Deeper Work --> Deeper Pockets

Deeper Work —> Deeper Pockets:

Time to read: 7-9 minutes

What is Deep Work? 

• A professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit.

How Does Deep Work Translate to Building Financial Freedom? 

Deep work is the focus that is needed to learn anything difficult. How many hours do you think Messi spent on soccer….. into the tens of thousands of hours easily, and Messi is now one of the best soccer players and gets paid the highest. This goes for anything you want to pursue in business, whether marketing, sales, writing, media, or anything about a skillset. You need to build a skill set to provide value to customers, which ultimately translates to money. This skill set will be your biggest asset, alongside your brain. It is impossible to make money without having a skill set superior to others in your industry. For example, if anyone could be a computer programmer why are they being paid well in the 6 figures? That is because they have spent the time, and acquired the skill set to learn computer programming and solve problems that the majority cannot.

To put it simply: ↑ Deep Work = ↑ Skill Set = ↑ Opportunity to be paid

What Should I do if I don’t know where to start?

This is the main question I had when starting, where to start…… Now that it is established that deep work is essential to making more money and building valuable skill sets, what work I do is considered deep work and how do I know what to work on?

What work I do is considered deep work…..

• Any research ( reading books, articles, courses )

• Starting a business ( forming an LLC, creating an idea board for your new company)

• Working on your existing business ( marketing, sales, ideas e.t.c. )

• Learning a new skill set, or networking online in the effort of your business or brand

How do I know what to work on?

Business:

• Any sector of growth for your business

• Backend work

• New ideas, creatives

Non-business:

• learning any skill that will translate to making money ( sales, marketing, computer programming, data e.t.c. )

• Practicing your skill set

• Comparing your skill set and knowledge to others in your field

Why Deep Work cannot allow any distractions:

In the book titled “ Deep Work” by Cal Newport, he takes a look at different case studies that highlight the importance of working deep as a way of life. In a particular case, I found it shows how impactful distractions may be to your deep work. This is a note from my research from reading this section of the book.

“To put in perspective the actual cost of distractions, in an experiment for the Harvard Business School they looked at the company Atlantic Media to determine how much emails cost them in work. With an IT company-wide survey and an information scoop on how much clicking on emails cost the company it was estimated:

Over $1,000,000 a year was spent to pay their staff to click on emails instead of working….

For every message sent or received, it was an average of 95 cents per click! A free and frictionless method of communication had soft costs equivalent to that of a small company each year! This goes to show the costs of remaining in distraction-centric environments when it is important to be in distraction-free zones when conducting deep work.”

Take Action:

Now that we have a basic understanding of deep work, its importance, and how it will translate to financial freedom, you should take action. This is the single thing that holds you back from your financial freedom. Doing research, and honing in on your skill set is essential, but if you never did anything with it, it is equivalent to not having those skills at all.

Your first step:

• go out and perform deep work every day, start small with 30 minutes to an hour, increase as you see fit, and continue to improve.

Step 2:

• Start organic growth in whatever sector of business you have chosen, and stay consistent at it

Step 3:

• Slowly scale, and analyze your growth over time

• Look at trends, and if you don’t see growth, check how long you have been doing it. ( Quitting too early is usually the problem with most organic growth )

• If what you are doing is not working and it has been plenty of time, get back to the drawing board and re-establish a new gameplan

My Journey: 

The majority of newsletters, like to give general advice that has no real-world example to back it. This newsletter is different because I will provide specifics so you can compare it to your situation.

Currently, my method of taking action for my financial freedom is:

• Reading for at least 30 minutes a day on self-improving or financially improving books that I journal too.

• Additionally spending at least 30 minutes researching online topics for my newsletters, and sources such as courses, videos, and articles.

• Posting to my social media accounts and analyzing data between similar accounts, my account, and big accounts in my niche

• Learning to document my progress, in investing, budgeting, and my small achievable goals

• Attending networking events

• Working on my own business to learn what it takes to scale

J CURVE

The J curve is an accurate representation of the start of businesses, compound interest, and almost all difficult-to-achieve tasks. In simple terms, it describes the process from idea to success. All businesses, go through this J Curve. Essentially it is the slowest moving in the beginning, the roughest and lowest motivation. This is where the majority fail, or lose interest in pushing forward. The time to exit the bottom of the J curve varies from business to business, but what doesn’t change is the compounding growth that comes after rising out of the bottom of the curve.

If you get through the stages of failing constantly, and make it to the point where something works, you should scale heavy. This is the point where your business and all your deep work efforts pay off as you start a snowball effect to gaining traction.

Questions to ask yourself:

What deep work am I engaging in every day?

Have I started my business, and if so what is the hardest part?

Am I conducting research every day, and if so how credible are my resources?

Am I tracking my progress every week/month?

Am I analyzing my growth over time and finding out what to improve?

Additional Resources:

Video Summary of the book “ Deep Work “ by Cal Newport: