00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 723 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Rob burger, author of retire before mom and dad. I encourage you to find your own journey to true financial freedom. And one way to be inspired to do that is by listening to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader, you can maybe take days off and not worry about it and use those days to do volunteer work and other things.
00:00:37 So no matter how you look at it, you can use money to scale your ability to invest in others directly and indirectly. That's part of what Jared is talking about. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time,
00:01:03 your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. And today's episode about investing in others. By stewarding your time. I talk with you about using money to buy time, how delegation and automation can help do this and why this can be used to scale your ability to invest in others.
00:01:42 As we talk about stewarding your time, wouldn't it be great if you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show,
00:02:03 when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When it comes to finite resources, I would argue that time is sort of the ultimate finite resource. Even more than money time once used once you've spent it in some way cannot be regained. And so by thinking about that, I, I look at time as the resource beyond all others,
00:02:34 where we need to, we need to focus it within. That also includes how we use our energy, how we use our focus. All of this is around how we use our time. That even affects how we use our money. But the truth is money. As a resource can be used to affect what you do with time as well. You can actually use money to buy time in a.
00:02:59 Now don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that you can go out and use money to buy a time machine or, or otherwise multiply your time directly. But how you can use it is by taking that money and investing it in others or in resources that allow you to do one thing while someone else is doing something else for you. If you think about a business in a very real way,
00:03:26 that's why businesses often hire employees. The, the idea here is to spread the work across many different people, thus multiplying the amount that can get done in a certain unit of time. You use many people to multiply time by duplicating the task across many different people. But even if you're just looking at yourself, if you're a solo preneur, maybe you're a stay at home.
00:03:55 Mom. Maybe you're just looking at the time that you spend around your church or something else. No matter how you look at it, no matter which components of your life you look at, they all require a certain amount of time spent. And I would argue that you often want to look at a couple of different things. You want to look at delegation and you want to look at automation.
00:04:21 If there is a task that you are the one doing it, but the truth is it does not require your skills. It does not require your abilities. It does not require your knowledge. Then odds are good. You can either find a way to delegate it to someone else. And that may mean paying someone else to do it. Or you can purchase some sort of tool or device or item that will help automate it.
00:04:48 The truth is delegation and automation are always a key way. You can buy time. Now I am ignoring a third item here, but I want to call it out. And that's elimination. The truth is that almost all of us put way too much on our plate. We spend a lot of time doing things that in truth, we shouldn't be doing it all.
00:05:12 It's not that we should delegate it or automate it. We should eliminate it. We should say no to it completely. So if you're auditing your time, the first step is find those things that you can eliminate. The things that you've said yes to and allowed onto your time, allowed into your life, allowed onto your calendar, allowed onto your, to do list,
00:05:33 whatever it is that you need to eliminate, you need to get rid of. But once you've done that initial pruning, then you want to go back and look for those things that are ripe for delegation and automation. And if you can, you can use money either by purchasing automation tools or by paying someone and delegating tasks to them. Now you have to do it effectively.
00:06:00 You have to do it efficiently. One of the things I see people do and I'm guilty of it, myself is I'll spend a lot of money on an automation tool and then I'll never actually implement it. Or if you have hired someone to delegate to you, then don't give them the work because you're worried about them not doing it. Well, that just means you're not spending the time,
00:06:19 training them well enough to do it, or you haven't hired the right person. So the truth is delegation. Is it? Automation are not quick fixes and they're not automatic, but both of them can be used to scale your ability to invest in others. You know, Jared and I on Monday, we're talking about time, freedom. And the reason why that's so important when it comes to investing in others,
00:06:45 because one of the best ways to invest in others is by the time we spend with them much more than just handing someone money, investing time and energy into them is almost always going to be more effective in really growing them. And we can use money to give ourselves time freedom through delegation and automation, and of course, elimination as well, because see,
00:07:15 even elimination works with money in some ways, because there is a certain degree to which as you gain financial independence, it becomes easier to say no to other things because you don't need to spend as much time and energy in those components any longer, you become more in control of your own schedule. C financial engines dependence gives us the ability to walk into.
00:07:45 Even if you have a career, if you have a job, you down longer have the mindset of, Oh my goodness, what happens if I get fired? What happens if I lose this job? And it allows you to be free to say things that maybe you wouldn't have said, do things that maybe you wouldn't have done and believe it or not,
00:08:05 that usually actually ends up in getting you promoted, not fired because having that freedom of mindset usually makes you more effective, not less effective. It's a positive feedback loop. It allows me then purchase time. Because again, you don't have to work as many hours. You know, I have to go to work as regularly. Yes, you can maybe take days off and not worry about it and use those days do volunteer work and other things.
00:08:36 So no matter how you look at it, you can use money to scale your ability to invest in others directly and indirectly. That's part of what Jared is talking about when he says that the goal is one of financial independence. It's not. So we can sit and just lay back and take it easy and do nothing. But it's because it gives us more flexibility and freedom.
00:09:05 And out of that flexibility and freedom, we are called to then help and serve others more than we can do. If we're not free, it's very hard when you're a slave to time to actually spend the time to invest and help and serve others. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener,
00:09:41 we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series, by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four, four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time,
00:10:19 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.