And yes, especially if you want to increase your income by $1,000…or $10,000…or even $100,000 with your new business.
Avoid another decade of work with nothing to show for it. It’s time to create your own Rich Life so you can do what you want, when you want.
“I’ve officially made as much in the last month than I did in the last year. Just this past month my revenue was $29,000. Best of all, what’s enriched my life is seeing the impact my work has had on real people.”
“One video [from Ramit] just by itself was worth the entire investment for me. Working from home used to feel like a pipe dream. This course helped me go from earning basically nothing to 2 to 3k a month very quickly. Now I earn exponentially more than that using these same principles I learned from Ramit.“
“In 9 months, since starting my business, I’ve made over $35,000 while working from home and/or traveling the world. I work under my own hours and choose the clients I want to work with. I am not afraid where the money will come from. I can work from anywhere, and money keeps coming in. I am my own boss, I don’t answer to anyone but myself and I work under my own terms.”
Years ago, did you dream of waking up every morning to a screaming alarm, hitting the snooze button, scrolling Instagram to see a few beach photos (“That would be nice…someday…”), then stumbling out of bed, gulping down some coffee, and rushing out the door?
And not just once or twice. Every day. Every week. Every year. For decades.
When did we accept a life that looks like this?
Tired, underappreciated, resigned to the same old schedule…because “that’s just how it is.” Stuck in your own head with no good role models to look to.
And if you ever complain, you get this old chestnut: “You should be lucky to just have a job.”
And that’s life: A 9-5 job, Netflix at night, weekend trips to Home Depot to buy some new shelves, and endless scrolling on Instagram to see photos of places we’ll never visit.
For the rest of your life.
Imagine a different kind of Monday morning. You wake up as the sun streams through your window at 9:15am — no alarm clock — and roll over to check your phone.
You scroll through Instagram for a few minutes, loving the travel photos. You know you’ll be on a beach 3 weeks from now.
You get up, make a pot of hot coffee, and cue up your favorite podcast to listen to as you step outside to take your dog on a walk. No rush this morning — a leisurely walk is your new guilt-free morning ritual.
When you get home, you pour another cup of hot coffee. You take a sip and look at your email. What do you see?
You’ve received 13 orders while you were sleeping. $6,500 in total. It’s hard to believe you made this much from something you created a year ago. You’ve built an asset that pays you to live.
Your phone buzzes. You smile. It’s not a boss calling you — it’s another order. Another $500 in your bank account — automatically.
These are actual sales from my business that came in while I was sleeping.
Take a 2-hour lunch on a weekday (above, a spontaneous weekday lunch at 3pm)
You’re deep in work and you lose all track of time. And then, just after noon, a friend texts you to see if you want to grab lunch. “Sure,” you say — and because you set your own hours, you make it a 2-hour lunch.
After you get home, your calendar reminds you that you have a 30-minute consulting call with a client. These days, you don’t do a lot of consulting, but you’ve scaled up over the past few weeks to pay for a 3-week luxury vacation you’re planning to take in a few months.
Instead of squeezing in one rushed vacation a year to fit your limited PTO, now you take 3-4 leisurely trips every year. You splurge on one of them by inviting your family and paying for everything.
You spend more time on your health, too.
On your way home from the gym — something else you never used to have time for — you pass one of your favorite shops. You spot something that would make a great gift for a friend of yours. It’s not their birthday, but you buy it anyway. You can afford it, guilt-free.
While you were buying that gift, another two sales came in.
Taken at 4:15pm on a Tuesday
6 months ago, you were surrounded by the usual advice to cut back on $3 coffees. Today, you’ve designed your Rich Life – and you’re living it, too!
You can live the life you want. I’ll show you proof — with real numbers.
While other people worry about saving $3 here and $5 there, a small group of people have decided to live different lives. And there’s a growing wave of people who enjoy lives like this every day. You won’t see them in the ALL-CAPS headlines about the economy or millennials.
But they’re quietly earning great money, building flexible lives, and sharing their passions with the world.
I know, because I’m one of them.
Hi, I’m Ramit Sethi.
You might know me as the author of the New York Times bestseller I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
Or you might have seen me in a 6-page Fortune profile, featured in Forbes next to Warren Buffett, or as a regular guest on the Tim Ferriss Podcast.
If you’re wondering what the catch is, let’s just cut the shit right now.
I hate when some random internet guy tells you:
…and then, buried halfway down the page, they casually mention that their parents gave them a “small loan” of $989,000. Thanks, dude.
I didn’t grow up with rich parents. My mom and dad immigrated from India. My dad was an engineer and my mom stayed home raising 4 kids. No nanny, no private schools.
My mom made dinner at home every night. We ate out about once a month, usually at a pizza place where we had a coupon.
Our family vacation involved driving to Southern California and staying with family. My mom packed lunches for the trip to save money.
And honestly — I was lucky! I was lucky enough to be born in America with two parents who taught me the value of education and working hard.
In my 20s, I asked my parents how they raised 4 kids on one income. My mom told me that once, when we were enrolling in a kids’ soccer league, the fees were too high. She called them and asked if there was any way they could waive the fees. They told her if she came and chalked the fields before a game, they would waive it. So that’s what my mom did.
Imagine learning that your mom was chalking a soccer field so you could play soccer as a kid. My parents taught me the value of hard work. They taught me that there’s always a way.
When it was time to apply to college, they told me I needed to get scholarships to pay for it. I decided I was going all-in: I built a system to apply to 65 scholarships. The scholarships I got ended up paying my way through undergrad and grad school at Stanford.
In college, I started to realize that even if you get a degree, it’s easy to fall into the trap of the default American lifestyle:
NO! I refused to get on that hamster wheel.
A lifetime of struggle — of feeling guilty about a $10 appetizer — with nothing to show for it.
Of accepting whatever handouts the world gave me. Of shrinking my world and convincing myself that spending $10 on an extra dessert was what would really make me happy.
No. I wanted more. And I was willing to work to get it.
If I’d followed my default life path, I’d be an engineer at a tech company, wearing an oversized t-shirt with a huge Cisco logo. Not a bad life — but not for me.
