How to achieve your goals and outperform everyone.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Coffee With Cole – "How to Achieve Your Goals and Outperform Everyone"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Coffee With Cole: The Digital Writing Podcast
• Host/Author: Nicolas Cole
• Episode: How to Achieve Your Goals and Outperform Everyone
• Release Date: April 24, 2025
• Description: Weekly deep dives into the Art & Business of Digital Writing, Ghostwriting, & Self-Publishing

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Introduction

In this enlightening episode of Coffee With Cole, host Nicolas Cole delves into the intricate dynamics of achieving personal and professional goals. Through an engaging dialogue between John and Jane, the episode dissects the essential framework of Goal, Time, and Money, offering listeners a pragmatic approach to prioritizing and executing their aspirations effectively.

The Goal-Time-Money Framework

John introduces a foundational framework that has guided his decision-making processes over the years. This triad—Goal, Time, and Money—serves as a lens to evaluate and prioritize different aspects of one's life.

"Goal, time, money. This is a framework that I've used for years to make really hard decisions in my life. If you want to advance a goal, you have to sacrifice time and or money."
— John [00:00]

Jane emphasizes the inevitability of costs associated with any major decision.

"No matter what you pick to focus on, it's going to cost you something."
— Jane [00:23]

Understanding Goals

Jane and John define a goal as any desired improvement or achievement in one's life, ranging from personal habits like going to the gym to professional ambitions like earning more money.

"A goal can be anything that you want to improve or achieve in your life. It could be going to the gym more often. It could be learning a foreign language."
— Jane [01:00]

John further clarifies that prioritizing a primary goal, such as making more money, inherently relegates other pursuits to the periphery.

The Cost of Pursuing Goals

The core premise is that advancing in one domain necessitates sacrifices in others. John articulates that striving for all three—goal achievement, time, and money—simultaneously often results in underperformance in each.

"If you want to advance a goal, you have to sacrifice time and or money... If money is the goal, then all your other pursuits in life come second."
— John [00:00 - 02:20]

Jane points out that many individuals are unconsciously unaware of these costs, leading to frustration and a perpetual loop of shifting priorities without meaningful progress.

"They end up achieving none of them. So... recognizing that to achieve one or move one further along, you inherently have to experience some sort of cost in one or two of the others."
— Jane [02:02 - 04:08]

The Importance of Prioritization

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the necessity of prioritizing goals to avoid the trap of trying to advance everything at once. John illustrates how failing to prioritize leads to a constant back-and-forth between goals, time, and money, resulting in stagnation.

"Whenever you feel like I'm not making the progress that I want to make in some way, it's rooted in the fact that I'm not aware of the cost that's required."
— Jane [04:23 - 04:36]

Jane adds that honest acknowledgment of these costs is crucial for making sustained progress toward any single goal.

Leveraging Time and Money

The conversation transitions into strategies for effectively leveraging time and money to achieve multiple goals without becoming overwhelmed.

Goals Without Leverage

John introduces the concept that without leverage, only one goal can be effectively advanced at a time. This is due to the finite nature of personal effort, time, and energy.

"Without leverage, you can only advance one goal at a time. And the reason is because progress requires effort, you don't have leverage."
— John [06:36 - 07:11]

Jane underscores the impracticality of multitasking in meaningful ways, emphasizing the need for sequential progression in goal achievement.

"There is no such thing as multitasking, right? Like, I literally can't read 20 pages in a book and simultaneously meditate at the same time."
— Jane [07:09 - 07:33]

Types of Leverage

The discussion categorizes leverage into labor and capital, detailing how each can be harnessed to manage multiple goals efficiently.

1. Labor Leverage:

   • Lowest Leverage: Hiring someone to take over a repetitive task without adding additional value.

     "They’re simply taking over an existing task. So they're not actually usually with that role and that low leverage sort of task, they're not taking something and then going beyond the amount of time that it was costing you."
     — John [11:09 - 12:38]

   • Middle Leverage: Hiring someone to manage and potentially grow a task or a set of tasks, thereby freeing up more of your time.

     "Now it's higher leverage in the sense that they're helping free up your time. They're no longer the one doing the ongoing work."
     — Jane [12:38 - 13:19]

   • Highest Leverage: Bringing in someone to build something from the ground up with minimal ongoing involvement from you.

     "That's the highest leverage because it requires the least amount of time... they're going to build that department from scratch. That's the highest leverage."
     — John [13:03 - 14:44]

2. Capital Leverage:

   • Investment as Leverage: Using money to generate returns with minimal effort, such as angel investing.

