Month 12: Decade Journey
The first 12 months and the article that started this challenge was originally published in Portuguese in my now defunct blog (Patientia). I started this challenge back on Jan 24, 2024 and revamped it in January 2025 (month 12).
I have tried several things in the year of 2024, none of which worked, so the summary for the first 12 months is: failed a bunch of projects while working full time as a Sales Manager.
Here is the Month 12 update and how I will be approaching this challenge moving forward.
Month 12: January, 2025.
I want to change this to be something that will follow me throughout the years and serve as fuel for any other project that I embark on.
For that reason, I will write everything related to this in English, which is probably going to be the language I am going to use for everything.
This project is simple to understand: Make $1 million USD (R$ 5 million reais) in 5 years (60 months) while building the life I want to live.
Today is 02.01.2025. I started this challenge on 24.01.2024 so I am out of 12 months (20%) already. Not all is bad, I was a full time employee at a startup, and while I was employed I was building a safety net towards the 1 in 5 goal.
The goal is simple: financial, time, location freedom
Location and time are both very important in this equation, you don’t want to end up winning (financially) in a game you didn't like playing. Or even worse, become really good in a game that you hate.
Design the game first and choose what you are playing before becoming good at it. In my case, design a game where financial, time and location freedom are above everything else.
Gameplan
The game plan requires consistency, but will take a long time to build. From my failed experiments I learned that distribution is the only thing that matters, so I will focus on building an audience first then selling.
To begin with, everything is going to be related to my own image and I will focus my effort in setting myself apart before building a business around it.
Both will be very intertwined but at their core they need to be separate, kind of like Greg Isenberg.
I also think it will be fun to do this in a “Build in Public” format, that will help out with the Audience piece and distribution.
Since nothing is more important than action, I will actually start doing rather than writing an “in-depth” start plan or strategy. None of that matters, so let's stay with the fundamentals and go from there. The business might change along the way and that is fine.
Less planning and more action.