No thanks.
I wanted to craft a life that let me work on my own terms.
I didn’t know how to do it. I just knew I wanted to figure it out, somehow.
With a bit of luck and hard work — and some very specific decisions that I want to show you — I was able to craft a totally different life. My Rich Life.
I went from a college student with no experience to founder and CEO of a successful, automated, multimillion-dollar business that’s helped millions of people.
A business that lets me go to the gym in the middle of the day. Or take every Wednesday off just to read.
A business that lets me share my passions and experiences with the world — and still be myself.
A business that lets me create the lifestyle I want — and actually generates revenue while I’m traveling (and even sleeping).
A business that gives me enough money that I never have to worry about buying appetizers or a nice outfit or going all-in on a fancy wedding and 6-week honeymoon.
A business that gives me the freedom to say “YES!” to the things I love (and a guilt-free “no” to the things I don’t).
And now I’m going to teach you how to start your own successful business, too — to find an idea, find happy paying customers, all of it.
I’ll show you how to get started, how to build your business up, and even how to make your income streams passive (if that’s what you want).
Not in a scammy, “make a bazillion dollars in your slippers!!” way, but in a realistic way that’s step by step, fun, and fits into your life.
Just like I’ve done for tens of thousands of students already. Now they’re living their Rich Lives:
“My online business allows me to live and work from anywhere. Recently I moved to sunny Puerto Rico, which was a big dream of mine.
“I live in a cute beach pad and enjoy midday swims in the turquoise ocean. And I get around my neighborhood on a cute, hot pink golf cart. Life is good!”
SELENA SOO
SELENASOO.COM
“As a ‘thank you’ to our parents for being so generous with their time and money while raising us, my wife and I decided to take them on an all-expenses-paid trip to Finland and Sweden. It was a trip of a lifetime, and one that was only made possible by my online business. Here is a small sample of the things that we did as a big family while we were on the trip:
Overall, the trip cost us just over $15,000 but it created memories and experiences that were priceless. My parents still brag to everyone about it!”
BEN DZIWULSKI
WODPREP.COM
Here’s the interesting thing. When I asked my readers if they wanted to start a business, the overwhelming response was “YES! We want a business!”
Why did they want their own business?
No surprises here: All of us want the freedom, the control, and the multiple revenue streams.
We want to know that if we put the work in, we can get more control, more freedom, and more income (not work our asses off to make someone else wealthy).
So what’s the disconnect?
Why do we all claim we want an online business — and we even read people like Seth Godin and Gary V and other motivational blogs — but we still haven’t started one yet?
Well, we’re busy. We’re not sure where to start. A lot of us tell ourselves things like:
I’m not buying it. Here are hundreds of thousands of people, with 90% telling me they want to start a business. But what’s stopping them? Is it really a lack of information? (Isn’t there tons of info everywhere online?)
There must be more going on here.
If you simply asked random people what’s stopping them from building their Rich Life, you get the usual surface-level answers:
It’s important to know that these are all TRUE.
But the real problem here — the fundamental issue — is deeper than all of this.
The real problem is that the rules of success that worked for our parents don’t work anymore.
We can either complain and wish for it to be different…
…or take control of our situation right now.
I choose to take control of my destiny.
We’ve all heard the same advice over and over.
OLD ADVICE:
Funny, they didn’t mention graduation rates, interest rates, how much the typical graduate can expect to make from that major, and the generationally high cost of housing. Weird. I wonder why they skipped mentioning that stuff.
TRAPPED WITH STUDENT DEBT
OLD ADVICE:
If you try to explain what it’s really like out there, suddenly they get quiet.
“Wait, what? You don’t have a pension? No, that can’t be. I don’t know how I’d do it without my pension…”
Or try telling them how employers expect us to be available 24×7 via Slack and email.
“Oh, I wouldn’t like that very much.”
Um, we know, Walter. How odd that they didn’t mention any of those things — because they never had our experience. Show them the facts, and they stammer, “Well…you should just try harder. That’s what we did.”
JOB INSTABILITY
OLD ADVICE:
FRUGALITY PRESSURE
I have to say, I love any philosophy that helps Americans save more money. But if your entire worldview is to cut back on tiny expenses for the next 40 years to defer life until you retire, and you spend 5 hours per week running Monte Carlo investment simulations because you hate your job…you might have taken a wrong turn in life. That’s not the life for me.
And what happens if we actually follow all this advice? What do we get if we follow it perfectly, and go to college and get a good job and cut back on our lattes?
An oversized, cookie-cutter house in suburbia? 2 cars, 2 kids, and an hour-long commute to work? Hoping we can take a vacation with our precious 10 days of vacation, squeezed like sardines into our economy-class seats?
The brutal truth is that even if we follow all this old advice and “win”…we actually lose.
You and I intuitively know this advice doesn’t work. We know it because we can look around at the people 5 years older than us:
Average people take average advice and they get average results.
It becomes a vicious cycle, where we start spinning our wheels — “What if I make the wrong decision and I’m stuck with it for the next 40 years?” — and suddenly we’re paralyzed.
It’s the slow-burning trap that so many people are stuck in today.
You know The Great Squeeze if someone asks you, “How are you?” and your answer is, “Tired.” I know I don’t mind working hard, but I want to know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
This is why today’s work style is so broken. It doesn’t matter how hard you “hustle” if the rules of the game are stacked against you.
It’s no wonder why there’s such an epidemic of anxiety, overwhelm, and unrelenting burnout. And it’s no wonder why so many ambitious, intelligent people get stuck.
What are we supposed to do when it always feels like one step forward and two steps back? YES, we can take responsibility for our actions. And YES, we can do more. But what should we do? And how do we know it will work?
The worst part is that the people who were supposed to help us — our parents and teachers and counselors — did nothing. They couldn’t. They didn’t have the answer!
Go online. Pick up a magazine. We just hear the same broken advice, over and over.
Cut back on lattes. Get a big house with a backyard and commute an hour a day…for the next 40 years. Oh, and working hard won’t help you because the system is stacked against you.
