The Intentional Path to Financial Success

Vagueness doesn't get anyone to riches except by luck.

People who enjoy financial success are usually very big on being intentional and having a firm work routine.

You can't just hope to do one or two things and expect to be rich.

You have to plan everything to the last detail to increase your chances of succeeding.

In this newsletter, I will be sharing several factors that should be considered when choosing to follow a detailed plan and creativity.

It's the fourth edition of the Rich Mind, Rich Life series.

We've already discussed seven topics in the other newsletters.

8. The Factors to consider when choosing a detailed plan.

1. Hours Dedicated.

According to Gladwell, a person could become an expert in nearly any field as long as they were prepared to dedicate 10,000 hours to practicing and studying the subject or skill.

As a struggling musician, I didn't know this.

I just jumped into music marketing thinking I would blow up like Justin Bieber.

I didn't know that making music and selling music are two different things.

Yes, I might have spent more than half of 10, 000 hours on making music by 23—since I started making music by 11, and if you count 2 hours every day for 10 years (2×365×10), you have about 7, 300 hours.

However, I hadn't spent half of the hours I spent on making music on social media marketing.

I placed my hopes on luck.

Unfortunately, I never got any music industry expert to invest in my music.

I didn't spend enough time studying the art of marketing or social media.

Now that I am marketing my music online, I don't place my hopes on luck but understand that I need to be more realistic about how the amount of time I dedicate to marketing is just as important or more important than the amount of time I spend making music.

No, you don't have to wait for the 10, 000 hours before seeing the fruits of your labor.

However, you have to understand that your belief in your ability and your chances of succeeding in whatever business you choose is probably more optimistic than realistic.

Many people seem to start projects feeling optimistic about their chances.

This is why we have many struggling musicians in the music industry.

And we have the equivalent of this in many other industries—not just music.

Also, spending a great deal of time on one aspect of the factors that contribute to success in any industry might not be very smart.

As a musician who didn't have much experience in marketing myself, I would have a better chance if I did all I could to get to an expert in the industry instead of posting videos on Instagram.

This was J Cole's strategy when he gave Jay-Z his music and ended up getting signed.

I could even get a successful manager to help me reach the music labels and secure deals.

If I were to blow up on Instagram, I would have to be more strategic about the hours I spent on it.

I wouldn't give up easily and would be very serious about improving my marketing.

I could still blow up on Instagram if I hadn't reached 10,000 hours.

However, my chances increase the more time I spend marketing my music on Instagram.

2. Taking advantage of trends.

Trends are a great way to blow up fast, and many successful industries make use of them.

Nike knew Jordan was hot, and signing a deal with him to create the Air Jordan shoe brand is one of the smartest business moves they've ever made.

Social media makes it easy to take advantage of trends in today's world.

From using trending sounds to talking about controversial issues on podcasts, the sky is the limit to how one can make use of trends today.

A businessman who is serious about selling would be strategic about targeting trending topics while creating content and marketing.

Collaborating with someone who is trending too is one thing he would want to do.

Several people in the music industry know this.

A lot of musicians got their big break from featuring a big artist or being featured on their songs.

Wiz Kid's song with Drake, One Dance, is a good example of this.

The song is a big part of Wiz Kid's rising popularity with the US audience as a Nigerian artist.

Movie producers also leverage the popularity of their actors while producing a movie.

Netflix promotes shows involving popular comedians and other celebrities.

The list goes on.

What will hinder you from making this move is if money is tight and you're unpopular.

However, you can start from little.

If you're only popular in your school, you could collaborate with another student for free because they're getting the same level of exposure.

When you exceed that a little, you can work with someone else on your level who wants the same thing.

You can do this until you find yourself playing among the top players in your industry.

If money is not a problem, you can pay to get features and mentions from established acts in your industry.

3. Numbers game.

Can you save a certain amount of your income to reach financial freedom in a particular number of years?

If not, what can you do to increase your income?

Your financial goal is very important.

You need to be very realistic about your money dreams.

How do you want to get rich?

Are you going to be saving aggressively and investing cautiously?

Or are you going to dedicate a great deal of your time to trying several businesses and keep them running to get to your goal?

You have to be specific about the amount of money you wish to be making and what you need to get there.

Try writing down the exact amount of money you wish to have in a specific number of years.

I can't just hope to have the money.

As a social media businessman, I realize that my growth on Twitter is slow.

Consequently, I am making moves to post on as many platforms as possible in the shortest time and make the littlest daily move that can grow my pages more.

I choose to be consistent with this strategy.

What's your specific strategy and financial goal?

4. Networking.

What moves are you making to connect to the right people?

Are you just hoping they would come around and find you at the perfect moment when you need them?

It's widely known that your network determines your network.

But these are just mere words if you don't know how to utilize them.

Here's how.

Start by looking at the people you spend your time with.

How often do you hang out with positive and successful people versus people who like to complain and talk about other people?

Also, examine the environment you live in or have fun in, and ask yourself if it's the right environment to meet people with the qualities you aspire to have.

Since I spend a good part of my time working on my X and promoting ideas about money and mindfulness, I can find many people with similar mindsets.

The algorithm is doing the job for me.

That's another thing to consider: try to train your algorithm to suggest connections and content that align with your aspirations.

Look for the options in your frequently used social media apps that will help you reduce the rate at which they suggest content you dislike and increase the rate at which they suggest content you like to you.

Instagram has these options, and you can see a type of content less often or more often by clicking a button or two.

You could also read books about the goals you desire.

Lastly, I will leave you with a suggestion to spend a specific amount of time in a week or day talking to someone you admire or look up to in your industry.

You could connect with them on social media or in real life.

5. Develop an Efficient System.

Model a system based on humans.

Many people expect to get things right by just being motivated.

However, it takes more than just motivation and hard work.

You need a system.

I remember a YouTube video about a guy sharing his experience of being in Silicon Valley and meeting other entrepreneurs occasionally.

Though some people left, all the people who stayed became successful in a matter of years.

As the saying goes, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

So it makes sense to set up a system that allows you to leverage the support of other humans.

We are social animals, and doing things alone can be quite demotivating.

Create a system based on accountability and recording your activities.

Making sure you are accountable is very crucial to staying on track.

Thanks to technology, we can track time easily instead of depending on shadows and the sun's rays like some of our ancestors did in the past.

With a phone or a stopwatch, you can keep track of your time and record your progress.

Here's how I created a system to leverage phone timers and people.

I created a WhatsApp group with my accountability partner, and in this group, I report what I'm doing for the next 30 minutes or thereabouts, depending on the activity I'm starting.

Then I set a timer.

This has been helping me stay on track and reduce my doom-scrolling.

I want to be accountable for how I use almost every second of my time so I make sure I mention everything I'm doing when I'm doing it.

I also try to discuss why I took longer to finish a project and things I hope to improve on to be more effective at achieving my goal.

Since I'm not alone with my goals and I constantly account for how I use my time, I am getting more things done and loving the journey.

You can create a system to incorporate other elements that increase the chances of finding success.

You might need to move away from a distracting environment.

You might need to wake up early and never eat after 7 pm to achieve more in a day.

To create a system, consider the things you've learned about success and try to surround yourself with the solutions so that they are easy to reach.

It's one thing to learn something; it's another thing to make sure you are in a position to live and practice the lessons.

Don't trust yourself to always do the right things.

Set up a system that makes it easy to do them.

To develop a system, you can also read about successful people and what they do.

For example, Tim Cook (Apple CEO), in an interview, mentions doing strength training and having someone "to really push me to do things I don't want to do."

Instead of seeing this and just saying, oh, great, I will start strength training too, it's advisable to speak to someone you feel can help you start strength training and set up a schedule right away.

An update on my work schedule:

I just developed a new work routine to make myself more efficient at work.

It has helped me to get more things done than I usually did.

I shared in one of the posts in my Rich Mind, Rich Life series (RMRL) about my work schedule.

I mentioned doing one thing first in the morning followed by a set group of other activities.

However, I recently changed my work routine because I felt I was always cheating on some activities that never got completed.

To solve this, I decided to no longer be rigid about the first thing I do in the morning.

Instead, I put my three major activities in rotation. It doesn't matter when I finish a book review; the next activity is always editing my music, which is followed by marketing my subscription business.

Consequently, I'm more satisfied with the amount of time I dedicate to each activity

If I decided to dedicate two hours to music, and I only spent one hour on it the previous day before nodding off to sleep, then I would have to spend the first hour of the next day on my music.

Based on what you want to achieve at work or the state of growth you're in, you might find one of my two work routines useful.

The other newsletters in the Rich Mind, Rich Life series:

1. Building the Mental Foundation for Financial Success

2. Simplicity and Loving the Journey

3. Who Are You? How Knowing Yourself Can Make You Rich

To be continued in Part 5.