27 tips to build your empire in the margins.

1. The Law of Two Hours: 2 hours of dedicated work is worth more than most people’s 8 hours. 2. How to never fail with a business: Start as a side project. Keep your job. Use your salary to fund. Quit when you have enough cashflow.

3. It's not about time. It's about the F word. Focus. You don’t need 24 hours a day to build a business.

An entire generation has been misled about startups and wealth.

• New business failure rate: over 65%
• Acquisitions failure rate: under 20%

Opportunity's here. But you might miss it..

How to decrease your chance of failure buying a business (The 3 M’s of Risk): Entrepreneurship is hard.

You'll lose money, sleep, time, and at the end of the day… It’s statistically likely that you’ll still fail.

Even the top .1% startup founders understand this truth:

Business is risk. You should expect to fail.

Underrated business model:

Turning a service into a product.

It helps solve the issue of scaling for:
• Agencies
• Freelancers
• Solopreneurs

Here’s how a "productized service" works: First, let's talk about the trap most consultants & contractors fall into:

Trading hours for dollars.

Even at high hourly rates, you're still capped by time. Earn more = work more.

Stop working, and the money stops too.

But there's a better way...

Underrated opportunity: Med spas.

• Average gross margin: 71%
• Market expected to grow 19% by 2028
• 1/3 of clients have an annual household income over $100,000

Here’s how a couple I know bought one and 4x’d it to replace their 9-5s: This is Olman.

His wife, Jen, got an $800 lip filler treatment that took 20 minutes.

Suddenly he looked at Botox, injections, and skin treatments… And saw profit margins, optimization, and dollar signs.

But do the numbers check out?

YouTube TV has its raised prices by 137%:

• 2017 launch → $34.99
• January 2025 → $82.99

Here’s how giant corporations get away with raising prices so often (& how a small business can do it the right way): Remember when YouTube TV was the cheap alternative to cable?

5 years after launch, the price doubled.

Fast forward to the hike in January and we’re starting to wonder if it's a ripoff.

Think YouTube felt that anger in their bottom line?

If you want to acquire a million-dollar company, you don’t need to have millions.

Here’s how to buy a business that pays for itself (9 negotiation tips for seller financing): First up:

What IS seller financing?

Doesn’t sound so nice as a seller… why am I paying for YOU to own my business?

That’s why I sometimes call it “self-liquidating acquisitions.”

Here’s how it works:

If you don’t understand acquisitions, you’ll never be truly wealthy.

Here’s what you need to know about how the rich buy businesses: Think of any 3 rich people.

They likely have 1 thing in common.

They own. Often, they own companies.

The average person doesn't understand this about wealth. I love how Sam Altman put it:

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

What no one tells you about the mindset of owners: You’re Either the Hammer…

Hammers make things happen. They aren’t afraid to swing hard, take calculated risks, and make an impact. They don’t wait for things to happen.

Biographies of billionaires teach you more than self-help business books.

Here are my 5 favorites: 1. Built from Scratch (Home Depot Founders)

Read for: Learning how to disrupt an industry.

Marcus & Blank were fired from Handy Dan. Then they noticed a gap in the system...

This UK entrepreneur turned a wire basket manufacturer into the world's largest advertising agency.

Warren Buffett allegedly offered to buy it at a 20% premium in 2012…

Here’s the strategy behind this now-$10B boring business: Our story starts with Sir Martin Sorrell.

But before that, it starts with Wire and Plastic Products plc.

It was founded in 1971 as a manufacturer of shopping baskets, rat cages, and clothes lockers.

That is, until Sorrell came along…

The wealth transfer of the decade is happening on Britain's High Streets.

35 shops closed per DAY in 2024.

But where most see destruction, I see opportunity...

Here's the contrarian’s playbook to making $$$ saving local economies: First, let’s paint a picture:

Nearly 7,000 chain stores closed in the first half of 2024. Pharmacies shuttered. Banks disappeared. Historic pubs went dark.

The American Dream isn't dead.

But it has moved.

Here's what everyone's getting wrong about American money: We’ve been sold a lie.

• Sit still for 8hrs/day until you’re 18
• Take out $100k debt for college
• Get a good job - unless, oops, you don’t
• You still can’t afford a home or family

An America 2.0 that is feeling increasingly anti-American Dream…

35 lessons from selling and buying multiple businesses before I turned 35:

1. Your first business will likely fail. 2. All your money gets made after that.

3. Most people give up too fast.

4. You’ll outgrow almost everyone.

How to get a free education on money:

Podcasts.

But with 30M episodes published each year, 99.9% are worthless.

Here’s the .1% that will actually change how you think about wealth: Let me save you 1,000+ hours.

Most money podcasts are recycled platitudes like "follow your passion" and "never give up."

But these episodes are different.

They have specific frameworks that will transform your relationship with wealth…

If you haven’t set your Q1 goals yet, you’re already behind...

Here’s how to transform your business in 3 months (Quarterly Planning Template): I meet so many entrepreneurs with endless to-do lists, working 80hr weeks.

Yet their business barely grows.

Most people confuse tasks with goals and wonder why they're stuck.

There's 3 ways to fix the hamster wheel..

At 30, I thought I’d peaked.
At 38, I know I’m just getting started.

The biggest lessons this past year taught me (that you might need to hear too): 1. Marrying well is the biggest life hack of all. Period.

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: