This is a quote I read yesterday from CatGPT’s newsletter (she’s a fabulous creator to follow if you’re interested in AI).

And to say it got me thinking is an understatement.

Three years ago, I was that person refreshing job boards on Sunday nights, dreading Monday mornings, and secretly calculating how many years I'd need to work before I could actually live.

What I didn't realise back then? I was living through the last days of the old employment model.

Because here’s what’s happening right now:

Zach Yadegari was a normal 18 year old from Long Island. In May 2024, he built a calorie tracking app with AI, combined this with viral TikToks and influencer marketing, and generated over $2 million in February 2025 alone.

​Vijith Quadros vibe coded an app: "How many layers should I wear today?" to solve a crazy simple problem he was facing each day. It's grown to 85K users in nine months.

Cat explained how her friend Sirio just built and launched an app, Kora, that's making $89K per month - and he'd never written a line of code in his life.

Basically, we're in the middle of the biggest shift in how people make money since the internet was invented.

AI is making it possible for anyone to build a product or service. And social media makes it possible to sell that product to the masses.

The risk of starting something has dropped from $150k and a dev team to $100 and a weekend.

Regular people are using AI to solve real world problems and as a result? They’re turning side projects into real income streams.

But here's the thing - this is new. Most people are still thinking with the old rules.

If you're anything like I was, you're probably working harder than ever, but your bank account isn't growing. Every promotion feels anticlimactic - more responsibility, barely more money. The job market feels brutal, layoffs are everywhere, and you're starting to realise that trading time for money has a built-in ceiling.

If that sounds familiar, you're not behind - you are perfectly positioned for what's coming next.

Over the past 2 years, I've built a 30K audience, multiple income streams, and most importantly - I'm building real financial freedom while keeping my day job.

I won’t lie, it’s been an extremely messy process. I’ve lost a lot of money, invested a lot of energy, and wasted hours through trial and error.

So I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about what I would do if I were to start all over again.

How I would build my financial and time freedom if I had read all the books, gained the experience, made all the mistakes, and knew what I knew today.

Most importantly, I’ve been thinking about what I would differently now that AI has massively expanded the realm of what’s possible.

So this week, I distilled everything down into 13 frameworks that I would not only use if I was starting from scratch, but that I’m currently using and thinking about today as officially put my foot on the gas and start to scale everything I’ve started over the past 2 years.

I've organised these into 4 phases that build on each other - from rewiring your mindset and building your audience, to finding the time to do it all and actually making money and finding freedom.

Today, I'm sharing phase 1 - the first three frameworks that rewired my brain for wealth, in the hopes that you can start taking advantage of this new era too.

(And note, when I talk about wealth, I’m not talking about making millions of dollars just to sit there unsatisfied with your life. I mean being wealthy in money, health, freedom and fulfilment).

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Phase 1: Rewire your brain for wealth

Framework 1: The Leverage Shift

For the first 20 years of my life, I thought the richest and happiest people were the ones with the jobs that paid the most money.

The doctors, lawyers, engineers, investment bankers.

My mum was a bookkeeper, I had no idea what my dad did (to me it was just some office job) - and I saw my friends' parents who were doctors and lawyers making way more money.

So naturally, my brain put two and two together and got... completely the wrong answer:

Making money = Pick the highest paying job + Work as many hours as possible

Turns out, it doesn’t quite work like that.

Most of us are trapped in the ‘time for money’ prison. You get paid for the hours you work. But there's only 24 hours in a day, which means there's a hard ceiling on what you can earn.

This is where Naval Ravikant changed everything for me.

Naval is an entrepreneur, angel investor and my favourite thinker of all time (I read his book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant at least once a year and it is without a doubt my most recommended book of all time).

He talks about four types of leverage: labor, capital, code, and media.

Media or code - creating a product with no marginal cost of replication - is the most accessible and powerful form of leverage in the modern age.

If you want to unlock real freedom and wealth, you need to use one of these forms of leverage. Something that works while you sleep.

Think about it - your job stops working the moment you do. But one piece of content? One post, one video, one newsletter? It can reach thousands of people and compound for years.

I realised I could spend 40+ hours a week being labor for someone else's leverage, or I could start building my own. That was the moment I started my personal brand.

AI can now amplify your leverage from media and code exponentially (this is literally how Zach built his empire).

I'll show you exactly how I’m approaching this in the coming weeks.

