Transcription
Most entrepreneurs are under constant stress. They work a lot and have no time to relax, but still, they earn very little. The most commonly used sentence is, "I am very busy," or "I have so much work to finish today." If this sounds familiar, then today's book summary is for you.
The book I will be summarizing is titled *Who Not How* by Dan Sullivan. Dan is a famous business coach who has worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and business owners. An interesting thing about Dan is that even though he is the author of the book, he didn't write a single word of it. I can almost hear you saying, "How can someone write a book without actually writing a book?" Well, the answer is hidden in the title of the book.
Dan says that whenever we have a goal, such as writing a book, or whenever we face a problem, the first question most of us ask is, "How?" "How can I solve this problem?" or "How can I achieve this goal?" According to Dan, this is a terrible question to ask. The right question is, "Who, not how?" You need to ask, "Who can solve this for me?" or "Who can do this for me?" not "How can I do this?" Asking "how" comes naturally and automatically. We are almost programmed to ask "how" questions, and this becomes a huge problem once you start a business. In the following minutes, I will explain how asking "who" questions can help you to have more time and money. I have 11 questions from the book, so let's get started.
Lesson Number One: Freedom of Time. It was summer vacation, and like any other teenage boy, 16-year-old Richie wanted to earn money so he could buy things of his liking and he didn't have to ask his parents for money. So, naturally, Richie started thinking of how he could make money. He decided to work in a grocery store or gas station, but his father didn't want him to work at this young age. But Richie was adamant; he wanted to earn money. So his father suggested he go to the nearby watermelon farm and buy watermelons that were small and oddly shaped.
Richie took his father's advice and went to the farm, where he bought all small-sized, different-looking watermelons. To his surprise, he got them at a lower price because farmers usually throw them away as no one buys them due to their irregular shape. So Richie bought them. Then he picked up the phone book and called all his neighbors and offered them to buy watermelons from him. He offered them at a cheaper rate compared to the nearby store and marketed those watermelons as fresh and irregularly sized because they were produced organically. Within a few hours, all of his 100 watermelons were sold, and he made a profit. Instead of working all summer, he ended up enjoying his vacation and used his earned money as per his wishes.
This is the story of all of our lives. Just like Richie, when we want something, we ask, "How?" "How can I buy this?" or "How can I achieve this?" etc. Asking "how" would have cost Richie his entire summer vacation. In Richie's case, the "who" was his dad. He gave Richie an idea that helped Richie to earn the money he wanted in a considerably shorter time and enjoy his summer vacation. That is the power of working with "who." You instantly get access to knowledge, insights, and expertise that you currently lack. Working with "who" reduces your effort, increases the quality of the end result, and most importantly, frees up your time.
Freedom of time is the number one goal that an entrepreneur needs to achieve. An entrepreneur is the main engine of the business, and one of the most important things he needs to do is to think, and that can't happen if you are busy with many tasks. You need free time to relax and start thinking. Research shows that only 16 percent of creative ideas happen while we are working. The rest come when we are in a state of rest. You've probably noticed that creative ideas come to you while you're taking a shower, traveling, or doing something relaxing. So involving "who's" will free up your time, give you time to think, and increase the quality of the result.
Lesson Number Two: Find Who's for All Aspects of Your Life. Dan says you should find "who's" for all aspects of your life, from cooking and fitness to business. Maybe you don't realize it, but you already have many "who's" in your life. For example, the person who delivers your letters is a "who," and the person who takes care of your garbage is a "who." You are also a "who" for the people in your life, such as your partner, your boss, and your child. Life would be impossible without "who's." Can you imagine how difficult it would be if you had to do every little task by yourself? So we need "who's" in order to survive and thrive.
Unfortunately, once we start a business, many of us forget this simple truth and start doing tasks that are equivalent to taking care of the garbage or delivering letters. If you want to grow and prosper, you need to involve more "who's" in your life and business, and sometimes you will need to find several "who's" to get the final "who" that you're looking for. For example, if you need to hire a logo designer but you have no idea how to hire one, then this is a strong signal that you need another "who" to help you find the "who" you are looking for. This sounds so simple and obvious, but I personally struggled with this a lot. Whenever I wanted to hire someone, I would spend hours trying to figure out how to do it. After a while, I would either quit searching and go back to doing the job myself because I couldn't find the person I was looking for, or I would find someone, but he wouldn't be the right fit for the job. After reading this book, I realized that what I needed to do was find the person who knows how to hire the person I needed. So if you don't know how to find the "who" you are looking for, then it means you need another "who."