(All this advice from people who never made it. Why would I listen to you??)
It’s not just that people are intentionally giving you bad advice. They’re not being malicious. They actually think they’re helping you.
But the advice is still horrible.
AND WE KEEP LISTENING TO IT!
Here’s what you need to know to see through the fog.
First, know that advice givers will never admit their advice was bad. Instead, they’ll just tell you to double down. Try harder. “You didn’t do it right…what you really need to do is —”
Here’s what you need to remember:
“If you follow a doomed strategy — even if you execute it perfectly — you’re still doomed.”
Let me show you what I mean with this terrible, horrible, no-good advice.
Hey, here’s an idea. You want to be as smart as Albert Einstein?
OK, lemme tell you what to do. You need to run into a brick wall 20 times with your head. What? You did it and you’re still not fluent in thermodynamic fluctuations? LOL! You didn’t try hard enough. Run into it 50 times. And here, use this paper towel to clean your forehead off.
Notice what they’re telling us: THAT BAD STRATEGY DIDN’T WORK…so DOUBLE DOWN. They never consider that maybe it’s a bad strategy in the first place! Save $3 on lattes! What, you’re not a millionaire? Cut back on water and make your own soap, you poor bastard.
In reality, there’s a better way to live the life you want to.
Be your own boss, do what you love, and earn more — not less.
Yes! There’s a way to escape The Great Squeeze.
But it means you have to take advice from winners.
For example, early on, I knew I didn’t want to work a 9-5 job where I had to wake up to an alarm clock, go on a long commute, and settle for 10 days of vacation every year. But when I asked people what else I could do, they looked at me like I was crazy.
I finally realized: If you want to live a different life, ask people who are already doing it.
Why would I ask a 9-5 employee how to escape the 9-5? They have no fucking idea how.
Amidst all the dire warnings of the sky falling, I discovered a small group of people winning:
They don’t show up in headlines because what would journalists say? “These people did something completely different from what we tell you to do…and they’re winning. Uhh…is it possible our advice actually doesn’t work?”
Uh oh. You’re not supposed to say that out loud. Easier to simply ignore them and pretend they’re exceptions.
OK, let me show you how I escaped The Great Squeeze — with real numbers.
This is how I went from growing up middle class — no fancy private high school, no rich parents — to eventually starting my own business and owning my time.
The college years: I didn’t know anything about starting a business. Definitely not how to create a recurring revenue stream or “passive” income. I didn’t even have an idea. I mean, look at me:
Ramit Sethi, 2002. What a catch.
All I knew was that I had something I wanted to share with the world. You know that feeling when you spend your free time reading everything you can about the thing you love? When you start noticing your friends coming to you for advice?
After a while you start to realize, “Hey, I’m pretty good at this.”
For some of us, it’s helping others lose weight, or learn a musical instrument, or have better relationships. It could be anything! (I’ve seen online businesses helping parents have a better experience at Disney World…teaching men how to connect with their wives…and even showing pet owners how to train their parrot to talk.)
Whatever it is, we all have something that other people struggle with…and it just seems to come naturally to us.
I knew that I was good at my passion (personal finance) — and that I could help people, if only they would listen.
So I decided to try helping people learn about money by teaching a free informal class in college. (Not a business. Just a class.) I thought it was a no-brainer…but NOBODY SEEMED TO CARE!
For about a year and a half, I struggled to get anyone to listen, even though I knew I could help them.
Remember, this was before Instagram or YouTube or Facebook. It was before Shopify and podcasts and Medium and the thousands of other tools built to make sharing your passion easy. I had none of that. It was one of the most frustrating, draining times of my life.
Something wasn’t working. So I decided to start a website. I figured there are millions of people online, and if I could somehow put out a “net” to catch the right people, I could get them to read my material. (And stop beating my head against the wall for people who really didn’t care!)
In the beginning, I didn’t have a business. It was just a dinky blog I ran from my dorm room with ZERO traffic. I hardly had any comments for the first year.
I used a free template for my blog. No ads, no revenue model — I just wanted to get started
If you had told me I would turn something I loved doing anyway into a multimillion-dollar business, I never would have believed you.
In fact, looking back, I made every mistake under the sun:
But there were a few core choices I got right. (More on those soon…)
And I was learning.
I learned how to come up with an idea that people found mouthwateringly irresistible.
I learned how to package it up in a way that would resonate with them (how annoying is it when you try to give your friends advice and they don’t listen?).
And over time, my site started generating revenue.
At first, it was a tiny amount.
But once I made my first $5, I realized I could make more — and help the people who really wanted to be helped.
That’s when I started going deeper and learning how to build a SUCCESSFUL business online. Not just making a few bucks here or there, not just dipping my toes in the water, but playing to win.
Fast forward to now:
I’ve built the business systems to launch over 20 successful products — helping millions of people master their money, careers, psychology, and businesses.
I get to work on what I want, when I want. I’m in control.
My business systems keep bringing in money — whether I’m working, watching Netflix, hanging out with friends, sleeping, or even traveling for 6 weeks every year.
My business PAYS ME to live the life of my dreams!
My business is my ticket out of The Great Squeeze.
My business is my ticket to my Rich Life!
Every day I wake up thankful that I don’t have a commute to race through and a boss to answer to.
I’m thankful I get paid to work on my passions and share my ideas with the world.
I’m thankful my business is always working — so that I don’t have to be.
And I’m not the only one.
I’ve shared this system with my students and now they’re running successful businesses and living their own Rich Lives because of it:
“One summer I was able to spend six weeks in the south of France with my family. My wife and two daughters stayed in Airbnbs in Provence for a month, and I stayed an extra two weeks to visit a friend in London. From there, I cycled up the French Pyrenees Mountains during the Tour de France (and got to watch the race in person multiple days!).
“All the while I didn’t need to work except for about two hours per week to check in on things and answer a few emails.”
GRAHAM COCHRANE
RECORDINGREVOLUTION.COM
One of my favorites is being able to take a month-long trip to Italy with my wife and son – just because! In fact, I’m writing this to you from Italy! We’ve spent far more family time here than we have back home in San Diego. And given that I run my business remotely, we haven’t lost a step there. It’s been such a blessing.”
