Building Leverage: How to Maximize Your Effort and Achieve More

“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the Earth”. —Archimedes

I first came across the idea of leverage through Naval Ravikant’s famous How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky tweet-storm years ago. He defines leverage as labor, money, and products with no marginal cost of replication—such as code, media, and books. If you haven’t explored this concept, I highly recommend reading the leverage chapter from Almanack of Naval Ravikant. I would also add AI to his list nowadays.

His idea clearly applies to entrepreneurs, but what about someone like me—building a corporate career or raising a family? As I pondered this question with all the changes happening at work (return to office, flattening of org structures), I decided that “Leverage” will be my theme for 2025.

We are two months into 2025, and I want to try something different with this post. The journey is more fun when shared with others. So instead of a “here-are-my-leverage-hacks-from-the-last-ten-years” story, I want to write this together with you. If you are on the same path and striving for the best return on your life’s effort, let’s learn together. Share your thoughts in the comments, and let’s start a discussion that inspires us all. I’ll keep the momentum going with a series of posts. Let’s apply leverage, learn and see where this takes us!

Where to begin? I have learnt that the best place is always the definition.

In physics, leverage is the mechanical advantage gained by using a lever. A lever lets you move a heavy object with less effort by increasing the distance over which the force is applied. The system has three components: force (effort, capital, technology), the object being moved (result), and the medium (system, mechanism, tool) that amplifies the force. The medium is the lever, and that’s what I should focus on.

The physics definition reminds me of other physics concepts, like entropy. (Thanks, Giovanni, for the inspiration!) Levers deteriorate over time: team members move on, money loses value, and social media algorithms change. Even to maintain the results, we must constantly refine and rebuild our levers. But while “sharpening the saw” keeps things running, upgrading to a laser cutter takes a different mindset.

One of my lessons in leverage came when I was about to go on my second maternity leave. Unlike previous transitions, where I onboarded my successor in the last two weeks before my leave, my boss hadn’t hired my replacement yet. So I wrote a detailed handover document. As I worked through it, I realized there were many inefficiencies I could have fixed: sharper priorities, fewer meetings, better mechanisms, more delegation. I made some improvements before leaving and documented others for my successor, but it struck me—why hadn’t I done this for myself earlier? From that moment, I vowed to create structured reflection points in every role, treating them as if I were writing a handover document for myself.

Now that we have the definition, it is time to look at the levers in the toolkit.

I brainstormed on the categories of levers and came up with the following seven: People, Influence, Processes, Knowledge, Technology, Communication, Money, and Time.

• People – I manage teams, make hiring decisions, and invest in people’s development. I also act as an interviewing Bar Raiser. This is a crucial lever for me and I spend a lot of time practicing it.

• Influence – My network, reputation, and ability to persuade. This is multiplied by the influence of my team, peers, and leaders.

• Processes – Personal habits, team mechanisms (huddles, reviews, 1:1s), decision-making principles, mental models, checklists, and SOPs. Processes are powerful because they allow habit stacking and create assets that can be reused. The drawback is that processes must evolve to remain useful.

• Knowledge – Hard skills and soft skills, knowledge of systems architecture, understanding how the company works, pattern matching in problem-solving. Knowledge has infinite scalability and compounds over time. Sharing knowledge with others enhances the overall system.

• Technology – This covers a wide range from the tools I use daily, like email, Slack, data dashboards, all the way to AI tools and prompts. A new AI tool at work, “Executive Review”, analyses written documents, suggests restructuring for clarity, identifies logical loopholes and anticipates VP questions. The earlier versions were interesting but hardly useful, this one is surprisingly good. Tools like this will definitely improve decision-making over time.

• Communication – One-to-many communication is a force multiplier. As an introvert, I used to avoid public platforms, but since writing this newsletter and posting on LinkedIn, I have seen firsthand how impactful it is. (Thanks for the feedback, everyone!) If anyone wants to invite me to a podcast or panel, let me know!

• Money – In corporate terms, this is budget influence. While I don’t control funding decisions, I can pitch for investments, propose headcount reallocations, or lead initiatives that drive cost savings. My lever here is to improve my pitching skills.

• Time can be leveraged, unleveraged or wasted. Sitting silently in a meeting and learning is useful, but unleveraged. Asking clarifying questions, proposing solutions, and sharing key takeaways with the wider audience afterwards makes the time leveraged and creates value for many. My weekly reflection and prioritization practice from my earlier post is also a form of time leverage.

Am I missing any key levers? Which one is your strongest, and how do you use it? What has resonated with you? Share your thoughts in the comments!

In my next newsletter, I’ll dive deeper into the levers and share practical ways how I and people around me strengthen them. If you don’t want to miss it, subscribe!