I share writing & editing lessons so entrepreneurs & founders can attract + convert high-value clients | Edited 3M+ words | Former Head of Content | Running on seltzer 🤩

I help solopreneurs and founders turn their scattered expertise into content that drives business. AKA, I get you out of the "recognition gap."

If you're stuck in the recognition gap, your content probably isn't making people think, "Holy sh*t, I need to work with this person."

I've been there.

After 4.5 years as Head of Content, I went solo and made every mistake in the book: scattered messaging, feast-or-famine revenue cycles, content that got likes but zero leads, relying on referrals like my business depended on it (cuz it did).

Then I had my 'aha!' moment: Stop trying to be known for everything. Own one specific problem so I can become the obvious solution. 

What I do now:

🏴‍☠️Duo Consulting: We help solopreneurs standardize, market, and sell their consulting offers

📈 How Solos Scale: Podcast, newsletter, and mini books for solos stuck in the recognition gap and keen to scale from $20K+ to $50K+ per month

📚 Cut the Fluff Newsletter: Exploring how solopreneurs and founders can cut the fluff in their content, business, and life

A few milestones for good measure:

→ Built a 90K+ audience in 3 years
→ Sold multi-six figures in courses to 2100+ students
→ Helped dozens of clients land $45K+ deals and scale to high six and seven figures. 

My philosophy: Your expertise and the way you frame the problem you solve is your edge. Let's package it into an offer your ICP knows, likes, and buys. 

✉️ Weekly insights: Cut the Fluff newsletter, How Solos Scale podcast 
🎯 Work with me: Duo Consulting 2:1 program 

Book a call: Duoconsulting.co

Erica Schneider

Dear everyone on LinkedIn,

You’re not wrong. But you’re also not right.

Sincerely,

Nuance

Offer design & content for scaling solopreneurs | Co-Founder @ Duo Consulting | Running on seltzer 🤩

Here's how to go viral on LinkedIn as a solopreneur in 2026:

(trust me, read this)




STOP TRYING TO GO F*CKING VIRAL IT'S A WASTE OF ENERGY. JUST MARKET THE PROBLEM, PROCESS, AND PROOF AND FOCUS ON STARTING CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUR ICP.

SHEEEEEESH.

Me: Am I really gonna keep posting on LinkedIn year after year after year after year...

My bank account: Shut up and post

Me: 🫡

If you want to grow your solo business in 2026, you only need to talk about three things in your content. (And a fourth optional moment, if you want.)

We call it the MP3 Framework. (Or MP4, if you add the optional one.)

Market the Problem. 
Market the Process. 
Market the Proof. 
(Market the Parasocial.)

That's it. That's the whole strategy.

🔴 Market the Problem means articulating your audience's pain better than they can themselves.

You're not yelling at them that they suck and making them feel sh*tty. 

You're diagnosing their problems and making them feel seen.

When you name their silent struggles, they assume you know how to solve them. 

🔵 Market the Process means showing how you think. 

You're letting people see your decision-making, your frameworks, your approach. 

This is how you stand out from everyone else selling the same category of results. Your process is your differentiator.

It also proves you have experience solving the same problems you're preaching you understand. (Trust builder, baby.)

🟢 Market the Proof means showing receipts. 

Before/afters. Specific numbers. Screenshots. Client stories. 

This answers the question every prospect is secretly asking: "But will it work for me?"

Well yes, indeed it will, and here is the proof.

These three are required. 

🟡 The fourth P - Market the Parasocial - is optional.

This is the content that makes people feel like they know you as a person, not just as an expert. 

Your kids, your therapy breakthroughs, your existential crises. These behind-the-scenes moments make people feel like they know you, which makes them like you, which can accelerate trust.

But parasocial content can also become a trap.

We've seen solos with 50K, 70K, 100K followers who are struggling to pay the bills. They built an audience of people who like them but don't need them. Affinity without demand.

So if you're naturally drawn to share personal stuff, go for it. But only if the first three Ps are already running. 

---

Stop overthinking your content.

Start with Problem, Process, and Proof. Add parasocial if it gives you energy.

That's how solos scale in 2026.

