Raw & Real Advice For Making Money In The New World
"Momma, we made it."
Yesterday’s email “the psychology of making $1m/day” got quite the raving response (appreciate it) and also multiple messages from a handful of people who aren’t yet making crazy big money (or experiencing fame on any level), but are wired in a similar way and experiencing quite similar (if not the EXACT same) issues and challenges as the friend I referenced inside that newsletter (I actually got like 3 texts from people who are having almost the EXACT same issues/life experiences which was kind of spooky).
This was partly the reason for sharing because when you’re going through that type of stuff, it can seem like you’re alone. But you’re not. Certain personality types (that are wired in that way) will share these issues and challenges and it isn’t as uncommon as you may think (you can dive deeper into this by studying the Enneagram. If you saw yourself in my friend, you probably share the same Enneatype and thus experience the same challenges/issues/problems). Good news is that there’s potential for transformation, so hopefully that story was inspiring.
But that’s enough of yesterday’s email.
Let’s get into today’s email.
My cousin picked me up in a brand new orange Corvette (I call it the orange Fruitopia – my favorite drink from McDonalds). And we drove to the beach one summer night.
Upon arrival (and during the drive), the car attracted a lot of attention. A little too much for my personal preference (prefer to be more lowkey), but whatever. The sun was setting and the music was good.
Then a crowd formed. And people from all ages started coming up to check out the car. Mostly because it was a nice orange Corvette and stood out like a pretty girl in an ugly town, but also because the beach was not really on the “rich” side of the city, so you don’t really see fancy cars around these blocks.
Then the crowd dispersed and we hopped out to go to the beach.
But before we could leave the vicinity of the car, a family of five came walking towards us with their youngest son (probably like 7 or 8 years of age) running towards the car like he just saw the second coming of Christ lol (kid was excited like no tomorrow).
“Is that your car?!?!?!” He asked my cousin.
“Yeah.” My cousin replied.
“Omg. Omg. Omg. I love this car. It’s my favorite car. I love Corvettes. The color is so cool!!!” The kid replied without taking a breath.
By this time his parents and older siblings had walked up to us as well and we had exchanged a quick hello.
Then my cousin asked the young boy:
“Do you want to sit inside and rev the engine?”
Before the boy could respond, his parents kindly interjected and said “no no it’s okay we don’t want to take up your time.”
And started walking away.
But the boy (who practically had tears in his eyes now) stood his ground while looking at his parents like “pleeeeeeeease.”
So his dad relented and said “Ok if it’s not a hassle, my son would love to sit inside and take a picture. This kid loves cars. It’s all he talks about. It’s all he watches on YouTube.”
“Of course! I was the same way.” My cousin replied which was definitely true because ever since we were little boys Corvettes is all I heard my cousin talk about.
So the kid jumps in, does his thing, and takes pictures (smiling ear to ear).
Then he gets up to leave and before he departs the car…
My cousin who clearly sees himself in the little boy says something to the kid that makes me practically burst out laughing.
What does he say?
He looks the kid in the eye (straight out of a movie) and says:
“If you listen to your parents, if you study hard in school, if you work REALLY hard, then you too can get a Corvette like this.”
(And the naive kid is bopping his head up and down like a bobblehead.)
Meanwhile, I’m biting my lower lip to contain my laughter.
Not necessarily because of what my cousin said (although I have no idea why he was giving out unsolicited advice like that… probably watched one too many tiktoks/that advice is pretty comical/straight trash and we’re going to rip it to shreds inside today’s email).
But because well… My cousin is quite the “interesting” character.
And on this day…
He is dressed in Fendi head to toe, wearing Cartier glasses, rocking those shoes with spikes (Christian Louboutin’s or whatever they’re called), wearing a bust down Rolex, multiple Cartier bracelets, diamond earrings, Gucci murse, and has both arms tatted (full sleeves) while rocking a fresh haircut (that mostly only drug dealers and criminals rock in this side of town).
So the kid’s dad is hearing my cousin give this “conventional” advice, but to him the math isn’t mathing because he clearly thinks (it’s written all over his face) my cousin got to be a drug dealer and/or is involved in some shady business that he actually used to fund this car.
