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FASTer - Issue #62

FASTer - Issue #62
By Faizan Siddiqi • Issue #62 • View online
When all you have is hope. Hope has been called the forgotten virtue of our time. Although we live in an era of considerable technological and scientific achievements, it may also be an age of diminished hope or, perhaps more accurately, misdirected hope, because it is tempting to replace the virtue of hope with flimsy substitutes that cannot possibly give us what our souls ultimately need. Dopamine rages < Hope. The sooner we realize that, the better off we will be. Violence, economic upheaval, wars. These can threaten hope. But perhaps what threatens hope even more today are not these tragedies and calamities but the soft and subtle despair we settle into because we refuse to take control of our outcomes.
The first step to being hopeful is to give hope a chance, by giving your self a chance and believing that you have some level of control over your own outcomes.
Repeat these two things to your self daily
Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.
- Victor Kiam
To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.
- Benjamin Franklin

Outcomes
When things are really in the crapper, even otherwise seemingly positive outcomes are driven down. How does one sustain the positivity from good outcomes in bad times? You first have to understand what a recession really is.
Recessions—defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth—can be caused by economic shocks (such as a spike in oil prices), financial panics (like the one that preceded the Great Recession), rapid changes in economic expectations (the so-called “animal spirits” described by John Maynard Keynes; this is what caused the dot-com bubble to burst), or some combination of the three. Most firms suffer during a recession, primarily because demand (and revenue) falls and uncertainty about the future increases. But research shows that there are ways to mitigate the damage for companies and countries. But what about the average self employed person? The lone entrepreneur, the free lancer, the single bread earner?
Financial discipline along with financial literacy and an open mind, helps when there is an economic shock going through the markets. Some steps that literally every one would recommend to you.
  1. Maximize Your Liquid Savings
  2. Make a Budget
  3. Minimize Your Monthly Bills
  4. Closely Manage Your Bills
  5. Non-Cash Assets and Maximize Their Value
  6. Pay Down any debt you have the ability to
  7. Earn Extra Cash, don’t think 9-5, think value creation for self
  8. Do not fall for get rich quick schemes
  9. Only grow your business to a point where you aren’t funding other peoples cashflow by providing credit
  10. Learn a new skill to enhance your outcomes
Reframe the Situation*
Here are some specific types of reframing that can be very useful in getting through a financial crisis:
  • If you’re feeling that your financial crisis is a form of personal failure, remind yourself that many, many people are in this situation as well. The situation itself is not a failure on your part, and working through it only demonstrates your strength.
  • If you’re concerned about the impact on your family, remind yourself that families can grow stronger and closer when they weather challenges together and that this experience (although you may not have willingly chosen it) can make your family stronger, too.
  • If you’re stressed about the uncertainty of the future, remind yourself that these changes also bring opportunity; down the road, you may find yourself in an even better place. Even if you don’t have more money, you may have more happiness.
By acknowledging the feelings and thoughts you have, and gently redirect your attention to the positive, you can lessen the stress you are experiencing. When you’re not feeling crushed under extreme levels of stress, you may even make choices that better maximize the opportunities that you still face.* More here.
One New Thing (That I Learnt today)
In 1981, Harvard Medical School researcher Herbert Benson traveled to Tibet to meet with three Buddhist monks expertly trained in a form of yoga named g-tummo, a practice that is popularly associated with the ability to warm your body temperature through concentration. 
Since meditative practices are associated with changes that are consistent with decreased activity of the sympathetic nervous system, it is conceivable that measurable body temperature changes accompany advanced meditative states. It was found that these subjects exhibited the capacity to increase the temperature of their fingers and toes by as much as 8.3°C.
Boring stuff that Scales
This is not an endorsement of the activity but a window into one persons drive to tie their outcomes to the scale and growth of an other platform. Moral of the story, just because it scales doesn’t mean you get in line if it doesn’t meet your own objectives.
TL:DR
Who: Oobah Butler
Known for: Creating a fake restaurant and writing so many fake reviews about it…that it eventually became the #1 Restaurant in London on TripAdvisor..
Without ever serving a meal.
David Zabinsky
It was November 1st, 2017, and the "The Shed at Dulwich" had just become the top rated restaurant in all of London.

The only problem?

The Shed at Dulwich ... DIDN'T EVEN EXIST.

Get ready for an absurd story you'll have to read to believe:

👇👇 https://t.co/Bcgnz3xni2
What you should be watching
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken millions of lives and cost trillions of dollars, but for some, it’s been a golden opportunity.
As the global pandemic took hold and authorities struggled to contain one outbreak after another, one company’s name kept appearing in the news – Aspen Medical.
The company was hardly a household name, but it was hired to provide crucial services in many of the most high-profile coronavirus crises, from the Diamond and Ruby Princess cruise disasters to the deadly outbreaks in aged care homes.
This is a story of access, privilege and turning misery into big business. For profit, humanitarian disaster management. An eye opener on
Watch Time: 43 Mins Profiting from the pandemic: How Aspen Medical cashed in
Watch Time: 43 Mins Profiting from the pandemic: How Aspen Medical cashed in
Monetize your time
By finding, identifying and profiting from obscure businesses. That scale, have growing cash flows, repeat customers & natural moats because others don’t operate in that space.
This is a story as good as any.
Sieva Kozinsky
I met a guy who sells $10M worth of trees per year.

I sat with him to learn more about his business.

Here’s what he told me:
Made in /From Pakistan
Gibran Hamdan was drafted by the Washington Football Team in the seventh round of the 2003 NFL Draft, making him the first person of Pakistani descent to play in the league (his mother is Pakistani and his father is Palestinian).
Prior to his time in the NFL, which consisted of stints with Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, and Buffalo, Hamdan played his college ball at Indiana– where he also played baseball.
He was born in San Diego and moved to Kuwait with his family, where they lived until 1991. His mother took a job cutting hair and the family settled in Potomac.
After attending middle school in MoCo, Hamdan went on to Churchill High School. He was a backup quarterback for the Bulldogs for two years prior to transferring to Bishop Denis J. O’Connell in Northern Virginia for his last two years. While at Churchill, he was also on the 15 and under U.S. National Baseball team.
One Last Thing
Multiple revenue sources tear-down. Its possible, people are doing it, its time you get inspired to change your outcomes too.
Jacky Chou
It's time.

I did a total of $170890 USD in revenue in the month of May. This is down about $5.5k from April.

Here is the breakdown between 8 revenue sources..
~$170k/month The Breakdown
  • $24k from selling a niche newsletter
  • $11k from rental properties
  • $7.7k from a lead generation business
  • $31k from Amazon Associates
  • $31k from Binance affiliates
  • $60k from his agency
Did you enjoy this issue?
Faizan Siddiqi

I have been fortunate to have mentored founders, established CEO's & students for about a decade, across the world. Every interaction has been an enriching experience for me personally. What I've observed , every one wants to do things FASTer. Be successful faster, be richer faster, do more faster, get to the end state faster. To grow FASTer you must learn to rely on small data, small acts & pick up on small nuances. Most people need a little push, contextually aware advice, directionality and a candid forum to learn from mistakes, perhaps their own but ideally from the mistake of others. This is an attempt to provide a safe space to answer the questions you don't ask in public and providing Go To Market Snippets on every day things, so you can truly Transform to your desired end-state, FASTer.

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