     "If you think about what is the thing that would yield the greatest possible return for the least amount of your direct involvement in energy... capital is such a high form of leverage."
     — John [14:44 - 15:49]

   • Building Machines: Creating systems or businesses that generate income autonomously, allowing for the advancement of multiple goals simultaneously.

     "It's the same machine fundamentally. And how it works is you put effort in and then you yield some sort of output on the other side."
     — John [22:43 - 23:57]

Jane highlights the risk and strategic considerations involved in capital leverage, emphasizing the need for careful allocation to maximize returns.

Building Leverage for Multiple Goals

The hosts discuss how building leverage through strategic hiring and investment allows individuals to pursue multiple goals without overextending their personal resources.

"With leverage and in different tiers of leverage, you can advance multiple goals at the same time."
— John [14:53 - 15:02]

John provides actionable insights on how to identify and implement different levels of leverage, ensuring that each goal receives the appropriate amount of attention and resources.

"If you have labor leverage, maybe you have capital leverage with time... if it is not, then yes, you can start to stack other goals on top of each other."
— John [17:59 - 17:58]

The Relationship Between Time and Money

Time and money are depicted as interchangeable resources that can be strategically reallocated to achieve desired outcomes. The hosts explore ways to optimize the use of both to enhance productivity and goal attainment.

"Money is sort of like a different version of time... in our existing business, I know that if I want to put myself through a sprint and spend 100, 150 hours building a new digital product, I know I put 150 hours in, and out the other side, comes hundreds of thousands of dollars."
— John [22:26 - 23:50]

Jane and John discuss the importance of viewing money not just as a means to an end but as a tool to reclaim and reallocate time effectively.

"With excess money, you can either unlock time immediately by paying someone else... or you can make more money in the long term by paying someone else to do a higher leverage task."
— John [22:12 - 22:13]

Embarking on the Framework: From Understanding to Action

The episode emphasizes that true comprehension of the Goal-Time-Money framework comes from integrating it into daily actions. John encourages listeners to embody the framework by consistently making decisions that reflect their prioritized goals and the associated costs.

"The only way that you prove that you understand it is when it is tied to an action in your life."
— John [30:59 - 31:09]

Jane concurs, highlighting that logical understanding must translate into practical application to drive meaningful progress.

"It has to be embodied... it has to be tied to an action."
— Jane [31:06 - 31:08]

Listeners are urged to continually evaluate their goals, the allocation of their time, and their financial decisions to ensure alignment with their primary objectives.

Conclusion

In "How to Achieve Your Goals and Outperform Everyone," Coffee With Cole offers a robust framework for goal achievement centered around understanding and balancing the interplay between goals, time, and money. By prioritizing effectively and leveraging resources strategically, individuals can overcome the common pitfalls of overcommitment and underachievement. The hosts provide a thoughtful roadmap for listeners to internalize and apply these principles, fostering sustained progress and success in both personal and professional realms.

"At any given moment and with any given decision, the entire game is really about being honest with yourself about where the cost is."
— John [29:15 - 30:59]

This episode serves as a valuable guide for anyone looking to streamline their efforts, make informed sacrifices, and ultimately, outperform in their chosen endeavors.

Transcript

[John]

Goal, time, money. This is a framework that I've used for years to make really hard decisions in my life. If you want to advance a goal, you have to sacrifice time and or money. If you want to make more money, you usually have to postpone some sort of personal goal and, or it costs you time. And if you want more time, you usually have to postpone a goal and, or it costs you money.

[Jane]

No matter what you pick to focus.

[John]

On, it's going to cost you something. The, the problem is most people aren't.

[Jane]

Aware or conscious of that cost. What they want is they want to.

[John]

Advance all three, and as a result, they end up achieving none of them. So in this video, I want to break down why this framework is so important and how to think about these different variables. Achieving a goal, unlocking time, or making more money, where you recognize that in order to achieve one or move one further along, you inherently have to experience some sort of cost in one or two of the others. So first, let's start with what is a goal.

[Jane]

So a goal can be anything that you want to improve or achieve in your life. It could be going to the gym more often. It could be learning a foreign language.

[John]

It could be reading 20 pages in a book every day.

[Jane]

It could be learning a new skill.

[John]

It doesn't really matter. A goal is anything that you want to spend time doing to achieve an end. Now, your goal could be to make more money, but if money is the goal, then that also means that all your other pursuits in life come second, which is fine.