The same principles that built billion-dollar companies are now available to anyone with an internet connection and some hustle.

The conditions have never been more perfect.

Your 9-5 won’t make you wealth, and it won’t bring you the freedom you desire. Stop trading time for money, start building assets that work without you, and use AI to simplify and scale it.

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Framework 2: The Barbell Strategy

Once I realised my job wasn't going to make me wealthy, I ran into a new problem: I'm pretty risk-averse.

The idea of quitting my job and 'following my passion' - putting all my hard work and progress at stake, wasting time or potential kept me paralysed for way too long.

You know what they say: 95% of businesses fail within 5 years.

But in today’s world, you don't have to choose between corporate safety and entrepreneurial risk.

And you definitely don't have to mortgage your house, raise capital or quit your job to test an idea.

The barbell strategy comes from Nassim Taleb's work on risk management.

Instead of putting everything in the "safe" middle, you split your approach:

• 80-90% in ultra-safe, predictable investments
• 10-20% in high-risk, high-reward bets with unlimited upside.

For me, this has meant completing my 2 degrees and keeping my stable job (the safe bar), while going all-in on building my personal brand and entrepreneurial endeavours during nights and weekends (the high-risk weights).

I’m not risking my livelihood, but I’m also not limiting my upside.

So no, you don’t have to quit your job and hope your business idea will work out.

But something I wish someone had told me earlier?

True security comes from multiple income streams, not job security (especially in today’s world).

The "safe" path is actually the riskiest because you're putting all your eggs in one basket controlled by someone else. At least with a barbell approach, if one side fails, you've still got the other.

You don't have to quit your job to start building wealth. But you do have to start building. This requires strategy and productivity (something we’ll discuss in phase 3 in a couple of weeks’ time).

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Framework 3: The Anti-Paralysis Framework

This one hits close to home because I see it everywhere - with family, friends, even myself.

You have a goal. You decide you want a different life. But then... nothing happens.

• You second-guess yourself
• Research for weeks
• Wait for the "perfect moment" or the "perfect idea."

Three months later, you're in exactly the same place while that vision for a better life has completely faded.

The anti-paralysis framework has three parts, and I know they sound like motivational fluff, but I promise there's real psychology behind each one, and they’re tactics that have genuinely worked for me:

1. Start before you’re ready

You can’t wait for confidence to act, because action creates confidence.

Every time you take action despite uncertainty, you build what psychologists call "self-efficacy." It's like a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Objects in motion stay in motion - you just have to get the ball rolling.

If procrastination and overwhelm is holding you back, my 12 day reinvention roadmap gives you the exact reset I use to get clear on my vision, set goals and create clear action steps to start taking action today.

2. Bet on yourself

Put skin in the game.

I spent $2,000 on education and courses before I'd made a single dollar online. It sounds crazy, but it forced me to take it seriously. When you invest in yourself, you're not just buying information - you're buying commitment. The money made it real.

I even used this principle in my life decisions. When I finished uni, I didn’t apply for a grad program, even though it could’ve set me up for corporate success.

I stuck with my current job (which was and is still challenging me and supporting my growth every day), transitioned to a remote role, and moved to the Gold Coast instead of Sydney or Melbourne.

Why? Because there are fewer traditional corporate opportunities here. I basically forced myself to make the personal brand side work if I want to truly reach my career potential.

3. Design your environment for success.

Normalise the habits and identity you want to embody.

If everyone around you is focused on climbing the corporate ladder, you're going to fall into that mindset. If creating content and working on your side project instead of watching Netflix becomes normal, it doesn't feel so hard anymore.

I know what you're thinking - "but Tayla, what if I fail?"

The truth is, as long as you learn, you cannot fail

The sooner you start, the sooner you make mistakes, realise what you don't know, and start learning. Your actions and growth start compounding.

The cost of inaction is always higher than the cost of imperfect action.

(Ask yourself: what’s the worst that could happen? The answer will probably give you more confidence that you expect.)

Stop waiting for permission or perfect conditions. Start before you're ready. Bet on yourself. And design your environment to make success inevitable.

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These three frameworks completely rewired how I think about money and risk. But mindset without action is just dopamine in disguise.

Next week, I'll show you exactly how I built and monetised a 30K audience while working full-time - the personal brand frameworks that turned my invisible online presence into an income stream.

But for this week, take these mindset shifts and really think about them. They're the foundation for everything to come.

See you soon,

Tayla

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