GRAHAM COCHRANE
RECORDINGREVOLUTION.COM
For most of us, starting a business isn’t the normal path. (Hey, if I’d followed my default life path, I’d be sitting in a cubicle at a tech company, working as some kind of “program manager” and wearing one of those badges attached to the belt loops of my poorly fitting jeans.)
So our mind starts playing tricks on us, whispering things like:
I knew I could never be happy waiting and waiting for “someday.”
So I began the years-long process of examining my inner psychology to find out how I could change.
Why wasn’t I growing the way I wanted to — despite all the free information out there?
I discovered a concept I call “Invisible Scripts,” or beliefs so deeply held that they’re actually invisible to us.
For example, many Americans believe “real estate is the best investment” and craft our lives around it. But is it really?
If we dig deeper, we might be surprised.
When it comes to your online business, here are the 6 most pernicious Invisible Scripts I discovered.
As you read, take a hard look to see which of these apply to you…
SCRIPT #1:
I don’t have an idea. How are you supposed to come up with an idea that hasn’t already been done a thousand times before? And even if you do come up with an idea, how do you know it will work? Who wants to spend a ton of time on an idea that might fail — leaving you worse off than when you started?
Too many ideas. This is just as crippling as no idea. What do you do when you have too many ideas? How do you pick ONE? And does that mean you have to close the door on all your other interests forever? Is there a way to “stitch” together your interests into one idea that works? Maybe, but you don’t see how.
SCRIPT #2:
Where do I start? Ugh, there are a million websites about starting an online business. Some people tell us we NEED a Facebook page…then others tell us to ignore that advice. How do you know which advice to listen to? Who do you trust? Is it just a bunch of snake-oil salesmen, or is there really anyone teaching out there who can prove they know what they’re talking about? How do I put the pieces of the puzzle together?
I’m not a tech expert. What if you’re not a website expert? How much is it going to cost to set one up? Then how do you find a designer who will help you…without paying thousands and thousands of dollars to start? Oh, now I have to set up an autoresponder sequence…payment authorization…content distribution…video encoding…protecting my material…AHHHH! You didn’t start this to be a tech expert! You just want to share your passion with the world. Is there a way to just make this technology stuff work?
SCRIPT #3:
I don’t want to invest months of work building something that flops. How heartbreaking is it to spend months setting up a website, building social media profiles, writing posts…only to discover no one is interested? Or worse, to find out people claim they “love” your free stuff…but when it comes time to pay, they mysteriously disappear.
SCRIPT #4:
There’s already a ton of information out there.Why would anyone choose you over all these other people? Some of them have had websites for years. They have way more traffic, more connections, more money. Why would someone choose you? How would they even find you?
I’m not an expert. Other people have been doing this for 10+ years. A lot of them have professional certifications, books, and even TV appearances. Why would anyone listen to you? And if you’re not sure about yourself, how can you expect other people to take you seriously?
SCRIPT #5:
Selling = sleazy. Does anyone really LIKE to sell? You see these over-the-top bottom feeders online, and they’re always hawking some scammy e-book about creating e-books. Why can’t you just do good work and get noticed? How can you start a business on your terms?
SCRIPT #6:
How much time will this take? Who has the time to start another project? Especially if you’re not sure it’s going to succeed? Maybe one day when you have more time.
I don’t want to create another job for myself. What if this actually starts selling? What if you’re not a 20-something with unlimited time? Now you have a SECOND full-time job for yourself! Do you have to update your blog almost every day now? And fix your website? And answer all these customer service emails? Ugh, you didn’t want this to create more work for yourself.
I just need to figure it out first. Starting an online business is definitely on the bucket list, but what about all the prep before starting it? How do you make sure you’re ready? Shouldn’t you read all those books on your Amazon wish list first?
I get it. I went through every single one of these Invisible Scripts myself!
The solution is not to ignore these scripts. THEY’RE REAL! And they make us feel uncomfortable for a reason.
I learned to listen to what they were really telling me. For example, when most people get negative comments, they get scared and say, “Ok, the solution is to never write anything controversial.” But how limiting is that!
When I started, a negative comment like this petrified me:
But I didn’t quit. I kept working. And I found that I could conquer that Invisible Script and move on to the next step.
Just like every step of starting your business. You won’t make a million dollars your first year. Nobody does! But taking it step by step, you can start to get small results…then bigger…until finally, people look at you and say, “Wow, I wish I could do that.”
After years of cataloging my own Invisible Scripts, I started to see the patterns that had held me back — and probably hold a lot of us back from starting a business.
The code word for starting a business is OVERWHELM.
It’s not just the technology part of starting a business online (actually, that’s the least of it). It’s knowing what idea to pursue. And whose advice we should follow. And eventually, the overwhelm leads back to ourselves — am I good enough? Why would anyone listen to me? Am I ready to try this, or do I need more experience?
It’s so easy to get STUCK in this loop.
When I asked over 275,000 readers how long they’ve been thinking about starting a business, the answers were shocking:
What?!
Almost HALF of these people have been thinking about starting a business…for years.
“Years” is too long to wait and hope.
Maybe it’s time to start today.
I learned not to suppress these fears, but instead to embrace them. I learned not to try to solve them with information, but with ACTION. Am I good enough? I don’t know. But instead of waiting around, I decided to find out.
I got better every step of the way, and a few years later, even though I didn’t have a credential like a CFP, I’ve helped thousands of people improve their finances, earn more money, find dream jobs, and start their own businesses.
What a shame to let our Invisible Scripts remain unexamined. And what an even bigger shame to never reach our potential.
Fortunately, there is GOOD NEWS.
Step 1 is identifying your Invisible Scripts, which you’ve already started to recognize.
The next step? Acknowledge them…and then systematically conquer them.
When you decide to ignore those little voices in your head, the results can be absolutely amazing — faster than you think.
Let me show you some of the startling numbers.
Let’s say you take an idea and turn it into side income. You’re still working at your full-time job, but you’re putting in a little more time to earn $500/month on the side.