I'M HONORED TO INTRODUCE YOU TO SUPER DING-DONG CONSULTING. Nick Bennett 🏴‍☠️ and I did something so stupid, and I must share. 

Duo Consulting is doing really well, and we wanted to make it official on the books.

But we didn't want a purely partnership-based structure for many reasons.

So we created a new shared company that both of our individual companies own.

But there was a problem...

This company needed a name.

So we pondered.

And pondered some more.

And then, when we thought we couldn't ponder for a minute longer, it hit us.

Why not name it an inside joke? I mean, who cares, right? 

And thus, SUPER DING-DONG was born. It's the shadow company that owns our company. Clients will still get invoiced by Duo Consulting.

The pleasure I get from seeing this stupid name in my inbox is unmatched. 

I giggle.

And now I hope you, too, giggle.

This is the best time of year to ask yourself: What kind of business do I want to build?

We don’t ask ourselves this enough. Especially if we’re talented, capable, and successful by “winging our way through things.”

Most of the solos and micro agency owners we work with doing $50k+ months have no idea what they’re working towards.

They’re just working.

That’s only sustainable for so long.

By the way I don’t mean sit down and answer:

“What revenue targets should I hit?”
“How many clients do I need?”
“What's my growth trajectory?”

I mean ask yourself: 

"What's my vision for this business?"

This shifts your focus to what you're working toward, not just the tactics and targets to get there. 

It makes you think deeply about: 

"How does this business fit into the life I want to live?"

We’re releasing a mini book in a few days that’ll go deeper into this. You can subscribe to our newsletter How Solos Scale in my profile. 

In the meantime, like I said, it’s a great time to throw some brain cycles at this.

Alright alright everyone sit down please. That’s enough chitchat. 

STARTS WRITING ON CHALKBOARD.

Ok so let’s pick up where we left off. 

“Ignoring advice that keeps you poor.”

Tony, can you remind the class what kind of advice keeps you poor?

Ummm, chasing likes?

Aha! So you do pay attention. Fantastic.

CHASING LIKES

Deb, what’s wrong with chasing likes?

It can trick our brains.

Yes, elaborate please?

Well, the more likes you get, the better you feel, so you chase that feeling. It’s like a drug.

Indeed, we call this:

CHEAP DOPAMINE

Sasha, what’s better than cheap dopamine?

Money?

Haha, money is amazing. But it’s only part of it. What’s the real goal of being on social if you’re a consultant?

Finding the right clients?

Yes!

RESONANCE 

A byproduct of resonating with the right people is making money, so you weren’t far off Sasha.

Teacher Erica?

Yes, Zach?

If chasing likes is a trap, why do so many people preach this strategy?

Excellent question Zach.

The short answer is: We’re human, and we all want to fit in. More likes feels good, and it’s also a good strategy for traffic businesses or SaaS founders in growth mode. 

But not for consultants who run relationship businesses?

Exactly.

You only need 10-30 clients a year. And they don’t need you to teach them how to do something. They need to feel like you understand their problem so well, they can trust you to fix it.

So when you teach people how to do something, it’s more likely to get likes?

Yeah. Teaching posts attract lower maturity lower ticket buyers trying to figure it out on their own.

But when you market the problem and your process for solving it, that’s how you reach people looking to spend $5000+ for a partner, instead of <$150 for a self guided experience or SaaS.

Alright that’s enough for today. Great job everyone.

Class dismissed.

Year 1 of going solo feels the most exciting, but it's the most dangerous. Especially if you're making good money right off the bat.

Cuz it's way too easy to fall into this trap:

Year 1: Clients show up. Revenue happens. You're like, "Holy shit, I should've done this years ago."

And then somewhere around months 12, 14, 18: It stops. The pipeline thins out. The inbounds dry up. You're not sure what changed, but something definitely changed.

What happened?

Your network was clearing the decks.

Most of those early clients were people who'd been waiting for you to go solo. Old colleagues. Friends-of-friends. That one person who'd been in your DMs for months. 

Maybe some were evidence of product-market fit. 

But most were pent-up demand with a shelf life.

And that shelf life is about 12-18 months.

A rough map of how it plays out:

Months 1-6: The flood. More leads than you can handle. You're saying no to people. Life is good.

