Click here to read the (prettier) web version. (Your email provider may cut this post off before the end.) I put everything into my teenage dream, which failed miserably. I wanted to play drums with my musical heroes. I don’t know how many thousands of hours I put into practising my skills, but I got very good. Still, my career growth never truly reflected my skill level. I performed and recorded with a few bigger artists (Roni Size, Kelis, Culprate), but I never managed to break through to the highest heights of my profession. After I exited that career (and the traditional economy it existed in), I reflected on why it had been so difficult to make progress in it. And I noticed one profound difference when I compared it with the new digital economy. The #1 Advantage of The Digital EconomyIn traditional economies, progression is made in steps. As a drummer, I worked at one level of opportunity until I made enough progress in all relevant skills that I was able to leap to the next level. I had to be patient because there’s a huge jump between steps in the traditional music industry. But in the digital economy, things are different… Here, there are effectively infinite levels of opportunity. In the digital economy, your business grows in direct proportion to the value you bring. For example, when you level up your coaching skills, you immediately gain access to more and better clients. It’s as simple as demonstrating new insights in your content, which attract those new clients (who’ll pay higher fees because you’re able to solve bigger problems). In a traditional economy you have to wait for a job position at a higher pay band to open up. But in the digital economy there are no gatekeepers. You’re able to transmit your value to potential customers immediately (and you’re always paid in direct proportion to the value you provide). Why Doesn’t Everyone Join The Digital Economy?There’ll always be people who prefer to work offline. Those who craft things with their hands, for example (though I’d recommend those people start a personal brand anyway to bring in more and better business). But there’s just one thing stopping most people from quitting that job they hate and living a new life aligned with their deepest purpose: their limiting beliefs:
Every time you think one of these thoughts—or something similar—you kill your better self. That self who controls his or her own destiny. That self who makes their greatest contribution to humanity. That self who’s satisfied on their deathbed. So right here, right now, I’m going to help you uninstall those limiting beliefs. 10 Mindful Money MindsetsThis section is all philosophy. Scroll down if you just wanna get to the action—the shit to do to actually change your mind. Personally, I always found the philosophy important: I always wanted the “why”. It made the action part much easier. But when it comes to how to get something done, I’ll only ever make suggestions. You do you. And if “doing you” doesn’t work, click here to get infinite further suggestions. 1. The Self-Trust SecretIt’s impossible to not trust yourself. Because if you think you’re untrustworthy… You’re trusting your judgment that you’re untrustworthy. You might need to read that again. There’s no simpler way to say it, but the insight is powerful. So you may as well cut the bullshit, stop hiding behind layers of thinking, be brave (we’ll cover this later), and do what feels right in your gut. Even if no-one else agrees (we’ll cover this too). Yes, this is risky. It’s safer to do what everyone else is doing. Until, that is, you end up at a midlife crisis. Or, worse, on your deathbed, realizing you wasted your life doing what everyone else wanted you to do instead of doing what you wanted you to do. If you’re 30 and you live till you’re 77, you only have 2453 weeks left. If this makes you uncomfortable, it’s time for big changes. Good news though: if you’re reading this post you’re in the best place for making those changes happen. 2. Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway“Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.” - Susan Jeffers, PhD Susan Jeffers literally wrote the book on fear. She did extensive research on the topic and dispelled a huge myth: People we call “brave” are not necessarily without fear. Rather, they feel the fear and do it anyway. Imagine: what would your life be like if you didn’t feel you had to wait till fear was absent to go do the scary thing? What would you be able to achieve? What would you be able to do for others? 3. Growth Mindset“In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits… In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching, and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.” - Carol Dweck, PhD Which mindset do you have—”fixed” or “growth”? Do you believe your abilities to write and speak about your experiences, understand internet business, and earn money are fixed? Or do you understand that you can improve in these areas and impact tens, hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of people (and earn as many dollars as a result)? Research proves that it’s your perception of yourself that’s the deciding factor here. Good news: you can change that, too. (And you will, below.) 