If you want, you can “tune” that number to $1,000/month…or $2,500/month…or $10,000/month. Or you can automate it.
Imagine an extra $1,000/month going straight into your checking account…month after month…for the rest of your life.
What could you do with an extra $1,000/month?
One day, you might find yourself actually earning more on the side, in less time, than you do at your day job.
The most eye-opening truth in all of this?
There is nothing stopping you from building your own business. One that pays YOU to live the life YOU want.
When I started, I had no idea what “success” really looked like. In fact, I resisted running ads on my blog because — ugh — I said, “if it doesn’t cover my rent, it’s not worth it.”
My rent! That was my dim dream!
Now, my business generates enough income to cover my rent in just a few hours of the first day of the month. And the best part is, thousands and thousands of successful students have used this system to grow their own income.
I want to make success crystal clear for you: Use the calculator below to see precisely how much your business can generate. It might seem hard to believe because you haven’t started yet (just like how I used to be amazed that people made $20/hour!), but I’ve been there — and I’ve helped many students achieve precisely these kinds of results.
You can, too.
See how much adding a second product to your business can make you
Advanced students only. Add even more products. Behold, the power of scale!
“I’m doing over $10,000 per month when previously I thought in a good YEAR I might like to do $10,000. Overall, I feel less stress about finances. I used to wake up in the morning and kind of feel like I had to go, go, go. Making money to pay for all these things. Thinking ahead and saving and scrimping. Having a growing business takes a lot of that stress and pressure off of me, knowing that you have this asset that’s going to keep on allowing you to live your life without having to feel like you’re in the rat race every single day.”
10XTRAVEL
“What helped was understanding how to put the marketing together. This month, we’ll end on $30,000 in revenue — our largest month this year with just under 8,000 subscribers. Because of my online business, my family and I are leaving soon to travel to Europe for 2 months, and hang out and run the business while we’re there. This is something we’ve wanted to do for years.”
HAPPEN TO YOUR CAREER
One of the best parts of having your own business is that you’re in control. You can decide what you want to do — and how and when. This allows you to build a business to fit your life.
If you don’t have an idea, you can follow a step-by-step process to find one.
Some people just want a little side business that gives them some extra guilt-free spending money every month — and that’s great. Other people want more. That’s great, too!
Here’s a look at the products I’ve created over the years. What do you notice?
I grew at my own pace. Some years, I went slow. Some years, I launched multiple products.
Some of the products are less than $100. Some are over $5,000.
A business allows you to grow at your own pace. If you want to grow faster…you can! But if you want to keep it small or slow down because you have other priorities in your life, you can do that, too.
An asset pays you — even while you’re sleeping. Take a look at your own finances: If you stopped working today, what would you have to show for it? Yes, you have skills. And hopefully, you’ve invested in a 401(k).
But a business allows you to create an asset that can generate income for years to come.
For example, I created a product over 6 years ago that still generates tens of thousands of dollars every month.
When you create your own business, you’re going to work — just like you work now — but after that work, you’ll have an asset that’s yours. Nobody can take that from you. And that asset can produce income for years and years.
This product is so old, it’s not even in
that chart above. It’s an asset that
continued to sell, even years later.
A few years ago, I decided to take a 6-week vacation. Every year.
No computer. No email. No business (well, I spend 1 hour per week on my business while traveling — the rest runs in the background).
My wife and I stay at the world’s best hotels, while eating street food and going deep on culture and design.
Here’s how this happened.
For our honeymoon, my wife and I were planning to take an 8-day safari. We were eating out with friends who asked us what we were thinking of doing.
“We’re going to go on safari. Maybe 8 days in Kenya,” we told them.
“That sounds amazing,” one of them said. “When we got married, we took 6 months off! We still remember it.”
Hold on a second — 6 MONTHS?
The next couple told us they took a year off and traveled around the world.
My wife and I walked out of that dinner with 2 questions:
What if we expanded our dream of how long we could take off? Where did we come up with 8 days, anyway?
So we decided to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Italy, Kenya, India, and Thailand. We brought our parents with us to Italy — we told them, “Just show up at the airport and we’ll handle the rest” — and created memories we’ll never forget.
At the end of our honeymoon, we decided not to make this a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We decided to do it every year.
The next year, we went to India and Japan.
For this 6-week trip, I didn’t bring a laptop (just my iPad). We stayed at places like the Oberoi in Ranthambore and Aman Tokyo. We designed our own scarves using traditional Indian block printing. We also met a local couple who invited us into their apartment to teach us about Japanese interior design. And throughout my travels…
…working one hour per week…
…my business grew.
Best of all, we created memories we’ll never forget.
This is my Rich Life. Yours might be different, but you have one — waiting to be lived.
What if you could travel for 6 weeks?
What if you could take your family along?
What if your first concern wasn’t price — but the memories you’d create?
With your own business, suddenly you can step outside of the day to day and ask: “What if?”
By this point, you’ve realized you can start a business.
The most common question I get right here — right now! — is: “Yeah, but where do I find an idea?”
What they’re really saying is: “Yeah, this sounds great, but…”
The normal response is to DO MORE RESEARCH. Let me find out some facts! Let me try to finally do that thing I’ve been meaning to do for the last 3 years! Let me….
Stop and ask yourself this: If I gave you the perfect business idea tomorrow, would you know what to do?
Would you know…
Why not? Theoretically, you could find all of that “information” online for free…so why haven’t you?
I know why, because I was in the same situation. Because it’s overwhelming. Because we don’t know where to start. Because we’re afraid of failing, of not knowing who to trust, and of wasting our time.
This took me a long time to really “get.” As a logical guy, I used to think if I wanted something, I’d just decide to do it, then get it done.
If you’re reading this, you know life doesn’t work like that!
Take losing weight: There are tons of “free workouts” online. So why do we find it so hard to go to the gym? We need more than just info. Same with personal finance, cooking, maintaining good relationships…there are so many examples.
If information alone mattered, almost nobody would be overweight, or unproductive, or in debt. The truth is, if you just wanted information, you would have found it already.
