Wealth Archives - Inner Confidence

What you should know about starting a business

Having multiple streams of income is an important part of living the Leverage Lifestyle, but too many people looking to start a business ask the wrong questions.

They try to come up with some crazy niche market that nobody’s serving yet because they believe that’s what it’s going to take to be successful. Or they try to enter a market they know nothing about, instead of figuring out what they already enjoy that people are willing to pay for.

Instead, work backwards.

Let’s start with what do you already know. Ask yourself the following questions:

What are you already good at today?
What industry do you already know intimately well?
If you were going to start a podcast tomorrow (with no requirement to earn money from it), what would be potential topics that you feel interest you enough and that you have enough knowledge on that you could start talking for hours a day about said subject?
If you HAD to make $10k by tomorrow, what knowledge, skill, or information do you hold that could be leveraged into getting someone to pay you for it right now?

It’s not that trying to find a market that’s ripe won’t work, because it clearly can. But that’s unnecessarily harder than finding something that has an existing market that you already know well and can execute on.

Do what you know. Don’t pursue endeavors you don’t understand because “there’s money in it.” That’s a sucker’s game. There are billions in banking and trillions in oil. I don’t know these things, so I do what I know. There is opportunity everywhere in everything; it doesn’t mean it’s for you.

Nine times out of ten it’s not the idea that’s the key to success. It’s the execution.

People start businesses all the time in existing markets with plenty of competitors, and they succeed because of their execution. So you don’t need a super unique idea to start a business; you just need a market and you need to execute well, preferably better than the existing competition.

What are people willing to pay for?

Once you’ve identified an area congruent with your skills or interests, you need to figure out who your audience is and figure out what they want. It isn’t about you; it’s about them.

If you can identify someone’s pain point and find a way to solve it, you have an idea for launching a business. Discover a pain people have and solve it—that’s how you make money. Make yourself indispensable to people who are making money and you will get it.

Let’s take a look at some of the greatest industrial innovations and businesses that were created to solve contemporary problems:

The canning process came about from the need for food on the front lines in wartime.
The freeze-drying process was invented to prevent spoilage and became popular with the advent of the home refrigerator.
The home refrigerator itself also came into prominence by solving people’s needs for convenient, storable groceries.

One strategy you can run with is to choose an industry you know a lot about, interview a bunch of businesses in that industry to find out what pain point they have that they’re willing to pay to solve, come up with a Software as a Service solution (some website or software you’d create to solve their problem that they’d happily pay $X/mo), present the solution to them and presell it and get deposits like Tesla did with their consumers, use that money to build the software, then launch to them, and acquire more customers.

In short: Business is about leveraging your strengths to solve people’s problems.

Building Location Independence

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Guest post by Patrick, Leverage Program member

For the past month, I have been building a new lifestyle for myself. I’ve been working towards complete location independence. I spoke with a friend yesterday who’s also interested in a similar lifestyle. He wants to work remotely and travel comfortably, while not depleting his bank account.

I told him he should work while he travels, and his first response to me was “It’s a good idea, but I’m just trying to figure out the kind of work I can do while I travel. I’ve been in the restaurant industry for 15 years, and the skills I have aren’t that transferrable, or easy to automate.”

What do you think my first reaction to his response was? I thought it was crazy! He’s been in his industry for 15 years, and has developed some of the most transferrable skills in the world. Every cruise ship, hotel, city, and town in the world has a need for people who excel at managing restaurants, working with people, and understanding customer service.

He’s only thinking of hard skills, and forgetting what could be arguably more important in his case: soft skills. Hard skills are those that one learns through academic, formalized, or professional training. They are skills such as how to code, how to change a tire, or how to swim. It is any skill that can be described by an ordered process, or a specific technique.

This is in contrast to a soft skill, which is acquired outside the traditional methods of teaching, such as social skills, awareness, or writing. Soft skills tend to be much broader in scope, making them more difficult to target for improvement, yet more important as they affect many areas of your life.

My friend has clearly been very successful in his industry- you have to be if you have been there for 15 years. He’s just forgetting about the soft skills he’s developed that can form the foundation of a remote career. He’s only thinking of hard skills.

What he needs to do now is start to become know as a leader and expert in his field. There are several ways to do this. With a little bit of work, I fully believe he will have people knocking at his door, or rather his email inbox, looking to hire him.