And rightfully so (I can’t blame him)…
My cousin couldn’t look like more of a dope boy even if he tried to dress up as one for Halloween.
Heck, I know my cousin and I know he’s not a drug dealer or doing anything illegal, but even I glitch out when I see the way he dresses lol.
But whatever…. To each their own.
Back to the story:
The dissonance between the way my cousin is dressed/impression the kids dad has of him & the advice he is giving is SO EXTREME that it’s just making me laugh uncontrollably.
But I don’t want to be rude, so I just bite down harder on my lower lip and contain my laughter until the family leaves and then the laughter comes spilling out while I tell my cousin:
“That kid’s dad 100% thought you were a drug dealer, dude.”
“Probably.” My cousin replies while laughing.
But that again wasn’t the funniest part.
Funniest part is I looked at my cousin and said:
“Bro you straight lied to that kid. You told him “if you listen to your parents, if you study hard in school, if you work really hard, then you too can get a Corvette like this.” But you didn’t do any of those things to get this Corvette. Heck, you don’t listen to your parents (your mom calls my mom practically every other week crying about the degen shit you do). You didn’t study hard in school (barely made it out of high school). And you don’t really work that hard either (4-5 hours/day 3-4x a week) hahaha.”
To which my cousin replied:
“Hahahhahaha straight up. But I didn’t know what else to say.”
And we shared a laugh and left it at that and continued with the night.
Yet a few days later… that brief interaction in the parking lot had me thinking and wondering:
“What would’ve been the right advice to give to that kid?”
Well, I think the kid was obviously way too young, so the advice my cousin gave was fine (for that age).
But let’s assume the kid grows up to be older and he’s like 16 or whatever and wants to make money and one day get a car like the Corvette or even a fleet of nicer cars – what would be the right advice to maximize his chances of actually making that happen?
This is an interesting question to explore because the advice my cousin gave would definitely not get him a six car garage with nice whips.
He would have to follow a different type of advice to make a keeling in the new world (if he wanted that type of life).
What would that advice entail?
I don’t know, but here’s the advice (in list form to keep this email relatively short) I would give to an older version of that kid who wants to make a pretty penny:
(Side note: This is more or less the advice I followed/follow and it works pretty damn well if you stick to it, but the problem most people have is they ignore this fundamental advice. And try to do something else. Don’t. Just stick to the basics and focus on mastery)
First we start with general mindset stuff:
1. Love and respect your parents, but don’t listen to your parents. They mean well, but probably don’t know what they’re talking about. Besides, it’s a new world. And what worked for your parents won’t work for you.
2. Take money off the pedestal society put it on. If you don’t, you’ll overromanticize it and it will evade you (kind of like the girl you liked in school, but couldn’t get). Money needs to be viewed like air. Always available. Always here. Always surrounded by it. If you don’t yet believe this, walk through your richest neighborhood and mentally jot down the monetary value of the neighborhood (tally up the costs of the homes, roads, cars, bridges, etc.). Do this until you realize you’re almost always surrounded by hundreds of millions of dollars and there is no separation between you and it (it’s all illusionary).
3. Take conscious control of what you expose your senses to. If you want money, expose your senses to people/places/things/thoughts/words that are in alignment. And limit everything else. This applies physically and digitally and psychologically.
4. Don’t hold your money tightly. Tip the highest percentage on the machine, treat your friends and family for a nice dinner out, donate (anonymously) to causes you care about. This changes your relationship to money and brings you out of scarcity. (The more you’re in scarcity mode, the more you need to give money away with zero expectations of it ever coming back to you).
5. Whenever you can run it (even if it’s a stretch), find the wealthiest zip code in your area and stay in the nicest/richest airbnb you can find. Prior to airbnb, you couldn’t really stay in a rich person’s home (and internalize the feeling). But with the invention of airbnb, you now can change zip codes in a weekend and actually bathe your senses in what it feels like to live in a home of that type. This is the quickest way to change your psychology. So do it. Also fly first class (whenever you can) so it becomes uncomfortable to sit in economy. You don’t have to fly first class going forward, but doing this at least once will make you feel uncomfortable with your current slot in life. And inspire bigger action. Plus, it’ll break you out of poverty consciousness and show you that you actually do deserve nice things.
6. Dream up the biggest vision you can possibly imagine for your life and view it as already done. Run the movie of your ideal life multiple times mentally throughout the day. Hold onto this and let it play while reality around you unravels and reconfigures and time catches up.
7. Whenever you start making money, view it as no big deal. It’s like air, remember? (Also stop taking pictures of nice cars, nice dinners, nice vacations, nice penthouses. That just reaffirms that this is new to you and outside your wheel house. All this is normal and not noteworthy to you. This may seem excessive, but it’s not. The people who take photos of other people’s cars never get those cars.)
8. Create and review a mindset folder 3x/day.
9. Read biographies of self made millionaires/billionaires to brainwash yourself with their thinking patterns.
10. Write a dummy check to yourself for $10m & look at it morning and night (you can stick it in your Mindset Folder) until it no longer makes you uncomfortable.
11. View the world to be rigged in your favor (because it is).
Now we move onto productivity stuff
12. Find out if you’re a lion, bear, wolf, or dolphin and build your sleep schedule/routine accordingly. And STOP comparing yourself to other people. It doesn’t matter if somebody else wakes up at 5 and you wake up at 7. If that’s better suited for your chronotype, then do that. And vice versa. This will keep you in alignment with your personal rhythm (most important for unlocking peak performance consistently).
Also it’s worth going deeper into the sleep chronotype stuff and structuring your day accordingly. Some people do better with an early AM workout. Other types do better with later workout. Find your chronotype and try running 1 week in alignment with it and see how you feel/perform. (Also mindset related thing: Don’t turn your chronotype into your identity. Just use it as a tool and don’t get married to it)
13. Learn and apply the Peak Productivity System. This will allow you to reverse engineer any goal and execute against the 1-3 main needle moving levers that will actually move your life forward. Plus, it will save you from years of false starts/deadends/falling victim to productivity porn. (If you’re not gonna do that, then at least check out Power List by Andy Frisella and rock and roll with that!)
14. Structure your day into 90 minute work blocks. Aim to hit at least 2-4 per day, but the goal eventually is to lose yourself in your work completely so that you forget about timers/work blocks/structures altogether (this is when you hit peak flow and forget yourself and time altogether and the best creations come forward. When I do my best writing, I usually forget to eat until like 3 pm. This made it hard to put on weight at times, but fuck it… it was worth it).
15. Turn your iPhone into a dumb phone (youtube it).
16. Meditate 30 minutes/day to develop your grounding/belly. You’ll need it. Don’t do anything fancy. Just sit down, close your eyes, breathe in and out of the lower belly. Get up and be done with it.
17. Immerse yourself in nature. This will melt away your conditioning and fuel more creativity/insight/energy/connection.
18. Either cut out your bad habits, limit your bad habits to a set period (I run a sprint for xx weeks and then I go degen mode for 1 week) or double down on your bad habits. Different approach for different personality types. Certain personality types need pure chaos to perform at their best. Others need contained chaos. Others need no chaos. Know yourself.
19. Use Things 3 or something similar to easily keep track of open loops as they arise throughout the day. Set and use a shortcut on your keyboard. And hit that shortcut to quickly capture any and all open loops whenever they arise (lightning fast). Then have a designated time daily (30-60 minutes) to knock out all your open loops. This will keep your mind empty and clear and focused on the big levers.
20. Keep a reverse Google Calendar. Your job is to guard it with your life and to keep it as blank as possible so you can truly focus on what matters. 99% of the things people want you to do won’t make you big money. Learn to say no to the noise and only put on your Google Calendar the meetings/commitments/calls that are truly essential. Leave the rest of the time for thinking and learning and building and reflecting. (A white calendar is the best.)
