Jesse Futia

Fin Ghost

Helping Real Estate Professionals build $1M brands on LinkedIn.

Co-Founder and Ghostwriter

Executive Equity Investing 

Helping busy professionals build generational wealth and retire comfortably through passively investing in real estate.

Chief Executive Officer

Wealth Science Podcast 

Interviewing the top real estate and financial experts in the World.

Host

Writer and Co-Founder @ CRE Digital | Copywriting & social media management for the world's most innovative real estate companies

Creating content on social media is digital leverage for real estate professionals. 

𝗪𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝘁, 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘄𝗼𝗻’𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗻𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗱𝗲. 

You now have two choices:

1. Create content

2. Be passed by those that do 

My story 👇

Broke college kid turned 7-figure real estate investor and writer. 

I help 7-figure real estate professionals grow their brands and drive qualified leads on LinkedIn. 

--

Hit the 🔔 and follow along each day for free tips.

Ready to grow your brand on LinkedIn to drive more qualified leads?

𝗛𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲.

My last day in uniform was December 2025.

And I still don’t know how to put 9 years into a single post.

I joined the Army because of 9/11.

I’m born and raised in upstate New York, and I was a kid watching the world change in real time. 

I didn’t fully understand everything that day…

But I understood enough to know I wanted to serve.

Fast forward:
-> 50+ countries.
-> 9 years in uniform.
-> More early mornings than I can count.
-> More lessons than any classroom could ever teach.

I learned a lot in that time. A lot.

One of the biggest lessons:

Murphy’s Law is real.

Things will break. 
Plans will change. 
The unexpected shows up right on time.

And there are thousands of things in this world we can’t control.

But our preparation and our attitude are not two of them.

The reps. 
The discipline. 
The standard.

The ability to stay steady when everything gets chaotic.

People will ask what I’m doing next.
And yes—I’m excited about what’s ahead.

But I want to say this first:

The biggest blessing of my career isn’t a rank, a title, a deployment, or a bullet point on a résumé.

It’s getting to walk away with the respect and honor of the men and women I served with.

That’s the only “retirement package” that actually matters.

To every leader who bet on me.
To every soldier who carried the weight with me.
To every teammate who showed up when it was hard, and exhausting…

Thank you.

I’m proud of what we did.

And I’m even more proud of who I got to do it with.

I'll look for you on the next objective. 

---

I'm Jesse Futia - I help CRE professionals build digital brands online to drive more leads and revenue. Send me a DM to connect.

Co-Founder, CRE Digital | Capital Raising Engine for Commercial Real Estate Investors | $50M Raised with Digital Systems | DM me to learn more

Matthew McConaughey made $18,000,000 in a single year…

…and still chose the harder path.

Not because he needed more money.

Because he wanted more meaning.

At the peak of his rom-com run, Hollywood kept offering him the same role with a different script.

Same character.
Same story.
Same safe paycheck.

He could’ve stayed in that lane forever and nobody would’ve blamed him.
Instead, he said “no” — over and over — until the industry stopped calling.

He intentionally walked into a dry season.
Not because he was lost.

Because he was refusing to be used up.

And then the pivot happened.

The roles shifted.
The respect shifted.
The legacy shifted.

Here’s the part people miss:

That wasn’t luck.
That was identity.

He wasn’t chasing attention.
He was building alignment.

And I think that’s the real lesson for the rest of us:

If you keep saying yes to the version of you that pays well…

you eventually lose the version of you that’s meant to lead.

Sometimes the most profitable decision is the one that looks like a setback from the outside:
→ saying no to the “safe” path
→ taking the uncomfortable turn
→ betting on the work that actually feels like you

Because comfort doesn’t build legends.

Commitment does.

If you’re in a season where you’re being pulled to level up, but it’s scary…
Good.

That usually means you’re close.

What’s one “safe yes” you need to turn into a “hard no” this year?

The median American has just $8,000 in the bank.

Not $80,000.

Eight.

And this is why “the economy is fine” and “people are struggling” can both be true at the same time.

Because the average balance is way higher (it’s pulled up by high earners)… but the median is the reality for most households.