One of the first thing I suggested he do is to start writing about his experiences. He should write about everything: what he does every day, how manages his team, what drinks he makes, how to deal with unhappy customers. Just write about everything!

Writing is the easiest way to become known as a subject matter expert in your industry, and with the internet, there is no barrier to entry to get your writing published. All he needs is to open up an account on medium.com or some other blogging website and click upload. Instantly his work is live for others to see and start recognizing him as the industry expert that he already is. Writing is also great because it helps you develop your skills and discover yourself, as Daniel Pink discusses here in this must-watch convocation speech:

The next thing he is going to have to start doing it putting himself out there and networking with people. While writing is one piece of the puzzle, until people actually know who you are, you can’t become known as that industry expert. Networking is probably the most important skill there is. That said, don’t think of it as “networking,” and instead concentrate on building your social life. When you go into a situation with the “networking” mindset, you fail before you’ve gotten there because your mindset sabotages your approach. You becomes completely inauthentic. But if you go to have fun, take a genuine interest in people and give zero fucks, you create real relationships that lead to the kind of lifestyle you want to build.

People like to relate to people, and once someone gets to know you and like you as an individual, they are going to want to hire you to do what you are an expert in. I told my friend that he can then leverage his writing with these people you network with to give himself credibility. Once someone talks to you and you can back it up with content you’ve created, you have now added the second piece of the puzzle to get to that goal of becoming that subject matter expert.

The third thing I think he is going to have to do is make the jump. At some point, he is going to have to force starting a location independent lifestyle, whether he has the money to do it or not. There is no better way to immerse yourself in a lifestyle than to just start doing it. I don’t know his current financial situation, but at the very least he probably has enough saved up for at least a couple months of travel. You can always return to your old life, but starting a new one is a jump that takes a big leap of faith.

Let’s take myself as an example. I’m doing the same right now- I am writing this post from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a cruise ship bound for Europe. I’m living on savings right now, but rather than viewing traveling as an expense, I’m viewing it as an investment in my future. I now have time to work on my own projects, work on my writing, and do things that are important to me. When I had a full-time 9-5 job in New York City, I never had those opportunities, since I was always dependent on what my boss wanted me to do during the day rather than what I wanted to do. I can always go back to my old lifestyle if I want to. I won’t always have the opportunity to travel and invest in myself, and now is the time.

It all really comes down to focusing your energy in the direction you want to head, and building transferable skills you can leverage. You need to start doing something and putting yourself out there- the rest will fall into place with time after you make the leap of faith.

9 Ways to Create Enough Time and Money for a Quality Dating Life

by Robbie Leave a Comment

Recently, I asked for an update from some of my coaching clients in the Leverage Program. I noticed that almost all of the guys who are lagging on the dating front are also worried about their finances.

While it’s true that guys often use money as an excuse, I actually do think that it’s hard to get your dating life handled if your finances are also not in order. Financial difficulties are an emotional drain that affects our self-esteem and cause us to project insecurity to everyone around us.

The relationship between money and dating is an issue I started to think about in junior high. My plan growing up was to become a professional golfer on the PGA tour. Becoming a pro athlete, I assumed, would solve both my money and dating problems.

My plan, however, was upended in two ways. I started to lose interest in golf. And after that, I read The Game, which made me realize that there was a lot more I could to improve with girls that had nothing to do with money.

During the first few years after college, I worked in a variety of office jobs, but my main interest was learning how to improve with girls. My progress was uneven, both professionally and in terms of dating.

The issue wasn’t effort. I was working 11-hour shifts. But I also did day game approaches during my lunch break, hit the bars from 10pm-2am, and attended self-help seminars and pick up bootcamps over the weekend.

Within a few years, I spent about $82,000 on various self-development programs.

It was only after I transitioned to a more fulfilling career that my results with dating skyrocketed.

I discuss my story in some detail in this podcast episode with Y.L. Savitskiy. But basically, I negotiated a remote work deal at my venture capital firm, then became a dating coach, and then hacked the sharing economy.

Once I figured out how to stop trading time for money, I was able to leverage every single resource at my disposal, and then use the newfound time, money, and energy I had to date more women.

It took me many years to figure this out, mostly through trial-and-error.

Do I have a 4-hour work week? No. Do I make as much as my friends who stayed in finance? No. But I work whenever I want, wherever I want, doing a job that I love. All things considered, I think I’m living what Ramit Sethi calls a “rich life.”