Months 6-12: Still cruising. A few renewals, some referrals from early clients. You're heads-down on delivery. Marketing falls off, but whatever cuz pipeline feels fine.

Months 12-18: Things slow down. You notice it but explain it away. Slow season. The economy's weird. "I've been so focused on client work." You haven't posted consistently in months, but whatever.

Month 18+: Panic. Pipeline's empty. And you realize you have no idea how to actually generate demand because you've never had to. Everything before this was gravity.

Now you need to climb. And you don't have the equipment.

If this is hitting a nerve, please know two things:

1. This is normal and almost everyone we work with goes through it
2. Once you realize it, it's fixable

At Duo Consulting, we help solopreneurs stuck around $30-50k months fix your offer, fix your messaging, and build the systems that help you escape the Recognition Gap (the distance between what problem you solve and how many people know it).

Not how many people know YOU, cuz even if you have tons of followers, if people can't name the problem you solve, you're in the danger zone.

Getting out of the Recognition Gap is the difference between "I have to move mountains on every sales call" and "people show up ready to buy."

DM me if this resonates and let's talk.

“I hit up my referral partners and for the first time ever I heard nothing back.”

Yoooo this is a scary moment. And it usually happens around months 12-18 of your solo biz.

Why?

Cuz pent up demand from year one has a shelf life.

It’s not unusual in our world of former tech operators to hit $20k, $30k, maybe $50k months within year one.

If you’re good at your job and well-connected in-house, you likely have old colleagues and friends-of-friends excited to hire you.

Almost everyone we know taps into this network. 

Some of them even get hired to contract for the company they just quit. It’s crazy!

But yeah it doesn’t last. Nor should it, because a sustainable biz must be built on more than your existing network. You have to tap into the wider market if you plan to survive long term.

So if you’re in months 12-18 right now and things are starting to feel a bit weird, this is your window.

Build the machine while you’ve got runway. While you’ve got confidence. 

It’s so much harder to fix this stuff when you’re scared and broke than when you’re stable and thinking clearly.

And if you’re already in the panic, it’s not too late, but you gotta move.

The lie of the year-one-to-year-two transition is that it’ll keep working even if nothing changes.

If most of your clients aren't getting results, is that their fault or yours?

Nick and I ask all the consultants we work with to do a client audit. Rate every client on a scale of 1-10. Not just outcomes, but energy. 

Did you enjoy working with them? 
Would you work with them again?
Did they follow your advice?

One client recently told us he wanted to give almost everyone a 1. 

A ONE out of TEN. Yikes.

He'd never looked at his roster like that before. And when we dug into why, the answer was the same across the board: 

They weren't doing anything with the strategy he delivered.

His first instinct was frustration. "I gave them everything they needed."

But after seeing this pattern over and over again, we've come to believe, as harsh at it sounds... 

Our failures as consultants are ours, not our clients'.

There's only so much "I took on a bad client" to go around. 

At some point, if no one is executing, if no one is getting results, if your brilliant strategies are collecting dust on a shelf somewhere, the engagement model is the problem. Not the client.

The consultants who make the most money? They drag their clients to glory.

Not "here's the plan, good luck."
Not "I'll check in next quarter to see how it went."

They stay in it. They do the work alongside. They build execution into the engagement so the client can't not succeed.

Like it or not, what people pay for is the likelihood that they will actually be successful. That the thing will get done. That someone will make sure it happens.

If you're a consultant right now wondering why your clients aren't getting results, stop asking what's wrong with them.

Start asking what's missing from your offer.

PS. Thanks to Rachel Elsts Downey✨and the Share Your Genius team for making us sound amazing every week.

Liam 2x’d his revenue in 2 months (without working more hours). Here’s how we took him from $40k to $80k mrr in 60 days:

When Liam came to us, he was running a successful fractional growth practice. Four clients. ~9k average retainers. Referrals coming in left, right, and center.

But he was stuck.

He was working 60-hour weeks doing all the button-clicking himself. LinkedIn ads, Google ads, reporting, everything.

He had no capacity to take on the referrals people were sending him.

He was actually telling his network to stop sending deals because he couldn’t handle more work.

And his positioning was generic. He sounded like every other demand gen consultant in the market.

