Why Being LAZY Makes You More Successful (just copy me)
In this solo presentation, entrepreneur Dan Martell argues that strategic laziness—doing less of low‑value work and more of high‑leverage activities—is the key differentiator between average performers and ultra‑successful founders. He outlines seven concrete habits to stop doing and replace with systems that buy back time. First, he recommends creating a VIP communication filter and limiting inbox checks to two daily windows. Second, he advises auditing and outsourcing personal errands. Third, he introduces “preference documents” and delegation via AI or assistants to eliminate self‑managed logistics. Fourth, he advocates cutting unnecessary meetings by defaulting to async communication, using Bezos’s Type‑1/Type‑2 decision framework, and protecting a no‑meeting morning for deep work. Fifth, he promotes a “let‑go” mindset with a 10‑80‑10 execution split, camcorder‑style SOP creation, and a replacement ladder for tasks. Sixth, he suggests high‑level financial oversight through weekly dashboards, monthly profit reviews, and focusing on income‑generating activities rather than penny‑pinching. Seventh, he stresses hard work boundaries: set hard start/stop times, build passive‑income systems, and schedule life‑time reset periods. Throughout, Martell shares personal anecdotes, practical tools (AI assistants, HelloFrank, etc.), and calls to action for accessing his executive‑assistant playbook.
Chapters
What separates successful people from those who try for years and never get anywhere? Most people think it's iq, their talent, or some mix of strategy and luck. But the thing that actually makes the biggest difference is being lazy. Now that doesn't mean do nothing, but there are situations where doing less makes you way more successful. It's how all the millionaires and billionaires I personally know got rich. And it's how I made my first million by 27 and got to over $100 million in revenue in my 40s. So if you want to get to that same level of success, these are the seven things you need to stop doing. Starting with ignore everyone. Being always available is hurting your success. You have to focus on what you decided you wanted to do. Protect that, fight for your focus. There's very few people you shouldn't ignore. And honestly, most people you got to put the headphones on, you have to put you first. So here's what you need to do. First, essentially on your phone you can create a VIP list so that all the messages and the calls, etcetera, Only go through if those people are on that list, which is kind of where I leave my phone. The only person is my executive assistant and my wife that's on my VIP list. Second, once you've got that set, two communication blocks per day, essentially two times where you're going to plug in, review things and reply. And other than that, you ignore it. For me, 11:30 and 4:30 every day is perfect. All these inboxes are nothing more than a public to do list that strangers can put requests on. And if somebody messages you, just read their message and move on. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to reply to people just because they ask you for something. Now that you've protected your head space, if you really want to be successful while being lazy, you need to quit doing the things that other people can do for you. Which takes us to number two, stop running errands. See, think about a chef. A chef that's in a kitchen stays in one place and he gets everything prepped around him and as he needs things, it comes to him and he creates the plate. It's called mise on plus one place, a French word. And when I look at people that think they're productive, they're just busy. If I was a multi millionaire and I was still doing my groceries and I hated it, I need to sit down and review what I'm doing with my time. You know, people don't put together 15 minutes, there and back to 30 minutes. You do that three or four times a day, that's a couple hours. Errands are just a small example of what I'm talking about. So here's what you need to do. First, audit your time. Look at your calendar over a two week period. Where are you wasting it? Figure out in your calendar what are those little tiny tasks that add up that take big pieces of your time. Then outsource those. Use the app for groceries, find a meal prep service, maybe even get a robot vacuum as a very simple example. But once you know where you're spending your time, outsource it. You can renegotiate your relationship with time at any point and finally reinvest that free time into money making activities. I'm not here to tell you to buy back your time to then go hang out on a beach. I want you to up level your life. Up level your skill. Be selectively lazy so you can be rich. You just have to stop trading dollars for pennies that 2 cents of gas you save by driving 20 minutes out of the way. Your time is worth more than you think now that your errands are taken care of. If you really want to be successful and lazy, you need to stop doing more. Which takes us to number three. Stop managing logistics in your life. Book and travel, scheduling meetings, doing laundry. It all feels productive. It feels like motion, but it's kind of like riding a rocking horse. Like you're moving but you're not moving anywhere. If you want to be successful, you need to learn to let go. So here are three steps to make it easy for you to stop managing your own logistics. The first one is we have to build a preference doc. In programming my world software, there's this concept called dry. Don't repeat yourself. So I've always looked at every decision I have have to make through the lens of can I create a rule that I can empower somebody else to follow that would get them to make the exact same decision I would make? If I invited you to an event and there was an intake form, how much of that intake form could somebody else answer on your behalf? That actually could be your to do list to create a preference file and if you're still stuck, go ask AI trying to create a preference file for everything that somebody else can make decisions for me so I don't have to make decision again. What are those questions it'll ask you? Poof. Preference file