assistant and you got to give them two areas of your life your inbox and your

00:10:24.620 calendar and i'm talking a hundred percent when those emails come in if you touch them before

00:10:29.340 your admin that you're totally misunderstanding this whole process the second rung of the ladder

00:10:33.340 you might be feeling a little stalled in your business it's because you're doing all the

00:10:36.860 delivery essentially all the client fulfillment and that's where you need to have somebody

00:10:40.940 support you on the onboarding and ongoing support of a new customer once i get a customer in my

00:10:45.820 world i want to help them do the thing i don't want to be involved in anything that looks like

00:10:50.220 process or gathering information or scheduling items in their calendar the third rung is where

00:10:55.260 you might be feeling some friction because you want to grow but it makes it tough because you

00:10:58.940 don't have a marketing system that's the next hire now when you bring that person in i want 0.60

00:11:03.420 you to make it clear that they own all traffic sources to your website to your social media and

00:11:08.140 the campaigns that they should be defining and running on your behalf to generate leads every

00:11:13.100 day that marketing system should be running non-stop 24 hours a day to generate qualified

00:11:17.980 leads to talk to the fourth rung this is where you start to feel freedom because it's a sales hire

00:11:23.820 and the moment you have somebody else they can take all new opportunities take all the sales

00:11:28.860 calls and most importantly do the follow-up because let's be honest you're probably not

00:11:32.220 doing them yourself and hold them accountable to generating revenue now you have freedom because

00:11:37.020 with four hires admin delivery marketing and sales you can now go on vacation and have somebody else

00:11:43.100 generate awareness of your business have somebody else talk to them and bring them into your world

00:11:47.100 and enroll them into your service and then onboard them into your product or service in your business

00:11:52.060 without you being there four hires and you start to have freedom the fifth rung of the ladder is

00:11:57.100 flow and the reason why i call it that is because having a leader that partners with you on your

00:12:02.060 business to help you with strategy and outcomes and that's the key if you hire them and tell them

00:12:06.220 what to do, then you hired the wrong person. But if they can come in and help own outcomes to drive

00:12:10.980 the business forward, to come up with the strategies and manage the execution and design

00:12:14.880 the playbooks, that is when you start to feel the flow of really building a partnership and a

00:12:19.080 business that you don't grow to hate. Most people have a hard time delegating because they're worried

00:12:23.140 that it's going to lose the magic, the thing that you do, your fingerprint on the business. And

00:12:27.380 that's why I use the 108010 rule. So the 108010 rule is used by all the top people, people like

00:12:33.180 gary v elon musk or even mr beast because they can't be involved in every aspect of the business

00:12:38.540 but they know how to ensure that their fingerprint and their genius is involved which is i sit down

00:12:42.860 with my team at the beginning and i do the ideation 10 that up front let's talk about how this could

00:12:48.140 work all the resources we have what we've done in the past that feels similar and make sure i give

00:12:52.380 the team all i know about the ideation of the specific outcome i want if it's marketing if

00:12:57.180 it's creating something it's a customer result a new website i only get involved in that first 10

00:13:01.580 percent the next 80 is your team doing the execution them going through all the resources

00:13:07.020 you might told them about doing the interviews essentially managing the whole project and they

00:13:11.420 take that over from you and then the last 10 that's the integration that's where they take

00:13:16.140 the project back into your world and you look at it and go oh let's tweak this let's tweak that

00:13:20.700 let's tweak this and then you decide to present it back think steve jobs he goes into the design

00:13:25.340 studio with johnny ives and they come up with the idea for the new iphone the team goes and prototypes

00:13:29.740 and builds the thing and sources the materials

00:13:31.660 and puts it together.

00:13:32.640 And then Steve came back at the very end,

00:13:34.460 the last 10%, which is presenting it on stage

00:13:36.800 when they reveal the iPhone.

00:13:38.460 That is how you take creative processes

00:13:40.780 and integrate it with your team

00:13:42.620 where you still feel involved, but not needed to execute.

00:13:45.860 Now let's start with level one of the replacement ladder.