Now zoom out:

→ A meaningful chunk of Americans have zero emergency savings
→ Less than half can cover 3 months of expenses with savings
→ One surprise expense turns into credit cards missed payments

Here’s why I care about this as someone watching Commercial Real Estate:

When households are thin, rent collections become fragile.

Spending shifts fast. Tenants trade down. Delinquencies creep. Turnover rises.

So the CRE winners in 2026 won’t be the “sexiest” deals.

They’ll be the deals tied to durable demand:

→ workforce / attainable housing
→ necessity-based retail
→ medical / essential services
→ anything that people keep paying for even when life gets tight

If you’re underwriting deals right now, this is a reminder:

Don’t just underwrite the property.

Underwrite the consumer.

Curious what you’re seeing: are tenants getting tighter… or holding steady in your market?

$1,000,000,000,000 is sitting on the sidelines… 

watching Commercial Real Estate.

And most people are missing what that means.

The CRE narrative has been:

“Office is dead.”
“Rates killed deals.”
“Nothing pencils.”

Reality is more nuanced.

Here’s what I’m seeing heading into 2026:

1) CRE is splitting into winners and losers faster than ever
Not “CRE” vs “no CRE.”

It’s good deals vs bad sponsors + bad basis.

2) Capital is still available… but it’s pickier

The bar is higher:
→ cleaner rent rolls
→ real demand drivers
→ stronger operators
→ realistic exit assumptions

3) Distress isn’t everywhere — it’s concentrated

Some owners need liquidity.
Some need time.
Some need a partner.

That creates opportunity… if you can move fast and underwrite clean.

4) The “boring” stuff is winning

Every cycle rewards durability:
→ essential services
→ sticky tenants
→ functional layouts
→ demand you can actually explain in one sentence

The next 12–24 months will create more wealth in CRE than the last 3 years…

…but only for the people who stop chasing headlines and start tracking fundamentals.

If you’re in the trenches right now — what are you seeing?

Where do you think the best opportunities show up first in 2026?

You can work 70 hours a week…

And still fall behind someone who owns cash-flowing assets.

For years, I believed hustle was the answer:

→ Wake up earlier
→ Grind harder
→ Outwork everyone

But here’s the truth no one tells you:

Time-based income has a ceiling.
Asset-based income doesn’t.

I’ve shifted my entire focus from active hustle → to passive systems:

✅ Land that pays me every month through long-term leases
✅ Real estate that compounds in value while tenants pay down debt
✅ AI-driven outreach that brings in opportunities while I sleep

The goal isn’t to work harder.

It’s to build leverage.

Because if your income depends on you showing up every day…

You don’t own a business — you own a job.

Want real freedom?

Start buying back your time.

99% of entrepreneurs never make it past year 3.

Not because they aren’t smart.
But because they can’t take the silence.

→ The silence when no one clicks your offer. 
→ The silence when your big launch flops. 
→ The silence when you're building something great — and no one notices.

That silence? It kills more dreams than failure ever will.

Here’s the truth no one tells you: 

Your first 1,000 days are supposed to suck.

→ No revenue. 
→ No recognition. 
→ No validation.

Just relentless iteration. 
Just stubborn belief. Just proof of work stacking in silence.

Because real entrepreneurs don’t wait for signs they’re winning. 

They keep going until it’s undeniable.

The ones who break through? They all share this:

→ Proof of work. 
→ Clarity through consistency. 
→ A message that scales without them.

They build. They share. They outlast.

That’s how you go from overlooked to unavoidable.

Keep going.

Your breakthrough is waiting.

In 2026, AI will replace 80% of what most capital raisers do all day…

Not the relationship part.
The busywork part that kills momentum.

Most capital raising still looks like this:

-> A thousand tabs open.
-> A half-written follow-up email.
-> A spreadsheet nobody trusts.
-> A CRM that’s “mostly up to date.”

And a founder wondering why “warm” leads keep going cold.

That’s not a capital raising problem.
That’s a systems problem.