4. Fail Fast, Fail ForwardIn this picture we see a baby bird preparing to take its first flight. It’s scared. And all the adult birds watching know that it could get injured. But unlike adult humans, adult birds can’t intervene. Schoolteachers (and the system of which they’re part) stole real learning opportunities from you by stopping you before your learning got risky. And this made you so afraid of failure that you want to just stay in the tree your whole fucking life. The worst part is that what you’ve missed out on due to all this is invisible to you. How can you know what your life would’ve looked like if you’d been more of a risk-taker? You can only guess. But I guarantee you’d have learned more. And it’s what you’ve learned throughout your life that determines your capacity to serve others. Serving others is how you earn money. Staying in the tree keeps you from failing, but it also keeps you from learning—it keeps you from growing. Slamming into the forest floor hurts like hell… But pain is the greatest teacher. 5. Have a Real-Life ProjectMaybe reading that last section you thought “but I learn lots of stuff Dan!” If so, I ask you to consider the nature of your learning. Specifically, how much time you spend acquiring knowledge vs. how much time you spend applying knowledge. You can acquire knowledge in the tree. But to apply it, you have to take that leap and fly or fall. Most people spend a lot of time acquiring knowledge, but little-to-no time applying it. (Actually, most people do hardly any learning at all, but those people don’t hang out on this corner of the internet.) This is a problem. Imagine I’d read every book in publication on how to do a triple heart bypass, but I’d never actually performed one. Would you trust me to do yours? Maybe if you had no other option… But if Stephen Strange were there, we both know who you’d pick. I’m not saying “don’t read books”. I’m saying give yourself a real-life opportunity to apply what you’re learning in them. I promise your learning will go much faster. 6. Process-FocusWe all love results. In fact, results are so great that we usually focus too much on them—and not enough on how to get them. But to state something obvious… The only way anyone ever got a result was by following a process. Maybe their process was planned out… Maybe it was a total accident. But they must have followed a process. And those who follow conscious, deliberate processes get more reliable results. These people are the professionals, the experts, the masters. Purpose-built machines are often the most efficient at getting a particular result—because they follow a single process, in the same sequence—with perfect precision—over and over again. Of course, the process they follow is designed with a result in mind. But the machine never thinks about that result. In this regard, it’s good to be more like a machine. (I’ll teach you how below.) 7. The Winner Effect“Confidence is a drug, and winning is the dealer.” - Tim S. Grover Psychologist Ian Robertson recently confirmed what the Buddha taught about success 2500 years ago. Robertson observed that animals who won fights against small rivals were more likely to go on and win against big rivals. So he questioned: “is this “winner effect” present in human psychology?” He discovered that it was. And not only in relation to fighting, but in relation to everything we experience. In practical terms, when you acknowledge small successes as you go about your day, you’re statistically more likely to enjoy bigger successes down the line. Acknowledging success is a major ingredient in what the Buddha called Right Attitude. This can be taught, it can be developed, and it can be mastered. (Again, I’ll teach you how below.) 8. The Failure PartyI heard of a family who threw “failure parties” for their kids. They’d literally get out the cake and party hats. This was as a response to the faulty attitude the kids’ schools were instilling in them (”failure is bad”). The parents wanted to recondition their kids to embrace failure—because they knew that it was unavoidable on the road to success. At these parties, they’d talk about the build-up to the failures—the effort the kids had put in—and what lessons could be taken from the experience. The kids got so much benefit that the parents started throwing parties for their own failures too! And what did this family do when one of them enjoyed a success? They threw a party for that, too. Now, I don’t recommend cake—that’s a failure on the health front. (Which, now that I think about it, could lead to a “failure party feedback loop”. We definitely don’t want that—you’d never get anything done.) We’ll talk about a more sustainable “failure party protocol” below. 