Hey Reader!

It's 24 Celsius out right now. Nice sunny day, and I'm clacking away at my keyboard, eating some fruit.

Just wrote this whole newsletter, now the intro section is staring back at me, so here it is.

I go deep into some creative thinking mindsets and frameworks today, I hope you enjoy it.

And the recommendations are bangers also, I did a lot of mindful content consumption this week.

Ideas are flowing nicely!

Bout to go batch-create my content for next week now,

enjoy.

Today at a glance:

How 'First Principles' can help us scale our creator businesses
1 piece of content to consume: Sam Parr and David Perell
1 quote to ponder: Originality according to Mark Twain
Writing prompts from Tim Ferriss

Reading time: 4.5 minutes

If I ask you, do we have flying cars?

What would you say?

Go on, I'll give you a second to think about it.

I assume you said no.

But here's the thing. They do exist.

And they're called planes.

What I've just highlighted to you is an example of the self-limiting thinking that we all use on a daily basis.

Most people would think a flying car is something that flies and looks like a regular car. But in reality, thinking like this is restricting your creativity.

We tend to inherit ideas from society, and automatically accept them without question and therefore place our creativity and mode of thinking into a box.

This whole idea is called 'First Principles'. Here's how to use this to rise out from the masses and build a solo business that is truly unique and creative.

Besides, we all consider ourselves creatives, right? So you're gonna want to read this one...

What Is First Principle Thinking?

How did Elon Musk come up with the idea to start SpaceX?

How did Johannes Gutenberg invent the printing press back in 1436?

They used first-principle thinking.

They broke the moulds of regular thinking and went beyond their preconceived notions of creativity.

First principle thinking is a way to look beneath what we know to be true, to challenge ideas that are already in place, and to create something new and better.

Watch this video where Elon explains what this is. It's got 1.5M views.

Quick backstory cause Elon Musk's story is interesting AF.

In 2002, Elon came up with the strangely far-thinking idea to send the first rocket to Mars. This was an idea that would eventually birth SpaceX.

So, as you do, Musky boy went around rocket shopping.

He stopped by NASA one day, and they quoted him something like $65M.

Yeah, 'scrap that idea', most of us would say.

But did Elon do that? Of course not.

He knew not to accept things merely as they were and went to do his own digging.

'No' gave Elon fuel. (not rocket fuel... just yet)

Instead of dishing out $65M, he decided to calculate the price of the raw then calculate the price of the labour.

He came to something like $4M calculations.

At this point, Musky was probably laughing at NASA. Within a few years, SpaceX had cut the price of a rocket by nearly 10x whilst still making a profit.

This is the best example of First-Principle thinking.

All it is is digging deeper until you are left with the fundamental truths of a situation, not the societal truths we have come up with for one reason or another.

How can we use this in solopreneurship?

Literally 9/10 people I see on LinkedIn are doing the same stuff. They're all ghostwriters, coaches, etc. They all use the templates they see the big names post.

It's just one big recycling loop.

I know you notice it, and I know you are part of it to an extent, as am I.

I'll be the first to say I'm guilty of this sometimes.

But the reason for this is that we aren't thinking out of the box to question all the things that are already in place.

There's no doubt that the biggest accounts and most successful creator businesses on LinkedIn and beyond all are doing something unique, and have at one point or another, used first-principle thinking.

My whole process behind my business is trying to think deeper.

Hence why I'm even talking about a topic like this in my newsletter.

Just go one or two levels deeper than most people, ask questions, and challenge the structures that are already in place.

That's what will set us apart in a sea of copy-and-paste creators...

1 piece of content to consume:

Sam Parr: How To Make $2 Million A Month By Writing | How I Write Podcast

Sam Parr, CEO and founder of The Hustle. A newsletter that exited for $30M...

This podcast was just downright awesome. One of the best I've listened to in a while.

He is a copywriting wizard. And this is what they talk about on the pod.

It's all about cool tricks Sam used to build such an influential newsletter and all the interesting and very morally questionable ways he built up The Hustle in the early days.

He went from being a typical 'bro-science' newsletter creator to exiting for $30,000,000...

So it's a really cool story.

As I'm trying my hardest to grow this newsletter to great heights, this stuff really fires me up...

1 quote to ponder on:

Legendary classic American writer and essayist, Mark Twain, on thinking for yourself.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” — Mark Twain

This is quite fitting regarding the first principles idea I just talked about...

Think differently, ask yourself tough questions, and make it your priority to stand out at all costs.

Be unique.

Writing prompts

Tim Ferriss' '17 Questions That Changed My Life'

https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/17-Questions-That-Changed-My-Life.pdf

Tim Ferriss and 'The 4-hour Workweek' were two of the things that set me on this path of trying to build my independent creator business.

His podcast has also been one of the most formative ones in my journey that started 4 years ago.

And this ebook that I came across a good few years ago, remains as valuable today, as it was back then.

It contains some of the most introspective questions to reflect on, all aimed at helping you become better in business, life, and relationships.

Give a flick through it.

Some of my favourites were

"If I could only work 2 hours per week, what would I do?"

→ Great for shifting your focus on the needle-moving tasks.

"What might I put in place to allow me to go off the for 4-8 weeks, with no phone or email?"

→ Again, how can we focus on the things that allow our businesses to run on autopilot?

I'm thinking of doing a whole mid-week newsletter on these questions alone...

Bonus quick picks and wins from last week

Been digging Nathan Baugh's newsletter and content all about storytelling.
Check out this article from James Clear about First Principle Thinking.
Working on setting up a referral reward scheme with SparkLoop for my newsletter, it'll be live next week, I have a cool freebie to give away, stay tuned!

PS. If my newsletter brings any value to you, please consider sharing a quick testimonial. Even if you write 2 lines, this is the best way to support the work I put into this every week.