One is to close to none.

Whether it’s in sales, business, friendships or sometimes…

Even your dating life.

Maybe monogamy is the right move for you in your dating life, assuming you’ve done your homework, have your eyes wide open, and know all the pros and cons…

But I can tell you when it comes to getting paid by clients, monogamy is a very dangerous proposition…

One client is too close to none.

One client means you’re fragile.

What you want is to become is what Nassim Taleb Calls Antifragile…

Or the ability to survive and thrive if/when things go wrong.

And I’d go as far as to say that you can’t be antifragile enough.

You have to be tough to be happy in this world and becoming as antifragile as possible comes with incredible benefits.

One of those benefits is being able to live a life of independence…

The ability to live where you want and do the kind of work you want.

The ability to take your motorcycle up to the mountains on a Tuesday afternoon just because.

The ability to take Sunday afternoon off to lay in bed with your girl and eat ice cream.

The way to get that type of independence is expanding your circle of people you depend on.

It might sound counter-intuitive but the reality is you become more independent by depending on more people.

Because there is no true, 100% independence, no man is an island.

In the complex world we live, we’re all dependent on others to survive, from food, to clothes, to shelter to thousands of other things.

But independence is a relative term, it’s defined in comparison to dependence.

In reality though its actually dependence on many people as opposed to a few.

And by dependence I mean financial dependence, because Money is freedom in this world.

When you have money, you have power, because with it you can get people to do what you want, which is either produce a good for you, or do a service for you.

With enough money you can buy your independence…

The fact is, we live on an economic planet, and unless you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you need to buy your freedom.

Your independence comes with a price, but it’s a price well worth paying…

And by independence, what I really mean is not having to do things you hate for money, because you have FU money.

The way to get more money is to get more people paying you.

Or in other words to get diversify your dependence.

Depending on a boss is dangerous, because jobs pay bullsh*t money and your boss can turn off that tap at any time.

And you can’t come and go as you please, not only do you as a grown man have to call another man your boss…

But you also let him tell you what to do, when to come in, when to eat, where to sit, where to piss and sh*t, what time you can leave,

Depending on tens or hundreds or thousands of clients is a much stronger position, not just financially, but in terms of quality of life.

Independence means you can come and go as you please and not have to do what you hate – you can do neither of those things when you have to depend on a boss for table scraps.

Independence in this world means financial freedom – and to get it you can’t depend on just one guy.

Independence comes from maximizing the amount of people you depend on financially by adding value and making them dependent on you for goods and services.

When done ethically it’s the ultimate win/win.

But it’s not just depending on a boss or a parent or a girlfriend that’s dangerous.

One is to close to none even in your own business and even if it’s a high ticket client.

Even a big client paying you $10,000 per month is still to close to none, because you can go from 120k per year to zero in less than a heartbeat.

As opposed to 10 clients at $10,000 per month clients where you can eat a yearly turnover rate of 25% and still be able to live well.

Even in the case of black swan quarter where you lose 50% of your revenue, you still have 5 clients at 10k per month and you’re still able to not only survive but thrive.

This is what means to be antifragile, and antifragility should be one of your primary priorities in life.

Unfortunately most entrepreneurs grossly underestimate the amount of work needed to get there and once they start to see a little success they relax and stop pushing people into their pipeline.

I saw this happen all the time when I worked in cutthroate corporate sales, guys got burned out and let their pipeline go slack.

They lied to themselves that they were maintaining, that they were in neutral, but in reality there is no neutral, gravity brings a flatline down, they just couldn’t see it until it was too late.

And by the time they realize they’re slipping, and they’re missing their targets by 30% a month, their head is already on the chopping block, because it cutthroat corporate sales, you’re always one or two bad quarters away from getting fired.

Instead you want to keep that pipeline full to the point of having more clients than you can handle – this is what we call a high quality problem.

The solution is to either hire more people, charge more for new clients to match demand, or do both, ideally you do both.

You’ll always have problems, I just want you thinking about bigger problems, problems like how to handle all your new clients and what to do with all the money you make.

Keeping pumping people into that pipeline to make sure you have a margin of safety and to keep your revenue increasing year over year.

Bringing on at least one new, high ticket client per month is a great goal, but the more the better.

Setting yearly or even quarterly revenue and acquisition is also important, especially when your yearly wealth goal with total commitment.

To diversify your financial dependence, you have three basic channels (advanced channels being equity and debt):

Outbound Sales: cold calling, pitching in person, or pitching to people through email, IM, or through their social media pages
Inbound Marketing: Google, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin ads
Organic Traffic: Attracting clients by providing valuable content on Social Media or through your website

The name of the game is finding who has your money and getting their attention.

From there it’s a matter of putting them in your pipeline, closing them, and keeping your pipeline packed with hot prospects.

In short you get your independence and financial freedom by getting as many people to pay you as possible.

Because your network is your networth…

Because people can’t buy from you if they don’t know you, so you want to get as many potential clients in your network as you possibly can.

And I’m not talking about some garbage, waste of time, networking event –  I’m talking about your network of people who pay you money.

The bigger your network of people paying you, the more money you make, the less fragile you are, and the more independence you have.

The price for independence is hard work and discipline, but I promise you it’s well worth the effort.

So get out there, grind hard, get antifragile, and get free!

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