Here’s where he is now:

Running at $80K/month. That’s a $1M annual run rate.

7-8 active clients at ~12k retainers with pricing power to push higher.
Full contractor team operational at ~70% margins. All running through ClickUp with proper workflows.

Capacity to take on 3-4 more accounts.

Here’s the insight that unlocked everything:

Liam isn’t a paid media consultant. Paid media is table stakes. What he actually does is help companies stop being over-reliant on a single source of pipeline.

Once we nailed that positioning, everything else fell into place. The offer made sense. The pricing made sense. Conversations with prospects got easier because he could finally explain why he’s not just another fractional marketing hire.

The other piece: Liam pushes back on founders. He won’t be an order taker. That’s a feature, not a bug. But he wasn’t articulating it. Now it’s part of his positioning, and it resonates with the exact clients he wants to work with.

Two months. Doubled his revenue. Built the infrastructure to scale past where he was stuck.

That’s what happens when you stop selling your time and start selling a point of view.

DM me if you’re doing $30K+ mrr and want to scale without working more hours.

"I have enough deals in my pipeline, but I need help standardizing my scope."

All five of our latest clients said this when we asked what's going on in their business. This means:

-The demand is there 
-People want to work with them 
-But every new deal feels like starting from scratch 
-Every engagement has a different scope, different deliverables, different timeline
-They're customizing everything because they haven't figured out what "the work" actually looks like when it's repeatable

You know you're here if:

🤪 You dread writing proposals because you have to rebuild the entire engagement from scratch every time.

🤪 You've said yes to scope that made you miserable because you didn't have a clear boundary to point to.

🤪 You undercharge because you're not sure what the work is worth when it changes every single time.

🤪 You can't delegate anything because the "process" lives in your head and shifts depending on your mood and the client's budget.

🤪 You're technically at your highest revenue ever but you've never felt more exhausted.

🤪 You've caught yourself thinking "maybe I should just go back in-house" because at least that chaos came with a steady paycheck and PTO.

The fix isn't productizing everything into a rigid box. That's an overcorrection. 

The fix is standardization: every client engagement looks the same at the top level, even if the details vary. 

A clear arc. Defined phases. Deliverables you can name. A process you can refine over time instead of reinventing every time.

If your pipeline is full but every deal feels like a custom nightmare, you have a systems problem. And it's the reason your success is making things harder instead of easier.

DM me if you're doing $30k+ MRR and are ready to fix this.

Jay Yang

Head of Content to Noah Kagan

Deciding to drop out of college to join Acquisition.com changed my life.

But that's not where the story starts...

When I was 16, I cold-emailed Tyler Denk, the CEO of beehiiv, with a list of ideas on how I could help. That email turned into an internship where I built beehiiv 101 - a course that’s helped hundreds of users unlock the platform’s potential.

At 17, I sent Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, a 19-page pitch deck breaking down gaps in his social media and email marketing - and how to fix them. That landed me a role as Head of Content, where I led campaigns (like the one that made Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller).

At 18, I decided to try my hand at the game of business and scaled a boutique ghostwriting and creative studio to six-figures within its first year.

At 19, I dropped out of college to work at Acquisition.com on Alex & Leila Hormozi’s media team where I led the written content engine. I was their first and only internal copywriter and wrote across every major format including social, email, ads, VSLs, and YouTube.

I also helped run the marketing campaign that broke a Guinness World Record for most nonfiction books sold in 24 hours and generated $106M in three days. 

It's been a ride.

Today, I focus on three things:

First, I write books about building a career without waiting for permission. My first book, You Can Just Do Things, became an Amazon #1 bestseller.

Second, I publish The Spark, a weekly newsletter on marketing and strategy read by more than 10,000 people. It's where I test ideas before they turn into books, frameworks, or client work.

Third, I work directly with a small number of founders and CEOs on developing their brand positioning and creative strategy. If you're looking to elevate your brand, feel free to reach out :)

When I’m not working, you’ll usually find me lifting heavy things (roughly 10-12 times), playing pickup basketball, or working on my next book.

Content Strategist

I landed a $150,000 head of content role at 17.
How?


I sent a pitch deck.

