This is How I Plan to SMASH My Goals for September 2023

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." -Frederick Douglass

Author

Matt Karamazov
September 02, 2023

YOUTUBE đź“š THE READING LIFE đź“š PATREON

Note to the Reader: The first 4 sections of this Monthly Achievement Report don’t tend to change much from month to month, so if you’ve read last month’s Report, you’ve already read them. By all means, read them again if you want, but the “real” monthly updates start in the Audience Growth Goals section below. Now let’s get into it…

“Okay, So You Want a Lamborghini. So What?”

You’ve seen all those Twitter bios saying things like “Documenting my journey to $10k a month doing…XYZ” or whatever.

Yea, I’m getting bored of them too.

But I’ll never say anything to them, because that’s a goal that THEY have decided to pursue, and it might be more meaningful to them than it is to some outsider who doesn’t know their situation and what they value.

That’s certainly the case with my Lamborghini.

(“My Lamborghini” — chills!)

Most people won’t care that I’m buying a Lambo…and that’s perfectly okay.

You don’t have to justify your goals to anyone besides yourself. You can just want things and not have to explain yourself to anyone. You can do that!

What’s more, buying a Lamborghini is merely a symbol of the blisteringly hard work I’ve put in, and WILL put in, to get where I want to go — and obviously it f***ing flies fast down the road. There’s that too :)

So yes, I’m buying a Lamborghini before April of 2024. I drive a 2002 Porsche Boxster right now, and my payments are basically nothing. Like $600 a month, plus gas and insurance.

And for a Lambo?

Well, if I get a 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo, it’ll run me just under $3,000 a month all in. And if I decide to dial in my focus to an insane degree and drive flat-f***ing-out towards my goal of building my wildly profitable personal brand, then it’ll cost me about $7,000 a month for a used Aventador.

That’s with no down payments, decent lending terms, etc. And, as you’ll see below, with my multiple income streams, even if I only made $1,000 a month from each of them, I’d STILL clear $10,000+ a month.

But alright, hey, enough about Lambos. The point here is that…

Image: “My” 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo

…I’m back with this month’s Achievement Report!

Everything I’m doing to build a massive social media audience, grow my business to $100k/month, read all the greatest books ever written, and develop a world-class physique — it’s all here.

One of the purposes of these reports, naturally, is to help you achieve your goals by showing you how I’m achieving mine.

I love to motivate people by my example, and I love to be a great resource for ambitious people like you who don’t want to live like everyone else.

That’s what I’m good at. That’s what I can do for you. That’s what I can help you with.

So let’s get into it!

Each month, I’m going to lay out exactly what I’m doing to actualize my biggest dreams — my craziest vision for my one and only life — and I’m going to invite you to work alongside me as we make astounding forward progress together.

If there’s one thing I want you to believe, though, it’s this:

Most people will never get to where they want to be in life.

They will never even come close to doing their best or actualizing what’s possible for them in their lives, and many of them will wind up depressed, purposeless, and unmotivated — beaten down by Life.

They will stay exactly the way they are: lazy, ignorant, apathetic, and defeated.

And why is this?

Specifically, they don’t make an effort to learn from and apply the greatest, most transformational wisdom found in the world’s most incredible books, and they don’t even see that their futures could be any different than their present.

Wildly different.

I absolutely, positively, categorically, do NOT want that to happen to you, and so I will be pushing great books into people’s hands — your hands — for as long as I’m physically able to.

It’s what I’m here for.

You and I are winners (or at least winners in the making), and we can alter the entire trajectory of our lives by reading and applying the epic wisdom found in the best books.

That’s what I earnestly and steadfastly believe, and that’s what my career is all about.

I am obsessed with sharing the magic of books and reading, and I am obsessed with helping you to become everything you ever thought you could be but were afraid to even attempt.

Okay, I feel pretty intensely about this stuff, and I may have gotten a little carried away there with my passion for reading…But I stand by it.

Reading is important.

Supporting each other in our ambitions is important.

And making life better and easier for the people with whom we share the planet is important too.

