Today you’ll learn:
- How to exit the recession and enter the renaissance
- How to productize your natural gifts through high value skills
- How to build a profitable offer and a fulfilling personal brand
The current system is failing.
It’s a sinking ship, and at this point, you’ve probably noticed.
I’m sure you’re painfully aware of and bitter towards the fact that you were sold a lie.
The failing system promised you safety, security, and stability as long as you did what it told you to do.
Go to school, get good grades, get a job, move up the ladder – work hard and you’ll be successful, happy, and fulfilled.
But what did you end up getting?
A soul crushing job you dread going to, ceaseless anxiety due to a mountain of debt, and just enough to get by but never enough to get ahead.
And now, you can’t help but feel trapped – standing on the ship, desperately wanting to get off, but too terrified of and paralyzed by drowning in the waters of poverty, destitution, and hopelessness to move.
Even worse, you can clearly see the lifeboat – the internet.
It’s right there, you know others have found a way to get to it, and you desperately want to be one of the people aboard.
You feel like a man stranded in the vast ocean, with an escape route he can see but can’t get to.
Now, more than ever, people all over the world – just like you – are looking for a way to escape the system that’s failed them and make their way to the lifeboat.
This is a sad reality, but it also presents a golden opportunity.
If you can build an escape ship (a brand and business) that will help you cross the waters safely (by bringing you wealth and freedom) and show others how to build their own escape ship (educate and lead) you’ll have freed yourself from the sinking system, escaped the recession, and seized the freedom and opportunity the internet can provide you.
From there, you’ll be on your way to new and exciting lands that lie just beyond the horizon of the second renaissance.
That’s what I’m going to help you learn to do today.
From hopeless recession to thriving renaissance
It’s easy to take a quick glance on Twitter, hear five minutes of news, or watch a couple minutes of a finance YouTube video and think the world is ending:
- Stock and crypto markets down
- Prices for fuel, food, and common goods on the rise
- Incompetent global leadership and #WW3 trending every other day
In the midst of all this, one can’t be faulted for not only thinking we’re in a recession – but that we’re at the tail-end of a failing empire.
The Neo-Rome of the West finally falling from its near millennium reign atop the world.
And I’m not going to sugar-coat it – there’s truth to some, even much, of that.
But the one thing I tend to disagree with is the outcome the macro conditions all point to – the world isn’t ending, the world is transforming – like it always has and always will.
I’d even go as far as to say that all the chaos and turmoil in the world right now aren’t the kicks and screams of a civilization on the brink of death, but the growing pains of a civilization on the brink of maturation – the proverbial disintegration of the caterpillar inside the cocoon before it becomes a butterfly.
Because at the same time as failing markets, rising prices, and the natural memeification that comes with the potential threat of a third world war in the digital age, we also have:
- The entirety of humanity’s collective knowledge unbiasedly resting in everybody’s pocket
- High-schoolers, single mothers, and ex-wage-slaves not only creating a living online, but setting the foundation for multi-generational wealth
- An explosive rise of the collective distrust in the powers that be and the infrastructure of the societal machine – with an exponentially growing number of people looking to independent educators, creators, and polymaths for guidance
And so you have (like in all things, and in all times) this duality of perception.
Those who choose to see the world as failing, a barren wasteland void of hope, and those who choose to see the world as changing, a fertile soil rich in opportunity and optionality.
Which reality you experience is determined by which perception you hold.
If you need to, let this be the moment you make an intentional and permanent shift in your perception – you’re not living through the recession, you’re on the cusp of living through a second renaissance.
The signs of this neo-renaissance, coupled with widespread distrust of the powers that be and the failing system, is a potent combination that creates a unique environment where educators, content creators, and value producers can thrive in a way they have never been able to before.
And to make sure you’re someone who will thrive in the coming months and years, you need to be capable of doing three things:
- Defining your passions and purpose
- Finding what I like to call “the intersections”
- Turning your passion and purpose into profit
Let’s take a closer look at how to do each one.
Defining passion and purpose
First, get it in your head that turning passion and purpose into profit has never been easier.
As long as you can find a way to either directly or tangentially connect your passion and purpose to a product or service with consumer demand, you can monetize and make a living from it.
For example, let’s say you love fitness and are passionate about educating others on how to get into the best shape of their lives.
This is directly monetizable, because health is one of the four eternal markets (the four eternal markets being how to be healthy, how to be wealthy, improving relationships, and finding fulfilment).
On the other hand, let’s say (like me) you love self-exploration and self-actualization.