It was 19 slides - that broke down Noah’s social and email funnel… and how it could be improved.

On top of that, I sent 9 ready to be published pieces of content.

Why does creating pitch decks work?

Because it eliminates the two most common friction points employers have:

1. Who are you?
2. Can you help me?

By doing the work upfront, you show:

1. You want the job
2. You can do the job

I call this “The Permissionless Approach”.

Wanna see the pitch deck I sent?

Comment “PITCH” and I’ll DM you!

(Make sure to send me a connection request so I can message you)

No alternative text description for this image

Hi, I’m Jay Yang. 👋 
Got a bunch of new connections, so wanted to reintroduce myself.

A hill I'm willing to die on:
I believe you don’t need permission to create your own opportunities. 

When I was 16, I cold-emailed Tyler Denk, the CEO of beehiiv, with a list of ideas on how I could help. That email turned into an internship where I built beehiiv 101—a course that’s helped hundreds of users unlock the platform’s potential. 

At 17, I sent Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, a 19-page pitch deck breaking down gaps in his social media and email marketing—and how to fix them. That landed me a role as Head of Content, where I helped run campaigns (like the one that made Million Dollar Weekend a New York Times bestseller). 

At 18, I decided to try my hand at the game of business and scaled a ghostwriting and creative agency to six-figures within its first year. 

At 19, I self-published my first book You Can Just Do Things, which became an Amazon best-seller, and dropped out of college to work at Acquisition.com.

It's been a ride.

What I learned:
Most things in life are way more achievable than you think. If you decide what you want, and go after it with full effort and intensity, the world will bend to your will far more easily than you might think. You can just do things!

Today, I focus on two things:

1️⃣ I write books about building a career without waiting for permission. I'm working on my second book right now. 👀 

2️⃣  I publish The Spark, a weekly newsletter on marketing and strategy read by more than 10,000 people. It's where I test ideas before they turn into books, frameworks, or client work.

(You can subscribe free here: https://lnkd.in/gcsRwcSp)

When I’m not working, you’ll usually find me lifting heavy things (roughly 10-12 times), playing pickup basketball, or hanging with my family.

If any of that tickles your fancy, welcome to my corner of the internet. 🤝 
~~
Ps. My story may look like a straight line, but there were countless mistakes, dark moments, and f*ck ups along the way.

I give a TON of credit to the incredible mentors and people who took a chance on an ambitious, naive kid.

And it goes without saying, I wouldn't be who I am without the unwavering support of my parents and brother Max Yang 🫶 

Let's keep getting after it!
- Jay

2025 was hands down the BEST year of my life.
Why, you ask? ...



I followed through with my goals.

How?

Accountability.

For every single goal that I had:

• Gaining 10 lbs. of lean muscle
• Growing my Instagram to 250,000 followers
• Running a marathon

... I had an accountability buddy (or buddies).

2026 is no different.

I just wrapped up a 2 HOUR Q1 2026 planning session with my friends - and it was AWESOME (!!)

We each wrote down what we wanted to START doing, KEEP doing, and QUIT doing.

Then we wrote down the inputs of how we would measure progress.

• Austin Kennedy's going to be posting content every single day. 👀

• Luna Bitar's focused on scaling her app to $5k mrr. 📈

• Sofia Marin's writing 300 words a day towards her first book! 🔥

• Connor Burd's locked in on scaling his app to the moon 🫡

• Thomas Tsiftilis's goal is to land an internship at an early-stage fin-tech startup ⚒️ 

• And I'm posting 2 reels every day on Instagram + working on my second book 😈 

2026 is gonna be HUGE (!!)

What's one of your 2026 goals? 👇

Hot take:
One of the best ways to network is in fact NOT to be interested…


But instead to be interesting.

Be valuable. Have a skill set. Be someone worth knowing.

No one wants to hang around someone who's needy.

This is Frank Lofaro... and he changed my life.
Here's the story:


When I was in high school, I used to binge watch the vlogs the Acquisition.com team put out. One of the recurring characters was Frank ‘the Tank’.

He started as a recruiter, was promoted to director of recruiting (where he hired over half the team), then became director of workshop operations.

