When I attended a workshop in Atlanta several years ago sponsored by ICF, Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup books fame spoke. He led us through a worksheet exercise detailing our work week. We then placed a dollar value on each of the items. For example, what did it cost to pay a Virtual Assistant? Lastly, we added up the hours that we ourselves spent on revenue generating tasks and decided their worth in hard cold cash.

The entire exercise filled several pages and at the end, we applied a formula to calculate how much was lost or added to the bottom line each year by doing work someone else could do for you. According to that figure, by trying to save money and do everything myself, I was LOSING $25,000 per year!

This is an example of NOT using leveraged action. I thought I was saving money by doing the work myself, but in reality I was using time more profitably spent creating more income-generating ideas. Doing those tasks also gave me an excuse to not take action on my new ideas. That was a wake-up call for me.

To gain momentum, you have to take action, and the more you tap into other resources as you do that, the faster your results will appear. Once you start, you begin to attract the people and resources that will propel you forward.

Waiting until everything is perfect keeps you from finding out your next step. You'll spend all of your time fixing things without knowing if they will ever work.

So start. How do you do that?

1. Run, don't walk when you have a new idea.
2. Take massive action. What appears to be pure coincidence but is really things happening at the same time in parallel begin to occur. You have to be okay with chaos.
3. Make your action simultaneous, not sequential. There are four "Step 1's". Don't work linearly. Begin all things, work each of them, and run them through to completion.
4. Do it before you are "ready". As one of my mentors says, "Ready, Fire, Aim." Start without knowing. It's easier to clean up a mess than to start.
5. Leverage every asset you have:

- Other people's experience: If you aren't a bookkeeper and have to learn how to run an accounting program, the learning curve plus the time you spend entering data will add up. Tasks like this may not be cheaper in the present, but they will be cheaper in the long run.

- Expertise: Do what you love and let others do what they love. Doing more of what you do well will soon make you a master at it. By focusing on your area of expertise, your knowledge becomes more valued and you become an expert.

- Connections: By joining associations, creating alliances, and participating in mastermind groups you meet people who might know or do what you need. Use their mastery to allow you to develop yours.

- Time: Make a decision that your productivity is more important than anything. Protect it. Invest in high priority activities.

Taking leveraged action also extends to my non-work activities. I even put this to use in my personal life by leveraging other people's time for doing my housecleaning. After a busy day at work, I have a need to relax, instead of doing things that are necessary but not pleasant for me.

Doing things I take pleasure in restores me. Although those tasks are not related to my work directly, I have more focus and energy when I don't have to do those things and it improves my bottom line indirectly.

So, take action, do what you love, and let others do what they are good at.