The Time-Saving Strategy Most People Ignore

Most agents are told to hire help in their business. But what if the real leverage starts at home?

In this episode of Growth Drivers, Mike and Rachael Novak break down the overlooked strategy that’s been a game-changer for their productivity, income, and quality of life: personal leverage.

If you're exhausted trying to "do it all"—from showings to laundry, client calls to cooking—this episode will flip the script on what success actually requires.

We’re sharing:

→ Why buying back your personal time can 10X your business impact
 → How to calculate your true dollar-per-hour—and why it changes everything
 → The exact tasks we outsourced first (and what we’d do differently)
 → How to overcome guilt, scarcity mindset, and the pressure to “do it all”
 → What personal leverage looks like at every income level—from side hustler to 7-figure CEO

✅ The real reason you’re burning out (and how to fix it fast)
✅ How to reframe outsourcing as an investment, not a luxury
✅ The secret to getting more done—and still being fully present with your family
✅ Our full breakdown of house managers, nannies, Instacart, cleaners, and more
✅ Why "mom guilt" is costing women more than they realize—and how to rewrite that story

This is your blueprint for working smarter, living better, and scaling faster—without sacrificing your sanity.

Hit play and start building the leverage that actually drives growth.

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Transcript

Introduction to Personal Leverage 

Rachael Novak: 

[0:33] You reach burnout so much faster when you're trying to do it all. 

Mike Novak: 

[0:37] I think there's limiting beliefs, right? Like, how do we get our mind opened up a little bit and think much, much bigger? Welcome to the Growth Drivers Podcast, the show where we break down the leadership frameworks, mindset shifts, and strategies that fuel entrepreneurial success, personal transformation, and business breakthroughs. 

Rachael Novak: 

[0:58] I'm Rachel Novak.

Mike Novak: 

[0:59] And I'm Mike Novak. 

Rachael Novak: 

[1:00] Let's dive in and start driving your growth. 

Mike Novak: 

[1:02] All right personal leverage it's the shortcut you are looking for this is gonna be a really good one. 

Rachael Novak: 

[1:09] Welcome back to the growth drivers podcast. 

Mike Novak: 

[1:11] Yeah let's dive into this. 

Rachael Novak: 

[1:13] Love this one love this one. 

Mike Novak: 

[1:16] Everyone's talking about adding an assistant a showing partner an isa, agents god forbid to your team right and they think that this is like the thing that they need to really buy back their time, right? And some of that might be true, especially when it comes to the assistant or showing partner, right? 

The Power of Personal Life 

Mike Novak: 

[1:35] But I want to challenge people's thinking a little bit on this. And I want to give you the idea of looking at your personal life first and seeing what you might be able to add on there, because it's a lot easier to implement and potentially could save you a lot more money quicker as well, right? 

Rachael Novak: 

[1:51] That's exactly right. 

Mike Novak: 

[1:51] Like I always tell people like add an assistant the minute you can afford to hire an assistant. Like I even know agents that have like literally borrowed the money to hire an assistant because they believe that that much it will rapidly accelerate to the speed with which you can sell more because you're not gonna be doing tasks but if we look at like the personal side of things like that's what we really want to dive into today is what could you do to buy back more time there yes because that's gonna allow you to work more right yep. 

Rachael Novak: 

[2:14] And i think that you know we probably should frame this as you know we are a two parent like two working parent household right by choice very much by choice. And so this is especially

important in a two-parent working household, which a lot of households are these days. But what is the personal side of leverage? We've talked about, and like you said, a lot of people want to talk about hiring this position, that position in their business to pass off business things. But let's reframe that for a second, because if you are the one driving revenue, then the majority of the work in your business really should continue to be driven by you, because you're going to be the highest converter, the highest revenue generator. 

Reframing Personal Leverage 

Rachael Novak: 

[2:59] So pulling in personal leverage, especially for those women out there and maybe those men who think they want to do stuff will get at you. Reframe this from it being a luxury, right? Having people do things in your home for you to a necessity and leverage for you to be able to do even more in a focused way at work. 

Mike Novak: 

[3:22] It's really a massive income generator if you understand how to do it right. Exactly. what i mean so we're gonna break that down for you today and give you like a lot of very tactical ideas on how to actually do it but like when we talk about personal leverage and before we do that you you said like two like income earner families but wouldn't you say like the single mom out there probably needs this more than even anyone oh thousand percent because like i just mean like that person doesn't have like two people to i just i mean like. 

Rachael Novak: 

[3:47] You know if there's a stay-at-home parent and then the other parent works. 

Mike Novak: 

[3:50] Like oh this. 

Rachael Novak: 

[3:51] Isn't gonna be as necessary for sure if it's a single. 

Mike Novak: 

[3:54] Parent. Even more so for a single parent. God help you. 

