Those who come to me and say, “You know, I work 15 hours a day,” I say, “I am not interested.” I am interested in the quality of working hours, not the quantity. The brain of the human being. Do you think that during the first five hours of the day you are the same as you are in the last five hours? No way. You’re tired, and if you’re tired, you stop listening, and the decisions you make are risky. – Brunello Cucinelli
Person A can work 12 hours a day and make $50K a year.
Person B can work 1 hour a day and make $5 million a year.
The difference is skill, leverage, and understanding – not how hard, long, or organized you work.
People are doing this right now, meaning it is possible, and your complaining about how unfair it is won’t change that fact.
I made the most money in my life when I was working 2-4 hours a day.
Some people don’t believe me when I say that, usually because they lack perspective and skill, and like to close their mind to anything that doesn’t align with what their parents told them was possible.
How was I able to work only 2-4 hours a day?
Because I was quick to realize what my highest-leverage tasks were. I quite literally ignored everything else.
When I first started, I didn’t have 2-4 hours a day. I had one. And how I spent that hour was crucial for where I ended up.
Most people think they need to grind out 12-hour days like the delusional archetype of an entrepreneur does.
First, most entrepreneurs don’t do that unless they want to.
Second, almost nobody can start with 12 hours a day. People have responsibilities. You need to start with 1 hour, and you can drastically change your life in 365 hours.
Now, for beginners, this wouldn’t have been possible even 20 years ago, so I understand why most people don’t believe it.
Cultural beliefs are dominated by the oldest generations.
And, studies show that an adults brain crystallizes around the age of 25 unless they adopt personal development work as a part of their life (most people don’t, it’s not hard to see that). This partially explains why many 16-25-year-olds are making baffling amounts of money on the internet because they don’t have beliefs that limit them from doing the work.
The boomers control the majority of the global belief system by conditioning their children, teaching in schools, preaching in churches, and governing in politics. It’s not until they pass on that a major cultural shift will happen, and work times will decrease across the board because people wake up to the fact that they don’t need to slave away for 40-100 hours a week on something they hate.
On the other hand, I was somewhat of a rebel as a teenager. I have a feeling a lot of you are too. Many of us share similar personality types. That’s why many of you follow and resonate with what I say.
I started freelancing to control how long I worked.
I realized I still don’t control my time with client work.
I saw the opportunity of social media to build an audience of people.
I acted like a one-person media company and started writing, then diversifying into video.
I built products with no marginal cost of replication, like ebooks, courses, planners, templates, systems, and now software.
So, people ask how I earn a few million a year working on average* 2-4 hours a day?
It’s not too hard to wrap your head around.
Over 5 years, I’ve grown to a few million followers across social media.
To continue growing, I write posts and newsletters for an hour or two in the morning. I spend about an hour a week turning that content into a YouTube video as taught in 2 Hour Writer.
If you understand business, you understand you need people and a product.
Social media is where people come from in today’s digital world because that’s where the attention is right now. In the past it was mostly in the newspaper, on the radio, and on TV.
If it takes me a few hours of writing to continue growing my audience, and I have products that require close-to-zero work on my end to fulfill, then yea, that’s all the work I have to do for the day.
If I can convert a small percentage of the 10-20 million impressons I get each month on a $150 product, I’ll let you do the math.
Seriously, do the math on .001% of that many impressions.
Now, tell me you can’t replace your income within 6-12 months with 1 hour a day of high-leverage work.
*There are times where I work longer than 2-4 hours. Like the early stages of Kortex, or when I’m building a new product, or when I just feel like it. 2-4 hours a day is an average number. My businesses run on my ability to wake up and write well for 2 hours every morning.
Before we dig in, Mental Monetization launches on June 3rd (a little over 1 week). The pre-sale price increases on that date. If you want to monetize your creative work with a digital product that sells while you sleep, check it out.
The 3 Forms Of Leverage
As many of you know, Naval Ravikant has had a major impact on my life.
He perfectly resembles the philosophical understanding and business acumen that I strive to have.
I’ve been revisiting some of his best ideas and came across what he considers the 3 forms of leverage.
The first is labor.
The second is capital.
The third is products with no marginal cost of replication.
To start, why should you care about leverage when it comes to changing your life?
Because “Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it.“
And if you only have 1 hour a day, that becomes even more important. You need to know exactly what to work on, who to work with, and how both fit into the puzzle piece of a digital world overflowing with opportunity.
1) Labor As Leverage
Labor was useful in the past, but in today’s world, it isn’t wise to bank on it for success.
Labor is one massive problem that has contributed most to our society’s evolution.