Here’s the shift happening right now:

The best operators are building AI-powered capital raising systems that run whether they’re “feeling motivated” or not.

Meaning:

AI becomes the machine.

You become the signal.

Here’s what that actually looks like in 2026:

→ Every inbound lead is instantly tagged, scored, and routed
→ Follow-ups go out based on behavior (opens, clicks, replies, site visits)
→ Investors automatically receive the right info at the right time (case studies, decks, webinars, FAQs)

→ Meetings are booked without you chasing anyone
→ Your pipeline stays clean without you touching it every day
→ Your updates get drafted for you, with your voice, from your deal data

And the biggest one:

You stop “raising capital.”
You start running an investor acquisition engine.

Because capital raising is not a personality contest.

It’s a throughput game.

The winners in 2026 won’t be the loudest on LinkedIn.

They’ll be the ones with:
→ the cleanest data
→ the fastest follow-up
→ the clearest narrative
→ and the strongest trust flywheel

AI doesn’t make you authentic.
It makes you consistent.

And consistency is what builds belief.

If you’re still doing capital raising manually in 2026…

you’re not behind on “tools.”

You’re behind on leverage.

What part of your capital raising process do you still do manually that you know should be automated?

$10M in CRE capital commitments came from just 16% of our investor database.

Most sponsors think more contacts = more capital.

Wrong.

The sponsors closing 8-figure raises aren't the ones with the biggest lists. 

They're the ones with the tightest systems.

After analyzing what actually moved investors from "interested" to "wired funds," here's what the data showed:

1. The drip campaign architecture

Your investors don't wake up ready to wire $100K. They need 7-12 touch points before they trust you with their money.

2. The CRM you actually use

I've seen sponsors with 500+ "investor relationships" in a spreadsheet they haven't opened in 6 months.

If you can't tell me which 20 investors to call for your next deal in under 60 seconds, your system is broken.

3. The content flywheel

-> One market update email becomes:
-> A LinkedIn post
-> A video for your investor portal
-> Content for 3 drip emails
-> Material for investor calls

Create once. Deploy everywhere.

The reality nobody talks about:

That 16% of their database? 

They received 3x more touchpoints than everyone else.

Not because we spammed them. Because we had a system that identified who was ready and kept them warm.

Trust compounds.
Systems compound. 
Relationships compound. 

Most sponsors are out here hunting. The best ones built farms.

What's your capital-raising system look like?

P.S. - If you're still manually tracking investor follow-ups in your notes app, we need to talk.

A kid starting college this month will spend $100,000+…

…training for a job that might not exist by the time they graduate.

That sounds dramatic.

But it’s already happening.

AI isn’t “coming.”
It’s here.

And it’s eating the middle of the workforce first:
→ entry-level analysts
→ basic marketing execution
→ customer support reps
→ paralegal/admin-heavy legal work
→ junior accountants/bookkeeping
→ simple coding / QA
→ recruiters doing manual sourcing

Not because those people aren’t smart.

Because those jobs are built on repeatable tasks.

And repeatable tasks get automated.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

College isn’t the problem.

Blindly picking a major without a leverage plan is.

If you’re 18 right now, the goal isn’t “get a degree.”
The goal is: build a stack that makes you hard to replace.

My simple rule for 2026:

Don’t become the person who does the task.
Become the person who owns the outcome.

That means:
→ learn how to use AI tools like a power user
→ build real-world proof (projects, offers, results)
→ practice communication + persuasion
→ learn basic business economics (how money moves)
→ get close to revenue (sales, partnerships, deal flow)
→ specialize in a domain AI can’t “understand” without you (industry context, relationships, judgment)

AI will replace skills.

It won’t replace agency.

It won’t replace a person who can:

see the problem → make a plan → execute → communicate → lead.

That’s the new degree.

What’s one job you think is getting automated faster than people realize?

23% of people quit their New Year’s goal this week.

And by the end of January, it’s closer to 48%.

So if you’re still in the fight right now…

You’re already ahead of most people.

Week 1 is where motivation dies.

Not because the goal was wrong.
Because the process wasn’t built.

Most people rely on a feeling.
Winners rely on a system.