[Jane]

But this is one of those areas.

[John]

Where I feel like people don't have a lot of clarity around this decision.

[Jane]

What they do is they sort of lump the decision into this broad bucket.

[John]

In their brain and they go, I want, like my primary goal is I want to make more money, but I also want to get to the gym every day, and I also want to eat healthy and I also want to.

[Jane]

Start going to the sauna every Saturday.

[John]

And I also like, it's just they list out all these other personal goals, really realize that in order to make.

[Jane]

Progress on any of them, you have to decide which one is the priority.

[John]

And so if you're saying to yourself.

[Jane]

My priority is I want to make.

[John]

More money, that is the primary goal. That's fine. But you also have to internalize and remember that it's going to cost you something in order to achieve that goal and what it's going to cost you, if the primary goal is money, is.

[Jane]

All of your other goals or many.

[John]

Of your other Goals. And it's also going to cost you time and again. It kind of comes back to this.

[Jane]

Faulty belief or this misunderstanding that people have where they think that they can advance all three simultaneously.

[John]

And that is not how it works.

[Jane]

And when you're not honest with yourself.

[John]

About what the cost is, then what.

[Jane]

Happens is, as you start to advance.

[John]

One, you get frustrated because you feel.

[Jane]

The deficit in one or two of the others.

[John]

And you don't want to feel the deficit, right? You don't want to feel like it's costing you something.

[Jane]

So what do you do?

[John]

You then bounce to the next one and you're like, but I want more time. Okay, sacrifice main goal. I'm going to reclaim some time.

[Jane]

Oh, I reclaimed time, but now I'm.

[John]

Not making as much money. Okay, so refocus on, I want to make more money, but then it costs you something else.

[Jane]

Oh, now I don't have any hobbies.

[John]

Okay, so then you make the hobby the priority. All right, well, then maybe you make less money and you have less time. So there is always a cost. There's always a cost.

[Jane]

This is sort of the same concept.

[John]

As it's very easy to make to do lists, right?

[Jane]

Everyone loves making to do lists.

[John]

Everyone loves starting the new year with.

[Jane]

Here are all my New Year's resolutions.

[John]

Here's all the things that I want to do. That's not the hard part.

[Jane]

The hard part is deciding all the.

[John]

Things that you're going to remove, AKA all the things that you're going to be okay with it costing you.

[Alex]

Right?

[Jane]

When you remove something from your schedule.

[John]

Or from the expectations that you have within yourself, what you're really doing is you're coming to terms with that cost.

[Jane]

You're saying, this other thing is more.

[John]

Important than all the others on my list.

[Jane]

I respect that.

[John]

This is the most important thing.

[Jane]

I want this to be the priority.

[John]

And I'm okay with it costing me. I don't want to take as many meetings, or I don't go out with friends as often, or I don't go out to dinner as much as I used to, or I don't get to the gym six days a week. I can only get there three days a week.

[Alex]

Right?

[Jane]

Whatever it is, you're coming to terms with that cost.

[John]

And where I see so many people.

[Jane]

Go wrong, myself included. Whenever I find myself in a chapter.

[John]

Where I feel like I'm not making the progress that I want to make in some way, it's rooted in the fact that I'm not aware of the cost. That's required.

[Jane]

It's not that I can't achieve the goal. It's not that that can't be a priority.

[John]

It's that I haven't come to terms with the fact that it's going to.

[Jane]

Cost me something in order to achieve.

[John]

That goal, in order for it to be a priority. And whenever you're not honest about what.

[Jane]

The cost is, then what happens is.

[John]

You just keep bouncing, know, goal, money, time. And you, you're like, I advanced the goal, now it's costing me money, uh oh. And then I, I get back, I'm making money, now it's costing me time, uh oh. Then I reclaim time. Oh, but it's costing me my goal, uh oh.

[Jane]

And you just stay in this loop.

[John]

For, for forever and ever. And this is the only framework that I've really found to help me internalize.

[Jane]

Why this is so important. And every time I sit down and.

[John]

I ask myself, what is the priority?

[Jane]

What do I want to do?

[John]

What do I want to focus on? I continue to train my brain to ask the next question, which is, what cost am I okay with incurring in order for this to be the priority?

[Jane]

And if you don't know what the.

[John]

Cost is, here's a great rule of thumb that I've learned over the years.

[Jane]

If you don't know what that cost.