created. Once you have that, then we have to go number two, which is delegate. In today's world With AI tools, fixer AI or other inbox management tools are really great to actually help you take that. But guess what? It needs to be trained on the preference file. Make sure you do that work first so the tools or the people can do the work the way you want it. But if you're a business owner, hire an assistant to buy back your time. I mean this is a no brainer. Learning to work through somebody else is, is a meta skill that if you learn now, will apply in all areas of your life going forward. And once you've delegated, now you have to fill again. Being lazy isn't about doing nothing. It's about doing less of the stuff that doesn't make you money and more of the stuff that does. Learning, getting around people that inspire you, working on activities are going to generate more income. Those are the things that make you money. So not doing them because you're busy, that's the problem. So if you have an assistant and you want my internal playbook for how I work with my assistant, just message me on Instagram, YouTube, EA, or click the link below and I'll send you a copy. So now that you've let go of the logistics, there's still more things in your business holding you back from being successful. Number four, stop taking every freaking meeting. Most meetings exist because someone won't make a decision. Having a calendar full of meetings keeps you from creating value. The worst example of this was at a company that had just bought our company. And I'm walking down the hall and there was 80 people in that room. And I saw the guy, he was a search engine optimization Expert, but the 80 people in the room were software programmers. When I started to do the math of the amount of money that was being wasted was crazy. The truth is, an email could have explained SEO to every one of those engineers that they could decide to read or not read on their own time. So here's how our lazy but successful selves can make sure that we don't have to be in every meeting. One default to async. Asynchronous means not connected at the same time. Do it on their own time. So I'm a big fan of hey, don't have time for a call? Feel free to send me an email. Hey, appreciate the email. What do I need to know to make a decision? I don't want to have to schedule time in my calendar. Then we have to use a simple decision framework. Jeff Bezos made this famous. He calls them type one versus Type two decisions. Type one decisions are Like a revolving door that only goes one way. You go in, it goes that way. They're really hard to reverse. Type 2 is ones that you can go into and out of. Everybody needs to understand the difference because you can't treat them the same. Make the best decision with the information you have at the moment you have it and move on. And if you end up finding out that wasn't a great decision, back up. New decision, move forward. Next, we have to institute a no meeting morning for the deep work. For me personally, I think everybody should fight for their mornings. I want to create in my mornings. I want to do the deep work. I want to invite you to consider something you're allowed to negotiate with people. Hey, would it be too much if we have the meeting at 4:00 clock instead of 9:00am? And the other thing I have is it has to have an agenda. If there's no agenda in a calendar invite, I will just delete the calendar invite. Part of my morning process is before my day starts at meetings, that hour before I'm going through all the stuff to prep so that I show up ready to go to make a decision. So if you don't give me the material to do that, then how am I supposed to show up the best way again? These are things you can ask for. And then finally, if a meeting is actually required, I will encourage you to make it as short as possible. If I can go 10 minutes and get the decision made, cool. If I got to go long, five minutes longer, great. But I didn't schedule 30. Here's what I know. Meetings are the biggest waste of time in every company. The worst part, it's the people who don't value their time that will waste your time. It's like my buddy Chris said the other day. He said, thinking about doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Talking about doing the thing isn't doing the thing. Meeting about doing the thing isn't doing the thing. The only thing that's doing the thing is doing the thing. So just do the thing. Now that your meetings are cleared, if you want to be successful, there's more things that you need to be lazy about. Number five, let it go. The I'll just handle it. Or hey, come back to me when you're done so I can review it. Those are those little tiny quips that you say that will keep you in stock. Let it go. Learn to build a system where other people can accomplish things without you having to be involved in it. If you can't do that, that's just defining what I call your complexity. Ceilings. If you're trying to be both the conductor and the person playing every instrument, that orchestra is going to play shitty music. You need to choose the one that you're great at and you should be the conductor. So here's how you do this without going crazy. The first one is we have to apply what I call the 108010 rule. When I'm sitting down with my team to come up with ideas for this video or others, we're sitting down for that 10%, looking at ideas and then we define it together. Then the 80% is execution. I give all the production the responsibility to the team. And that last 10% is the integration, which is you and I sitting here doing this video. Then I want you to consider the camcorder method. So imagine if every time you have something for somebody else to do, they get a video of you doing the work, talking out loud, why you did certain things the way you did it, and then they can use that to do the work for you. See, most people don't hire folks because they think to themselves, it'll take me more time for them to get trained up than me just doing the work myself. I just use camcorder method to record myself doing the work the first time and then give it to somebody else so they can get trained themselves. And if you want a tip, take that video, drop it into AI and ask it to create an sop, a standard operating procedure and watch it blow your mind. And last, we have to understand the replacement ladder in your life. There's types of tasks that cost very little, that have low stakes to have somebody else help you on. That should be done first before you go to more complicated. So first you replace yourself in admin, then delivery, then marketing, sales, and eventually leadership layers. There's a whole lot I can teach, but it's a complete chapter in my book buy back your time. So just check that out if you want to go deeper. And just remember, letting go is scary. But here's my philosophy. 