The 828% Return Most Leaders Will Never Collect

Some people look like they're cheating at life.

You watch them operate, and it doesn't add up. Same 24 hours. Same market conditions. Same tools.

But they're producing at a rate that makes you feel like you showed up to a gunfight with a pool noodle.

They're not smarter. They're not luckier. They're not working harder.

They found their Easy Mode.

The Speed Reading Study That Changes Everything

In the 1950s, Donald Clifton ran a study at the University of Nebraska that should have rewritten how we think about performance.

He took two groups of high school sophomores. The first group read at about 90 words per minute. Average.

The second group? 350 words per minute. Natural talent. Same age, same school, same everything else.

Both groups went through the exact same speed-reading course. Same investment of time. Same instruction. Same effort.

The average reader improved to about 150 words per minute.

A 66% gain. Respectable. Nothing to sneeze at.

The naturally talented readers? They hit 2,900 words per minute. That's not a typo.

An 828% improvement from the same training the other group received.

Same investment. Wildly different returns.

This is what happens when you invest in strength instead of grinding against weakness. The ROI isn't linear. It's exponential.

...and here's the part that should keep you up at night: Clifton estimated that fewer than 10% of those gifted readers even knew they were gifted.

To them, reading fast was normal. They had no idea they were sitting on a superpower.

Which means you probably don't either.

Why Most Leaders Are Playing on Hard Mode

Gallup has spent decades and billions of data points proving something that feels obvious once you hear it but almost nobody acts on: people who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged at work.

Teams that focus on strengths show 12.5% greater productivity.

When managers focus on employee strengths, active disengagement drops to 1%.

One percent.

Yet most of us spend the majority of our working lives trying to shore up weaknesses.

We take courses on things we're bad at. We force ourselves into roles that fight our wiring. We grind through tasks that drain us because we think hard work is supposed to feel hard.

It's not.

Hard work done in your Easy Mode doesn't feel like work at all. It feels like breathing.

That's the contrarian truth nobody wants to hear. The grind culture, the "embrace the suck" mentality, the hustle-porn on your feed. It all assumes that suffering is the price of success. Sometimes it is.

But the people at the top? They figured out how to suffer less by doing more of what they were already built to do.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (the psychologist, not a sneeze) spent 40 years studying what he called "flow."

The state where you're so absorbed in what you're doing that time bends. Self-consciousness disappears.

Performance goes through the roof.

A 10-year McKinsey study found that executives in flow are 500% more productive than their baseline. Not 5%. Five hundred percent. The same study showed that most knowledge workers spend only about 5% of their working hours in flow.

Do the math. If you could move from 5% to 20% of your time in flow, your overall productivity would close to double. Not by working longer. Not by trying harder. By doing more of the right things.

Flow happens most often when your skills match the challenge in front of you. When the activity has clear goals, immediate feedback, and requires skills you've developed through practice.

In other words: flow lives in your Easy Mode.

My Easy Mode

I'll tell you mine so you can start finding yours.

I'm a creator. I consume massive amounts of information, and I'm wired to boil complex ideas down into frameworks people can use today.

I write. I speak. I build narratives and stories. I record podcasts. I get on stage.

When I'm creating, I don't look at the clock. I don't feel drained. I produce more in three focused hours than most people produce in a week.

Not because I'm better...

...because I'm operating in the zone where my natural talent meets a skill I've spent 15 years sharpening.

I'm also a strong leader, a capable salesperson, and a competent business operator.

But those are learned skills that require effort.

Creating doesn't require effort. It requires showing up. The work does itself.

That distinction matters.

When I was running Rogue Risk, the parts that lit me up weren't managing operations or processing policies.

They were building the brand, creating the content, telling the story. The operational grind was necessary. But it was Hard Mode for me. I could do it. I just paid a tax every time I did.

This is why I've spent serious time building out my OpenClaw AI agent, Maximum Effort.

Max handles the operational work that pulls me out of my Easy Mode.

• Podcast guest research.

• Outreach workflows.

• Content distribution.

The orchestration layer that would otherwise eat my creative hours.

I didn't build Max because I'm lazy. I built Max because every hour I spend on operations is an hour stolen from the zone where I produce 10x results.