[John]

Is, that means the cost is in more areas of your life than you realize. It's actually costing you other goals and.

[Jane]

Time and probably money. You're just not aware of it and.

[John]

Or you're not willing to consciously admit it. Instead, it's much easier to just sort.

[Jane]

Of live in the delusion of I'm advancing all three.

[John]

You're not. You're not. You're advancing all three very, very incrementally. And as a result, none of them accomplish what you're trying to accomplish. Okay, so now let's talk about each individual variable. So you have goal, some sort of goal. Doesn't matter what it is. It's some sort, something that you want to have happen in your life as the result of effort, time, reclaiming time doesn't matter. If you want more time to yourself, you want more time to do leisurely activities, you want more time with your family, your kids, your friends, doesn't matter. You are focused on reclaiming time to reallocate somewhere else. And then money in some way, you want to make more money. Now, both time and money can be the primary goal. It's just worth reminding yourself that you probably have more than one goal right there's habits you want to build, there's personal achievements that you're.

[Jane]

You're aiming toward.

[John]

There's little things that you want to have happen multiple times in a day or in a week or in a month, right?

[Jane]

All of those are goals. And so they actually are all competing.

[John]

Against each other, including time and money. So here's how to think about these different variables. So first, let's talk about goals without leverage. This is a very important nuance. Without leverage, you can only advance one goal at a time. And the reason is because progress requires effort, you don't have leverage.

[Jane]

So all progress is dependent upon your effort, and effort is constrained by your.

[John]

Time and energy, okay?

[Jane]

So you do not have infinite effort.

[John]

You don't have infinite time, you don't have infinite energy, right?

[Jane]

So this is, this is a very.

[John]

Important nuance, and it took me a long time to understand this.

[Jane]

Without leverage, you can only advance one goal at a time.

[John]

Now, on a micro level, what this looks like is there's no such thing as multitasking, right? Like, I literally can't read 20 pages in a book and simultaneously meditate at the same time. Two different goals, right? Maybe I could get away with like reading while I'm in the sauna, you know, I can't like go to the gym and separate goal of, I want to be better about eating four meals a day and hitting certain macros, right? Two completely different things. You can't do 99% of goals on a micro level at the exact same moment.

[Jane]

It always requires sequence, right?

[John]

I read and then I go to the gym, right? Or I go to the gym and then I read or I go to the gym and then I eat healthy, right? It always requires sequence on a more macro level without leverage.

[Jane]

What this means is that in order to really move something forward in your.

[John]

Life, it could be just the consistency of a daily habit, or it could be a larger project.

[Jane]

In order to make progress, your progress.

[John]

Is dependent on effort, right?

[Jane]

Leverage means that you have other assistance.

[John]

You have assistance with the help of other people. Maybe you have assistance by leveraging capital, you have assistance by leveraging automations that you took the time to build, right?

[Jane]

If you don't have any form of leverage, then all progress is dependent upon.

[John]

You sitting there doing the work, right? It is dependent upon effort.

[Jane]

Now why is this so important?

[John]

Because most people are not conscious of the fact that effort is constrained by time and energy. And so what happens is they spend.

[Jane]

All this time making all these lists.

[John]

Of all these goals that they want to achieve.

[Jane]

Not realizing that every single goal on the list, right? As you move from goal one to.

[John]

Two to three to four to five, right. Inherently, you can imagine, you know, goal one, if that's the priority, you have a full bucket of, I have some time, and I have a good amount of energy, right? Goal two, well, now I've used some time and I've used some energy because I focused on the first one. Goal three, I have less time and I have less energy because I focused on the first two.

[Jane]

So it's really easy to make these long lists of, here's all the things.

[John]

That I want to do, all the things that I want to achieve. Not realizing that without leverage, you can.

[Jane]

Only advance one at a time. And each one that you advance is.

[John]

Costing you this finite resource, right? You don't have infinite time and you don't have infinite energy. So as you try to do more, your results, right, Your ability to generate a result actually falls off a cliff. By the time you get down to goal 10 in a day, you're out.

[Jane]

Of time, the day is over, and.

[John]

You'Re probably out of energy. You're fried. And if you push beyond that point in that first day, what happens?

[Jane]

Well, the next day, you're exhausted, you.

[John]

Have to sleep in. You lose more time, you have to sleep in to reclaim more energy. You're dealing with a finite resource.

[Jane]

So this is a very important point.