Now we move onto acquiring skills
21. Online is obviously the past, present, and future. So learn copywriting. Learn sales. Learn paid ads. Learn organic/content marketing. Learn AI. Learn deep research. Learn how to construct and position products in verticals/markets (1-5 years ahead of the world so by the time the masses catch up, you’re already positioned well and benefit tremendously). Learn leadership. Learn management. Learn team building. These are the raw ingredients that you’ll mix and match in infinite ways to generate a pretty penny so get good at the above skills.
22. Once you start building the above skills, you want to apply and start generating what I call baby successes. Maybe you scale a store and then the store crashes. Maybe you grow a theme page to 100k followers. Maybe you write a bunch of ads and 1 or 2 takes off. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. But you want to build a track record of baby successes. Then you want to make a list of 50 people who are making the type of money you want to be making and essentially use your copy skills + your baby successes (as the proof mechanism) to position yourself as a young, hungry cat on the come up. And offer to apprentice under them for free. Yes, free. They’ll probably pay you for it anyway, but the goal here is to use the energy of youth to your advantage. There’s certain things that you can do as a young teen or early 20 year old that you cannot do in your 30s. One of those things is getting on the radar of a really successful person and having them see themselves in you and essentially bring you on so you can work your face off and boost your learning curve by leaps and bounds. It’s better to apprentice under someone that already has access to traffic/cashflow/winning brand so you can increase your learning rate (instead of learning the slow and hard way). This is the most important at this stage, not how much money you’re making. (I personally did this with a 8-figure marketer/yr early on and it changed the game for me.)
Now we move onto deploying (your mindset, execution habits, skills)
23. Pick 1 business model and set up a 1000 day digital journal. Your job is to basically deploy all your built up mindset, execution habits, and skill sets towards that one opportunity vehicle and then open your journal at day’s end and write down exactly what you learned/did/what the results were/what you’re going to do tomorrow. Nothing more. Nothing less. Laser focus on that. And commit to running it for 1000 days and tell yourself constantly: I’m 1000 days (or less) away from everything I’ve ever wanted (If you do that and you stay steadfast for 1000 days, there’s no way you don’t crack it. I haven’t seen anybody keep a 1000 day journal and fail).
Now we move onto multiplying money
24. Reinvest the money into your business to grow your revenue.
25. Reinvest the money into yourself (upgrading your skillset, knowledge, access to certain networks/people) to grow your abilities (not just in business, but in every area of life. As a general rule, the more skin you have in the game, the better you’ll do. So if you’re struggling to make progress in x area because you’re not taking action, just find somebody you trust and pay them a chunk of money. This will motivate you to actually take action now. I do this all the time and it works great. This is also why it’s smart not to torrent anything, but actually buy books. The money you use to buy the book will motivate you to actually read the book/apply).
26. Take the excess proceeds/returns generated from your investments in your business/self and buy bitcoin/stocks/real estate/whatever (personally I would just opt for bitcoin, real estate and dealing with tenants is annoying AF, but whatever… it may work for your personality type)
27. Take a portion of the money generated via your investments and use that to buy whatever you want: cars, watches, exotic trips/experiences, or don’t and just chill with peace of mind. (Never buy material possessions directly... buy assets first)
Do all that and read 1 hour/day to stay up to date with all the new trends/industries/tech advancements/conspiracies/psyops lol + F around a little bit (this is often when the serendipity of life will find you)
And it becomes pretty hard to fail (don’t get me wrong: you’ll definitely get punched in the face many times throughout this journey and doubt your sanity and lose a lot of money (I’ve lost a F ton and probably will lose a F ton more… who cares… charge it to the game) and go through a lot of ups and downs, but that happens to everybody. Get up, get dressed, get moving. And remember: EVERY SITUATION IS WORKABLE).
That’s all for today.
See you tomorrow.
Your friend,
/tej
P.S. Oh one more thing…
Never take your success personally (or even sit down to analyze it). Give all credit to God/Universe/Reality. This keeps you out of the way. And the dynamism of reality ripping and running.
P.P.S. If you’re enjoying these emails, drop me a reply and let me know. I write all these emails fresh and write/run off your energy.
Cheers and have a blessed day!
Wait, so how did your cousin earn all his money?