A system looks like:

-> same time, same place, same trigger
-> smaller daily targets (so you can actually win)
-> a scoreboard (so progress is visible)
-> a reset plan for the days you fall off

Because falling off isn’t the problem.

Staying off is.

So yeah—congrats if you’re still here.

Now tighten the screws and stack another week.

Drop a comment with what you’re still committed to in 2026. I’ll reply to every one.

After driving over 100,000,000 impressions on LinkedIn 

Here's what every client wants to know:

Who you are.

Stop talking about returns.

I've watched 100s of sponsor pitches get ignored.

The ones that landed? 

They answered the questions LPs are actually asking:

"Can I trust you with my money for the next 5-7 years?"

Your 18% projected returns don't answer that.

Here's what does:

→ How you handled your worst deal 
→ Whether you return calls when things go sideways 
→ If you've ever taken less so your investors could take more 
→ What your previous investors say when you're not in the room

The best sponsors I know don't lead with their track record.

They lead with their values.

Because here's the truth most won't tell you:

LPs can find deals anywhere. 

They can find returns anywhere.

The sponsors crushing it right now are sharing:

-Stories about deals they walked away from 
-The mentor who shaped their investment philosophy 
-How they built their team and why culture matters 
-What they learned from their failures 

This isn't about being vulnerable for likes.
It's about being known.

What's the most important thing an LP should know about you that has nothing to do with your returns?

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 400+ meetings booked | $1+ million in client courses sold

If you work in finance or real estate and want to add clients or capital through LinkedIn, send me a DM.

If you want to write a memoir or lead-gen book, send me a DM.

Adam Knorr

Sometimes I drink fish tank cleaner.

(And 5 other questionable health things I do) : 

1. I drink methylene blue. 

Methylene is a textile dye. It's also an industrial-grade fish tank clear. 

I also drink it, because some Bro Scientists think it slows aging, improves mood, sharpens cognition.

It tastes like someone stirred a glass of water and Malort with a Sharpie.

2. I've taken peptides.

Only BPC-157 to speed up injury recovery.

It's not FDA-approved, which I feel is a great sign.

3. I eat 15-18 lbs of plain Greek yogurt a week.

Those 3-pound Kirlkland tubs. Always with frozen blueberries, sometimes with honey if I want a nice little treat.

4. I mix my own electrolyte powder.

LMNT just posts their recipe on their website. Shoutout LMNT.

So I mix all the ingredients together and create my own. It's a bunch of white powders and I have to weigh everything on a scale, so I like to play Pusha T while I do this.

5. I drink ~800 MG caffeine a day. 

1-liter French Press before the coffee shop opens at 6:30.
2 16-oz coffees at the coffee shop from 6:30-11.
Sometimes a 100-200 MG energy drink in the PM. 

After writing this out, I realize I might actually need to get this under control. 

6. I tie my mental health to a social media algorithm.

I hope this post gets a lot of impressions.

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 450+ meetings booked | $1+ million in client courses sold

Recycling your best-performing posts isn't lazy. 

It's the correct strategy.

Just... Make small adjustments so you're not outright lying to people.

Why you can't expect to make money on social media by copying what works for the gurus: Exhibit A.

I know it's easy to dunk on Hormozi. And I genuinely like a lot of his ideas. 

But I also know that if he saw this post, he'd agree with me. 

The ultimate irony:

To get to the point where you can post zero-calorie platitudes and get 2,600 likes, you have to create a tremendous amount of valuable, insightful, unique content that only you could have created.

Then, the bigger you get, the more beneficial it becomes to morph into a human fortune cookie.

I quit my finance job in 2022 to become a writer. 

Now, I write LinkedIn posts. Not what I dreamed of. 

But you know what?

It works. 

My real dream is to get paid for my own content. I want to write books and blogs and screenplays that people shell out millions for. And, candidly, I expect that will happen.

But had I tried that on day 1, I would've been broke by day 30. 

See, when I started in 2022, I had no audience. I had like 1,100 connections on LinkedIn and a Wordpress full of college newspaper sports recaps.

