Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with doing the impossible.
Other people were doing what they loved for a living, why couldn’t I?
That seems to be the question that determines the success of most leaders, creatives, and those we aspire to be like:
Why can’t I?
As of late, I’ve seen a lot of these phrases on social media.
“Forget about finding your passion.”
“Make money, then study spirituality.”
“Get a job, then use the money to fuel your passion.”
They’re all good advice, and I have my own views on those areas, but from my perspective:
They may turn people away from well-intentioned pursuits toward a better life.
And with the power of the internet, some marketing knowledge, and the ability to write an attractive message; you can monetize almost anything. Information, physical tools, or manual labor.
As mentioned, I’ve always wanted to do the impossible.
As a kid I was observant of ‘social media influencers’ (I’m not a fan of that phrase, bad connotation. In other words, the people that post package up what they know and distribute it online).
They were talking about their interests and teaching others what they knew. So I spent 10 years with my head deep in books, courses, projects, and anything else that could make their impossible reality my own.
To most eyes, I have done “the impossible.”
I wake up in the morning, write for a few hours, and go about my day doing what I want. Building out meaningful projects, hitting the gym, going on long walks, and upholding relationships with the select few people I care about the most.
I’m here to tell you that you can do what you love for a living.
Predictions for the future of work would agree.
Finding Purpose By Solving Your Own Problems
Understand this:
Problems aren’t personal.
They are systemic.
Your mind is a system containing systems.
Your body is a system containing systems.
The universe is a system containing systems.
Purpose is the divine force by which you conduct your life.
Purpose is the intrinsic energy that makes positive choices seamless.
Purpose is the compass that guides you inward — unmoved by external circumstance.
How do you find your purpose?
By solving systemic problems, allowing nature to flow as it was meant to.
Bring these questions to the top of your mind:
What is the big problem you want to solve in the world?
What is the big problem you want to solve in your life?
With experience, you will realize that the answer to these questions are one in the same.
At this very moment, what is it? I’ll give an example from my own life.
I am rereading the book Rest by Alex Soojung Kim Pang.
It is an incredible book that is reminding me of my own work philosophy.
By rereading this book, I was reminded of my “why,” a former purpose of mine.
I had forgotten myself by spending too much time away from myself.
Chances are that the inward pull — where you will find your purpose — is painted over with layers of societal opinions, beliefs, and other projections that have been hard wired in your brain over years of unconscious living.
That inward pull, for those that may not understand, can go by many names.
Some call it your higher voice. Some call it your calling. Some call it the universe.
For now, we will call in The Pull.
You increase the strength of The Pull by peeling back the layers that are suppressing it.
That means working from external to internal.
From superficial to profound.
Surface level to the core.
Tip of the iceberg to the bottom of the ocean.
Don’t let the depths scare you off, there’s a reason it isn’t crowded.
What problems are begging to be solved in your life right now?
Do you have self-esteem issues? Hit the gym.
Do you have money problems? Get a better job or start a low risk business.
By working your way up Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, you reveal the way inward toward your deepest purpose.
Don’t know how to do any of this? I shouldn’t have to mention this if you are a reader of mine… but, self-education.
LEARN. It is the most foundational human drive that modern distractions have hijacked.
You have the Library Of Alexandria staring you straight in the face.
It will take some digging, of course. You will not find all of the answers after a few days of research.
Your problems will get better.
You will see the futility in surface level external pursuits.
You will have a (good) desire to explore the depths of your being.
You will adopt and shed macro and micro purposes for a lifetime until you uncover your life’s purpose.
The Vessel For Purpose, Growth, and Impact
So far we’ve knocked out 2 birds with 1 stone.
Finding purpose, personal growth, and the plethora of benefits that come along with both.
Want to knock out 3?
Adopt a writing habit.
Why?
Think about it.
The foundation of media is an impactful message.
An impactful message starts with an idea.
If that idea is not fleshed out for the sake of understanding through the written word; it will remain just that, an idea. Thrown in the trash with the millions of other “million dollar ideas” that have been piling up throughout your life.
By not writing, you are preventing yourself from discovering new mental pathways to go down.
One written word can change the direction of your life. Similar to how rereading the book Rest has set a new trajectory for my business.
(And no, you don’t have to ask, I will be writing about work / rest balance in coming letters).
Writing is how you execute on ideas as fast as possible so they don’t get lost in the depths of your mind.
If you want to take part in any form of online business, media is your foundation.
- Educational content
- Newsletters and articles
- YouTube video scripts
- Sales and product pages
- Tweets, Instagram posts, TikTok scripts
The list goes on. Media is the front end of the internet and if you don’t plan to learn to code… better get started writing.
Creative, persuasive, and individual media houses (personal brands) cannot be phased out.
Big corporations can be automated, but society is losing trust in those.
The future belongs to the authentic.
Authenticity stems from living through the energy generated from your purpose.
Finding purpose stems from solving your own problems.
Writing is the vessel for pursuing your curiosity, understanding yourself, and creating solutions for your problems.
Media is how you document the process, teach others what you learned, and get paid for doing so.
Another argument:
I’ve recently hit 224K followers on Instagram.
When talking with Dakota Robertson, we were wondering why we get 5-10X the engagement and growth compared to people like models or fitness influencers.
Looks get engagement, but engaging writing gets more.
Good writing can capture more attention (and deliver more value) than 6-pack-abs.
The Experience Model For One Person Businesses
Starting a business is not optional for those who want more out of life.
If you are reading this letter, I am assuming you have values and desires similar to my own:
- Full control over who you work with, what you work on, and when you work.
