From the desk of Harsh Strongman
Subj: Happy Birthday to Life Math Money
Today is Life Math Money’s third birthday. The first Life Math Money article was published exactly 3 years ago.
LMM started from zero. Three years ago, there were no readers, no followers, no subscribers – nothing.
And here we are.
130+ Articles
2 Flagship Products
30+ Podcasts and videos
15,000+ Tweets
224,000+ Twitter Followers
22,500+ Instagram Followers
18,000+ Email Subscribers
5,000+ Telegram Members
3,100+ YouTube Subscribers
2,000,000+ Pageviews
10,000+ Customers
3 Years.
No paying for shoutouts, no paying for retweets, no advertisements – we got here purely from organic growth, word of mouth, and people spreading the word on social media.
How it all began
I started as a Chartered Accountant. I had great career opportunities, and I had money (I was so good that clients that I had worked with would offer to pay me more in retainer fees than most people’s full-time salaries).
Back in 2017, I met with some of my old friends for lunch (before the inception of Life Math Money), and I asked them what they were doing.
“Just chilling.”
They had failed their CA exams (very common; the exam has a 90% failure rate) – some of them had failed many times over.
Since it was a meeting after a long while, we kept chatting till the evening. I asked them what they’ve been doing over the past few days, and they would all give me similar answers, “chilling, playing video games (DOTA – a very addictive and time sucking game),” etc.
Looking at them, I thought to myself: if they spent their time studying instead of playing video games and “chilling”, they would pass their exams and be done with their education. They are all stuck in this phase of their life simply because of a lack of focus.
I was always a focused person, and I knew that many people desperately needed a resource that would give them actionable advice to help them take charge of their life.
I had been reading Victor Pride’s old blog boldanddetermined.com (now defunct), for many years, and he published a game-changing book: Spartan Entrepreneur: The Blog Artist’s Handbook.
I bought a copy, printed it, and read through it (I still have that print version). And then it clicked.
I could start a blog and help millions of young people at scale.
Later, Victor found the blog and mentioned it in one of his newsletters – this was proof that things were moving in the right direction.
There was a need for a resource that young men could use to level up their life as most existing resources had become corrupted, politically correct (another word for pussyfied) and unhelpful.
“Experts” were publishing pieces saying that porn was “perfectly healthy and natural” for men and that all the negativity surrounding it was mere “social stigma”; completely oblivious to the fact that viewing pornography shrinks the brain (in a very similar way to how substance abuse does).
Religion, tradition, and all the old rites of passage had died, and for a young man, there was no guidance on how he should spend his time and live a meaningful life.
I knew that men were an under-targeted market. Everyone yaps and yaps about “women’s empowerment”, but no one wants to help men.
I knew that if I created a website that will help and be of use to men, and give them the truth, instead of the lies and false beliefs that society gives them, it would be successful.
Starting lifemathmoney.com was not luck, it was planning and foresight.
Putting in the Work
Ever since I started Life Math Money on the 17th of May 2018, I put in work every single day.
For the first year, all I did was write articles and grow my Twitter account. Then I created a newsletter to collect emails.
Later, I got on other social media websites like Instagram; and I even started a YouTube channel this year.
I worked on Life Math Money every single day since inception – not a single day off. Not a single day has gone by where I did not grow LMM in some way or the other.
Most people want something for nothing (And the real secret sauce for success as a writer).
They want success but they don’t want to put in the work.
They want to be a champ but they don’t want to spend years honing their skill and ability.
You will often hear them say, “I don’t have time…“. Years go by and they never have time.
I am not like that and I had no intention of being like that, so I put in the work.
I knew if I put in the work and helped people, they would help me back (this was and will always be true, all the way to the heat death of the universe.).
Most people want quick money so they monetize hard from day one, never put in the work, charge prices well beyond the value of their product, and do a “product launch” every 3 months.
They never bother to create a foundation of solid work and building a real business.
On the other hand, LMM is about helping people. It is about raw, actionable advice that brings genuine, lasting change to people’s lives.