00:13:48.380 What do you get your admin to do?

00:13:50.160 Which brings us to chapter six, clone yourself.

00:13:52.640 My mind blew wide open the moment I got to spend a week

00:13:56.240 with Richard Branson in Verbier, Switzerland.

00:13:58.320 I watched a billionaire.

00:13:59.240 every other billionaire wants to be like,

00:14:01.300 live his life, operate 400 companies

00:14:04.280 by just meeting with his assistant

00:14:06.120 for 60 to 90 minutes every morning for breakfast.

00:14:08.660 That transformed everything for me

00:14:10.540 for who I thought I needed to be

00:14:12.340 or resources I needed in my life

00:14:14.000 to actually allow myself to live life to the fullest.

00:14:17.020 And that's when I really realized

00:14:18.600 million dollar companies were not built on $10 tasks.

00:14:22.240 It's impossible.

00:14:23.220 There's not enough hours in the week

00:14:25.000 for you to work your way through this problem.

00:14:27.040 them, you have to learn how to work through somebody else. So there's two key areas that I

00:14:31.740 require an administrative assistant to own. The first one is your inbox. And I know some of you

00:14:36.900 still want to hold onto this and triage for them. But the truth is, is the moment you give them a

00:14:41.740 hundred percent access, your life will change. My brother went through this scenario himself,

00:14:46.000 where he hired an assistant and decided to just CC her on some emails to get her to do things

00:14:50.960 instead of actually allowing her to process. Your inbox is actually your assistant's to-do list.

00:14:56.680 if you give them access any other way

00:14:59.140 and it doesn't work

00:15:00.000 because they don't have the context

00:15:01.080 to actually help support you.

00:15:02.420 The second one is your calendar, 100%.

00:15:04.980 I don't put anything in my calendar.

00:15:07.280 My assistant owns it.

00:15:08.560 How can I ask her to be responsible for my time

00:15:11.100 and the effectiveness,

00:15:12.020 making sure that every day just feels like

00:15:14.060 I'm producing at the highest level

00:15:15.420 and staying in my production quadrant

00:15:16.960 if I don't give them full access?

00:15:19.740 Most people have a hard time figuring out

00:15:21.160 all the things that you should give

00:15:22.340 your executive assistant to do.

00:15:23.560 So if you want my personal playbook

00:15:25.120 on everything detailed in regards to templates structures best practices and canned responses

00:15:30.800 then just find me on instagram at dan martell to elza martell and message me the word ea youtube and

00:15:36.160 i'll send you a direct link to my google docs so you can copy and paste that for your own needs

00:15:39.760 so now that you have your first hire made how do you transfer things onto their play without

00:15:44.160 going crazy which brings us to chapter number seven building playbooks i don't know if you've

00:15:48.400 ever seen the mcdonald way but it's essentially their standard operating procedure for how they

00:15:54.000 run mcdonald's every aspect from how they cook the fries to make all the different burgers

00:15:59.440 essentially is documented and they've created a system that any 14 year old kid with no training

00:16:05.440 or hardly any training can hit buttons and have that burger taste the exact same in new york city

00:16:10.000 or melbourne australia it is pretty wild what i want you to consider is how do you create your

00:16:15.280 version of that james clear has this great quote that summarizes this philosophy which is people

00:16:19.600 don't rise to the level of their goals they fall to the level of their systems so you might have

00:16:24.240 big visions and goals for your business but if you don't have the systems in place and your team

00:16:28.320 can't support you on achieving those goals and that's why i created the four c's of playbooks

00:16:32.800 that my team uses every day the first one is camcorder essentially recording yourself doing

00:16:37.600 the work anytime i'm creating slides or working on an edit or an outline i record myself talking out

00:16:43.360 loud about what i'm doing because someday maybe hopefully soon i'll be able to hire somebody to

00:16:48.400 take that part over so again i could be an editor not an author the second is course what you want

00:16:53.600 is a detailed document of how to perform a task so for example i have a financial team they have

00:16:58.400 a detailed list of all the processes that they use to get the books balanced to do accounts receivable

