The Power of LEVERAGE [not what you think]
Dean Graziosi argues that people should focus on becoming exceptional at what they are already good at and pay others to handle their weaknesses. Through personal anecdotes (his dyslexia and reading/spelling struggles, his children's different academic abilities) and client stories (a real-estate investor named Tom and a paid mastermind), he shows how doubling down on strengths—then hiring support for weak areas—raises performance, confidence, and returns. He also notes exceptions for early-stage startups where founders may need to temporarily handle weak tasks until revenue allows outsourcing.
Chapters
Go out and get amazing at what you're already good at and then pay somebody to do the stuff you suck at. If you suck at math and you work on math, how do you feel? Do you feel like, I feel amazing not knowing one thing about algebra? Yay. No. You're like, I suck. I don't even know algebra. My kids are in seventh and ninth grade. Can I be honest with you? I can't do either of their math. I can't. My daughter needs help in math. I sat down last night and I watched what she's doing. I have zero clue. I even went in the other room. I went in my home Office and I YouTubed it and said, I'm gonna watch YouTube. I'm gonna figure it out, and then I'm gonna go help my daughter. I watched them training it on YouTube. I'm like, why would I. No, I'm not. I can't. I'm not. I just can't. Right? The dumbest thing in the world, I'm just telling you, is to work on your weaknesses. Then you get to be okay at a lot of things. The biggest strength in your life is to get amazing at what you're already good at. Listen, I'm not trying to say, me, me, me. I still can't read very well. I go through a book. At least a book a month. Probably a book every two weeks. Why? Because I listen. I'm really good. I can listen to a book and remember every piece of it every day. I listen to a book every single day. If you ask me to read a book, my ADD kicks in. I have dyslexia. The words. The words, as I read them, they just don't sink in. They don't stick right. I still can't read. Well, if I typed you an email and sent it to you before spellcheck, you'd be like, I'm never following this fool ever again. He's an idiot. I cannot spell. I try to articulate and use bigger words. I have a tiny little vocabulary. And then when I try to out go past my vocabulary and use a word I've never used, and I try to spell it four times, and it keeps coming up red. Like, if spellcheck could talk, it'd be like, you idiot, what are you trying to spell? I have no clue what you're talking about. Spell check. Can't even find the word. And then I just go back to something I know, excited, like, I don't know. Like, I can't spell. I can't read. I don't know my seventh and ninth grade children's math. I couldn't figure it out if you gave me a million bucks. I cannot figure it out. I don't know and there's a hundred other things I suck at. And when I was a kid, I thought I was inferior because I couldn't read well because I had dyslexia. And when your teacher tells you you're dumb, just sound it out. You're like, I am dumb. I'll never be anything. It was the biggest lie I'd ever been told. We were judged by an outdated scorecard. My daughter has been gifted with the same exact way in school. School's a little tougher. My son, he got my dad's smarts. He's on the principal's list. He's got a 3.97 GPA average. He's unbelievable. He'll help his 2 year old older sister do her homework. He's unbelievable. My sister, My daughter struggles a little bit and I told her, who cares? My daughter has more emotional intelligence for a ninth grader I've ever met in my entire life. She's got more common sense than anyone I've ever met in my life. And I tell her, I'm like, bri, I can't do your math. So you're better off there. You're way better looking than I was. Like, I go through all these things, I'm like, and you suck at a few things. Who cares what you're good at? I said, your father sucks at way more things. But what I'm really good as I care about people. I love going really deep. I love communicating on camera. I love storytelling. I love changing people's lives. I love marketing. I love impacting people's lives. I love people to say yes so I could serve them. I love putting compassion before envy and ego. I got really good at those. And I get to live a life where I can buy a plane and not have to tell anybody and take care of my retire. My mom and my dad, I get to give away, you know, 12 million meals through Feeding America. We're building schools in Africa. You know, we're doing cool things. We're helping kids come out of slavery. Like, I get to do all this stuff, live the life of my dreams. And I still have a seventh grade reading level and obviously a fifth grade math level. Just being honest. And you don't have to be good in the same shit I am. You have to be good at what you're good at and what I want to share. And I Want to tell you right now, working on your weaknesses robs your confidence. Go out and get amazing at what you're already good at and then pay somebody to do the stuff you suck at. That is the evolution. Some people love Excel spreadsheets. Some people love creating SOPs, standing operating