Nobody loves to work. Especially on tasks that they don’t find interesting, enjoyable, or that contribute to any meaningful end goal.
So, almost unconsciously, technology advanced to the point where most people are worried they are going to lose their labor jobs to automation and AI. The massive problem of labor is almost solved. Thanks, Universe. We can soon transcend as a collective to the mental and integrate the physical. Ideas are the new oil, as we will discuss in next week’s letter.
Technology has enabled million-dollar one-person businesses and creators who have full control over what they work on and how long they work.
Labor as leverage means that you employ others to work for you. There are a few problems with this.
One is that everyone wants to be the “top player.” Everyone wants equity no matter how skilled they are. It’s all a volatile status game.
Two is complimentary in that most people know they can learn anything, build anything, and make a digital business profitable with the skill set they develop. They no longer have to rely on an employer to give them the resources to get rich. It’s all available to them online with free and specific information like content and courses, no-code tools, and the ability to connect with anyone.
Labor can still work, but there are better options.
2) Capital As Leverage
Labor has been around since the first biological being entered this grand game of survival.
Capital is a more recent invention.
In essence, capital as leverage means that you can spend money to make more money.
You can invest in businesses, real estate, stocks, or crypto.
You can invest in resources that take work off of your hands.
You can invest in information that allows you to avoid costly mistakes, make better decisions, and become more efficient with your time.
You spend money to make more money.
The problem is that most people are broke in more areas than finances.
They don’t have enough cash flow to make investments that pay them anything notable.
Even worse, they get locked into a mindset thinking that putting aside a few hundred dollars a month and budgeting away every lost penny is going to make them rich.
Even even worse, they think they can get rich quick off of new opportunities like crypto with the allowance their mom gave them.
These have their place, of course, but in my eyes, they’re quite stupid and uneducated decisions.
Why would I save a few hundred dollars a month to make 1 million in 40 years because of the scarcity mindset my parents gave me when I am well aware that average people are starting internet businesses and making that much in 1-3 years of focused effort?
Then, when and only when I have ample cash flow, I can use capital as leverage to compound my earnings.
Rather than waiting 40 years for stock prices to rise (and letting inflation catch up), I want to make a few million a year with a business I see as my life’s work and turn that into 10s of millions by the time I’m 40.
In conclusion, capital as leverage is great, but not for beginners.
That leads us into our final option. One that you should not take lightly. One that you should not see as “just a phase.”
3) Digital Products As Leverage
It’s a digital-first world. Physical is now a premium product. – Balaji
Physical, then digital, then native digital. – Balaji
First, what is a product?
A product is an item, good, or creation that people can consume.
A product is what stands between the consumer and the creator.
Physical products have their limits, like shipping costs, manufacturing costs, and entropy costs (like perishable goods and books that get beat up).
A digital product, on the other hand, falls in line with Naval’s definition of “no marginal cost of replication.”
A digital product is the epitome of “build once, sell twice.”
Digital products include but are not limited to:
- Code
- Movies
- Articles
- Podcasts
- Content
- Newsletters
- Courses
- eBooks
In a nutshell, it’s media and code.
All of these can be monetized, even something like a paid podcast, blog, or newsletter, but those often aren’t the best ways to go about monetizing.
My advice:
Take whatever route you’re most curious about, but understand that media is often a more important skill than code. I think this is where Naval and I disagree, he’s on the code side.
Code is the money maker at the end of the day, but that money can’t be made without media and The Future Proof Skill Stack. If you aren’t the entrepreneur controlling the vision of the media and code, your income is still dependent on the one who is.
A programmer can build the best app on the internet, but if they don’t attract people with media (content, podcasts, emails, courses, etc) how are they going to get users? That code will disappear into the void and provide value to no one aside from maybe yourself.
The Focused Work Routine Of The New Rich
The mind craves order.
Order comes from the alignment of identity, beliefs, goals, routines, habits, and feedback that you are progressing toward your goals.
This is human nature.
The problem is when we do not create who we are.
At birth, you know nothing.
Then, as you age, your parents, teachers, and peers program your mind to help you survive in the environment you are in.
Don’t underestimate the power of those statements.
You think you know things when all you know is what other people have told you when those people also knew nothing when they were born. You’re living in a groundless intellectual structure called society and don’t realize that you can change the code your mind operates on to achieve a higher quality of life.
“Dan, you’re not making any sense, what does this mean?”
It means that you naturally gravitate toward the order and comfort your identity was programmed to love.
You know it’s not good for your future, but you do it anyway.
- You go to school, get a job, and continue going to that job regardless of how unfulfilling it is.