If you’re with me on all that, let’s get into this month’s Achievement Report…

This is the very first step. You need to spell out — clearly and vividly — what it is that you actually WANT out of life, or you’re just never going to get it.

And this isn’t some vague, mystical “law of attraction” stuff; it’s a matter of becoming amazingly clear about the vision you have for your one and only life, and knowing exactly where you mean to end up.

If you don’t have that, you just end up drifting around and you won’t get anywhere.

So here’s what I actually WANT:

  • An insanely profitable online business where I inspire my millions of followers to read the best books, push themselves in the gym, give back to others in their community and help the people around them win too. I also want to do great work, publishing content that I can be proud of.

  • I want to have the free time to spend with my parents and my friends and develop deep relationships with the people in my life that make it worth living.

  • I want to have the time freedom to read books pretty much all day, work out at the gym (developing an incredible, world-class physique in the process), and have the peace of mind of knowing that I can do what I want, virtually any time I want to do it.

I have more detailed, concrete versions of the above statements fully written out where I read and review them each day, but for our purposes here, that’s basically what I want out of life.

Ambitious?

You’re damn right it is!

I want to earn millions of dollars, buy a Lamborghini Aventador, attract millions of followers to my social media accounts, read thousands and thousands of books, have insane freedom and open my life up to spectacular adventure…

I want ALL of that, and I have a detailed, realistic plan in place to make it f***ing happen.

I’ve got a few different projects on the go, but for the most part, they all fit together under “Writing and Publishing,” “Reading Books,” and “Working Out.”

It may seem like I’m going off in several different directions, but as you can see, most of what I do informs and impacts the other stuff.

Here are the most important things I’m working on right now:

The Stairway to Wisdom: A collection of book breakdowns for people who actually like to read, not just for “busy” people who want cheap, 5-minute book summaries.

This is for people who actually LIKE to read, and my book breakdowns respect both the reader’s time and their intelligence.

I’m dedicated to steadily growing this membership site and I have a great team behind me too. You can check it out here.

Reading: This is basically what I’ve made my life about. I love reading — I love books and literature almost as much as life itself. To me, they are life itself, and I read between 150–200 books every single year. You can find my full reading list here.

Writing: Again, this sort of fits in with the Stairway to Wisdom above, but here I’m also talking about writing on Medium.com, writing on my own site, on other websites, writing my first book, etc. A lot of what I do falls under “writing” — even scripting YouTube videos!

Social Media: I recently hit 100,000 followers on Instagram, but I’m also working on growing my presence on several other platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Plus, I use my following on social media to grow my business, attract new readers to my website, etc. So, it all works together!

Fitness: Don’t make me choose between books and barbells! I refuse! Working out is just one of those things that my life is about, and I give my all to building the greatest physique I possibly can. If you want or need help developing your own body, send me an email and we can talk about it.

Charity: A life lived solely for yourself isn’t much of a life, and I’ve found that money can buy happiness — when you spend it on other people.

My favorite charities are First Book, a children’s educational charity, and Doctors Without Borders, an international humanitarian relief organization. I donate regularly to both — as well as a few others — and I plan to increase the size of my contributions very soon.

“Long-term,” for me, means my entire life. These are my current lifetime achievement goals, and this is basically what I’m going for in my life. I don’t care how long it takes me — I will succeed.

In no particular order:

  • Raise $1,000,000,000 for Doctors Without Borders

  • Raise $1,000,000,000 for First Book

  • Live on just 1% of my yearly income and donate the rest

  • Travel to outer space (and back!)

  • Own at least part of a space tourism company

  • Own at least part of a successful nightclub

  • Publish at least 10 books

  • Read at least 10,000 books

My definition of “short-term” is much different than most people’s. I think in decades, so I’m more interested in playing the long game and becoming wildly successful over time, rather than settling for something smaller than I know I’m capable of achieving.

I’m only 33 years old, and with the ridiculous advances in medical technology and everything, it’s not unreasonable to assume that I’ll live to be well over 100.