So when I joined Acquisition.com... I'll admit I was nervous. I'd been watching these people for years. Now I had to work alongside them.

One of the first people I opened up to was Frank. I told him I was feeling some imposter syndrome being around so many talented people.

He looked at me, smiled, and stopped me mid-sentence.

“Jay, stop. You totally belong here. There’s a reason you were recruited.”

Then he told me a story that’s stuck with me:

→ “Eagles fly high. Pigeons fly low.

If you think you’re a pigeon, take a look around.

If all you see are eagles, chances are… you’re an eagle too.

And if you still doubt that you’re an eagle, just give time time. Pigeons can’t fly at eagle's height for long.”
 
And that’s just one of the many lessons I learned from Frank.

When I joined Acquisition.com, I came in knowing a lot about content and media, but almost nothing about business.

Frank woke up at 3:30 am every morning with me for two months straight and jammed on business and scaling (Yep… you read that right).

And the result?

The other day I was talking to a guy who owns a moving company. He said his business had stalled out and was at the same revenue level for the past few years.

I asked him how he was getting customers, what margins were, and whether he could take more customers.

I realized his margins were getting crushed because his price was too low.

I told him his offer was commoditized and he needed to find ways to increase the perceived value so he could raise prices.

He was shocked I could diagnose it that fast with almost no context.

And it was because of all the pattern recognition I learned with Frank.

Honestly, I feel like such a weapon now. 

Frank, thank you for helping me believe in myself.

Thank you for waking up at 3:30 am to work through business problems with me.

Thank you for being my basketball buddy, and for always being willing to listen.

Most of all, thank you for being a great friend.
~~
Go follow Frank Lofaro to improve your business & people & process acumen!

When I was 17, I landed a role as head of content to Noah Kagan.
It completely changed my life. Here're my top 10 lessons:


1) Work backward from your Dream Life
2) Test, then invest
3) Pay attention to your money relationship
4) Build an email list
5) Focus on ONE goal
6) Double down, double down, double down
7) The Name Test
8) Have more patience it will work out
9) Don’t let work consume your life
10) If you don’t ask, you won’t get

There are so many more lessons that I’ve learned from Noah.

But my BIGGEST takeaway is to find people that inspire you… and go learn from them.

You don’t need permission. Ask!

Love ya, Noah Kagan 🫡

10 lessons from Noah Kagan

Have a bunch of people asking to join the LinkedIn group I made.

Should I open it up to the public? Will only do it if more than 25 people comment "YES" on this post.

I gained 2,000 followers in one week.
Here's how:


Step 1: Survey the landscape

Whenever I'm starting a new project or entering a new field, I try to gather as much context as possible.

I texted my LinkedIn influencer friends for advice on how to start posting on LinkedIn well.

They gave me great advice:
• Post ~5 times a week
• Post in the morning (more people are active)
• Post stories / personal posts on Sundays
• Saturdays have the worst engagement
• Focus deeply on your hooks (it's diff than every other platform)
• The first 15min after your post is live is most important to get engagement
• Comment underneath other people's posts with insights

Step 2: Define my goal

I'm not here to waste my time and yours posting AI slop and "7 reasons why you need to mediate" BS.

I'm here to share my story. To test ideas before they become newsletters and book concepts. To inspire people. And to sell my book You Can Just Do Things.

How can you win if you haven't defined what "winning" means?

Step 3: Don't reinvent the wheel

A friend told me that giveaway posts were doing well.

(This is when you tell people to comment and then DM them a free gift)

So I gave away the pitch deck that helped me land a $150,000 role at 17.

This brought in 1,000 new followers.

Then (and here's where it gets good), he told me to make a "reintroduction post" where I reintroduce myself and my story to all my new followers.

This brought in 500 new followers.

Bang bang.

Then... I shared a mega 10-slide carousel on lessons I learned working with Noah Kagan.

Bang - another 300 followers.

I told my friend what happened and he said, "Good. Now do it every month."

Mind blown.

So be on the lookout for more goodies ;)

Step 4: Don't do it alone

I created a group chat with 4 other creator friends who are also going hard on LinkedIn in 2026.

We share tips, give feedback, and just overall send good vibes to each other.

I'm definitely more consistent because I'm not doing this LinkedIn thing alone.

