Achieve Exponential Growth with The Power of Leverage

Which one do you prefer: linear growth or exponential growth? Do you want your progress to be at the same pace year after year or do you want it to be increasingly faster? I’m sure you prefer exponential growth. After all, it enables you to achieve more with less effort over time.

To achieve exponential growth, the key is using the power of leverage. The more you use the power of leverage, the faster your progress will be. On the other hand, those who don’t use the power of leverage will need to work just as hard every time to get the same results.

Living a Lifestyle of Leverage

I believe that leverage is so important that you should make it a part of your lifestyle. You need to live a lifestyle of leverage. That means seeking potential leverages constantly and using them whenever possible.

To see whether or not you are living a lifestyle of leverage, ask yourself this question:

Do I achieve more with less effort over time?

The more you can answer yes to the question, the more you make leverage a part of your lifestyle.

Here are two things you should do to live a lifestyle of leverage:

  1. Creatively use what you already have to build new things
    Here the focus is on the present. Look at what you already have and find how you can use them to build new things. If you have a business then find what new businesses you can build based on it. If you have a machine then find other ways to use the machine.
  2. Think of what leverageable assets you should build
    Here the focus is on the future. Instead of looking at what you now have, look ahead and think of what you want to leverage in the future. This way you can start building those assets so that they will be ready by the time you need them. Without such a planning, years might pass before you realize that you have nothing to leverage. Start working now to make your future easier.

The ability to build leverageable assets (a term I learned from Beyond Code) is a good way to see whether or not a career is good for you. There are many people who just work year after year without ever building leverageable assets. Consequently, ten years from now they may need to work almost as hard as they do today to get the same results. Choose a career that helps you build leverageable assets.

Leverageable Assets to Build and Use

Here are several leverageable assets you can build and use:

1. Contacts

Your network is a great source of leverage. When you need something you don’t have, you can reach out to your network to see if someone has it. Even if you can do something yourself, chance is there is someone in your network who can do it faster and better than you.

To maximize your network’s leverage potential, you should know people from as many different backgrounds as possible. It won’t help you much if all the people you know have similar backgrounds.

Of course, to be able to extract value from your network you should invest in it first. Help people in your network sincerely.

2. Knowledge and skills

When you already master something, you can use it to quickly learn related skills and knowledge. What you know becomes a foundation to build upon. For example, in the programming world once you know a programming language it will be easier for you to learn a second language. Why? Because there are similarities between programming languages and you can use your knowledge of the first language to learn a second one.

There is a category of skills that has especially high leverage power: transferable skills. Transferable skills are skills that are useful across different fields. Some examples are time management (or, even better, energy management), marketing, and communication skills. You can use these skills in many different circumstances, so they are something you should pay special attention to. The more transferable skills you learn, the more leverage power you have.

3. Passions

Just like you can leverage your knowledge, you can also leverage your passions. Your passions act like a power source that motivates you to go further and dig deeper than you would normally do.

So use your passions to your advantage. Follow them and tap into the energy they provide. Leveraging your passions helps you overcome the initial period of failure on your way to success.

4. Achievements

You can use what you already achieve to achieve even more with less effort. Let’s say you already build a successful business. You can use that business as a basis to build a new business. You may promote your new business to your existing customers. Or you may assign some of your staff from the first business to the second one. You may also use the equipment of the first business to build the new business. As you can see, there are many ways to leverage what you already achieve.

5. Money

Money has great leverage power as long as you use it wisely. Instead of spending the money you earn on consumable goods, reinvest a significant part of it. Use it to buy other people’s time and expertise. Use it to buy tools and equipment. Use it to experiment with new opportunities.

Photo by Davichi

17 Comments

  1. What a great post. I found this site by accident and maybe it was no accident. I took the time to enjoy the other posts. Thanks

  2. Insightful idea.

    I have never considered leverage in this context before. It reminds me of that old expression, “only a fool expects different results from doing the same thing.” I think most of us get caught up in low or zero leverage occupations and businesses. So many people spend their entire lives living pay check to pay check. More effort needs to be spent on creating leverage in our lives.

    Thanks for the post.

  3. Paul,
    Welcome to Life Optimizer. I hope you find the posts here useful.

    John,

    I think most of us get caught up in low or zero leverage occupations and businesses.

    I’m afraid that’s true. That’s unfortunate because creating leverageable assets takes time and lost time is something we can never get back.

  4. I don’t necessarily agree with the concept of looking at your life as to what you can “leverage” to get ahead, but I do like the idea of using what you (and only you) possess in order to gain fulfillment. Your passions and strengths, especially the interesection of those two items, are a crucial place to start when you’re looking to focus your life. Once you identify where you are both naturally skilled and enjoy doing the activity, you can then make decisions based on that intersection.
    As far as leveraging other people, again I am not fond of that word – it sounds an awful lot like using them, but I do agree with sincerely helping others AND working with others. Here, the key is finding out where other people’s skills and desires intersect and asking them to help in areas where that intersection is needed. That way, each one of us never has to feel as if we need to be good at everything, but rather we need to be good at just what we have, and work with others in such a way as to complete our project, with all activities being covered naturally by those who are both good at them and love doing them.

  5. I use ‘Gap analysis’ to get things done quickly. I get as much clarity on the end result I want, analyze my present state, then work towards filling the gap.

    Also, an audio program called ‘get the edge’ by tony robbins is a very effective tool to build and use Leverageable Assets

  6. Tammi,
    Your contacts is a leverageable asset, but of course you don’t “use” them. Instead, you should be willing to ask for help when you need it and also help them when they need it. It’s like what you described.

    Amity,
    That sounds like an audio program I should listen to. The “gap analysis” idea is also interesting.

  7. Passion definitely is a way to amplify impact and stay for the long haul.

    I think one of the most important keys to getting leverage is productizing yourself. You can scale by building reusable assets. This works whether it’s information products or software.

  8. J.D,

    You can scale by building reusable assets.

    I agree. Love the idea.

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  10. WOW, what a great post!

    ‘Living a Lifestyle of Leverage’

    Yes, I like that one….,

    I have several Blogspots about for example:

    * the Writing Lifestyle,
    * the Home Business Lifestyle
    * the Travel Lifestyle

    In my little webshop you can even find my little (e)book about
    a Happy, Healthy and Rich Lifestyle. So I write about Living a Lifestyle of Leverage all the time.

    This is exactly what I am doing, with
    my Lifestyle Blogspots
    I am using my own previous post and
    hyperlink them into my new Blogposts.

    For it I created a special collection of my own link-url’s to cut and past into ‘Hyperlinks to write with’. Also once in a while recommend people to links on other blogs. And for example on this blog frequently are interesting posts that definitely are fit for recommending!

    Thanks for your post.

    All the Best,
    To your Happy Inspiration,
    HP

  11. It makes a lot of sense to leverage what you have now, to build on it and grow exponentially over time.

    You see this concept being applied everywhere–to relationships, business, and everything…

    For example, if you’re just starting an online business, growth is generally slow and it requires huge effort to make even small steps, but over time you leverage what you have… your existing traffic, your contact list (which continues to grow, etc.) and then growth becomes faster and faster over time.

    Great article, Donald, thanks!

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  13. Jonathan,
    That’s exactly how it works in online business. Nice example 🙂

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  15. Hi Donald,

    Building leverageable assets makes a lot of sense. It’s the only thing you can do, especially if you feel that you have reached a plateau. It can be part of the preparation for bigger and better things that are yet to come. Thanks for sharing.

    Carlos

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