This is a little more abstract, and so harder to directly monetize.
You need to approach a passion like this tangentially – meaning in a way that connects the passion to one of the four eternal markets.
Note: It IS possible to build a successful business outside of the 4 eternal markets – for example, you have video game twitch streamers, YouTubers who make video essays about anime, and even toy and gadget unboxers. This just tends to be much more difficult, and takes far more time to do successfully, so it isn’t our focus.
I tangentially monetize my passion for self-exploration and self-actualization by teaching others how to build a brand and business that serves as the primary vehicle for their own self-exploration and self-actualization, deeply fulfilling them and richly rewarding them at the same time.
This allows me to connect my more abstract passion (self-improvement) with one of the four eternal (and much more straightforward) markets (making money online).
This can be applied to virtually any area of interest, passion, or sense of purpose.
And if you’re not sure what you’re curious about, interested in, or obsessed with, look for evidence.
One of the best ways to do this is to think back to when you were a kid.
When I was a kid, I…
- talked (a lot)
- was existentially curious
- was unusually introspective
Seem familiar? It should, because it’s exactly what I’m doing now.
I’m just doing what I’ve always done – the only difference being my use of valuable skills to leverage those innate, natural tendencies.
Another way to look for evidence is through your digital environment:
- What kind of information are you always seeking out?
- What does your YouTube history, Google search history, or social media feeds look like?
- Who are you inspired by or admire? What do they do?
The evidence is there – humans are naturally curious, naturally want to learn, and you are not an exception.
If you seek, you shall find.
Finding the intersections
Once you have a clear understanding of your passion and purpose, coupled with awareness of your interests and curiosities, you can start productizing them by developing high-value skills.
I call the first step in this process “finding the intersection”.
It’s the point of contact between your gifts/aptitudes and valuable skills that allow you to make use of them in the marketplace.
Some common examples of valuable intersections:
- Innate understanding of people and how they operate? Intersect with learning sales and marketing
- Innate ability to find solutions to puzzles and mathematical problems? Intersect with coding and tech development
- Innate ability to communicate through words and language? Intersect with writing and content creation
- Innate ability to recognize patterns or artistically oriented? Intersect with graphic design, web-design, and visual production
- Innate ability to clarify the struggles of others and guide them to solutions? Intersect with consulting and coaching
Explore, experiment, and recontextualize.
The fastest and most effective way to put this into practice, is to practice.
Reframe how you approach the process – don’t think so much about taking action on, but taking action towards.
Stumble in the direction you THINK and FEEL you should be going.
I tried all kinds of things – dropshipping, copywriting, social media marketing, etc – before I discovered (and in many ways, rediscovered) what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.
None of those attempts were wasted, each one contributed in some way to my being successful in doing what I do today.
Remember, you’re an incredibly varied, multi-faceted, complex being – there’s virtually no limit to how innate gifts and abilities can be leveraged through high-value skills.
All that’s left is knowing how to monetize.
Turning passion and purpose into profit
It’s easy to overcomplicate what you need to run a business in the modern world, but the fact is it’s never been simpler – or easier.
You only need 3 things:
- A valuable product or service (offer)
- A means of distribution and awareness (social media or email list)
- A way to process payments (stripe, paypal, even crypto or venmo)
That’s it.
Now, I can already hear you thinking “it’s not that simple” – and that’s exactly the mentality that is keeping you from starting, taking action, and going all in.
You believe it has to be complicated, and so you don’t do it.
If you really want to do this (and I assume that you do if you’ve read this far) you need to discard that mentality.
Once you have, start thinking about your offer.
Remember, the easiest offers to sell will…
- Help someone feel and look better
- Help someone create financial freedom
- Help someone have better relationships or more sex
- Help someone find a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment
- Help someone with some combination of the above
When you’re first starting out, one of these areas is where you should put your focus when creating something to sell.
As you grow your reputation, build your brand, and create more trust and authority, you’ll gain greater freedom to be more and more nuanced with your offer(s) because people will care less about what you’re selling and more that you’re the one selling it.
But in the meantime, stick to what’s been proven to work.
When it comes to building your offer, the very first thing to understand is that you are NOT selling features.
You’re selling a transformation.
How the offer works always comes second to the transformation the offer provides – from who and where your prospect is now to who and where they want to be.
So, when you first start conceptualizing, you want to reverse engineer.
Don’t build from deliverables to outcome, build starting with the ideal outcome and work backwards to define the deliverables that will help them get there.
“Okay, this is great… but what if I don’t know enough to create an offer someone will want to buy?” I hear you asking.
Break your limiting beliefs around how much expertise or experience you need to have when it comes to creating your offer, especially if it’s your first.
You only need to be a single step in front of someone to create and sell something that will enrich and add value to their lives. Think about what you would have wanted to have a year or two ago, and attempt to build that.
To help take even more pressure off yourself, don’t think in terms of “this offer NEEDS to do X, Y, and Z.”
Instead, think in terms of “If ALL THIS OFFER DOES is X, Y, or Z, it will have been successful for the customer and worth their money.”
You don’t need to promise someone the moon and stars – yes, aim to over deliver, but always keep the minimum viable result (MVR) in the back of your mind.
And don’t overcomplicate – focus on THREE primary benefits the offer will provide.
For example, the focus inside Absolute Abundance Academy will be on helping students…
- Develop an infinite ideation and content system
- Create irresistible offers that make money while they sleep
- Build an impactful personal brand they can happily commit their lives to
Finally, discard the mindset of building “for” your customers and clients, and adopt the mindset of building “with” your customers and clients.
The easiest and fastest way to make your offer the best it can be is to create a minimum viable offer (MVO), sell it to people without needing it to be perfect or flawless, and use their direct feedback to improve the quality.
Onto distribution and awareness.
The short answer is to build a personal brand. That is the single best way to grow and monetize passion and purpose in the modern world.
Now for the long answer…
When you’re starting out, I encourage focusing on one channel.
I love Twitter because the content is short, feedback is fast + direct, and it’s conducive to experimentation.
It also serves as a “seed incubator” for ideas – you can test concepts on Twitter, and add depth to the ones that do well by writing a thread or expanding inside of an email.
To learn how you should position yourself and convey your ideas, study 3-5 creators you want to emulate and/or be like. Use tweetsort to filter their content from most likes, highest engagement, etc.
Don’t reinvent the wheel – take the proven ideas that have worked for them and try to find ways you can make them work for you.
Once you’ve gotten a feel for how you’re going to present your purpose and passion, immediately start reaching out to creators with a similarly sized audience or at a similar point in their journey.
And (I cannot stress this enough) reach out to them with the intention of creating AUTHENTIC and MEANINGFUL relationships.
Yes, you can help each other – share each others content, gain inspiration from each other, leverage each other’s audience, etc – but if you go in with that at the forefront of your mind, it will always come through in your communication.
Focus on who you can mutually thrive with, vibe with, and expand with – not just who you can mutually benefit with.
Now for something a little less conventional – start thinking early on about expanding into a fractal-based content system.
A fractal is a system that infinitely replicates itself in patterns.
Think of a tree – a twig is a small version of a branch, a branch is a small version of a bough, a bough is a small version of a trunk.
The entire structure is a pattern that repeats itself.
Your content ecosystem should (eventually) function the same way:
- Core longform content that goes in-depth (trunk) – newsletter, blog post, youtube video
- Medium form content that highlights the key points (bough) – twitter thread, instagram carousel, linkedin post
- Short form content that highlights a single key point (branch/twig) – tweet, tiktok, reel, YT short
You can also think of this content infrastructure cyclically and apply it in reverse – you have a single tweet that does well, you expand on that single tweet by writing a twitter thread which does well, you expand on that twitter thread by writing a longform in-depth email.
As you go through your process, remember to develop like an artist and implement like a scientist.
Rely on creativity, inspiration, and insight (found through deliberate study and research) to create content, and rely on systems, frameworks, and repeatable actions to stay consistent with content.
Try, fail, learn, succeed – always allow this process to stay rooted in the back of your mind.
You don’t have to be perfect, you just need to produce.
Reaching the lands beyond the horizon
Remember, getting to the land of the second renaissance is a marathon and not a sprint – the journey of a thousand miles always begins with a single step.
Stay process oriented, and try not to get caught up in the initial results. There will always be another peak – you’ll get to the top of the mountain you’re climbing now only to see 3 taller mountains that tower above it.
And just get started, taking action is the most important thing – 10 attempts that fail will always be infinitely more valuable than 10,000 ideas that never become any more than a thought.
If you want to fast-track your progress by using a proven system that works, join the waitlist for Absolute Abundance Academy.
If you want to try your hand at going alone, but could use some additional support and guidance:
- Click or tap here to get the Key of Mind – master thought, clarity, and flow
- Click or tap here to get the Key of Time – master structure, learning, and practice
- Click or tap here to get the Key of Wealth – master creativity, money, and freedom
Much love and, as always, thank you for reading.
– JCS