- The ability to live by the laws of nature, work 2-4 hours a day, and dedicate time to other important areas of your life (like rest!)
- Getting paid for doing what you love, even when people say it is impossible.
- Self-reliance, sovereignty, and the personal freedom that comes with a lack of money problems.
Most if not all of this is impossible through employment.
Am I saying employment is bad? No. It is a great option for increasing your income.
At the same time, employment comes with a cap and distorts others’ perceptions of money.
When you are surrounded by people that limit your perception of money (those who have a finite income) it will be hard to believe it when you hear big numbers.
I remember when I was hovering around $10K/month from self-employment.
Someone I met online mentioned that they were making $100K/month doing what I was doing.
I realized I had been holding myself back. Self-imposed limits that affected my income. About 3 months after, I hit my first $50K month working 3 hours a day… max.
That’s what can happen when you write in public, solve your own problems, and help others solve their own.
That’s what business is… problem solving. That’s all it is. Money is the result of value exchange. Offer to solve someone’s problems for money in the areas you know best.
The limits that come along with employment cease to exist when you start taking the internet seriously.
Most of us “online business folk” refrain from talking about making a lot of money because that’s what most people’s lives revolve around.
I think more people need to talk about money. Normalize it. Condition people into believing that they can earn as much as they want doing what they want. As cheesy as it sounds, self-belief is the first step in almost anything.
Thought comes before action.
The Experience Model
This can be as easy or as difficult as you can make it.
Forget about finding a niche. I’ve seen hundreds of business beginners quit because they think that the niche they chose is the problem.
- Choose 2-3 curiosities to pursue that have the potential to solve your own problems.
- Immerse yourself in an informational and social environment conducive to solving those problems.
- Read books, follow people online, and eliminate everything else that has the potential to distract you.
- Treat your Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn account as a place for sharing your discoveries and talking about your interests in a persuasive way (study persuasion, influence, and marketing).
That is your niche. YOU are your niche. YOU, at this very moment, are interested in a select few things that intersect. That intersection is where your audience is built.
Since I am interested in the book Rest, my niche are those that want to decrease their work times, produce higher quality work, and enjoy the entirety of their lives. See how that works?
People are interested in more than one thing.
Those that are interested in health can also express interest in spirituality or learning to code. That’s where the fun comes in — it’s on you to craft a persuasive argument for the interests that will help others solve their problems.
As you evolve, your content and brand will evolve.
That means you will move on from what you are currently talking about and selling.
You will desaturate the market beneath you.
The creator economy is impossible to saturate, otherwise it’s not the creator economy (one-person businesses).
Human connection cannot scale.
If you want to build a billion-dollar company, then yes stick to one thing, but that’s not what I want… and I would argue 99% of people don’t actually want that.
Give me $1M a year and complete personal freedom. I’ll be good.
At the moment, the creator economy + one-person business model seems to sustainably provide this.
How do you evolve? By solving your own problems.
All of this is so simple. It just takes people a bit of time trying to find the complex answer before they realize it.
I didn’t like freelancing. It took up too much of my time and I disliked working on projects that weren’t my own.
Thats a problem I can solve, write about, and start to teach… see how this goes?
I had to evolve, so I started writing on Twitter, built a product, and decreased my time on client work.
Time to evolve again, I built a new brand consulting offer, charged more, productized certain aspects of it, and hit my first $50K month.
I wanted to maintain that income as a baseline and decrease my work times to 2-4 hours in the morning — so I evolved yet again, built Modern Mastery, and once again reduced client work.
To most freelancers and B2B agencies this would be impossible to accomplish.
If you are one of them, the best thing you can do is build leverage by writing online.
Get out of the B2B space if you are dead set on living a life of self-reliance, fulfillment, and meaning.
Join the C2C (creator to creator) space that is continuing to grow, almost exponentially.
Flow with the current that few can see without being in the space.
Flow with the shift from societal constructs and big business to individual education systems (social media and authentic products) and one-person businesses with media (writing) as the backbone of your success.
The Experience Paradox
Like a crappy job posting that you feel unqualified for:
You need experience to start, but you gain experience by starting.
Most of what you are told you can’t do is an illusion. You take it as law and impose limits on yourself.
Let me make it easy for you.
Block out all advice you hear about building an online brand until you execute on this and figure it out for yourself:
Treat Twitter (a writing platform) as a public journal.
- Post your thoughts, ideas, beliefs, likes, and dislikes
- Speak to yourself. Give your current self the advice it needs to here and your past self advice it wish it had heard.
- Study your curiosities and share what you learn
- Actively improve your life and share the lessons and insights you came across
- Pursue your purpose, document how you solve your problems, and offer to help others in exchange for money
It is an incredibly difficult journey.
You will have many mental battles. Write your way through them.
You will have many personal battles. Write your way through them.
But what else would you expect?
A comfy, limited, job handing you a paycheck every 2 weeks in exchange for 80% of your waking hours?
No thanks. Sounds even more difficult than the former.
Your survival-wired psyche will thank you with good dopamine by pursuing your vision, goals, and hunting for its survival on a daily basis.
— Dan Koe
What Happened This Week
The July 21st Masters curriculum enrollment ends in 5 days. If you want to solve your own problems in public, build leverage for your future, and learn how to monetize the information that’s in your head (and learn how to write on Twitter correctly):
Enroll in the Masters curriculum here.
On YouTube a new video went live on things to stay aware of if you want to achieve maximum enjoyment in life.
Inside Modern Mastery, the private community, I posted “How To Capture Attention & 10x Your Engagement” which is fitting for this post.
