So it’s been a minute…
(I tend to do that a lot, disappear, then reappear with gold)
Soooooo I’m back for a bit.
I’m gonna make these posts a bit more regular moving forward.
Ideally weekly, which will include a mix of interviews, breakdown videos and long form articles…
But…
One thing I will be doing going into 2024, is making this more about beat your control – for your whole life…
That means health stuff, dating, and of course…
Business scaling and split testing
(which will still be the focus)
Anyways…
Let’s get into one of my favourite annual posts…
29 lessons from 29 years of life, in no particular order…
1. Your greatest enemy is you
Take a look in the mirror. That person staring back, that’s the one keeping you from all your hopes and dreams. From that chiseled body, abundant love life, or endless bank account.
If you are reading this blog, there is no reason you can’t achieve al your dreams. And the only person you need to beat is you.
Kill the version of you, so the best on can step out. Can’t be two people at once. The best version is waiting. You just need to be brave enough to make that sacrifice.
2. Uncertainty is the root of all low converting copy
This is a lesson I learned from Dan Ferrari on our first 2.5-hour-straight-cop-mindfuck. The more uncertain your copy is, the less likely you are to convert a customer. When in doubt be certain. Get the conversions, then dial back from compliance later on.
3. Fuck saving, Maximize ROI spending
I think Elon Musk said it’s easier to make an extra 10k, than it is to save 10k. And I live by that principle x1000.
Money can be created out of thin air (clearly). Thus you can always have more or less. But Time, time is finite. And there’s no point in trying to save pennies when you can try to buy back your most precious resource.
I can tell you, that without a doubt, spending money specifically for maximizing my time has been the best thing I have ever done (outside of therapy). Here is the 3 best ways to spend you money for maximum ROI:
- Get ALL chores done for you (cleaning, cooking, shopping etc.)
- Live in a central location (cuts down travel time to gym, office, dates, bars, nightlife etc. However, this is person specific – aka if you love the beach, live on the beach)
- Get a trainer, massage therapy, HRT optimization (maximum health performance is the foundation of everything)
Everything else beyond this is secondary. But if you can nail down 1 or 2 of these you’ll be shocked at how much time you can buy back and then invest into more fulfilling life experiences (or just doing nothing).
4. If you’re a guy, focus on $$ until you’re free
This one is simple. Men, the highest leverage thing you can do in your life is get your finances straight. It will amplify EVERYTHING. Health, friendships, social etc. And it will accelerate all your dreams. I barely partied in my 20s and I can tell you the social events I have now are 1000x better than I would’ve ever been able to experience when I didn’t have cash. And it was worth every party/”cool” social event I skipped.
Just be careful not to destroy your personality on the quest to riches (one of the side effects – but easily avoidable with some rigid social rules)
Women, unfortunately I have no advice for you. I have no idea (nor do I dare to guess) what the world is like from your vantage point.
5. Eliminate INGs, THIS, and JUST
This is also from Dan Ferrari. One of the best ways to write better copy is to eliminate fluffiness. Specificaly look for filler words like “just”, this, and ING ending words. ING verbs tend to weaken copy, ex:
Leaving you free to run and play.
vs
This leaves you free to run and play.
A small shift, but it makes the copy that much more certain (see #2). Do that 20-30x and you have a whole different promo.
6. Play long games with long term people
I’ve had to learn this one too many times before it sank in. But if there’s one thing that’s given me the best ROI, it’s playing long term games, with long term people.
Don’t scam people. Over deliver. Treat clients, friends, and romantic relationships like they’re going to be there forever. Because even if they aren’t, the world is a very, very small place. And your reputation means EVERYTHING. Don’t fuck it up by being lazy or short sighted.
7. %D0P matters most
%D0P stands for Percentage of Day Zero Profits. Otherwise known as profitability. I know an absolute ridiculous amount of business owners who do 7 and 8 figures, but are literally in the RED. Making money is easy. Keeping it is a different story. At the end of the day, you are worth what you keep – aka PROFIT – not what you make.
