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Dean is a Who for all of his Whos, helping them achieve their own goals.
From Dean’s perspective, there are two types of problems in business: technical and adaptive. Technical problems are when the answer is already known. You just need to find out how to do it. For example, if you want to set up a WordPress website, that is a technical problem. There are tutorials, YouTube videos, and businesses out there that can help you solve that problem. With any technical problem, it’s optimal to ask, “Who can do this for me? Why?
The problem with asking “How?” is that you’re basically telling yourself, “I’m willing to spend my finite attention on this task—finding out how to learn it, learning it, actually doing it, and one day, maybe, training someone else on how to do it.” This line of thinking negatively impacts how you spend your time, which directly impacts your Freedom of Money.
Freedom of Money occurs as you direct your time and attention toward higher impact activities.
You do that by investing in Whos to relieve your previous attention from so many tasks, allowing you to place your attention and energy in pla...
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“How” requires your time and attention. “Who” requires someone else’s.
Unlike technical problems, adaptive problems do not have a known answer, according to Dean. Because they don’t have a known answer, they require a creator. That’s where you are the “Who.”
In freeing up his time, Jacob also freed up his mind. And with a freed-up mind, he’s able to create opportunities that generate increasingly large sums of money.
With a freed-up mind, you can begin creatively expanding your vision. You can seek new opportunities not previously considered. You can invest in education, mentorships, or collaborations.
making lots of decisions exhausts your willpower and ultimately drains your vision. Having Whos take care of most of the major and minor details will give you the space you need.
You have to make investments to increase your freedom.
Some people don’t invest in Whos like Connie because they don’t view them as an investment, but as a cost. They worry about the amount of money they’ll have to pay their Who, rather than thinking about how that Who could elevate their vision and free up their time. The time I spend writing books and recording podcasts is worth at least 10X or even 100X the time I spent scheduling podcasts. If I’m scheduling podcasts, I’m diminishing my potential for freedom of both time and money.
Because I’m achieving more with her help, I’m making more. Because I’m making more, she’s making more.
What areas of your life and business most need a Who right now? Remember the new question you must master: “Who can help me achieve this goal?” Make the decision to add a Who and free yourself of the complexity of decision fatigue in that area.
Money avoids the person who doesn’t value their time. Only those who improve their time, value it, and use it more effectively experience money freedom.
the Pygmalion Effect, and what it means is that as people, we are either rising or falling to the expectations of those around us. When the demands are high, we show up. When they are low, we settle.
you need to increase the demand on yourself and others to produce the desired result. Pressure can bust pipes or make a diamond. You need the pressure to succeed.
Making the single decision to add a Who to a specific area of your life eliminates decision fatigue in that area. Eliminating decision fatigue from your life should be one of your primary goals if you want to be a high performer and increase your income.
You can know what you’re committed to by your results, not by what you say your commitments are.
it’s essential to commit to specific results and get your team on board. In order to do so, you can’t let them off the hook. You’ve got to allow them to be challenged. They’ve got to face obstacles and break through them; otherwise, they’ll never develop the confidence and commitment they need to fulfill your vision—and their own goals.
You give empathy and support, keep communication open, and place challenges before your team so they can grow. You give respect and celebrate the individual contribution that each person can make to the team.
you challenge people’s assumptions, take risks, and solicit ideas from your team. You stimulate and encourage creativity in your team, and you nurture and help team members to think independently.
You take learning very seriously,
You allow your team members to ask you questions, and ultimately, make their own decisions about how to better execute thei...
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you articulate a vision that is appealing and inspiring to your team. You challenge your team to increase their personal standards, while you communicate optimism about future goals, and provide meaning for the task at hand. Every member of your team needs a strong sense of purpose in order to be motivated to act. Purpose and meaning provide the energy that drives the group forward.
You must make the vision understandable, precise, powerful, and engaging so that your team will become increasingly willing to put more effort into completing their tasks.
As the leader, you act as a role model for high ethical behavior, you instill positive pride and create a culture among your team, and you gain respect and trust.
Interestingly, though, research has found that teams who have high levels of autonomy but low goal clarity, as well as little performance feedback, actually perform worse than teams with low autonomy. However, when a team has 1) high autonomy, 2) high goal clarity, and also 3) gets regular feedback on their results, then their performance shoots through the roof.
Lack of clarity of vision and inability to articulate that vision leaves Whos with no identity and no clear purpose. They become frustrated and lose their confidence.
It is the role of the leader to determine the “what”—which is the desired outcome or goal—and to provide clarity, feedback, and direction when needed. It is not the role of the leader to explain how the job is done. The Who determines how they will best go about getting the job done. All they need is clarity about what specifically “done” looks like.
“Always reward creators. Never reward complainers.”
Rather than micromanaging the process, leadership should provide freedom and autonomy as well as extreme clarity and high standards of excellence.
trying to do all the Hows is the normal way of doing things for most people. Our culture has brainwashed us into avoiding costs rather than making powerful investments in ourselves and our futures. As a result, we willingly do all sorts of “busy” or ineffective work outside our expertise and passion, falsely believing that “working hard” or engaging in such tasks is worth it.
“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution toward the things that really matter.”
You’ve got to really learn the opportunity cost of How. By doing everything yourself, you miss out on unfathomable growth that comes by investing in Whos and utilizing your time and efforts on higher impact activities.
This is the power of thinking in terms of investment. It wasn’t a cost to add that sales manager. It was actually costing Carl and the company to not have him.
When you focus on How, it’s often based on a scarcity mind-set and cost avoidance.
“Treat your employees as an investment, not a cost.”
Don’t reach out to someone unless you have something meaningful to offer them. That “something” needs to be real and relevant, not just a compliment or flattery. True and real value. And if you want the relationship to continue, you must continue creating value.
When creating a vision, be sure that vision aligns with your Whos’ objectives and clearly helps them achieve what they personally want.
Never stop providing value to your Whos, especially the Whos that have been in your life for a long time.
Always ask “What’s in it for them?” rather than “What’s in it for me?” Know what the other person cares about.
Bring a result to the table. Make the pie bigger for everyone involved. Don’t come with big promises of future results. Bring immediate results. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.
Having time gives you the space to seek clarity.
to conceptualize who she wanted to be—her future self. She imagined and designed her circumstances, how she worked, who she worked with, and what her life would look like.
“We remain young to the degree that our ambitions are greater than our memories.”
“Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.”
your life? Dan has a saying for this: “Always be the buyer.” What he means is that, in every situation you’re in, you should be the one who is buying, not selling. The buyer can reject the seller, not the other way around.
You can become the buyer in all aspects of your life. You do this by rejecting anything that isn’t in line with your vision.
The first key to engaging in high-quality teamwork is to not think you know exactly what you’re doing. You’ve got to be open to other people’s ideas. You’ve got to realize that other people’s ideas, solutions, or strategies can be far superior to your own