Latest from the Blog
Would You Flamenco?
A quick note… Heloise and I have escaped to Seville for a much-needed mini break. And I have to say… Swapping emails, deadlines and computer screens for sunshine, Spanish architecture, tapas and the occasional burst of spontaneous flamenco feels like a very solid life...
Your Brain Wasn’t Designed for This…
You might recognise this feeling… You feel tired, even when you've not been doing that much. You find it hard to muster up enthusiasm. You can't get your thoughts in order or concentrate properly. Tasks that should be easy seem harder than they used to. It's as if a...
[This Weekend]: Hidden Cash Challenge
I bumped into an old friend of mine the other week…. He was jubilant because he’d just made I bumped into an old friend of mine the other week…. He was jubilant because he’d just made £2,048. It was all thanks to a signed Clash album he bought at a gig in 1980, when...
This is NOT a pencil…
Grab a pencil and place it in front of you. I want you to look at that pencil. (If you are all out of pencils, just create a mental image of one.) Why? Because I want to prove to you that even the most seemingly mundane products or services contain useful, engaging,...
I was messing about on Google Earth the other day (as you do!). When I zoomed-in on a wooden shed in an allotment in West London. A couple of years ago a friend and I spent a weekend re-felting that very roof! Now, here’s the thing…. My friend is a satellite engineer at the European Space Agency. And I remember sitting up on that freshly felted roof with him one lunchtime, eating sandwiches, squinting into the sun, feeling rather pleased with ourselves. I had absolutely no idea that a satellite was probably passing overhead that would one day take the photograph I’d be staring at years later on my laptop. It made me stop and think. Sometimes all it takes is zooming out – literally, or otherwise – to see something familiar from a completely different angle. We get so close to our own lives. Our routines… our worries… our daily to-do lists. We forget there’s a bigger picture. And occasionally, if you zoom out far enough, you catch a glimpse of just how remarkable the ordinary actually is. Which is a great way of looking at your current life in a more productive way. For instance… Do You Feel Stuck In the Everyday? Right now, you might feel like you’re just about getting through each day. That might mean work, commuting, lunch, dinner, telly, bed… And it might mean taking out the bins, walking the dog, emptying the dishwasher and idly scrolling through your phone in the moments in between. It can feel a little WASH-RINSE-REPEAT, can’t it? A bit humdrum. Like you’re just a small cog in a machine, running through the motions, with no great destiny ahead of you. Which makes it easy to forget how much potential you have to do something utterly amazing… It could be something that might feel completely unlikely right now from your ‘smaller’ everyday perspective. For instance, publishing your first book, running a profitable digital business, or making a fortune on a bestselling Amazon product. And yet… All those things have been achieved by ordinary people who are no smarter, and no more qualified than you are. The only difference? At some point, they zoomed out. They took their imaginations out of their daily routine for a moment, and sought a glimpse of what might be possible from higher up, on a larger scale. What You Look Like From the Satellite At the ground level, when you go about the business of everyday life, it’s easy to focus on what you LACK. “I’m not techy enough.” “I haven’t the time.” “People like me don’t do things like that.” These feel like brick walls when you’re standing right in front of them. But zoom out… like that satellite over West London… and these obstacles look a lot smaller. Barely visible, in fact. Because from the satellite point of view, the picture can look very different. From up there, you look like someone with: • decades of real life experience… • knowledge about subjects you take for granted… • interests and opinions that other people could genuinely benefit from. And there’s no reason why you can’t move beyond your immediate everyday experience to something else. Especially now that there are AI tools that can cover pretty much any skill you feel is lacking! So from the satellite viewpoint, you don’t look like someone who ‘could never do it’. You just look like someone who just hasn’t decided to start yet. The Zoom-In Trap The main reason that so many people feel stuck in their home business ambitions isn’t because of the obstacles themselves. It’s because they’re looking at them too closely. Think of it like a smartphone camera… When you zoom in too close to an object, it fills the entire screen, until all you see is a blurry blob of colour. You just can’t make sense of it! The same is true when you’re planning a major home business project. You focus your mind on all the processes you need to learn… the tools you need to grapple with… the decisions you need to make…. and all the ways it could go total wrong! When you zoom-in close, these challenges seem massive – overwhelming – insurmountable! But if you zoom out, they seem smaller. Yes, they’re still there… The difference is that, from a wider viewpoint, you can now see ways around them. It’s like standing directly in front of