People tell you that you must have a sense of urgency in business and in life if you want to succeed.

And it’s true.

People who are slow do not usually succeed. But sometimes they survive.

The best performers are those that can be both calm and act with a sense of urgency.

Some might call it a state of flow.

Things are just happening.

And they are happening in the right direction.

It can feel like the actions are just happening through you - like you are not even doing anything at all, even though you are.

How can you be in such a state?

It’s simple. But it’s not easy.

You define where you want to be going, remove all distractions and take massive action.

For some, this might mean removing all stimulation outside of the aim - including caffeine, phones/screens, social media, etc.

Create an environment where urgency feels natural and focus flows effortlessly.

Hiring is a pain for growing companies.

Sorting through thousands of resumes. Interviews. Checking References.

It takes way too long.

Sorting through people you like vs people who are actually good for the job.

That’s why I created LoftyHire. We help companies hire the best global employees. We save you time and money. Find your perfect hire today.

They work so hard, they deserve it!

But do they really work hard?

Hard work is digging a ditch. It’s construction in the blistering sun. It’s repetitive dangerous manufacturing work.

In short, hard work is physical labor.

It’s not what many of us are doing here on the computer.

This is a different beast to tackle.

This is not physical work. It’s mental.

They both can be stressful, sure.

Mental stress can turn into physical health problems.

But not the kind of physical health problems that falling off a ladder on a construction site would give you.

Most people on computers are not working at all. Unless they are working smart.

Smart Hard Work

Do you know what you are doing to get the results you need to get?

You are not hammering a nail here. Everything you are doing on this computer is basically magic.

And all the other magicians are trying to cast their spell on you.

You must know for sure what you are going to be doing or you will get distracted.

Get in and get out.

The only way you can get ahead in this mental computer world is to have your priorities straight.

As stated above in question form: You need to know the results you want to get and what exactly you are going to do to get them.

And you need to have a strong self belief that you can get those results.

Everything else is noise.

Smart hard work is when you are intentionally working on a project that is worth working on and you have the self belief and discipline to see the work through - to bring your creation to life.

Building a company is hard. You (and your employees) are going to need help. Especially managing your energy when it comes to administrative tasks.

I recommend you hire a remote assistant to stay organized and maximize your potential.

It’s not easy to find a good remote executive assistant. It took me over six months to find mine. For this reason, I’ve created LoftyHireto help you save time in your EA search. I got the whole process down to 1-3 weeks, depending on your needs.

There is a direct correlation between what you are doing to solve people problems and the amount of money that flows into your business.

Inexperienced people start with the money first.

How much money can I make from this? Can I sell it at some point?

All great questions but not the most important.

The most important question for any business is…

Is this solving big problems and pain?

If your product or service are solving customer pain, you will be compensated based on how much of a painkiller your business is.

Yes, you need to have a margin. The higher the better.

But if you start with only margin just flip a house or trade stock options.

Business is not for you.

Business is problem/pain solving, not gambling.

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Sometimes you have to plow right through your fears.

But those are fears.

Have you ever had crippling anxiety though?

The kind where it’s hard to breathe and maybe you end up in the ER.

I have a controversial opinion on this kind of anxiety.

Again - this is not fear. Like fear of public speaking or to talk with a girl.

That is completely different.

I’m talking about anxiety when everything in your life is supposed to be ok - as in, your life seemingly is not that bad. And you are in perfect health but struggle with anxiety.

I think this sort of anxiety is a whisper from the Gods.

They are telling you something is not quite right in your life. You may be doing the wrong thing or on some sort of path where you should not be.

It’s God poking you and trying to tell you to WAKE UP.

This why I believe many people would benefit from the simple practice of Thinking Time.

Most people just numb these anxieties out with any list of substances or drugs. But you would be doing yourself a huge favor to take stock of your life and how it’s going. What needs to change?

May be something simpler than you think.

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If you look back at all the predictions smart successful people made about certain technologies and companies that turned out to be wrong - the list would be miles high.

Here are some my favorites:

There is so much noise in the world and everyone is looking to someone to guide them.

But it’s really important that you find your own voice.

If you don’t, you will be drowning in the hell of other peoples opinions. Even if those people are successful already - they could hold you back.

Have your own opinions and assumptions.

But be honest with yourself when you are wrong and self correct along the way.

Building a company is hard. You (and your employees) are going to need help.

I recommend you hire a remote executive assistant to stay organized and maximize your potential.

It’s not easy to find a good remote executive assistant. It took me over six months to find mine. For this reason, I’ve created LoftyHireto help you save time in your EA search.

We are entering a new world.

One where you can train your own AI and it can essentially be you. It will respond like you and it can even take payment on your behalf.

The use case for something like this is appealing to content creator based business and also those that are coaches or consultants.

Instead of you using your own time to talk to people, your AI Clone will talk to them.

