“Money doesn’t matter. Time with your kids is all that does.”
Sounds cute.
This cliché advice gets shot out of bazookas aimed straight at our faces. It’s supposed to make us feel guilty.
Money isn’t important, is it? Bulldust.
What these Batman and Wonder Woman types don’t tell you is a lack of money can cause mental illness, loads of trauma, and obliterate your self-esteem.
It all boils down to this…
We can’t think clearly in survival mode.
Survival mode is bloody hard work. It takes up all your free time. Your creativity goes to rock bottom. You’re in a constant state of outrage for landing yourself in this nasty situation.
How do I know?
I’m the king of rock bottom.
Waiting outside the supermarket first thing in the morning to get $1.50 canned soup on special because I was broke is a life I know all too well. It sucks balls. Don’t let the fools cause you to end up in survival mode.
Money matters. A lot.
This time in history is more important than ever
Money is more important to think about than ever. The global economy has caught a cold. Finance expert Arun Mukherjee explains.
“7.5% inflation and 0% interest rates! You would think it is an emerging market with poor institutional governance. It is the (USA)!.”
Pretty strange, huh?
The value of your money is melting faster than an ice cube. Interest rates are zero which means something is drastically wrong — and things need to change fast. A financial pandemic has begun.
Who sneezes first is a big mystery. But understanding money and working on your money game will help provide the vaccine.
Let’s cut the foreplay and get into it.
1. Turn off struggle p*rn
There’s a trend where people go online to complain about their lives. They don’t do anything about it. They just complain.
Adult babies.
We can all relate to this struggle content — that’s why it’s so freaking addictive. “America will crumble. Bezos is going to be the death of the economy.”
But struggle p*rn keeps you down. All the complaining destroys your ability to live and earn a decent income.
My life changed when I stopped listening to ‘struggle’ rap
And started listening to ‘wealth’ rap — Tej Dosa
Author Paulo Coelho that wrote The Alchemist says “If it costs you your peace,
it’s too expensive.” Follow his advice.
Don’t let no oxygen thief rob you blind with struggle content.
2. Where to start if you have no clue
That’s the biggest question of them all. A new trend that won’t leave you broke provides the answer.
It’s called “build in public.”
It’s where you attempt to make money online in public. As you learn in real time you share the lessons. You document the story as you go.
Side hustler Easlo started figuring out Notion (a notes app) in public a little over a year ago.
In the process, he learned many people need templates to use the software. So, he built the templates in public and sold them. The guy’s gone from no clue how to make money online to a top earner on Twitter.
2.2. Another kickass option
When I started online I had no idea how to trade in my canned soup for vegan tacos with hot sauce.
By mistake (because I’m not that smart) I built a community through writing. You can always figure out the money part later.
Too many people start with the goal to build a business. Then they end up overselling or making average people feel like numbers in a spreadsheet.
Side hustler Jack Butcher busted my head open with this picture.
Caption: Customers versus Communities
When the dots between people in your community join, what happens is, when you sell a product or service the community spreads it faster through word of mouth. You don’t have to fight for every sale.
The product gets announced and then the community self-select and tell each other about it. It’s a new way of making money online.
Once you see the power of community, you can’t unsee it.
3. Learn the trifecta of awesomeness
Side hustler Dakota Robertson says to “learn writing, sales, and psychology and you will never go broke.”
These skills aren’t hard to learn. Teachable or Skillshare can teach them to you in no time at all.
If you understand writing, you know how to communicate simply.
If you understand sales, you know how to influence people to buy into an idea you have. If you understand psychology, you know how humans think and will avoid doing dumb stuff like:
- Overselling
- Asking too much
- Being full of self-interest when you ask
- Becoming full of envy and turning into a painful critic
- Listening to huge egos bigger than Kanye West’s
Build your uncommon online skill stack.
Skill stack = Money
4. This makes you freaking rich
How to get rich (according to Twitter via Zain Kahn):
• Take ice baths.
• Fast 16 hours a day.
• Buy stonks and sh*tcoins.
• Listen to audiobooks at 5x speed.
• Inherit $10 million from your parents.
None of this is the answer. Execute. Make something happen.
If you have Wi-Fi you’re opportunity-rich.
Now it’s time to do something with that one advantage you’ve probably been overlooking (I know I did for years). An internet connection equals a hidden advantage. You’re privileged and forgot.
Turn privilege into something beautiful.
5. You’re probably overthinking it (accidentally)
When Gordon Ramsay goes into a failing restaurant
One of the first things he does is “simplify” the Menu
Because Amateurs always think complex is king
Experts always try and simplify — Lawrence King
It’s the #1 mistake I see. Earning more money to make your life better isn’t that hard. It just looks that way from a distance.
Start with what’s simple.
If you like writing then write on a platform that pays you. If you want to sell widgets then set up an eCommerce store with Shopify. If you like filming videos then create a YouTube channel.
I like writing. Short-form is my favorite. So, I’ve gone all in on Twitter.
Allow your name to pop up somewhere online. It’s that damn simple.
6. Think of money like this from now on
Money is a measurement of your time.
You give up time to earn money and when that truth hits your brain hard, everything changes. The idea hit my brain last year.
I realized I was giving up a lot of time to earn money at a boring job.
Wasting time equals wasting your life.
This led me to quit my job. My life will never be the same again. The same lesson applies to you. Don’t waste your life.
7. What making money online looks like (no BS)
All of this advice is baloney if you can’t see it in action. My friend Andy will share his journey with us to demonstrate.
My YouTube income per month:
2020:
All year: $0
2021:
Jan: $30
Feb: $937
Mar: $2.4k
Apr: $5.2k
May: $5.7k
Jun: $4k
Jul: $6.1k
Aug: $9k
Sep: $11k
Oct: $8.6k
Nov: $11.7k
Dec: $6.2k
2022:
Jan: $31k
Most people give up before they break through.
Don’t be those people.
For one whole year he made $0 from Youtube. Read that again.
How many people can do that and not give up? Not many. But once you know what making money online looks like it’s easier. Expect no money at the start and you’ll make more than you think later on.
There’s a threshold of participation with any online journey. Stick around long enough to collect your paycheck.
How to measure if it’s working
Are you making a difference in people’s lives?
If yes, then keep going. If no, iterate.
Why bother with all of this?
This path I speak of will eventually lead you to full or partial financial freedom. What’s the point?
As the money side of life starts to work for you, rather than against you, there’s an ability to avoid people you don’t want to be around. Some of those people, for me, were dictator bosses.
I realized most of my stress came from just a few people.
They were the people that could sustain my paycheck or nuke it whenever they felt like it (even for fun).
Once you use the internet to become more self-sustainable, there isn’t a heavy reliance anymore on these pains in the butt hole.
Money helps remove bad people who you used to let abuse you.
Ignore me and this happens
Of course you’re free to ignore all of this and light the article on fire with a cigarette lighter. No probs.
You can take the risk of making money online. Or you can do the same sh*t for the rest of your life.
Choice is yours.
Hard choice, easy life. Easy choice, hard life spent in survival mode.
Closing Thought
More money = simpler life
More money = less stress
More money = dealing with less psychos
Money IS important. It buys back your time. Time buys you solutions to many of the worst problems in life.
