This is the ONE strategy that’s made:

• Warren Buffett one of the greatest investors of all time
• Amazon a trillion-dollar company
• Zuckerberg a billionaire

Any person who doesn’t know this model is missing out.

Here’s how it works: To show you why this strategy works, I want us to look at the wealthiest people on earth.

Why? Because success leaves clues.

And if you copy what successful people do, chances are you’ll be more successful.

Here’s a breakdown of how each of them reached billionaire status:

One of the most underrated things you can do:

Buy unwanted land.

I spent $22,607 on 1 acre of dirt and turned it into a glamping site.

Here’s how I did it (and why): Quick overview of the full step-by-step:

1. Figure out my business model
2. Find my operator
3. Find the land
4. Prep the land
5. Create the design for the land
6. Market the site
7. First guest booking

Let’s dive in…

The longer something has been successful, the more likely it is to continue being successful.

Here are 12 businesses with historically low failure rates (backed by data): 1. Discount & Thrift Stores

People don't stop buying during recessions - they just buy cheaper.

Discount retail was one of the only sectors that "crushed it" during 2008.

In 2009, small thrift stores averaged 31% sales growth.

While big retailers were laying everyone off, these little shops were printing money.

I’m 38.

Here are 17 lessons from 17 years in business I wish I knew at 21: Never Lose Money

There's a reason this is Warren Buffett's #1 rule.

It doesn’t matter if you make $10 or $10M. If you lose money faster than you can make it, you're screwed.

Everything else in business is secondary to not going broke.

How to stay poor:

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

Here’s how to minimize your risk when buying your first business: There's no such thing as the right or wrong business.

There's only the business that's right or wrong for you.

The risk is often in buying something you know nothing about.

That's why I created the Contrarian Deal Clarity Framework to help first-time owners find their perfect biz.

Why you never get what you want...

• You don’t ask.
• You don’t make it a win-win.
• You don’t know when to walk away.

Here's how to avoid these negotiation mistakes (& get the deal you deserve): If you want to fail in negotiating and alway overpay… don’t read this.

Buyers with experience only negotiate on three variables that determine the value of a business.

Most sellers don't even understand these concepts, which gives you a massive advantage if you can educate them on how deals really work:

Only 6% of Americans own a business.

And of that, less than 1% ever hit $1,000,000 in revenue.

After investing in businesses for 15 years, here are three reasons why 99% of businesses never scale past 7-figures: 1. Organizational Challenges

There are a ton of sub-catagories here but today we’re going to unpack “Executive Vision.”

Most owners think their problems stem from poor strategy, when it’s typically poor execution.

You can have the best plan in the world, but if your team can’t understand it... you're not going anywhere.

One failure I wouldn’t trade for a success:

Losing $50,000 buying my first business.

Here are 10 lessons on deal-making that I learned the hard way (so you don’t have to): Don't Buy An Unprofitable Business

It's tempting, but just don't.

Buying a turnaround means you're buying someone else's problems - cash burn, broken systems, demoralized teams.

Even if you fix it, you'll spend 3x more time and money than if you bought something that already works.

Harsh truth on scaling businesses:

Your goal as CEO is to build a team that runs your entire company better than you.

5 other lessons I’ve learned the hard way from 15+ years of being an owner: Operating Systems Win

The difference between McDonald's and your local burger joint isn't the food.

It's that any 16-year-old can run McDonald's because of their systems.

If your business needs you to be the hero every day, you own a job, not a business.

No systems = Everything breaks when you aren’t there

Everyone thinks the paths to wealth are:

Building a startup. Going into finance. Investing in real estate. Inheriting it.

I think there's a better way...

Here’s what it is (and why I’m investing millions into it): For years, I've been yapping about "boring businesses" - laundromats, car washes, etc.

But one industry fascinated me more than any other: home services. Why?

Because after a bad storm, ChatGPT can't climb on your roof and fix it.

I just sat down with one of Shark Tank’s most successful investors…

He turned $40 into a $6 billion fashion empire with FUBU, multi NYT bestseller, emmy winner, and so much more.

Here are 7 lessons from Daymond John about building a business that every owner should hear: Being Broke Has Its Perks

Everyone loves to say ‘you need money to make money’ but that isn’t 100% true.

If you can't get a customer with $200, you won't get one with $2M either.

