Hey Reader,

Wouldn’t it be nice to have more hours in a day to grow your business?

I often find myself wishing I had more hours, too.

But I have to remind myself that working more only gets me so far. If I work extra hours at Kit this week, I might increase the company’s output by 0.01%.

That’s not very much at all.

Working extra hours is a way to be more productive, but productivity and leverage are not the same thing.

A couple months ago, someone on my team asked me what the difference was between productivity and leverage.

Productivity is getting the same work done faster. It can maybe get you a 2x improvement. That may sound substantial, but there really are only a handful of things you can do to be more productive. Once you’ve done them, you’re capped.

Leverage is what you get when you disconnect your results from your time. Often, you’re not even doing the work at all. Someone or something else does the work. So what you get out of it no longer depends on the number of hours you put in.

With leverage, the improvement is infinite.

Productivity focuses on process, and leverage focuses on outcome.

Here’s an example: a schoolteacher who wants to reach more kids could take on more and more classes and work extra hard, but she can’t make her classes bigger without also making the experience worse for each kid. So she’s capped in every direction.

However, the free online learning site called Khan Academy focused entirely on the outcome. They flipped the model on its head so that kids complete lessons at home and do their homework in the classroom. Each lesson only has to be recorded once, and it can be shared for free, or close to free, at scale.

Years ago, someone on their team shared a screenshot showing something like 700,000 people on Khan Academy’s site at the same time. It’s probably a lot more now.

No matter how many extra hours the teacher works, she won’t be able to reach 700,000 kids that way.

Leverage is incredibly powerful, and it’s why I talked about it so much in my book, The Ladders of Wealth (thank you for your pre-order, btw!).

But leverage comes with a trap you have to watch out for:

If you get your self-worth from what you create, then you’ll just end up trying to create more. It’s really hard to let someone else do the work when doing the work is what makes you feel good about yourself. But if you’re the one doing all the work, you don’t have leverage. And without leverage, you’re very, very limited.

Letting someone else do the work can also bring up a challenging question about credit. If you didn’t do the work, did you actually do it? Can you take credit for the results? Should you?

The way I approach this is that when things go well, I give the credit to people on the team. And when things go poorly, I take the blame.

The impact is what I care about most. Who cares who created the outcome? The teacher and Khan Academy wanted the same impact, which was more kids learning.

Separating your self-worth from the work itself makes leverage a lot easier. You can feel proud of what you’ve made and still let other people help you make more of it.

If you’ve been trying to grow by doing more, it might be time to look at where leverage could do that work for you. You’ll reach more people, and you’ll feel better about yourself, because your self-worth won’t depend on how many hours you put in.

​

PODCAST

How to Build an Unforgettable Personal Brand

How do you stand apart from your competition? Chris Do, Emmy Award-winning designer and founder of The Futur, says you need to “unbland” yourself.

Unblanding yourself starts with understanding who you are outside of what you’ve built. Partway through, Chris borrowed my notebook and started coaching me on exactly that.

I opened up a lot more than I expected to. It’s one of the most special episodes I’ve ever recorded. One comment said:

We get into:

• What to figure out about yourself before you post
• Why magnetic brands have nothing to do with selling
• The three-part framework behind successful personal brands

​Watch or listen to episode »​

BOOK

PlantYou Quickies: 140+ Nourishing Plant-Based Recipes for Busy People

Carleigh Bodrug, a Kit creator, recently joined us at our team retreat and author mastermind. Her new cookbook, PlantYou Quickies, just came out.

It has more than 140 plant-based recipes—many you can make in 30 minutes or less.

If you don’t have much time but want healthy, delicious meals, this is a cookbook you’ll actually use.

​View book »​

JOB

Kit is hiring: Administrative Assistant to the CEO

We’re looking for someone who thinks two steps ahead and catches problems before they become crises.

You’d manage my inbox daily, coordinate my calendar, book travel, and prep me for meetings and events with clear briefing notes. You’d also build systems and document workflows so the work becomes repeatable. Strong writing and business judgment are essential, since you’d be representing my voice over email.

This is a part-time contractor engagement, about 20 hours a week, with a preference for candidates in Boise. You’d work independently most of the time, checking in with Chelsea Hahn, our Head of Operations for the Office of the CEO.

​Apply for this role »​

Have a great week!

—Nathan