Nov 23, 2024
Every single morning, millions of people drag themselves out of bed.
They battle through a 27-minute commute and stress throughout the entire day only to:
Sit in an office
Do what they're told
Watch the clock tick down to 5 PM
Daydreaming of freedom but feeling too tired to pursue it.
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Henry David Thoreau
I know this reality because I lived it.
For 9 years, I was stuck in the rat race, working as an engineer and hating my existence.
The worst part? — I didn't even realize how trapped I was at first.
The math is simple: the average person will spend 90,000 hours at work in their lifetime.
What if you could spend just 3360 hours to change your life and get all those hours back?
That's just 2 hours a day building on a side hustle.
How I Went From Corporate to Time Freedom
To make a long story short, I went from:
60+ hour weeks to complete time freedom
Built a side business from $0 to over $7k/month
Helped others find their dream business and monetize as well
Like many of us, I started optimistic.
I was constantly introduced to more challenging tasks, and the yearly pay raises felt like progression.
But after 3 years, everything stopped, and the emptiness began to set in. It's hard to describe, but something always felt off — even in my university days.
The most frustrating part was that I couldn't put my finger on what exactly was wrong.
Looking back now, I realize I was being led down a predetermined path, unable to see the possibilities beyond a traditional career track.
You have to design your life, or a life will be designated for you.
A few things happened that made me hit financial rock bottom (like a bad car deal).
I had spent 5 years graduating with a Master of Science in Electronics Engineering.
Yet here I was, hitting financial rock bottom after a bad car deal with student loans and a mortgage stacking up.
I was one car breakdown from broke.
I started questioning everything. I tried different business models online, and after 5 years, I handed in my resignation letter.
Today, I'm an "entrepreneur" doing exactly what I want with my time every day of the week.
I managed to break free from the system that traps 99% of people.
And if I could do it, then so can you.
But before diving into the solutions, we must confront some deeply uncomfortable truths about modern life.
A Future Nobody's Prepared For
You've probably heard of AI.
As a digital writer, I've been on the front lines, watching it disrupt the entire online writing industry to its core.
Online brands used to hire dozens of freelancers to write blog posts for their websites. They paid per word, but after AI came along, 10 freelancers could be replaced by 1 operator to pump out articles.
Online jobs disappeared in weeks, and the entire industry changed overnight.
So, how does this affect you even if you're not a writer?
Based on what I've witnessed firsthand and projections online, 47% of today's jobs will be automated within the next few years.
Just consider how AI has come along until now:
2022: Basic text generation
2023: Human-level writing
2024: Multi-modal capabilities
2025: Predicted job displacement begins
2026-2030: Massive workforce restructuring
I believe it will happen even faster as AI accelerates its development exponentially (the red line in the graph below).
The safety net you think exists through a job is an illusion.
What will you do once lines of code replace you?
The traditional path isn't just unfulfilling — it's crumbling beneath our feet as we speak.
The Designated "Modern Life"
I've seen this journey from both sides now. I've witnessed countless old colleagues trapped in this cycle and people who broke free to build wealth online.
My clients come to me feeling exactly how I felt years ago — trapped in a golden cage, knowing something's wrong but unable to pinpoint exactly what.
They have the "good job," the benefits, and the stability everyone tells them they should want — yet they're miserable, burned out, and quietly desperate for a change.
Every year you stay trapped in the traditional system, it costs you:
Thousands of hours of your life
Your mental and physical health
$50,000+ in lost side income potential
Countless missed moments with family
Future opportunities you can't even see yet
People are living a life that has been designated for them.
Go to school
Get a degree
Take on debt for that degree
Get a job to pay for that debt
Buy a house with more debt to lock it in
The debt stacks — and now you're spending 90,000 hours of your life at a job you hate.
That's equivalent to 10 full years of non-stop working.
These years are stretched across 4 decades by wasting 8 hours a day on meaningless tasks you do for someone else.
What you do at a job doesn't really matter because it has no impact on your life and the world. That's why working a job feels unfulfilling.
I'm not saying having a job is bad; this is just reality.
Use a job as a springboard to fuel your next evolution of life. What most people do is stay in the same situation for an entire lifetime.
