Most of us already carry a strategy for a better life. A way to change our diet. A workout plan. Some way to get fitter, healthier, happier without giving anything up. And almost everyone has had at least one business idea. Every single person has thought of at least one. The thought arrives, and then it floats away into the ether, never to be taken advantage of.
The strange thing is that even the stupidest idea is a door. Pursue the most ridiculous business idea you have and you'll run into twenty more along the way — problems you hit, problems other people are hitting too, ways you could make money. It's a feedback loop: self-perpetuating, the kind that feeds on itself. You can use those ideas to get fitter, to be happier, to solve real problems in your life. You just have to catch them.
Write it down. Attack it.
Put them in a voice memo. Put them on paper. Make a plan and attack them viciously, vigorously, savagely — put everything you have at them. And put your feelings out there. Everyone should be in a position to communicate how they feel and publish it in some structured way.
You don't need a newspaper anymore. Social media is just how people communicate now. It got a bad reputation as a place to watch funny cat videos and waste time. I think of it as a place to share who you actually are and connect with people in the same vein.
Since I started posting, people have reached out to meet who are surprisingly relevant to what I'm working on — people I've learned from and done business with. It's a great tool, and it's free.
Push harder to sell more
Push yourself harder to sell more. If you have an email list, email it more often. Push yourself to write better copy and design better emails. Produce more — and not just more, but more things that are extremely well detailed and extremely good.
And when those leads come in, don't attack them transactionally. Make a friend. Give away more than you take, and you'll see thousands of dollars flood into your bank account so fast you'll be swamped with work and need to hire people. That's how much business this strategy produces.
Add value. Set boundaries. If you can give someone a five-minute phone call that saves them $10,000, give it to them. They'll hire you anyway. That's one of the best marketing strategies there is.
Always take the meeting
When someone wants to meet, always take it. Someone can drop one sentence that makes you $50,000. That literally happened to me last year. I met a lawyer in Cuenca who was complaining that there was no regulatory system or licenses required to run a visa company.
I was frustrated that morning — I'd woken up early, didn't like the coffee shop, and was wondering why I was even there. Then she said that one line. A light bulb went off. I had just gotten a visa for myself. I could start that company tomorrow and charge thousands to help people. I did, and I made a lot of money off of that one sentence.
So if there's an event, go. If someone is willing to meet, meet them. I don't care who they are. Everyone has knowledge to share. Much of what I know I can't build a business on myself — I don't have the perspective required. So I'm happy to share it with you, and you can start something from it. You can do the same for me.
There's enough for everyone
In capitalism, there's enough for everyone. We can all produce more. There's no limit to money and no limit to resources. We get more by working together and sharing information freely. By being a more valuable participant in the system, we can all record more.
When you take that risk and stick your neck out on social media, you get more meetings like that. Send cold emails. Get meetings. Make the meeting worth their time too. They'll give you more opportunities than you have time to take.
And there's a funny coincidence: a lot of successful business people are also genuinely cool and enjoyable to hang out with. So it's not a grueling process, usually. You can make meetings fun. Set a meeting somewhere that serves kimchi, or good chicken, or açai bowls. I used to get açai bowls when I was a mortgage loan officer — just fun meetings like that. If you're doing business with someone, take them to a sensory deprivation chamber. Do something fun. Business does not have to be boring. It should be fun.
Let AI critique you
Use AI to critique your content. Gemini in particular has strong video and image understanding. Have it critique what you've made: "Take what I've made and help me make it go viral. What edits do I need?" Even if you're non-technical, you can upload a video to the Gemini interface and ask what's wrong with it, how you could have made it better, how to edit it. That's what AI can do.
Have it critique your diet — just talk into it and say, "Here's what I've been eating lately. How can I make it better?"
And to the people who say AI just makes slop: if AI gives you a plan and you approve it, that's not AI. That's you.
The point
The ideas are already there. Catch one. Write it down. Attack it viciously. Publish who you are. Give more than you take. Take every meeting. Let the feedback loop do the rest.