9. Long ViewIn terms of evolution, you’ve been on a 2.8 million year journey to get here. Can you wait a couple more years to get that car or vacation or computer upgrade? Maybe you feel like you can’t… And that’s because our ancestors—across those millions of years—had to be impatient to survive. In fact, our ancestors specifically—the ones who populate the whole of our actual family trees—were the most impatient, the most desirous and greedy. These qualities drove them to feed themselves and their immediate families through endless days and nights of harsh conditions and scarce resources. So what happens when we put those brains in modern circumstances? People get fat and die of heart disease. Civilization is now progressing 141,000 times faster than evolution. This is why it feels so hard sometimes to resist temptation, to be patient, to keep yourself from spiralling out of control and becoming a total fucking mess. In a more real way than we like to admit, there’s an ape inside all of us that just wants to eat and fuck and pick its nose. But there’s something else going on, too… The greatest quality of the human being, if you ask me, is wisdom. We know that eating all the food isn’t a great idea because we see where it would lead. And so we do our best to tame our inner ape. To the degree that we’re aligned with wisdom, we use long view to make plans, direct our energy, and make things better for everyone. And those of us who do this best get rewarded by everyone else. 10. Don’t Expect People to UnderstandIf you want to be the best at anything then you are, naturally, on a path to being different from almost everyone you’ll ever meet. This is just statistics. Consider: how many people are the best at what they do? “The best” is a singular term. So there’s precisely one of the best in anything (though of course it’s rarely easy to define who that is—which makes for great debate). Even if you want to be among the top 1% then, realistically, you need to be prepared to be different to 99 out of every 100 people you meet. This means thinking differently, speaking differently and acting differently to them. Which, in turn, leads to a consequence few of us truly desire, which is that almost no-one will understand you. This takes enormous courage. The Courage to Be MisunderstoodWhen I was 12 I decided I wanted to be the best drummer in the world. Every adult in my life told me this was a pipe dream—that there was no way I could achieve it, and that I should have a “plan B” in case it didn’t work out. But they were missing something important: No-one who became the best at anything had time for a “plan B”. I managed to stay on my purpose fairly well, but I could only do so much against my circumstances. My father insisted I went to sixth-form college (age 16-18 in the UK). But all I wanted to do was keep practising, performing, and teaching music. I was already earning a little cash, which I’d hoped would prove my potential… but it wasn’t enough to earn the support I needed to realize my ambition. I flunked my exams, but they were enough of a distraction that I couldn’t truly dedicate myself to music. I gave an 8/10 commitment and, sure enough, I reached an 8/10 skill level compared to the best in the world. But I wasn’t done with being misunderstood… Once it became clear that my teenage ambition was dying, I turned to a discipline called Alexander Technique to address the physical issues I’d developed over years of playing, travelling and partying. Alexander Technique is niche as fuck, and difficult to explain. But I knew it was what I needed, so I dropped $21,399 I didn’t have on studying it full-time. My family was deeply concerned. And if that weren’t enough, at the same time I started studying with my monk teacher and abandoning my culture’s beliefs and attitudes. My poor father only wanted what was best for me, but I’d repeatedly gone in the opposite direction to what he’d have chosen for me. Looking back, this took enormous resilience on my part. (And enormous surrender on his.) The final piece was coming out here online and starting a business on a model that didn’t even exist until 10 years ago. But… When the paychecks started to come in, I was finally able to show my family some results they understood. It took me till I was 36. I definitely wasn’t the quickest to achieve any kind of worldly success. But I’d done it without compromise. I’d done it without sacrificing my wellbeing. I’d done it with my integrity intact. ~ I share this story to encourage you to keep moving toward what you want, what you see as important, what you want to create in the world… And to not give a fuck what anyone else thinks about it. But that’s enough of the “why”. It’s time for me to show you how to actually adopt these mindsets. 10 Mindful Money MegahacksHere’s where you’ll finally turn everything above into actionable steps that will change your thoughts, your actions and—therefore—your life. A lot of these hacks will start as journaling processes, but don’t be fooled—none of this is just about writing stuff down. The journaling just helps you gain clarity on where and how to take action. Treat these hacks as experiments. Try each one with an open mind and observe what happens. I’d love to hear about your results—however they look—in a DM on X or Instagram. 1. The Self-Trust Hack
You can repeat this process as many times as you like. The purpose is to examine the possible outcomes of trusting yourself. Note that they won’t all be “good”. But I place “good” in quotes here because often the learning you’ll experience from doing what you think is right becomes the real good. Finally:
