Leverage: The Real Game

Money is a tool; stack capital, code, content, and conviction to multiply reach and results while you sleep.

The Promise

After this chapter, you'll understand the four ways to build leverage in the modern economy, see concrete examples of each, and design a plan to start building at least one lever in the next 3 months.

What Leverage Actually Is

Leverage is doing work that keeps working after you stop. It's the difference between trading time for money and building assets that generate value without your constant presence.

Without leverage: You work 40 hours, you get paid for 40 hours. You stop working, income stops. You're trading time for money.

With leverage: You work 10 hours building something, and it keeps generating value for months or years. You can take a week off and things keep moving. You're building assets.

There are four ways to build leverage:

  1. Capital: Money that works for you
  2. Code: Software that automates work
  3. Content: Ideas that spread and build trust
  4. Conviction: A clear decision framework that lets you concentrate

You don't need all four. Most people start with one. Let's look at each.

Capital: Money That Works While You Sleep

Capital is money you own that generates income or appreciates over time. Stocks, bonds, real estate, businesses—anything that pays you without you being there.

Most people use money as a lifestyle accelerant: they make more, they spend more. They're still trading time for money, just at a higher level.

Instead, use capital as a time machine: every dollar of passive income buys back hours you can use for higher-leverage work.

Example: James made $80,000 a year as a designer. He saved $20,000 and invested it in index funds. After 10 years of consistent investing, his portfolio generated $1,200 a month in dividends. That $1,200 bought him 40 hours a month he could use to build a design agency or create products instead of taking every client project that came his way.

How to start:

The math is simple: $500/month invested at 7% annual return becomes $86,000 in 10 years. That generates about $500/month in passive income. You've bought back 20 hours a month of your time.

Code: Software That Replicates Your Work

Code is software that automates tasks. A script that runs once but saves you hours every week. A tool that does work for you while you sleep.

You don't need to be a full-time programmer. You just need to automate the repetitive stuff.

Example: Maria spent 5 hours every week manually pulling data from different systems, formatting it, and sending reports to clients. She learned enough Python to write a script that did it automatically. The script took 2 hours to write, but it saved her 5 hours every week forever. That's 260 hours a year—more than a month of work—freed up.

Other examples:

How to start:

The goal isn't to become a programmer. It's to stop doing repetitive work manually.

Content: Ideas That Build Trust and Distribution

Content is writing, videos, courses, or communities that spread your ideas and build trust over time. Unlike advertising (which stops working when you stop paying), content keeps working.

Example: David was a financial advisor. Instead of cold-calling, he started writing one useful article per week about personal finance. After 6 months, he had 24 articles. People found them through Google, shared them, and started reaching out to him. After a year, he had a steady stream of clients who already trusted him because they'd read his content. He stopped cold-calling entirely.

Other examples:

How to start:

The key: create content that's useful enough that people would pay for it, but give it away. That builds trust. Trust converts to clients, customers, or opportunities.

Conviction: A Clear Decision Framework

Conviction isn't stubbornness. It's having clear principles that let you make decisions quickly and stick with them when others panic.

Most people scatter: they try a little bit of everything, change their mind when things get hard, and never commit long enough to see results.

Conviction lets you concentrate: you know what you believe, why you believe it, and when to change your mind. That lets you make big bets and stick with them.

Example: Sarah believed that remote work was the future. She built her entire business around it: remote team, remote clients, remote tools. When the market crashed in 2020, everyone panicked. But Sarah's business actually grew because she was already set up for remote work. Her conviction (remote work is the future) let her make decisions others wouldn't, and it paid off.

How to build conviction:

Conviction is what lets you use the other three levers effectively. Without it, you'll never commit long enough to see results.

Combining Levers

The real power comes when levers reinforce each other:

Example: Alex started with content (a weekly newsletter about productivity tools). The newsletter built an audience. He used that audience to launch a small SaaS tool (code) that automated something his readers needed. The tool generated revenue (capital). His conviction (automation is the future) kept him focused when others told him to diversify. All four levers worked together.

You don't need to combine them all at once. Start with one. Once it's working, add another.

From Idea to Action

This week, pick one lever and start building it:

  1. Capital:
    • Set up automatic transfers: $50-500/month into a low-cost index fund
    • Don't check it for 6 months
    • Increase the amount by 10% every year
  2. Code:
    • Identify one repetitive task you do weekly
    • Spend 2-4 hours learning the basics (Python tutorial, Zapier guide, or hire someone on Fiverr)
    • Build or buy an automation for that one task
    • Once it works, find the next task
  3. Content:
    • Pick one format: blog, newsletter, video, or podcast
    • Choose one topic you know well
    • Create one piece this week
    • Commit to one piece per week for 3 months
    • Focus on being useful, not perfect
  4. Conviction:
    • Write down 3-5 core beliefs about your work, money, or life
    • For each belief, write: "I believe X because Y, and I'll know I'm wrong when Z"
    • Make one small decision this week based on your beliefs
    • Review in 3 months: were you right? Update or double down

Don't try to do all four. Pick one. Master it. Then add another. The goal is to have at least one lever working within 3 months.

Remember: leverage compounds. A small start today becomes a big advantage in a year. The key is starting.