In 480 BC, Athens stood on the edge of destruction.

The Persian Empire had already burned their lands once and was marching again with an army so vast it seemed impossible to resist.

The Athenians argued among themselves.

Some wanted to repair and reinforce the city walls, others wanted to fight on land.

The urge for something quick and tangible was overwhelming.

One man, Themistocles, saw further.

He convinced the city to use its silver reserves not for walls or weapons, but to build a fleet of wooden warships.

At the time it looked like madness.

Ships could not defend the city.

They would take years to master, and there was no guarantee they would work.

But when the Persians arrived, those ships gave Athens control of the sea.

At Salamis, the smaller Athenian navy trapped the Persian fleet in a narrow strait and destroyed it.

The battle broke the invasion and set Athens on the path to becoming a naval power for the next century.

The Athenians who wanted quick defenses were not wrong, but they were thinking small.

Themistocles was thinking strategically by building something that would compound.

Most Solopreneurs today are the Athenians patching walls.

They look for quick fixes and walls we can patch today.

A better social post.

An outbound message template.

A new way to game the algorithm.

Those things aren’t useless, but they don’t create leverage.

They keep you trapped in the cycle of reacting to what’s in front of you.

Strategy is different.

Strategy is deciding to build ships when everyone else is patching walls.

It requires thought, patience, and sometimes discomfort, because the payoff isn’t instant.

But once it’s in place, it compounds without you having to hold it up every day.

Over the next 8 weeks, this is the work I’ll be leading my clients through.

Not short bursts of activity that get a quick bump today but leave them exhausted tomorrow.

We’ll be going deeper into the kind of thinking that compounds in the background and creates leverage over time.

I’m sharing it here too, because even if you’re not inside my world, it’s useful to see the difference between patching walls and building ships.

One keeps you busy.

The other stays busy whilst you enjoy your life.

I’ve made it simple to step inside and see how we’re building this in real time.

You can now get started for as little as £25.

If you’d like to come in, explore what we’re building, and see these strategies applied, respond with the word “ship” and I’ll send you the details.

Until next time,
Dan