2. The Fear Hack
3. The Growth Hack
4. The Failure Hack
5. The Application Hack
6. The Process Hack
If the number you counted is anything more than “0” you have a less-than-efficient process. Robots that make cars never think about cars. Robots that make phones never think about phones. Robots that make robots never think about robots. (Trippy.) The end result is only considered for direction. Any moment spent thinking, dreaming or obsessing about the end result—the thing you want—during your own processes is wasted energy. Repeat this hack whenever you need a reminder of that (and to tighten up processes you’re actually engaging in). 7. The Confidence Hack3 monks stood in a quiet courtyard. The first monk said, “I wish for only one more year to practice the teaching of the Buddha.” The other monks nodded in respect. The second monk said, “I wish for only one more day to practice the teaching of the Buddha.” The other monks nodded in respect. The third monk said, “I wish for only one more breath to practice the teaching of the Buddha.” The other monks nodded in respect. The Buddha said only the third monk had Right Attitude. ~ One of the most powerful lessons I got from my monk teacher was to acknowledge the “smallest unit of win”. He taught me that success is in the mind. In other words, we interpret certain things as successes. Some things are well agreed upon—for example everyone considers a billionaire successful. Or do they? My teacher certainly didn’t. And here’s where it gets really interesting: some of those billionaires themselves don’t feel successful. We’ve all heard the stories of those individuals who have every measure of material success and yet are hopelessly unfulfilled. Meanwhile, the monks are sat in the forest with nothing but a robe and a begging bowl, feeling like they won the lottery. What’s their secret? They’ve trained themselves to acknowledge a simple mindful breath as a win. They also count a mindful mouthful of food, a mindful step, a mindful greeting as a win. For at least a year I thought I’d have to become a monk to figure this out. Then I spent some time at a monastery and realized that it doesn’t matter where I am. Right Attitude—the attitude of a winner—is entirely in the mind. Here’s how it’s cultivated:
When I first heard about a mindful breath being a success I said “no fucking way. How can breathing be a success? I have to be the best drummer in the world to be successful. I have to own a big house to be successful. I have to have proven myself to the world to be successful.” But those are just interpretations I inherited from society. And psychology has proven: Having a high standard for what counts as success makes it unlikely **you’ll achieve any at all. I encourage you to go the other way. ~ BONUS: I run a complete life management system in Notion. I call it the BUDDHA MODE OS. On the front page of that system I’ve embedded a relic from my childhood. I play it when I complete a task: 8. The Failure Hack
9. The Perspective Hack
10. The Resilience Hack
Examples of people I admire most are Buddha, Ram Dass, Alan Watts, F.M. Alexander and Viktor Frankl. Every one of them was misunderstood by the people around them and this was required for them to go on and do the great things they did. Return to your own vision board of inspirational figures when you feel alone in your journey. If You Need Help With All ThisI’m here to help you create scalable income from your couch. Click here to tell me about your goals. I’ll get back to you within 24 hours to tell you how I can help you reach them. Win/win for the win, |
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Click here to read the (prettier) web version of this post. You already have $100,000 worth of knowledge in your head. You just need to learn how to transmit it to people. Then you can quit your unfulfilling “time-for-money” work and join me in the Freetirement gang: Where we get paid what we’re worth Where we only do things we care about Where we get results that change people’s lives And there’s never been a better time to make this transition: You can start a business **for $0 You can...
Read the (prettier) online version here. 2 out of 3 millennials have nothing saved for retirement.¹ Yet everyone feels they need $1.8 million to retire comfortably.² If your reaction to this data is to think you’d better stop buying lunch out, you’re still playing a rigged game: A game in which the rules change without notice A game in which your options are severely limited A game in which your winnings decrease in value over time In this post I’m going to show you how to play a better game:...
Click here to read the (prettier) web version In March 2023 I was a broke music teacher. But since then I’ve earned more money than I thought I ever would… while compromising less: Less hours Less travel Less unfulfilling work Actually, I do no unfulfilling work. (It’s 4:54am on a Saturday right now. I want to get up and get to my desk 7 days a week.) I’ve come to understand that this is possible for everyone—including you, whoever you are and whatever your background. In fact, I’ve taught...