So even if I did write a mindbending novel, it wouldn't have mattered. 

What would I have done with it?
Who would have seen it?
Where would it go?

So you know what I did instead of trying to write something I was passionate about?

I accepted a contract from Progressive Insurance to copyedit their policy docs.

And that's how I made my first few thousand dollars as a "writer."

Since then, I've made LinkedIn ghostwriting my primary service offering. Turns out I'm pretty good at it, and it pays me well. 

I have some plans in 2026 to write and sell you all some original writing. That's a big part of why I try to avoid writing content that's only "7 LinkedIn Growth Hacks!!!!"  

I want to see how people respond to my voice — not just my meta LinkedIn content about LinkedIn on LinkedIn.

If I've earned the right to give any advice to people who want to write for a living, I'm going to commit the worst possible sin a writer can and plagiarize someone else's work.

"You can be idealistic and fail, or you can be pragmatic and succeed—while continuing to fulfill your ideals as best you can."

Lot of insurance companies out there. 

Lot of policy docs that need to be edited.

2022: Quit my job, had 0 clients.

2025: 51 clients. Here are the numbers:

-> LinkedIn Ghostwriting:

$2,650–$4,000/month
7 clients (1 churned)

I've worked with my clients for 7 months–2+ years.

Deliverables: LinkedIn posts, interviews, content strategy, account management, image sourcing, scheduling.

-> Email Newsletters:

$95–$200/email
4 clients

Usually email is a ghostwriting client saying, "Can you write my emails too?"

To which I say, "Yes."

-> Twitter/X Ghostwriting:

$500–$1,900/quarter
2 clients

I never quite got my pricing right for this.

-> Advisor GPS (Course + Community):

$2,199–$6,997
12 members

An accelerator program for financial advisors.

I built this with two partners, so the revenue is not 100% mine.

-> Skool Community:

$900/mo
10 members

I edit 3x weekly posts for clients, provide 1:1 consulting, community access, and coaching calls.

Yesterday, I edited 3 posts for a client. The posts totaled 567 words. I left 1,571 words of feedback on why I made the edits I made.

It's time-consuming, so I'll be raising the price, but I love this community.

-> Agency Work:

$2,500–$5,000/mo
2 clients

Content strategy, ghostwriting, systems work.

-> One-Off Projects: 

$497–$5,875
9 clients

Book ghostwriting, funnel builds, AI systems, guest speaking, tour scripts.

-> Consulting Calls:

$297–$347/hour
16 calls (15 people)

Raising the price on these, too. Prep, 60-minute calls, and follow-up add up. 

--

In total, I worked with 51 unique clients in 2025.

I don't really know what to say next. Because in my head, I'm still 28-Year-Old Adam From 2022 Trying To Figure This Whole Thing Out. And I think I'll feel that way tomorrow. And next year. And in 2030, 2035, 2050, and 2060, Lord-willing and the creek don't do that thing it tends to do.

When I had just started doing this, I paid another ghostwriting agency owner $400 for a 1-hour call. He was doing like $50K a month at the time.

I asked him: "Does this ever feel insane to you? What you've built?"

"Honestly man?" he said. "I've had my head down in the day-to-day for so long that I've never really had a chance to step back and look at it like that."

I couldn't understand that at the time, but now I do.

You could tell me the last 3 years have actually been 3 days. Or 30 years. I wouldn't blink at either.

Time stops being neatly packaged when you're trying to build something. It turns into a forever-unspooling piece of yarn, where every Monday is a Saturday, every Saturday a Monday. April is December. You eat your midnight snack at sunrise. 

It all blurs together, and nothing feels like it ever changes. When I went to sleep last night, I was still 28-Year-Old Adam From 2022 Trying To Figure This Whole Thing Out. When I woke up this morning, I was the same.

But when I pick my head up and look around, somehow everything has changed.

I never expected this. Not in 100 lifetimes.

But man.

I sure am grateful for it.

If I were starting as a ghostwriter with zero clients, here's how I'd close my first within 7 days:

Step 1: Go to YouTube. Click on videos in my niche.