8. Make money in obscure niches
This has been one of my secret weapons for years, and here it is, out in the open. Thankfully, it can’t be stolen since not enough people have the creativity needed to execute this properly (hopefully you’re not one of those people).
Whatever niche you are in, whether it’s dating, health or wealth, find the weirdest niches and monetize them. For example, instead of competing in weight loss supplements, go into constipation, nail fungus, or dental supplements. Smaller niches, but less competition and compliance. And this game is balance between avoiding going head to head with the 100M/year publishing companies and Alphabet agencies.
Working in weird niches, solves both those issues (for a short while, until everyone catches on, and you have to pivot again – I didn’t say this game was easy).
9. A+ players only
This comes back to long term thinking and long term games. Working with anyone below and A+ level is slowing you the fuck down. It’s eroding your potential and your business. If you’re not A+, time to level the fuck up. Get (buy) a mentor’s time by any means necessary and get there. There are literally zero excuses.
I have wasted (years) working with B level players. Not once has it ever worked out. People are either A players, on their way to becoming one, or are not worth working with long term (short term is fine, but I have found it to be a drain emotionally more than anything else).
10. Speed is just a tool, it’s not king
Speed is king is a common phrase. Sure, speed is very important. But launching a crappy product, with sub par marketing is never worth the speed.
Instead, I’ve learned this year, from some very smart business partners and friends to slow the fuck down and launch as fast as you can WITH the best execution possible.
Shitty execution = shitty results.
11. Get off society’s (forced) dopamine I.V.
This one is a struggle for me, and everyday I battle it. Today’s society has done an excellent job of keeping many people undereducated and overfed. But I’m not talking about food. I’m talking about dopamine.
For those that don’t know, here’s a (very) rudimentary understanding of how your brain and motivation/action works:
- You do something. If your brain deems it as good for survival (aka sex, eating) you get a squirt of dopamine.
- Dopamine feels very good. This reinforces that you should continue this behaviour.
The problem occurs, when God Level IQ neuroscientists have figured out how to hack the dopamine dump. Specifically with the 4 inches in your pocket – your phone.
It’s a literal dopamine IV that keeps you hooked 24/7/365. And when your brain is constantly saturated with such easy to get dopamine, you lose motivation. Why work on your business, when you can scroll instagram and get a better chemical high? It’s mostly unconscious, but it’s what society has created.
It’s why you need to be absolutely ruthless with your phone and other cheap dopamine hits – casual sex, porn, gambling, social media, video games, sugar etc.
Personally I limit my non-phone-work time to 15-30min a day max. And other cheap dopamine pleasures to basically zero. If you want to go nightmare mode, and completely reset yourself, watch this video and try Alex Becker’s nightmare mode.
(Note: Alex is probably the best front-facing internet marketer / business operator out there to learn from. 10x better than any of the much more popular guru’s – but his messaging only hits hard with people that really get business – which unfortunately (or fortunately) is not most people.)
12. Work your way up the Equity Ladder (3 levels)
Up for debate of course, but too many people I know try to take day 0 cash over long term potential. Look if you’re fortunate enough to be reading this blog, you have some shit going for you.
And you can probably take some financial risk in the next 12 months or so. One of those risks, I urge you to take, is to take on equity instead of day zero cash. Why? Because the pay off is 100x (and you only need to be right once). Here’s the breakdown for an offer/business that does 10M in sales”
- Write a sales letter. Total payout 20k.
- Write a sales letter with rev share. Total payout 10k + 100k (1% of 10M)
- Own the sales letter written for you. Total payout $1,000,000-$3,000,000 (10-30% profits of the 10M).
Literally 100x ROI for being the owner. Yes there’s more risk. Yes there’s more moving parts, execution etc. But that’s why me, they (and hopefully you one day) get paid the big bucks. Not to mention it’s an asset you can then sell later on. If you’re currently at level one (trading time for money aka a job), save some cash and move to level 2/3 as fast as you can. You’re bank account and future self will thank you 100x over.
13. Unlock your (t)rauma
This one is brutal. But the strongest men aren’t the ones that don’t cry or practice some bullshit stoicism (you can’t suppress / ignore feelings. It’s literally 1/4 of the human experience and you put yourself at a HUGE disadvantage when you do this).
The strongest men are the ones that face their fears and keep moving forward. The ones that actively seek painful situations to grow. The ones that go deep into themselves unlock all their subconscious (t)rauma and undo all the automatic programming keeping them stuck in their never ending generational patterns.
If you ever do this work, it will be
Life isn’t about evolving. It’s about excavating the real you, from all the bullshit thrust on to you from 0-7 years old. And then being that person. Weird is good. Be weird. Or die like every other NPC out there.
*And just so we’re clear I’m not saying to do what you feel. I’m saying acknowledge your feelings, and then make the best decision for you. Oh, you feel like you want to eat that pint of Half-Baked Ben & Jerry’s a 2am? Is that going to help you achieve your goals? No? Then don’t do it (you shouldn’t even have that in your house in the first place if you read my #1 bestselling book).
No ignoring your feelings, just working with them. Very different than stoicism which is basically a form of numbing yourself – which is not when you want if you want to be a high performer. Also sensory experiences are needed to perform at your best – including your emotions.
14. Avoid creating more problems
Pretty straight forward. The best way to get from point A to point B is in a straight line. That means always moving forward. Which further means, stop creating more problems for yourself. Many people (including myself) have a tendency to create extra problems in their life just out of pure boredom and excitement. Don’t do this. Better yet, learn how to undo this.
The more you avoid mistakes, the faster (and easier) you’ll reach your goals. The best way to do this, is to hire a coach or get mentorship in the EXACT thing you want to achieve. Heck one of my mentee’s Zarak wanted to make more money in his biz. So he hired me, and he 10x’d his monthly income in less than 8 months. Why? Because he was able to avoid a ton of mistakes that I had already made. That’s the straight line to success.
15. Maximum health optimization
Most people don’t know this, but at 23 years old I went on Testosterone Replacement Therapy. I can tell you without a doubt that I would not be here right now, writing these delicious, life changing words to you, if it weren’t for TRT and optimizing the fuck out my health. I’m smarter, can push harder for longer and eat cannolis without getting fat. I also sleep better, have more risk tolerance and a stronger will to win.
This is a product of health optimization. Obviously TRT was the right choice for me and it’s not for everyone. But everyone can optimize their health. It is one of the best ROI spending strategies I have ever found (outside of having a chef / personal assistant and hiring A+ players).
16. WOM marketing is still #1
There’s tons of marketing strategies out there. But to this day, the best, strongest, most persuasive, most money printing marketing strategy is Word Of Mouth. It’s a lesson I’ve learned over and over again. And it’s super apparent in some of the biggest and fastest growing brands on the planet. Watch the JUUL documentary (40B valuation in 6 months) or Spotify documentary. Both are world class examples of Word of mouth marketing.
17. Sell other people’s time
There are a few levels to business. The first one is freelancing/serving. In this phase you are selling your own time. The next phase is selling products or your own time. This is where it gets interesting and where you really start to become an entrepreneur (almost).
Selling products is pretty straight forward. They can be info products (infinite-scale) or physical products (supplements, gadgets, etc.). You can get to some serious scale here, especially if you build the right team. Selling your own time can be lucrative (think consulting), but at the end of the day it’s still a glorified (albeit high-paying) job.
The last phase is selling other people’s time. This is where you yield massive leverage and start to employ / partner with experts. Together you can accomplish financial goals 10x what you would’ve been able to execute alone. Just make sure the partner you work with 1) has a complementary and different skill set, 2) gets a long well. Nothing destroys a business faster than partnerships or employees with poor attitudes.
