How much leverage are you comfortable with? Are you currently leveraging your business relationships, your company’s assets, your awesome personnel, your reputation, stock portfolio, and your friend’s friends?
There are so many things you could leverage to give your career or your business a bit of a boost if you really wanted. The question is, are you aware of these possibilities?
Definition of leverage | Merriam-Webster
1: the action of a lever or the mechanical advantage gained by it
2: power, effectiveness – trying to gain more political leverage
3: the use of credit to enhance one’s speculative capacity
I like the word leverage because it can be used as both a noun and a verb. You can use a lever (noun) to move an object that you could not normally move with your own force. We can gain a market advantage by leveraging (verb) your network of partners.
“Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I will move the entire earth” – Archimedes (C. 287-212 B.C.)
Warren Buffet has used leverage to build his massive fortune but he also thoughtfully reminds us not to get too addicted to the wonders of this amazing tool if you’ve had a few successes using it.
I’m not the biggest fan of using leverage against other people, as in, someone made a big blunder and now feels helplessly indebted to you. You know this so you take advantage of their self-inflicted feeling of indebtedness.
I truly believe that you should be a strong enough individual to forgive people this kind of burden. Everyone makes mistakes and if you’re in a position to forgive someone theirs then you should highly consider exercising your right to do so.
You should only use leverage to the level that you feel comfortable. Although you can use leverage to both magnify a gain and a loss. It can also be used to reduce the magnitude of a full loss on a particular trade by using less of your own capital. For a more elaborate explanation of using leverage to trade on the markets, you might want to read this article by Adam Milton.
We should all use leverage to advance our careers, our finances, and our businesses. Just not go too crazy when it comes to our fellow compadres.
Dominic Kotarski is the author of international best-seller “The Making”. He writes, speaks, inspires, motivates and teaches on the most important aspects of your business including Sales, Coaching, Team-Building, People Management and Business Development. Get weekly access to his blog & training videos FREE by subscribing HERE! and when you sign up you will get Instant Access to his Sales Skills Training Video.