Step 2: Watch the ads the algo serves to me in my niche.

Step 3: Look up the creators of those ads on LinkedIn.

Step 4: Make a list of the ones with no LinkedIn presence (it'll be 90%+).

Step 5: Go watch their 3 most popular YouTube videos.

Step 6: Write 10 LinkedIn posts for them for free. Include visuals.

Step 7: Message them on every platform offering those posts for free until they either agree to test them out or tell me to self-immolate. 

Step 8: Repeat with as many creators as possible.

Assuming you're good at writing LinkedIn content, you will 100% land a client within 7 days doing this.

Last week, I wrote about how I drink 800MG of caffeine a day. People told me that was concerning. But you know what?

Caffeine doesn't even affect me. And who are you to tell me what to do? Sure I get up at 4AM without an alarm and maybe twice per week I can't sleep past 3 and yeah maybe I feel like part of The Walking Dead every afternoon while I'm "crashing" or whatever but what do you even think that has to do with caffeine, anyway? You don't know me and you don't know my life. I know you claim to be "worried about my heart," but when I hurt my back again last month none of you said bupkus. And while we're on that topic, no one is every giving me any credit for showing up here darn near every single day WITH A HURT BACK and STILL posting to LinkedIn consistently. I'm like the Rob McClanahan of LinkedIn content, and you guys treat me like I'm Ralph Cox. Which is kind of a funny thing to bring up as a comparison because there's no way caffeine at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics was like caffeine is in 2026. People wonder why everyone is so anxious nowadays, meanwhile all the corporate girlies are shotgunning afternoon Alanis after their morning double-shot iced mocha and wondering why oh why they feel so much existential dread about the trajectory of their life when everything is so good on paper. I'm telling you they did not feel this way back when Eruzione was lighting the lamp on the Soviets, they were just sitting in the chalet and maybe having a Miller Light and a drag or two of a Marlboro and getting energy from Cold War patriotism instead of cold-can-concoctions of cotton-candy-caffeine. I'm not saying everything is perfect or anything like that, but we used to be a proper country back before we pretended like Auston Matthews was enough to take us to gold in Italy and we left Jason Roberston offer the roster. Like, yeah, let's leave the leading goal-scorer over the past year in the NHL off the team and pretend like that's gonna work out for us, great call Bill Guerin, why don't you go back to mixing up D-pairings in Wilkes-Barre. 

So I don't know why y'all keep saying "800 mG iS toO mUcH cAfFeiNe."

It doesn't affect me like that.

Friendly reminder that the best way to use AI to write your LinkedIn content is to tell AI to forget everything it knows about writing LinkedIn content. 

LLMs are trained to write LinkedIn content based on LinkedIn content, and the worst thing about LinkedIn content is that it sounds like LinkedIn content. Ideally, you want your LinkedIn content to sound nothing like LinkedIn content.

So when you're using AI to write LinkedIn content, it's best you don't even bring up the fact that you're trying to write LinkedIn content, because then you'll end up with content that sounds like... LinkedIn content.

"How do I sell to people in the DMs?"

Tell them you're selling to them. 

If you genuinely think your service can improve someone's life, it is your obligation to sell to them.

If you do not think that, you are selling snake oil, and you should go do something that doesn't rip people off, like medieval jousting or leading tours on a coffee farm in Hawaii.

I am ashamed to admit I spent the last 3 years and 9 months referring to myself as a "Founder." Is there a more self-important title in the world? 

I did not "found" anything. I paid LegalZoom like $500 and started pressing buttons on my computer.

I've been writing for a living for 3.5 years.

Here are 5 ways to be a better writer: 

♻️ Repost if this helped you and because I paid money for someone to design this for me and I want to feel better about that investment.

I generated 59 million views for clients last year.

10 writing insights you won't get anywhere else: 

1. Create a common enemy. Attack them in third person.

The best content unites you and your reader against a shared villain — Wall Street, conventional wisdom, the Cleveland Guardians, whatever. 

When you throw stones at the enemy, use "they." When you pivot to help your reader, switch to "you." 