There’s only one thing that really matters.
Today, you have to make a decision.
If you decide to wait until “someday,” that’s a decision.
But I’d like to suggest a different path:
Make a decision to escape The Great Squeeze. Take a hard look in the mirror and acknowledge the things you really want. You want to travel for a month every year? You want to wake up every day — no alarm clock — and work on the things you love? Great. You deserve to live the life you want. Now let’s put the work in to get it.
Stop following average advice from average people. When we listen to people tell us why we shouldn’t dream — why it’s “impossible” and why we “should just be happy” — we settle for less. We minimize our dreams. And we accept a life that’s less than what could be.
Stop trying to do everything yourself. Winners get help. Atul Gawande, the surgeon and New Yorker writer, noticed a curious phenomenon about top performers.
“I watched Rafael Nadal play a tournament match on the Tennis Channel. The camera flashed to his coach, and the obvious struck me as interesting: even Rafael Nadal has a coach. Nearly every elite tennis player in the world does. Professional athletes use coaches to make sure they are as good as they can be.”
ATUL GAWANDE
Why is it that every one of the world’s top athletes has a coach or advisors — yet we don’t? And not just athletes. Politicians, entertainers, the best of the best.
If even the world’s best can benefit from advice, imagine how much WE could benefit from getting advice from someone who can give us the systems, psychology, and support we need.
Someone who can SHOW us the roadmap to success…
I’m talking about the whole step-by-step system for automating your own income and unlocking your Rich Life.
That’s exactly what this is all about.
Introducing…
Earnable covers the ENTIRE process of starting and growing your business:
Earnable gives you EVERYTHING you need.
All the exact strategies, frameworks, hands-on tactics, real-world examples, mindsets, done-for-you templates, word-for-word scripts, and hard-won breakthroughs to start and grow your own business.
It is a COMPLETE system.
And in true Ramit fashion, I’ve cut out all the B.S., all the detours, and all the marginal wins that just give tiny or one-off blips but never truly move the needle.
You don’t have to spend a decade figuring this out like I did.
You don’t have to feel alone, like you’re shouting into a void.
You don’t have to build your business by trial and error, just hoping something will work.
And you don’t have to take the word of someone who’s only built a business selling e-books teaching others how to create e-books to sell e-books teaching e-books…
We’ve distilled everything down and refined it into an uber-efficient and effective program. We’ve built a community to support you along the way. We’ve recorded online business makeovers with real students. And we’ve helped thousands of students create businesses in 50+ different industries — travel, software, coaching, fitness, roofing. We know we can help you.
We’ve included all of our best material on all types of businesses — from super-flexible freelancing to powerhouse online businesses to automated “muse” businesses.
All it takes is a few hours a week to master one of the most powerful, profit-generating tools on the market.
“What I’ve learned from Ramit is way more than what I spent over 100K to learn in business school. Thank you Ramit for changing my life and helping me make a bigger impact in the world.”
“It just so happens I made my retirement plan of travel, excitement, exploration, and adventure also my business plan. It’s been amazing to live this way, especially with such an amazing team along for the ride!”
First, proof matters.
Earnable is the ONLY online business program proven over 15+ years, 50+ industries, and 42,000+ students. You don’t build that kind of track record by accident.
Not only have we helped tens of thousands of people start their own business and live their own Rich Lives, but we continually get access to massive amounts of data on what really works — which we include in the program.
Every step of the way, we asked ourselves one question:
What would make Earnable magic?
Then we took all of our answers and built them right into the program.
The end result is the most comprehensive business program available:
Forget about the years-long research process. Go from “no idea” to your first paying client in weeks.
Go behind the scenes of Verified 6-Figure Businesses — instant access to what's working now.
40+ videos and 50+ bonus guides walking you through every step of starting and growing your business.
You're never alone — get feedback and answers in minutes.
Proven and ready-to-use email scripts, right at your fingertips.
Recordings of Q&As and live teardowns. Only in Earnable.
Learn the psychology of selling by listening to actual $1,000 sales calls. Only available in Earnable.
Make $23,000 in a single day on Instagram. Launch a $422,164 product. Get these — and more — in Earnable.
Everything you need to build an automated business that PAYS YOU to live your own Rich Life.
Only Earnable includes comprehensive data from dozens of industries, hundreds of tests we’ve run — AND fresh insights, scripts, examples and case studies from our 40,000+ paying customers.
You can try to do it on your own…but why would you? If you’re serious about starting a business, give yourself the advantage of tens of thousands of people who’ve come before you.
Earnable includes specific tactics you can use right away. This is NOT some rah-rah motivational book that makes you feel good for a few days…but leaves you right where you started.
It’s NOT an e-book stuffed with “filler” content to get you to buy another, more expensive product.
And it’s NOT a mish-mash of “tips” you can find for free on Google.
Earnable is a deliberate and proven process for building a profitable business.
Earnable is designed with a ruthless focus on results. I’m not interested in “kumbaya” inspiration. I want you to succeed. That means I know every single strategy and tactic in Earnable works because I’ve tested it (and tested it again) in my own business. And my students have tested them, too.
Best of all, Earnable gives you full access to the strategies, systems, and tools that are changing the lives of my students and helping them grow their businesses — REAL businesses with REAL income — and live their own Rich Lives.
REAL BUSINESSES FROM MY STUDENTS
In just the examples above, notice the different industries: Personal styling, marketing, productivity, nutrition, college admissions, personal finance, and more.
If you’re wondering whether Earnable will work for 40-somethings, busy moms, international students, men, women, experienced entrepreneurs, first-time beginners, and everything in between, the answer is…
WE TESTED EVERY STRATEGY, TACTIC, AND SCRIPT IN THE PROGRAM!
Earnable will work for all of those categories, and more.
“I’m now able to afford extra help around the house so I can concentrate on my art and my family.”
DIGGING UP LIGHT
“On Tuesday, I worked from a meeting room at a local library, brainstorming new product ideas on a whiteboard. Then, I called up a friend and we met up for a long lunch on a whim. I had no boss checking their watch and waiting for me to get back to the office. No clock to punch. For me, that freedom has made me 10x happier than I ever was during my 13 years of being an employee.”
