How I Unlocked More Income by Doing Less (And Focusing on What Matters Most)
How I Unlocked More Income by Doing Less (And Focusing on What Matters Most)
The Income Ceiling I Hit
For years, I operated like a high-performance engine with the pedal floored—running multiple businesses, managing a large real estate portfolio, and staying busy from sunup to sundown. But despite all that hustle, my income started to level off. I was exhausted, frustrated, and most of all—confused.
I had mistakenly believed that working more hours meant earning more money. But the math stopped working. There were only so many hours I could give, and I was already giving them all.
I wore my long hours and hard work like a medal- I even bragged about it. I wondered about the uncertain looks I got from veteran business owners when I made those comments, looking back I wish they would have said what was on their mind, however I probably wouldn’t have even listened. It wasn’t until I started doing a better job of tracking my financial situation, through monthly balance sheets and income statements, that I realized I was actually failing, despite generating more revenue and working more hours than ever before.
It wasn’t that I was out of hustle. I was out of leverage.
The Trap: Time-Based Earning
High earners often fall into a dangerous trap: assuming that more effort automatically leads to more income. But after a certain point, effort alone stops moving the needle.
The core issue? Time is a finite resource. You can’t scale it. What I needed wasn't more effort—it was a different way of thinking about where my effort actually mattered. You can’t deliver excellent results (which are the only results worth delivering) without the ability to focus, and when you’re grinding all day and night on the quantity of work, the quality and profitability are what you sacrifice.
Thankfully I started focusing on leverage: people, systems, and capital that could work even when I wasn’t. That provided the consistency, quality, and excellence that is necessary to justify high prices, because you can’t make a profit without sufficient margins, and you can’t have a margin without high enough prices.
Strategy #1: Reallocate, Don’t Add
The first big breakthrough came when I did a ruthless time audit. I asked myself: "What activities actually move the needle?" It turned out, about 80% of my results were coming from less than 20% of my time.
I didn’t need more to do—I needed to protect and prioritize the right things. I stopped trying to cram in more opportunities and began doubling down on what was already working.
This was the start of an essential mindset shift: focus beats force.
Strategy #2: Eliminate, Don’t Just Delegate
Not everything can or should be handed off. One of my biggest lessons came from owning a rental property management company. It was complex, high-touch, and only remained profitable because I was directly involved. I had a unique mix of experience, ability and mindset, I built the systems myself, and understood all the moving parts.
Delegating it would have meant hiring someone who could replace me—a task that was not quick, easy, nor affordable. In this case, delegation wasn’t the answer. Elimination was.
So I sold the business.
And something surprising happened: my income actually went up. The time, mental energy, and opportunity cost I regained far outweighed the profits I walked away from. It took selling that business and getting out of that day to day grind to even have the energy to analyze why there was such a drastic difference in my life.
I was wasting my talents and abilities on an operation that didn’t have sufficient margins to pay me what I’m worth.
This became a recurring theme for me: I’ve made more by doing less.
Strategy #3: Buy Back Time (When It Makes Sense)
Of course, there are plenty of tasks that can be handed off. The key is knowing which ones.
I began hiring fractional experts and profit-share operators—people who could take ownership of outcomes without needing daily oversight. Instead of paying for time, I started paying for results.
Here’s something I’ve learned that runs counter to what many business owners believe: I often hear things like, "No one is going to work as hard as me," or "No one will ever do it better than I can." I completely disagree with that.
As the business owner, I’m juggling a thousand things. If I hire someone whose only responsibility is a single role or function, they should be able to do that job better than I ever could. In fact, if after 3–6 months they aren’t performing their responsibilities significantly better than I can, then they probably aren’t the right fit- and it’s my responsibility to take swift action and find someone who is.
It is my responsibility to provide an environment for employees to do excellent work, after that it’s up to them, they are responsible for ensuring the work they do is excellent, finding the best way to do things, improving on existing systems, etc etc. They cannot be reliant on me to do their job well, there’s only so much of me to go around, and it’s all spoken for already.
It’s not just about hiring help—it’s about hiring excellence.
The real win? These people did the work better than I ever could.
The trick isn’t just delegation. It’s intelligent delegation. Keep what only you can do, and what you enjoy doing. Hand off the rest.
Strategy #4: Monetize What You Know
Another game-changer for me was building Vertex of Wealth—an educational platform that shares what I’ve learned over two decades of business and investing.
This wasn’t about adding more work. It was about packaging my experience into something scalable. One recorded video can deliver value for years. One blog post can generate leads on autopilot.
This is the beauty of asymmetric effort: small inputs, outsized results.
Strategy #5: Raise the Bar (and the Rates)
Here’s an overlooked truth: your clients, customers, or deals will rise (or fall) to meet the standard you set.
As I refined my offerings and raised the quality of my outputs, I started raising my prices too. I began attracting clients who valued excellence over affordability. And in turn, I needed fewer of them to earn more.
High-value work for high-value clients. It’s a simpler, saner way to scale.
Final Thought: The Power of Doing Less, Better
If I could go back and give my younger self advice, it would be this: "You don’t need to do more—you need to do better."
Success, it turns out, isn’t about expansion. It’s about distillation.
I’ve made more money by letting go of the parts of my business that didn’t align with my highest value. I’ve earned more by eliminating, delegating, and simplifying. And I’ve found peace—and profit—by building around what matters most.
If you’re feeling maxed out, it may not be because you need to push harder. It might be time to step back, evaluate, and choose less, but better.
Recommended Reading:
Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch
10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy
Who Not How by Dan Sullivan