Rachael Novak: 

[3:56] Yeah, no, exactly. 

Mike Novak: 

[3:57] Even more so for a single parent. 

Rachael Novak: 

[3:58] Exactly. 

Mike Novak: 

[3:59] Okay. I just want to make sure. Yes.

Rachael Novak: 

[4:00] Yeah. 

Mike Novak: 

[4:00] You meant the person that's got to stay a home spouse. 

Rachael Novak: 

[4:03] Yes. 

Mike Novak: 

[4:03] Okay. So what is personal leverage? Let's just define it for people before we dive into this to make sure we're all talking about the same thing. 

Rachael Novak: 

[4:09] Totally. Personal leverage is simply people that you hire to do things in your personal life that you either don't want to do or you don't have time to do. Or if they were done, you would have a higher quality of life. 

Mike Novak: 

[4:22] Okay and so that's going to allow you to do things that make you more money or live a more balanced life that's exactly right, 

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs 

Mike Novak: 

[4:29] work less, sell more. 

Rachael Novak: 

[4:30] Exactly. So what are some limiting beliefs with personal leverage, Michael? 

Mike Novak: 

[4:34] The things that I've seen, and I think that some of this has been the guilt that I saw you experience with personal leverage in our life, you know, just to be really clear, is like feeling like, hey, I don't want to waste the money to do this. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it's expensive to hire a cleaner or, you know, a nanny or whatever else. And I just shouldn't spend that money. You know what I mean? And a lot of people don't realize that that's actually holding you back from making a lot more money. Like when we think about how to like create financial transformation, we always definitely want to keep in mind expenses, but the biggest transformations actually come from creating massively more revenue, right? Like you can only save so much money and pinch so many pennies, but at some point you just need to make a lot more money. And this plays to that, but only plays to that if you can get out of your own way mentally on it and just say, hey, I'm not going to be a cheap ass. And this actually is not me wasting money. This is me investing money. And this is me buying back time. And it's actually a business decision.

Rachael Novak: 

[5:32] That's what I had to get to, because as somebody who is raised in, you know, a traditional type family where the woman should be doing these things, when I really went to work full time, which has been a really long time. But when we came fully back into real estate in 2016 was really when it was like, okay, I'm working 60, 80 hour weeks, right? I thought I had to do it all. I thought like my job is to mom and manage the home and do my part and produce and contribute to the business. And while that may be the overarching reality, what I had to learn and come to was that I can delegate parts of my job. And by delegating the personal in the home parts of my job allowed me to contribute way more financially and in the business, therefore creating a better quality of life for my entire family. 

Mike Novak: 

[6:31] Right, you attack the revenue generation part of the equation. 

Rachael Novak: 

[6:33] Exactly. 

Mike Novak: 

[6:33] So, and on the guy side of things, and I think a guy is, a lot of guys feel like they have to go cut the grass. You know what I mean? And for some reason, I don't know why I've never felt 

The Importance of Delegation 

Mike Novak: 

[6:41] any guilt for not doing that shit. I'm like, It's been bizarre. I know how much money I can make. And so, like, it's simple math to me. You know what I mean? Like, I can make more money than it costs to hire a landscaper. Like, a lot more. So I'm not going to go do that. I'm going to go do more of what I do. You know what I mean? So, but I think a lot of people do struggle with that. 

Rachael Novak: 

[6:58] But the limiting belief here is that people like doing it. It's a break for them. They enjoy cutting the grass or they enjoy pressure washing the driveway or they enjoy going out and tinkering and doing that kind of stuff. And so... If that is something that you enjoy, then that's okay. And maybe this isn't the right podcast. Maybe it's not the right, you know, maybe you don't want to get into business for yourself, right? Maybe you don't want to make a ton of money. But if it's, if you're telling yourself that I'm supposed to enjoy this because your buddies enjoy it or your friend enjoys it or they spend time doing that because they work a nine to five and you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to build something and you're trying to grow or drive growth in your business, then get it out of your head that you're doing it because you enjoy it. And start saying like you did, like you always have and never struggled with, I can literally generate more revenue per hour than I pay somebody to do that particular task. So I'm gonna spend time doing that over here. 

Mike Novak: 

[7:52] Yeah, and you just really hit the nail on the head when you talk about the entrepreneur lifestyle. Like our lifestyle is not that of nine to five. And if you're nine to five, this might be a

different equation for you, right? But for us, like we will often work on Saturdays, we'll often work on Sundays. We'll take phone calls and negotiate deals in the evenings. like the game doesn't stop right it's a lifestyle and so as part of that lifestyle you have to be able to not only be efficient and buy back some time but also have some semblance of balance we're like hey if i'm not working i actually just want to chill out and be present with my family and kids and not scrubbing a toilet right yes exactly and we'll get. 