The Cleveland Guardians keep stealing your division. They succeed from devil magic. You deserve fair baseball.

2. When your reader IS the problem, use third person anyway.

Sometimes you need to call out a mistake your ideal client is making. 

Don't say: "You all suck at writing."

Say: "8 in 10 financial advisors write the wrong way." 

Third person lets them opt into the criticism instead of bracing against it.

3. Write "poorly" on purpose.

My job in 2022: "I know how to write properly. I will help you."

My job in 2026: "I know how AI writes. It's too proper. I will make it worse."

I sort of hate all of you who just copy and paste stuff from ChatGPT. It's embarrassing. You're an adult. At least pretend like your brain works.

I know I just violated rule 1. 

4. Nuance kills reach.

"I hate all of you" >>>> "I sort of hate all of you" 

If you're going to have an opinion, have the whole opinion. 

5. If it reads well but means nothing, kill it.

"It's all about strategy." 

Cool. 

What strategy? 
Why does it matter? 
What happens if they ignore it? 

If you can't answer those questions, delete the sentence.

6. Only ask questions people will answer publicly.

"What's your deepest darkest secret you've never told anyone?" might spark internal reflection. 

But nobody's typing that out for their boss to see. 

7. Proper nouns beat common nouns.

"Geek Squad" is more visceral than "tech support." 

"Zillow" hits harder than "real estate apps." 

Branded specificity makes abstract ideas concrete.

8. Write so specifically you never have to name your audience.

"I see this with [target audience] all the time" feels engineered. If your copy is specific enough, they'll see themselves without you pointing.

10. Intentionally skip one number in every listicle.

People will call you out for this in the comments bc they feel very smart and it will boost your engagement. 

--

Anyway, what's your deepest darkest secret you've never told anyone?

I am working within 15 minutes of opening my eyes every morning. 

Wake up (0.0001 seconds)
Scroll social media on my phone (13 mins, 56.9999 seconds)
Turn off my white noise machine (3 seconds)
Make coffee (1 min)

Then I fire up my laptop, put the Maggie Rogers Tiny Desk on my TV, and start arguing with Claude. 

By the time 8:00 AM hits, I have 4 hours of deep work done. At 11:00, I eat chicken and a boiled potato at my desk. By noon, I've worked an 8-hour day. Sometime between 4:30-5:30 PM, I generally shut it down and go to the gym.

Twice a week, I do 45-60-minute cardio sessions on the stationary bike. I had a friend at the gym 3D print me an attachment so I can snap my laptop onto the stationary bike and work during those cardio sessions.

Some Saturdays and Sundays, I sleep in until 5, but it's usually the same routine. I might start with the Phoebe Bridgers Tiny Desk or the Scarface Tiny Desk, but I run the rest of the playbook the same way.

My average work week is 70-80 hours.

And gosh, is it fun.

I'm always torn between how to post about my work online.

On one hand, I want to tell people to do what I did. Quitting my job and building my own business is the best decision I've ever made. And had I not seen content from other people who did it, I never would have done it myself.

On the other hand, survivorship bias. 

So — I think this post is the right middle ground.

I spend ~80% of my waking hours working, but only ~20% of those hours actually feel like work. The rest, genuinely, feels like play. 

Admittedly, it does go in seasons. I've had months where I've wanted to stab my laptop with a basilisk fang just in case the soul of Ebenezer Scrooge got horcrux'd in there somehow. 

And then I've had months that have gone by in the time it takes me to turn off my white noise machine.

The most important factor in your ability to successfully work for yourself is self-awareness. You need to know if you're actually talented, you need to know if you're actually a hard worker, you need to know if you actually love it — or if you just don't want to be doing the other thing you're currently doing. If you lie to yourself about any of these things, you're done. 

And even if you have a little bit of success, there will always be something in the back of your head telling you, "Tomorrow, this might all come crashing down."

So that's why I am working within 15 minutes of opening my eyes every morning.

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Jesse Futia

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taplio

The Battle

Jesse Futia

Adam Knorr

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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);}Jesse Futia's LinkedIn Performance

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