00:17:04.080 to pull the reports for the different team leads and essentially it's a course in the document that

00:17:09.120 outlines everything so that it's easy to follow number three is cadence think about every area

00:17:13.760 of your business has a cadence for doing things every hour every day every week or every month

00:17:19.200 on daily basis it could be posting your stuff on social media on a weekly basis it could be pulling

00:17:23.920 the report to see if any of the stuff is working on a monthly basis is coming up with the ideas

00:17:27.760 for the next month number four is checklists and this is one of my favorites because essentially

00:17:32.160 it's a high level checklist of the things that should have been done if somebody goes to complete

00:17:36.400 something think about the difference between a pilot doing a checklist taken off in the plane

00:17:40.240 versus learning how to fly the plane.

00:17:42.080 How to fly the plane is like the course,

00:17:43.800 and then the checklist is what a pilot uses

00:17:46.000 to make sure that there's air in the tire

00:17:47.300 before they take off.

00:17:48.260 They're not gonna learn how to fill up the tire

00:17:49.980 with air in the checklist.

00:17:51.520 That's like a final checklist,

00:17:52.860 which is completely different

00:17:53.860 from the playbook and the course.

00:17:55.120 But now that you got your time back,

00:17:56.500 how should you structure your day?

00:17:57.820 Which brings us to chapter eight, your perfect week.

00:18:00.240 One of my friends, every time I call him,

00:18:02.280 he always answers, which makes me wonder 0.94

00:18:04.360 how busy is this freaking dude? 0.61

00:18:06.660 I don't know about you, 0.95

00:18:07.540 but I like to get a lot of things done,

00:18:09.080 which means that I've allocated my time,

00:18:10.860 which means when I'm doing it,

00:18:11.920 I don't answer my phone

00:18:12.880 because I can't take the disruption.

00:18:14.740 There's this great quote that says,

00:18:15.740 if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail,

00:18:17.980 meaning that if you've got a lot of stuff

00:18:19.340 you wanna do with your life,

00:18:20.300 you need to design your week.

00:18:21.920 That's why I created this framework

00:18:23.420 called The Perfect Week,

00:18:24.640 which is designing the outline of all the things

00:18:27.360 that you want to have happen in a week

00:18:29.280 that would tell you you had an incredible week.

00:18:31.860 I always look at a few key areas of my life.

00:18:33.920 First off, I look at my big rocks.

00:18:35.580 I wanna know what are the things

00:18:36.880 when it comes to generating revenue

00:18:38.400 or income in my life or maintaining the relationships

00:18:41.000 or maintaining my body, these are big rocks

00:18:43.260 and those gotta go first into the outline

00:18:45.960 of my perfect week.

00:18:47.120 The second is I'm always looking to grab

00:18:48.920 different types of moments where I could batch work together

00:18:51.880 two, three hours of time to just get it all done

00:18:54.460 at the same time.

00:18:55.320 The third is I'm always scheduling my calendar for energy.

00:18:58.400 I know in the morning, I've got more head space

00:19:00.620 to do creative work and really connect to my creator.

00:19:03.340 Whereas in the afternoon,

00:19:04.440 because I have a little bit of a lull

00:19:05.760 from an energy point of view, that's when I do all my calls.

00:19:08.140 i want to talk to people i want to be around people so understanding how your energy flows

00:19:12.780 is a game changer and the fourth thing is once i look at my perfect week i'm always trying to

00:19:16.860 figure out how can i have net time net time stands for no extra time anytime i can bring two things

00:19:22.140 together so for example every tuesday i do a founder's hike where i allow anybody in the world

00:19:26.700 to come hike with me to ask me questions so that way i'm not splitting up my day doing coffee

00:19:31.340 meetings all the time i like to take travel time i'll invite team members to travel with me so i

00:19:35.740 so I can cross train them and pour into them

00:19:37.800 to make sure that they get trained up.

00:19:39.280 I've never had dinner with one person one-on-one ever.