Rachael Novak: 

[8:28] Into that but that's that's exactly what i finally came to was when i am picking up the kids and i'm coming to work and and contributing and I'm serving clients and I'm doing these staging things and I'm doing these and then I'm going home and I'm making sure the kids rooms are clean and doing the laundry and. 

Mike Novak: 

[8:44] Cleaning the. 

Rachael Novak: 

[8:44] Bathroom and doing the dishes. 

Mike Novak: 

[8:45] Exhausting I'm exhausted I don't want to do it anymore and therefore that you. 

Rachael Novak: 

[8:51] Reach burnout so much. 

Mike Novak: 

[8:53] Faster when. 

Balancing Work and Home Life 

Rachael Novak: 

[8:53] You're trying to do it all. 

Mike Novak: 

[8:55] Right so the limiting beliefs I don't want to waste money I could do it myself I hear that one all the time drives me nuts like think you got to think bigger than that and then I enjoy doing it which is the one that you kind of touched on. And if you enjoy doing it, hey, more power to you. Just realize that comes with limits. That's going to have a significant cost into your earning potential, right? Like 

you're going to stay where you're at on income until you're willing to trade that time for something that's going to make you more money. 

Rachael Novak: 

[9:19] Exactly. 

Mike Novak: 

[9:20] And then let's talk about reframing those limiting beliefs, right? Like how do we get our mind

opened up a little bit and think much, much bigger. 

Rachael Novak: 

[9:28] So for me, it really was, if I have someone who cleans my home and does my laundry and that's it, say for now, they come over and they clean my home and they do my laundry a couple of times a week, that's not even something I have to think about now. I don't have to plan time for that. I don't have to stress about not having clean laundry. I can literally spend that time generating revenue, making phone calls, meeting with clients, doing productive things in the business, moving the business down the field. So I had to reframe that what if I could get more work done because I don't have to be doing those chores around the home. That was a big thing. 

Mike Novak: 

[10:12] You did it. And then what if you could come home and actually enjoy your time, right? 

Rachael Novak: 

[10:17] This is this is a big reframe. 

Mike Novak: 

[10:19] Just actually be there for your kids and not just like really still working, you know, but now you're the janitor, right? 

Rachael Novak: 

[10:25] But exactly. This is a big that's what I'm saying. This is a big, big, big reframe because a lot of people will say, oh, I can't afford somebody to come do that with me. Okay, well, if you are able to work two more hours and generate X amount more revenue and then come home and actually be able to sit down and have like converse with your kids and catch up with them without the stress 

of doing the dishes or doing these other things around the house. Do you understand how much life you're buying back? The quality of life that you now get by only a couple of hours a week. Like that's huge. Yep. 

Mike Novak: 

[11:01] The first part of the equation is really like spend time doing things that make you more money. And then at some point you're going to max that out too. And then you're going 

Understanding Personal Leverage 

Mike Novak: 

[11:08] to say, okay, I want some balance. 

Rachael Novak: 

[11:09] Yes. 

Mike Novak: 

[11:10] Right. And that's when that second part of the equation comes in.

Rachael Novak: 

[11:12] Yes. 

Mike Novak: 

[11:13] So here's the formula that we will give you on how to determine what you should hand off. It's actually very, very simple math. If you go out and pull your tax return from last year and look at how much money you made, and then I'm going to give you some numbers to write down here. I want you to times, look at your gross income, estimate how many hours you work, and then times it by 48. And it's 48 because most people work, they take off four weeks a year. 

Rachael Novak: 

[11:34] Yeah, a couple of weeks. Exactly. So 48 weeks, how many hours did you work in that 48 weeks versus what you made? 

Mike Novak: 

[11:40] Right. And then you can divide the gross income by that number, and that equals your dollars per hour. So I know real estate agents that make $500 an hour, right? And so if you make $500 an hour, why the hell are you scrubbing the toilets? Right? This is where we don't have to start thinking about this we just do math and math makes the decision very easy for us right so if you're making more money than you could hire things out for you need to consider you know possibly doing that and we're not saying like go spend like a hundred thousand dollars on personal leverage next year but we'll give you some like here in just a second give you some like things that don't cost a lot of money that would actually help you buy back a lot of time exactly so so what. 

Rachael Novak: 

[12:17] So the question to ask yourself at this point is of course like what are you doing in your personal life right now, around the home, outside the home, errands you're running, what are you doing that you could actually pay someone to do and you would pay less than what you would make in that hour of work? Very, it's very simple. 

Mike Novak: 

[12:39] Yeah. Just start writing it out. So what are the easiest things to hire out? Well, we've got kind of a list of things for you guys. As you can tell, we're a big fan of hiring out yard and lawn maintenance. Yep. Haven't done that in years. 

Rachael Novak: 

[12:50] Haven't pushed a lawnmower in like seven, eight years. 