a wall, wondering how you can possibly get through it. Yet if you could see yourself from above, you’d realise that if you stepped ten metres to either side, you could simply walk around it! How to Put The Zoom Effect Into Practice Here’s a little exercise for you. At some point over the next few days, take ten minutes somewhere quiet and ask yourself three questions: • What do people come to me for advice about? (It could be anything from gardening to budgeting to dealing with a tricky boss.) • What do I know a lot about that I completely take for granted? • If I could earn an extra £500 a month from something I actually enjoyed, what might that look like? Don’t overthink it and don’t judge the answers yet. Just write them down. Because that little list is your satellite photo. It’s a wider view of what’s possible for you, taken from high above the daily routine and the never-ending to-do list. You might be surprised by what you see! Of course, you might immediately think of an obstacle that’s going to get in the way. So write THAT down. Maybe it’s “I could never build a website” or “I haven’t got time” or “I wouldn’t know where to start with AI.” Whatever it is, try and zoom out! Ask yourself… is this really a brick wall, or does it just LOOK like one because I’m standing too close? For instance… • “I don’t know how to build a website” – you could use platforms like Substack or Amazon FBA where you don’t need a website. • “I haven’t got time” — could you find three hours a week if it meant an extra £500 a month? That’s one evening in front of the telly, or one quiet early Sunday morning while everyone else is in bed. • “I wouldn’t know where to start with AI” — if you gave yourself 60 minutes to go onto Chat GPT and type a question into a box, you’d quickly see how easy it is, even without any experience or knowledge. Can you see how it works? Up close, obstacles seem enormous. But zoom out and you realise they’re either easily solvable – or they were never obstacles in the first place! That’s the power of satellite thinking.
I was messing about on Google Earth the other day (as you do!). When I zoomed-in on a wooden shed in an allotment in West London. A couple of years ago a friend and I spent a weekend re-felting that very roof! Now, here's the thing…. My friend is a satellite engineer...
Which niche would pay you?
I’ve been writing about Substack a LOT recently. And yes, you can start following me for FREE by clicking HERE. You see, I can’t help myself! Because the more I dig into this platform, the more excited I get about the opportunities it opens up for you. Substack makes...
I only wanted a coffee, but ended up in…
I’ll tell you what makes me feel old these days… YOUNG PEOPLE! But it’s not because of their fresh faces, smooth skin and boundless energy. It’s because of their clothes and hair. This thought struck me the other day, as I was waiting for a takeaway coffee in a trendy...
Which of these routines would you follow?
Over the weekend I was doing some research about the daily routines of famous and successful people… …and came across 2 very different and extreme examples. Now I should point out that both probably play fast and loose with reality, but wanted to share them to make an...
17,000 Books In A Farmyard Shipping Container!
Here’s a blast from the past… Last month I met Andrea - a long-time subscriber - at one of our live events. As we were chatting away over a coffee in the lobby of a London hotel, I discovered that she’d had great success with something I published 20 years ago! It was...
I was so WRONG about this…
I want to give you a peek ‘behind the curtain’… You see, I decided to go back through a year’s worth of the What Really Makes Money email newsletter’s data. I wanted to know which of the 178 subject lines got the highest open rates and see if there was a pattern. The...
What’s Your Ultradian Rhythm?
This morning, I jumped out of bed at 5:30am. No, not because of a fire alarm. It was by choice – and I was more than happy to do it. Some of my friends (and, for that matter, my entire family) think I’m a madman. But I get up this early so I can go to the park for...
Why Any Audience Can Make Money On this Platform
You’ve heard a lot from me about Substack lately…. And for good reason! I’m very excited about its potential. This platform lets you share useful AI-assisted content every week – and get PAID for it by your readers. You don’t need to build your own website or grapple...
The Pulling Power of… WTF!!
I’ve been getting great feedback about the forthcoming What Really Makes Money service on Substack. If you were one of those who wrote in – thanks! As I mentioned last Friday, I’ve been prepping for this major project by diving into a few courses by top Substackers....
Is this holding you back?
Have you ever read a book, watched a course, or followed a plan… understood every single step… felt genuinely inspired by it… and then done… ABSOLUTELY NOTHING? You're not lazy. You're not disorganised. And it's almost certainly not a time problem. Chances are, if you...
The 7 Questions You Must Always Ask…
This might sound strange… Especially if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while. But today I want to answer the BIG question… “What Really Makes Money?” However, that answer doesn’t consist of a single business idea or side hustle. If it did, I’d write it up,...