Sacrificing life for made-up money that a government can print billions of at a whim is not a winning strategy for lifestyle design.
3 Traps That Keep You Stuck
Feeling trapped is your body and mind signaling that something is wrong.
You only stand a chance to change your life if you understand what is happening to you.
These are the three traps that keep you stuck in the perpetual cycle:
1. The Comfort Trap
Most people don't change because they're too comfortable.
Everything around us is designed to keep us weak, scattered, and entertained with:
Monthly bills that keep us chained to jobs
"Golden handcuffs" of benefits and pension plans
The illusion of security in an extremely rapidly changing world (AI)
I realized that I was too comfortable in my engineering job. I was building my side hustle, but the fire wasn't there in me.
It was too easy to default to Netflix and chill.
To relax, play video games, and go through the motions at my job for 8 hours a day because the "reward" was waiting at home.
Something had to change, so I boldly asked my boss to reduce my hours. I took a deliberate 20% pay cut to decrease my salary, which did two crucial things for me:
I got 20% of my time back to put into the online business
I redlined my income with expenses exceeding my income
This was my way of creating discomfort.
I saw that I wasn't saving money each month and felt the pain of regressing backward in cash.
To be clear, I'm not advising anyone to do this. It's just how I made the discomfort happen. But in return, it gave me the fire and courage I needed to move forward.
It's incredible how a little discomfort can make you take action, and thanks to this, I was able to replace my 9-5 job.
Without the discomfort, I would not have made it.
2. The Mental Trap
I'll say it how it is — your mind has been programmed with beliefs that keep you stuck.
"Starting your own thing is too risky"
"You need a stable job to be successful"
"You need to climb the corporate ladder"
"Work is supposed to suck and be unfulfilling"
Listen carefully: the only real risk here is being in a job and NOT building your own thing.
Remember the stats I shared earlier?
Living paycheck to paycheck is risky, and you're one car breakdown from being broke (like I was).
The comfort trap pushes the choice towards easy mode.
But remaining broke, dependent, and distracted is the exact opposite of changing your life.
Are you starting to see how these traps are coming together to keep you stuck where you are?
I intensely desired to escape my job and do my own thing, to take back control.
I had a dream and a goal, but when I asked my colleagues if they had any goals, they couldn't answer. They had blank stares on their faces, like zombies.
"Dreams? Goals? You mean survive until the weekend?"
We haven't even developed the ability to have dreams, goals, and aspirations. These things have been beaten out of us over the years.
If you want to change your life, you must develop a basic awareness of your current situation.
To become conscious of where you are on the chessboard of life.
3. The Energy Trap
Your environment is the last trap that keeps you stuck from changing your life and getting ahead of 99% of people.
In most cases, it's designed to drain you with:
Artificial lighting that disrupts your natural rhythms
Processed foods that rob you of your vitality
Digital distractions that fragment your focus
Stress hormones that burn out your system
I can't tell you how often people have told me they can't look at another screen for even a second because they're exhausted and drained after work.
It's a vicious cycle that drains you of the little energy you have to get somewhere.
Inversely, starting an online business requires A LOT of energy, focus, dedication, and drive to get it going.
I truly want you to consider the risk of inaction and how the traps of comfort, your mind, and your environment work together to keep you perpetually stuck where you are.
Is it fair?
No, it’s horrible and hard to break out of without help.
Can you change your life?
YES, and that’s what we’ll dive into right now!
How To Get Ahead Of 99% Of People
The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new - Socrates
Changing your life requires focus and energy on the right things, and the Greek philosopher Socrates already knew this in 399 BC.¨
I've had my fair share of failures and successes, so I know when someone wastes time on things that never move the needle.
Overthinking for months without having any results to show for it is a painfully real thing. This is often how it looks:
First, you try to make money online in ANY way possible
You realize that it takes time and energy, so you run into problems
The solution you find is to sacrifice evenings, weekends, and sleep
This puts your already strained life into a negative spiral
You start to look for easier options and get stuck overthinking
Overwhelmed with too many options, you start to procrastinate
And you quit...