[John]

Because I think a question that a lot of people don't ask themselves is, how many goals am I trying to advance in my life at the same time?

[Jane]

And the nuance is, how many goals.

[John]

Am I trying to advance where I don't have leverage? Advancement fundamentally means my direct involvement and is dependent upon my direct effort. If that's the case, you can only do one at a time. Because you don't have leverage, you don't have scale. Okay, now here's where things get interesting is with leverage, you can actually advance multiple goals at the same time.

[Jane]

However, there's another nuance. As long as each goal requires minimal.

[John]

Effort from you, because effort is, again, constrained by time and energy. So what that means is if you've ever built a team or built a company like entrepreneurship has taught me this.

[Jane]

So well, there are different types of.

[John]

Hires that you make. Leverage is a hire, right? It's labor leverage. I can hire someone to take over a task. Now, there's a little framework that I have in terms of hiring. If you think about labor leverage, which is when you're hiring someone for a.

[Jane]

Given task or for a role or.

[John]

For a department, there's sort of three different types of hires. There's one person who is the lowest leverage role, and their job is simply to take over the task.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

So a great example would be like an executive assistant or like an overseas virtual assistant. You've been doing a task called I need to send 100 cold outreach messages a week or a month. You know, all of the things that go into that task, you've repeated that task a zillion times. Now you're simply hiring someone to take that task over from you. And the reason it's the lowest leverage is because all they're doing is they're helping you reclaim existing time. So they're not actually usually with that role and that low leverage sort of task, they're not taking something and then going beyond the amount of time that it was costing you, where they end.

[Jane]

Up saving you even more time or.

[John]

They create even more assets in replace of you.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

So they're not building something new. They're simply taking over an existing task. That's the lowest leverage role. The middle leverage is when you hire.

[Jane]

Someone to take over an existing task.

[John]

Or a bundle of tasks and you go, I want you to run this, oversee this, and maybe even grow it a little bit.

[Alex]

Right.

[Jane]

So now it's higher leverage in the.

[John]

Sense that they helped free up your time. You're no longer the one doing the ongoing work.

[Jane]

But they take it a step further in the sense that now they're able.

[John]

To look for other things that grow the thing without your involvement.

[Alex]

Right.

[Jane]

The third tier and the highest leverage.

[John]

Is when you can hire someone to fundamentally build something from the ground up without very much involvement from you. Okay. What this looks like would be if, for example, tomorrow we wanted to build like a affiliate partnerships vertical.

[Jane]

Now the lowest leverage thing would be.

[John]

For me or for Dickie or someone in our company to go, I'm going to figure out how to do this first, which would cost us a lot of time, and then I'm going to go find someone to take it over and they're just going to replace the work that I've figured out how to do.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

That's the lowest leverage. The middle leverage would be, I'm going to figure it out, but I'm also going to hire someone to sort of like figure it out with me. We might have, like, similar levels of proficiency and I can maybe pass things off to them faster.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

I don't need to like fully document or master the task. They're higher leverage. They can help Me with that.

[Jane]

And maybe they're bringing something else to the table.

[John]

Maybe they're bringing like an existing Rolodex or maybe they have some experience here, and so they already have some of these skills. Whereas I would be trying to figure them out, costing me time from the beginning.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

The highest leverage would be going and finding someone who's already built the exact same thing that we want to build, hiring them and going here, here's all our resources. You have access to everything that we have internally. Go build this department from scratch. That's the highest leverage.

[Jane]

It's also the highest leverage because it requires the least amount of time.

[John]

So with leverage and in different tiers.

[Jane]

Of leverage, you can advance multiple goals.

[John]

At the same time. Now, the highest form of leverage, at least I'll speak in this example, is actually capital. It's money.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

If you think about what is the thing that would yield the greatest possible return for the least amount of your direct involvement in energy. Well, a great example would be I cut an angel check to a new startup. So I give them 25 grand, I.

[Jane]

Get a small piece of their company, that 25 grand works for me.

[John]

Now, obviously, there's risk associated with that. I'm just using it as an example. That 25 grand works for me. And there is a scenario, right? Depending on the startup, might not be a very high percentage scenario, but there is a scenario where that 25 grand could generate 2x5x10x100x1000x.

[Jane]

Right.

[John]

Which means the 25 grand is working for me with essentially no additional effort.

[Jane]

The only effort that it took from.

[John]

Me was writing the check. That is why capital is such a.

[Jane]

High form of leverage. Could I advance multiple goals at a time? If.

