This Is How You Earn Leverage

Everyone says they want more flexibility, better balance, and control over their time.

But very few people stop to ask a more important question:

Have I actually built the leverage to justify it yet?

In this episode, I break down a pattern I’m seeing across all levels—early career through to senior hires—where the focus shifts to flexibility before credibility has been established.

We talk about:

•  Why leverage isn’t given, it’s accumulated 
•  The difference between earning flexibility vs asking for it 
•  How compounding actually works in your career 
•  Where the modern shift towards lifestyle-first thinking can slow progress 
•  Why initiative might be one of the most underrated traits in business today 

This isn’t about rejecting flexibility or balance.

It’s about understanding sequence—and why getting that wrong creates friction, missed opportunities, and slower progression.

Key Takeaways

For Individuals:

•  Leverage comes from output, trust, credibility, and scarcity—not time served 
•  Flexibility is an outcome of value created, not a starting condition 
•  Focus on building something valuable before trying to optimise your lifestyle 
•  Initiative is often the first step before momentum, visibility, or opportunity 

For Leaders & Hiring Managers:

•  Early signals of mindset often show up in what candidates prioritise 
•  Alignment at entry point matters—expectation vs contribution 
•  High performers tend to focus on building first, optimising later 
•  There is a growing gap between those building leverage and those expecting it 

Call to Action

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to The Way I See It. Short thoughts on work, life, and the decisions in between and why we tend to overcomplicate all three. Straight from the front line of modern business, grab a coffee, grab a pad, and let's get into it. Welcome to another episode of The Way I See It. We are on episode 5 of season one. You want flexibility, but have you earned the leverage yet? In the last episode, we spoke about delayed gratification, doing the work now without immediate return, but staying consistent even when nothing seems to be happening, because that's how we actually build momentum. But there's something else I've started noticing. Even when that momentum does start to show up, even when the opportunities begin to appear, people approach them differently to what they used to. And it's where I start to see things break down somewhat. So everyone wants more money, more flexibility, more control. But very few people ask or consider have they actually built the leverage to justify that want just yet? Because wanting the outcome and being positioned for it are two completely different things. And this doesn't just apply to early career. I see this across all levels. If you go back even further to a couple of episodes before, we spoke about visibility and getting noticed, being in the right rooms, being seen to be doing the right things. This is ultimately the next layer on. So what happens after that work starts to pay off? Because getting the opportunity is only part of it. What you do with it is where the leverage is built. So I've seen this across people in their early careers, people stepping into new roles, even senior hires coming into new environments. Very quickly, the focus shifts to flexibility, working patterns, and control of time. And again, none of that's wrong, but it raises a bigger question. Are we trying to optimize before we've actually built anything worth optimizing? So leverage isn't something you're given. It's something you accumulate through output, through trust, through credibility, and through scarcity. And until that exists, you don't really have flexibility. You have the ability to request. So credibility, flexibility, and everything we're going to talk about goes back to my favorite word from our last episode: compounding. You have to have credit in the bank to compound before you start making requests. Then in turn, that links to flexibility being made for you. So in my own career, the opportun opportunities that changed things for me didn't necessarily come from asking for better conditions. They came after delivering consistently, building trust, and creating a reputation in the market, that's when leverage then shows up, not before. So if your first instinct in any role is what can I get from this, I believe you're thinking short term. Whereas if your instinct is what can I build from this, that's where things start to compound. So what moves people forward isn't comfort, it's exposure, repetition, access, pattern recognition. That's ultimately what's going to create the leverage. And that applies whether you're starting out, progressing or leading. So there's certainly been a shift in general across all kind of disciplines and all areas of business where I'd say since the pandemic, since um yeah, since COVID, we've definitely seen a shift where the focus is on balance, flexibility, and lifestyle. Now it's a great thing, they're all good things to focus on. But when those become the starting point instead of the outcome, that's where your kind of progress slows and where we see some friction. So what I've seen over the past decade is a move away from the old archaic model of the get in early, stay late, be available, outwork everyone, that type of culture. And some of that definitely needed to change. It wasn't always efficient, it wasn't always healthy, but what it did do was follow a sequence. You showed intent, you built capability, you then become credible, and then over time you earn leverage. And that leverage then gives you, guess what, more control, more flexibility, and more say over how you work. That was the trade. What I'm seeing now is the sequence almost being reversed. People want flexibility up front, control earlier, and a maximum return from day one before the value's fully established, and that's where the friction starts. I'd say there are potentially some mitigating factors with this. For example, again, using my own experience, if you've been headhunted because your portfolio, because your experience, then naturally you've already earned some leverage and credit in the bank. But the caveat to that is you still haven't earned it with the organization or people that have just come out to headhunt you. So you still need to showcase it somewhat, but you are potentially further along because obviously they've headhunted you for a reason, right? In an earlier episode where I had an interview, um, I was interviewing someone for a for a sales position, and um very early on the focus was around working from home, what the work-life balance was going to be, and having time during the day to handle life admin things like housework. It was genuinely three questions that were asked and presented to me by this individual. Now, being efficient with your time is completely fair. We all know that not every role needs a rigid eight-hour structure anymore. But positioning that as a priority at the point of entry before you've kind of proved your concept or value, that's where it starts to feel misaligned. Certainly as a hiring manager or a leader, you still want to feel there's a trade-off and that the individual will work for you and prove themselves in the certainly in the short term. But at that stage, the question shouldn't be how does this role fit around my life? It should be how do I use this role to build something valuable? Skills, exposure, reputation, leverage. Because once you've built those things, you almost can design your work in life however you want. But trying to design it before you've built anything, I feel like that's where people are stalling. Stop trying to design the lifestyle, start building the leverage that gives you on. So on my um energy sector heroes podcast, I said there's an opportunity here for young or the for the younger generation, and I suppose remember caveat to that. I'm not actually that far removed from the supposed younger generation, but there's a clear opportunity to almost run over the competition by just working harder and showing some grit and initiative. And I feel like initiative seems to be a dying art, or it's certainly becoming so. And maybe there's a whole other episode that we can do on the importance of initiative. Because for me, I think it it's just a key, key skill that if you you show initiative, you automatically create value, but in reality, it's the starting point for almost anything worthwhile. If you want to build something, change something, create an opportunity for yourself, it starts there. The willingness to move first, achieve something for yourself instead of waiting for it to arrive. And I actually think initiative might be one of the most underrated traits in business right now, because before there's momentum, before there's credibility or leverage, there's usually one thing first: someone deciding to take a step. So if you take anything away from this, it should be this that opportunities don't change your trajectory. What you do with them does. So the people who move fastest aren't the ones always asking for better conditions early. They're the ones quietly building leverage so they don't have to ask for it later. And once you have that leverage, you're not waiting anymore. You're choosing. That's the way I see it. If it resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it.