This Advice Will Make You $100K+ (At Least) over the next 5 Years
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A lack of money is a massive pain in the butt.
Your mind gets polluted with thoughts like “can I afford this” or “how do I make money from this.”
Ideas are the seeds that can change your situation. The point isn’t to make more money and buy a mega yacht. It’s to use money to be more intentional about life.
These are the short ideas that’ll make you at least $100K+ over the next 5 years.
Jobs are the hardest way to make money
Many people’s career dreams are the default path to poverty.
It’s harsh to say but it’s true. To make a lot of money at a job is hard. Let me tell you why. In every profession I’ve ever worked, if you do magically find a way to make more money in your job, it can all get taken away.
In one job I made an extra $60,000 in commissions one year.
I came to work one day and my employer said “we don’t have the same commissions anymore.” There was nothing I could do. $60K became $0. Someone else’s rules.
The other way to make money in a job is to climb the corporate ladder. The challenge is it’s bloody hard. There are so many ways you be held back or get lied to. Even if you do succeed, you’re in for a life of slavery.
Endless reports.
Endless meetings.
Large numbers of adult babies to lead.
The whole job game is built on red tape, permission slips, and pitting humans against humans in a form of Hunger Games.
The odds suck too. Only 1% become the leaders on the big salaries. Everyone else gets sold the dream by HR puppets. “Just work hard and one day it could be you.”
There’s no way to prove their theory.
It’s a throwaway line for a throwaway life, where you’re a disposable cog in a machine.
To make more money over the next 5 years, you really need to see through the lie that jobs are good and go beyond it. The chance of a good life with good money while working a job is almost zero.
Stop being played like a fiddle.
Find rear-entry third doors
I’m trying to buy a house right now in Australia.
There’s hardly anything for sale. As soon as a new house comes up for sale, a swarm of worker bees descends on the property. Even with a decent income, it’s near-impossible to buy anything without spending millions.
I complained to a builder friend about the issue.
Friend: “Have you tried the third door?”
He goes on to explain that idiots like me see property listings, then ring the real estate agent to find out more, then attend inspections and either place an offer or bid at an auction.
This is what the plebs do, he says.
What he told me to do is write 100 handwritten letters (there’s software to do this). I use a template that says I have a young family and would like to know if you’re interested in selling your home to me.
I put this letter in 100 letterboxes. Around 7 people will reply within 24 hours. Out of those 7 people 3 will be dreamers wanting some stupid price, and 4 will consider selling their house to me at a decent price.
This strategy uses resourcefulness. It moves beyond excuses, blaming, and complaining – and looks for what nobody else is doing.
Think of it like a nightclub. The average person tries to get in through either the general admission or VIP line.
The clever thinker notices the back door into the nightclub and watches who goes in and out. Then they strike up a conversation with one of those people and enter via the rear entry for free.
Third doors give you access to opportunities that’ll make you stupid amounts of money.
Go where it’s saturated
This is the opposite of the last point.
The tendency is to build careers or create content in small niches. Or try to look clever by coming up with an idea no one has ever thought of.
Rarely does anyone pull this miracle off.
I prefer to go where it’s saturated. If everyone is selling solar panels then that tells me people want them. Whereas many people would say “too many people sell solar panels so that means there’s no money to be made.” Wrong.
Saturation equals validation of money.
Now, all you need to win in a saturated market is to either be different or better than everybody else. Or do both and knock it out of the park.
Go where the people are, always.
Say “Just curious but…”
Curiosity is bled out of us when we’re young adults.
We’re taught to have agendas, get to the point, and stay on topic. But the real money is made by saying “Just curious but…”
It’s like a third door but for conversations.
The other day I asked a busy real estate agent “just curious but are there any properties I can’t see on your website that you could show me?”
He said “as a matter of fact I just signed the paperwork for a new one an hour ago. It comes on the market in a few weeks.”
