A practical field guide on how to build the life you dream of.
The sad reality is that most people never build their dream life for one of two reasons.
They either think it's unattainable, or they have no clue where to start (often both).
This essay is built to solve both. If you spend a few minutes with me today, you'll believe that building your dream life, whatever that looks like for you, is within reach, and you'll have a clear place to start.
Before we dive into the good stuff, I want to address the elephant in the room.
"Who is this guy and why should I listen to him?"
Fair question.
I'm Jay Yang, an "expert" at creating life opportunities. At 20, I've built a life I'm quite proud of.
Here's a quick synopsis about me:
- At 15, I started my journey writing online
- At 16, I cold-emailed my favorite company and landed an internship at a fast-growing tech startup (beehiiv).
- At 17, I put together a 19-slide pitch deck for Noah Kagan and became his Head of Content.
- At 18, I built a ghostwriting agency to 6-figures+ in less than a year
- At 19, I dropped out to join Alex and Leila Hormozi's media team at Acquisition dot com
These opportunities led me to acquire the skills that now allow me to live my dream life.
And no, I don't mean driving around in Lamborghinis all day.
I mean freedom. Hitting the gym at 3pm on a random Tuesday, traveling the world, and spending time with the people I love.
I want the same for you. I want you to genuinely wake up every day to a life you're excited to live.
Below, I'm going to teach you how to fish for yourself and create life-changing opportunities that lead to your dream life.
TL;DR
Help People Who Already Have the Life
This essay is built on one core idea: The fastest way to the life you want is to help the people who already have it.
Most people go about this process backward.
They apply on job sites, send out a thousand applications, and pray someone gets back to them.
Their future ends up relying entirely on a stranger to decide their fate, and even if they land an opportunity, it rarely does much to build the life they want.
What I'm suggesting to you today is to take complete control over your life.
Find someone whose life you admire, figure out where you can be useful to them, and put it in front of them in a way that's hard to ignore.
You can take your career (and your life) into your own hands. You just need to know where to start.
Let's walk through it with an example.
Picking People Who Have the Life
A framework for identifying people to help
I have three filters I like to run:
1. Their work
Do I genuinely like what they make? Their books, their products, their content. If you wouldn't consume it for free, you won't enjoy improving it.
2. Their life
Do I admire the way they live? Look at their day-to-day: how they spend their time, who they spend it with, how much freedom they have.
3. Their ideas
Do I respect what they stand for? You'll be working on their message, so you have to believe in it.
You probably have a list of people you can think of right now who you'd love to work with.
As a general example, let's say I wanted to work with author James Clear.
- I like his work
- I admire his life
- I respect his ideas
My first step would be conducting a full audit of his business and brand.
That means going through everything he puts out and looking for the gaps across what's working and what's missing.
Tip for your research: The more context you gather, the more likely you are to identify problems you can help with.
Read their newsletters, watch their latest YouTube video, join their private group. Basically, do everything you can to learn about this person and the way they think and what they value.
The second step is to identify the overlap between James' active problems and my skills.
I have experience working in media/copy/marketing, so I'd position myself as a copywriter/socials expert.
Your moat will be different.
Maybe you're a designer who noticed they have some AI slop on their website that you could tidy up; or maybe you're an ads expert who notices their ads aren't fully optimized.
Or maybe you're starting from scratch and just looking for a shot (I would never be where I am now if a few people hadn't rolled the dice on me before I deserved it).
In that case, your pitch becomes your traits and potential.
With no track record to point to, these are the traits that make someone worth a shot:
- Coachability
- Hunger
- Work ethic
- High-agency
- Curiosity
- Initiative
- Reliability
If you have no skills, don't be discouraged. Every top operator in their field was built from scratch too.
III: The Contact Quadrant
Once you know who you're helping and how, you need a way in.
I use a simple framework I call the Contact Quadrant.
Every route to contacting your prospect falls on two axes:
a) Is it one-to-one or one-to-many?
b) Is it friendly (warm, with some connection) or a stranger?
That gives you four potential outreach options.
The Contact Quadrant
1:1 Friendly: Referral
This is the easiest way in. If you have a team/employee contact who can give you a warm intro, use it.
1:1 Stranger: Cold outreach
LinkedIn is an amazing platform for this. You can source who works closely with your person, then email that person directly.
1:Many Friendly: Content
In James's context, I'd create content that proves I can do the job. For 30 days straight, I'd publicly break down one email a day that I think could make James more money.
1:Many Stranger: Public pitch
I'd record a video showing everything I'd do as his email copywriter, post it, and tag him. Then I'd ask friends to tag him too and vouch for me in the comments.
You don't have to pick just one route. And remember, if you're shy about using a public pitch method, just know that other clients/prospects might see it. Win-win situation.
Opportunities → Freedom
Does any of this guarantee I land James Clear as a client?
No.
But what if I reach out to 100 people who live a life I want?
I'll probably create multiple life-changing opportunities for myself.
Even if 100 people never reply (unlikely):
→ I've sharpened my skills/offer
→ Learned why the pitch failed
→ Probably attracted other opportunities by doing the work publicly
My mindset for building a dream life is probabilistic thinking.
You can't control whether one person says yes. But you can control how many good shots you take.
Figure out what you want, then raise the odds you get it.
Opportunities are your vehicle to build your dream life.
Every opportunity you create for yourself gives you something back.
A skill, proof, connections, and leverage for options.
I like to think about it like this:
Opportunities → leverage for options → freedom
Closing
TL;DR: Start taking complete control and creating your own opportunities
• Pick someone you admire
• Audit their pain points
• Match your skills to their problems
• Reach out and raise the odds you get to work with them
If this was useful, follow me here on 𝕏 @Jayyanginspires, and send this to one person who you think would benefit from reading it. I have more articles like this in the works!
If you enjoyed this piece, you'll love my newsletter. Every week, I publish a new edition designed to help you level up across mindset, business, and life in general.
Rooting for you ✊🏻
-Jay
Ps. Shoutout to @ryangrowthh for helping me write this X article. Hit him up for marketing & copywriting :)