00:19:42.300 I've always invited three or four other people

00:19:44.040 because my conversation might not take the whole two hours

00:19:46.540 and then they can get some value from meeting other people

00:19:48.600 and I get to hear what's going on in everybody's life.

00:19:50.680 So these are all opportunities to find net time.

00:19:53.240 You have to design your life

00:19:55.560 because it either happens by design or it happens by default.

00:19:58.500 And if you don't design it yourself,

00:20:00.140 other people will take from it.

00:20:01.440 But even with a structure,

00:20:02.900 you might still be wasting your time,

00:20:04.400 Which brings us to chapter nine,

00:20:06.200 the only four time hacks you need.

00:20:08.000 I'll just make these quick

00:20:09.020 because they're so freaking powerful.

00:20:10.320 The first one is 50 to fix it.

00:20:12.020 Everybody in any one of my companies has a $50 budget

00:20:15.520 to fix any problem they see fit.

00:20:17.560 And the only rule is they have to tell their leader.

00:20:20.080 No questions asked, they'll always get paid back.

00:20:22.340 The second one is repeat agenda.

00:20:23.980 For a lot of meetings,

00:20:25.060 like my executive assistant meeting that I have every day,

00:20:27.660 or my weekly meeting with my wife that I have every week,

00:20:30.160 I have a repeat agenda system.

00:20:32.040 And I always update it or refine it

00:20:33.660 if I feel like there's certain topics

00:20:35.160 that we're not covering,

00:20:36.000 they need to be reviewed on a specific cadence.

00:20:38.340 The third is definition of done,

00:20:39.860 and this is the most powerful.

00:20:41.040 It's asking yourself the question when you delegate,

00:20:43.380 what does done look like?

00:20:45.020 If you can just start with that question when you delegate

00:20:48.000 and you're very descriptive

00:20:49.380 to the person that's doing the work for you,

00:20:51.140 usually you give them all the nuance and the context

00:20:53.820 for them to be incredibly successful

00:20:55.840 on the criteria that you're looking for

00:20:57.700 to have that thing done.

00:20:58.680 The fourth is the one-three-one rule,

00:21:00.420 and this one will change your life.

00:21:01.780 Essentially, people at the front line have the most context to solve a problem.

00:21:05.660 So if you're a leader and you're allowing people to come to you with their problems,

00:21:08.920 you're always giving them the answer, you're actually doing a disservice

00:21:11.520 because you don't have as much information as they do.

00:21:14.200 What I like to do is say to the person,

00:21:15.940 hey, I need you to bring me the one challenge that we're talking about.

00:21:19.320 Second is three viable options.

00:21:21.080 And the last one is one recommendation.

00:21:23.260 And guess what?

00:21:24.160 99.9% of the time, it's what we go with.

00:21:26.800 Most entrepreneurs don't feel comfortable having their team members make decisions for them

00:21:30.460 because they don't feel like they evaluated

00:21:32.500 all the different things that you would.

00:21:34.280 So having them state it and do the research

00:21:36.480 and come back to you

00:21:37.360 makes you feel comfortable with their recommendation.

00:21:39.560 You teach people to just solve the problem

00:21:41.760 and moving the business forward.

00:21:43.060 That's how you avoid a bottleneck.

00:21:44.760 See, bottlenecks are called that

00:21:45.840 because they're always at the top

00:21:47.060 and you're the person that's causing them.

00:21:48.420 Now that you understand how to lead people,

00:21:50.320 how do you get the right ones in the door?

00:21:52.740 Which brings us to chapter 10,

00:21:54.340 the test first hiring method.

00:21:56.400 I got this strategy talking to Seth Godin.

00:21:58.580 we're looking over my new startup clarity he's giving me advice we're talking about team members

00:22:03.380 and he says to me when it comes to team members i can't work with them until i work with them and

00:22:07.620 it occurred to me that most people hire folks that they've never worked with they've never

00:22:11.780 worked on a project or evaluated their chemistry and they just go from interview to the person

00:22:16.980 being in their life full-time which is a wild concept it's like not even dating a girl and

00:22:21.940 going straight to marriage so here's how to hire a players the first step is you have to be clear

00:22:27.140 That's going back to the time audit and figuring out

00:22:29.720 who can buy you the most time out of your calendar

00:22:32.300 for the least amount of money

00:22:33.680 that then drives revenue or efficiency.