Life and business never gets easier, you just have to get stronger
People often start with the business models but get stuck on the next level because fixing the junk in your mind is boring — until you see its potential.
So, let's start by designing a business around your life first and tackle the problems as they come.
1. Cash Flow
The first pillar of changing your life is to create financial autonomy.
It's just how it is and how society works. You need money to live the life you want (and pay the bills without being stressed).
To understand how you can design your life the way you want, it starts with the fundamental understanding of this:
You need to have a goal that you want
You need a path to get to your goal
You need to be in control of your income
The goal of making $10k/m is not enough.
Money in and of itself lacks substance, and it doesn't have a big WHY attached to it. But money is the vehicle that allows us to get what we truly want.
Sam Ovens, a Forbes 30 Under 30 and self-made millionaire (+$10M) says you HAVE to love the work, or you won't DO the work.
It sounds like common sense, but common sense is not common practice.
Figuring out what you truly want might take some time and reflection, but once you do, you can design a business that serves your life and gives you endless motivation every day.
That's what "lifestyle design" is all about. The business has to serve the customers AND the owner as well.
Otherwise, what's the point?
This is one of the things I help people solve when they first come to me. We design your $100k/y freedom business together. Just reply to any of my emails (join the newsletter), and let's talk.
Once we know the goal, reverse engineer the path to get there becomes easier. This is a quote that one of my mentors hammered into my head repeatedly:
"If it doesn't make money, it doesn't make sense!"
Whatever you're doing right now, ask yourself these questions:
Is it making me money now?
Will it make me money soon?
Does it make sense?
If the answer is no to any of them, you're better off tearing everything down and rebuilding the approach.
To change your life (for real), you have to:
Understand your goal
Carve out the path to get there
Take action to make it happen now
This isn't about getting rich quick.
It's about building systems so you can work on the right things…
…over and over and over again.
Until you get cash sitting in your bank account from the business you enjoy doing.
2. Energy To Perform
Money without energy is worthless yet energy is required to make money.
Energy — the core of what makes us function as human beings.
I can't stress how important it is to take care of your body. Your life depends on it, yet it's the first thing that goes out the window when we attempt to build a one-person business.
Back when I worked as an engineer, I bought an Oura ring (a sleep tracker) with the thought of cutting my sleep to 4 hours a night so I could work more.
I have to laugh at my stupidity for even thinking that.
It's the wrong move and approach to business overall, and needless to say, that little experiment didn't work out.
You'll find it VERY hard to progress in life if you're always tired and lethargic.
Those who come to me stressed out of their minds can't even muster the strength to do basic things...
Yet you want to compete in the business world against millions?
If you get your energy management sorted, you'll feel less stress, age slower, and become happier overall.
There are a lot of benefits to doing this. You have to take sleep seriously if you want to change your life and enter the top 1%.
I've tracked my sleep for over 3 years now and know what works to increase deep sleep, REM, and more.
Once I centered my daily routines and habits around sleep, I started to tackle business problems more effectively.
I could probably write 5 more newsletters on the topic of sleep, nutrition, and working out, but what you need to know right now is this:
Fix the founder, and the company operates better as a result.
The best return you can get as a solopreneur is optimizing your health.
So start looking into your morning and evening routines if you want the most effortless life hack to improve your life.
3. Frame of Mind
Your mind is either your greatest ally or your biggest obstacle
Unfortunately, most people's minds are actively working against them.
Don't believe me?
Let me know if you've ever heard these phrases in your head:
“I can’t do it”
“I don’t know what to do”
“I don’t have time for this”
“What if it doesn’t work out?”
With sufficient self-reflection, you'll discover that your mind is holding you back on so many levels.
Even if you do manage to make a business work, your mind will soon find steps to self-sabotage it for you with:
Distractions
Fear of failure
Procrastination
Information overwhelm
Shiny object syndrome
These roadblocks are normal, and every entrepreneur deals with them. Some make it past them with enough work and self-improvement, while others get stuck.
Procrastination was a big problem for me to solve back when I was juggling a 9-5, a newborn son, and building my side hustle online.
And the solution always circled back to clarity.
