Spot The Black Sheep
The truth about business is that most people will never make any money online. The truth about business is that the people who take shortcuts always will give up, or switch and do something different, and never reach a level that people can only dream of…
Look at “Hustler’s University” for instance. I mean the RESULTS. Go through each and every screenshot… do you see anything groundbreaking?
$200, $100, $100…
Good for a teenager who wants to buy Fortnite skins but mom won’t let him (do kids still play Fortnite — I haven’t owned a console in 6+ years)…
But not enough to “quit your job and escape the matrix”…
The problem is that value is created by SCARCITY…
Water is cheap (in Canada) because we have one of the largest fresh water reserves in the world… In Africa — [Can I even make that joke? Yes. Yes I can.]
Similarly, if there is a skill that can be taught to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people, that would definitely (diminish) the value, wouldn’t it? —Makes you think about a college degree
All this to say — you need to learn things that cannot be taught and that comes down to experience, intuition and TIME. — Critical Thinking (which ironically is the one thing school teaches OUT OF YOU)
That’s why I’m ABLE to charge people a premium; because when you’re able to CREATE multiple millions of dollars worth of value for someone’s business, asking for $20,000 doesn’t sound like much…
All this to say, the traditional marketing agency route is…
Spend all day sending emails and DMs
Be a glorified Sales Rep
Keep as much of the money while you give Rakesh in India slave wages to do the work
Hire someone to:
Do your Cold Outreach
Close Your Deals
Deliver the Service
And then… do nothing?
→ AVERAGE Agency, AVERAGE result.
Now, I don’t work well with others. But, if I was to go this route, the ONLY way to create something great would be to hire the BEST talent there is and deliver EXCEPTIONAL results. Because most agencies all have the same generic message and they don’t do anything truly groundbreaking…
But, I DIDN’T. And yet, I’m able to make someone’s yearly salary in a month whether I decide to work or not (by MYSELF)…
Why? I focused on the SKILL.
People go to school, take tests, and get a GRADE that tells them how they did.
I study, take other people’s money, and get a ROI on how much more money I made them.
This is my real-world MBA; and the FOCUS to learn and measure my OWN skills and results against my ability to produce is why I dominate.
All this to say,
If everyone is doing it, find a way to do it differently
Time invested is everything
Can you make it so that your PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT comes first and ‘making as much money as possible’ comes second
Because, I now have a skill I’ll never lose, that will always be in demand, and that I always have in my back pocket should nothing else work —Kind of like what MY PARENTS told me about a ‘college degree’ XD
I truly believe the chance of success in ANY endeavor is 100% if you stick to it for long enough.
→ So long as you obsessively show up, keep an open mind, reflect, track your results, and AVOID SHORTCUTS
But the ONLY way to do that is for the RIGHT reasons… what those reasons are, only you can tell yourself that…
Because when the bull starts kicking, and problems need to be solved and fires need to put out, and you are doing it UNDERPAID (when starting out)… you better have a strong reason WHY you started in the first place; otherwise NGMI
There are people who grow a multi-million dollar marketing agency and hire a huge team and chill in Dubai while your team does everything; but that’s not my goal and it never will be…
Instead, I know that I’ll be working for the rest of my life…
That besides sleep, no matter how much money I make: work is a big part of life. That work should be fulfilling and something that challenges you and gets you excited to get out of bed.
Life is work. You just have to change your relationship to what “work” means to you…
Work helps me grow and develop in ways nothing else can.
I’m happy I became an entrepreneur not because I can “flex” or “wake up whenever I want” or “do whatever I want when I want”…
I’m happy I became an entrepreneur because it was a journey into my own soul, my own mind, my own problems, my own capabilities…
It broke me down to pieces, and had me holding on for dear life not knowing whether I could make it. I saw sides of myself I didn’t even know existed.
And in those first 3 years, I transcended.
I evolved mentally, physically, spiritually — and found the truly fulfilling and important things in life BECAUSE I refused to look away and step down…
Not because of some honorable goal or anything… because (simply put) I’m stubborn AF; and told life “I want this or death”
→ yes, it was winning or death and I was satisfied with both options
I have no need to escape reality and numb myself; I only have one need to discover (perhaps re-discover) why I’m here in the first place all over again… and keep on unraveling the layers of my own spiritual journey
People look for answers in religious books, in teachers, in parents… But people (surprisingly) never dive deeper into their minds and ASK those questions:
So here’s an experiment for you to know if you are ready — do you accept your reality at face value and do what your told and live for someone else’s goals or do you ASK yourself the questions, the truly tough questions, the one’s that may or may not even have an answer?
Why take answers given to you at face value when you have a marvelous ability to think and formulate your own conclusions?
You can be whoever you want to be, do whatever you want to do but to do that you must…
Do the DAMN WORK.
Until tomorrow,
Shakoor