We’re All In The Survival Business

We’re All In The Survival Business

We’re all in the survival business first and foremost. Our business is in our own survival and hopefully the survival of those around us. Nothing has changed on this front since the hunter-gatherer era where we first started forming communities around shared interests.

But what, you might ask, has that got to do with this blog and your life and business in general?

Let’s take a step back.

For a while, I’ve been toying about which direction to take this site in, and in a wider sense, my business and overall life.

A lot of people – myself included – say it’s best to find a niche and stick to it. But for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what my niche was.

I write copy and increasingly people come to me for other online business stuff. (For instance, people will ask me about email funnels or web design stuff. I’ve also started offering online funnel strategy stuff to certain customers and the like.)

This has occurred across multiple niches and multiple countries. I’ve worked with lawyers in Australia and digital agencies in Florida. I wrote an email sequence for a Russian oil company and who knows what or where the nefarious internet marketers have hired me for.

This makes it tough to answer, “What the hell are you doing and why are you doing it?”

This article is the convoluted answer to what I think I’m doing, and also why you should be thinking along the same lines.

The wider world is pretty tumultuous, and so we have to get through it and hopefully thrive despite the ups and downs.

That means we’re all in the survival business.

The Beginning

I won’t reiterate the above too much, but picture the last couple of months. Why am I doing what I’m doing, working with the people I work with and what do they all have in common?

To this point, I know a couple of things:

• I prefer working with small-to-medium businesses and I like working with solo entrepreneurs more (though increasingly I don’t work for them because not many solopreneurs have four-to-five figure budgets for a project.)
• This is influenced by my outlook on the economy at large and the changes that have occurred during my working life (and that I believe will continue to occur)
• Outside of those two things, I’ve worked with a wide variety of businesses from all over the world and in numerous industries

Let’s talk about the global stuff, because it’ll bring me on to how I worked out what all these niches and companies have in common.

Big Business Is Not Your Friend, And Neither Is The Government

The Gig Economy is a feudal system. They don’t employ anyone. This allows them huge flexibility and allows them to clean their hands of the exploitation of the contractors who “choose” to work fourteen hour days and take on all of the risk.

These same feudal overlords also allow their contractors to use the infrastructure of a country without paying in – tax loopholes mean that these companies are basically beholden to nobody. Add in the fact that the independent contractors don’t get the benefits of retirement plans or job security and you end up with a very messy system in deed.

That’s not to mention the fact that your job is going to be taken by robots if it hasn’t already been taken by cheap labour. But let’s quickly gloss over that because the last thing I want in the comments is political stuff.

We’ll avoid talking about the Government, because again, I don’t like the political stuff. But if you live in the West, it’s likely that your country has an aging population problem, quite severe demographic divides and ballooning debts which are probably never going to be solved without massive defaults.

Bearing that in mind… your Government probably has bigger things to deal with right now than your personal needs, and even if you’re a priority for them, the chances that they can do a better job of saving you than you can yourself are pretty low.

This brings us to the point.

Your Survival And Prosperity Are Your Priorities

I’ve worked with a lot of clients. I’ve worked specifically in the survival niche and financial niches, but I’ve also worked in health, law and the business-opportunity/entrepreneur niche is my main thing.

Pinpointing an overall niche across all those different things seems tough and I found it impossible for a long time, but when I got out of the “What’s the subject?” thinking, there are parallels across all of these niches and the material I write for them.

There’s always a focus on acting on your own behalf and building your own autonomy.

If you take into account the big economic picture I highlighted above: technological advancement, massive debt bubbles, tumultuous economic conditions and ineffective government policies, it’s easy to feel like everything is out of control.

There are plenty of people who feel that way. They get a Government they don’t like so they throw bricks through shopkeepers’ windows. They quit their jobs so they can go on marches about who knows what.

People feel like they have no control. As far as the big picture goes, they don’t.

But they can have at a localised level, and that’s what all the companies I work with have in common.

See a problem, find a solution. You can’t change the government’s approach to helping the elderly, but you can help a lady across the road.

You can’t make a dent in the global debt bubble, but you can make and save money.

And you can’t fix the world, but you can build your own castle.

Look at the crazy changes that are happening in the world and ask yourself, “Is there going to be more or less of this?”

The world’s going to continue to be tumultuous.  So your choice is: Are you going to prepare for that or not?

One Choice, Four Paths

You have a choice. You can build your own security and autonomy, or leave your fate in the hands of the world and its various competing forces.

This gives you four pathways based on whether I’m right or wrong.

If I’m right then the world is going to continue on its tumultuous path; the highs presenting more opportunity and the lows presenting ever-increasing shenanigans.

If I’m wrong, then everything stabilises forever. The robots make us all tea and we all do a merry dance into a Utopian future of prosperity and stability that lasts a million years.

Here are your pathways through each scenario:

If you build an autonomous future for yourself and I’m right, then you will have saved yourself a ton of trouble and potentially saved yourself and the people around you. You will be able to take advantage of the high-point opportunities and mitigate your suffering in the low points.

If you build an autonomous future for yourself and I’m wrong then sorry about that – don’t trust some guy on the internet – but hey, all things considered you’ve created a business and made your life better anyway. Great job, you’ve lost nothing.

If you choose not to build your own autonomy and I’m wrong, then despite the increased stability in the world and the politicians final representing the people… you’ve still not gained anything. Your business is where it was and your career is where it was, whereas you could have gained that little 10% and been better off.

If you choose not to focus on your own survival business and I’m right, then you’re on a boat in a stormy sea without a paddle. Can you afford to lose your job? Can your family afford to lose all of theirs?

I don’t have all the answers and I can’t save the world… but I can tell you, “In any case it’s probably better to build your own security net than hope that someone else has a spare.”

The Key To What I Talk About Here…

… And so we come back to the introduction. Why do I focus on the niches I focus on and why I do I write endlessly on ways to build businesses? What do all of the businesses that I’ve worked with all across the world have in common?

They’re safety nets. They’re potentially going to solve problems for people, make people more resilient and keep their futures out of the hands of feudal overlords.

Whether you’re trying to become healthier, make more money or improve your social circle, you’re building safety nets for yourself. If you invest in ideas, build a business, pass knowledge on or build assets for yourself, you’re fortifying yourself against whatever happens in the future.

It’s always best to be prepared and the best way to be prepared is to succeed now and store your harvest for the future – whatever it may hold.

That’s why we’re all in the survival business.