You just collect the money.

Sounds good but this must cost thousands of dollars, right?

No, it’s only $29 per month through a company called Delphi.

Give it a try yourself. You can barely tell the difference on a video chat between the AI and a real person.

Even if you can clone yourself, building a company is hard. Your clone will not have all the answers.

I recommend you hire a remote executive assistant to stay organized and maximize your potential and free up your time.

It’s not easy to find a good remote executive assistant. It took me over six months to find mine. For this reason, I’ve created LoftyHire to help you save time in your EA search. I got the whole process down to 1-3 weeks, depending on your needs.

Most people do not use their energy wisely.

This comes as no surprise.

But the reason they don’t use it wisely is because they don’t know themselves that well.

If you understand the things in life that give you energy, you don’t have to be a slave to being tired and worn out all the time.

Sure, some of it is genetics. But most of it is understanding what you like and dislike.

You will have to do things you dislike but you should minimize them as best you can.

Take a sheet of paper. Make 4 columns.

• Time

• What Your Doing

• Feel Energetic (check box)

• Feel tired/exhausted (check box)

For one week, simply record what you do every day including what you eat and drink. You may not even have to do it that long.

You’ll start to understand your flow.

How to Have Unlimited Energy

It’s simple: have a massive vision and goal for your life. Know what you are doing and DO IT.

If that doesn’t make you feel energetic - understand why and see if you can deal with it.

Maybe it’s time for a change.

Building a company is hard. You (and your employees) are going to need help. Especially managing your energy when it comes to administrative tasks.

I recommend you hire a remote assistant to stay organized and maximize your potential.

It’s not easy to find a good remote executive assistant. It took me over six months to find mine. For this reason, I’ve created LoftyHire to help you save time in your EA search. I got the whole process down to 1-3 weeks, depending on your needs.

We have talked about how important AI is going to be to society with AI Agents.

Will there be AI doctors soon?

A new study found that ChatGPT-4 did better than doctors at diagnosing medical cases, even when those doctors could use the same AI tool. Published in JAMA Network Open, the study had 50 doctors try to solve six tough medical cases. ChatGPT scored 90%, while doctors scored 76% when using the chatbot for specific questions and only 74% when using regular resources.

Here are the main takeaways:

1. Human Bias: Many doctors stuck to their first guesses, even when AI gave better, well-explained suggestions.

2. Underusing AI: Most doctors only asked ChatGPT specific questions and didn’t use its full ability to look at complete case histories.

3. Trust Issues: Even though the AI did a great job, doctors are still unsure about trusting AI in medical settings.

In the past, AI has had a hard time fitting into healthcare, mostly because people didn’t trust it or found it hard to use. The newest models works differently from older systems. It doesn’t try to think like a human but uses language predictions to give fast, accurate answers. Still, its success depends on doctors knowing how to use it properly.

If AI can diagnose illnesses better than doctors, what else can it do?

It’s worth pondering for your own business.

Building a company is hard. You (and your employees) are going to need help.

I recommend you hire a remote assistant to stay organized and maximize your potential.

It’s not easy to find a good remote executive assistant. It took me over six months to find mine. For this reason, I’ve created LoftyHire to help you save time in your EA search.

Learn about my projects at PaulSerra.com

Dear Entrepreneur:

There's a lot of information out there. You see it every single day.

Most, if not all of it, is bullshit.

Becoming wealthy is not complicated.

It’s not easy, either.

I’m going to assume that most of you are starting from nothing.

If you are starting from nothing, understand this:

Achieving wealth is going to take a certain level of obsession and self-belief.

In my experience, there are only 6 steps you need to become wealthy.

I will explain these 6 steps in very simple terms.

In the case you do not have $99 per year to spend and 47 minutes of your time, i'll just tell you a summary of what is in The Wealth Model Course below and you can use this as a guide to figure it out on your own.

--Step 1: Focus--

Focus is something that hardly anyone has these days.

Your focus lives rent-free inside the largest social networks. It’s a sad state of affairs.

The first part of my wealth model is Focus.

You will be wealthy if you can focus and know what to focus on.

Focus is more than just how to organize data and take action on it.

It’s what you will be deciding to do.

And will that focus area yield the results you want?

Many people focus on the wrong path for years at a time.

They are on the treadmill of life. They aren’t moving toward their goals.

Just because you can focus doesn’t mean you are focusing on the correct path.

Please understand this and internalize it.

Learn how to filter what to focus on in the full wealth model course.

--Step 2: Start (or buy) a Business--

The second part of the wealth model is to start (or buy) a business.

The fact remains that owning a business is the fastest way you can achieve long term financial gain.

To start a business, you must know how to build and sell.

If you only have one of these qualities, partner with someone who knows the other.

It has never been easier to start a business than now.

This means it has never been easier to become wealthy than right now.