- You surround yourself with the same physical and digital information that confirms who you currently are, not who you want to be. (Follow new people if you want to begin reprogramming your mind).
- Anything outside of what you believe is seen as a threat and you have an emotional mind-closing reaction that prevents you from seeing the truth of any situation.
When you study human nature, identity, and psychology it becomes quite obvious what the difference is between the lions (1%) and the sheep (99%).
The lions hurl themselves into the unknown, completely rip themselves from anything they thought they knew, and trust in their ability to create a new order from that chaos. Keyword: create. Lions learn and do anything and everything necessary to reach their vision for the future.
The sheep get trapped in a mind-numbing cycle of doing the same thing they’ve done for the past decade, numb their mind to their potential with cheap pleasures, and quite literally waste any of the leverageable time they had to change their life.
The old ways of getting rich with hard labor and long work hours won’t do you much good.
You live in a new world. Here’s how to structure your day to take back control:
1) Build When Psychic Entropy Is Low
You only have 1 hour a day.
Well, most people with responsibilities only have that much. If you’re young, you have one of the greatest advantages: time. Don’t waste it like everyone else your age.
To me, it’s silly to save that hour for after work or late at night when psychic entropy is high. You are low energy, your mind is a chaotic mess of tomorrows tasks and todays nightly responsibilities.
Success is about entropy management.
You need to know how to release and constrain entropy in your days, weeks, months, and years. You need to release entropy when life gets boring and repetitive by setting and pursuing new goals. You need to constrain entropy when life gets overwhelming by deconstructing those goals into smaller, more clear, manageable goals.
Wake up an hour earlier.
Focus on 1-3 lever-moving tasks toward a goal that you set for yourself.
I’m assuming this goal will be along the lines of making more money because that is the pre-requisite to more energy, health, time, and connections in today’s world. It may not be fair, but reality doesn’t care about your feelings.
You can take any path you want, but if you want to follow the path of digital leverage doing what you enjoy, here’s how you fill that time.
2) Productivity & Creativity Blocks
I like to oscillate between two macro states of consciousness in the morning: productivity and creativity.
I’ve found that I just don’t get things done late in the day when entropy is high. At that point in my day, any work I do isn’t going to be the highest quality work I can do. I need to focus on presence, rest, and other activities that allow me to do my highest quality work in the morning.
So, I structure my days as such:
- A morning walk first thing after waking up for circadian health, general health, and setting my intentions for my work in my head.
- My first work block is dedicated to my lever-moving tasks. Most of the time, this is for writing dedicated to high-priority projects like new products and my newsletter (since that newsletter then turns into a YouTube video and podcast, those are important).
- A second walk for more morning sunlight. I’ve been relearning the absolute importance of sunlight and the lies we’ve been told about it’s dangers. I’ll save those for a future letter. I like to listen to long audiobooks or YouTube videos on these lectures because the “fluff” that most people hate is where you find rare ideas that most don’t talk about. The opposite of instant gratification.
- My second work block is dedicated to current projects like Kortex or continuing the writing I was already doing.
- I have a third, shorter walk, midday. This is when I begin to resease entropy. I check my phone, respond to messages, and “open myself to the world.” I let my routine loosen up.
- This is usually when I feel a bit unfocused, so I have started reading books or finding good videos or articles to read. This is where the bulk of my idea generation and planning for the week happens when inspiration is hot.
- Then, I do whatever I want. I can work more if I’d like, or I can get lunch, go to the gym, walk more, meet with friends, or go to dinner.
During my work blocks, I don’t procrastinate. I get straight into my writing. If I wait and scroll around for too long, I end up getting distracted and scroll for far too long.
During my creativity blocks, I generate ideas for my current and future work blocks. Every single thing I do in my day is focused toward the goal of my work. As a byproduct, I live a fairly enjoyable life. That does not mean it is always enjoyable, but the lack of enjoyment makes you appreciate the enjoyable parts more.
I would argue that most people’s work suffers because they work too much, then go on to justify to themselves how they could never work less and get the same amount done.
My diet, walks, reading, training, and leisure time are the crux of my work. Since I work in idea space, my work suffers if I don’t have good ones.
Even if you don’t work in the idea space, the right ideas are what help you make decisions that get you ahead of most people who are operating on easy-to-find ideas.
When I work too much and neglect creativity, I feel stressed, angry, and closed-minded.
3) The Levers Of The New Rich
You have two priorities:
- Audience – building an audience of people to remove your dependency on your employer, government, and any other centralized entity that controls most aspects of your life.
- Product – building a product so people can give you money in exchange for something that benefits their lives. This is the only way to take control of your income and stop relying on anyone else to make you money. This is what I will teach in Mental Monetization.