Most people are honest and if you give them something, they want to give something back.
I don’t care if someone doesn’t buy my products right away. I know they will buy them, eventually.
The trick is to add solid, measurable value to their life. If you can do that, you don’t have to worry about sales.
I created Live Intentionally: 90 Day Self-Improvement Program over a year after I started writing. I wrote for free for an entire year.
When it was released, it sold a ton of copies on the first day itself simply because people wanted to give back.
I am often asked “how do I make money online“, and the answer is really simple:
- Create something that helps people and work on it every single day
- Add so much value to people that you don’t have to worry about selling. The sale takes care of itself.
That’s the secret sauce to making money online as a writer and it will not change anytime soon.
Even if you could make money without adding value – it’s not worth going that route. Why? Simply because it’s not sustainable.
There’s a reason why all the internet hustlers come and go but Life Math Money is always around and will always be around.
Because unlike the hustlers, it provides real actionable advice (not vague things like “positivity”).
Lives Changed
Every day, I get some emails from people who tell me how much Life Math Money has helped them. The reality is that they helped themselves. I only showed the way.
Your journey is about you.
LMM will show you the way and will save you years and decades of wasted time chasing skirts and pleasure, and put you well ahead of your peers.
But the one who has to walk the way is you.
Last month, a kid reached out to me telling me that his parents lost their jobs in the pandemic and that he had to drop his education and get an odd job to support his family.
I wrote a full a piece telling him what to do in clear, actionable terms.
Here is a snippet of the email he sent me last week:
It is only because of you I will be able to help pay the bills this month. You will forever be like an elder brother to me, who helped me when I was a mess.
4 Life Changing Reads
In the past 3 years, here are some books I read that have changed the way I think and operate:
1. The Book of Pook: This is one of the best books on lifestyle and women on the internet. It has a unique style of writing and is a lot of fun to read. Unfortunately, it is not a well-known book – most people haven’t heard of it. You can find it hosted on the linked website. Heads up: I own that website.
2. Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller (India, USA): A complete biography of history’s richest man, from his childhood to the life of his children after his death. You get to see the results that unrelenting focus and industriousness can bring you over a lifetime.
3. Starting Strength: When the lockdown began, I built myself a cheap home gym because I didn’t want a virus to interrupt my training. This is the best beginner strength training program on the market and helped me go from a 60 kg squat to a 100 kg squat in a few months (I then had to move on to intermediate style training).
4. Game Theory 1 and Game Theory 2: This is a course, not a book, but it will change how you think. You will see equilibrium and and game theoretic settings in your life – especially in your business life. This will improve your mental models and help you make better decisions.
Plans for the future
It’s the age of covid lockdowns, and most businesses are faring badly. They are shrinking (not their fault, since the lockdowns were out of their hands, but it is how it is).
LMM on the other hand, is expanding aggressively. Articles are published more frequently, the audience is growing across all social media channels.
The plan for the near future is to keep expanding LMM, not just by publishing more articles and SEO, but also by venturing into different social media verticals.
The articles and content will keep getting better as I learn more and have more to share – the future is bright.
One thing to keep in mind is that this decade is going to differ greatly from the ones before it.
Many people think that the lockdown will end and “things will go back to normal”.
This is the dawn of the cryptoWFH age (crypto + work from home). LMM is well positioned to take advantage of it.
By the way, if you know nothing about crypto and want to learn more – I created a completely free in-depth course on crypto for non-technical people. Go check it out.
Meta: Do you see what I mean by adding a lot of value upfront? In the future, if I decide to sell a crypto-related product on that website, people who took the course will line up to buy it.
Things are about to get really good for people who are building an internet based business. This is a world where those who put in the work and are competent get rewarded immensely.
Most LMM readers will be rich in the future. Why? They are ambitious. (The unambitious don’t read websites like LMM.)
What happens when you combine ambition and actionable information?
BOOM.
You get a man to be reckoned with.
So keep reading, and keep building. Things are going to get better and better.
Per aspera ad astra.
With love.
– Harsh Strongman
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