He embarrassed me... (but I got my revenge)

“You, at the back, with the beard - are you even paying attention?”

I wasn’t.

I was too busy thinking that this life wasn’t for me, that this wasn’t how I wanted to live.

I was 3 months into starting my finance degree, sitting in a macroeconomics lecture but I wasn’t really there, I was planning my escape.

I thought I was doing a half-decent job at masking my lack of listening, but the professor was a seasoned ex-investment banker with black slicked-back hair, a full suit, and an ego that took no shit.

When he talked, he wanted your full attention and if he didn’t get it, he would let you know.

Authority.

My number 1 enemy.

If anything this helped me.

It made me realise that having someone tell me what to do, being stuck in an office for 80-100 hours a week and living - well, living no life at all - wasn’t for me.

I needed a way out.

Luckily, at this point, I was already creating content, growing my brand, and building my creator business.

But I was new. I was fresh and I wasn’t in the position to take the risk of going all in.

I would wake up between 5 and 6am, sit down at my desk with no light shining on my face except for the lonely cold light of my laptop, and get to work.

Creating content, doing outreach, or whatever other task needed done.

I would then head straight to my university class at 9am.

Before heading to a dead-end minimum wage job, coming home and doing more work.

All in all, I was working between 12 and 16 hours a day depending on how many university classes I had.

I was building my creator business to live life on my terms, but I ended up spending more time behind a screen than living.

Oh, the life of a university student trying to make it.

But this.

This day when I got called the fuck out by the most authoritative man in the room, it did something.

Honestly, it was embarrassing.

Couple my hatred of authority with the pain of embarrassment and I snapped.

I sat there, plotting my revenge for the rest of the lecture - it was time to change.

I was fed up with these 12-16 hour days.

There had to be more to life than this.

There had to be more than waking up, getting stuck in traffic, sitting in an office for the entire day, and being told what to do by some man angry at the fact he’s wasted his entire life in a company that doesn’t give a fuck about him.

Being told when I can go on vacation. What to work on. When to work on it.

It was a life with no meaningful work or freedom, even the thought of it made me feel unfulfilled, as if there was something missing and by fuck it wasn’t for me.

But I had a vehicle out.

All I had to do was open that door and hop in.

My creator business.

I knew how to grow. I knew how to monetise.

But I had no clue how to do it in a way that let me live a life I loved, full of autonomy and freedom.

Sitting in that lecture, I realised I had 2 options.

1. Accept defeat and just keep doing what I was doing, with no hopes of that 2-4 hour day I dreamed of.

2. Do what I did to build my audience and business - learn. 

Figure it the fuck out.

It’s what I’ve always done.

Instead of viewing a situation as a problem, I’ve always viewed it as an opportunity - and this one was no different.

When I got home, I wasted no time.

Even with the weight of part of me thinking a 2-4 hour work day was impossible, in my mind, I had no choice.

I had to make this work.

Whether it was raining, snowing or the sun was splitting the trees.

Whether my mates were all out partying, going for food, or doing something “fun”

I didn’t care.

I had a goal. I had a mission.

I started relentlessly studying the top creators.

And specifically those who made a tonne of money whilst living a life they love, where they decide what they do and when they do it.

I distilled what I learned into my own process and started implementing it.

Making adjustments and changes to suit me and how I wanted to live my life.

• I crafted my dream life

I figured out how I wanted to live, my exact daily schedule, my business, my hobbies, habits, lifestyle, friends, partner, physique - everything.

This way I had a clear direction as to how I wanted to build my creator business and in what direction I needed to go.

• I crafted overarching strategies

Every day, you make 1000’s of decisions.

A lot of these, you don’t need to make daily - but you do it anyway out of habit and ease.

But making decisions takes a tonne of time and energy, especially when it comes to your brand and content.

It’s the difference between writing a tweet in 10 minutes and writing a tweet in 25 minutes.

So I sat down and crafted my brand, content, promotion, and sales strategies.

I turned decisions that I was making daily into a decision I made once and now all I had to do was follow it.

No more thinking about what style, type, and purpose of content to write - I just choose an idea and write based on the strategy.

• Started practicing and understanding essentialism.

I was doing everything in my creator business by myself.

I had no room for outsourcing or delegating.

And I viewed every single task as essential. 

But that just wasn’t true.

When I sat down and looked through everything I was doing, I realised “fuck, I don’t need to do half of these”

I figured out what tasks were essential for growing my audience and my income and I focused on them.

Everything else was either deprioritised or cut out completely.

I started working less, but growing and earning more because I figured out what to focus on.

I was already building something with leverage (my audience), I already had something to sell, I could already focus and I had a decent level of self-mastery

So all I had to do was follow 3 steps.

That’s all it took.

And eventually, my creator business got to the point where I could take a calculated risk and go all in.

I started to live a life I love through the ultimate business model for fulfillment - a creator business.

No 80-hour weeks in an investment bank, nobody telling me what to do.

The dream.

Freedom, autonomy, and a 2-4 hour work day.

And most importantly, options.

I have the option to do what I want, when I want.

I get everything I need to get done completed in 2-4 hours, but if I want to work more, I will.

You see, the goal isn’t to work 2-4 hours a day.

The goal is to get all your non-negotiable tasks done in 2-4 hours a day so that working more is a choice you make based on what you want to do, not what you’re told to do.

I’m all for working as hard as possible or working all day if you want, but make sure it’s your choice

You have 1 life, you deserve to live it how you want to live it.

- Ross “fuck being told what to do” Harkness.

Over the past 3 years I’ve built my creator business to over 500,000 followers and a multi 6-figure revenue in just 2-4 hours a day and I’m building out a course to share how I do it

If you’re a creator and want to spend less time working and more time living, you can sign up for the waitlist here and be the first to get access

When you’re ready, here’s how I can help you

• Achieve Self-Mastery, unlock your true potential, and smash every goal you set with MasteryOS

• Learn how to build a multi-6-figure audience and business with Personal BrandBldr

• As a subscriber, you can get 50% off my Get Shit Done Productivity System by clicking here