Justin Welsh is one of the most recognized figures on Linkedin. Many consider him the ‘OG’ of the Linkedin Influencer world. He is also a diversified solopreneur that does more than $5m in revenue per year selling things like his digital course “The Operating System.”
Guest Author: Justin Welsh
2023 Recap:
- Did $2.317M as a solopreneur at ~90% margins.
- Added 14,488 students to my education products.
- Collected 1,700+ 5-star testimonials.
- Grew my newsletter from 70k to 195k.
- Nearly finished updating our house in the Catskills.
- Got LASIK surgery.
- Racked up 518k YouTube views on my Starter Story.
- Went on 25+ beautiful hikes in upstate NY.
- Traveled to Lisbon, Mexico City, Santa Barbara, LA, Boston, NYC (12x)
- Booked trips to LA, Cabo, Thailand, Jackson Hole, and Japan for 2024.
- Took my parents and in-laws on vacation 3x.
- Spoke at Main Street over Wall Street in Austin.
- Laughed nonstop at Ricky Gervais front row in NYC.
- Rebranded my entire business and website.
- Released 70+ SEO-optimized articles.
- Almost signed a book deal but passed.
- Made 7 incredible new friends here on X.
- Hit the gym, treadmill, or 4-mile walk 300+ times.
- Put the finishing touches on my new product, The Creator MBA.
- Threw my wife a 45th birthday party with 20+ of her friends in NYC.
Here are some simple lessons learned (mostly jotting these down for me):
Surround yourself with winners: I feel like I had the best business year of my life because I was surrounded by positive, optimistic, helpful people.
Stay positive: Negative self-talk, getting involved in political arguments, watching the news, trolling, etc. are all cancerous activities. Stay focused on improving yourself and your family.
Learn to outsource and delegate: I worked with Andy Kennedy, 5Four Digital, Jake Ward, Brennan Dunn, and more to help improve my business and make my processes more scalable.
Political division makes people dumber: It’s amazing how many people hate different states, cities, viewpoints, or those who are different from them because they aren’t politically aligned. Intelligent people learn to ask questions and view the world through the lens of others. Mediocre people don’t.
Parkinson’s Law is real: I pushed some things back and back in 2023 and (of course) I finished them at the deadline each time. If you want to get stuff done faster, give yourself a shorter deadline.
Twitter/X is not the real world: Whenever I travel (or just shut my computer) I remember that the world you see here is so twisted compared to the real, actual world. If you’re on here too much, you’re out of touch.
Take more chances: Do something wildly outside of your comfort zone. If you can lean into discomfort and succeed, you’ll soon realize you can do anything you want. What an awesome feeling.
If you can’t teach yourself, you’re going to fail: There has never been more information at our fingertips than this moment, right now, in the entirety of human history. If you’re asking everyone around you “How? How? How?” without trying to figure it out on your own, you’re in for a long life.
I’m sure I learned a lot more, but that’s what comes to mind at 7am this morning (note to self: journal more in 2024).
Happy New Year everyone.
Check out the original tweet here.
