Most people are stuck at jobs, places and people they don't care about just to please their parents, friends and teachers. If you spend majority of your time on things you don't love, is that not the cause of most people's anger, frustration and early death?
If work consumes 1/3 of your life, but drains your energy for the other 1/3, and you are asleep for the other 1/3… that is the first thing that needs to change.
Work is a necessary part of modern life. It would be foolish to not pursue something that you are passionate about. Why would you want to spend 40-70% of your life doing something you hate?
A 9-5 job is a great stepping stone, but is often a death sentence. You learn and progress until you’re stuck doing the same thing over and over again. That’s not a meaningful way to live. It psychologically castrates you and bleeds into all areas of your life.
If you want a different outcome you must choose a different path. You need to update your mental software from “Get a job and do that for the rest of my life” as a default setting to:
- get a job,
- start a personal project,
- turn that project into a business,
- make enough money, leave my job,
- and focus on scaling my side hustle as the new path.
You see, everyone needs money.
The easiest way? Get a job.
And 9-5 jobs aren’t bad.
However, it’s not optimal.
You might be earning a profit, but:
- You’re not following your purpose by working a job you hate.
- You’re not free if your boss calls you at night, telling you to show up tomorrow on your day off. If you say no, you lose your job.
- You don’t have time to enjoy life
- You don't get time to spend with family because you’re required to work like an animal.
You start smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol to “get rid of” the stress.
You may not have been able to avoid a job altogether, but you could sure as hell get out of it before other life responsibilities start to pile up.
3 Habits. 3 Months
You need 3 habits.
One that builds your mind (reading, learning, writing).
One that builds your body (walking, running, nutrition).
One that builds your money (business, skill, investing).
Anything more is a bonus, anything less is self-destructive.
1. Reading
Reading keeps you informed and inspired. It broadens your perspective and equips you with the knowledge to innovate.
Build a reading routine into your day.
Either read in the morning or before going to bed. You can start with 10 mins or a page per day.
Begin with 10 minutes a day.
Pick a book that genuinely interests you and commit to reading a bit each day.
Consistency is key.
How I trick myself into reading when I don't have the strong urge to:
I tell myself I'm only going to read for 2mins. Easy enough right?
After starting, by default I want to make more progress.
So I end up reading for 30 minutes, an hour or for hours instead of 2 minutes.
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin
5 subtle habits blocking your success
Consume more longform
If you want to seriously build SOMETHING worthwhile, erase all 5 mindsets I am going to mention for your own good.
- When you bump into a lengthy video that could change your life, resist the urge to say: "this video is too long. I can't watch it".
If you can scroll Tiktok for hours without taking a break, then your "this video is too long" excuse is total crap.
- When you find a lengthy content, article or write-up that would fix your life, stop saying stuff like: "I don't like reading lengthy write-ups".
If you can read meaningless comments at one stance. Mindless entertainment. Then it's high time you take your informational life seriously.
- Information brings awareness of opportunity
- Awareness of opportunity brings profitable ideas
- Profitable ideas bring positive behavior change
- When someone recommends a life changing book to you, avoid saying stuff like: "I have never finished a whole book in my life. Reading is so stressful to me". But you could sit down and read a full romantic novel because it will give you the dopamine hit, yet your pocket is empty.
Inject the same energy into books that will fix your life.
- I've seen a couple of great posts from people who mean well for their audience where they share brilliant and practical business ideas, and also go ahead to share tips on how to execute these ideas, yet you'd find people in the comment section saying stuff like:
"It's not as easy as you're saying it".
"This idea won't work in this economy".
"This idea isn't for those who don't have money".
Bla bla bla.
I cringe when I see such shallow minded comments.
When someone shares a practical and rare business idea, kill that part of you that always find reasons why it wouldn't work. That part of you is your ENEMY.
- When you purchase a course, and you stop after the first module because it's boring to you.
Well, you should have known by now that the things that bring you the most success are always the most boring things.