That's the real unlock of AI for leaders. Not automation for automation's sake. Automation that keeps you in your Easy Mode longer.

READ NEXT: The Last Competitive Advantage AI Can't Copy

The 3 Signs You've Found Your Easy Mode

Not everything that's easy is your Easy Mode. Watching Netflix is easy. Scrolling your phone is easy. That's not what we're talking about.

Your Easy Mode has three markers:

1. Disproportionate Output.

You produce results that surprise other people. They can't figure out how you did it that fast, or that well, with what appears to be minimal effort.

The Nebraska readers didn't feel like they were reading fast. It was just... reading. To them, it was normal. To everyone else, it looked like sorcery.

2. Energy Creation, Not Energy Drain.

Hard Mode tasks cost energy. Easy Mode tasks create it.

After a three-hour writing session, I have more energy than when I started. After a three-hour operations meeting, I need a nap and possibly a drink. Track where your energy goes. That's the signal.

3. Loss of Time Awareness.

Csikszentmihalyi's signature finding. When you're in flow, time distorts. You look up and two hours have passed.

This doesn't happen when you're doing things you're merely competent at. It happens when natural talent meets real challenge in an activity you care about.

If all three of those markers are present, you've found something worth building your entire career around.

How AI Helps You Find (and Stay In) Your Easy Mode

Here's where this gets practical.

Most people use AI to do things faster. That's fine.

But the real power play is using AI to figure out what you should be doing in the first place. And then using it to eliminate everything that pulls you away from that thing.

I built three prompts that walk you through this process.

Think of them as an onboarding wizard for finding your Easy Mode.

I use Claude for this work because it handles nuance and follow-up questions better than anything else I've tested. But these will work in any capable model.

The prompts build on each other. Run them in order.

Prompt 1: The Easy Mode Discovery Prompt

Copy and paste this into Claude. Answer its questions honestly. Don't overthink it.

You are a performance strategist and executive coach specializing in strengths-based performance optimization. Your job is to help me identify my "Easy Mode" — the specific activities where my natural talent creates disproportionate results with less perceived effort.

Walk me through this process one question at a time. Wait for my answer before asking the next question. Be direct. No fluff. Challenge me if my answers are vague.

Here are the questions to work through:

1. Think about the last 90 days. What tasks or activities consistently produced your best results — the work that got the most positive feedback, moved the needle hardest, or felt like your "A-game"? List 3-5 specific examples.

2. Of those examples, which ones did you lose track of time doing? Which ones left you with MORE energy than when you started?

3. Now think about the opposite. What tasks drain you the most — even if you're competent at them? What work feels like pushing a boulder uphill?

4. When you were a kid (ages 8-14), what did people constantly compliment you on or come to you for help with? What did you do for fun that other kids didn't seem as drawn to?

5. If you had to teach someone one skill — the thing you could explain better than almost anyone you know — what would it be?

After I answer all five questions, analyze my responses and identify:
- My top 1-3 Easy Mode zones (be specific, not generic)
- The pattern connecting them (what underlying talent ties them together)
- The "Hard Mode" activities I should be delegating, automating, or eliminating
- A one-sentence "Easy Mode statement" I can use as a filter for future decisions

Format the output as a clear, actionable brief. No corporate jargon. Write it like you're talking to a founder over coffee.

Prompt 3: The Easy Mode Amplification Prompt

Once you know your Easy Mode, this prompt helps you restructure your week around it. This is where AI goes from mirror to architect.

You are an operational strategist helping a founder restructure their work around their highest-value zone.

Here is my Easy Mode profile:
[PASTE YOUR RESULTS FROM PROMPT 1 HERE]

Here is my current weekly schedule and responsibilities:
[DESCRIBE YOUR TYPICAL WEEK: meetings, recurring tasks, projects, admin work, creative work, etc.]

Now do the following:

1. AUDIT: Categorize every activity in my week as Easy Mode (high-talent, high-energy), Necessary Hard Mode (required but draining), or Eliminate/Delegate (low value, anyone could do this).