Lesson Number Three: Procrastination Is Wisdom. If what we covered so far got your attention and you would like to find "who's" for different aspects of your life but you have no idea where to start, then here's a very useful tip: for a few days, pay attention to the tasks or goals you procrastinate the most. Dan says procrastination is wisdom; it's a signal telling you that you need another person. For example, it's been years since you wanted to write a book, start a business, get in shape, get rid of those annoying tasks, or start a YouTube channel, but somehow these goals never get materialized. They are always in the corner of your mind, but somehow you never work on them. Instead, you procrastinate.
Procrastination is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when you want more for yourself but don't have the knowledge and capability to do it. Procrastination means your goal and ambition are great, but you're not the right person to execute them. Procrastination means you need help; you need to involve "who's." Now, finding the right "who" is also an art. You can't hire the right person until you are super defined on what goal you want to achieve. Dan has a one-page document that he uses every time he looks for a "who." He calls it an Impact Filter. It comprises seven questions:
1. What is the project?
2. Purpose: What do you want to accomplish?
3. Importance: What's the biggest difference this will make?
4. Ideal Outcome: What does the completed project look like?
5. Best Result: If you do take action.
6. Worst Result: If you don't take action.
7. Success Criteria: What has to be true when this project is finished?
By completing the Impact Filter, you will be equipped to explain to other people what you want and why it is important. So next time when you are procrastinating, remember that it is a signal for you to start looking for the right "who." So complete the Impact Filter, get clear on the vision, and start finding the right "who" to execute the vision.
Lesson Number Four: Technical and Adaptive Problems. All business problems can be divided into two categories:
1. Technical problems.
2. Adaptive problems.
Technical problems are problems where the answer is already known; you just need to find out how to do it. For example, if you want to have a website for your business, there are tons of free YouTube tutorials or businesses that can do it for you. With technical problems, you always need to ask, "Who can do this for me?"
Now, let's talk about adaptive problems. These are the problems for creators. Anything that has ever been created or invented has been done by a creator. You can't hire someone to generate ideas that only you can think of. No one can have access to your brain on your behalf. So to grow your business and acquire freedom of money, you need to engage in tasks that only you can do and leave all the technical problems to the respective "who's." This makes complete sense and sounds easy, right? But the problem is that very often, the first question the entrepreneur asks is, "How can I build a website?" And here's how this question leads to problems: Our attention is 100% focused on the task we are doing, even if that's a distraction. By asking the question of "how to build a website," you are allowing yourself to put your 100% attention on learning and then executing the newly acquired knowledge for a long period. And even if in the future you do decide to find someone to hand over this responsibility to, you will have to first train that person to do the job as per your liking. In all of this, your main goal of growing and potentially achieving your big dream took a second priority. There is only so much that a person can do on his own. Asking "how" impacts the way you spend your time and the freedom of money. Freedom of money happens when you focus your time and energy on activities that have higher impacts on your business. You are in the business because you want to make more money, not to build a website. So focus on doing things that help you make more money and find "who's" for the rest.
Lesson Five: Decision Fatigue. Another problem with asking "how" questions is that they lead to decision fatigue. This is a state where your mind gets exhausted, and your willpower and energy decrease by taking multiple decisions. Decision fatigue is one of the main reasons Dan rejected the idea of driving so he could focus his time and attention on the things that matter while he is in the car. Inspired by Dan's approach, an attorney named Jacob also stopped driving. Instead, he started calling Uber every day, and this is what happened: he freed up 90 minutes of his time, which he used for higher-quality tasks. His stress levels decreased. He didn't have to pay attention to the traffic. He never arrived late to the office. He didn't have to look for parking space, and so much more. By paying fifty dollars for an Uber, Jacob was able to create 10 times the impact on his meetings because he showed up with a fresh mind, and that impact often turned into tens of thousands of dollars. When you free yourself up from various tasks, you not only free up your time but also free up your mind, and with a free mind, you will have time and energy to focus on tasks that matter. You will have time to expand your vision and work on innovations. Freeing up your mind isn't just about thinking; it's also about showing up with energy and performing great at work because the stage has already been set for you, and not by you. So next time you feel exhausted in an important meeting and don't know why, try finding a "who" for the tasks that do not need your involvement.
Lesson Six: Who Is an Investment, Not a Cost. Now, you might look at the things we discussed so far and think that it will cost you a lot of money if you start finding "who's" for different aspects of your life. If the amount of money you will spend is the main concern that is in your mind, then probably you have a cost mindset. Dan says "who" is not a cost; it is an investment. It is an investment in yourself and in your business. Changing from a cost mindset to an investment mindset will also positively impact your relationships with the person you are hiring because you no longer see them as a cost. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs can't get rid of this cost mindset and, as a result, even if they have plenty of money, they still end up doing things that they shouldn't be doing and refuse to spend money.