BECOME MORE COMPELLING
We’ve pioneered a new way to give you even more material to launch and grow your business. We call them Earnable Playbooks.
The old way: In the past, other programs gave you an exhausting list of videos, PDFs, and cobbled-together “bonus material.” It was easy to log in and be impressed by the quantity of information, but where do you start? Do you really need a 13-page PDF on how to buy a domain?
The new way: We reinvented business training from the ground up. Each Earnable Playbook is a complete, current, and step-by-step SYSTEM for accomplishing a major milestone in starting and growing your business.
For example, if you want to know about selling, use the Earnable Playbook on sales, which includes specific prices to use, videos on sales psychology, real sales tactics used by Verified 6-Figure Earners in different industries, and actual recordings of real sales calls.
No other program gives you this level of specific detail.
No other program includes such an in-depth collection of strategies, tactics, and psychology.
I think you’ll be surprised at how much artisanal work went into every Playbook…long before you ever see it publicly. Behind Earnable is years of research, development, testing, iteration, and improvement.
I want to give you a sample of what’s in a few of these Playbooks:
Welcome to your Rich Life
Unlocking your business brain
How business works: Behind the scenes of a $2,388 customer
Insider: Money mindsets for businesses that last
The magic of being paid to do what you love
The Overnight Business Idea Generator
How to find your profitable idea
How business works: Behind the scenes of a $2,388 customer
Insider: Money mindsets for businesses that last
How to find your best customers
“How do I know what to sell?”
How to make your offer irresistible
Insider: The psychology of great offers
Customer mind reading
This is what REAL customer research looks like
Your Profit Playbook
Insider: How I celebrate small wins
The power of niching down
How to make your business stand out
Pricing secrets from successful freelancers
2X your revenue with these advanced mental shifts
Insider: How to stay motivated about your business
5 advanced freelancing growth strategies
“I quit!” Make the jump to full-time freelancing
Insider: How CEOs stay productive with taxi calls
How to tap “hidden income” in your business
How to build your own customer magnet
How to get your first 1,000 subscribers
Insider: How to get yourself “out there”
“Which product should I make?”
How to price, position, and package your products
Ship it: Create your winning product this weekend
The anatomy of a $68,000 sales funnel
Watch me outline a sales page in real time
Makeover: $23K in one day on Instagram
Makeover: How to make your funnels more engaging
Makeover: How to make your sales page emotional
Makeover: $23K in one day on Instagram
WANT TO MOVE FASTER?
Check out our 5 Quick Wins in the “How to tap ‘hidden income’ in your business” video for our top ways to earn revenue fast — even if you haven’t even created anything yet.
WORRIED YOUR BUSINESS IDEA MIGHT FLOP?
Our Earnable system gets you your first paying client in 10 days or less. Check out our Playbooks on how to Find Your First Profitable Idea, Create a Winning Offer, and Get Your First Sale.
WANT TO DOUBLE YOUR INCOME WITHOUT DOUBLING YOUR WORKLOAD?
I’ll show you how. Check out the “How to turn 1 client into a $100,000 business” video for a specific framework that helps grow your business dramatically — without taking on tons of new clients.
NERVOUS ABOUT CHARGING A LOT?
Don’t be. Watch the “5 advanced freelancing growth strategies” video for a word-for-word script to tell your clients you’re raising your rates.
HATE SELLING?
Use our easy, word-for-word proposals in the “Attract Paying Clients” Playbook.
AFRAID OF REJECTION?
We’ll tell you exactly what to say to have your prospects practically sell themselves on a sales call in the “Secrets of authentic sales” video.
DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SELL?
Watch as we give Megan the exact 5-question survey to have potential customers tell you exactly what they want. It’s all in the “How to make your offer irresistible” video, including the survey.
WHAT IF YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO BUILD A BIG PROJECT?
Take 13 minutes to watch the “Ship it: Create a winning product this weekend” video. You’ll be surprised at how much progress you can make in a weekend with the right plan.
PASSIVE INCOME?
When you’re ready to earn automatic income, watch the “Anatomy of a $68,000 sales funnel” video and learn the exact automated email sequence to sell your product while you sleep.
DON’T KNOW WHAT TO CHARGE?
There are 3 ways to determine your pricing. I break them down, including the exact price I recommend for your first clients, in the “From $5,000 to $5 million+: Pricing, packaging and positioning” video.
DON’T THINK YOU’RE A GOOD COPYWRITER?
In the “Watch me outline a sales page in real time” video, you’ll see my brainstorming process for outlining a basic sales page — which you can use yourself.
NO IDEA WHAT BUSINESS TO START?
Watch me help Benjamin turn his random talents into big business ideas in the “How to find your profitable idea” video.
WHAT IF YOU’RE NOT AN EXPERT?
Check out the “2X your revenue with these advanced mental shifts” video to overcome this invisible script. (I’ll also show you how to finally get rid of that nagging “what if I fail?” voice in your head.)
AFRAID OF BEING “SALESY”?
I used to be, but then I learned how to sell in a way that felt natural and authentic. And it can be tweaked to fit your personal comfort levels. I share it in the “How the best salespeople approach authentic selling” video.
WORRIED YOU DON’T HAVE ANY “GOOD” BUSINESS IDEAS?
Relax. I’ll walk you through an exercise in the “Overnight Business Idea Generator” video that will help you generate 20 potentially profitable ideas…based on YOUR knowledge, skills, and things you LOVE. (I’ve also included multiple Profit Playbooks showing how successful 6-figure business owners used this exact exercise to find their winning business ideas.)
You get the idea: Everything you need is built into Earnable.
And the Playbooks are just ONE piece of the full Earnable experience…
Earnable is packed with lessons, data, and stories from the 15+ years I’ve run IWT. But we didn’t stop there.
We wanted to fill Earnable with strategies and stories from our best students, too. Not just any stories. These are veteran business owners running 6-figure businesses who used our business material to grow. We insisted that any students who wanted to participate had to apply and submit proof of their results. Only when we verified their income and results did they earn the title of:
We’re proud to include these students’ results in Earnable.