[John]

If I was hiring someone to build something from the ground up, and I'm buying 10 years of experience, for sure, they could go build that while I give them a tiny bit of direction and then I'm done.

[Jane]

Great.

[John]

You go build that. Could I also advance another goal where I cut a 25 grand check or a 50 grand check into a startup and then that's the only effort that I deploy and then that can go work for me. Yes, I can.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

The nuance is that as you gain leverage, you have to be choosing initiatives that, no, they do not require ongoing involvement from you. And if there is ongoing involvement, it has. It has to be minimal because the more ongoing involvement there is from you, fundamentally, you go back to what we were talking about before, which is you can only advance one thing at one time because the involvement from you is dependent upon your direct effort. And your direct effort is a finite resource. And this is one of those nuances that people don't understand or think about enough, which is that they think they have leverage by maybe hiring someone to take over an existing task, or they think they have leverage by investing a little bit of money into a company. But really along with the money, there's an expectation that you do a call with them once a month or you give ongoing feedback. Right in the moment, none of those.

[Jane]

Things seem like a big deal.

[John]

You're like, oh, hopping on a call once a month, that'll take me 30 minutes. That's not that much. But if you start to stack those on top of each other, you start to realize that you're actually creating a big bucket that competes all for the same finite resource, which is your direct involvement and your time and energy. And that becomes a problem. And so part of this idea of how do you advance a goal or how do you advance multiple goals at the same time comes back to this idea of is the goal dependent upon your direct involvement energy? If it's not, then yes, you can start to stack other goals on top of each other.

[Jane]

Right.

[John]

And you can have either labor leverage or capital leverage start to work for you.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

But if it is, and it is dependent upon your direct involvement, time and energy, then you need to be really careful about all the different things that you sign yourself up for. Because what's going to happen is all of these commitments are going to start competing for the same resource, which is your attention, which is your energy. So that's the goal side. There's a lot to think about with that.

[Jane]

Now, time is also really interesting. There's a lot of different ways to.

[John]

Think about time because time in and.

[Jane]

Of itself is a resource.

[John]

In many cases, people think about reclaiming time as, you know, oh, I just, I wish I had more free time. And the way that I think about it is with excess time, you can either generate a short term output by deploying effort to advance a singular goal. So what that means is I can generate a short term output by working really hard on something that is where there is a direct correlation between my effort.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

I could go grind for a weekend. I know that if I work on.

[Jane]

This specific thing, it yields this result.

[John]

Thus more time in, more output out.

[Jane]

So with excess time, you can either generate a short term output by deploying effort to advance a singular goal, or you can generate a long term output.

[John]

By deploying effort to build leverage that allows the advancement of multiple goals. So what that means is if I free up 5 hours tomorrow, I could either reallocate those 5 hours to some sort of work that generates a short term immediate output, or I could reallocate those five hours to I'm going to go build a process, or I'm going to build an automation, or I'm going to go take the time to try and hire the right person that builds leverage that allows me to actually tackle multiple goals. Right now when you do that, you are not going to see a short term output. In the short term, it's going to seem like, why didn't I just do the first thing right? Because the first thing is what yields the short term output. I know if I work really hard for five hours, I can make X amount more money and then it's in my pocket, right? But it's also very short term because.

[Jane]

You'Re not building leverage.

[John]

So what happens is that you keep.

[Jane]

Repeating that loop over and over and.

[John]

Over again until all of a sudden there's big time diminishing returns and you're like, all right, yeah, I could pull this lever a thousand times, but I'm not actually building anything, right? It just becomes different levels and glorified versions of trading time for money, right? Or time for some sort of output. It could be any goal, really. I'm just using money as an example. The other way to allocate that time is to deploy effort in some area that allows you to build leverage so that over a longer time horizon you can advance multiple goals at the same time. Right now in the short term, there's some pain with that. That's going to cost you time. And it's also probably going to cost you money in the short term because you're not going to see the result of the advancement of multiple goals until later.

[Jane]

So this is what's interesting about time.

[John]

As a variable is, you know, I guess the third thing that you can do with time is you can free up time and then not do anything with it, right? You could make decisions. It might cost you a goal, it also might cost you money. But you free up a bunch of time and now you can go sit in the grass for three hours. That's great. If you want to do that, that's great. But if you think about time as a variable as it relates to these other buckets, you want to think about how to reallocate time right now. Sometimes you can reallocate time to rest. But I would say, generally speaking, if your goal is to build Then you want to think about ways to reallocate time either to generate a short term output or to build leverage that yield long term outputs, which leads to the third variable, which is money. So with excess money, you can either unlock time immediately by paying someone else.