No formula is going to work for everyone and I’m obviously not suggesting that you quit your job. I actually think the structure of a 9-5 job works for a certain type of person.

But if you’re looking to free up some time, generate passive income, and meet more women, here are a few tips that I’ve found generally work:

· Take advantage of money hacks

· Become a minimalist: I know it sounds ridiculous, but as my clients get rid of all their useless shit, their success with women starts to improve. The reason, basically, is that tidiness and control in our outer world frees up our mind to focus on our goals.

· Hack spending: Share your typical expenses with a trusted group of friends and advisors and take a hard look at what you can eliminate. You’ll be surprised how much cash you’re spewing. Some of my coaching clients use the Leverage Program for this purpose.

· Hack transportation with services like flightcar.com, relayrides.com, and turo.com/

· Ask for discounts

· Hack Credit Cards and Retirement Accounts

· Build passive income streams through the sharing economy

· Stop wasting money eating out by cooking at home. It’s easier than you think and way healthier.

· Leverage a skill: Think of all the skills and knowledge you have, then find a way to tutor, offer a class, or market them in ways that can generate money on the side.

As you hack your finances, you’ll start to take a more critical look at every other aspect of your life. Before you know it, you’ll be a “King of Leverage.”

Do I Need To Be Rich To Date Hot Women?

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

monopoly A lot the teachings of Inner Confidence are how you can use minimalism to be successful in all areas of life. There’s a big misconception out there that you need to have money to date women.

It’s crucial to understand that the only lasting method of having a healthy dating life is to first, develop the characteristics that women find attractive, second, learn how to display those characteristics, and third, put yourself in situations where the kind of women you want to meet will notice you displaying those characteristics.

Money can be a signal for traits that women find attractive, like perseverance, entrepreneurship, ambition, and leadership. But money is not the same as those things. It’s just a proxy.

What does this mean for your dating life? Developing these attractive traits is MORE IMPORTANT than making money. Sure, making money is usually a side effect of working on yourself in this way, but money is just a signal for what’s actually attractive. Women are not hard-wired to respond to money, since we evolved before money was invented. But they are hard-wired to respond to all the positive personality traits that being rich signals.

How else can you signal these personality traits, other than becoming rich? Equally attractive to cultivating wealth is the ideal of having few possessions, traveling all the time, and having a life filled with rich experiences. It’s not a coincidence that this is the type of lifestyle we advocate at Inner Confidence, and it’s why we even teach you how to do it.

We’re happier when we spend money on experiences, like traveling and other people, than when we spend it on material goods and ourselves. This same idea easily applies to dating: the experience is more important than anything you can buy.

Emotional connection is always the primary element of attraction, and everything else is either secondary or noise. If you’re using money to signal your attractive traits, it’s secondary, and if you think money on its own will attract women, it’s just noise. When you can connect with a woman emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, how much money you make becomes irrelevant.

A Master Networker’s Guide to Building Elite Connections

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

Guest post by Max, Leverage Program moderator

In the Leverage Program, we often advise members to invest in human capital, and here’s why: the key to building a social network is to invest in other people.

Volunteer your time and say yes to just about everything until you absolutely have no choice but to start being more selective, because you’d be surprised how connected people are. For example, the head of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston is one of the Kraft brothers, the owners of the New England Patriots. Volunteering is a great way for anyone to have access to successful people that they otherwise could never meet. It levels the playing field as far as social status and wealth go. To do this, I got involved with two non-profits. One is very established, and the other is an up-and-comer. Pick some causes you support and get involved with relevant organizations.

Keep your eyes open for any new “centers” in your city, like new neighborhoods with new big apartment developments, new professionals groups, and new restaurants. Reach out as quickly as you can.

New apartment building? I dropped by the office, introduced myself, met the owners, asked how the plan is evolving, congratulated them on the exciting new project, asked for a tour, and then I ended up renting in their new building.

New restaurant? These are passion projects. People pour their hearts, blood, sweat, and tears into making them happen. Stop by during the day when they are setting up, congratulate them on their new venture, welcome them to the neighborhood, and tell them how you can’t wait to try it out soon. Someone will likely give you a card and tell you to ask for them when you come in. Make it a priority to get back there ASAP to see your new connect (which is also a great date opportunity).

I get to know the owners BEFORE the grand openings by reaching out early. I was listed on the grand opening bill right under the mayor’s name in Boston just six months after I moved here, because I got myself involved early on. I was able to invite about 100 people to that event, an opportunity to reinvest in my network.