Proud to include the world’s most specific and current strategies, tactics, and scripts.
And we’re also proud to be able to share their “what’s working now” reports as part of Earnable.
Here are just a few of the looks you’ll get inside the businesses of these VERIFIED 6-figure business owners:
How Talia found the idea that became her 6-figure Instagram business
How Shirag went from "no idea" to 7-figures
The product mix behind Menachim's 6-figure business
The actual brainstorm that started Aaron's successful business
How Bryce and his family took a 6½ week trip to Spain last summer...while his business kept running (and many more examples)
The courses and coaching Selena offers to earn $2,250,000 a year.
You’ll learn about all of these VERIFIED 6-Figure Earners and more…
In August 2018, I participated in a week-long luxury immersion experience in Mexico City. It cost $5,000+ for six days. I spent a week taking one-on-one Spanish lessons, meeting influential thinkers in Mexico City, and even taking a private, after-hours tour of the National Museum of Anthropology.
“But the crown jewel of the experience was when I had dinner at Pujol, the #1 restaurant in North America. The blending of cuisine, culture, and language was perfect, and I even got to meet the chef and tour the kitchen after dinner. Here is me living my Rich Life in the kitchen at Pujol.”
GRAHAM COCHRANE
RECORDINGREVOLUTION.COM
“I’m notoriously bad at giving gifts. I never felt like a material good was sufficient enough to delight someone. And that usually meant I didn’t get anyone any gifts, including my sisters or my partner, Katie.
So when I met executive chef Josh, who goes to people’s homes to cook exquisite eight-course meals for couples or parties, I knew what I had to do. I hired Josh to cook a meal for Katie for Mother’s Day. She said, ‘This is the best gift I’ve ever been given!’ Now, I know that the most beautiful experiences will be the gifts I give to those I care about.”
GRAHAM COCHRANE
RECORDINGREVOLUTION.COM
With Earnable, we built the entire program, from the ground up, to fit your life. And I do mean the ENTIRE program.
NEW: Full access on Day 1
As soon as you join Earnable, you’ll get full access to the entire program. No waiting around as content is dripped out to you. No force-feeding of lessons in someone else’s order.
You’re in the driver’s seat
You can enjoy Earnable any way you like. Binge the entire program, Netflix-style. Or pick and choose which Playbooks and Lessons you want to dive into based on where you are in your business
Integrated into your commute
We built Earnable to seamlessly integrate into your life. Listen to 5 minutes while you’re waiting in line for coffee, or 30 on your morning commute. The experience works great on both mobile and desktop. You can work through your personalized plan, browse the full Earnable library, and save any piece of the program for later.
Lifetime access
Best of all, Earnable comes with lifetime access. This means you can progress at your own speed, even take a break if you’re out of town, on vacation, or just swamped for a few days. Earnable will always be here for you when you need it.
Built-in accountability to keep you focused and successful
We’ve built in accountability from the ground up:
Trust the system, do the work, and you will have a business.
Specific technology recommendations to save you time and hassle
No need to search around through an overwhelming list of technology options. I recommend the exact software and tools you can use to launch your business, save time, boost sales, automate your systems and more … the very same ones we chose after exhaustively evaluating the entire market.
These recommendations could save you thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of wasted effort.
Earnable is about action.
It’s about giving you turnkey solutions and making starting and growing your business as easy as possible.
That’s why we packed the course with detailed and actionable bonuses to make starting your business as fast and easy as possible.
Frankly, there’s just too many to list, but I can show you a few of them:
You don’t have to do it alone.
One of the available tiers, Earnable Live, includes a 5-week live online workshop — hosted by me. In this tactical sprint, you’ll make more progress on your new business than most people make in years of struggling on their own.
Here are the goals for each week of the sprint:
In these live workshops, I’ll personally walk you through the first steps in Earnable — from “no idea” to your first paying customer. (Need to miss a workshop? No problem. Everything will be recorded and shared.)
The Earnable Live tier also includes an online community where you can ask questions from other beginners, intermediate 6-figure earners, and even 7-figure experts.
Imagine being surrounded by people who want you to succeed, who are there to cheer you on, and who are eager to share what’s working for them.
Your questions about finding an idea — answered.
Your concerns about accountability — resolved.
Your worry about getting stuck — Let’s be honest! No matter how detailed this program is, you’ll invariably get stuck. It’s just natural. That happens to every new business owner. The #1 thing that helped was being able to turn to more experienced people and ask how they’d handled it.
Here’s just one example from Akash Thakkar, one of my Earnable students: “All my previous launches before taking your in-person class hovered around $8-10K on average … my most recent launch was $25K (with the exact same product I was launching before) and it was an absolute blast to manage. No stress and barely any extra time investment after the systems were in place. Amazed at the results and thank you so much for creating such great material.”
This kind of live and interactive access is priceless and can literally save you years and tens of thousands of dollars of heartache.
That’s why we built live workshops, hosted by me, and lifetime access to the online community into Earnable Live.
You don’t have to worry about getting stuck. You can share your work and get helpful feedback — right when you need it.
I’m extremely selective about who I allow into my programs because I’m in the enviable position of not needing to appeal to everyone — just the right people. I’d rather work with a small group of people who are committed to taking action than a large group of wantrepreneurs who are looking for the latest magic bullet.
Please read this carefully, because these rules are ironclad.
Earnable is NOT for you if…
Earnable is right for you if…
Here are some of the results of students who decided my programs were right for them.
I ran headlong into creating a consultation package and did my first launch. While my conversion rate for program applications was awesome (3.6%) and while people actually bought my $740 package, my biggest win has been the feedback I’ve gotten from my participants. They have grown in ways they didn’t think was possible for them. And their wins have been massive! To know — really know — that I can generate revenue and help to change people’s lives — well shit. It’s a game-changer.”
As a customer and reader, I thought the way Ramit ran his online business was phenomenal. I wanted to get into his head. ‘Who better to learn from?’ I thought. I was sure there was stuff I didn’t know I was doing wrong.”