I have always been interested in history.

But I also wanted reading history to benefit me. Is the word “economic history” accurate? I’m not sure; I’m not even sure whether such a notion exists. I mean studying history to gather information for the future economy, finance, or methods to generate more money.

After researching the internet and reading a few articles, it became clear that successful people throughout history have always had access to some sort of leverage, whether that was connections, money, manpower, etc.

In other facets of our existence, leverage and having an edge are apparent. Some individuals are brilliant in music, others are born wealthy, and yet others are less detached from day-to-day life and have more concentration, energy, and time to devote to the goals that they want to achieve.

I could argue that even being born in a first-world country is a form of leverage, not attempted, not granted, but simply what God desires.

Anyways…

I was battling in my head with this information about leverage and so on until I discovered that thanks to the internet, all of us all over the world now have access to a new form of leverage that is priceless.

There are levels of leverage and categories; some are given to us and we have no control over them, such as talents and so on; others are manmade, and access to them requires some permission; I discuss them in detail here:

I classified them into four levels: the first two levels of leverage were developed long ago and are still in use today, and two more were developed after the development of computers and the internet.

4 Tires of Leverage

Labours: Slaves in ancient times, and in superpower nations in modern times, the people with the most manpower had the most money. The same as ancient kings and pharaohs. They could use their forces to invade regions, steal money from nations, and extend their empires, resulting in increased power.

This still holds true for nations with greater populations, economies, militaries, and human resources. Yes, like China or India.

Capital: This started when the Banking Act was established in Europe and the world, when rich families such as Rothschild and Rockefeller had access to other people’s money, and when money was widely available. Fractional banking gave them the power to make money. Like alchemy, the thing that for ages alchemists couldn’t do with iron and gold, these people did with ink and paper.

Still very valid, the nation that controls the reserve currency has a superpower, throughout the centuries, this has been rotated between nations, from the Chinese to the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, English, and now the Americans.

These two were and still are super leverages, but with the development of the computer and the Internet, something changed, resulting in the emergence of two additional super leverages that are extremely potent and highly monetizable, namely access to computer codes or having audiences that follow you and are interested in your ideas. I refer to them as modern leverages.

Computer Codes: With the introduction of the personal computer and the Internet, wealthy individuals such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the leaders of Google and Amazon, Jeff Bezos, and others acquired access to computer codes and started hiring vast numbers of people to code on their behalf. They established their empires on the internet and computer code, gaining access to an online army of robots.

This leverage removed geographical obstacles, increased reach, and automate various processes such as order registration, fulfilment, and information exchange for a huge number of individuals. All of this resulted in greater income, more buyers, quicker customer service, and several other benefits.

Audience: Then came the age of social media and smartphones. The influencer market and the creator’s economy, the age of audience building. This is the first time you can utilize it without permission or superpowers; you don’t need an army of manpower or money to do it.

Audiences are the new leverage we can use, and then we can turn the audience into a monetized business. Today, you can build your audience on many platforms (Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, TikTok) without a ton of capital and without someone in the bank to give you a loan or a venture capitalist to sponsor you.

Things like this, which were impossible even 20 years ago, are now entirely feasible in the modern era thanks to the widespread availability of the internet. You can use audience leverage alone to launch your online empire, and then add the other three leverages to accelerate your expansion and maximize your profits. Since we have access to this potent and cost-free leverage, I firmly believe that we should make the most of it.

Read my article -> here – On how to get started.

Masterminds

We want more money in the hands of individuals who want to develop, create, and share their ideas with the rest of the world. Sharing what you’ve learned with your viewers is a new phenomenon; no one did it before the internet. Decades ago, there were no online mastermind groups without geographical barriers for individuals to get rich quietly, as many CEOs used to do.

We should all become wealthy together because there is a lot of money out there.

We won’t have to deal with internet nonsense if we figure out how to get this knowledge of how to get rich together. When it comes to audience building and growing with other like-minded people, I always keep the following proverb in mind:

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. African Proverb

If having audiences interested in your ideas and work is a source of leverage, then it makes sense to collaborate with others who are doing the same. Trust me, there are a lot of them out there, you just need to shift your focus from being an internet consumer to an internet producer.

This is the era of communication and collaboration through the Internet. It’s incredible to establish a project on the west side of the globe and have supporters on the East side of the world that are really interested in your ideas, work, and way of thinking.

Attention Economy

As you may be aware, we live in an “attention economy,” and we are competing with others for attention and audience growth. When it comes to audience growth, we can split it into two groups: those who are solely interested in entertainment, such as games, movies, concerts, and so on, and those who are interested in learning, developing, and obtaining information on a regular basis via the internet.

If there is a vacuum of attention for intelligent minds or smart people out there on the internet to talk and share knowledge, then the attention will be shifted to non-sense stuff such as celebrities, Kardashians, or teenagers showing naked bodies on TikTok. 

I think it’s up to each person to do good things for society and the world if they want to be on the right side of the attention war. Teenagers can easily make shows that involve dancing, teasing others, and showing their naked bodies to get people’s attention, but would they be good for society? Would this way of getting people’s attention work in the long run?

Bad attention has a lot of negative effects. It makes people less intelligent, brings them close to being average, and leaves them on the internet without any benefits. Everyone who has access to the internet has the potential to be a scientist, researcher, data analyst, mastermind, or smart person who uses their brainpower for good.

But also…

The level of trust in our society is decreasing.

It’s a new economy in and of itself, but on the flip side, there were those who abused it, sold a ton of nonsense courses, and posted unfounded ideas on the internet, which led to mistrust. 

Being on the right side of this attention economy, where you help your audience learn something and benefit from the attention they have given you, will help you gain trust. More people will follow you if they trust you. 

Your goal should be to help your audiences, not to make money off of them. First, you have to help them, and then you can make money.

There are examples of people with a lot of followers selling coffee with higher prices and lower quality just because they have a lot of followers and can make money online. or a lot of people selling VPNs on YouTube just to make a quick buck. How does this help your audience or society as a whole?

In this attention economy and creator economy, we are doing something wrong if we do what everyone else does. 

We need to be more creative and unique if we want to stand out and make a real difference. Instead of just trying to get views and likes, it’s important to focus on making content that we care about and that helps our audience. By doing this, we can build a loyal fan base and show the online world that we are real creators. 

There are six ways that people are making money on the internet and monetizing their content in the right way using their audience, which I will go into detail about in the next article.

Stay tuned!