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this is reserved for 0.001% of people for a reason...
freedom through value creation
Taylin John Simmonds
March 26, 2024
Make money with your mind, not your time.
Do you want freedom?
If you’re like most people writing and building online, the answer is likely yes.
But what does freedom look like to you?
Without knowing the answer to this question, you have no purpose driven goal to strive for.
My definition of freedom:
The freedom to do what I want, when I want.
No boss telling me what to do and when to work.
No parents telling me what career to choose.
No financial constraints preventing me from travelling and collecting breath taking experiences.
Your definition might look similar.
It might look vastly different.
The important thing is you follow step 1, and take the time to define it for yourself.
Then move onto step 2, where I’m going to help you achieve it for yourself.
The Ladder of Freedom
Harsh truth: the level of freedom you have is largely dependent on where your next paycheque comes from.
If it comes from your boss, you have little freedom.
People with low agency trust their bosses to determine the quality of their future.
Working a job is delegating your financial security and future survival to your boss.
This makes your boss responsible for keeping the company alive, navigating the complex ever changing career landscape, and defending your job against tech advancements like AI.
But do you really think your boss has your best interest at heart?
If your boss can replace you with AI and save thousands of dollars per year, he/ she is going to make that choice.
It’s just business.
Which is why you need to take control of your life.
Not just to ensure your survival, but to guarantee you thrive and live an incredible life far beyond what most people would ever believe is possible.
To do this, you need to move up the ladder of freedom.
Move away from depending on a boss and move towards depending on yourself.
This grants you an extra level of freedom 99% of people only dream of.
And no, this isn’t a pipe dream you’re being sold.
It’s a reality that people live once they use value creation to build a Digital Identity.
The difference between those with and without freedom is the skill of value creation.
1) Identify what the world deems valuable
2) Become the person who can give it to them
3) Reap the rewards of freedom and infinite financial possibilities
Value creation is your bridge between dependence and interdependence.
Dependence makes you the passenger of your life.
Interdependence makes you the pilot.
The skills you acquire determine the career doors available to you.
The Digital Identity you build attracts those opportunities.
Allowing you to climb the ladder of freedom:
1) Dependence - relying on a 9 to 5
2) Interdependence - freedom through value creation
3) Independence - absolute financial freedom
Independence is extremely hard to achieve.
Only 0.001% of people do it.
How do they do it?
Simple, they either:
Build to sell - Sam Parr selling The Hustle newsletter for roughly $20M (undisclosed amount).
Build to license - The Rembrandts licensing the Friends theme song
But you don’t need to spend decades selling your soul building a dynasty to become free.
And I don’t think you should.
To do so, would sacrifice all your freedom in the short term for a very low chance of absolute freedom on the other end.
This path is reserved for 0.001% of people for a reason.
Instead, spend the next 6-12 months creating freedom through interdependence.
Interdependence = the state of mutual reliance and interconnectedness, where individuals, groups, or entities depend on each other for support, cooperation, and success.
Build a Digital Identity to become a value creator.
A creator who improves the lives of others through content that educates, entertains, and inspires.
A creator who offers valuable products that improve the lives of others in exchange for money.
A creator who becomes so magnetic, you attract lucrative career opportunities effortlessly.
Harsh truth #2: The market determines what is valuable, not you.
Attention is the currency of the creator economy.
Create valuable content to attract attention.
Create valuable products to attract money.
Do both, to gain a life of freedom.
Don’t depend on a boss who doesn’t have your best interest at heart.
Do depend on yourself to co-create a life of freedom by changing the world.
Thriving in Digital Environments
Do you know how the creator economy started?
Apple & Google become behemoths by using technology to create digital environments.
Abstracting physical environments to digital environments for the modern age.
↳ Phone apps & website applications like Meta, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.
Each of these social platforms is a niche digital environment with its own rules, meta, and environment to master.
Apple and Google provide platforms to attract creators.
Creators create content to attracts attention
Find the platform you’re most adapted to thrive in.
And create content to gain influence and build a lucrative career.
