Money is an abstraction of risk taking and having the grit to find what will work in the present moment and doing it.
Under hundred thousand in net worth I don’t really believe it is actually any type of money. It is just some token you get to keep surviving.
So whenever I see a rich person, I see a man who took risk and knows how to exploit the present opportunities. Or maybe he just inherited it or whatever. But that’s all I see.
Not having money does means not taking risk and not knowing how to exploit the current opportunities.
I also believe it kind of plays into that social status type of game that we no longer are in caves or fighting battles but when you see a guy with money you just know hey this motherfucker knows how to take risks and is situationally aware enough to exploit current opportunities. That signals connections or being aware about the world and having the leverage to move the world in your favor.
Basically, wealth is a proxy for agency and risk taking in world. Because you were a baller and now that you have it, you control parts of world so that is also valuable.
Money is a compressed social signal of someone’s presumed capacity to navigate reality.
There is something about esoteric money aswell, it is a proxy of :
- risk
- awareness of opportunity
- execution
Any idiot can execute if he is persistent, any idiot can hoard risk by gambling. The magic is in awareness. Being so aware of the world and the opportunities in it that you are able to capture it. A man who is afraid or going through a rough patch is very inwardly focused. He is always thinking of what the world will do to him. But those who are relaxed, those who are calm, they have a very outward looking Outlook. They think about others, they think about the world. They have awareness about the world. And I think in a way that also signals to other people that hey, if this guy has money, that means he has a lot of confidence, a lot of grip. And awareness about the world. Even if everything changes tomorrow, this guy will somehow figure it out because he has done it before.
I don’t think competence of execution is the big part of it because like I declared before under 100k dollars in net worth you don’t really have money and a lot of people who have a job who execute things who process things fit outside that category. So that means Execution really makes up a tiny sliver of what actually causes wealth to be generated, and while risk enables it, awareness is the true sauce.
Yeah, basically my TLDR is: socially money is valued, and a person with money is respected because one, money can do things, and existence of money implies that you are someone who is really aware about the world in a way that you can see opportunities, and you are a baller who takes risks and executes shit, and that is really attractive.
so how do we increase the awareness?
Well, a lot of mindfulness and spiritual discussions also point towards a similar thing that the more aware you are, the more alive you are, the more you are in the present, the better.
So in a way I see spirituality and money making tied together. That both demand you be aware and in the moment for a good life. And no matter how big brain you are, your future predictions are as reliable as a drunkard. So it doesn’t really matter. what you think about future, what you think about past, it’s all about the present awareness.
This is interesting convergence between spirituality and capitalism lol. Both reward the ability to perceive reality without being excessively occupied by your own mental representation of it.
You don’t need to generate awareness all over the board, right? I think you have to have pockets where you keep an eye on. I just started with stock profiles on Amazon reviews. I will just go to expensive product, go to the reviews and stalk the profile of the one who posted reviews. I’m seeing a lot of patterns. One pattern I saw is that people will keep trying different brands until they find something work, as long as the thing is very important to them. I saw this with a lot of supplements review. That means people will abandon brands, but they will not abandon the desire at times. That means these people are highly motivated. They are really, really out to get the problem solved. So having awareness about your competition is also a good thing because you can catch what they are missing. and position accordingly.
Another thing I noticed is that there are a lot of whales in fitness products and religious products. By whales here I mean people who buy enough shit online that they have multiple reviews clustered around a specific niche of products. I saw this a lot in Religious books and prayer stuff and in gym and health supplements. That means once you enter this market, there is a lot of potential to upsell or have something resembling MRR in a way. Because if you are a religious person, you can have all the problems in the world, and there are superficial solutions to it, and then there is a primary solution that is God, right? Essentially these are markets where there is no single point solution. You opt into a lifestyle and then you keep buying products to sustain or continue it. For example, a fitness journey or a religious journey. Like if you buy a suitcase you are done for ten years but if you get into fitness my brother you are going to eat every day with that goal in mind only.
This is why we see brands trying to get into world building because once you subscribe to a world, you keep getting more and more items associated with it. You subscribe to that ecosystem, be it electronics like Apple or a franchise like Star Wars or merge in case of Pokemon cards or whatever. So we see world building is really essential because otherwise it can just turn potential whales into one point transaction instead of a continuous one that they could have been.
Basically, whales have an identity. They subscribe to a world and ecosystem, and whales will make your life very easy if you keep attracting them. That’s why even in case of real estate, a lot of consultancies will have a single guy contributing to most of their revenues for decades, because a lot of markets are such that eighty percent of the spend is coming from twenty percent of the players, anyways. And this is especially true in our K shaped economy.
So to have a good business you need whales and the whales need world and identity. Okay. In a sense, your business has to be optimized for letting the whales continue their identity.
A default way of research for most is to just mine through Reddit discussions or forum discussions, but no, go closer to the economic activity. There are Amazon reviews, there are a lot more things to go after. Hunt down human generated content and the closer it is to transactions the better. Things like reviews or niche forums or ad libraries.
Now, if you are making content, the things humans are generated here would be the views, the likes, the comments, the save, whatever interaction they had. And I think the thing we have observed before that if someone is in pain, they will keep cycling to production brand till they get what they want. Okay, I think the same is true with videos. People will keep watching a tutorial until their PC is fixed. People will keep searching for the perfect video to watch during it. Ting. People will keep searching for the perfect video till they get to do what they want. So that means. Existence of one view on a video implies a fair chance that additional view on the next video can also come. Like if there is one view on gameplay of a game, another video of same is highly likely to gain one view as well. If a view on a topic exists, assume that six more are on the way on videos similar to it or adjacent to it. Like if you’re making an observation that a GTA six gameplay video has gotten 100k views, you can safely assume that 600k more are coming soon on things like mods. skits, speed runs, commentary, reaction, or other gameplay video.Essentially, if you make a video that goes viral, you are supposed to double down on the same video and talk more about it, right? Then why not do it for someone else also? Like if someone else’s video has gone viral, then double down on their results as well. That is, if someone’s video about clocks has gone viral, double down on it. Always be fucking bullish. Yep, it’s like if someone has watched a video or spent a dollar and there is a ten percent chance that he is going to be a future whale, then the expected future views or spend become around three or four minimum. So why not invest, right?
Say 90% of people consume just once, but 10% go on to generate 30 additional views or purchases.
That’s 3 additional units of expected demand per initial consumer, before accounting for everyone else’s repeat consumption.
So in you there should be no hesitation to look at what is getting views, look at what is getting a lot of interactions, and try to make it for yourself.
So the main takeaway I want you to have here is keep an eye for user-generated content, and that means things like Amazon reviews, or the engagement on videos in your niche. Okay. And of course, for general awareness, keep looking up competitors, research this field, read some newspapers and whatnot. But be very fucking aware of what the current situation is.
So don’t be Mr. Original. Don’t try to invent the wheel. Don’t try to boil the ocean and whatnot. Just look at what works and see if we can double down in a better way.