18. Achieve 100% liquidation
There are certain times in life, where you don’t want to be keeping money in a business. Or even in your life. There first few years of internet marketing I spent every single dollar I had on masterminds, coaching, and getting better at business or thinking. This is called 100% liquidation. It means all your profits go back into growing the brand (or yourself). In the case of business building, 100% liquidation yields maximum customers. Which means ridiculous back end profits (assuming you dial it in).
Of course not every business / person can handle 100% liquidation, but if you can make it work, even for one year, you’ll be amazing at how fast you or your business can explode.
19. Schedule Regular Thinking Time
One of the best books I ever read is called The Road Less Stupid. Inside dictates a concept called thinking time. This is to analyze and think through all possible 2nd and 3rd order consequences before executing on a plan. This allows you to:
- Avoid creating new problems unnecessarily
- Avoid going down stupid paths and wasting your time
By doing this you get ahead of 99.9% of people. One of my mentors suggested I go away for 3 days this year and map out the next 5 years of my life. What’s important, what’s not, what’s working, where do I want to go, Etc.
I suggest you do the same. Spend 3 days (no phone connection) and simply think and write. You’ll be amazed at the breakthroughs that come out of this.
20. Cold traffic scalability
For 2 years, I’ve ran a supplement mastermind centred around affiliates and scaling via email traffic. But over the past 6 months I’ve seen a shift. In my opinion the affiliate model is dying. Many affiliates are no longer promoting outside products (and instead creating a suite of products).
Which is why, it’s more important than ever to be playing the cold traffic game. But, as we go into 2024, it’s not just about getting a mass market offer. Here’s a short list of what to consider:
- Traffic platform compliance
- COGS/Economics at scale
- Market competition
- Refunds
- MIDs
- Fraud prevention
- etc.
21. Should you even exist?
When I first launched Pup Labs, our products had no reason to exist in the market place. No differentiation. Just our marketing was unique. But if Pup Labs vanished overnight, the market (aka customers), wouldn’t miss it. They could easily switch to another brand.
But in early 2023, we went back into R&D and found unique, one of a kind products that had a REASON to be in the market place. Literally they’re the only dog treats that are so clean, you can eat them too. Kind of like Rx Bars, but for dogs.
Not only does this give us a reason to exist (aka the market would miss us) but also it gives us a moat against copy cats who want to rip us off.
22. Protect your purchasing power at all costs
Inflation is at an all time high. The only thing that matters now is protecting your purchasing power. That means what can you get with your dollar. Of course, many ways to do that. One of the sharpest guys I know in that space is a business partner of mine (I’ll make an intro for anyone who wants).
All I can say is, diversify your dollars into crypto, real estate, gold, private equity, etc.)
23. Move away from everyone you know
I saw this in an Alex Becker video, and I realized I had done it myself unconsciously. One of the great learning lessons for your life is getting the fuck out of your home town and moving far away. Ideally where you don’t know anyone. Currently I’m writing this from Medellin, Colombia, nearly 2600 miles from where I was born.
An entirely different continent, language, and culture. Before, I was living in Costa Rica, and before that Naples, FL. 1000’s of miles from home and anyone I knew. And it’s been the greatest, darkest, experiment of my life. One that has taught me a lot about who I am, what I can handle and how much growing up I still have to do. And that no matter what, I can rely on myself to conquer and overcome anything.
I recommend, if/when you can, to move away from home and see what it’s like. I promise you, there’s nothing that will change your life faster than changing your environment.
24. Dance, Drink, Speak
Piggy backing off that one, this year has certainly been my productive year. In the past 5 months, outside of launching and scaling multiple brands/offer and running my mastermind, I have learnt how to speak fluent Spanish in 6 weeks, nearly perfected Colombian salsa (one of the hardest salsa’s in the world) and gotten pretty damn good at Bachata. I have zero dancing or Spanish background, yet despite that, I was still able to master those 3. Obviously I’m a high performer, but even for me that was impressive.
