Book 4: Who Not How

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy flips the typical script upside down. Instead of concentrating on how to solve a problem yourself, you should instead look for people who can solve that problem for you. By delegating rather than doing, you can free your time to do higher level, higher value tasks.

This book revisits the same concept of $10,000 per hour work that we saw in Virtual Freedom. There’s a lot more color, though, since the concept is more general. It’s not about how to outsource work but why to delegate work.

Freedom

The book outlines four types of freedom, each unlocking the next:

  1. Time
  2. Money
  3. Relationship
  4. Purpose

I found the progression to make sense for at least the time and money parts, but the relationship and purpose freedoms were a little less concrete. Instead of following the book and summarizing, I’ll pick out a few things I liked. If you want the full context, go ahead and read the book. It only takes a couple hours.

Weakness

The first step is to delegate work to someone else who can do it better than you can. This is viewed by many people as a cost, but in reality it is an investment in your own free time. That time can be used to do higher value things.

The most important part of this is delegating the right things to other people. An honest appraisal of your own weaknesses will help with picking these out. For every weakness you have, it is someone else’s strength.

The authors point out that procrastination is a sign that you should try looking for a who. In my case, after reading I finally decided to call a handyman to fix a curtain rod that has been hanging for a few months. I could fix it, but I’ve obviously prioritized other things. Now, we’re getting it fixed by someone next week.

Vision

There’s a tension that seems to arise when hiring someone who is good at their job. Typically a high performing person will be used to a high degree of autonomy. For a lot of delegators, the first instinct is to control the how. Instead, you should provide a vision; some guiding document that shows what the inputs and expected outputs are. Then the person who knows how to solve your problem can have latitude to solve it how they see fit.

This is a place where Dan Sullivan makes a very concrete suggestion on what to do. He runs a consulting company called Strategic Coach that publishes some thinking tools. One of them is called the Impact Filter. You can fill out one of these sheets and provide it to someone so they can grasp your vision.

Decision Fatigue

One subpoint on providing vision is that it reduces what’s called decision fatigue. The major decisions are all thought through up front and all the minor ones are completely delegated. Small decisions can be quite a lot of stress when added up over time.

Gratitude

This wasn’t a central point of the book, but rather a section in one chapter. I found it struck a chord. The authors claim is has myriad health benefits. Based on my own research, it looks like the evidence is mixed but I’m on the side that thinks it helps. It’s amazing how much mental state can affect physical state.

In the past I have tried to keep a gratitude journal but never remembered to fill it out. Without attaching it to any routine I wasn’t able to do it consistently. Maybe with some of the things I’m learning in later books (The Miracle Morning and Atomic Habits) I’ll be able to make it a part of my day.

Purpose

The purpose section of the book is a little light in practicality and heavier on the philosophy. This is necessary, though, since a purpose is highly personal. Do you want to feed the hungry? Lift people from poverty? Teach people Torah? All of these would be noble purposes.

There are commonalities, though. One is to find ways to give in every relationship. The book The Go Giver is a parable on this concept, and I’ll explore it in more detail in that post. In short, try to always be providing value to other people in some way, and you will receive in turn.

The last point I’ll pull out is the story about a money manager rejecting a large account because the client was a jackass. The authors put it more mildly, but I think we’ve all experienced this kind of person. Overbearing, not respectful of time or boundaries, and always taking, never giving. These people are not worth your time. I have, in the last few years, found myself saying more and more that certain people or things are not worth my time. Being judicious in use of my limited time here on Earth is one of the best decisions I’ve made.

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