Hey friend,

10 years ago I was an overworked and underpaid architect making $30,000 a year living in New York City. I'd never done a business class or read a personal development book... and I was a brand new immigrant having moved solo to New York from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I had $783 to my name 😬and knew 3 people in the city.

Cut to now and I own and run a multi-million dollar ecommerce business with a team of 10.

Here are the 6 small things that got me to where I am today + a bonus small thing to kick off 2022!

1. Have an intentional morning routine

You're probably aware of the power of a morning routine. But the reason everyone talks about it is because it works.

I used to feel so scattered in the morning, like I was constantly behind on everything. Until I read the book, Miracle Morning.

(Psst you don't have to wake at 5:00am like the book describes.)

What matters is that you start the day with intention. If we start our day with purpose and direction, we can often win the day in those 45 minutes (or however long your routine is).

2. Think outside the box

Your phone is where deep thought goes to die.

It's really important to step away from the screens and think outside of the "box".

Great ideas come from letting your mind wander. Think about how many ideas you have in the shower, or when you go for a walk without anything in your ears...

3. Invest in great relationships

Your network is your net worth — is not some cliche saying — which is what I used to think. Everything is relationships! Businesses are actually just people doing business together.

We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.

When you look around, are you with people:

• You respect?
• Doing things you find interesting?
• Want to be more like them?

If not, you need to make a change. There was a time where my social circle involved only overworked architects (like myself).

I realized if I wanted to take a different path I’d need to expand my circle. I needed to be around people doing the things I wanted to be doing!

These days I find myself surrounded by friends who were once people I looked up to from afar:

4. Take 100% responsibility

One of the most empowering decisions in life was to take 100% responsibility for your life. It's easy to fall into a victim mindset or play the blame game — we've all done it, me too!

The blame game is just a distraction that doesn't actually help us get anywhere. But when we take responsibility, we reflect on what happened and learn from it so it doesn't happen again.

I did this when I shared the $230,000 embezzlement issue and the mistakes I made when getting into a business partnership.

5. Approach with curiosity

Everything was crumbling around me in March of 2020.
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Best Self wasn't going well — I found out an employee was stealing, me and my business partner weren't getting along... and then the pandemic hit. Rather than going full panic-mode I decided to get curious.

(If you're not used to this mindset, it is difficult — but it can be learned.)

I asked myself, “What can I learn from this? What is life teaching me here?”

When you approach a situation with curiosity, you can learn from it instead of going full anxiety mode or expecting it to be bad. If you expect it to be bad, it will be bad.

When you're curious, you're thinking, "I don't know what's going to happen, but I'll see".

A by-product of approaching with curiosity is that you will be more confident in the moment because you’re not attached to outcomes. (More on this after number 6…)

6. Never stop learning

The most successful people I know love to learn. They're always tinkering around and trying to figure stuff out, not for the outcome, but because they love to learn.

A mistake I see people continuing to make is thinking that they've already learned enough. If I hadn't continued to develop and learn new skills, I wouldn't be where I am now.

I would probably still be an architect. I would be overworked. I'd be underpaid and I’d still be waking up everyday feeling like ‘there must be something more to life’.

Since 2013 I've spent over $100,000 on learning and education since I left school. This is for things I've been learning and curious about. I'm constantly looking to upgrade my skills… and I’ve gotten a great ROI on it 🙂

One of my personal rules is that I never think twice about buying a book or a course. If I'm curious about it, or I want to learn more, I want to feed and see how far it takes me. I credit so much of my success to this change.

(Curious, Do you have any personal rules like that? Reply back and let me know)

What's new in 2022

One of the biggest professional developments and investments I've made in the past two years is going deep on DeFi and crypto. I can credit the values of "approach with curiosity" and "never stop learning" for this success.

What's even better is many of you have joined me on the learning journey in my course Zero to DeFi.

Now I'm excited to share that this year I'm focusing my professional time on going deeper down the DeFi rabbit hole... and creating more for the course and community!

Be on the lookout for a special opportunity to join Zero to DeFi before I make big additions to the course. If you've been on the fence about going down the DeFi rabbit hole — this is your time!

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Remember, these six values are just a short overview! Watch the full video to get expanded examples and stories from each life change.

Thanks for watching and reading, I'll be back again soon!

Cathryn