Clarity is the thread that runs through all of these problems. It's not just a one-time thing.
What you should take away from this section is aligning your big WHY with the lifestyle you want:
How do you want to live it?
What do you want out of life?
What would an ideal day look like?
This is important because your thoughts influence your decisions and how you act daily.
People often save this step for last when, in fact, it's the first thing you should start with.
Everything stems from your frame of mind.
You can only change your life when you know what you want and, more importantly, what you DON'T want.
I'd recommend creating a list of your vision and anti-vision.
Once you do, you'll find a gap between them — that is your path to change your life.
Your 90-Day Action Plan
The secret to change, as Socrates said, is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.
Take your time and work through this flow (in order):
Frame of Mind → Energy to Perform → Cash Flow
These are some of the benefits you can expect after the 90 days:
Clear mental space for creative thinking
Increased focus and productivity
Reduced stress and anxiety
Wake up feeling energized
Your first income stream
Week 1-4: Frame of Mind
The biggest mistake people make is jumping straight into action without clarity.
I made this mistake, spending 8 months building a business I didn't like because I never understood what I truly wanted.
Here's what I'd do instead:
Write out your perfect day (hour by hour if you have to)
Identify the key elements of what makes it perfect for you
Calculate the monthly income you need to support it
Next, take a piece of paper, create two columns, and get brutally honest about:
Your current reality (list everything that sucks with your life right now)
Your desired reality (everything from your ideal day and lifestyle)
Draw two lines in the middle to create a small gap between them.
Now, you gotta figure out how to cross over the gap from your current reality to your desired lifestyle.
List the steps you have to take to make it possible.
Once you have a clear picture right in front of you of what you want and what you don't want, then we can get into more details about:
Setting goals that actually work
Creating a deep work routine that you can stick to
Designing a business that fuels your ideal future lifestyle
If you need help with any of this to save you years of headaches and fumbling around, reply to any of my email newsletters.
But for now, just start with these exercises in the first 4 weeks.
Week 5-8: Energy to Perform
You can't escape a prison if you're too exhausted to climb the walls.
The focus in this phase should be on rebuilding your energy from the ground up, starting with your sleep environment.
Start with the simple tips below:
Blackout curtains
No screens or phones 60-min before bed
Brain dump anything on your mind in a notebook
Place your phone in another room during the night
Go to bed at the same time every night and build the habit
The goal is to get 7+ hours of peak sleep with energy to last all day. The better you think and feel, the better you'll be able to focus on building your cash-flowing business online with the time you have.
Week 9-12: Designing Your Offer
Now that you have clarity and energy, it's time to build your escape vehicle.
This is where most people start, but you'll move 3x faster by building the foundations first that we outlined in the previous weeks.
The basics of any online business is this:
Have an offer people want to buy
Get traffic to that offer
People overcomplicate business and forget that it's a value exchange. For you to get money, you have to give value.
So, what is value?
Value is solving a problem that increases a person's health, wealth, relationships, or happiness.
You only buy something if it impacts any of the above categories, the eternal markets that drive fundamental human behavior.
It's why we buy anything, but it can be tricky to figure this out.
Instead of getting lost in the weeds, we'll design a tactical offer, or what marketers call a Minimum Viable Offer (MVO).
You'll offer a pack of 4 weekly calls, helping people with a skill you have experience in, for a price point you feel comfortable charging.
Your first offer doesn't need to be perfect. It needs to be:
Valuable enough that people would want to pay
Simple enough to deliver while working a job
Scalable for future growth with traffic
Most of all, you need an offer you believe in.
One you'll love to sell and can deliver amazing results for.
For example. my primary interests are:
Internet businesses
The mind
The body
Solving problems
Building systems
Designing products
Optimizing stuff.
So naturally, that's what I teach in a simple offer.
So, what's your affinity?
What problems could you solve for someone else?
How would your dream business look like?
A business that throws you out of bed in the morning with excitement to tackle the day ahead?
Put that into a minimum viable offer, and you're ready to go.
And most of all, take action.
Because you can either design your dream life or have one designated for you — the choice is yours.
That’s it for this letter.
I hope it was helpful.
– Chris