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Dan Koe
·📬Newsletter
How to pursue your life's work
Everyone is playing one of three money games:
So no, money is not evil. That's a clear sign of level 1 thinking. And that level of thinking is incredibly destructive. It can spread into all areas of your life and turn you into a bitter victim who feels as if they have no control over their life.
Reaching level 3 used to be reserved for those who could acquire a lot of capital or connections. Your physical location, status, education, and family determined most of your financial future (this does not mean all or even many of them reached level 3).
But now, thanks to creative economies and digital leverage, it's more accessible than ever. (Later, we will talk about a "meta model" that allows you to pursue your life's work, regardless of what level you are in.)
See, there are 4 major epochs of human history.
In the hunter-gatherer era, there was no money abstraction. People traded goods directly. It was pure value exchange often as gifting.
In the agricultural era, humans could produce more goods and focus less on survival. There was still direct value exchange with cattle, salt, and shells, but the first versions of actual "money" started to surface with precious metals like silver and gold. Think of this as Money 1.0. Survival-based.
In the industrial era, Money 2.0 began to emerge along with capital, investments, and scale. The race for material success was a thing before this, but now it was expanding rapidly.
In the information era, Money 3.0 has become possible on a large scale thanks to digital leverage, creative economies, and meaning-driven markets.
The thing is, you can't just "jump" to level 3 of money in your own life. And there are many people who are in the digital economy who still have survival and success thinking.
The current cultural phase of money is that most people hate their relationship with money while desperately needing it.
Today's world is filled with archetypal wage slaves, side-hustlers, and budgeters.
I'm not trying to talk down, I am stating the obviously observable archetypes.
In this letter, I want to provide you with a path to overcome your toxic relationship with money, earn enough to escape wage slavery, and ultimately pursue your life's work.
The unfortunate reality of Money Level 1 is that it's extremely difficult to open your mind to see new opportunities.
Work is seen as necessary suffering.
Exchanging time is the only way to make money.
Retirement is the only escape, and you just hope the next 40 years are tolerable.
Most of your relationship with money stems from conditioning from your parents, and if your parents weren't at a higher level of development, you inherited various patterns like pursuing a high paying job as the end goal, saving your leftover cash in case of emergency, comparing down rather than up (atleast your not homeless!), and unironically hoping that you win the lottery.
Level 1 thinking, as outlined in the Human 3.0 model, is characterized by thinking there is "one right way" to do things, which is often based on what you were conditioned to believe.
Level 1 of money is not limited to a job. But a job is the current and common manifestation of this level of thinking. People can be at Level 3 while having a job, but there are a few requirements.
This low consciousness thinking can start to blend over into your mental experience, preventing development in that domain of life.
Every Monday, you feel a sense of dread.
Every Friday, you can't wait for temporary relief.
When you check your bank, stress shoots into your system, and you have to constantly calculate how much you can spend.
Even worse, this leads to shadow patterns (behavior that you are unconscious of that will hold you back until resolved). You judge wealthy people as immoral or lucky when that is obviously a wrong generalization. You bond with friends by complaining about your situation, reinforcing your identity. You mistake being cheap for wisdom. And finally, you manufacture drama to feel a sense of excitement in your life, rather than putting that energy toward an exciting goal.
As bad as that sounds, this is a natural level of development.
Everybody starts in Level 1, some just go through the experiences that allow them to develop faster, and others get trapped in it for life. We don't want that.
[Full body extracted in source — story of Max, marketing coordinator who transitions from job to side-hustle to freelancing, illustrating dissonance/uncertainty/discovery phases]
[Section covers reaching Level 3 by solving level 2 problems; meaning crisis; trying everything to find your one thing; the meta model of becoming a creator (using Jordan Peterson as example) — full text in source]
There are hundreds to thousands of ways to pursue your life's work.
Clearly, I can't cover all of them here.
But I can talk about one new way that anyone can pursue.
I call it a "meta model," and you're looking at it right now.
That meta model is becoming a creator.
Not a content creator per se, but the core of who you are as a human.
[Full content continues — zero marginal cost distribution, permissionless leverage, compound growth, global reach, AI amplification, direct monetization — full text in source]
Thank you for reading.
– Dan
Dan Koe
@thedankoe · Self-improvement / One-person business
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“How to pursue your life's work”
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How to pursue your life's work
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