I am a certified executive coach. I got certified because an executive coach unlocked my potential about 8 years ago and I wanted to help others. Coaching is not my primary business and nor do I want it to be. But I use coaching every day working with founders.

The absolute best advice for my performance I ever received has two parts:

Part A: Only work on ONE thing at a time.

Part B: Steal someone else's 10,000 hours to get there.

I'm going to give you what I've paid tens of thousands for and what clients have paid me tens of thousands for here in this post.

Only work on ONE thing at a time.

Figuring out one thing forces me to prioritize. I ask myself, "What is the ONE thing that I can get done that has such high strategic leverage that it makes everything else inconsequential? Usually, the answer ends up involving creating a system or training another leader to replace me. Take my assistant Jenn for example. In many ways, it looks like she's helping me out. But my real agenda is that she replaces me in some capacity in the future. By taking this approach, our relationship has way more ROI than the typical executive and assistant relationship.

I also work on ONE thing at a time when it comes to my own performance. If I could learn one skill or ability that makes everything else inconsequential because I get so much ROI from it, what should it be? I usually ask the people around me. And again, this usually comes down to my leadership, especially leading myself in health and wellness. But I'm always focused on one thing.

Today, a CTO of a company that handles trillions of financial transactions asked me to tell him what he sees as his one thing. That's a great question. He wanted to know what his blind spots were, so we worked on it together. This leads us to part B.

Steal someone else's10,000 hours.

After we identified one thing to work on, I told the CTO to go ask someone else who has 10,000 hours of expertise in it what to do. For me, I am always trying to talk to people who have more expertise than me and I get advice, or better yet, HIRE THEM to do it for me. I just brought on someone to my team who has put in 10,000 hours in a specific domain that I will NEVER do. Now, if I empower this hire, I look like a genius.

You don't have to hire. You can contract them as freelancers or get coaching/mentoring. That's why I surround myself with so many academics. One of the skills I'm working on requires a lot of theoretical knowledge. One of my professors/mentors said to me yesterday, "Ed, it's not too late to go get a doctorate degree," and recommended a specific university. I retorted by asking him why I would do that when I have him in my life! We both laughed because we knew it was true.

The most effective people I know always leverage resources and have the humility to know when to outsource the 10,000 hours. Now, as you work on your ONE thing, you'll reach your own 10,000 hours and become an expert. Then guess what? You can TRADE and your network becomes that much more valuable. And now, I only do what I'm good at and trade my 10,000 hours with other experts for the rest.

There you have it. That's it. I've been through hundreds of workshops and trainings, but I can say that the most ROI has come from what I just shared.

Try it. Let me know if you need help. Let's gooooooo!