These are all businesspeople with businesses to run themselves, so they need connectors and advocates. When you find a place worth advocating for, do it! Systematically bring all of your friends there. Make it a priority to promote their business for no financial gain whatsoever. To the owners, you will be a saint. To your friends, you will be that uber-connected guy.

Read the local news so you know what is going on. Follow other people’s success so you can A) Aim to emulate them, B) Congratulate them when you run into them, or C) When appropriate, join their team to help them become even more successful.

Keep notes in your phone of everyone you meet, like bouncers, bartenders, and waiters. Knowing someone’s name can go a long way in establishing a bond from scratch. Names are so easy to keep track of when you write them down on your phone that there’s no reason not to. Especially in the places where you become a regular, being on a first-name basis with the staff can pay huge dividends.

Help people with their pet projects if you have something valuable to add. Send them a relevant article, expertise if you have it, or a helpful connection. My goal is to be responsible for making a lot of people a lot of money and a lot of connections. For example, a Leverage moderator introduced me to a ton of valuable and helpful people. I’ve done what I can to introduce him his CEO, the CEO of a major private jet company, and the CEO of payments company. It goes on: I have no idea who I’m going to meet who is planning on going to Coachella in a month or so. Maybe they need a sick AirBnB house to stay in? “Oh you’re going to Coachella and you need a place to stay? You should absolutely talk to my buddy. I’ve stayed at his places before and they’re awesome.”

Efficiency is important to me. My goal is to be only 80% busy on any given day so I have time to leave the office to do non-work personal branding networking stuff without it affect my business. I pay top dollar for an Equinox gym membership, because I see the same people that I’m networking with working out at my gym, so I can balance workouts with networking. I live locally, work out locally, network locally, and live in a hot restaurant district. All of the activities that I spend my time on provide leverage for other areas of life.

Always follow up with a short and simple thank you email or text or Facebook message. It’s necessary, and too often overlooked. Get free tickets or an invite? “Thanks for the tickets, ABC! XYX and I particularly enjoyed the ____. Best, Max” If you don’t do this, don’t expect another invite from them or their network.

How do you pick what networks to target? I generally surround myself with slightly older and more established people who are one or two steps ahead of where I am. I don’t ignore younger people by any means, but by virtue of my age (26) I am generally on the younger side of the professional crowd so I look for people just a few steps ahead of me.

Focus on quality rather than quantity. A recent study at the University of New South Wales has shown that being part of social groups that you personally value raises your self-esteem more than just having an extensive network of friends. Because I’m not aiming for sheer quantity of connections, I have no interest in networking in bars. I go to nicer upscale cocktail style lounges where late-20’s early 30’s hang out because that’s where I feel comfortable and that’s who I get along with. And I’m not doing Jaeger-bombs on a random Tuesday night (unless I’m in Vegas of course).

The way you invest in your network represents your personal branding. It’s how you will come to be known, so don’t fuck up the basics. Don’t get too drunk and embarrass your connections, dates, or yourself. Don’t leave the house looking like you didn’t look in the mirror. Nail the fundamentals of being a complete man that we teach in the Leverage program.

You will never be able to plan what this grows or develops into. Trust the process without worrying about the outcome, because if you follow this process, it will eventually result in success. The point is to nurture your connections: always hopeful, never disappointed (just like my dog).

Only Losers Need Plans

by Tyler W 3 Comments

Through the years of developing the Inner Confidence curriculum, we’ve compiled a subconscious list of things that winners do and losers do. There are 10,000 subtle behaviors that add up to someone’s overall success or failure: word choice, behavior, social ecosystem, etc.

We hear the words “winners” and “losers” and don’t pay much attention to them because they sound like generic, silly words. I really like them and think they don’t get enough credit. Most decisions we make, even things we do that we don’t realize are decisions, lead towards a win or a loss. Losers frequently make decisions that head down the loss path, and winners frequently make decisions that head down the win path.

Make an effort to view the world through the lenses of your mentors. Pay attention to what the winners do, and drop your loser habits.

I have a client who told me “I need a game plan,” or something to that effect. 100% of my unsuccessful friends say things like that. I think (but can’t prove) that saying “I need a plan” is an excuse to not do anything. You get to feel okay about your lack of taking action and getting nothing done, because boy oh boy once you have that magical plan you’re gonna tear it up big time!