Mike Novak: 

[12:52] Call three landscape maintenance companies, get a referral from family and friends or your real estate agent and ask them who they use and get them to price it out. Don't just get one bid, get three. 

Rachael Novak: 

[13:02] Right.

Mike Novak: 

[13:02] And then move forward with that person. Like you can literally get your yard done for a couple hundred dollars a month. If it's just like a normal lot. 

Simple Steps to Implement 

Rachael Novak: 

[13:09] Literally or less. Yes. 10, 20, 30 bucks a week if it's a small yard. 

Mike Novak: 

[13:13] And so this is easy because you can hire it out to another company. You don't have to manage the people. It's just handed off to somebody else. 

Rachael Novak: 

[13:20] Right. 

Mike Novak: 

[13:20] It's just done. Next one, house cleaning. Again, like easy to hand off to a company. Right. You don't have to go hire a person. You just hire a company to do this. 

Rachael Novak: 

[13:29] I'm going to address something on this one because I see more often than not, so many people, women especially, for whatever reason, will hire a cleaning company and then they feel embarrassed at the state of their home. So they will spend time tidying and cleaning their home before the cleaners come. 

Mike Novak: 

[13:49] That's just weird. I know you're not going to get this. I get this. Women, if you're listening, you know you get this. Why do you care what the cleaners think of your house. 

Rachael Novak: 

[13:58] Listen, listen, listen, listen. Women care, right? It like it becomes a part of how we show up in the world, how we live. And so letting somebody into our home is very personal. This is how you get over it. OK, you hire a company, you give them the parameters, you give them the parameters of what to clean, when to clean, what your expectation is. You hand it to the cleaning team that you end up hiring after getting bids, and all expectations are set. So, yep. So if you don't want them touching that pile on the chair, because those are your clean clothes that you wore one time and you're going to wear again because it's not quite dirty enough to wash, but it's definitely like too dirty to hang back up. Women understand this. Okay, I know you don't. If you don't want them to touch certain things or go in certain rooms, just give them that instruction. Just be clear with communication. But trust me, it is an incredible gift to come home at the end of the day once a week or once every other week and have all the toilets scrubbed and have all the countertops clean and have all the cabinets wiped down and have the under the couch rug all vacuumed and the couch vacuumed. It's a huge blessing. So invest in it.

Mike Novak: 

[15:12] Yeah. And now I know why our house is really, really clean right before we have house guests over. Just learn something. You like frantically organize and clean things up. 

Rachael Novak: 

[15:22] People, like nobody actually judges you, but everybody thinks that you're going to be judged by it. So that's why it happens. 

Mike Novak: 

[15:28] Got it. The next one, and this was one that you had an idea on like about two or three years ago, is Instacart. I don't know why I never thought of this myself. But why the hell are you going to a grocery store? It's so time consuming. 

Rachael Novak: 

[15:40] I started doing this eight and a half years ago when we got into real estate. I did not have the physical time to go grocery shopping. They didn't have Instacart yet. I was doing Safeway orders and then I was going, I'm on the phone, I got kids in the back and they're loading my groceries in the back of my car for me. Like that's how it started. And now, dude, Instacart is there within an hour and a half. Come on. 

Mike Novak: 

[16:00] Why are you going to the grocery store? I think between Costco and Instacart, we spend about $25 to $30 a week on their fees and tips, right? Like, it's really a small amount of money, you know, and it probably took them two hours to go pick all this shit out and then bring it to us. 

Rachael Novak: 

[16:16] And it would take you an hour and a half. Can you make more than 20 or 30 dollars in two or three hours of time, plus the gas and all the things to get there? Yeah. 

Mike Novak: 

[16:25] So stop shopping. Stop shopping. And the other thing. 

Rachael Novak: 

[16:28] You are going to have a more focused household when it comes to food, right? So if you're on any sort of, if one of your goals in the body domain is to be more disciplined with your eating, then do not go grocery shopping. Because guess what? The Instacart people are only going to get what's on your list. 

Mike Novak: 

[16:47] They can't find what looks good and throw it in the cart. They can't grab those Oreos. I would argue because of that, Instacart more than pays for itself. Exactly. 

Rachael Novak: 

[16:54] Yeah, I'm not picking up the Oreos or the ice cream or just grabbing that extra, like none of it. Instacart only gets what you order. It's saving your body and it's saving your wallet.

Mike Novak: 

[17:04] And then some things like around the house, like painting, carpet cleaning, house maintenance. I see a lot of people, like guys in particular, tackle these things. And they're not very good at it, to be honest with you. And so they either don't do it or it's like a half-assed job. We see this with people's houses. We're going to list them all the time. We're like, man, what happened to this paint in this house? It looks terrible, right? 

Rachael Novak: 

[17:23] How did you do this? 

