You Already Know What to Do
Most of us don’t need another how-to thread. We need to do the thing we’ve rehearsed in our heads for eighteen months.
Deep down, you already know the next step. Yet you stall, calling it research, planning week, or one more course. Underneath sit two silent fears:
- Fear of failure – the ego hit if the launch flops.
- Fear of success – the new expectations if it doesn’t.
So you buy another book, open another Notion doc, and stay perfectly safe by never shipping.
The Missing Variable: Leverage
Output = Effort × Leverage
- Effort is capped at 24 h per day.
- Raw intelligence is capped by genetics.
- Leverage scales both.
If you are grinding twelve hours and still crawling, the constraint is not hustle, it is leverage:
| Leverage Type | Multiplier | Example (one-liner) |
|---|---|---|
| Code + Media | Infinite repeats | Ship once, serve millions, online tools |
| Capital | Money hiring money | Ad arbitrage, equity stakes |
| People | Other brains | Delegated ops, agency model |
| Network/Brand | Trust on tap | “Published in Forbes” opens cold doors |
Work on the part that keeps compounding while you sleep.
Mine Your Existing Assets
Forget the blank slate, reuse what is already on your hard drive.
| Asset | Hidden Leverage | Quick Move |
|---|---|---|
| Archive blog posts | Authority and SEO | Bundle into a free e-book to capture emails |
| Dormant newsletter | Distribution | Relaunch with a five-email “build in public” series |
| Old consulting slides | Product seed | Convert into a 49-euro micro-course |
| Past podcast guests | Network | Ask each for a tweet at launch |
Every new project starts with one question: Which asset makes this unfairly easy?
A Micro-Playbook to Get Moving
- One-page spec. Force clarity, scope creep hates paper.
- Single leverage hook. Audience, tiny script, friend’s Rolodex, pick one.
- Ship V0 in 48 hours. Ugly beats imaginary, feedback is leverage you cannot buy.
- Iterate where upside compounds. Add only what widens leverage, not what soothes perfectionism.
Take a simple idea and take it seriously. – Charles Munger
You already know the simple idea: build, publish, learn. The serious part is rigging the game so each hour pushes on a bigger lever. Do that, and fear, whether of failure or success, gets crowded out by basic arithmetic. Now close this tab and go pull a lever.