Any ambitious purpose in life will require many different skill sets and much more than just your own time and energy. 

Hence, we need to find ways to involve other people with complementary skills in the pursuit of our purpose. 

Today’s post looks at some ways to get this done. 

Always ensure win-win collaboration

Before we get started, I must restate the fundamental ground-rule of any good collaboration: both parties must see a clear benefit. 

If this simple rule is not met, the collaboration will most likely fail. 

Hence, always have this at the very front of your mind when considering purchasing the time and energy of others. 

Spending money on your purpose

The simplest way to buy other peoples’ time is of course simply to pay them for doing something you need done. But this requires you to have the excess income with which to fund such investments. 

Buying other people’s time should simply be viewed as yet another potential avenue for investment.

For instance, if you’re lucky enough to already enjoy almost every aspect of your job, it can be better to use your surplus income to purchase other peoples’ time rather than your own. 

Paying with intangible assets

For those who have diligently invested in intangible assets, it’s possible to exchange things like skills, track record and contacts for valuable services.  

In research circles, for example, you can get students to work on problems of your choosing if they (or rather their supervisors) believe they will learn valuable skills from you. 

It’s also possible to leverage your track record to influence the scope of proposed projects to get funding for others to do work aligned with your purpose. 

I’m sure that similar opportunities are available in other professions. You just need to look for them 🙂

Sharing the rewards

Another great way to gain access to other people’s time is to ensure that they will also benefit greatly from the value you will create together. 

I’ve found this to be a particularly powerful mechanism in academic circles where people have some freedom to pursue common interests. 

Capitalizing on this mechanism requires good knowledge of what others are interested in. Sometimes it also needs a little compromise to sweeten the deal for them. 

The skill of collaboration

Whichever option you choose, the skill of getting others to enthusiastically work towards your purpose is a valuable intangible asset by itself. 

Make sure that your collaborators always win out of any joint venture you propose, preferably even more than yourself.

If they do, they’ll be happy to do it again. And again. And again…

Yep, assembling a team of willing and able collaborators is one of the best investments out there 🙂