I’m a new fan of this duo, as this is the second of their team-up books I’ve read, and both have been equally challenging.
I’d previously read “The Gap and the Gain,” by recommendation, and was pleasantly surprised. I guessed just from the title that I knew the bottom line of this book and hadn’t planned to read it, until the same person (my brother) recommended I give this one a go also… and he was right. It’s terrific.
The concept is what I thought–the idea that you should delegate to multiply your effectiveness, rather than trying to do everything yourself. The reason I was skeptical about the premise is because I’ve tried to do that in the past, with mixed results… largely, I think, because I’m often limited by the tasks I feel are necessary (I might be wrong) and because I’m also delegating to strangers, who may or may not be good at the thing I’m hiring them to accomplish. I’ve wasted a lot of money that way, in various endeavors, and usually ended up discouraged and right back where I started.
What was different in this book was that the author (Dr Hardy) and the inspiration for the book (Dan Sullivan) don’t recommend coming up with the task that needs to be done and then delegating that. They back up a step, recommending that instead, you postulate the ultimate goal, and then find an expert in that realm, leaving the “how” (the specific tasks of how to get there) to them. That really is a new paradigm to me. I also love how the authors approach reaching goals as collaborative and not competitive, and how the ultimate goal is really to increase human connection, and to make everyone’s lives better. Dr Hardy is overtly Christian, though the book isn’t–I just like how that worldview permeates his approach to business.
The book prompted me to journal about my own various endeavors, clarify my goals, and then search for experts I could hire in those arenas to tell me how to get there. I’m still of course at the mercy of said experts to know their stuff… but that really is a freeing concept.
My rating: *****
Language: none
Sexual content: none
Violence: none
Political content: none
