Why "Who Not How" is So Powerful
Leveraging other people can massively expand your long-term potential
I recently read Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy.
The basic premise is rather than trying to figure out how to do something, focus on who could help instead. It’s a dead-simple concept that is often overlooked, with a ton of potential to elevate your long-term success.
In looking at your own life for a moment, how much of it are you trying to shoulder alone, for one reason or another?
I know this hit me hard. I tried to shoulder too much in my business early on and it burned me out plus led me to stumble countless times. Most of it was avoidable.
When we start with “how” we are anchoring ourselves. We are limited by our own capabilities and timelines. There are opportunity costs tied to going it alone.
Yet if we look at “who” can help us, that opens us to a massive upside. We get to stand on their shoulders. Learning from their mistakes so our momentum builds faster.
This is where our potential starts to compound (massively).
While enlisting people to help us in school was considered “cheating”, in the real world, this collaboration is critical. There are massive benefits to leveraging insights from other people and avoiding their missteps.
This collaboration is one of the major drivers that lead me to sell my prior software services business. I felt led to help others sidestep the pitfalls that tripped me up and to show others better ways to build service firms.
Is there a “cost” to leveraging other people? Sure. Yet the benefits typically far outweigh the initial friction of handing over your hard-earned cash. I encourage you to look at it as an investment that can produce 10x, 100x, even 1000x returns.
One Final Thing…
I’d love to help you. I made a ton of mistakes growing my first business to 8-figures in annual revenue but learned so much in the process. And I’ve used those insights to help other similar businesses over the past several years. I love growing businesses. It’s what gets me out of the bed in the morning and what I’ll do the rest of my life.