Hope this is helpful!

I'm having a blast figuring this platform out.
- Jay Yang

Ps. I truly believe one of the best things you can do for your career is write online. Not only do you hone a foundational skill, but you also attract other like-minded people.

I can point everything great that has happened in my career back to my decision to start writing online in 2021.

If you're debating if you should start but don't know where to start, try this:

• What did you learn this past week?
• What are your goals for next week?
• What are you thinking/struggling with?

Cheers! 🤝

Weekends are for building 🫡 

Can anyone guess what I'm making?👇

Connecting people together is my love language.

Comment below. How can I help you? 👇

A hill I'm willing to die on: STOP networking. Skip the networking events. Skip the coffee chats. Skip the "can we connect?" LinkedIn requests.

Build yourself into the type of person the people you want to network with WANT to hang around. That's the only hack.

The weeks after the holiday season is always weird for me.

I move slower. I take more time to rest. I reflect a lot.

And the past few weeks have been no different.

2025 was the best year of my life.

• I scaled my ghostwriting agency
• Wrote my first book
• Dropped out of college
• Moved across the country
• Ran a marathon
• And had a ton of internal revelations living on my own for the past year.

I had a friend ask me what my 2026 goals were.

I expected myself to say more followers, more money, more recognition, and feeling “happy”.

But my answer surprised me…

I said, “peace”.

And I've been thinking about why that caught me off guard.

I think when you're young, you want external things (attention, money, recognition, validation). You think if you just get enough of those, you'll feel complete. So you chase them. You put your head down, grind, and tell yourself you'll figure out the rest later.

But the older I get (and I know, I'm only 20, but still), the more I realize those external things were never really the point. The things I actually wanted were internal all along (close relationships, freedom, confidence, and feeling at peace).

Sure, I still have external goals.

• I want to write my second book.
• Record more videos for Instagram.
• Buy my first real estate property.
• Bench 225 lbs.

But for the most part, I just want to continue compounding the momentum I built in 2025. I want more good days.

And maybe that sounds like my ambition is quieting down.

But I actually think it's the opposite.

I saw this tweet the other day from James Clear. Dan Go asked him what a normal day of work looks like, and he said:

"Wake up without an alarm. Read and write in the morning. Eat lunch and go for a walk. Interviews and calls in the afternoon. Lift. Eat dinner. Family time."

That's it. Nothing flashy. No private jets or crazy launches or viral moments.

And I don't know. Something about that hit me. It's so simple. Most people would look at that and think it's boring. But I think that's the whole point.

A good life is just a string of good days. And that? That's a really good day.

So I'll leave you with a question I've been sitting with:

If you couldn't tell anyone what you were working on, would you still work on it?

I'm still figuring that out myself.

The highest performers I know are rubber balls not glass balls, they bounce they don't break.

Kevin Kim’s got a mean serve 😮‍💨🥲

Creator Partnerships | 8+ Figures in Creator Partnerships Closed

LEAVE YOUR HOUSE!

I work from home. It's easy to stay home. Too easy.

But the amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success - professionally and romantically. (From Scott Galloway's newest book).

In the age of remote work, it's easy to become sedated by an unremarkable cycle of waking up, working, scrolling, eating, and sleeping.

You forget to live.

Here's what's been getting me out lately:
- Indoor volleyball
- Pickleball with Jay Yang
- Hitting the gym
- Pickup basketball
- Working at a cafe or friend's office

Home is for sleep and recharging. That's it.

Remote work is a privilege. Don't let it become a prison.

What's your go-to reason to leave the house? 👇

Well this post blew up...
Want the pitch deck?

My hands hurt from replying and messaging everyone 😅 
And I'm pretty sure I missed a bunch of you (sorry!)

So here's the link to the pitch deck for free:

https://lnkd.in/gQEeTjwm

Enjoy!

Ps. If you use "The Permissionless Approach" - please DM me... I'd love to hear your story (!!) 

Pps. If you click around my website, you may find some other juicy pitch decks 👀

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The Battle

Erica Schneider

Jay Yang

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Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Erica Schneider

Jay Yang

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Erica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJay Yang's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreErica Schneider's LinkedIn Performance