80% done by somebody else is 100% awesome. And if it's not, go be better so that their 80% is your 100% today. So now that you stop doing everything yourself, if you really want to be successful, you actually need to spend less time tracking every single penny. Number six, don't worry about the money. I've seen time and time again people step over dollars to pick up dimes when they should focus on making more money. You know, my dad always asks me in my businesses, he's like, what about this? How many employees you have there? What's your revenue there? And he gets mad at me because I don't know the answer. And the reason why is that if I had to track every single transaction and every decision that's made in my business so I can answer some random question from my dad, then I wouldn't have the time to shoot this video. You need to not focus on all the little things. So here's how you get your mind off the money and actually doing the stuff that makes you the most money. First off, you have to set up a financial dashboard that shows you the week of cash, your expenses, how things are flowing and then review it for 15 minutes every week. Next, we want to schedule a monthly 60 minute money meeting to review high level profit and expenses. So I do this across a portfolio of companies every month where I have the CFO and the CEO on a call. That meeting is my dedicated time to make sure that the business is running the direction I expect it to. And finally, you want to focus on income generating activities. My buddy Dane actually said it to me this morning. He was like, last year I had a really tough year and a buddy of mine said I had to cut all my expenses. And I said, you know what, I could do all that work or I could get on the phone. And that's what he did. He called all his past customers and he says, or anything I can help you with. And that generated income, why? It's abundance, it's opportunity. You want to be an expansive mindset, not a contraction mindset. And if you find like this even sounds like a lot, you can use tools like HelloFrank AI to manage all this stuff, to produce a report, to give you the CFO conversation. So you don't even have to hire somebody. You can use AI to do it for you. And I always think of this philosophy. You don't win by spending less. You win by building something so valuable that people beg to pay you for it. And if you're focused on the pennies, that's just never going to happen. Number seven, stop working when you're not working. Checking slack at midnight feels like you're dedicated. It's actually incredibly destructive. You need to protect your energy. In my first company, I used to work 100 hour work weeks. It almost killed me. It cost me my relationship, some friendships, my health. You think that hustle is a badge of honor? No, it's a demonstration of where you lack capability. The muscle actually only grows when it's recovering. When I'M sleeping. If all I did was lift heavy and didn't give it time to recover, then I wouldn't grow the muscle. Most people just don't work harder enough when they work to have the time off actually be helpful for them because they're always busy thinking about work when they're supposed to be off and they're not recharging. So here's how you can make it where you can stop working without losing your life. First thing is you have to set hard stops and starts when you are at work and you have stuff to do. Make a list, attack the list. These little systems for when you start and when you stop will change your whole relationship at work. Then you have to build a system that earns while you sleep. Most people are still stuck in selling their time. You need to get to a place where you're selling outcomes because then it's on me to be more effective so I can get you that result on the lowest cost to me. And the last one, schedule reset time, disconnect to reconnect. Most people just schedule their work stuff, but I would encourage you to schedule your life stuff. It's like my buddy Brad always says, I have a life plan first, then a business plan. If you can't unplug, you haven't built a business, you just built a high paying job. And the truth is great leaders rush as fast as they can to get to a place where they're not needed. So all that being said, here's what I want you to think about. The other day I was on a boat and I was talking to a female entrepreneur and she says this sense, I can't take time off because it makes me feel guilty. This is a person doing 12 million a year in revenue. And I thought to myself, what level of business success would you have to get to to give yourself permission to enjoy? Do you know some of the most beautiful moments of my life came from just deciding to not decide to just following my intuition. Because it's in the nothingness that I get the inspiration. It's in the wandering that I get exposed to new ideas that I can apply to my life. It's in those moments laying in the sun that I get inspired for some big new adventure. And if you can't even find the time to do that because you feel anxiety and guilt, that's a problem. And if you have to convince yourself that you need to be more lazy to be more successful, I hope that message is what you heard. Now, if you want access to my complete executive assistant playbook. Just message me on Instagram DanMartel2L's Martell the word YouTube EA or click the link below and I'll send it over to you. That's how being lazy can make you more successful. But if you want to learn how being fast can also make you more successful, click the video and I'll see on the other side.