Mike Novak: 

[17:24] Who touched this up and patched it? 

Rachael Novak: 

[17:26] And let's break down like because because one of the big things with especially house maintenance or painting or carpet cleaning, right? Like like renting a shampoo or shampooing yourself. OK, so let's let's talk about the unspoken cost because people say, well, if I do it myself, I'm saving that money. OK, well, you're driving to the store and you're spending time at the store and then you're acquiring all the materials needed. Can be a couple hundred bucks, if not more, for all the things that you need in order to do so. And now you have to spend the time to do stuff. And then you have to clean everything. And you have to put the furniture back if you're cleaning your carpets. And then you have to clean and then return. 

Mike Novak: 

[18:00] I'm already exhausted. 

Rachael Novak: 

[18:01] Where you hire a carpet cleaning company, we just quoted one for one of our friend's houses that we're going to be listing. It's 300 bucks for four bedrooms and the living room. They're moving the furniture. They're coming and they're doing it. The clients have to do nothing but like give them access come on guys. 

Mike Novak: 

[18:16] Like so i would argue that everything in this category falls into the bucket of getting out of your own way yes 100 and getting past the mindset of scarcity too right like. 

Rachael Novak: 

[18:26] Go deeper on that. 

Mike Novak: 

[18:28] Well i just think that scarcity is what holds a lot of people back they think they're not gonna have enough money you know if they spend this money they're not gonna make it back and looking at it from a perspective of abundance like hey yeah i know this is gonna give me a chance to live a better life make more money I'm going to get to have my cake and eat it too if I do this right and do the right things.

The Role of Child Leverage 

Mike Novak: 

[18:46] That's abundance, right? And so I think scarcity is where people kind of hold. 

Rachael Novak: 

[18:49] Themselves back on that. Good point. Went deep there. I like it. 

Mike Novak: 

[18:52] The next level on this, because again, there's like a progression here. And I would argue this is like really going to pay off if you get to a certain income threshold. Like if you're making like north of $250 a year or like $500 as a household, these things could be really, really relevant. The first one is child leverage. You know, and do you want to talk about that? Because you've used a lot of different structures. We have an au pair currently that lives with us who's from Brazil. That's a that's definitely worth looking at for people. It's a lot less expensive than many people think. How much does the au pair cost a year? 

Rachael Novak: 

[19:24] So it's a it's a it's a big fee, like a big annual fee, which is what scares most people off. So it's about it's between nine and ten thousand for the entire year. But then her pay is $225 a week. And then we pay for her groceries. And obviously, like, she gets to live with us. 

Mike Novak: 

[19:38] So what does she do? 

Rachael Novak: 

[19:40] So, I mean, anything and everything regarding the children. So she gets them up. She helps them with homework. She gets them to school. She gives them to activity. She does their laundry. She cleans their rooms. She gets them to obviously do their chores. And she cleans up after herself. She does participate in, like, household, you know, tidying and light housekeeping and stuff when she's in the common areas. But it's been a great opportunity for the kids to get to know somebody, for the entire family to kind of have somebody of a different culture, and then for her to experience what an American family is like. 

Investing in Quality Help 

Rachael Novak: 

[20:11] So, you know, if we look at the actual cost of it, right, because I've done multiple nannies. I had two full-time nannies for several years. 

Mike Novak: 

[20:19] Which is really expensive. 

Rachael Novak: 

[20:20] Very expensive. Like, transparently, we paid between $80,000 and $90,000 a year for multiple years for two full-time. One was full-time. one was 30 hours a week that's expensive at the

time it was certainly justified we were working a lot and generating a lot and that made sense for us and at this point we want more quality of life but like as an au pair don't don't let like a big entry fee like that determine it because if we look at 225 a week i mean i think i'm maybe paying 30 000 total for the entire year now so less than. 

Mike Novak: 

[20:51] That i mean you're probably paying in the neighborhood of 25 grand. 

Rachael Novak: 

[20:53] It's like 26 yeah so So. 

Mike Novak: 

[20:55] Yeah, massive, massive level. 

Rachael Novak: 

[20:57] Yeah. So it's like get pull the emotion out of these decisions for a second and actually look down at the economics of it. And it makes a lot more sense. But, you know, that I was going to say just in regards to kind of driving the kids around. Right. Like this. It didn't start with full time nanny. I couldn't afford that. It started with having somebody come in in the mornings from 430 and then bringing the kids to school. That was a first start. So it was maybe 15 hours a week, they would come in for three hours, clean up the kitchen, get the kids ready for school, drop the kids off at school. And what I was buying at that time was my me time. I was buying my gym time. On the mornings that I didn't go to the gym, I was buying additional office time so I could get into the office earlier and be productive and set my day up for success. So I was then at that point, like providing my kids stability with somebody who is coming in consistently the same person. And I was also providing a part-time job for a fellow mom who actually needed it. And I was providing myself leverage in the business. So that was how it started. Then eventually it started morphing into, okay, I need more, I need more, right? Because Phoebe was in a daycare that she was getting dropped off. 

