On Focus

The highest leverage thing you can do, early in your career

Hey there 👋

Welcome to 25 new subscribers who’ve joined us since last week! If you haven’t responded to my cleverly written welcome email, I’d love to hear from you. The subject line is “You made a big mistake…”.

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Focus and Forget

For highly motivated people like us, focusing on one thing is hard. We struggle with this horrible disease called…wait for it… ugh it even hurts me to say it…Shiny Object Syndrome *GASP*.

You laugh, but it’s so true. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been struggling with Shiny Object Syndrome. There’s just so much cool stuff out there. How can I just stay focused on one thing?!

I want to grow a marketing agency, invest in self-storage facilities, buy small businesses, train for an Iron Man, and travel the world all at the same time.

This is a big problem.

It wasn’t until yesterday I realized how dangerous a lack of focus is.

Let me share a quick story.

I’m interested in investing in real estate. Considering I don’t have too much capital to put down on a property, I’ve been exploring other investment options. One of which is investing as an LP as opposed to as a GP.

GPs are General partners; they find and operate the deal. LPs are Limited Partners; they provide capital for the deal. GPs have more stake in the game and assume more risk, while LPs have less stake in the game and assume less risk. GPs are typically focused on one asset class, while LPs are less focused on the asset class and more focused on investing in the right people.

For me, becoming an LP seemed appealing because it requires less capital, and it would put me in a position to learn a lot about how to structure and operate deals.

I was wrong.

After speaking with some of my real estate mentors they told me one thing; focus.

• Focus on real estate.

• Focus on one asset class.

• Focus on one market.

Identify what you want to focus on, and go all-in on it. Learn all that you can, and become known as an authoritative figure in the space.

This applies to all aspects of life.

When you're first starting out, specialize. When you gain more experience, then consider spreading out.

Think about it, Harvard doesn't want the generalist, they want the best person in a specific category. Similarly, companies are willing to pay more for someone with domain expertise as opposed to someone who is a jack of all trades.

When you are early on in your career, it is much easier to get noticed as the "Tableau Guy" or the "AI Guy" as opposed to the "He Does it All Guy". Yes, learning is valuable, but for the sake of getting ahead quickly, the highest leverage thing you can do is get focused. It might not be something you are super interested in, but it will become interesting once you become the best at it.

Nothing is fun unless you are good at it, so focus on the skills you want to develop and obsess over them. Focus on what you want, and forget about the rest.

For me, the skills I'd like to develop relate to different aspects of my life.

1. Work - AI and automation

2. Side hustle - Writing and automation

3. Wealth Vehicle - Real estate and automation

I think it all boils down to automation.

What skills, industries, etc. do you want to be an expert in? Respond to this email!

I kinda went viral this week

One of my goals is to grow my Twitter following to 10k followers by the end of the summer.

Ambitious, I know.

Luckily, I had one of my threads go semi-viral. It’s a story and strategy about financial freedom.

Austin Schlessinger @austinschless

In 2012, an investment banker retired on $80k/year in passive income. 9 years later, he's up to $325k/year and counting. How'd he do it? THREAD: A strategy and story about how to achieve financial freedom 👇👇👇

And if you like that one, you’ll love this one. It’s about how to build passive income, from one of the best in the business.

Austin Schlessinger @austinschless

In 2008, he was laid off from his dream job. 13 years later, he generates over $250k/month in passive income. How'd he do it? THREAD: A story and 3 secrets on building passive income.

Wrapping it up!

Thank you so much for reading.

If anything in here caught your interest, please please please respond to this email. I respond to every email I get!

I look forward to hearing from you all, and I look forward to writing to you guys next week.

Peace,

Austin