Me: “any chance I could see it before then or at least know the address?'“
The real estate guy ended up telling me. I saw an opportunity no one else saw because I said “just curious but…”
I do it at seminars and meetups too. I ask the event organizer upon arrival…
“Just curious but is there anyone you think I absolutely must meet while I’m here.”
That’s how I met the co-founder of Instagram a few years back. Be more curious. Draw outside the lines. Look for hidden opportunities. Dare to ask the question everyone is thinking but is too scared to ask.
Don’t just take facts as gospel. F*ck with ‘em.
Take a field you know back the front and make it an operating system for those two steps behind
Every career or goal in life has an operating system.
In at least one field, you’re probably totally unaware you have an operating system that could be handed over to someone two steps behind you.
The beauty of this approach is you don’t need to be an expert.
If you’re two small steps in front of someone in any area, then you qualify to give them guidance. This can be in the form of an online course, mastermind, or 1-1 coaching.
Personality makes people rich, not IQ or connections
The ability to connect with other humans is massively underrated.
It’s not IQ or family connections that make you rich. It’s whether or not your personality sounds interesting enough to have a conversation.
A conversation is where all opportunities will come from.
It’s why the art of writing good direct messages that get replies is so important. It’s why writers spend years honing their writer’s voice.
People just buy people.
Live life and have interesting experiences. Remove all your filters so your true personality can shine through and become a magnet.
The mainstream narrative is always nonsense
The mainstream media is focused right now on layoffs.
The economy is crashing. It’s apparently the end of the world for real estate prices. Yet the people in my inner circle don’t listen to any of this crap and they’re killing it. They’re not affected because their minds are not infected with the distraction virus.
Keeping you distracted with trivial things – and sport – is how you go from an abundant life to scarcity in less than a year.
Turn off the news. Change your inner circle.
Make $20 on the internet
The internet has billions of users.
Once you understand that at a deep level you’ll never worry about money again. Making $20 online is how that idea becomes hardcoded in your mind.
Then, all it comes down to, is how will you talk to a small fraction of those billions of people to earn an income? The answer is probably social media.
What works won’t be known looking forward, only looking back
Stop planning. Stop thinking. Stop talking to mentors.
No one knows what strategy will work exactly for you so you can exit the rat race and live life on your terms. That’s okay.
Act and collect the data.
Use the data to guide future decisions. But just don’t guess or try to be a fortuneteller.
Those who make good money are assertive AF
Too many people are weak.
They’re not assertive enough. They don’t insist on their point of view. They don’t refuse to accept the rules. They just take random rules and people’s strange stories as gospel. “Must be true.”
Working in sales taught me assertiveness. As Alex Hormozi says:
"A sale always happens. Either you sell the other person on your solution or they sell you on their excuse.”
Only assertiveness can help you stop letting people’s excuses get in your way. No one has the time or money to be part of whatever opportunity you need them for.
So you either get assertive or accept the default answers that lead to endless losses.
If you haven’t had your face ripped off then you’re not even trying
Making money is about losing money.
Wait, what?
That’s right. You heard me. If you haven’t lost a bunch of money over the years then you haven’t tried hard enough. You’re supposed to have bad investments, start side hustles that fail, and lose your life savings on some random business.
When I want to see if someone has what it takes to make decent cash, I ask one question: “what massive failure have you had recently?”
If there’s no valid answer then I know they’re probably not gonna make it. Get this in your head so you don’t end up dead: get your face ripped off.
Losing money is the education you need to make more money over the next 5 years.
Small bets. Mini-experiments. Calculated risks. Asymmetric upside.
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Extraordinary, brilliant advice and guidance to activate anyone to next level thinking and doing. No matter their career / industry. I am in a bit of a rut not knowing what my direction should be with my stalled career. This popped into my mailbox at the perfect time. Am ever so grateful for the advice and wisdom Tim shares so openly and freely ...thank you lots
A lot to think about, and so true for this era!
The generation of my parents still think that a steady job with a steady income is the goal. But it's not. it's the key to burn out and a boring life