Newsletter #32 - What do Dell & Estée Lauder have in common?

What do Dell & Estée Lauder have in common?

Michael Dell was taking apart computers before he could drive. At 13, he was dismantling IBM PCs in his bedroom.

His first president, Lee Walker, immediately saw what set Dell apart:

"What Michael Dell does is so natural to him and flows so spontaneously that it looks like he takes a low-key approach. He has so clear a vision of where he is headed that he can rise above the background noise."

This wasn't just Dell. Look at Estée Lauder.

As a child, she turned her uncle's skincare formulas into a makeshift laboratory in her family's home. Before her empire existed, she was giving spontaneous makeovers to random women on subways and in stranger's homes.

Or Ken Griffin, who installed a satellite dish on his Harvard dorm roof to trade bonds in real-time.

Who does that? Someone who found their inevitable path.

Success is the natural outcome of obsession.

But what about the rest of us without an obvious childhood passion?

Ask yourself 3 simple questions:

→ Which parts of my work feel irresistible?

→ What tasks do I get lost in?

→ What problems do I solve even when nobody's asking?

These are clues to your competitive advantage.

Smart delegation is less about offloading work and more about creating space for these inevitable areas where you shine effortlessly.

The work you gravitate toward without even thinking.

Quick Asks

Every ping, buzz, and "got a minute?" comes with a productivity cost.

For example…

• A client texts their CPA: “Can you check if my estimated tax payment went through?”
• An ENT physician receives a call from a friend, they're not a VIP patient, but their kid needs his ears checked.

These interruptions seem small, but each one fragments your attention and carries a heavy context-switching penalty.

In fact, UC Irvine found that it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully regain focus after an interruption.

One effective solution: delegate these requests to your assistant, who acts as a bodyguard for your time; they’re close enough to intercept distractions yet careful with your personal space.

In practical terms, this means setting clear processes. Email is straightforward and typically triaged by your assistant, but direct calls or texts may require proactive planning. You could:

• Quickly screenshot the request and forward it to your assistant, who can either handle them directly or batch them for your review. An advanced approach is committing to never directly reply to micro-requests in real-time. Instead, rely on an assistant-led "daily sweep" (e.g., a quick, 15-minute daily triage call) for batched decision-making.
• Grant your assistant full access to all your DMs with apps like Texts; this takes you out of the initial response loop and you only step in after they've handled the vetting.

As your assistant triages requests, encourage them to suggest improvements when patterns emerge. For instance, an Athena ENT physician recently trained their assistant in electronic health record (EHR) scheduling, enabling independent handling of patient inquiries.