[Jane]

To do a task for you while.

[John]

You rest, or you can make more money in the short term by paying.

[Jane]

Someone else to do a lower leverage.

[John]

Task while you deploy that effort on a higher leverage task that advances a singular goal yourself.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

Still dependent on your effort. Or you can make more money in the long term by paying someone else.

[Jane]

To do a lower leverage task while.

[John]

You deploy effort on the highest leverage task, which is building leverage to advance multiple goals simultaneously. Okay, so there's a lot in here to unpack. Money is sort of like a different version of time, okay. And this is something that is especially hard to wrap your head around and understand before you have found a lever where you have more direct control over your income. It's almost like you need a vehicle in order to feel the impact of, if I work harder, I can make more money. It's like a little machine. I put more effort in and I know that I yield more of an output over here.

[Jane]

I didn't realize, I did not understand.

[John]

This until I started building companies and selling products of my own. And once you do, what's really interesting about building this little machine, where you deploy effort and then money comes out the other side, like in our existing business. I know that if at any point, if I want to put myself through a sprint and I want to spend 100, 150 hours building a new digital product, I know I put 150 hours.

[Jane]

Into the front end of my machine.

[John]

And I know out the other side of my machine comes hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's a very clear trade.

[Jane]

Now, it didn't start out that way in the beginning.

[John]

It was, I bet if I grind for 20 hours this weekend, maybe I could sell an ebook and make an extra couple hundred bucks, right?

[Jane]

It's actually the same machine, Right.

[John]

It's just over time, I have built higher and higher versions of leverage.

[Alex]

Right?

[John]

But it's the same machine fundamentally. And how it works is you put effort in and then you yield some sort of output on the other side.

[Jane]

The challenge.

[John]

The challenge and what happens is that.

[Jane]

As you get your machine up and.

[John]

Running and as it grows and as it starts to produce more money, the way that you perceive money changes. Because money is no longer just money. Money could also be transmuted into time. So what that means is my machine could spit out $1,000. I could either take that thousand dollars and put it in my pocket, or I could take that thousand dollars and go hire someone that reclaims time. I could take that thousand dollars and go spend it maybe on a sponsorship, or I could run ads. Different form of leverage, right? In some way, I'm hoping that that little machine turns the $1,000 into $2,000, right? Or $3,000. So I could either use money to hire someone and reclaim time, and it could reclaim time that I reallocate in the short term to make more money. Or I could hire someone to reallocate time to then go and find a higher leveraged person and hire them to achieve multiple goals at the same time, right? Or I could take that money and I could put it into a different machine and there's risk associated with that, right? If I take that thousand dollars and I go spend it on meta ads, Instagram ads, Twitter ads, whatever, there's risk. But maybe I can get that capital to work for me and then the thousand dollars turns into $2,000, right?

[Jane]

And this is what's so fascinating about money and different levels of money. And especially as it relates to this.

[John]

Little machine that you build at different points in the journey, it actually makes sense to think about money differently.

[Jane]

There are some points in the journey.

[John]

When you want to de risk yourself. You're like, I've got a lot of things going. Maybe you see things changing in the economy or you see things changing in your industry, and you're like, I want to take some money off the table. The highest leverage thing that I could do is when my machine spits out 100 bucks, I'm going to take that 100 bucks and put it in my pocket. I want to de risk. That's one way of looking at money.

[Jane]

Another way of looking at money is.

[John]

Going, you know, we're in a period where my machine's working really well. I feel good about the inputs and outputs. I have this other goal that I want to advance. I know in order to get there, I either need to reclaim time in.

[Jane]

The short term, or I need to.

[John]

Reclaim time and reallocate it to hire someone else so that I can achieve multiple goals over the long term.

[Jane]

So what do you do?

[John]

You don't take the output and you don't put it in your pocket.

[Jane]

And with excess money, what you do.

[John]

Is you rebuy time, which sort of recirculates the whole mission, right? This is, again, something that is very hard to wrap your head around at.

[Jane]

The beginning of the journey.

[John]

And it's also not something that I would necessarily recommend obsessing over at the beginning of the journey.

[Alex]

Right.

[Jane]

In the beginning, all you're trying to.

