☠ Lowering all the risks in your life

Hi {NAME}, People are leaving Manhattan and the Bay area in droves, and College football might be cancelled. These are events that I never thought could've happened in my lifetime. All these events have made me think a lot about risk, and how it plays a part in our lives. People don't think enough about risk and how vulnerable their situations are. In the book, Think Like a Rocket Scientist, the author mentions how engineers build rockets with six engines. Why that many? Do they have an engine fetish or something? You can imagine what a disaster it would be if an engine malfunctions during takeoff. Each engine makes the entire system more robust. So I want to challenge you to think about how you can engineer your life and your business to be more robust. We're gonna get through 2020, but life's going to sucker punch us again in a few years. I don't know when or what it is, but let's be more prepared next time. Here are some thoughts: /1 Watch out for Single Point of Failures If your only income is a job then that's a risk. If most of your agency revenue comes from 1 or 2 clients, that's a risk. If all your traffic comes from one source, that's a risk. /2 Always Have a Side Hustle A few years ago, Uber diversified and starting offering food delivery aka UberEats. This is the first quarter that UberEats has surpassed the earnings of Uber’s ride-hailing division. - If you have a business, could you expand your product lines? Look at how some of the bigger YouTubers diversify. The smart ones aren't just relying on Adsense. There's also merchandise, sponsorships, creating their own products, Cameos, Patreons, etc. - If you're an expert, consider consulting on Clarity.FM or freelancing. - Create new assets such as a podcast or YouTube channel. Note 1: Dominate first, THEN diversify. You need to laser focus in the beginning to gain some traction. Note 2: Separate income streams into active and passive. It's good to have 1 or 2 active sources of income. Then use the money from the active incomes and funnel them into passive assets such as property, index funds, automated online assets, etc. /3 Lower Your Asset Risks My friend owns a rental property in Florida. The tenant hasn't paid rent since April, and he's legally not allowed to evict them. He's not one of those asshole landlords. He works a 9 to 5 job, and is struggling to pay two mortgages now. I don't own rental properties because there's too much risk concentration in an area / tenant. I rather own a REIT (Real Estate Index Fund) that invest in thousands of properties, without me ever going through the brain damage of trying to evict someone. /4 I am Dead Life's unpredictable. I have backup engines ready in case I'm dead. I have a term life insurance policy. I have living trusts established to make sure my assets pass on to my family. I've worked too fucking hard for the government to screw them over in probate court. Real talk...go see an estate lawyer and get your stuff together. You owe it to your loved ones. I've seen families torn apart fighting over money because the person didn't establish a will. I don't want my friends setting up a gofundme to help pay for my funeral expenses. /5 More Emergency Funds I remember reading that Bill Gates always made sure that Microsoft had one year cash on hand. Personal finance experts have always recommended 3 to 6 months in an emergency fund, but man that wouldn't have been enough to endure this pandemic. /6 Protect the Downside Sir Richard Brandson is known for making huge bets and taking risks. What people don’t realize is behind these decisions, he’s actively working on lowering the risks. It’s called Protecting the downside. “For example, when we made the bold move of expanding from the music industry to the airline business, I set myself one condition: in our negotiations with Boeing, I stipulated that we could hand the plane back at the end of the first 12 months if people didn’t like our business. That meant that I could see whether people liked the airline, but if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t going to bring everything else crashing down. My colleagues at Virgin Records would still have their jobs and a company to run!” This means to identify the worst case scenario, and working backwards from there. Whenever I hire a new employee, I always go through a two week trial period. It's a way to make sure we're a good fit for each other...kinda like dating before marriage. /7 Rented vs. Owned Assets I've seen Amazon FBA businesses shut down overnight with no explanation. There are YouTube channels with millions of subscribers, but YouTube only shows their videos to 1% of their subscribers. If you're building on someone else's land, remember that they own your work. Always think about funneling people into an asset you own such as an email list. Final Thoughts I know some of these thoughts are uncomfortable. It's kinda weird to think about death at my age, or the different unknown risks that could hurt my business. But facing these uncomfortable situations gives me such peace of mind once I figure out solutions. I don't know the meaning of life, but one of them for me is to make others suffer less. So if I can handle a lot of these situations and create plans, it means less suffering for the people I love. Check it Out: - [Watch] Y Combinator is pretty much the Harvard when it comes to Startup Accelerators. They funded AIRBNB, Dropbox, Stripe, Doordash, etc. They created a [library of their best videos and essays]( when it comes to business (and it's free). - [Book] [Anti Fragile by Nassim Taleb](. Did you enjoy some of my thoughts on lowering risk? This book goes far, far deeper into it. - [App] [I’m absolutely in love with Notion.so](. It’s what I’m using now to manage my personal life and my work. It’s kinda like if Evernote + Google Docs + Asana + Your To Do List Manager + Internal Knowledge base combined into one app. I've gained so much productivity because I don't have to switch between so many apps, or try to remember where I stored an item. - [Article] [What is Masterclass Actually Selling](: I've always been curious about the business model behind Masterclass. I'm interested in some of the cooking classes, but I'm not interested in the fundamentals of Gymnastics or how to Skateboard. And what's in it for some of the teachers? How much do they make? This articles does a deep dive into the business models, and highlights a lot of angles I never thought about. Stay focused, Charles Marketing is Hard, Some Resources to Make it Easier - [The Lead Gen Engine:]( Are you wondering what the best path in affiliate marketing is in 2020? It's running white-hat, lead generation offers on Facebook. [Sign up]( for my free training to learn some strategies. - [The Best Tools:]( A curated list of the best tools in affiliate marketing If you were forwarded this email, you can [subscribe]( here. [Unsubscribe]( AFFcelerator, LLC 199 E Flagler St #398 Miami, Florida 33131 United States