Welcome to the first issue of this newsletter. If you’re reading this it’s probably because you read a post of mine on social media that hit a nerve. GOOD. That means this was written for you.
Before i get into the framework let me be transparent about where i am right now:
I'm on day 4 of building in public. Here are my numbers:
Newsletter Subscribers: You’re one of the first
Revenue: $0
Atoms Streak: 4 days(all green)
Hours spent building my business: ~8
Tired but I'm locked in.
I'm definitely not writing this from a million dollar mansion. I'm writing this from my kitchen table at 8pm after a full day at my 9-5 that I dread going to 5 days a week, sometimes 6. Smh. As of right now, instead of watching Stranger Things on Netflix, I'm building.
So let's get into it..
HERE’S THE LIE THAT'S KEEPING YOU STUCK
If you open any social media apps you will see the same message everywhere: “Quit your job. Go all in on your passion or you'll never be financially free”
Here's the problem with that…
It sounds brave, it sounds decisive. It's the single most irresponsible piece of advice in the solopreneur space.
But the people that are saying that either had a massive financial cushion when they ‘leaped’, or they're selling you a course about ‘leaping’. Regardless, that terrible advice isn't designated to you. It's designed to make you feel like your caution is cowardice.
It's not.
Caution is strategy when you have bills, responsibilities, and zero months of runway. Quitting your job before you've validated your business isn't brave, it's reckless. The people who actually build sustainable businesses? Most of them did it while employed.
Sara Blakely built Spanx while selling fax machines door-to-door. She didn’t quit until her side business was already making more than her salary.
Phil Knight sold shoes out of his trunk while working as an accountant. Nike was a side hustle before it was Nike.
Henry Ford worked as an engineer for Thomas Edison while building his first automobile in a shed behind his house. He didn’t leave Edison’s company until his car literally worked.
You don't want to “quit and figure it out”, you want to “build until leaving is the next obvious step”.
Your 9-5 isn't the obstacle in this equation, it's the safety net that lets you build without desperation.
THE REFRAME
Let's try something…
Take the sentence you've been repeating in your head, “my job is holding me back”, and replace it with “My 9-5 is my investor. It funds my startup. It covers the overhead. It gives me the runway to build without the pressure of making rent from a product that doesn't exist yet”
Read that one more time and let it sink in.
When you have a negative attitude about your job, you half ass it, you dread it, you show up angry and leave drained. That resentment bleeds into your evening and kills your creative energy.
But when you have a positive attitude, you think of your job as “funding for your startup”. You protect your energy inside it. You do your work well without overextending. You treat it like Block 2 of a system, not a prison sentence.
This simple reframe changed my days in a positive way because I stopped fighting my day job and started using it.
THINK ABOUT IT: EVERY VC-BACKED STARTUP IN THE WORLD WOULD KILL FOR WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE - GUARANTEED MONTHLY REVENUE WITH ZERO INVESTORS, ZERO EQUITY DILUTION, AND ZERO PRESSURE TO SCALE BEFORE YOU’RE READY. YOUR SALARY IS YOUR SEED FUNDING. YOUR BENEFITS ARE YOUR SAFETY NET. YOUR STABLE SCHEDULE IS THE STRUCTURE MOST FOUNDERS SPEND THEIR FIRST YEAR TRYING TO CREATE.
You already have what they're building toward, you just never saw it that way.
ITS NOT A TIME PROBLEM, ITS AN ENERGY PROBLEM
Saying "I don't have time” is the most common phrase as a solopreneur. Your drained from your job, when you come home all you want to do kick your feet up and relax, maybe turn on Netflix.
But you should realize that you do have time. You have the same 24hrs as every person who's built something on the side.
What you don't have is ENERGY.
..you’re spending all your energy at your job and don’t have any left for the side business.
Here's what's actually happening at 5;30pm:
You made hundreds of micro decisions at work. Each one burned a small piece of your mental bandwidth. By the time you leave, your prefrontal cortex (the part of your brain responsible for planning, prioritizing, and creative thinking), is running on fumes.
This is called decision fatigue.
It's definitely not a character flaw, it's biology.
The couch doesn’t win because you're lazy, the couch wins because your brain literally ran out of fuel for making one more decision. Including the decision to sit down and build.
“Thats not a motivation problem, thats an ENERGY MANAGEMENT PROBLEM, and those problems are solved with systems, not willpower.”
That's why the “hustle hard” advice fails. You can “hustle” with an empty tank. The best thing to do is restructure your day so your tank never hits empty in the first place.