Being broke forces you to work out the kinks in your business ASAP.

How the rich get richer:

Buy profitable businesses.

Here’s how you can steal their playbook and buy a cash-flowing biz without their millions: Three reasons why buying beats building a business from scratch:

- 45% of new businesses fail within 5 years
- Most entrepreneurs make only $67k/year
- First 3-4 years are unprofitable

Compare that to when you buy…

You inherit customers, systems, and profits from day one.

If you own a business and don't have a newsletter, you're missing out on your biggest revenue stream by far.

After sending 15M+ emails this year, here's why newsletters are still wildly underrated in 2025: Most people grossly misunderstands the attention-conversion game.

Specifically, how to turn eyeballs (views) into money in the bank.

This concept is best understood by explaining the difference between a “rented” audience and an “owned” audience…

This guy’s one of the most well-known faces on earth, multi NYT best-seller, and has built many $100M+ businesses.

Fascinating person to talk to.

Here are 7 brutally honest truths on wealth, success, and media leverage from my recent chat with Gary Vee: Parents Are Destroying Their Adult Children

If you still pay for your kid's life after 22, you're telling them you don't believe in them.

Gary gets DMs from depressed 28-year-olds on their parents' payroll. They know they're failing, and it destroys them.

Love your kids enough to let them struggle.

The difference between a $1M business and a $100M business:

Hiring operators.

After years of making the right & wrong decisions, here's the exact process we now use to find killer operators: When it comes to hiring for this role, the stakes are always higher than you think.

A poor hire will cost you $200-300K+ and waste 6-12 months of momentum.

I've learned this the hard way numerous times—including watching an operator fund his family vacation while our business bled cash.

That’s a story for another day…

The best founders do one thing brilliantly…

Build systems.

It sounds easy. It’s not.

Here’s how we think about building systems for our portfolio of 30+ businesses: Think of systems like a car. You need:

- Vision = windshield (see where you're going)
- Dashboard = gauges (track your speed)
- Goals = GPS (know your destination)
- Communication = alerts (stay coordinated)
- People = maintenance (keep everything running)

Miss any one and you're broken down on the side of the road.

I just spent 2 hours with a guy who sold multiple AI companies for $400M and built AI systems for the Pentagon.

He broke down AI's current influence and future dangers in ways I'd never heard before.

Here are the 8 most important things he told me: AI Already Controls More of Your Life Than You Realize

Here's a stat that blew my mind: AI mediates 20% of your waking hours.

That's 1 out of every 5 hours you're awake.

The posts you see. The products suggested. The news that reaches you.

Most people have no idea how much AI is already shaping their thoughts and decisions.

I asked a former Secret Service agent her secrets to reading people.

7 lessons from Evy Poumpouras on manipulation, lie detection, and influence: Stop Talking So Much

People think they need to explain themselves, defend their position, or fill every silence.

But when you're talking, you're gathering zero intelligence—you’re just focused on yourself.

The quieter you are, the better you become at picking up cues.

I love this quote from Marc Andreessen:

“If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly than you would think.”

5 cheap ridiculous things we did in the early days that oddly 10’xd our biz: Before starting Contrarian Thinking, my resume looked like it was written by ChatGPT after six shots of whisky:

- Walmart model
- Reporter in Latin America
- Wall Street analyst
- Private equity investor
- Laundromat owner
- YouTuber
- Fund manager

Everyone's either excited about AI or thinks it'll steal their job.

I used to be on the fence.

Then I hired a full-time employee just to integrate AI into everything we do.

5 tools that made me 3x more productive in 6 months: 1. Whispr Flow

I don’t text anymore because of this.

All you have to do is hold Fn, speak naturally, and watch it transcribe your words perfectly like a court reporter.

It capitalizes names, adds punctuation, and even writes “fuck…” (it knows we never actually mean “duck” lol)

By 2030:

• $5,000,000,000,000 will change hands
• 2,300,000 biz's will be passed down
• 24,700,000 jobs are at stake

The greatest opportunity of the decade isn’t building something new... It's this: As of right now…

Baby Boomers own nearly HALF of all private businesses in America.

Problem is, 10,000+ Boomers are retiring DAILY, and 70% of their businesses have nobody to take over.

But it wasn’t always like this…