Mike Novak: 

[22:04] That's our youngest child. 

Rachael Novak: 

[22:05] Exactly. And so, yeah, our youngest was one when we got back into real estate. And it took me almost the entire first year to save up enough to hire somebody part-time. And then it turned into the full-time nannies, right? And because I wanted to pull her out of daycare, I wanted her to have somebody she could spend the whole day with, going on adventures and hiking and the museum and all these things. And that's when we invested in the actual full-time nannies. So it's evolved over the years as needs have changed. And then of course, when she got into school, okay, we went back to not needing full-time nanny. And we went back to mornings, dropping off at school and then having an afternoon nanny. So I wanted to pick them up from school and spend time with them and do homework and prepare the dinner and get the house ready. So we've gone through iterations of all of these. I have hired... I mean, shy of two handfuls, more than one handful

of nannies, people, babysitters, house managers that have gone through that. And now, of course, it's developed into this same these same people are adding 

Mindset Shifts for Mothers 

Rachael Novak: 

[23:02] tasks on around the home. So like our nannies at the time, OK, if we're going to stay and you're going to stay at the house during the time when the kids are in school, they're cleaning, they're doing laundry, they're now preparing meals, they're putting, you know, doing our meal prep. They're doing things around the household that takes things off of our plate, but that need to be done so that I can come home and enjoy my. 

Mike Novak: 

[23:24] You said two things I want to go deeper on, because I think this is going to challenge a lot of women's mindsets. You said that it allowed you to go do some me time at the gym. How did you make that shift mentally? Like, hey, this is not only is this like a good investment, but this is the right thing to do. 

Rachael Novak: 

[23:41] Yeah. Yeah, so great question. Because how it actually first started, when I couldn't afford, when we couldn't afford morning or afternoon, like any sort of personal leverage whatsoever, I was doing it all. And I would drop the kids off, and I'd come into the office for three hours. And then I'd go hit the noon class at CrossFit. And that was my workout. That was my me time. And then I'd quick, quick, quick, get ready, head back to the office, because I only had three more hours before I had to go pick them up again. And it was, it was turning into a situation where I wasn't actually getting me time. I was constantly rushed. And the interruptions of having to go from work mode to me mode back to work mode was cutting into productivity, where I noticed, okay, if I could stay and not have to go drive and do a workout and then come back, I could be I could get twice as much done in an hour and a half or two hour time frame. And so what it kind of came down to was I noticed for myself that the gym prioritizing my own health was what made me more productive. 

Mike Novak: 

[24:41] That is what you go right there. 

Rachael Novak: 

[24:42] That that is what makes me show up as my best self is when I have taken care of me. And now I can show up for everybody else in my life who needs me, which is everybody in my family and in my business. And so if I can justify going in the morning and taking care of me first thing and knowing that after six o'clock when I'm done with my workout and I've gotten ready and I've gotten to listen to my music and I've gotten to pump my muscles and all these things, do my cardio, and then I can show up for the entire rest of the day, watch out world. Like I can accomplish things. I can be productive. I can contribute successfully. 

The Impact of Self-Care

Rachael Novak: 

[25:16] And that's when just productivity skyrocketed for me. And it was the fruit of my efforts, right? Like, that's how I knew was when I have a morning, somebody coming in and taking care of the kids in the morning. Like, I had to get over the fact that, well, I'm their mom. They're going to forget who I am. They're going to love this person more. They're going to, they're going to. 

Mike Novak: 

[25:34] You know. Well, we'll talk about that in a second. I want to stay focused on the body thing because this is really, really important for women to hear. And you didn't know it at the time, but what you were describing is that you didn't want to abandon the domain of body is what I'm hearing, right? Like, we always talk about body being balanced business. And when you abandon one of the domains, all of the domains suffer. And that's what you were experiencing by not being able to do it, right? Or that's what women may be experiencing if they don't make that time for themselves. And you might think like, hey, I'm going to save some money or I'm going to feel like a better mom. But it's actually going to hold back every other part of your life. 

Rachael Novak: 

[26:08] Exactly. 

Mike Novak: 

[26:09] Which that shit takes a long time for people to figure out. It took us a long time to see that. 

Rachael Novak: 

[26:12] Well, and I mean, a lot of people call it, oh, I let myself go. Right? Like, that's what they call it. They say, oh, I've let myself go. Well, you sure did. And when you let yourself go, now you're not showing up as your best in business. You're not showing up your best in marriage because you're self-conscious. You're not showing up best as a mom because you're exhausted and you're tired and you haven't prioritized your own mental and emotional and physical health. So do not abandon the body domain. It is worth every single penny to do so. 

