From: alexhormozi
The common mantra of “no one can outwork me” or focusing solely on hard work for success is often misleading and objectively false [00:00:00]. Many people are outworked by others and still achieve greater financial success [00:00:09]. While putting in volume and doing the work is essential for improvement [00:00:42], bragging about work itself is largely irrelevant to achieving the highest levels of success [00:00:53].
Beyond Hard Work: The Role of Leverage
Highly successful individuals, like Warren Buffett, emphasize strategic decision-making over sheer volume of activity [00:00:57]. Buffett, for instance, considers two good decisions a year a successful year [00:00:58]. This contrasts sharply with the idea that working constantly leads to maximum output [00:01:11]. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day, meaning “hardest working” quickly becomes a tie [00:01:15].
True output is a function of both the volume of activity and the leverage of that activity [00:01:26]. While initial effort is necessary to start [00:01:33], measuring success by the number of activities performed is a “newbie measure” [00:01:41]. Seasoned professionals like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos don’t focus on activity metrics like sending thousands of emails or waking up at 4 AM [00:01:44].
The focus should be on inputs with the most leverage to create the most output [00:02:00]. Once maximum work capacity is reached, the only remaining lever for growth is increasing the leverage of activities [00:02:17]. This means changing what is worked on, not just working more [00:02:37].
In business growth, this involves analyzing calendars and organizational charts to identify low-leverage activities that can be delegated or hired for [00:02:46].
Business as a Team Sport: The Need for Diverse Roles
The notion of “no one can outwork me” is problematic because there are many ways to win in business [00:03:03]. Just like a “war party” in a video game or a football team, a successful business needs individuals with complementary skills, not just many people doing the same thing [00:03:14]. A team with an “All-Star” but a poor supporting cast often loses to a better overall team [00:03:44].
Many entrepreneurs mistakenly try to play the game as the sole star player, aiming to score all the points themselves, but ultimately lose to well-rounded teams like Apple [00:03:51]. Success requires understanding the different roles within a business and how they fit together [00:04:12].
Key functions within a business include:
- Promoters/Marketers: Responsible for making products or services known, telling stories, building a brand, and providing value to an audience [00:04:29].
- Salespeople: Convert attention into direct sales, whether through ads, sales pages, videos, or person-to-person interactions [00:04:39]. These skills also extend to training and leading sales teams [00:04:55].
- Product Specialists: Focus on creating beautiful and effective products, understanding user experience (UX) and design [00:05:04]. The founder of Shopify, for example, excelled as a product person, not necessarily a CEO [00:05:07].
- Customer Experience/Success Managers: Oversee how customers engage with the business, provide value, ensure amazing experiences, and help customers hit their milestones [00:05:16].
As an enterprise grows, skills become more specialized, requiring deeper expertise in each area [00:05:33]. Bragging about “outworking” others misses the point; it should be about out-recruiting, out-managing, building superior culture, and excelling in leadership [00:05:43].
The Evolution of the Entrepreneur: From Player to Coach
An entrepreneur’s journey often involves evolving from a specialist into a coach.
Level 1: The Specialist Player
Initially, an entrepreneur might excel at a specific function, becoming an expert in marketing, sales, or product [00:06:13]. This leads to roles like Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Sales Officer, or Chief Product Officer [00:06:17].
Level 2: The Coach
The ultimate role for an entrepreneur is to become the coach of the team [00:03:37] [00:06:26]. This means organizing the pieces and ensuring they play well together [00:03:39]. Top coaches actively engage in headhunting and recruiting the best talent, whether from colleges or other businesses [00:06:28]. Companies like Google dedicate significant resources to attracting top talent at all levels, from entry-level to executive [00:06:32].
The parallels between sports and business in terms of recruiting and team composition are almost identical [00:06:47]. If each “player” represents a function or department, the analogy scales to large organizations [00:06:53].
The Significance of Effective Leadership and Coaching
As entrepreneurs ascend, playing the right game and measuring success with the right metrics becomes crucial [00:07:00]. The coach’s role involves recruiting top-level executives and establishing a “farm system” to cultivate talent, ensuring a sustained competitive advantage and potentially creating a business “dynasty” [00:07:09].
Effective leadership also entails the “soft skills” of creating a high-performance culture that maximizes the output of each individual player [00:07:22]. The true value of a coach or CEO lies in the difference between what players would achieve without leadership versus what they achieve with exceptional leadership [00:07:27].
The CEO must aim for the highest return on time within the organization, constantly solving the next big problem [00:07:40]. By replacing low-leverage activities with high-leverage ones that strategically build the business, a CEO can transform entire organizations [00:07:48]. This ability to set standards and embody core values across an organization is a CEO’s greatest leverage [00:07:59].