The 1-9-90 Rule
Consistent Creators = 1% of users
Casual creators = 9% of users
Consumers = 90% of users
Note - These numbers are estimates and vary from platform to platform.
The overall market is NOT saturated.
You’re only competing with 1% of people.
And that doesn’t account for people in different niches.
The reality is you’re only competing with a handful of people per platform for attention.
To rise to the top in your niche, let’s go back to the concept of value creation.
Value = your ability to solve burning problems within a specific environment.
If you’re stranded on a desert island, no one cares that you can code but they do care if you can light a fire.
Find a digital environment you want to succeed in.
Identify the skills you need to be become valuable within it.
Example - Help people make money.
High value skills:
❖ Product design
❖ Marketing
❖ Sales
❖ Scale
❖ Fulfillment
The path forward is simple.
But it’s not easy.
Become obsessed with mastering your digital domain.
This is the first step to building your influential Digital Identity.
Create a Dynasty Through Digital Identity
Digital Identity = the true, authentic digital version of you.
❖ How you present your true self in the digital domain
❖ How people perceive your true self in the digital domain
❖ How valuable people believe your true self is in the digital domain
Notice the through line?
Your true self.
You must become a person of value to create value.
You must become someone interesting, valuable, and worthy of attention
1) Develop technique - master high value skills.
2) Radiate authenticity - become the best version of yourself.
3) Showcase uniqueness - blend 2 or more obsessions together to create a personal brand
Who you are and how you are perceived online must be mostly in alignment.
But how do you do this?
You develop a unique perspective by becoming an experiential creator.
Do something worthwhile. And share the authentic experience in the digital domain.
Real world experiences ⇢ digital assets (content).
These digital assets create a feedback loop that creates tangibles in the real world:
❖ Influence
❖ Money
❖ Network
❖ Freedom
❖ Ability to invest in more experience
Real World ⇢ Digital World ⇢ Real World
Example - study direct response marketing, then offer a unique perspective.
Casual Creators - share tips from The Boron Letters (probably using ChatGPT to summarize it)
Experiential Creators - read the Boron Letters ⇢ write content with the tips ⇢ get feedback ⇢ create new content around the failures, lessons, and experience of actually DOING IT.
Start by studying; evolve by doing.
Overtime, you will approach mastery.
Become so good at what you do, people can’t help but pay attention.
Unlike working a 9-to-5, this isn’t just a job.
It’s your life’s work.
Become obsessed with value creation to create a valuable life.
The Best Time to Build a Digital Identity is NOW
The best time to build a Digital Identity was 20 years ago.
The next best time is now.
❖ It leads to a life of leverage
❖ It’s your defence against AI
❖ It’s a ticket to location freedom
❖ It attracts a high value network
❖ It creates defensibility through network
❖ It’s the ultimate personal development vehicle
❖ It’s a career vehicle with infinite earning potential
❖ It increases your surface area of luck - attracts opportunities
❖ It hedges against commoditization and defeat through market saturation
❖ It attracts an audience of future buyers making it cheaper to launch successful business ventures
This may sound too good to be true, but the truth is it couldn’t be closer to the truth.
But don’t just take my word for it.
My personal hero Mark Manson had this to say about building a personal brand in 2023:
“Right now, demand continues to grow as eyeballs move away from traditional media towards social platforms…
Now is probably the best time in your lifetime to go for it.
It's only going to get harder.
So if there's any time to try, it's now”
And now we’re 3 months into 2024.
Again, the best to build your Digital Identity was 10 years ago.
The next best time is now.
Which is why I’m launching V2 of my 6 week personal branding cohort - Digital Identity - on April 2nd (in 7 days).
Where I get to flex my teaching skills with 6 university-level masterclasses on content creation, audience building, and branding.
There will also be guest masterclasses from Dan Koe, Jon Brosio, Kieran Drew and a few other heavy hitters that I’ll announce soon ;)
Until next time,
Taylin John Simmonds
PS. If you haven’t tried this protein yoghurt, it’s lights out. 10/10 would recommend the peanut butter banana.
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