Lesson Number Seven: If You Have Money to Solve a Problem, Then You Don't Have a Problem. There's a story in the book about an entrepreneur named Wes that explains this lesson very well. Wes built a company and sold it, which made him a billionaire. Two weeks after selling his company, Wes found out that the air conditioner in his house was broken. He got a quote from a repair person and was proposed $7,900 for a new air conditioner. Being a former contractor, West decided to handle fixing the air conditioner on his own by reducing the load on the fan to cool down the house, and then he would wait for winter when the price of ACs would go down to buy a new one. This would require him to invest a few hours on the roof but would save him a lot of money. So he climbed the ladder to reach the roof, and the next thing he knew was that he was lying on his back on the ground. Wes ended up spending 11 days in the hospital, two of which were in a coma. He was lucky to have survived this type of impact on his skull, but he stayed in bed for two months. He had to walk with a walker, couldn't talk, and had to relearn basic skills. These two months made him recall Dan's saying all the time: "If you have enough money to solve a problem, then you don't have a problem." If only he could have stuck to this principle when it was needed.
Lesson Number Eight: Always Be the Buyer. Imagine you are negotiating with a potential client. After a little bit of discussion, you realize that this can be a very profitable deal for your business. However, you don't like the way the client is behaving; he's very rude to you and to your employees, and he keeps making more and more demands. Pretty quickly, you realize that despite the profit, it will be very tough to deal with this client. Now, if you are in a position where you can refuse to work with the client, then you are a buyer. Being a buyer means you get to choose people you work with, not the other way around. In every situation, the buyer can reject the seller, but not the other way around. Being a buyer means you can reject people who are not aligned with your principles and values. By the way, it is very hard to become a buyer if you don't have the freedom of time and money. That is why you need them first. Dan says almost in all cases, as soon as an entrepreneur frees up his time, the revenue goes up, and once revenue increases, the quality of the relationship increases as well because you are no longer dependent on money to accept clients or people who don't align with your values.
Lesson Number Nine: Eighty Percent Rule. You can get 80% of the project done quickly. From zero to 80% usually takes less time. From 80% to 90% is very difficult, and going from 90% to 100% is more work than going from 0% to 80%. That is why you need to know what you can do as a "who," then quickly pass it on to the next "who." The longer you take to perfect the idea by yourself before the feedback, the slower the transformational process will be. Nothing is ever truly finished, so get to the 80% and pass it on to the next "who." This is one of the mistakes I did personally. Whenever I was creating scripts for videos such as this one, I would always send it for feedback once it was 100% complete. As a result, very often, I would end up deleting several paragraphs that I spent hours perfecting. Obviously, this was a waste of time. Plus, sometimes I would get great feedback but couldn't implement it because I had so much progress that implementing it would mean starting almost from scratch.
Lesson Number Ten: If It Is Not a Hell Yes, Then It Is a Hell No. You know, sometimes you meet a client or potential business partner, and you have this mixed feeling about whether you should work with that person or not. On one side, you know that working with that person can be very profitable, but on the other side, you sense that he or she has a difficult personality or different values than you do. Dan says if you are not excited about the relationship with that person, in other words, if your reaction is not a "hell yes," then you shouldn't start that relationship in the first place. It is either "hell yes" or "hell no."
Lesson 11: Competition Is for Losers. All of us have been taught in school that getting help from others is cheating. It is the education system that promotes a competitive culture where one needs to prove they are better than the other based on a test. This mentality often leads us to live an isolated and self-centered life with limiting views about others and ourselves. The same thing happened with Karen. Karen was an attorney, and she wanted to honor her grandmother, who is a recognized national activist in the 1900s, by writing her biography. She was working on this biography for the last two years but was only able to write 100 pages. One day, she received an email from Dr. Whitmore, who was a history professor who wanted to write a biography on her grandmother and wanted to gather some information from Karen. The professor had already written some other biographies on other famous women. Karen's first reaction was to not share any information with her and complete the book before she did. This classic need to compete has been engraved inside us since kindergarten. But since Karen had no experience writing a biography before, she was struggling to complete the book, and the constant stress of completing the book before Dr. Whitmore was not helping either. One day, when she was discussing this problem with Benjamin, he asked her, "Why not collaborate with Dr. Whitmore and co-author the book?" Karen was stunned for a moment. How come she didn't think of this first? Yes, she could do that, and the professor would be better able to handle the writing of this book because of her experience. Karen felt relieved and sent an email immediately proposing co-authoring the book, and Dr. Whitmore was more than happy to do so. Karen now had her "who," and the end result was much better than if Karen wrote it alone. As this story explains, collaboration not only enables you to create success in your life but also gives you a deep sense of meaning and belongingness.
This is it for this video. Thanks for watching.