So, what’s “short-term”?

If I accomplish the following “short-term” goals in 5–25 years, that’s a good start:

  • Reach 220lbs with less than 10% body fat

  • Reach 1,000 Patreon supporters

  • Reach 1,000,000 followers on Instagram

  • Reach 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube

  • Reach 1,000,000 followers on Twitter

  • Build an email list of 1,000,000 readers

  • Earn $10,000,000 in a single year

  • Invest $10,000,000 in the stock market

  • Model for an international agency

  • Sign with a literary agent for my first book

This is an exciting time for me, as I’m starting to gain a lot of traction online and build up momentum. I actually have, like, an audience now, and that’s pretty damn cool.

And it’s also a big responsibility!

The way I think about it is that every single follower is a real person (obviously), with real goals and struggles and challenges, and interests — everything that makes them who they are.

So yes, I’m building up a massive following online, but I never lose sight of the fact that I’m talking about real, infinitely valuable people who deserve to get my absolute best each and every day.

Here I’ll give you current web and social media stats, with the total growth from last month in brackets:

And here are my goals for the next month on each platform:

This month is going to be insanely busy with going all-out on social media, updating a few back-end things, releasing my new course, etc. It’ll be a lot of work, but by the end of it, I’ll be in a much better place in terms of productivity.

By the end of the month, I will:

  • Launch the new sales page for the Stairway to Wisdom

  • Get ahead on my weekly book breakdowns for Stairway

  • Release my new discipline course

  • Appear on a few book podcasts

  • Launch my personal podcast

  • Fully update my own online platform

I finished reading 13 books last month. It was a pretty enjoyable month of reading! You can watch my Monthly Reading Recap here on YouTube.

My full reading list is here, and my complete notes from all of these books will be made available on my Patreon:

â–şâ–şâ–ş 47. Be Nobody, by Lama Marut

â–şâ–şâ–ş 48. 10X is Easier Than 2X, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

â–şâ–şâ–ş 49. Success is a Choice, by John C. Maxwell

â–şâ–şâ–ş 50. We the Living, by Ayn Rand

â–şâ–şâ–ş 51. Make No Small Plans, by Elliott Bisnow et al.

â–şâ–şâ–ş 52. The Power of Regret, by Daniel H. Pink

â–şâ–şâ–ş 53. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, by Kury Vonnegut

â–şâ–şâ–ş 54. And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

â–şâ–şâ–ş 55. Billy Summers: A Novel, by Stephen King

â–şâ–şâ–ş 56. Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems, by Charles Bukowski

â–şâ–şâ–ş 57. The Answer, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith

â–şâ–şâ–ş 58. Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson, by William McKeen

â–şâ–şâ–ş 59. There Is No Darkness, by Joe Haldeman

…More is usually said than done. That’s the reality. Most people will talk about all these things that they want to do, and then they’ll do…nothing.

But you and I are not those people.

We have made a commitment to excellence, and we know that nobody succeeds alone.

We all travel further together, and that’s one of my main motivations for starting The Competitive Advantage, and for writing these Achievement Reports.

I’ve developed an extremely effective system for achieving my goals and reaching the kind of success that I want for myself, but your system will undoubtedly look different than mine.

However, I want you to remember that the absolutely “perfect” system that you never even look at again is never going to be as effective as the perhaps-slightly-imperfect system that you actually use.

“Action! Action is the only salvation that exists!”

A little Nikos Kazantzakis there for ya…

Anyway, I like to err on the side of taking massive action, and doing whatever it takes to hit my targets. I never reduce those targets; all I do is increase my level of action.

That’s the key.

So I hope that all of this was helpful and/or enlightening for you, and I’ll be active in the comments, so definitely let me know how you’re going to apply some of what we talked about in your own life! I’d love to hear about it.

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. I’m taking on a few new coaching clients next month, and I’ll let you know soon how you can book a call with me. You’ve struggled to find a way forward by yourself for long enough. It’s time to start winning. Working with a mentor can help make it happen.