The worst thing you can do is learn from skeptics and amateurs.
Yet that’s what a lot of people do when they watch mindless advice on platforms like TikTok. For years, I’ve searched for and observed the smartest 1% of people online who make wifi money.
They typically do the opposite of what everyone teaches. That’s why they have uncommon results that allow them to do it full-time.
Here are the principles they live by.
Become the secret apprentice
I know a secret about Tim Ferriss.
Most people think he came out of nowhere and climbed the success ladder with his first book The 4-Hour Work Week.
That’s a lie.
Tim was the secret apprentice of Jack Canfield who wrote the famous book “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Jack helped him get a book agent and taught him the skills to become a best-selling author.
This fact is rarely shared.
We don’t quite know exactly the extent of the help Tim got. But we do know his success was no accident. Through a miracle or sheer brilliance, he got one of the greatest authors of all time to mentor him.
If you haven’t found your version of success, try being a great person’s apprentice. Do it for free if you have to.
Pay $500 an hour for therapy
Nicolas Cole has built an online empire.
I thought I knew him well until I saw a tweet from him. He admitted to having regular $500 an hour therapy for many years (obviously cheaper therapy is fine too).
The wild fact is he paid for this therapy even when he was poor and lived in a student apartment.
The work was far too important. His goal is now to help destigmatize the shame associated with getting therapy.
The thing about successful people is they’re just as broken as anyone else. The difference is they’re not afraid to ask for help and work on themselves.
Getting therapy is a badass move.
It’s normal for nobody to support you
Online creator Aaron Will taught me why people don’t support you.
It’s because supporting someone shows their true colors. And people want to look good. So they are more likely to support you when it’s popular to do so. Expect zero support until you’ve got some results.
The enemy of online success
Alex Hormozi has achieved some wild results online.
What he teaches is to stay away from complexity. Online success isn’t hard, it just takes a helluva lot of consistency.
- Put in the reps
- Build the habit
- Do it for 5 years
That’s how you join the 1%. All the other shortcuts are lies.
Adopt the permissionless mindset
Jack Butcher went from a nobody to an icon on social media through his simple illustrations of common life lessons.
His advice is to take action without someone telling you to. Too many people rely on someone other than themselves to achieve their hopes and dreams. But this gets you nowhere.
You’re always waiting for someone to come and save you. Or gift you a lottery ticket opportunity that hasn’t been earned.
Don’t ask for permission. Just do. Action is where the answers are found.
Success is a dance between two subtle things
My friend Dan Koe says success online is a dance between productivity and creativity. Productivity requires you to break through the brick wall of internal resistance.
Creativity requires you to rest until the idea-dots in your head join and form a breakthrough. If all you do is grind it out, you might break through the resistance, but you’ll likely screw up the rest that produces creativity.
Without creativity all you are is a human doing donkey work, feeling productive, but never getting anywhere online.
Push hard, rest, repeat.
The Sahil Bloom formula
I connected with Sahil for the first time this week. He’s a badass creator that has dominated with powerful tweet threads. His formula is this:
Step 1
How you perform in the darkness.
Anyone can be a high performer when life is all gravy baby. But when life gets hard and tragedy strikes or your best friend dies, that’s the true test. And that’s unfortunately when most people give up.
Step 2
How you perform under the bright lights.
When nobody is watching and you’ve achieved nothing online, it’s easy to be a good boy/girl and judge the actions of others.
The real test is how you behave when online success starts to happen. I’ve achieved a tiny bit over the years and I can sure say it’s a struggle. Staying humble and not getting a big head is a daily battle.
Some days you think you’re the best thing since the invention of the rocket ship. Other days the spotlight is so bright it blinds you and makes you want to hide in a doomsdayer’s bunker.
Master both light and darkness and you’ll have what it takes. And remember: fame is a nightmare.
You’re never too old to blow up online
Creator Dan Go was a nobody.
In 2020 his daughter was born and a global bat virus locked us in our homes. With nothing else to do, he started tweeting at the ripe age of 40.
Two years later he grew a monster following around the fitness niche. His advice is to forget how old you are and shoot your shot. There’s no point waiting to be ready.
Just take the first step.
Quit looking at the stats like a crack addict
The #1 way I’ve seen people fail online is by becoming addicted to the crack that is stats. Content creator Johnny Brown says to focus on your effort instead of the results.
The effort is what you control. The results are mostly out of your hands.
Don’t worry about the clock
James Clear has one of the most popular books of the last decade and a monster email list.
He says success takes way longer than you think.
The longer it takes the more awesome the end result will be. So stop looking at the clock and focus on enjoying the process in the moment.
Bad things make for a better success story
Many people are shy of bad events.
They spend their entire lives never taking a risk and hiding behind human camouflage. They don’t show emotion. Whenever something bad happened to Alex Hormozi he’d repeat this phrase:
“It’ll make for a better success story.”
When I lost a large amount of money I took this quote to heart. My mantra became “this is the cost of success.”
Stories are what drive humans. Stories are what produce success in the first place. So if something bad happens to you then it’s going to level up your story and make for a more interesting journey.
Don’t be angry with negative events. Be thankful for them.
Don’t join one of the greatest loser movements in history
I’ve learned a lot from author Ryan Holiday about stoicism. It’s been the defining factor of his weird version of online success.
Ryan noticed a trend that I’ve also seen. There’s this backlash online with success. We’ve gone backward as an internet culture.
Rather than learn from success, many online have turned to dissing success to get likes and proclaim the end of America.
Ryan says “This backlash against “elites” is so preposterously dumb.”
All the best things in life worth admiring are elite. For us to worship average, or dare I say it, mediocre, is the real tragedy.
Maybe everyone isn’t a success. And maybe some people will choose never to be successful. But to worship the religion of mediocrity seems like a step backward in the evolution of humankind, and I don’t support it.
May as well aim for awesome and fall short than never try and troll people online for a $0 paycheck.
Everything is worse when the idea of average is idolized.
Dare to achieve success before your parents die
Let’s finish with a powerful moment.
Making our parents proud is the best type of motivation there is for online success. My parents are elderly and time with them is running out. I will probably see them less than 50 times again before they die.
This makes me enormously sad. But it drives what I do online.
I want my parents to know their sacrifices are worth something and I took what they taught me about hard work and implemented it.
I hope your parents live long enough to see your eventual online success. If they’ve already passed then I’m sure they’re looking down on you hoping to see you do great things. Make them proud.
