You are a high-performer.

You are entitled to a life where you get more out than you put in.

In this article, I will show you how to design this.

You will learn my entire philosophy on what it takes to get out of your own way, unlock your potential, and create outsized results from your efforts.

Even if, right now, you feel like your potential is blocked or hidden.

There're plenty of things that will stop you from designing the life you want.

• Lack of time

• Lack of energy

• Burnout from overwork

• Having money, but feeling no joy

• Feeling lost or just not knowing what you want

But, before you can address any of this, I want you to internalise 2 concepts:

1. The Happiness Equation

This comes from my hero, Mo Gawdat. Ex Chief Business Officer - Google X (he has an incredible voice, so if you want to get his stuff, get the audio versions).

After losing his young son to a routine operation, he quit his job and wrote the book 'Solve for Happy'.

His equation is:

"Happiness is equal to or greater than your perception of the events in your life minus your expectations of how life should be."

My version:

"Happiness is where you are right now, minus where you think you should be right now".

If you want to work from home, but you're stuck in an office - Unhappy.
If you want to live in a big house, but you're stuck in a small one - Unhappy.

1. The Hedonic Treadmill

In his legendary blog - 'Life is a Picture, But You Live in a Pixel' - Tim Urban describes what it's like to live life, always thinking 'tomorrow' will be better or more exciting.

"I'll have more money to go to that fancy restaurant."
"I'll be able to get those new pro golf clubs."

That day comes, and it's exciting.

The food tastes fabulous in your mouth.
The weight of the clubs feels amazing in your hands.

But the next day.

The food tastes like food.
The golf clubs feel like golf clubs.

Then you see next door's bought a new car.

"Damn, I need a car like that…"

And the cycle continues.

So how do you flip the script?

The Profitable Life

For you to lead a profitable life, first you need to:

1. Start acting like you're exactly where you should be

2. Stop grasping after bright shiny objects

Once you start doing this your focus then becomes.

A) Enjoyment of the present moment
B) The quality of life you own vs the things you own

In business, profit is where you make more than you spend.

You then re-invest that profit to grow the business.

This effort compounds over time.

In life, profit is where you build more skills than you lose.

You then re-invest those skills to grow yourself.

This effort compounds over time.

And this is exactly where you want to be at the end of each day.

Having made meaningful progress that compounds over time.

You're adding to the piggy bank.
You're enjoying the process.

3 Pillars

For you to make meaningful progress each day you need.

Mastery of your self (internal)

Mastery of influence (external)

Mastery of tools (leverage)

1. Self

Everything starts internally.

If don't have a healthy mind and body

If you don't develop positive habits

If you can't self-regulate

You will fail.

In recent years, I've been placing more and more value on 'flow'.

I'm conditioning myself to seek more activities that are rewarding in and of themselves vs activities I force myself to do because they are a 'pre-requisite of success'.

The more work looks like play, the longer you're able to play for.

I'm also training myself to expect failure.

As you put more of yourself out into the world, the more you'll face setbacks and objections. The more I tell myself this is a statistical fact vs something to be avoided, the easier it become to plan, and keep myself motivated.

All of this starts with the self.

2. Influence

There's no point in self-mastery if it doesn't increase your luck in finding new opportunities.

To influence others and get what you want, you need to know how to brand, market and sell.

• Brand - What you're known for (how you're perceived)

• Marketing - Communicating your value to others

• Sales - Converting that value into payment

This isn't limited to business either.

Employees with strong brands become known for something, communicate their value and sell themselves to get the promotion.

C-Suite are salespeople whether they like it or not.

3. Tools

Another word for tools is leverage.

This can be:

• Money

• People

• Software

• AI

Without money, you can post organically online
↳ With money, you advertise and increase your reach

Without people, you have to learn every skill yourself
↳ With people, you bring in diverse experiences

Without software, you carry out work manually
↳ With software, you free up you time for higher value tasks

I've placed AI in it's own category, as it's the highest leverage tool our lifetime has ever seen.

It acts like both a person, and a software system to help you:

A) Learn anything at a base level (fast)
B) Do grunt-work without needing a person
C) Increase the quality of your work via always on assistance

Tools give you an advantage, as they'll help you scale your efforts faster.

But there's still a missing piece of the profitable puzzle.

Especially when we consider the future.

Life in the Meta-World

In this AI world that we live in, the playing field has been levelled.

Your money, your people, and your skills are no longer an unfair advantage.

This is why meta-skills (this skills behind the skills) need to be your primary focus in the coming years.

• Learning how to learn

• Abstract thought

• Systems thinking

• Trend spotting

• Metacognition

The list goes on.

Tim Ferriss, known for his book 'The 4-Hour Workweek' kicked off the concept of lifestyle design. But one of his most profound teachings actually comes from his book 'The 4-Hour Chef'.

Yes, it is a cookbook, but the opening chapters elegantly describe how he's found the levers to learn any skill (fast). He does this via a framework called DiSSS.

DiSSS = Deconstruct, Select, Sequence, Stakes

This is going to be the topic of a future article. For now, if you want more info you'll have to buy the book (which I'd recommend) do a web search (or ask your favourite AI).

You need to apply this type of thinking to your life if you're going to stand a chance of moving fast enough.

Getting started

So, to start designing a profitable life where you get more out than you put in follow these steps:

1. Identify a meaningful pursuit

2. Pick a part of yourself to develop

3. Choose an area of influence

4. Find a tool

5. Seek meta-learning opportunities

Example

• Meaningful pursuit - In the coming weeks I'll be taking a new product to market.

• Self-Development - It will involve a lot of cold outreach which I'm trying to gamify into a flow activity and not get upset when people tell me to f*** off.

• Area of Influence - As a result I'll be marketing, and converting that outreach into sales

• Tool - I'll use tools that allow me to systematise my outreach (like Apollo) and save time using tools to do research at scale (Clay)

• Meta-Learning - During this process I'll learn about self-regulation, I'll be thinking in systems, I'll be thinking critically, and spotting trends.

Throughout all of this I'll be using AI as an always-on assistant to help me learn as I'm doing, analyse and think more critically, and do some of the heavy lifting for me.

You will make progress faster by reducing the time between learning and doing.

It's crucial that you find a project to apply these skills to.

There is no progress without execution.

The Final Word

Designing a profitable life starts with intention.

It requires a shift in focus from "when I get to/have {bright shiny thing, I will be happy/successful"

To "what can I do every day to improve my quality of life (and be happy during the process)"

It requires introspection, and a willingness to learn and put yourself out there.

But will ultimately end in more time, energy and joy.

Here's to your profitable life.

Adam