00:22:36.200 The second step is to cast your net.

00:22:38.040 And this is all about ensuring

00:22:39.360 that you have your team support the job promotion,

00:22:42.280 you pay to run ads against a job post, call for referrals,

00:22:45.920 but essentially you wanna make sure

00:22:47.320 you get as many people as possible to apply for that role.

00:22:50.220 The third is you have to filter fast.

00:22:51.960 And for me, it's a one minute video answering two questions.

00:22:54.940 If they can't answer those two questions

00:22:56.680 in that one minute and they come in with three or four or five minute videos that's a quick filter

00:23:00.840 that they can't read instructions or they don't know how to use technology the fourth is profile

00:23:04.920 assessment i use this to both understand the behavior their defaults for how they show up on

00:23:09.320 teams and then also their cognitive score to see how well can they actually pattern match and try

00:23:14.200 to solve problems because unfortunately some people's brains don't work the same as everybody

00:23:18.040 else number five is test project and this is simulating the work it's one of my favorite

00:23:22.280 things i do so before i work with somebody i have them do a test project that is the exact type of

00:23:27.880 work they would do on my team that's what everybody should do you should simulate the

00:23:31.320 actual work and have all the candidates do the exact same project so you can evaluate them

00:23:35.640 against each other number six is sell the future and my whole thing there is talk about their

00:23:40.200 vision for their five years what do they want to accomplish who do they want to become what do they

00:23:43.960 want to get paid i sell the possibility of that coming true and then i try to scare them away

00:23:48.760 because i don't want them to take a job because they need a job i want them to take the job because

00:23:52.520 they want the job now that you know how to get them in how do you get the most out of them which

00:23:57.160 brings us to chapter 11 transformational leadership i had one person on my finance

00:24:01.960 team come to me and ask me about expenses and costs or putting a budget together and they're

00:24:06.120 like do you know what it costs and i said now do i know probably maybe but if i tell them then guess

00:24:12.200 what every time they have a question about budgets they're going to come to me i'm not teaching them

00:24:15.400 to go fish and too often people hire folks and then do their job for them so there's two types

00:24:20.040 of leaders there's transactional and transformational a transactional leader

00:24:23.960 tells somebody what to do checks that they got done and then tells them what to do next it's

00:24:27.560 called the tell check next doom loop because if you keep doing that you'll always be the person

00:24:32.280 that has to do it which means that about 12 employees you'll wake up in the morning and

00:24:35.800 you spend your whole day just keeping everybody busy and you don't get anything done on your

00:24:39.640 project list versus transformational leadership is completely different i start with the outcome

00:24:44.600 the outcome is get a budget put together so that the leadership team can make decisions about the

00:24:48.600 financial state of the business when you have that done it is done two is measure measure how they're

00:24:53.800 making progress tell me where you're at from a percent complete on creating the budget and send

00:24:58.520 me a text message every hour every day depending how long the project will take so that we know

00:25:03.080 that you're on pace to get it done within a reasonable amount of time three is to coach

00:25:07.320 coaches if you feel like somebody is delaying themselves write it down and next time you do

00:25:11.800 a one-on-one meeting with them coach them up the more you do this it might feel slow at first but

00:25:17.000 it is so much faster down the road because then people aren't staring at you to get their work

00:25:21.640 done they understand the vision you have and the outcomes that they own and they're gonna drive

00:25:26.280 towards them so that's why i teach the coach framework so i break it into three core parts

00:25:30.680 the first one of the coach is co which stands for core issue when i'm working with somebody i'm

00:25:35.880 gonna pull up one specific issue that i feel if i can help them overcome will have a force multiplier

00:25:41.720 effect in their life and their ability to execute and be effective on the team the second is i like

00:25:46.520 to use an actual story of when i learned how to do the thing that i'm going to coach them up on