I find it quite funny that the one question all beginners ask is “How do I make money?”
And when they’re given the only answer that will actually make them money, they ignore it and go after “faster” methods of making money that are reserved for people with money like investing, crypto, startups, and the rest.
You make money by starting a business.
You make money by distributing a product with a price tag on it so people can pay you for it.
Thinking that you don’t have to build a product is foolish. I know some of you will only understand this if I’m harsh with you… so, stop being a fucking idiot and finally realize that you need a product and people in the form of an audience to pay you for that product.
Then, and only then, once you have a minimum of $20,000 to $50,000 a month should you think about investing capital as leverage to make more money from it. This is not a hard rule, but it’s wise to treat it as one so you maintain some sense of order in your mind in this journey. Don’t get distracted.
Cash. Flow. First.
Freelancing, agency work, information products, I don’t care. I recommend what I recommend, but just start something. You probably don’t have a few hundred thousand dollars (without destroying your life with loans) to get rich like the few who did in older generations.
We live a digital world with more resources, more efficiency, and lower costs so more people can generate wealth in that space, the digital space.
4) Choose 2-3 Intersecting Interests As Your Niche
I’ve talked about niching down and building a broad audience many times in the past, so I’ll spare you that here. You can download my one-person business mini course free here if you need a refresher.
In short, you need to attract people toward the vision of the future you are leading people towards. Your content and product help them achieve goals in their life in alignment with that vision.
You must educate them on the skill set and mindset necessary to achieve it.
- Choose 2-3 broad interests you would want to create media (content on social media) around and monetize via a digital product.
- Break those down into sub-topics so you are able to research them more effectively for idea generation.
- Break those down further into post, newsletter, podcast, and other media ideas.
Then, start writing to attract an audience.
Of course, creating the content or writing is only one piece of the puzzle. You need to understand how to control your growth on social media with How To Build An Audience With Zero Followers.
First, start educating yourself on how to build an audience as leverage on social media.
Watch tutorials, buy courses, and study the people you want to be like so you can take their ideas and emulate their work.
If you only have one hour a day, you must learn and build in unison. Educate yourself for a bit, but don’t hesitate to start writing and building your brand.
5) Build The Product You Want To See In The World
Once you feel like you have the hang of building an audience, you can start to use your 1 hour a day to build a product to monetize that audience.
Of course, if you have more time on the weekends, you can use that too.
Now:
You don’t need experience to sell a product.
A product is what helps you gain experience.
And no, you don’t need to create exaggerated promises that turn you into an unethical scammer.
Creating a digital product is no different from creating a physical product or providing a freelance service.
Let’s say you want to sell a planner.
Do you need experience selling planners in order to sell a planner? No, that’s impossible.
Instead, you:
- Buy a few planners and start using them to see which methods get the best results for you.
- Start taking the best parts of each to create a new method for better results.
- Test and iterate for a bit on yourself until you’ve solved a problem in your life.
- Manufacture, sell, and distribute to the audience you’ve built with content.
- Get results for your customers and continue iterating on the product until it pulls in the revenue you want it to.
This doesn’t change with a digital product. You can sell a printable planner, a Notion template for a planner, or just an ebook or course that walks people through how to use your system.
Since you’re not going the physical route, you can launch fast and skip the costly manufacturing and distribution.
The same goes for freelancing.
For some reason, when people start a business other than client work, their brain freezes up and they start whining about imposter syndrome.
How do you make money as a freelancer?
- You learn the fundamentals of a skill.
- You build portfolio projects to practice.
- You start working for free or very cheap.
- You gain experience in the real world.
- You start charging a bit more.
- You improve your skill and get better results.
This applies to absolutely anything you build.
You aren’t as skilled or successful as you think you are because you haven’t started selling a product. You’re afraid to sell a product because you have imposter syndrome. You don’t realize that selling a product is how you overcome that imposter syndrome and get results for other people.
My advice:
Build the product you want to see in the world.
Solve a problem in your life and sell the solution.
Take inventory of products that have changed your life, shaped who you are, and influenced your behavior. (I’m guessing these will fall in line with what you are already writing about to build an audience).
Make those problems better by creating your own system and selling it under the most unique brand you can find: yourself.
Start with information products to build cash flow.
If you feel like it, turn the successful information products into another business. That’s what I did with 2 Hour Writer and Kortex, my writing course and writing app.
I’ll leave it at that because you have a lot to do.
If you need guidance on planning, building, and launching a profitable digital product, Mental Monetization launches in a little over a week.
Grab it here before the pre-sale price ends.
– Dan
