How Putting the Right Value on Your Time Builds Wealth

My friend Blake is a brilliant entrepreneur.

He’s only 39 years old, but is already running multiple 8-figure companies and I promise you, one day he will be a billionaire.

One day we were talking about how so many successful business owners use their money for status signaling, and he told me that instead of buying cars he “buys” people for his businesses.

Blake could easily be driving a Bentley, or a Ferrari, or a Lamborghini. But he doesn’t. He uses that money to hire the best quality people he can afford for his businesses. Even to the point of being overstaffed.

His philosophy is to hire superstars for his organization whenever he finds them, train them up, get them woven into the amazing culture he’s created, and set them loose to find ways to create more value in his organizations.

The result is that Blake is constantly surrounded by extremely competent people eager to take work off his plate so he can focus on the most important aspects of the business without the distractions we all face in running our businesses.

Now let’s pair that idea with Naval Ravikant’s concept of setting a value on your time.

Naval Ravikant is massively successful angel investor with early investments in Twitter, Uber, Postmates, Opendoor, and more. In his podcast/blog post How to Get Rich (https://nav.al/rich) he talks about setting an aspirational hourly rate and outsourcing any task that costs less than that rate.

Way before he reached his current level of success he set an aspirational hourly rate of $5,000/hr. and did his best to outsource any task that cost less than that.

Imagine if you set your aspirational hourly rate at $500/hr. Think of the amazing, brilliant people you could hire for less than $500/hr.! Someone making $250/hr earns roughly $500,000/yr. What could you hand off to people that were so competent they were worth $500,000/yr.? What might they be able to do in your organization or in your life? That gets pretty exciting!

And don’t get distracted by the price tag.

We live in the age of the gig economy. Outsourcing is one way to get access to incredibly competent people that may charge that kind of hourly rate without obligating you to the full year price tag because they wouldn’t be working for you full time.

We live in an age of busyness. We are all over-committed. What we need to realize is that busyness too often keeps us from dedicating our time to the problems on which we can make the biggest impact.

One thing that has always impressed me about Blake is the control he maintains over his schedule. He works a lot and has to travel a lot for his work. But he’s always got time for the important things in his life.

I get the same sense listening to Naval Ravikant. There is a poise about how he goes through life that I think we should all emulate.

It doesn’t happen by accident.

So I challenge you (and myself!) to set an aspirational hourly rate.

It doesn’t need to be $5,000/hr. like Naval Ravikant if you don’t want (then again, why not?) but it should stretch you.

Force yourself to give up the tasks that can be accomplished by someone else for less than that. Surround yourself with highly competent people, even overstaff a bit so those people have the extra time to take even more off your plate.

Then you’ll be able to focus your time and energy on the people you care most about and on the projects that will have the most impact (on your business, on your life, on the world).

Managing and guiding your financial life may very well be one (or more!) of those tasks.

If financial planning, portfolio management, investment analysis, etc. is not why you were put on this earth, it might make sense to outsource and delegate that to a highly competent, caring financial advisor. Then you can spend your time on what matters most to you.

At Tumwater Wealth, managing our clients financial lives (often in harmony with a family business(es) they own) is our mission in life. We help simplify the financial world and guide you through every financial decision you need to make all along the way.

What do you think? Is it valuable to set an aspirational hourly rate? What rate would you choose? If you set a high rate, could the quality of people you surround yourself with for less than that improve your life and your business?