Long form articles about Money for solopreneurs
Shorter articles about Money in a solo business
The difference between you and a Millionaire
We are all just a bunch of hairless apes hurtling through space-time on a ball of mud.
Everyone seeks validation, love, status.
The difference between you and a millionaire is that a millionaire has more money
What common misconecptions about money do you hold that are holding you back?
How to make money and help people
If you want to make a little bit of money,
sell things people want.
If you want to make a lot of money,
stop selling things and start selling transformations that make people feel things.
If you want to make the most money,
But actually help people too,
Sell knowledge to help people change their life.
The market is full of creators producing and selling valuable products.
But over production isn’t the problem, over consumption is the problem.
After WW2 between leading physcologists and governments to design culture in favour of consumerism consciously.
They utilized newfound propaganda techniques which are now known as “public relations”.
The goal was well-meaning:
To protect a newly liberated workforce from mass joblessness.
But the long-term effect was rampant consumerism and zero-sum thinking.
The net effect of this social engineering is that…
Our culture says a good citizen is someone working to earn money to buy things we don’t need.
Culture says success looks like all the stuff in your garage you never use and the badge on the car you can afford.
Once people shift back to better values (experiences, people, consciousness) production has less power.
If find it strange that capitalism has changed so little in 50 years.
They are still selling products to satisfy needs on the lower rungs of the pyranid of needs (things, entertainment).
I think once production shifts to sell things at the higher level (safety, community, purpose) society will become a more stable place too
When you focus on doing good work and helping the client first,
the money becomes a side-effect of success.
Guilty purchases vs minimalism
For me, minimalism is not about mindlessly eliminating as many “things” as possible.
It’s not about quantity at all in fact.
Michael Boorman over at Wisdom Made Easy, and I were chatting about this recently.
For me, minimalism is about reducing things which add surface area, stress or noise.
It’s about only adding things that ADD VALUE to my life.
If a nice pair of sunglasses adds value to your life, then why feel guilty about it?
Of course, there’s a balance…
Buying clothes for the sake of it can become a nasty habit which accumulates clutter in your life.
Many are in the habit of mindless impulse buying for a short-term dopamine hit.
Or worse, buy things to play status games.
“we buy things we don’t need, with money we can’t afford, to impress people we don’t like”
– Dave Ramsey
You have to beware tying your sense of self-worth to what some stranger thinks about your fashion sense…
(Note, I don’t have a fashion sense 😅 most of the time I’m wearing mudstreaked work trousers, welly boots, and a tshirt that used to be white. So I’m not the best person to ask about fashion.)
But on balance, I’m not going to beat myself up over the odd impulse purchase.
An example:
A few years ago I bought a spare car.
I’m not into status games.
I have no interest in Porsches or Lambos.
I would rather drag my balls across a mile of broken glass than be caught in one of those range rovers that seem to come as standard when your a middle aged white dude who owns a business.
But I did go out and buy an old 1997 BMW z3 convertible.
It cost me £1500.
On face value…
It was superfluous to my needs.
I already have a very practical comfy car.
It adds hidden costs in tax, insurance, fuel, repairs.
It takes up valuable surface area in my life in that I have to spend time to clean it and care for it…
But for me, it brings value to my life.
I can afford the small added cost it adds.
I love to see the doggo’s ears flapping happily in the wind.
It makes me very happy it’s a lot of fun.
Sometimes a “thing” can reveal things about yourself you didn’t know,
Or let you experiment with different lifestyles.
And variety is the spice of life after all.
So if it brings value to you,
Then bash on mate.
Your revenue means nothing to me
Most freelancerrs measure success by revenue.
Revenue means nothing
Tell me about your profit ÷ time
Still meaningless.
Tell me what you do with your spare time.
Now you have a picture of your success.
If you want lifestyle business, don’t use the wrong measuring stick
Money vs Wealth
Q What does Wealth mean to you?
freedom. Freedom from constraint. Freedom to make better wealth decisions and investments. Freedom from the raterace
Q What does money mean to you?
If you’d asked me this question first, I’d have responded as above.
However in the context of “wealth vs money” it changes how I think about it.
When you ask people about success, normally they equate it to career and monetary success.
It’s the same with wealth.
Wealth can mean more than just pointless endless accumulation of monetary assets.
I have a hunch most folk would be just as happy with stability and £60k as they would earning £100k.
After a certain point there’s not much difference so long as you have enough to live comfortably and afford some luxuries.
“Most people spend money they don’t have to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like.” – Dave Ramsey
I’d add most people squander their time their time on things with no value,
glued to their lightboxes and dopamine hits.
So in this context, money is something I spend to buy time;
Time to spend on the things I enjoy.
Immediate (Design Hero funds my lifestyle (240k/yr)
Short-term (5 years) Building a scaleable business to sell digital products.
Long term (5 years+) Diversified wealth. Book sales. Content. Property. semi-passive businesses
I invest my money to buy time. I invest my wealth to buy stability and freedom.
Appreciating what I have
You can put sheep in a plain grass field surrounded by concrete, or drop them in the most stunning vista on the isle of Skye.
It makes no difference to them. where you put them, sheep are sheep.
There are 2 ways to look at this.
1 Some are just as happy with the basics are they are with luxury.
2 Luxuries are wasted on those that become blind to them.
x3 ways to make more money as a freelancer
There’s a few ways to make more:
1 Do more.
Get more leads, work with more clients.
This will work at first, but there’s a low ceiling to this.
If you work by yourself then there’s a limit to your time.
You don’t want to just burnout chasing more and more money.
2 Charge more.
Raise your prices,
increase your value or percieved value,
Speak to better clients with bigger budgets,
Get better at sales (sales is probably the biggest thing)
3 Achieve the same result with less input
I’m not talking about cutting corners.
I’m talking about building leverage.
Systemize your process, automate your admin.
Half the work for the same money = double the profit.
This means you can double your money (or half your workweek)
Once you have enough money, then you can free up your time.
Once you have enough time you can consider your higher purpose.
Luxuries are for sheep
On appreciation…
You can put sheep in a plain grass field surrounded by concrete, or drop them in the most stunning vista on the isle of Skye.
It makes no difference to them. where you put them, sheep are sheep.
There are 2 ways to look at this.
1 Some are just as happy with the basics as with luxury.
2 Luxuries are wasted on those who become blind to them.
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