I talk about digital writing & personal progress

Here's a quick rundown of how I've spent my last 5 years:

1. Studied math and played football at Princeton. I graduated in 2018 with a degree in financial engineering and played center for the Tigers. In college, I was a 280-pound offensive lineman, so for the last 5 years, I've had to completely rewrite my personal operating system on the health & fitness front. I currently weigh 185 pounds and have learned a lot along the way!

2. Graduated and immediately started working for BlackRock in New York City. I worked as a junior hedge fund trader for 4 years, focusing on global macro markets. This was my dream job and the only corporate job I've ever had. In fact, it's the only job *interview* I've ever had (since I interned there as a junior in college).

3. Realized working for someone else was not going to be the long-term path for me. 12 months into working on Wall Street, I saw someone in their mid-40s ask their boss for permission to go to their son's Little League game. At that moment I realized I wasn't cut out to take directions or instructions from other people for very long.

4. Started to write on my old blog, then on Twitter. Rather than quit immediately, I started to passively explore other opportunities by writing online, starting out on my old blog (which no one knew existed), then transitioning to Twitter in July of 2020.

5. Changed my trajectory with a 30-day writing challenge, which led me to start Ship 30 for 30. In September 2020 I was ready to give up writing entirely. But I gave it one more shot, this time moving from a weekly blog post to a daily Twitter thread. The challenge was a huge success. It took me 9 months to reach 100 followers and 1 month to go from 100 to 2,000. And that personal writing challenge turned into the foundation of Ship 30 for 30, which started as nothing but a Slack accountability group to help people publish consistently.

6. Scaled Ship 30 while working remotely for all of 2021. I built and scaled Ship 30 with Nicolas Cole to over 2,000 students in 2021—all while continuing to work full-time (remotely) for BlackRock. But towards the end of 2021, Ship 30 hit an inflection point and it no longer made financial sense for me to continue working on Wall Street.

7. Left BlackRock in March of 2022 to write and build on my own. After weeks of weighing the pros and cons and trying to project my path forward, I made the decision to leave BlackRock and chart my own path. 15 months into making that decision and I'm confident it's the best one I've ever made.

Dickie Bush 🚢

Recently, I coached a small mastermind of entrepreneurs with one ambitious goal:

To grow take-home profit by 50%+ during our first 6 months working together. 

So, I wrote the manifesto I wish someone handed me 5 years ago.

Here are 9 business principles that have served me well:

1. Speed is king

Your goal as an entrepreneur is to:

• Build things faster
• Collect cash faster
• Answer questions faster
• Respond to people faster

This does not mean act recklessly.

But it does mean questioning the tempo & timeline of the way you & your organization currently operate.

2. Raise your standards

You are exactly where you are because you tolerate it.

Your employees perform exactly how they do because you tolerate it.

Growth requires a raising of the minimum amount of performance you tolerate.

3. Think bigger—no one else will

To raise the standard, you must have something that motivates you to put forth new discretionary effort.

This will fall into either:

• Family impact
• Social impact
• Customer impact
• Or material goods

You tolerate the current level of your business because (whether consciously or subconsciously) it is meeting the demands you’ve placed on it.

4. Profit, profit, profit

You must obsess over the profitability of your business.

5. Data, then decisions

Doing things is easy.

Figuring out the right things to do is hard.

And it’s hard because you lack the information to make the right decision.

Which is why you need a tracking system that makes decisions for you.

6. Do the money math

Every single goal you have in this world is a simple set of equations.

And that’s especially true in business.

You should have clear models of:

• Every marketing platform
• Every payroll allocation
• Every sales process

Each should be modeled well in advance so you know exactly what you are building.

7. Solve in sequence

The people who move fastest:

• Work on things in the right order
• At the expense of everything else they could work on
• For months and years on end

This is the discipline you are going to need.

8. Care for your customer

It’s a shame, but most people in the internet education space do not give a single F about the people they work with.

9. Enjoy the ride

I can look back and smile on every single moment of my 4 years as an entrepreneur, even though I was not smiling in the moment.

Which means you can take the same approach now, no matter how challenging something is.

—
📌 The fastest vehicle to take home 50% more money right now:

Ghostwriting.

All you need to add $36,000/year is to land 1 client paying you $3,000/month.

I started a ghostwriting side hustle while working 50+ hours per week at my corporate 9-5.

And demand here on LinkedIn is huge.

Want to know how to land high-paying writing clients in 2026?

