The ONLY Way You’re Going to Win in 2024 is by Ignoring EVERYBODY

YOUTUBE  📚 THE READING LIFE  📚  PATREON

Read on The Competitive Advantage.com | Read Time: ~7 Minutes

📚 Hey, good evening!

I’ve been missing for at least a week, depending on who you talk to. I haven’t actually seen my best friend in months, although we have been talking on Telegram every so often.

But I have no idea where some of my other good friends are — they exist in message form only, slowly being replaced by business messages that I’m keeping up with each day.

This is the price, and I’m prepared to pay it.

It doesn’t mean I don’t love my friends — I do, more than almost anything.

I miss them terribly, but I’m in a season of building right now — a season that’s not going to last forever — and it will all be worth it in the end.

I’m ignoring everybody right now, and everyone in my circle will be better off for it in the end. My best friend is working just as hard as I am right now! There was no split, no schism, no bad blood or anything like that.

We’re just building.

We understand the season of life we’re both in, and we don’t take it the wrong way when we don’t hear from the other guy in a few weeks or months. Our friendship is just as strong, and we’ll be even stronger at the end of this season of building, what I’m suggesting you embark on too.

This is a season of momentum, and if you want to win in 2024, I strongly advise you to get clear and conscious about building momentum in your life, and building it now.

All progress is usually more difficult in the beginning, but winning the game of business (or whatever game you’re playing) is a hell of a lot harder with all the manifold distractions assaulting your synapses and attention spans during the course of even a single day.

No wonder that nobody around you is able to get anything important done. No wonder they’re behind, unfulfilled, struggling to face the day, much less build momentum in their lives and make big strides forward.

Attention is currency in 2023 (and will be in 2024 as well), but modern society is structured to pour a steady stream of acid on your attention every single day, not letting you psychologically breathe any longer than it takes to shove the next advertisement down your face.

Even though I can’t be sure who’s reading this right now, whoever you are, I want your life to go better.

You may not believe me, but it’s true.

I learned a long time ago that you can get anything you want in life just as long as you help enough other people get what they want, so I’ve compiled this list of 10 distractions that you need to ignore if you want to win in 2024 (hey, that rhymes!).

So let’s put the blinders on and prep for the growth-packed year ahead…

Unhelpful Criticism

I generally look for the best in people (easy to find if you’re looking for it, to be honest), but not everyone has your best interests at heart. Even some of the people who are “just trying to help” are just trying to wreck your dream because they know they’ll never be able to achieve theirs. Ignore them. They don’t exist. Next!

The Expectations of Others

It’s time to live up to your own expectations; indeed, maybe even discover what they are for the very first time. This is 2024 we’re talking about: no more living other people’s lives for them and sacrificing our own.

Unreasonable Demands

The best you can do is literally the best you can do. That’s it. And it’s a lot. More than you may realize. There’s a lot more that I could say here, but in my own life, I make it a point to demand more from myself than anyone else could possibly expect from me. I also demand from myself that I do my best. Which, again, is literally the absolute most that you can possibly draw out of yourself.

Selfish Requests

Yes, help others. I’m a BIG believer in trying to make lasting, positive contributions to the lives of others, but I don’t give myself away completely. I maintain boundaries. Yes, I give and give and give. But when, on the other side it’s only “take take take”? That’s when I move on.

Easy Shortcuts

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. If you did it right the first time, you won’t have to waste time doing it over again, and so in the long run, the shortest route to your goals is going to be the path of most resistance. Trying to “hack” it — to find a fast way of doing something that’s SUPPOSED to take a certain amount of dedicated, focused time — I mean, if you don’t have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it over again?

Bad Advice

Everyone’s got an opinion, and a major skill to develop is the ability to distinguish between the actual experts and the people who just SOUND good on social media. Another important distinction is between the people who want the best for you, and those who just want to hear themselves talk. As for me, I’ll never tell you things I don’t believe are true, but more importantly, I’ll NEVER try to pass myself off as some expert who knows more than I actually do.

Manipulative Advertising

You’ve probably heard this before, but social media isn’t free. You pay for it with your TIME and your ATTENTION, two resources that are even more valuable than money, and that most people just toss away too cheaply. This year, try to recognize when you’re being manipulated into trading away your LIFE for likes on some app, and ask yourself whether the ROI is as great as it needs to be for you to keep investing time and attention in social media and other advertising.

Attention Traps

Same as above. The whole trick is to get you to think that you’re missing something without being constantly “informed” or by going without some specific product or piece of “news” that everyone else has. But if you pay attention to the same things that everyone else is paying attention to, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.

Pessimistic People

This is the absolute fucking worst use of your time. Seriously. I’m sorry for swearing, but get these fucking people the fuck out of your life. The future of humanity is going to be AMAZING (if we work for it, together, consciously), and a great book on this subject you may want to check out is What We Owe the Future, by William MacAskill.

Small Minds

This year, ignore EVERYONE who has a smaller vision for your life than you do. Waste NO MORE TIME thinking small. Think BIG. Think HUGE! Make your life a fucking MONUMENT to human greatness and potential. And if you think that’s grandiose, then you’re probably being infected by someone else’s small thinking and what THEY think is possible for YOUR future.

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You can’t ignore everybody forever, but sometimes, you do have to take 1 step back to take 8 leaps forward. That’s what this coming year is going to be like for me — I’m actually putting into practice what I’m suggesting here.

I DO myself what I suggest others think about doing.

But let me also say this:

We need you to come back strong as hell in 2024, and the world has real problems that can only be faced and overcome by people who are fully alive and engaged.

It takes time (and dedicated focus) to build out the life you want (and help others achieve theirs), and that’s not going to happen with all these distractions, dangers, and disturbances assaulting your life from the outside.

This season of your life doesn’t have to last forever. It probably shouldn’t. We exist in a society of others, and the whole point of taking time for yourself is to improve the quality of your relationship with the outside world.

But a focused, conscious 2024 can set you up for the rest of your life.

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I’m going to be helping a select group of people make 2024 their best year ever (a bold claim that lots of people make, but only a handful of coaches can actually deliver on), and I’ll let you know more in future emails about how we can work together next year.

It won’t be free, but it will be utterly transformational for the right person.

If that person’s you, we should talk.

I’m still building on what my current clients have achieved this year, and restructuring my coaching program to reflect what I’ve learned in 2023 about helping people achieve their 5-year goals in 6 months.

This is exciting work, for me and my clients, and I can’t wait to show you guys what we’ve been working on.

Until next time though…happy reading!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

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