694 Sam Corcos, Co-Founder of Levels — The Ultimate Guide to Virtual Assistants, 10x Delegation, and Winning Freedom by Letting Go (Plus: Creating Leverage with Tools, Systems, and Processes)

This is a Claude AI summary of the Tim Ferriss Podcast #694- visit www.TinyTim.blog for more AI summaries, or www.Tim.blog for the official Tim Ferriss Podcasts.

Here is a summary of the key points from the podcast with Tim Ferriss and Sam Corcos:

- Delegation

- Sam started taking delegation seriously 10 years ago after reading Tim's book The 4-Hour Workweek. He posted an ad on Craigslist for an executive assistant even though he had nothing for them to do at first. This led to hiring his EA Lori who has worked with him for 10 years now.

- Common delegation mistakes include having a bad first experience and not trying again, feeling you don't have enough work for a full-time person, and imposter syndrome. Effective delegation requires clear expectations, good process, and an EA who is proactive.

- Feedback loops and visibility into what your EA is doing is important for building confidence in delegation. Recording your workflow with tools like Loom can help train EAs. Parallel tasking, where you do a task alongside your EA, is another method.

- Onboarding and training is critical for attachment and retention of EAs. Levels has a structured 1-month onboarding program including an "async week" where EAs can only communicate via asynchronous tools like Loom.

- Tools & Systems

- Loom, Notion, Calendly, and internal communication tools are critical for async work and effective delegation. Hotkeys also provide a free productivity boost.

- Having EAs manage social media accounts via a "semi-automated" system where they propose actions helps reduce unwanted inputs.

- Sam uses his calendar as his to-do list to right-size his workload. He keeps 50% of his calendar open for flexibility.

- Information Diet & Mental Models

- Sam practices "news sobriety" and avoids current events, social media, etc. to control inputs and focus on books and learning. This also reduces anxiety.

- Studying theology and network theory during his sabbatical changed Sam's perspective. He now has more appreciation for the positive impacts of religion.

- Sam focuses on "eigenvector centrality" in his network - having connections to different social clusters. He aims for 1,000 personal connections per quarter.

- Hosting "salon" dinners on intellectual topics is another tool for learning and meeting new people. Looms help his EAs assist with invitations and logistics.

- Company Culture

- Levels practices radical transparency - all-hands meetings, founder updates, and even 1-on-1s are recorded and shared publicly. This prevents gossip and misalignment.

- Hiring for culture fit is critical. The interview process reveals aspects of the culture to screen out mismatches early on.

- Memos are used to deeply debate decisions and build confidence in new hires. This facilitates async communication and alignment.

In summary, Sam believes delegation, mental models, information control, systems and transparency are key to his productivity and effectiveness. His experiences provide insights applicable to individuals and organizations.

https://tim.blog/2023/09/20/sam-corcos/