Yesterday, I bought a phone charger, earplugs, and a bottle of shampoo. What do all these three products have in common?

They solve a problem I already had.

Foreign plug sockets, lousy sleep, and an inclination to look and feel clean: I was aware of my existing needs. These three purchases all solve a problem or realise a desire I already had. That made the buying journey simple: I typed the product into my browser, visited an online shop, added what I wanted to the cart, and paid. Done.

From the business’ point of view, that’s an easy sale.

They didn’t have to convince me why I needed the product, and they certainly didn’t need to show me that it existed: all they needed to do was being in the right place, at the right time. …

I sold an online course that didn’t exist. OK, maybe that’s putting it a little strongly. It existed, sort of. In my head, enough that I could post it for sale online.

Here’s how it started.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down and thought about what valuable information I could package in a rapid but high value course. Paper and pen, I wrote down things I accomplished and assets I could leverage. Remember, you can do the same thing: we often take our skills and accomplishments for granted, so much so that they become invisible to us.

In the end, I decided to create a video and checklist about how I research and plan content ideas: it took me a long time to find a process that works for me, and it’s something I get asked whenever I have a conversation with a company that wants to use content for their engagement. …

Some things are in our control and others not.

Focusing on the things you cannot influence brings stress; focusing on the things you can influence brings power.

The definition of stress is “pressure or tension exerted on a material object”: when you want things to be different, you create that tension between how you want things to be and how things really are.

Shunning any sort of structure in your life means giving up your power while wishing for the things you cannot control to be different.

That’s why the most structured people really are the most flexible, while the most unstructured ones are locked into unchanging conditions. …

Since you’re reading this, it’s likely that you found an article of mine, like it, and decided to click on my face and check out my profile. Nice to meet you.

On Medium, I mostly talk about business, marketing, and mindset.

Here are my most popular posts at the moment:

1. How to Validate Any Business Idea With the “Stand-Up” Technique

Quickly test your idea before wasting your time.

2. How To Self-Publish a Book in a Week

A step-by-step guide for writing a book on a tight deadline.

3. 5 Tough Lessons From Quitting My Full-Time Job to Start a Business

What I would do differently going back…

4. How to Sell Your Product or Service When You Don’t Have an Audience

You don’t have to start from scratch.

5. Stop Cheating On Your Business Idea

Don’t let tactics distract you: the secret to overnight success is to focus on one project.

I appreciate comments, upvotes, and follows. It tells me what resonates, and what to write more of in the future. You can also find me on Twitter and YouTube. …

It was time to set myself free. Free from the big consulting firm I worked for, free from a lifestyle I hated. Also, free from being forced to wear a suit and tie every day.

So I hatched a plan. I knew what I wanted: to travel, work online, actually have fun with my career. All things IB…erm, I mean, the big consulting firm, didn’t grant me. I also wanted to experiment and learn through business and life.

Basically, it was time to take off that suit and finally pursue my dream.

That’s what I wanted. But somehow, what I ended up getting was the exact opposite. …

A few years ago, I was in ‘comeback mode’. After leaving my corporate job, I launched a product with a friend of mine. Within a few months, we raised money for a phone charger, manufactured it, fulfilled it, and then…the partnership sort of fell apart.

For the next 12 months, I was determined to show myself I could do it again, and ‘launched’ a number of business ideas.

One of them was a wooden iPhone dock that I planned on crowdfunding on Kickstarter. After all, I knew the platform pretty well.

So I put a lot of energy into the product: I wanted it to be excellent quality. …

In the midst of the Great Pandemic of 2020, I have operated my business from three different locations so far this year. In spite of the strict lockdown (no walk and no runs), my favourite spot was Barcelona: I may be heading back there soon.

You see, the freedom to work from wherever I choose is important to me. It’s one of the primary reasons I left my gig at a big fancy consulting company to strike out on my own. I was tired of trading my time for money, and I wanted more out of life.

I’ve built a business on my terms, which allows me to live in multiple locations, but it took time. In the early days, I couldn’t get out of the employee mindset where I was compensated for my time and thought that putting in MORE time was the only way to make money. So I worked. And worked. Neglecting my health and relationships with people important to me, 80-hour weeks were the norm. And I was getting nowhere. My business wasn’t growing as I needed it to, and it was literally killing me. …

If time had a fixed value, increasing your wealth would require you to increase the amount of time you work proportionally.

If that was the case, someone in a 9–5 job earning $50,000 a year would have to work an impossible 80 hours a day in order to earn $500,000.

Clearly, there must be some value beyond the clock.

Why can some people charge $5,000 for a single call, while others are paid below $8 an hour? Why can some people generate money while sleeping, while others can’t take a single day off?

By now, you should know the secret: time is worthless. …