All it took, like anything else, was executing the daily fundamentals, and setting it up so it was impossible to fail. To learn Spanish, I had my teacher come every single day at 5pm. SO no matter what I had to practice Spanish. And then I dated a girl who spoke ZERO English. That took it to a whole new level. Dancing was the same. I made sure I pre=paid for classes and had to show up, no matter what, whether I wanted to or not. And seemingly, like magic, I went from the world’s most robotic dancer, to holding my own with professional dancers.
And it’s changed my world view on everything. The way sentences are formed in Spanish helps me right better copy. Dancing has taught me how to connect more with women and be more emotional, which has translated over to my copy 10x. I’m able to feel more (fuck stoicism) and lean into those emotions to grip a readers mind and get them to buy. Go learn a new language, and how to sensually dance. It will change the game.
25. Know your Tetris piece
Over the summer, I had the good fortune of doing private consulting with Aaron Winter. For those that don’t know, Aaron was on the best financial copywriters ever, and mentor to Dan Ferrari. To this day, he is still the smartest guy I have ever met. His ability to see the world in a unique way and solve unsolvable puzzles, is unparalleled.
On one call, he explained to me that every person is a Tetris piece. You just need to know how you fit the puzzle to win the game. It struck me hard, because for a long time, I couldn’t really put a label on what I do. I fall in a weird category of copywriter/operator/business owner. But also investor, CFO, and CMO. And it threw me off for a long time. Because, well , it’s nice to go home to Christmas dinner and be like “I’m a writer” instead of going some vague description of shady internet marketing practices to my 90 year old grandma.
With Aaron, I was able to discover, that my Tetris piece, is the T piece. The most versatile piece in the game. The (often) missing piece to satisfyingly clearing out a line of Tetris blocks. Life is the same. I have come to discover that in business and even relationships, I am the missing piece to whatever most people I interact with are trying to achieve. It’s a really, really weird position to be in, but one that has been more fulfilling the deeper I get into it. And knowing myself better, has helped explode my business and life 10x faster.
26. Nature as much as possible
I’ve spent a lot of time in nature this year – heck I live in the Colombian Jungle. And I can tell you that the more time I spend near beaches, in mountains, and around general nature, the better my life is. I’m happier, healthier and more productive x1000. It’s by far the biggest life hack I’ve come across.
27. North America is dying/dead
This one is pretty self explanatory and if you’r not convinced simply take a stroll to your nearest wall mart to see what passes for the word “American Citizen”. Or simply turn on the news. Gender confusion, extreme racism, TikTok melting kids brains, forced medication, poisonous food and water, daily shootings, the fed lying about inflation and printing more money, the greatest wealth disparity we will ever see in our lifetimes… the list goes on.
Canada isn’t any better (it’s just quieter). More people than ever are over-medicated and undereducated; the perfect storm for taking over the greatest country in the world (America, not Canada). The dating game isn’t better, where extreme Status games have made the entire dating market hyper transactional in America/Canada. To the point where NO ONE wins.
I’m generalizing (obviously), but this is the reality we live in. 5% of the rich men will take 90% of the women. And then what? Nobody wins. Anyways, whatever idea America was, is dead. COVID ensured that. Now we are living in a ticking time bomb. All I know is that I am out of there. Financially and physically. Multiple passports. Offshore banking. And living in places where people still treat each other like human beings. I’m not what your life situation is, but if it we’re me, I would be looking at exit/backup strategies before everyone catches this trend and other countries close their borders (it’s crazy to me to write these words, but this is the 2024 reality and it’s only going to get worse).
28. Be selfish
It’s terrible that what’s best for us often hurts other people. But that is (often) life. I don’t make the rules, I just play the game. And life is not worth it, when you’re constantly sacrificing yourself for other people. Put yourself first, and you will (eventually) be happy. It’s that simple.
29. Beat Your Control
There is nothing in your life that can’t be improved. No control, that can’t be beaten. With the new year coming up, I recommend taking a long look at every area of your life. Ranking it. Assessing it. And looking towards the future. Where do you want to go? And what behaviours need to change to make it impossible to fail. 1 split test at a time, and you’ll get there. I promise you that.
PT