“Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you don’t let other people spend it for you.” ~John Dryden~
Undoubtedly, we live in a world defined and confined by time. When we use our time poorly or in a disorganized fashion, the result is usually discouraging or disastrous.
Just like a magnifying glass captures diffused sunlight and turns it into a red-hot laser beam capable of burning a piece of paper, our life efforts can do likewise. But to get the most punch from our efforts, we must be willing to delegate responsibility and outsource those activities which we are not adept at and don’t pay well before they drain us of the energy we will need to create and maintain our fortunes.
Several years ago an ethnic restaurant opened in western Tokyo serving New Orleans-style Cajun food The owner, a Ghanian man with a great work ethic, could cook up a storm of spicy delicacies while his wife and one part-time assistant would prepare side dishes and wait tables.
All went well for him. His small establishment, which at first attracted mostly foreigners and their friends, became a regular haunt for many Japanese people as well. A few years after his launch, he moved to more spacious locale with great expectations for opening another branch shortly thereafter. Less than a year later he went bankrupt.
What happened I will never know for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was caused by his unwillingness to trust anybody. I said he had cooked up a storm for 11 hours a day, six days per week, yet he never wanted to train anyone. He told me that nobody could do things quite the way he liked. So now he was jobless and scrambling in Tokyo.
The moral is that we need to leverage our time as entrepreneurs, because if we don’t our businesses become exactly what we wish to escape from…an hour-for-wage hell. The idea of having a business online, offline or both should be to gain a semblance of financial and time freedom.
That can be done by finding qualified people who work on a freelance basis. Many excellent resources are available online for this purpose. For writing, software creation or web designing, try elance.com and freelancer.com.
Whatever you can do well and which can clearly lead to a revenue stream, deserves your greatest attention. Otherwise, outsource using the resources just mentioned. The idea is not to cook up a storm until you die, but to teach others to do so. That is a system which can leave your family well-provided for long after you pass from this world.