This free, 5-day email course has everything you need to get started: https://lnkd.in/gpPJpAS9

Here's some advice for anyone afraid of being laid off and replaced by AI:

Clear your entire calendar for the next week.

Use that time to immerse yourself in new AI tools like Claude Cowork.

Don't fear AI.

It won't replace you if you are:

• Using it intelligently
• To remove bottlenecks in your work
• And build yourself leverage that compounds forever

This is why I'm hosting my 2-week Claude Cowork Bootcamp starting TOMORROW.

Here's the schedule:

• Session 1: Setup & build your first Claude Skill
• Session 2: Write in-depth newsletters in minutes
• Session 3: Prepare your mind & materials before every meeting
• Session 4: Chain complex workflows together
• Session 5: Templates and browswer automation
• Session 6: Build your own custom Claude Skills

And no, you do not need ANY coding or AI experience.

But don't wait!

Enrollment closes TONIGHT at midnight.

Click here to secure your spot (before doors close): https://lnkd.in/gDzCitKk

Last January, this writer got fired.

And 2 days later?

My team & I started mentoring him.

And Warren's been running his digital business full-time ever since.

Just look at this small handful of wins he's collected so far:

• 3 sales calls & 1 new client in a single week
• Made his first $3,000 as a ghostwriter
• Booked a 6-month ghostwriting retainer
• Landed a $5,000 email course project

And if there's ONE thing you should know about him:

He's got an insanely good work ethic (even on the tough days).

For example, he got *every* possible response you can get from outreach in a 24-hour period:

• A lead telling him to “drop it”
• Another just brushing him off
• And a 3rd wanting to hop on a call

But he still kept going.

This is how I know Warren's one of the most committed students we've seen inside our Premium Ghostwriting Academy.

And clearly, it continues to pay off for him.

So, let Warren be your reminder never to give up.

I promise you, it's worth it.

📌 The good news?

It gets easier when you have a proven blueprint to follow.

That way, you can use your limited time on the simple actions that will *actually* help you make money the fastest.

Even if you:

• Suck at sales
• Don't have an audience
• Have never ghostwritten before

Click here to get instant access to the same proven blueprint Warren used: https://lnkd.in/gVpFVgvi

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐈 𝐃𝐎 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔?

I connect businesses with their ideal clients on LinkedIn using data-driven automated outreach. 


𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒?

My process has the following steps:

1. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡. Should you reach out to clients directly, or look for referral partners? What has worked best for you in the past? Perhaps you want to reach out to new markets? 

2. 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬. 90%+ of automated messages on LinkedIn are ignored. What should you say that is honest, direct, and good enough to get a reply?

3. 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡. I put the messaging into motion by creating lists of prospects, setting up the sequences, reporting and A/B testing. 

The biggest benefit is saving 10-15 hours a week growing your pipeline, time you can instead spend closing more deals.


𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐈 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐊 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔?

I create better lists of prospects than you can through LinkedIn because I have access to filters they don't give you like net worth, income and age. 

I can write better messaging than AI because I shorten it to what 10+ years of experience and data tells me works. 

To start the conversation, just reach out to connect and message me.

Bjarne Viken

Pst...don't tell anyone, I am speaking from stage again. :-)

Imran Abul Kashem was kind enough to invite me to a panel about LinkedIn. Mo Hamdouna and Tima Elhajj will join me. 

In it we will cover topics like the fear of being on LinkedIn, positioning and getting a return from spending time here. 

 #weconnectwyndham

I connect business owners and BDMs to clients on LinkedIn.

What is your purpose for being on LinkedIn?

I often review profile and usually start with that question. 

The most common answer I get is "I want more visiblity" or "I want more people to know what I do"

Then I ask; "What if a thousand people saw you on LinkedIn and no-one reached out to you or wanted to do business with you, would you be ok with that?"

I usually get a "No" and a smile indicating something.

Do you struggle to get your content seen on LinkedIn? 

The impressions from posts has gone down by 50-65% between 2023 and 2025.

Now LinkedIn is trying to get you to pay for getting more impressions or engagement.

Below are screenshots taken from how it looks like on my end. 

What do you think about this?

taplio

The Battle

Dickie Bush 🚢

Bjarne Viken

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Performance ScoreBjarne Viken's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Dickie Bush 🚢

Bjarne Viken

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);}Dickie Bush 🚢's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreBjarne Viken's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDickie Bush 🚢's LinkedIn Performance