“Profit” sounds like capitalism.
The scaries in the comments section are going to run for their axes and have my head for saying profit. “Making money is evil, m’kay.” Whatevs. We need to eat. There’s no time for petty capitalism arguments.
The thing about money is it’s not a game of privilege, skills, or business acumen. Nope. Money is one of those things that looks like one reality but is actually an entirely different one. Let me explain.
The world wants you mad
Right now is crazy season.
Wars in the Middle East, an upcoming U.S. election, AI taking over the world. There isn’t a more insane time in history and we’re stuck in the middle trying to make sense of it all through our phone screen.
It’s easy to be offended, outraged, or want to throw a brick at the TV. Some say we’re in the information age. I say the information age is dead because we’re drowning in information overload and no one can make sense of it.
Our attentions are put through a blender every day. It’s a wonder we can even wake up in the morning.
Spending our lives with a lot of negativity makes us easier to manipulate for someone else’s profit. It’s time to change that.
The profitable habit you can start
No more stalling.
The best habit you can start, with all that’s going on in the world, is to see the world slightly better than it is.
Notice I said “slightly?” That’s because you don’t need to be some angel in white who goes to church and has people bless the ground you walk on. All you have to do is see the world slightly better than it is.
Examples:
- “A recession is here” becomes “stocks are on discount.”
- “My industry is collapsing because of AI” becomes “AI will probably change my industry for the better so I can do more important work.”
- “There’s a war” becomes “there will always be war.”
There’s no real positive thinking required to master this habit. You simply contrast the bad with the good.
Here’s where things get out of control
I’m going to layer on some powerful concepts here to take this idea to the next level.
Personal profit is the result of solving problems. How do you solve problems when all you do is create problems or get trapped by other people’s problems in faraway lands? You can’t.
So you must see the world better than it is and move from problems to solutions. That’s where Eric Thomas’s idea of “Leave the world slightly better than it is” comes in.
A month ago I was on a plane mid-air.
I had to take a leak. I ran to the bathroom and the tiny space the toilet occupied made me piss on the seat.
I had two options:
- Walk out and let the next person worry about it.
- Clean the seat with toilet paper, spray some air freshener, wipe the sink, and leave the toilet better than I found it.
You know where I’m going with this. I chose to leave the toilet better than I found it. The next dude who walked in had a smile on his face when he saw how clean the toilet was.
The story doesn’t end there…
He sat back down next in front of me and smiled. We started to chat. Turns out he messed around on the internet, too, like me. We exchanged email addresses. A few days later he emailed me.
He wanted some feedback on his business. It was a big business. He ran a large digital agency. We started passing ideas back and forth. Before I knew it, he was asking if I wanted to be his business partner. Or if I wanted a seat on the board of directors (with a 6-figure compensation package).
If I take him up on his offer, then me cleaning my piss off the toilet seat has a 6-figure (minimum) payday. Turns out seeing the world slightly better than it is and leaving the world better than it is — is pretty profitable.
It doesn’t end there.
When you have a positive encounter with one person and make their world slightly better than it is, it creates a ripple effect. Your actions are infectious. They spread like a virus.
So you don’t need to brag or promote yourself. Word spreads about the kind of person you are and what you do.
There’s a third opportunity you can layer in over the top if you really want to create a profitable habit. It’s called pay it forward.
You can do kind things for sh*ts and giggles for people who can never repay you. I know you’ve heard of paying it forward before.
It’s where you pay for the person’s coffee behind you. Or gift a homeless person a motel room for a while so they can get back on their feet. Or you buy a used car for a person who lost everything in a bushfire.
The key here is you don’t ask them to repay the favor. You tell them to take this kind act and do it for someone else. It doesn’t have to be at the same scale or involve the same amount of money.
It just has to be a kind act for someone else.
Bringing it all together
I’m not telling you to be a positive panda.
The point of this article is to encourage you to find the good in every situation. Then to use that good to leave the world better than you found it and perhaps pay it forward to the next person.
If you can do these simple things, the world becomes insanely profitable and money/opportunities will always find you.
If you don’t do these things, you fall for negativity and that leads to “poor me” and selfishness. This makes you a ghost. People want to get as far away from you as possible. And that makes life 10x harder. Instead of making a profit, you’ll always be bankrupt.
Choose wisely.
