Hi {{first_name}},

I was booking nice hotels without thinking about it. Playing golf. Going on holidays.

The agency was pulling $15K monthly profit and I'd basically... stopped working as hard. 

Why wouldn't I? 

Money was coming in.

I'd made it - I know how that sounds now, but at the time it genuinely felt like I'd cracked it.

So instead of using that money to build pipeline, do outreach, develop the systems I knew I needed - I doubled in for a bit, got bored, and then... just enjoyed it.

Then Google changed their algorithm. Sites I was writing for got deranked. I remember thinking it was temporary - some kind of weird blip. It wasn't.

Then AI hit. Clients got extra scared. Wanted to see how it would play out before committing to anything.

Everything hit at once.

Within months, $15K profit became $1K income. Same bills and responsibilities, just no money to cover them.

I'd gotten comfortable. Thought the hard part was over.

Building a business is like getting a rocket into space.

You build the rocket - takes a fuckton of investment and energy. Then you launch it - still burning massive energy just to get off the ground.

You keep burning that energy until you break through the atmosphere. And only then, once you're actually in orbit, can you nudge it this way or that and just manage it.

Even then, you can't be complacent. It just becomes easier.

But the energy required to break through is way more than you think it is.

I'll never make that mistake again.

Because the 4-hour work week only exists after you've done enough 100-hour weeks to earn it. 

And even then, probably not.

Talk tomorrow,

Jack