00:25:51.640 because then it makes it real it provides context it creates the glue for them to go oh my leader's

00:25:56.840 human and he's also faced this and it's really cool that he shares with me a little bit vulnerability

00:26:01.320 of where he wasn't great at it and the third part is change and that is all about getting them to

00:26:05.960 commit to some aspect of change i'll turn it on them and ask them based on what i shared what are

00:26:10.520 are you going to change in your behavior going forward and that's where i get commitment once

00:26:14.440 you coach that way you will never do it differently because when you build your people the people

00:26:19.320 build the business but leading people isn't easy without trust which brings us to chapter 12 the 0.95

00:26:24.840 f word that will save your business sometimes i can be an idiot one time i was on a zoom call

00:26:29.960 and there's this guy jacob on the team that ran all of our automation and i was a little frustrated 0.60

00:26:34.520 with him for not getting things done on time and somebody else on the call brought up his name

00:26:38.600 about them having to wait for him to get back to them and i'm talking crap about them and then all 0.57

00:26:42.920 of a sudden somebody else on the call says hey i just want you to know jacob's on the call

00:26:47.000 so yeah i had to apologize and i use this specific principle to help have that conversation it's

00:26:52.920 called the clear principle it's essentially a conversation format that i use to remove

00:26:57.880 any frustration you might have with your team members and them with you because if there's

00:27:02.760 emotional venom that's piling up and then all of a sudden you don't trust somebody you're

00:27:07.400 micromanaging them and they're always talking back to you in meetings it creates a very hostile

00:27:11.320 environment that you could literally clear all that emotional angst by just having this conversation

00:27:16.520 so c stands for create a warm environment i want you to get one-on-one with the person appreciate

00:27:21.480 them for coming into the meeting and having the conversation with you and just making sure you

00:27:25.160 set the environment to be warm and approachable and lead with empathy the l stands for lead them

00:27:30.760 to offering feedback this is where i share with somebody that i want to be a better leader for

00:27:35.320 them and i can't do that if i don't get feedback and the only way is if they're honest with me

00:27:39.640 and asking for them to share feedback with me is the key to starting this conversation

00:27:44.360 e stands for emphasize emphasize means to restate to them when they give you that feedback what you

00:27:51.400 heard and then a stands for ask if there's more most people will say there's nothing big or

00:27:56.200 they'll bring something small up and when you say is there anything else usually they know and

00:28:00.920 they're wondering if you were actually willing to listen r stands for reject or accept i'm not

00:28:05.560 saying because somebody gave me feedback i have to accept it every time they might say you're

00:28:09.240 and i go i don't know if i agree so essentially it's your opportunity to say i just want to give

00:28:14.200 you some perspective on why i made that decision that might be a rejection or you might say i

00:28:18.440 accept that feedback and based on that going forward i'm going to make a commitment to change

00:28:22.360 these things in the future to me feedback becomes the ability to inoculate resentment without it

00:28:29.400 everybody's thinking it but they've never said it and if you specifically as a leader don't create

00:28:33.800 the space for people to give you honest feedback how are you going to get better you may not realize

00:28:38.680 that there's something you're doing that's frustrating everybody but because you've never

00:28:42.040 asked they don't want to tell you and it means that your team's underperforming it creates the

00:28:45.880 foundation of trust but now that you've built trust with your team how do you get them to dream

00:28:50.440 even bigger which brings us to chapter 13 dream big achieve bigger one of my clients called me

00:28:55.960 from new york city and he said hey dan other than this call right now i've got my whole week open

00:29:00.840 buying back my time was the coolest thing ever thank you thank you thank you and i was just like

00:29:06.200 oh i'm sorry you must not have read my book and understood what i'm talking about because my whole

00:29:11.240 point of buying back your time is to build your empire see i think everybody should lean in to

00:29:16.280 building the biggest life they possibly can not live the easiest life empire stands for building

00:29:22.040 a life of unlimited creation you never have to retire from i want you to come up with crazy ideas

00:29:27.720 and build that so that's why i created these three phases to a 10x vision phase number one is dream

00:29:33.480 without limits most people dream so small it never has a potential to move them if you dream really

00:29:40.040 big it makes your daily decisions so much easier because you can evaluate will this bring me closer

00:29:45.480 to my vision will this bring me closer to my dream and if it doesn't you say no and you keep searching

00:29:50.040 for the thing that's gonna help make that happen.

00:29:52.280 Phase two is you wanna create a clear vision.

00:29:54.600 When I think of a clear vision,

00:29:55.640 there's four core areas I look at.

00:29:57.100 I ask myself, what kind of team do I wanna work with?

00:29:59.300 Who are the people that would be around me that inspire me?

00:30:01.700 What kind of business do I wanna create?

00:30:03.660 The vibe, the culture, the vehicles, the travel,

00:30:06.660 the customers you're working with.

00:30:08.020 How do you want all of that to be part of a bigger empire

00:30:10.780 that not only creates a world-class living for you,

00:30:13.440 but also creates a platform for everybody

00:30:15.400 that you care about in your team

00:30:16.820 to also become wealthy and the lifestyle.

00:30:18.820 And for me, this is about the integrated life.

00:30:21.540 How do I want my kids to interact?

00:30:23.280 How do I want my family to be involved?

00:30:25.060 How do I want it to just be my life?

00:30:27.440 Not I work and then I do life.

00:30:29.560 It's your ability to impact your local community

00:30:32.140 and have your team members be involved in that.

00:30:34.220 The whole package brings you to create a clear vision.

00:30:36.900 Phase three is live in it.

00:30:38.600 I want you to visualize your dream life.

00:30:41.220 I want you to visualize the creation of it.

00:30:43.440 What does it feel like?

00:30:44.540 What are the conversations you're having?

00:30:46.160 Think about the experiences that you're gonna create

00:30:48.520 and just be in the energy of having received

00:30:51.540 because if you can't feel it, you can't create it.

00:30:54.280 Your frequency is what you frequently see.

00:30:56.980 Now that you've got that vision,

00:30:58.300 how do you actually execute on it?

00:31:00.200 Which brings us to chapter 14, the preloaded year.

00:31:03.320 Most people overestimate what they can get done in a year

00:31:06.460 and underestimate what they can get done in a decade.

00:31:09.120 The truth is if you plan right,

00:31:10.760 you can get more done in a year than you do in a decade,

00:31:13.320 but it's gonna require a completely different strategy.

00:31:15.960 number one is rocks pebbles and sand if you had a jar and you were trying to load a bunch of big

00:31:21.880 rocks and pebbles and sand and water into the jar but you started with the water in the sand by the

00:31:27.640 time you got to the pebbles in the rock there wouldn't be enough room for everything but if you

00:31:31.640 start with the big rocks and you place two or three big rocks in that jar and then the pebbles

00:31:35.560 all around and you shake the jar a little bit and it kind of settles in then you pour the sand in

00:31:39.320 slowly and it kind of fills in all the rest of the space and then you have a whole glass of water and

00:31:42.680 you pour that in the jar and the whole thing fits easily that's the idea of planning your year the

00:31:47.560 second thing is to add maintenance this is looking at things in your life that you know are best

00:31:51.800 practices so that you stay on top of them so they don't become an issue i mean it's like if you're

00:31:56.120 feeling dehydrated by the time you feel like you got to drink something you're about 20 minutes

00:32:00.360 too late so you're better off just scheduling the time that you stay hydrated so that you don't get

00:32:04.760 behind i think about my weekly meetings with my wife as like a family meeting my quarterly retreats

00:32:10.120 with her so that we disconnect to reconnect my board meetings with my kids that's what i call

00:32:14.520 them but these very dedicated ritualistic experiences where i know that i have this

00:32:19.640 time in my calendar and it's a priority so i'm not trying to repair things because i allowed

00:32:23.720 relationships to strain because i was so busy on work the third is the work to plan to go all in

00:32:29.320 and say this is my plan for the year here's what i've committed to these are my priorities and i'm

00:32:33.400 gonna execute even if i don't feel like it number four is to review and adjust my wife and i have

00:32:38.040 been doing this for almost a decade and at the end of the year we always take time to review

00:32:42.360 everything we did the previous year and ask yourself a simple question would we do it again

00:32:46.600 or should we just take it out of the calendar i mean it's either an f yeah this lit us up want

00:32:51.080 to do more of that or it was meh and meh is good and good isn't great so we decided to cancel that

00:32:57.080 and create space for us to evaluate new opportunities so every year we adjust we review

00:33:02.280 and i'm telling you our years are getting pretty special but it only happens if you plan it it

00:33:06.520 requires the preloaded year as a strategy but what is this all really for which brings us to

00:33:11.640 the conclusion the buyback lifestyle this is one of the most important chapters in the whole book

00:33:16.920 because it shows what's possible entrepreneurs lose most of their productivity at home not

00:33:23.160 their office most people clean their home before the cleaning person comes over allow people to

00:33:29.160 support you in your life and just because your mom always did this or your dad always did that

00:33:34.360 doesn't mean that you have to do it this world we live in where you can literally out task so many

00:33:39.720 things in your home from meal prep to groceries to running errands so that you can get all that

00:33:45.080 time back why wouldn't you take advantage of it so these are the four levels of the buyback life

00:33:50.120 level one is cleaning and errands if you have the means you should have somebody that cleaned your

00:33:54.680 house i had a client that had a hard time with this and i said do you want to create employment

00:33:59.160 in your community because you continue to hold on to running errands and cleaning your house

00:34:03.960 is missing the opportunity to create a job

00:34:05.900 for somebody that really needs it.

00:34:07.280 Level two is meals and supplies.

00:34:09.000 Think about all the things

00:34:09.960 that have to be replenished in your home.

00:34:11.760 All of that could be hours a week

00:34:13.680 gotten back for very little investment.

00:34:15.840 Level three is family support.

00:34:17.560 Now I know that this one will be a little tough

00:34:19.440 because you're a parent

00:34:20.520 and you're supposed to do this stuff,

00:34:22.060 but somebody else can drive your kids to school

00:34:24.520 in the morning.

00:34:25.080 Somebody else can pick them up.

00:34:26.540 Back in the day,

00:34:27.740 those people were just part of your family,

00:34:29.940 but because we all live in different places,

00:34:31.940 you may not have them in your city anymore and it's okay to pay somebody else to come in and

00:34:36.180 take over the role that maybe a mom or grandma used to play in the past level four is projects

00:34:40.900 and ownership and this is the coolest highest level you can get to which is have somebody that

00:34:45.940 acts like the ceo of your family somebody that takes over all the projects all the real estate

00:34:51.140 all the car stuff the maintenance everything all your travel have somebody else own it so that you

00:34:57.060 can do one of two things that's where i live my life i either spend time with people i love or

00:35:01.540 or I go do things to create value in the world

00:35:03.620 that only I can do.

00:35:04.640 Those are the only two things that you will see me do

00:35:06.920 because I love it and everything else,

00:35:08.680 I'm willing to buy back my time for it.

00:35:10.160 I understand learning to let go

00:35:12.480 is the hardest thing in the world.

00:35:14.320 There is emotional shrapnel involved in it.

00:35:16.640 There's the fear that somebody's gonna make you look bad.

00:35:19.000 There's the fear that somebody's gonna cost you

00:35:20.720 your whole business.

00:35:21.420 These are all real fears.

00:35:23.360 What I wanna invite you to consider

00:35:24.780 is that on the other side of doing the work

00:35:27.820 is a world of freedom that you have no idea

00:35:30.780 that you could live, that you're allowed to live,

00:35:33.000 that you could live sooner than you ever thought possible.

00:35:35.580 And it requires you to get comfortable being uncomfortable.

00:35:39.540 If you wanna learn how my days look like

00:35:41.120 as a nine-figure CEO, click here

00:35:43.020 and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - April 15, 2025

Build a Business that Runs itself ｜ Buy Back Your Time Book Summary

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