Mike Novak: 

[26:39] So directly connects to my second question. I'm sure there's going to be moms that listen to this as well. And even men that may judge this and say like, man, that's like a shitty mom, right? 

Intentional Parenting 

Mike Novak: 

[26:49] Like you're not there to get your kids ready for school, make them breakfast. How'd you get past that? 

Rachael Novak: 

[26:53] Yeah, that was the toughest part, to be honest with you. You know, there is still sometimes a big part of me who misses them in the mornings. And I think that that's normal. I think that's actually really healthy. But we've built our business to the point where on special occasions, on birthdays,

on important days, dress up days, things like that, I'm able to stay home. I'm able to choose on those specific mornings to be there for those things. 

Rachael Novak: 

[27:19] But what I realized when I hired the first kind of morning nanny and she was spending time with our kids was that every single person that comes into our kids' lives is meant to teach them something. And they're not going to get the perspective of so many different people if you're the one constantly sheltering them and you're the only outlet that they have. It's actually incredibly healthy for kids to spend time with somebody else who you trust and who treats them well obviously like there are parameters around this right but they learn different language patterns they learn different perspectives on life they learn different skills like i've i've i pride myself on being a good mom i truly believe i'm a great mom i love my kids i'll do anything for my kids i show up for my kids consistently but i've never been a mom who likes arts and crafts i've never been a mom who wants to get on the floor and play blocks with them and never have been and i felt guilt about that for a lot of years until i brought a nanny in who loved that stuff like so genuinely loved to do crafts and loved to go get and go play with them on the floor and i'm like this is amazing like this is exactly what she needs you know yeah they can feel that they do and then they know that where my place is like they know that i don't in common that is really special for us. 

Mike Novak: 

[28:38] Right. I think that what I saw you really lean into is like you're really intentional about the time you do spend with them and you were able to separate that the intentional time that you spend with them is very different than the tedious tasks of getting them out of bed, brushing teeth, eating breakfast. Like this is fairly mundane stuff, right? Like those things don't make or break your children, right? What does make or break them is the values you imprint on them, the mentorship you give them in that intentional time where they know that you're actually present with them. 

Rachael Novak: 

[29:05] And one of the things that I used to do low-key is when I would ask the nanny, like, if somebody's having a rough morning or, you know, if they're on their way to school, I would FaceTime in or I would call in and I would still connect with them over the phone. And I would, like, say, okay, give me your gratitudes. Like, I want five gratitudes from everybody and still have a connection where they hear from me, they relate to me. I'm bringing a state, you know, of energy into their life still, but I don't have to be there. That's a five-minute conversation instead of a two hour morning. So there are ways to still have an impact. 

Mike Novak: 

[29:34] So driving kids around, doing laundry, doing meal prep. People always ask me, what do we do for our meal prep? I get asked that question all the time. And we've tried different meal prep services. I think we've tried like 10 of them online. 

Rachael Novak: 

[29:45] I think all of them.

Mike Novak: 

[29:46] None of them were very good. The food gets super boring. Yeah, it's great at first. It never reheats very well. Or it doesn't actually hit your macro targets. So we do have someone who does our meal prep, putting away groceries, taking care of the pets. And so now we have a house manager. And that person works, what, like 20, 30 hours a week? 

Rachael Novak: 

[30:03] Yeah, she works 20 hours a week, and she comes over typically between 9 and noon or 9 and 1 every single day. She has, again, like I wrote a standard operating procedure that I'd be happy to share. If you want to reach out to me, I'm happy to share it. But she, you know, takes care of the household. She does cleaning chores. She does meal prep that we need. She does all of our laundry. She cleans up our room, our bathroom. She tidies like the main areas of the home. She walks the dog. She brings the dogs to the vet. She like orders the grooming of the dogs. Like she takes care of all of these things. So again, when I get home, I get to just enjoy my home and I just get to enjoy 

Practical Implementation Strategies 

Rachael Novak: 

[30:38] the quality of life that I've built. 

Mike Novak: 

[30:40] Yeah, absolutely. So how would people implement this? Like what would be your suggestion? Obviously, they can't just go from like zero to all of this at once. Like that would never work. That's not what we did. This took a long time to build. But how would you just tell people, you know, in like a couple of minutes, like how do you start building and implementing? Obviously, do these small things first. 

Rachael Novak: 

[30:57] Right? Yeah, do the small ones first. But like start with the really easy ones. So start with the companies that you can hire. So cleaning, right? You can hire a cleaning company to come to your house every other week. And so you don't have to have to scrub a toilet again. 

Mike Novak: 

[31:09] Right? You can do that tomorrow. 

