There was a time when physical labour was rewarded and paid well. Then machines came in and replaced many.
In the last few decades, people started getting educated and getting good jobs. Thinking their skills would make them money.
The kind of skills you learn in college remember?
Accounting, coding, designing?
But today, AI is doing all of these.
My first profitable business was an animations video company.
And my favourite animator, Atif, was (and still is) my favourite. No one could ever animated or design like he did. Then I closed the company and we lost touch.
I spoke to him last month, he told me he’s struggling to get work. Apparently, AI has replaced all animators and designers he knows.
We used to think that art and design could never be replaced.
Look around. We were wrong.
The recent advancements in AI have made it very clear, all skills that can be learned by humans, can be learned by AI, in a lot better, faster and cheaper way.
So one thing’s pretty clear:
We can’t bet on learnable skills to make money and create wealth. We need something, that AI can not learn.
The question is, what is it that AI can never learn or take away from us?
What is it that AI can’t replace human beings with?
The answer is darn simple: at being human.
What it means to be human
According to me being human means:
Feeling different emotions. Like love, anger, pleasure, happiness
Experiencing stuff. Like failure, success, fun, adventure.
Connecting with other humans. Laughing, listening, caring, crying.
These are things that AI would never be able to copy.
AI is artificial isn’t it?
It’s software. Zillions of pieces of code and information.
Yes, I’m sure AI can talk or write as if it feels, but can AI ever feel like a human? I don’t think so.
What kind of experiences will AI have? They’ll all be artificial isn’t it?
But will AI ever experience fun? Love? Failure? Or success? Or pain? Like a human would, I don’t think so.
Would AI ever make a human feel really connected? Emotionally? I don’t think so.
In my opinion humans finding connection with AI only feel more miserable (i’ve been there myself)
Nothing beats human connection, experience and feelings.
And that’s the only moat we can have as humans over AI and technology.
Creating true wealth
I think that true wealth is created by those who build ecosystems.
When I say ecosystems I mean mini universes owned privately.
Think about it.
Jeff Bezos built an ecosystem of online shopping.
Steve Jobs built an ecosystem of beautiful gadgets.
Elon Musk built an ecosystem of beautiful vehicles.
Mukesh Ambani built an ecosystem of data and internet.
Everyone who’s truly become wealthy has built their own ecosystem. Their own worlds. Their own mini universe.
And wealth is made when real humans pay money in exchange of products and services within these ecosystems.
Now, the question is, how can you build your own ecosystem?
The answer is in deep self reflection.
How to build your ecosystem
If you truly want to build a highly profitable ecosystem that can truly make you wealthy, you need to understand yourself fully.
By understanding fully I mean understanding:
Your problems
Experiences
Gifts
Talents
Stories
Interests
Because in process of understanding yourself better, you’ll end up understanding millions of others who would share your problems, stories, experiences, gifts, talents and interests.
And in process of doing that you’ll know exactly what they need.
What kind of products they need, services they need.
You’ll know exactly who they are and what they struggle with.
And one product or service at a time you’ll be building your very own ecosystem.
Let me give you an example.
I’ve built majority of my wealth helping people make money on the internet.
How? By helping people build ecommerce businesses.
Why? Because I experienced it for years and made wild profits from it.
Result? Our clients made 100+ Crore in revenue with their own businesses.
It took my a while to realise this.
But, when I did, my wealth exploded.
Now, the question is, how do you identify what your moat is.
The question is, how do you build your own ecosystem.
It’s simple.
Ask yourself the following questions:
What are you really good at?
What problems have you solved for yourself?
What advice do people ask you for? About what?
What comes naturally to you?
What deeply interests you?
What can you speak about for at least 10-20 minutes without any notes or scripts?
The answers to these questions will help you identify where you should be building your ecosystem.
My answer was: Ecommerce education
For some people it’s pain relief supplements.
For some people it’s deep tissue massages.
For some people it’s teaching how to lose weight.
And once you start building your ecosystem and actually living it in with other humans, the denser your ecosystem will get.
The more problems you see.
The better you understand your co-humans.
And you end up building products, services and experiences to serve other humans within your ecosystem.
In process of doing this, you end up building a highly profitable ecosystem that helps you build true wealth.
I started my first eCommerce business in 2017.
Crossed $2Million in revenue within 2 years.
Launched my first ecommerce education program in 2019.
We scaled to 1 Crore/month in revenue (without paid ads), personally working 3-4hours/day with a lean team. Healthy margins. Wildly profitable.
Now, the question is, where’s going to be your ecosystem? And how are you going to build it?
If you made it this far, I’d love to invite you to apply for Origin.
Origin is a 3-month program where I personally help you build a highly profitable knowledge business around your skills, experiences and expertise. From helping you identify your 1 thing, creating YouTube videos around it and monetising using premium education programs and services. I’m going to be taking 25 people in the first Cohort. Join the WhatsApp waitlist to see if we can take you. If we can’t, stay in the waitlist to hear about it first when we re-open enrolments. Join here.