How I Plan to 10x My Medium Income and How You Can Too

You need to think outside the box if you want to earn more

Lately, I’ve been considering whether writing here is worth my time or not. That got me thinking of ways to increase my income 10x. It may seem like a bold target, but 10x thinking is a very valuable exercise in itself.

When looking for ways to improve their financial situation or their lives in general, many people just look for gains of a few percent. This often works, but the gains could be so much higher with a better level of thinking.

I’ve had many friends ask me how they can increase their income. Almost all of them only think about small rises. If they currently earn $40,000 a year, they may aim for $44,000. If they earn $100,000, they may want help getting to $110,000.

This kind of thinking is incredibly common. It’s almost like everyone thinks their not worthy of earning too much more than they currently earn.

I also see a similar mindset when I see people compare themselves to others that earn massively more than they do. They simply can’t imagine such a high-income level for themselves. This also leads people to assume others are lying about their earnings. I’ve seen many on this platform do it. They see what others earn as so out of reach that their first thought is that they must be making it up.

But whether they’re making up or not isn’t important. What’s important is that many people don’t believe it’s even possible. That will hold them back in life.

Medium Earnings

If I’m lucky, I may earn $300 from Medium this month. But that’s hardly worth it for me. I want to earn more. But I don’t want 10% extra ($330). I want to 10x my income to $3,000 a month.

There is nothing wrong with a 10% increase in earnings. In normal times, most would consider it a nice increase. In these times, it’s enough to keep up with inflation.

But wondering how to get smaller increases in income leads to small thinking. If we engage in small thinking, we’ll only come up with small ideas that give small results.

Ask anyone how you can increase your Medium earnings by 10% and they can quickly come up with some easy suggestions. Writing 10% more articles is an obvious one.

If you write 10 articles a month and earn $300, that’s an average of $30 per article. So, write 11 and you should earn $330. Easy, right?

But if you aim to 10x your income, these simple suggestions just don’t work.

If we go the route of writing extra stories to get to $3,000 a month, it would mean writing 100. Good luck with that. These simple solutions just don’t scale very well.

The same is true with income from a 9–5. You can easily get an extra 10% by changing jobs. And maybe another 10% by changing jobs again. But it won’t scale much more than that. You certainly won’t be getting a 10x increase just by changing jobs.

If you think 10x instead of 10%, it forces you to think outside the box. That’s much harder to do. It may take you hours, days, or even weeks to come up with great ideas. But I can assure you that the effort is worth it.

You won’t always come up with fantastic 10x ideas though. You may end up with a 2x idea. But that’s still a vast improvement on 10%.

Thailand

Quite a few years ago, I was looking for ways to 10x my income. My thinking led me to move to Thailand for a few years. That didn’t increase my income, but it did reduce my housing costs by 75%. That amounts to the same thing.

It was a little more complicated than this, but here’s roughly how it worked out. I had income of $3,000 and housing costs of $2,000 in the UK, leaving me with $1,000 of spending money per month.

After moving to Thailand, I still had $3,000 income, but my housing costs dropped to $700 a month. My disposable income then rose to $2,300. So I more than doubled my disposable income. In practice, it was even better because my money went further in Thailand.

So, back to Medium — How will I 10x my Medium earnings?

I plan to do the usual hacks like writing a little extra, reading and commenting a little more, and investing all my earnings.

Hopefully, I can get to $600 a month with the small hacks. The investing hack should increase that amount by 5x over a few years. I will mostly invest in crypto. This is what I’m doing. I’m not suggesting you should do it. You’ll need to do your own research.

I may also invest a portion in property once it grows enough. After a few years, the $300 a month should turn into $3,000. I see it was working now but getting the rewards in the future.

This requires patience. I don’t need the money right now, so I can wait. Good things come to those that delay gratification.