Your new self will cost you your old self.

21 re-frames to help you actually meet your goals this year: 1. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

If you want to make this year better…
- Debrief your past year
- What went right?
- What do you need to avoid?

You can use this annual review template:
contrarianthinking.biz/49XfSvJ

How to spot a scam...

They promise "passive income."

Here's the problem with passive income (and what you need to build instead): I've spent my career investing in & buying biz's.

First at huge investment firms, then on the side, and now for my own funds.

And there's a truth I need to share with you:

Passive income is a myth.

I learned the secret to wealth building.

It isn't crypto, a trust fund, or a startup.

It's a simple framework that could transform broke people into millionaires.

Here’s the unsexy but effective path to wealth (Evolutionary Wealth Theory): If there’s this great secret, why aren’t more people screaming about it? If it’s so simple, why don’t more people do it?

Because it’s boring, it’s hard, and it’s slow.

Scott Galloway sums it up perfectly:

“I can get you rich, that's the good news. The bad news is, the answer is slowly.”

70% of people live paycheck to paycheck.

This will not be you and I.

Here's exactly how I manage my personal finances (The Personal P&L): Track Your Money

It all starts here.

This may be the SINGLE most important thing you can do for your finances.

Treat yourself like a business. I use a Personal P&L (profit & loss).

If you aren't tracking, take this sheet now:
contrarianthinking.biz/3VswGFE

This guy is an MD who swears you can heal yourself with an animal-based diet.

I asked him about the parts of our food supply making us unhealthy and fat.

His answers surprised me.

Here’s what he said: First… HOW did it get this bad?

Why is everything slowly killing us - and can we stop it?

Turns out, food research is old, funded by pharma, & wildly difficult to modernize.

Paul Saladino is hopeful RFK Jr can start to turn the ship around.. but it's a big ship:

Crypto. NFTs. Sports bets. Dropshipping.

Stop thinking you’ll get wealthy by jumping on the next trend.

Give yourself better odds, do this instead: This Bezos quote will re-wire your brain.

Amazon, titan of innovation, did not use a strategy based on trend-guessing.

Instead, they focused on certainties:

- People will always want low prices
- People will always want fast delivery
- People will always want a wide selection

How to stay poor:

1. Never take risk.
2. Take risks you don’t understand.

If you want to buy a profitable business, here are 9 ways to protect your downside: All you can do with risk is mitigate it.

You can never remove it entirely.

The best deal is a bad deal avoided.

Here are 9 quick tips on how to spot a deal you should avoid…

This is the ONE strategy that’s made:

• Amazon a trillion-dollar company
• Taylor Swift a billionaire
• Your local laundromat worth a million

Any business owner who doesn’t know this model is leaving money on the table.

Here’s how it works: This is Amazon’s income statement from Q4 of last year.

You notice something?

They're an online retailer. But less than 1/2 of their revenue is online store sales.

Amazon doesn’t just SELL to grow. They BUY.

I’m 38.

If you're still in your 20's, read this: 1. As soon as you hit your 30s, you’ll understand... Your 20s actually suck. If you feel like it sucks right now, guess what? It’s supposed to. It gets better.

2. Your first job is like the DMV. Awful. Everyone’s mad. Nothing works. But the key is.. You are not supposed to stay there.

Rich people know a secret.

While normal people grind for a promotion or start side hustles, the wealthy get rich quietly.

But I think everyone deserves to know the secret, so this is what my book “Main Street Millionaire” is all about: The greatest lesson I took from working in finance was this:

The wealthiest people I met all had one thing in common.

They didn’t trade their time for a paycheck.

They OWNED.

When you move from a worker to the leader, you have to change everything.

What no one tells you about being a CEO: You must do what is required not what is desired.

“You can’t show me a task that is beneath me.”

The biggest wealth gap in America isn't between the rich and poor...

It's between business owners and everyone else.

10 tax advantages business owners have that regular 9-5ers never see: Quick heads up:

Don’t take candy from strangers, don’t take tax advice from them either.

Please get a tax professional, and then talk to them before doing anything wild.

Now, let’s get into it:

Over the next 25 years, about $68 Trillion worth of assets will change hands.

What is causing the Great Wealth Transfer (and how to be apart of it): Boomers Signing Off: Great Retirement

~74M Baby Boomers will retire by 2031

Baby Boomers (1946-64) own about 50% of privately held businesses

That is owning ~$5.1 Trillion in SMBs. Many of which they won't even realize they can sell or transfer.

This is Mike Israetel.

Competitive bodybuilder, pro BJJ grappler, the most jacked dude I’ve met.

He’s also a professor, PhD, and former Olympic nutrition consultant.

I asked him some fitness questions. Here are 7 answers that truly shocked me: 1. In the future, we can buy fit bodies

Mike is a bit of a “fitness optimist.”

He sees a near future where we can take meds that produce muscle.

Aka, you can take a pill to get ripped.

Like Ozempic, but for muscle gain.

People don’t care what you’re doing unless you answer their real question:

“What’s in it for me?”

19 other uncomfortable business truths: Painkillers vs vitamins.

You make more money selling a need than a desire.

75M baby boomers will retire by 2030.

8 tools for finding and buying their businesses (before someone else does): Want to buy a business?

First, you need to know the difference between ON market & OFF market deals.

Your lifestyle, capital, skill, and more will decide which strategy is best for you.

Get a guide on it here:
contrarianthinking.biz/40FRb4h

Your 9-5 isn't as safe as you think.

In fact, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman predicts the 9-5 will be extinct by 2034.

But you can escape the game altogether.

Here's the low-risk, high-reward path out of a job and into financial freedom: Workers who report feeling concerned about job security are largely:

• Higher-earning (72% who make $150k+)
• Younger (62% who are 25 to 44)
• At larger companies (74% at 500-1000 employee companies)
• In formerly "safe" fields (see chart)

But it's also bigger than that...

The rich are moving their money, and all you have to do is follow it.

3 places the biggest investors & highest income earners are turning to:

(Hint: It's not stocks, crypto, or real estate) Everyone is "going left":
- AI is the future of everything
- NVIDIA stock will keep soaring
- Property is the safest investment

Maybe these are true. Maybe not.

What's more important is to "look right."

3 quiet trends you're not too late on:

You can make life-changing money off of a boring, local, small business.

Here are 7 Main Street millionaires I met this year who did it (how they make their money & how you can start): 1. Trash

Spencer of Lone Star Trash

• His neighborhood trash service sucked
• So he bought a truck & bins and stepped in to provide better service
• Made $30k in his first 11 days

“This is gonna be forever. Trash is forever.” – @AKASpencerScott

Young people's future is being destroyed.

Compared to 40 years ago:
• The average 70yo is now 72% wealthier
• The avg person under 40 is 24% poorer

I asked Scott Galloway what we can do about our decline in wealth.

7 solutions for people in their 20s or 30s: Our system is built to transfer wealth from the young to old:

- 3 working people for every 1 retired
- $1.3T/yr transferred via social security
- Houses from $290k → $410k after covid
- Interest rates skyrocketed

So what can a young person DO about it? Let’s look at 7 options.

Complexity makes you seem smart.

Simplicity makes you money.

Here's how to simplify your pitch and 10x your sales: Talk less, sell more.

Short sentences = more sales.

Hemingway once bet he could write a story in 6 words that'd make you feel something.

Your pitch should pack the same punch.