THE 3-BLOCK SYSTEM
My entire day is built around 3 blocks. Each one has a purpose. Each one protects the others. And together, they create a rhythm where consistency isn't about motivation, it's about structure.
BLOCK 1: TRAIN | 5:00 – 6:00 AM
Before the world wakes up, I’m in the gym.
This isn’t about getting shredded or hitting PRs. This is about three things:
1. IDENTITY — When you do something hard before 6 AM, you prove to yourself that you’re the type of person who does hard things. That identity carries into every decision you make for the rest of the day.
2. ENERGY — Exercise is the only productivity hack that actually works. It’s not a metaphor. Physical training triggers neurochemical changes — dopamine, norepinephrine, BDNF — that sharpen focus, elevate mood, and increase your mental stamina for hours afterward.
3. DISCIPLINE TRANSFER — The discipline it takes to get out of bed at 5 AM when nobody’s watching is the exact same discipline it takes to sit down at 7 PM and build when the couch is calling. Training isn’t separate from business. It’s the foundation of business.
“The body is the instrument through which life is lived. Optimize the instrument.” — Naval Ravikant
BLOCK 2: EARN | 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
The 9-5. But reframed as a strategic asset, not a burden.
Here’s what I take from this block:
• FUNDING — My salary pays the bills so I never have to make a desperate business decision. I don’t need to launch a half-baked product because rent is due. I can be patient and strategic because my basics are covered.
• SKILLS — My job teaches me project management, stakeholder communication, and how to prioritize under pressure. These aren’t just job skills. They’re business skills. I’m getting paid to learn what most solopreneurs struggle with.
• STRUCTURE — The 9-5 schedule gives me guardrails. I know exactly when Block 3 starts. There’s no ambiguity. Full-time solopreneurs often waste their first year trying to create the structure you already have by default.
Here’s what I protect in this block:
• I don’t overextend. I do my job well, but I don’t volunteer for extra projects that drain my evening energy.
• I batch low-energy tasks in the afternoon when my focus is already declining.
• I avoid workplace drama and politics like a plague. Emotional energy is still energy.
The goal of Block 2 is simple: do excellent work, learn everything you can, and leave with enough in the tank for Block 3.
“The best move is building so well on the side that leaving becomes a choice, not a gamble.”
BLOCK 3: BUILD | 7:00 – 9:00 PM
This is where the employee becomes the entrepreneur. Every night.
After dinner, the laptop opens and the business gets built. No negotiation. No “let me just check Instagram first.” No waiting until I “feel inspired.”
The reason this block works is because of two rules I never break:
RULE 1: ZERO DECISIONS AT GAME TIME
Every Sunday night, I plan the week. I know exactly what I’m working on Monday through Friday. When I sit down at 7 PM, there’s no “what should I do?” moment. The decision was already made. Decision fatigue can’t kill a session that requires zero decisions.
RULE 2: PHONE IN ANOTHER ROOM
Not on silent. Not face down. In another room. The first 10 minutes of a build session determine the quality of the entire session. If I pick up my phone in those first 10 minutes, the session is dead. It takes 23 minutes to regain deep focus after a distraction. In a 2-hour window, you cannot afford that.
Here’s what I build in this block:
• Monday: Write and outline the newsletter
• Tuesday: Write social content for the week (batch)
• Wednesday: Edit, finalize, and schedule everything
• Thursday: Publish newsletter + article + engage
• Friday: Review the week’s performance + plan next week’s content
Two hours. Five nights. Every week.
Three blocks. Three purposes. One operating system for building on the side of a full-time job.
TRAIN builds energy and identity.
EARN funds the runway and teaches the skills.
BUILD creates the future.
Remove any block and the system breaks. Keep all three and you become the person who doesn’t need motivation — because the structure does the work that motivation can’t.
The Habit Tracking Layer
A system only works if you can see it working.
That’s why I track three habits every day — and only three — using the Atoms app (James Clear’s habit tracking app built around Atomic Habits principles):
✔ Morning Training
✔ Content Creation Block
✔ Newsletter Work
Why only three? Because constraint creates clarity.
I used to track 8-10 habits. Water. Meditation. Reading. Journaling. Steps. Sleep. It looked impressive on paper and lasted about 6 days before I stopped opening the app entirely.
The problem with tracking too many habits is that every unchecked box feels like failure. And when you feel like you’re failing at 7 things, you stop doing all of them.
Three habits means I can check all three every single day. And that’s the entire point: the streak builds momentum, and momentum builds identity.
After 4 days, breaking the streak feels worse than being tired. After 14 days, the habits feel like part of who you are. After 30 days, they’re just what you do. The streak isn’t tracking your behavior. It’s building your identity.
Here’s my Atoms setup (free tier — you only get 3 habits, which is perfect):
• Habit 1: Morning Training — triggers at 5:00 AM. Check it off when I leave the gym.
• Habit 2: Content Creation Block — triggers at 7:00 PM. Check it off when I finish writing.
• Habit 3: Newsletter Work — triggers at 8:00 PM. Check it off when I make progress on the next issue.
The free tier limitation is actually the feature. You can’t dilute your focus. Three habits. Three check-offs. Green across the board. Every day.
Today is Day 4. All green.
Four days doesn’t sound like much. But four days ago I had zero. And a week from now, when I’m at eleven, breaking the chain will feel physically wrong. That’s the power of visible consistency.
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits
The Identity Shift That Makes All of This Work
The 3-Block System is a framework. Atoms is a tracking tool. But neither of them matter if you don’t make one fundamental shift in how you see yourself.
Stop saying this:
“I work a 9-5 and I’m trying to start a business.”
Start saying this:
“I’m a solopreneur who happens to have a day job. For now.”
That’s not semantics. That’s identity architecture.
When you’re “trying to start something,” every evening is a negotiation. Should I build tonight? Am I too tired? Can I start tomorrow instead?
When you’re a solopreneur, the block is the block. You don’t negotiate with your own schedule any more than you’d negotiate with your boss about whether to show up to work on Tuesday.
The language you use to describe yourself to yourself is the most powerful force in your life. It determines what you do when nobody’s watching. It determines whether you sit down at 7 PM or sit down on the couch.
“The most practical thing in the world is a good theory.” — Kurt LewinAnd the most practical thing a solopreneur can do is decide who they are before the results prove it.
The Compound Math of Two Hours a Night
People underestimate what two focused hours can produce because they’re comparing it to eight distracted hours.
But two focused hours with zero distractions, a clear plan, and no decision fatigue? That’s more productive than most people’s entire workday.
Let me show you the math:
2 hours/night × 5 nights/week = 10 hours/week10 hours/week × 4 weeks = 40 hours/month40 hours/month × 6 months = 240 hours40 hours/month × 12 months = 480 hours. That’s a full work week every month. An entire year of full-time work in 12 months. Built on the side of your 9-5. Funded by your 9-5.
480 hours is enough to launch a newsletter, build an audience, create a digital product, and generate your first revenue. It’s enough to build a real business.
And you did it without quitting. Without debt. Without investors. Without risking anything except two hours of Netflix per night.
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” — Ovid
That’s you. 2 hours at a time. Every night. The compound effect doesn’t care that you have a day job. It only cares that you show up.
The Quotes I Keep at My Desk
I want to leave you with the quotes that I literally have pinned above my laptop. These are the ones I re-read on the nights I don’t feel like building. You’ll find at least one that hits.
“The professional has learned that success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work.” — Steven Pressfield, The War of Art |
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits |
“The obstacle is the way.” — Marcus Aurelius (via Ryan Holiday) |
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” — Tim Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek |
“The distance between your dreams and reality is called discipline.” — Unknown |
“Small daily improvements over time lead to stunning results.” — Robin Sharma |
“You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.” — Henry Ford |
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle (via Will Durant) |
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” — Chinese Proverb |
“Ship it before it’s perfect. Perfect never ships.” — Seth Godin (paraphrased) |
Save the ones that hit. Put them where you’ll see them at 7 PM when the couch is calling. They won’t do the work for you, but they’ll remind you why the work matters.
What’s Coming Next Week
Newsletter #2 drops next Thursday. Here’s what I’m building toward:
→ The exact content system I use to never run out of things to post. One newsletter becomes 5+ social posts without starting from scratch.
→ A screen-recorded walkthrough of my content batching session (newsletter exclusive, again).
→ My real numbers from Week 1 — followers, subscribers, impressions, time spent. Full transparency.
If this issue gave you something useful, do me one favor: forward it to one person you know who’s building on the side of a 9-5. This newsletter grows one reader at a time, and every forward matters more than you think.
One Last Thing
If you’re reading this at your desk right now, on your phone, during your lunch break or between meetings, I want you to know something:
The fact that you’re here means you’re already different from the 90% of people who will read about building a business and never actually start. You subscribed. You showed up. That’s the first rep. Now do the next one.
Tonight. 7 PM. Two hours. No phone. Build something.
I’ll be doing the same.
P.S. Reply to this email and tell me: what’s the one thing you’re building right now on the side of your 9-5? I read every reply. And if you’re stuck on where to start, tell me that too. I’ll point you in a direction.