Rachael Novak: 

[31:10] Yeah, you can literally do that tomorrow. It's way less expensive than you think. People, like it's $150 every other week. 

Mike Novak: 

[31:15] I was going to ask you, how much repair cleaners? 

Rachael Novak: 

[31:16] It's $150 every other week.

Mike Novak: 

[31:18] So $300 a month. 

Rachael Novak: 

[31:18] Yes. And so it's less than a car payment. Like it's very affordable if, you know, that you want that to be a priority. Landscaping, like that should be a first one. That's a company that you can hire. 

Rachael Novak: 

[31:30] Almost even like dog walking services there are people you can find on rover the rover app or rover.com or neighbors or teenagers in the neighborhood like these are all things that if imagine coming home and then your dogs have already been walked unless that's a thing that you want to 

do it's part of your regimen like obviously do it yourself but for us it's like a lot of times we like to come home and i don't want crazy dogs like i want calm chill dogs we can just hang out with they've already been walked so start with the easy ones the companies that you can hire for, If your kids are of like school age or lower, obviously, you're going to have to justify the revenue that you're bringing in versus what you can afford. So really look at your schedule and figure out where could a nanny or babysitter have the most impact for me? If that's in the mornings, great. For some people, that might be school pickups instead. So you still manage the kids in the morning, drop them off, and then somebody else grabs your kids either off the bus and watches them for multiple hours. So you can be doing client showings and client appointments and these things in the evenings. And maybe you do the gym a couple times a week in the evenings instead. So like figure out it's got to work for you. It's got to work for your lifestyle. But those would be kind of the easier ones. From that point is where you can kind of scale up. So if at that point, you know, maybe that maybe that nanny or that person that you're hiring with the kids can also, you know, do meal prep once a week for these couple of things and then scale up to, OK, that person's just coming to do that. Right. That's in line with our body goals this year you know you you got to scale up from that point but. 

Rachael Novak: 

[32:58] Managing just the companies that they're typically on autopilot the landscapers are going to come every other week the cleaners are going to come every other very easy to set up very easy to pay very easy to manage so start small and work your way up from there awesome. 

Mike Novak: 

[33:12] And instacart like when you turn off this podcast i want you to set up an instacart account and place an order and just see how smooth it is. Your groceries will be there tonight still, as long as it's like seven o'clock earlier and start using that. And Costco does it too, which is amazing. So, but you know, this is stuff you, you can help coach women through, right? Like you can, you, cause a lot of this is customization is what I'm hearing you say, right? Like, you know, there's not like just like a one size fits all on how to implement this in your business. It really depends on where you're at in your career, where your kids are at in ages, the things that you like to do, don't like to do. Like this is highly 

Final Thoughts on Leverage

Mike Novak: 

[33:47] customized is kind of what I heard you say. 

Rachael Novak: 

[33:48] A hundred percent. Yeah. And I go pretty deep. So there's two different CEO masterclasses that we're going to be putting out in the next month. The basic modules is the fundamentals. And I go over the schedule, you know, a little bit in that module in the masterclass. I go into it a lot more detail and I talk a lot about leverage. I talk about how to hire these people, where to find these 

people. So there's a lot more detail that I go into with like how to customize it. But of course, if it's something that you really want to discuss or you want to get on a call weekly hit me up for the wartime ceo mastermind that's kind of the the next entry level weekly calls on wednesday starting in may and that we go over each domain every week yeah. 

Mike Novak: 

[34:25] And you can find our website at thewarrioragent.com the like the most important thing that we really work and coach people to is to work less and sell more and this speaks to that right it's about living a great life and this allows you to elevate that all that's exactly right, All right. Anything else to add? 

Rachael Novak: 

[34:42] I think the one key to bringing in leverage in your life personally and professionally, is to bring it into an area that you know you're going to be more productive, right? Don't be a leverage time waster. That's the biggest mistake that people make. That people will bring in leverage and then not utilize the time that they're paying somebody else to do something in order to create more revenue. 

Mike Novak: 

[35:06] Got it. Yeah. It's like the agent hires a showing partner and then just goes and sits on the couch in the middle of the day. 

Rachael Novak: 

[35:10] Exactly. If you're bringing in leverage, that is your cue to go generate more, right? 

Mike Novak: 

[35:15] It needs to propel you into action. Exactly. Awesome. Great point. All right. Great. Just kind of wrap up there. We will see everybody next week. 

Rachael Novak: 

[35:25] Have a good one. 

Mike Novak: 

[35:26] That's a wrap on today's episode of Growth Drivers. 

Rachael Novak: 

[35:29] If you found value in this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a fellow entrepreneur.

Mike Novak: 

[35:35] For more insights, tools, and resources, visit us at thewarrioragent.com. 

Rachael Novak: 

[35:40] Keep pushing forward, keep leading with purpose, and we'll see you next time.