Cool story bro. Go hit on every girl you see and read everything that’s been suggested; there’s your PLAN. The rest will come later. Fred DeLuca, the founder of Subway, wrote Ready, Fire, Aim, and this perfectly describes both the way Silicon Valley works now, and the way you should be operating in your own life. If you walk into a VC’s office, an angel investor, or you want to bring a partner on board and you ramble about your “plans,” you are going to get laughed at. Everyone understands: just get SOMETHING out, see what people say and do, then start making changes and improvements.

More importantly to the “I need a plan” claim. ZERO POINT ZERO of my successful friends say this, EVER. Winners don’t do this.

If anyone here feels like they’d do better in life with a plan, fine here if you remoter fucking plan- hit on 20 girls per week next 10 weeks. Watch every single “This Week In Startups” with Jason Calacanis, get a 6 pack. Spend 10 hours a week learning about fashion. This PLAN alone will greatly impact your professional/financial life, social life, love life, etc.

Because it doesn’t matter what the plan is, it matters that you act on it.

There is a great saying, “If you want to accomplish something, set a goal and give yourself not enough time.” Deadlines force teams to BANG hard and crank work, it kills distractions, and it makes for productive ecosystems.

If you believe in “The Secret” you are a loser. Evidence: look around you, can you name ONE person that you can verify 100% is not broke or unhappy that believes in The Secret? Now look around yourself and do you know anyone broke that believes in The Secret? Hopeless, unfulfilled, uneducated people who need magical answers because they can’t figure things out themselves turn to all this new age nonsense.

Today, self-help books relentlessly discuss the importance of having a complete plan before you get started, which unfortunately has stretched positive thinking to the point of delusion, as in the nonsense that is The Secret. If you go back a century ago, self-help books emphasized the value of hard work, persistence, and virtue. Sure, self-help books today sell in record numbers, but self-help ideas from a hundred years ago were more accurate about human behavior, and focused on EXECUTION over a plan.

Part of why self-help books sell so well today is that they convince people that they lack something like confidence and if they just had it, then they could finally start going after their goals. So people keep buying more and more books, waiting to feel that perfect plan set up before they actually take action. They don’t realize that if they feel uncomfortable, they’re doing something right!

No one cares what’s holding you back, and they don’t care about your excuses and rationalizations. And there’s no replacement for hard work and discomfort. The secret to success in life isn’t really a secret: pick something and work really hard at it, don’t complain, and ask questions from people who are better than you. At the end of the day, your execution is all that matters.

“Bring It” Podcast Interview w/ Robbie Kramer

by Robbie Leave a Comment

A lot of my content is centered around dating and relationships but this episode is very geared towards career advice, setting up a remote working situation to avoid the 9 to 5 and get out of the rat race, and some other cool points on choosing business partners.

I was interview by a very inspiring young dude named YL Savitskiy on his podcast, Bring It.

Topics Include:

On building a remote lifestyle [2:10]
How to developing personality traits [7:58]
On balancing fun and doing business [14:22]
On overcoming rejection [18:11]
On the basics of networking [23:13]
Robbie’s opinion on interpersonal chemistry [26:28]
On choosing business partners [31:42]

Check it out here on iTunes.

Inner Confidence on Elite Daily: Leveraging a Mobile Lifestyle

by Tyler W Leave a Comment

“The research from psychology and behavioral economics is clear: We’re happier when we spend money on experiences, like traveling and other people, than when we spend it on material goods and ourselves.”

Check out my post that was recently featured on Elite Daily!

Hot Chicks are Good for Business

by Robbie Leave a Comment

Men love being in the company of beautiful women. It just makes everything that much more fun and interesting.

You will never hear a guy say, “Dude, I’m out, I just don’t want to hang out with more cute girls.”

Having hot chicks around brings me more hot chicks, more important guys, better girlfriends and better business opportunities. The more friends – hot, cool friends – I keep in my company, the higher I stand socially, and the more I enjoy my life.

Whatever line of business you’re currently in, making friends with cute chicks and hanging out with them regularly will always improve business (did she put you in the Friend Zone? Stop bitching about it and read THIS). If I’m casually talking to a potential business associate at the bar and I have a cute girl with me, odds are he will be much more willing to listen to me for three hours so long as I have that girl near me.

See how it works?

The Lesson: Make friends with cute girls and hang out with them a lot. If you stop being afraid of the friend zone, you’ll become the dude other dudes want to know.