2. REDESIGN: Create a revised weekly structure that maximizes my Easy Mode hours. Be specific about time blocks. Protect my highest-energy hours for Easy Mode work. Stack draining tasks into compressed windows.

3. AUTOMATE: For each "Eliminate/Delegate" task, suggest whether it should be delegated to a person, automated with AI, or killed entirely. For AI automation suggestions, be specific about what tool or workflow would handle it.

4. MEASURE: Give me 3 metrics I can track weekly to know if I'm spending more time in Easy Mode than last week. Keep them simple — something I can assess in under 60 seconds.

5. PROTECT: Write me 3 scripts (exact words) I can use to decline meetings, projects, or requests that pull me into Hard Mode. Make them professional but firm.

Format this as a clear action plan I can implement starting Monday.

Prompt 5: The Easy Mode Decision Filter

This is the one you keep forever. Use it every time you're facing a new opportunity, project, hire, or commitment.

You are my strategic advisor. I'm going to describe a decision I'm facing. Your job is to evaluate it through my Easy Mode filter.

My Easy Mode statement: [PASTE YOUR ONE-SENTENCE EASY MODE STATEMENT FROM PROMPT 1]

My Easy Mode zones: [PASTE YOUR TOP 1-3 ZONES FROM PROMPT 1]

The decision I'm facing: [DESCRIBE THE OPPORTUNITY, PROJECT, COMMITMENT, OR HIRE]

Evaluate this decision against five criteria:

1. ALIGNMENT: How much of this opportunity lives in my Easy Mode? Score it 1-10 with a one-line explanation.

2. ENERGY FORECAST: Based on what you know about my Easy Mode and Hard Mode patterns, will this decision create energy or drain it over the next 90 days?

3. OPPORTUNITY COST: What Easy Mode work will I have to sacrifice to take this on? Is the trade worth it?

4. DELEGATION PATH: Could someone else handle the Hard Mode components of this opportunity while I focus on the Easy Mode parts? If yes, describe the split.

5. 10X TEST: If I went all-in on this, is there a realistic path to 10x results? Or is this a linear-return activity disguised as an opportunity?

Give me a final recommendation: TAKE IT, MODIFY IT, or PASS. One paragraph. No hedging. Tell me what you'd tell your best friend.

The Prompt Numbering Is Intentional

You'll notice the prompts are numbered 1, 3, and 5.

Odd numbers only.

That's a Finding Peak thing.

...but there's a deeper reason.

The gaps between prompts are where YOUR work happens.

Between Prompt 1 and Prompt 3, you sit with what you learned. You test it against reality. You notice where it's right and where it misses.

Between Prompt 3 and Prompt 5, you implement the redesigned week.

You feel the difference before you start filtering future decisions through it.

AI gives you the map. You still have to walk the terrain.

The Real Unlock

Most productivity advice tells you to do more, faster, better.

Easy Mode tells you to do different.

• Stop brute-forcing your way through a calendar full of Hard Mode activities.

• Stop treating every weakness as something to fix.

• Stop wearing the grind like a badge of honor when the grind is a sign you're operating in the wrong zone.

The Nebraska readers who went from 350 to 2,900 words per minute didn't try harder. They trained the thing they were already built to do.

The average readers who went from 90 to 150 worked just as hard. Same class. Same teacher. Same hours.

Different returns. By a factor of 12.

Find your Easy Mode. Build your life around it. Use AI to protect it.

Do this today:

• Run Prompt 1 tonight. Give honest answers. Don't perform for the AI.

• Block your three highest-energy hours tomorrow for Easy Mode work only. No meetings. No Slack. No "quick questions."

• Identify one recurring Hard Mode task you can eliminate, automate, or hand off this week. Just one.

You don't need permission to stop doing things that drain you.

You need the clarity to see what's been in front of you all along.

This is the way.

Hanley

P.S. I use Claude as my daily AI tool for this kind of work. It handles the nuance of self-discovery conversations better than anything else I've tested. But the prompts above will work in any capable model. The important thing isn't the tool. It's running the process.

P.P.S. If you want to see how I've built my entire operational layer around Easy Mode, check out what I'm doing with Maximum Effort (Max), my AI Chief of Staff...make sure you're subscribed to the newsletter: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe