One is finite. One is renewable.
“Successful people hire quality people to save bandwidth & streamline processes out of their scope.
This goes from landscaping to strength training.
Unsuccessful people try to do it all themselves, eating up their bandwidth, leaving them wondering why they never make progress.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Growing up as a young boy, I watched my father do it all.
He was (and still is at 60) an absolute machine when it comes to getting things done.
Dad would get up, work his ass off, and then come the weekend, when you’re supposed to rest (lol) he would really pick up the labor.
He was changing the cars oil, washing cars, mowing, blowing, weed eating, edging, renting aerators, staining decks, porches, refinishing floors, painting whatever needed painted, and pressure washing whatever needed pressure washing.
And this was all done, while also lending a hand to neighbors who were moving or helping the guy across the road move a new piece of furniture down to the basement.
He did every damn bit of this with a smile on his face. He truly loved the work.
I was thankful to learn a lot from all the work he did.
But in my early teens, I noticed this started to stop.
He was taking the cars to the shop to have the oil changed and washed.
He hired a landscaping company.
He wasn’t doing the pressure washing or staining anymore.
What was going on?
Was he suddenly incapable?
Of course not.
What happened was, dad started to understand the value of time.
As much as he loved those errands, odd jobs, and DIY’s he understood that it was eating up his most essential resource, time.
His time was worth more than those “seemingly small” tasks that compounded into assaults on his time.
So he started hiring people left and right.
Not only could these professionals get things done more effectively, dad may never admit it, but they could often do a better job, too.
After all they were (are) professionals in specific disciplines.
So dad won twice.
He had better work done and he saved time.
Unsuccessful people will point to “how he could have saved money by continuing to do it himself” and complain “professionals are too expensive!”
But that is exactly why unsuccessful people tend to stay exactly where they are.
Their thinking is so small and they think they can do it at all.
Finally, when they look up to relax, only then do they realize they’ve misused the resource far more valuable than money.