Starting is easy, yes. 

But growing a new business is hard work.

Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s easy.

Where focus is awareness of what you will be doing, a business is a vehicle / path for for that focus.

--Step 3: Cash Flow--

After starting a business, you must propel it to do the third part of the model: cash flow.

Cash flow is what is left of your revenue after all the expenses are subtracted.

You’ve likely heard the term a lot, especially from so-called real estate gurus.

A business without cash flow is worthless.

And that is likely what your business will be for the first few months.

The only caveat is if it is a long-term venture capital play.

Venture capitalists will invest in companies with no cash flow for years if they think they can make a pretty penny when the company IPOs. 

And a very small amount of these VCs are correct. These are the ones that get a ton of money and their spot on CNBC.

VCs should be applauded for their risk. These people usually push technology forward faster.

Let's talk about cash flow in the Non VC world.

Without cash flow, you can’t do anything.

You can’t pay yourself. You can't hire employees. You can’t sell the company. You are stuck.

Positive cashflow comes from sales and not making stupid decisions.

The stupid decisions to avoid are: pricing your product too low, expensive software, expensive office space, over hiring, buying stuff you don’t need.

You may find that after you start your company you will have to pivot due to cash flow drying up.

This is very common and if done correctly can keep the company going.

Learn how to be cash flow positive in the full wealth model course.

--Step 4: Scale--

After you understand cash flow and have it optimized, it’s time for the fourth part of the model: Scale.

Now, ideally you started your business with the intention to scale.

But some people don’t.

Scaling is when your expenses stay about the same while your revenue increases greatly.

This can happen a number of ways depending on your industry.

As an example, if you start a supplement company that was initially online-only but then you get distribution at grocery stores and supplement stores, your scale will increase.

Scale is not about adding more cost.

It’s about adding more revenue drivers and making that revenue wider.

Yes, you will need people and software to facilitate some scale.

But you will not need as much as you think.

Many companies spend themselves into a certain death while trying to scale.

They end up taking on too much expenses and cripple their cash flow.

This is because they simply do not understand scale.

I'll say it again.

Scaling is not about adding more costs. 

--Step 5: Exit, IPO or Install Management--

When a company has good, consistent cash flow and you have scaled it as far as you believe you can take it or maybe you are just tired of running it, it’s time to look at the fifth part of the model.

During this part you have three options: Exit, IPO or Install Management.

Exit: This means to sell your company.

IPO: This means to take your company public on the stock market.

Install Management: This means you will hire someone to run the company and meet with them once per quarter. You will also be involved in high level decisions but not the day-to-day.

There is no bad option here.

If your company is too small an IPO won’t be an option.

If your company is large enough you can mix the IPO option with Install Management.

But you should do this long before you IPO.

When you sell (exit) a company, you will get a lump sum of money.

You will have to pay taxes on this money (the part no one like to talk about - especially your broker).

It's also very important to consider: you will not be getting cash flow from the company anymore.

Depending on your unique situation, you may want to keep that cash flow. So perhaps installing management is better option for you.

You can also install management and keep your company private.

This is a very appealing option for most. Especially those building personal brands and those that want to keep their asset and cash flow.

But understand this: the longer you keep the company, the more risky it is that it will eventually fail.

I know we like to look at great companies that have been around for a long time as examples.

But technology changes. And sometimes, companies fail to adapt.

We cover these options in The Wealth Model Course. 

If you do not have the stomach and iron fist to deal with the company, then sell it and move on to the next venture.

A final note: Managers must be managed and measured.

Installing a CEO or president, is not a set it and forget it strategy.

It may take a considerable amount of energy to find and onboard this person.

But the right person, with the right incentives can grow your small company to new heights and everyone will benefit from this.

--Step 6: Real Estate, Other Businesses and Index Funds--

The last part of The Wealth Model involves taking your cash flow or a portion of your lump sum of money and putting into real estate, other businesses and low risk vanguard index funds.

Depending what happened in the last part of your wealth journey, at this point, you may want to consider create what is called a “family office”.

Consult your CPA and attorney on this one.

The goal with the last part of your wealth journey is to continue to create or buy/invest in income producing assets.

The more assets you have, the more you will need to protect yourself.

Everyone wants a piece of your pie.

Lawsuits. Family. Friends. Bad business deals. Bad ideas. Waste.

When you have money, do not go cheap on protection.

Find the best attorneys and fiduciaries.

—

In a nutshell, The Wealth Model guides you to create, buy and sell income generating assets. 6 Steps to remember:

1. Focus.

2. Start a business (or buy a business).

3. Achieve consistent positive cash flow.

4. Scale.

5. Exit, IPO or Install Management.

6. Take your earnings and buy real estate, other businesses and low risk vanguard index funds.

If you want to take this to the next level for a more in-depth understanding, consider upgrading to premium below.

-Paul