procedures. Some people love processes. Some people love systems. Some people love innovation. Some people love creativity. Some people love the art of it, the design of it, the visuals, the aesthetics. My wife loves making things look beautiful. We all love and are good at something, and I'm just going to encourage you today to lean into it. I had a small mastermind and I used to do this. I don't have time for them anymore. And it was expensive. It was like $20,000 a person to spend four days with me. But it was, it was amazing. And it was people already in business taking them to another level. And I'd say there was 20 people sitting around the table. And with 15 or 20 people over three or four days, you get to solve everybody's problem and empower what they're looking for. Now, that seems expensive, possibly, but they were already in business. And I know every single one of them. Their businesses exponentially grew, right? And I'm going around the table, and there was a gentleman named Tom. And Tom was in real estate and had just launched in real estate and he had retired. I bet you Tom was 67ish. And I get around and I'm start talking, Tom, like, Tom, how can I help you go to the next level? And he had been doing about a real estate deal a month, and he was making about $15,000, a real estate deal, and he was doing one a month. He wanted to get to two a month. And that's what our whole goal was. But when I got to him, I said, tom, how can I help you? And he said, I need to get more organized. Dean, I'm a slob and I'm so messy. It's unbelievably. I clean my car, it's a mess. I clean my home office, it's a mess. I don't know where my bills are and my invoices are. He's like, this is how long ago it was. He goes, I need to go to office Max and get a filing cabinet and create a filing system and. And I need to get more organized. And I just thought to myself, wow. I knew I, you know, when you know you can help somebody in two minutes. I said, tom, how long you been messy? He goes, my teachers used to bust my chops. My mom busted my chops. Now my wife bust my chops. I said, can I just be honest with you? How old are you? You know, 67. I'm like, you're going to be a slob until the day you die. Sorry. I'm just going to break the news. You're never going to be organized. You suck at it. And he's like. In his head, he's probably like, I gave this guy 20 grand. Screw you. I could see. And I'm like, but guess what? It's okay, dude. How long you been holding on to that? And I kind of stared at him like, how long you been holding on to that? He's like, no. Yeah. I said, no. How long you been holding on to it? And I'm going to tell you. He's holding on to it so long that he got tears in his eyes. He's like, man, everybody, my mom, my teachers, I just. I couldn't find a way to be organized in it. He was holding on to being the sloppy, messy kid his whole freaking life. I said, look at you, focusing on your weaknesses. Tom, can we stop for a minute? You're doing a real estate deal a month at 15 grand. A year ago, you weren't in the real estate business, dude, you're a badass at finding, fixing, and flipping. Who gives a shit how messy you are? Could you do. If we maximize. If we maximize your gig, could you do an extra two deals a year? He's like, hands down. I said, that's an extra 30 grand. Pay somebody part time to clean up your shit. Who gives a shit about being sloppy? Focus on trying to improve that and your deals will actually go down. Focus all your energy on getting two deals a month. Make 30 grand a month. Pay somebody 1000 bucks or 2 grand a month to straighten up your life. And I watched him go from tears to like, why didn't someone tell me this 50 years ago? Because we're just not taught that way. Now I'm using that as an extreme, but it's an exact true story. Here's the cool part. He went home and told his wife in tears how he'd been holding on to being sloppy and messy forever. And she's like, well, you always say you want to get better at it. I busted your chops because you said you wanted to get better. I was trying to help you get better. You know what she did? She quit her teaching job and said, give me my 40 grand a year that I make at teaching, and I'll make you the most organized man in your life and they became partners. Like, sometimes we just got to take something that's in our life the way it is and mix it up a little bit and shift. And I thought it was really important to share with you. Stop working on your weaknesses. Seriously. I know that seems weird. I know that seems hard, and I know there's certain areas. Now, here's one thing I want to say as we are a startup, if any of you are in a startup, there are some times we got to work on that crap. But just know in your head is, I'm going to power through this crap until I start making xyz. And the first person I'm hiring is someone to do my bookkeeping. The first person I'm hiring is to clean my house, get my laundry, and go grocery shopping so I can do the stuff that makes me money. The first person I'm hiring is. So sometimes we have to do it. I've done the Excel spreadsheets. I've done the stuff I don't like until I didn't have to do it anymore. Because what I've done is figure out how to get an roi. Sam.