The process of getting something is never fun, the result is what we call fun.
Nothing comes easy that is worth it.
If you can spend 4 hours on mindless entertainment, you can spend 2 hours to fix your life.
2. Writing
Writing helps you communicate your ideas clearly and effectively. It enhances your ability to connect with your audience and share your message and offers.
Learning how to grow and refine your thoughts through writing is rewarding in itself. When it comes time to monetize, it gets even better.
I would argue that every beginner should build an audience.
Even if you don’t have a product. Even if you don’t feel ready. Even if no one knows you (yet).
Why?
Because building an audience is the best way to learn the actual skills that make any business work:
- Persuasion
- Writing
- Design
- Psychology
- Human behavior
- Offer creation
And you don’t learn these in theory.
You learn them by showing up online, posting content, testing ideas, and observing what resonates.
The benefits of becoming a creator right now are difficult to contain all in one list, but I’ll try.
- You are forced to learn every skill required to run a modern business. This is easier than ever thanks to courses, tutorials, and ease of access to tools for practice.
- You build an audience, AKA social capital, so when you want to build a startup or the business you’ve always dreamed of, you don’t need personal capital or venture capital. You have users for your app and customers for your products.
- You have a network beyond your audience. You can reach almost anyone on the internet for what you need. If you have 10K followers, and each person following them has 500-1000 followers, and the same for the people following them, you effectively have a network of 10x your audience. (No, you obviously don’t need a lot of followers to earn a living).
- You can do what you enjoy, attract like-minded people, introduce new people to your skills and interests, and create a meaningful business model you love showing up to every day, even if it’s difficult at times.
- Since your only levers are writing and building products or services, you can cut your work times down as much as you want. If my audience is growing with 30 minutes of writing, and I send them to a good product, I technically don’t have to work any longer than that – especially if my 30 minutes of writing generates more traffic than someone writing for 8 hours on a book that won’t be seen by anyone.
I’ll leave it at that for now.
How do you actually get started?
Writing.
Writing is how you practice thinking.
Writing is how you document your development.
Writing is how you attract supporters for your work.
If you want to learn how to package your unique ideas into content that attracts the right people to your business, work, or career check out my Fullstack Writer
3. Skill
You need skills.
Because those with rare and useful skills:
- survive even in bad economies
- never stay broke for too long
- can't be replaced by Ai or cheap labor
In the new world, skills = survival.
You need an indemand skill. Because how much you earn depends on how valuable your skill is.
Money is a unit of value. Value is a measure of how much people care about what you do.
How valuable you are = the magnitude of problems you solve, the results of the solutions you create, and your ability to get people to care about your creation.
If you aren’t happy with how much you make, it may be time to take a brutally honest look at what you contribute to the world.
Focus your early years to build the future you can be proud of.
- Build your mind.
- Build your network.
- Build your business.
Build that thing you always want to build.
No matter how busy you are, set time aside for self development. Learn the future proof skills-stack. Your skills will be your leverage.
Spend your weekends learning to upgrade yourself, and spend your weekdays working for your respective employer and you will never suffer should you lose your job.
You may not have been able to avoid a job altogether, but you could sure as hell get out of it before other life responsibilities start to pile up.
Knowledge is learnt inside school. Wisdom is learnt outside school. Don't stop learning after you graduate.
School teaches you how to make a living.
Wisdom teaches you how to make a life.
Wisdom is profitable - Get it.
No matter how busy you are, set time aside for self development. Learn high Income Skills. Your skills will be your leverage.
The future-proof skill stack:
Ai Sales Design Writing Agency Speaking Marketing Persuasion Articulation Web design Copywriting No-code tools Email marketing Entrepreneurship Data Manipulation Personal Branding
Learn to collect, create, and communicate value and you will become irreplaceable.
Thanks for reading.
-Patrick.
When you’re ready, here are a few ways I can help further:
- The Fullstack Writer for a high-value skill to become a creator without worrying about video or speaking.
- Self Monetization for a beginner friendly modern business course