[John]

Do is figure out, well, how do I get a machine working in my life and how do I get some sort of input and output where there's a clear measurable impact of I put effort in and I yield some sort of output on the other side? Then as you have that, you have that little equation, that machine working for you, then it becomes a question of, so what is the best way to allocate the output, which is money?

[Jane]

And how all of this ties together.

[John]

Is you sort of need to understand how goal, time, money, all work independently.

[Jane]

So that you can better understand the.

[John]

Relationship that they have between each other.

[Alex]

Right?

[John]

And I go back to what I.

[Jane]

Said in the beginning, which is the.

[John]

Mistake that most people make is they go, I want to advance the goal.

[Jane]

I also want to reclaim time.

[John]

I also want to make more money. And fundamentally what that means though is they don't understand the relationship that they have between each other. Because excess money can help you reclaim.

[Jane]

Time or can help you achieve your.

[John]

Goal or can help you achieve multiple goals. But you have to change the way that you think about it, and you have to understand the relationship that it has with time and goals.

[Jane]

You can advance multiple goals at the same time.

[John]

It's not whether you can or can't. It's a question of which goals are.

[Jane]

You trying to achieve and are they.

[John]

All dependent upon your direct involvement, your direct effort? If they are, you have to recognize that be honest with yourself and know, oh, wait, I'm trying to achieve five goals that are all dependent on me. They're all competing for the same resource. That's not going to work.

[Alex]

Right?

[John]

How can you achieve multiple goals at the same time? You could pick one that's dependent on your direct involvement and then you could.

[Jane]

Advance another or another two that aren't.

[John]

Dependent on your direct involvement.

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

Maybe you have labor leverage, maybe you have capital leverage with time.

[Jane]

Sure, you can free up more time.

[John]

To sit in the backyard and do nothing, or you can look at time as a reallocation bucket.

[Jane]

And do you want to reallocate time.

[John]

To generate a short term output?

[Alex]

Right.

[John]

Go back to your machine, more effort, more whatever on the other side, usually money.

[Jane]

Or do you want to reclaim time and then reallocate that to building leverage.

[John]

So that you can achieve multiple goals.

[Jane]

Or make progress on multiple goals over.

[John]

A longer time horizon and you Know, even just writing up my. My notes for this video helped clarify.

[Jane]

This for me so much.

[John]

This is something I've been thinking about ever since I sort of got into entrepreneurship. I was 26 when I started my first company. That was almost a decade ago at this point, it's about eight years ago. And I've thought about this general framework many times, and it's gone through many.

[Jane]

Different iterations in my head.

[John]

But this is the simplest version that I've landed on, which is that in.

[Jane]

Any given moment and with any given.

[John]

Decision, the entire game is really about being honest with yourself about where the cost is. And if you don't know where the cost is, like I said, the cost is probably everywhere. And it's costing you all three buckets, right? When in reality what you want is you want to pick one and be okay with the cost of one or two of the others. When you do that, well, then that's okay because you're at least advancing the one. You're going to feel the cost somewhere. You're going to feel it, so you might as well be honest about it. If you're not honest about it, then what happens is you don't advance any one of them, but it ends up costing you all three. And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes that I have made over and over and over again in my life. And again, whenever I go through periods where I'm feeling like I'm not making the progress that I want to. Instead, some way, I find myself coming back to this very simple framework. You know, goal, time, money. And almost always I'm not aware of the cost or I haven't admitted the cost to myself. And because I haven't admitted it, I don't end up making progress. So I hope this is helpful for you. This is one of those, you know, maybe listen to this a couple times, let it steep. You might also need to listen to this, you know, once now, and then again in six months, and then again six months after that. But I always find that these types of frameworks, at first glance, it's very easy to be like, yeah, I understand that. But the real understanding, the true internalization of it is something that happens over a much longer period of time. And most importantly, little framework I use for any sort of personal development or any sort of learning is that it.

[Jane]

Can'T just be logically understood.

[John]

It has to be embodied. And the only way to embody a learning is to tie it to an action.

[Jane]

So it can't just be enough that you understand.

[John]

Yeah, Cool.

[Jane]

That makes sense.

[John]

Goal.

[Jane]

Time, money. Great.

[John]

Got it. The only way that you prove that you understand it is when it is tied to an action in your life.

[Jane]

And fundamentally, what that means is.

[John]

Okay, so what goals are you trying to achieve in your life right now? And how are you thinking about or using time? And how are you thinking about and reallocating money? And which one's the priority, and most importantly, which one is the cost?