I interviewed Dan Martell this week for the Moneywise podcast (coming out in a few weeks). Dan is worth $127m and spends $3m/year “buying back his time”.

I put that in quotes because “Buy Back Your Time” is the name of a best-selling book that Dan wrote.

And he truly lives it out. Dan doesn’t do ANYTHING that he doesn’t like to do.

At work, Dan only does the work that gives him the most energy (joy, happiness), that he’s best at, and that makes him the most money. The blue section below 👇️

Even at home, Dan only does what he wants, which means he’s fully present with his wife and kids (10 and 12 yr/old sons).

I’ll break down how Dan does it for $3m/year, and how you can do it for WAY WAY less.

How Dan buys back his time at work

First of all, the principles are the same regardless of how much you’re able to spend, and it starts with “Audit”, “Transfer”, “Fill” (all of this is in his book, “Buy Back Your Time” - if you’re a founder WITHOUT an EA, DM me and I’ll buy you the book).

Audit: Look at your calendar and figure out which tasks you hate, that are inexpensive for someone else to do.

Transfer: Who can take these over (think, “Executive Assistant”)?

Fill: Now how do you do more “blue” stuff?

If you do this (over and over), you’ll make more money. There’s no way around it. Doing MORE of what makes you money will make you MORE money.*

For Dan in particular, he does this by having an Executive Assistant who coordinates his entire life.

Additionally, he’s able to save massive amounts of time by spending money on items like, a jet 🙂. He calls it his “time travel” machine.

*By the way, most of what Dan does on the work (and home) side, you can accomplish with a Full-time Executive Assistant. FreedUp does ALL of this for you. We’ll audit your time, build out custom systems for you, find you an EA and train them on your systems. For less than the cost of your lowest-paid employee.

How Dan buys back his time at home

At home, Dan has a full-time house manager (Betty) who coordinates EVERYTHING around the home.

Betty has full access to Dan’s personal budget and is in charge of hiring and coordinating:

• A chef who cooks ALL of the families meals. They cook offsite and delivery to the home. Betty coordinates the meal plan, deliveries, and serves the food.

• Cleaners who regularly clean. Dan and his wife don’t do the dishes, laundry, etc. Betty takes care of it with some additional help.

• Gardners who take care of the lawn and any other home maintenance. Again, Betty handles this.

• Cars - Dan has 10+ cars (Lamborghinis, Ferraris, McLarens, Porches). Betty owns these. She handles maintenance, making sure there’s gas, etc.

Because of this, when Dan is at home, he’ll fully at home. He’s to sit and talk with his kids, play with them and have a glass of wine with his wife.

How you can do this, for WAY WAY less than $3m

Dan spends $3m on all of this because he has an empire - full-time media staff, multiple assistants, full-time house manager, A PRIVATE JET.

But if your life is less complex than Dan’s, than I bet you could get 90% of this (minus the jet) for the cost a 1 full-time Executive Assistant (at FreedUp, we charge $3,200/month - 😉).

Here’s the breakdown how you could translate all of this:

An argument for having your EA do personal stuff

The list above is focused mostly on personal stuff, though in reality most of what you would delegate would be at work - on average, I’ll build out 22 SOPs for EAs to start with when supporting their Execs.

But I’m focusing so much on the personal stuff because that’s what most people neglect. There are 1,000 books on how to do work better - there are very few on managing you chaotic family life.

And unfortunately, I get a TON of pushback from clients who are resistant to using their company’s money to fund an Assistant who will spend some of their time supporting them personally.

But that’s dumb. You’re the same person at work as you are at home. If home is chaos, that same chaotic spouse/parent is now leading the company at work - and vice versa.

It’s unhealthy. So invest in yourself to invest in your business.

Have questions or pushback? I’d love to help (or argue). Send me an email - [email protected]