Leverage And Distribution

To me, leverage is a fairly new concept. It has only being a few years since the concept clicked in my head and I got to understand the many contexts it can be put into.

When I put on the 'leverage lens' and rediscover my surroundings or immediate environment I interact with, I'm both disappointed and excited about what I was viewing. Disappointed in a sense that I didn't even got near the max output from the input I was putting in. The excitement is the tweaks I'll be making to change that.

Basically, leverage is maximizing the output of an input. And distribution is an aspect of it.

A common example is a blogger who writes quality blog posts that attracts traffic or shares, leverage the content of the blog posts to create other forms of content such as videos, podcasts etc and distribute them to other platforms.

It's akin to deriving many fruits from one seed. Perhaps, the tree is the system put in place to make that happen.

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Input And Output

Speaking of systems, it is the internet that has enabled these new kinds of leverage. During the olden days, writing an essay may have been easy, but turning that into other forms of content such as video or podcast would've have been hard. This is because it was very cost intensive to do that.

Technology has digitized all of these now. So the financial cost of production has dropped to near zero. The same thing more or less applies to its distribution thanks to social media.

Leverage is at the intersection between input and output. While we do not directly have control over the output, we can control the input and utilize leverage to indirectly control the output.

Depending on where we may find ourselves on the journey, some of us get less output from the input we put in. Some get an almost equal proportion and some get more output from the input they put in. The difference amongst the three types is time and the leverage employed.

When it comes to time, a newbie will naturally get less output from the input he/she may put in. Newbies don't know much and have to develop their skillsets, reputation, credibility and thick skin. It's a different case for the advanced amateur or semi professional, the amount of input is almost equal the output they get.

While for the master, it's also a different case altogether, the output is much higher than the input put in.

Things get a bit more interesting when we look at the leveraged employed as it puts some light on smart work. According to Naval Ravikant, they are three types of leverage:

1. Labor
2. Capital
3. Product & Media

The newbie could utilize product and media leverage to get the same or even more output than the master. The advanced amateur could utilize capital leverage to also achieve the same output as the master or even more. And the master could well utilize labor leverage to achieve grandmaster output.

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To give practical examples, the master could be a guy like Warren Buffett and the newbie could be a guy like Vitalik Buterin. Vitalik utilized product and media leverage in the form of creating valuable code that gets used by a lot of people.

Maybe Warren could have reached grandmaster level if he had invested into Bitcoin or Ethereum during the early stages.

In a way, leverage disrupts the natural progression of time and the traditional mindset we have towards it. No doubt, hard work is important. But adding smart work will give one an edge.

In Closing

​Thinking out loud, my distribution skills are lacking, especially here on Hive. To me, posting a blog is like doing the bare minimum. I'm not creating other forms of content from it such as microblogs on Leothreads or Ecency waves or even distributing it on web2 social media.

I have to do some tweaks there. Maybe some time in the future in regards to podcasts or videos.


Thanks for reading!! Share your thoughts below on the comments.