If They Guaranteed Me $10M…

Disclaimer: I’ve been sitting here, spinning in my seat, borderline manic with a thousand tabs open, but hear me out. This is me, in the raw, the “neurotic rationalist” voice, funneling the scattered storm of thoughts in my head into some coherent structure. Let’s see if it even makes sense.

If They Guaranteed Me $10M…

I can’t stop thinking: if someone literally guaranteed me $10 million for knocking out 500 tasks—some arbitrary, borderline tedious tasks—I’d do it in a heartbeat. Boom. No question. I’d slam coffee, I’d tape my eyes open, I’d skip Netflix, I’d focus with superhuman tunnel vision, and I’d just do the tasks.

No more dithering. No second-guessing. I’d become a monstrous productivity beast, right? Of course I would. And so would you.

But here’s the rub: that guaranteed $10M doesn’t usually materialize in real life. And so I ask myself—why don’t I just replicate that same intensity and clarity in my normal day-to-day? Why not just behave like I’m guaranteed the $10M, because obviously I know the tasks themselves aren’t rocket science. I can do them. They’re just… tasks.

What Does $10M Actually Represent?

Let’s unpack it:

• Freedom: $10M means I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to.

• Comfort & Stability: My bills are paid forever, I’m never stressed about rent, and I can fund weird side projects.

• Status: Let’s be real, having “10 mil” on the scoreboard impresses someone, right?

• Potential: With that kind of capital, I can invest, build, experiment, and fail forward a dozen times without going broke.

So it’s not the money in and of itself—it’s what the money symbolizes. And if that’s the case, if the thing I truly want is freedom, creativity, comfort, or a platform to build bigger stuff, then the question becomes:

Can I chase those same outcomes without waiting for a magically guaranteed $10M check?

I’m starting to think yes.

The 500 Tasks to ‘Value Creation’

If I frame my path to get that “$10M or the intangible benefits it represents” as basically do 500 tasks in order, it suddenly feels less terrifying. Because the tasks might look something like this:

1. Identify a snug-fit, scalable solution: Where’s the big problem? Where’s the growing market? How can I wedge myself in there with a product or service?

2. Convey the before/after impact: Show people how my solution changes the game. Capture the transformation in a crisp, compelling story.

3. Prove it with real users: Onboard the first 10, 50, 100 users. Gather data, refine the product, gather case studies, measure real impact.

4. Monetize: Figure out the pricing model, test the willingness to pay. Is it subscription? One-time? Premium upsell? All the usual messing around with spreadsheets.

5. Scale: Now that I know I have a revenue engine, how do I streamline? Self-service onboarding, growth hacking, more marketing channels, user acquisition at scale.

6. Refine, systematize, and grow: Use the revenue to hire, fix product cracks, keep customers happy, and double down on what’s working.

7. Deepen the value proposition: Evolve the product, upsell, lengthen the LTV, basically do all the advanced fiddly bits that turn a small start-up into a big enterprise.

8. Exit or keep building: Option A: Sell. Option B: Keep building. Option C: Both. Because I can. Because it’s my game.

Multiply each step by about 60+ sub-steps. That’s 500 tasks or so. Possibly 5,000 if I’m being honest. But it’s just tasks. I’m not clueless on how to do it. Neither are you. We’ve watched enough YouTube videos, read enough threads on X/Twitter, listened to enough podcasts. We know the frameworks. The only difference is the guarantee that if we do them all, we get the tidy, massive payout.

But guess what? If you really commit, the probability of big payoff is high. Not 100%, but high enough.

The Biological & Psychological War

There’s also this daily war between “Me, the human with emotional needs, physical desires, and the dopamine feedback loop from doomscrolling” vs. “Me, the unstoppable builder with a laser focus on these 500 tasks.”

• Human Me wants comfort, Netflix, a sugar fix, a nap, some quick validation on social media.

• Builder Me sees a direct line from sustained, systematic effort to the Holy Grail ($10M or the freedom it represents).

They duel daily. Sometimes Human Me wins, sometimes Builder Me does, but the question is: How often do I let the latter lead? Because that’s how unstoppable progress is made.

Speed-Running Life: The Neurotic Schizo-Rant

I get it. I feel the tension in my chest when I realize there’s a gap between my potential and my actual output. I get squirrely and borderline paranoid that everyone else is out there grinding away while I doomscroll and snack. Then I whipsaw back to rational, data-driven thinking: “Look, if I systematically do these tasks, can I map out a 30% chance, 40% chance, 80% chance that I end up comfortable, free, stable, or something close to what $10M would get me anyway?” Probably yes.

So the moral of the story: I might not have a guaranteed $10M check in my mailbox, but I know my path to the intangible benefits that the money is really about. If I treat the tasks—all 500 of them, with all their sub-checkpoints—as non-negotiable stepping stones, it’s insane how quickly that compounding effort can turn into real results.

Where I Got This Surge of Inspiration

I blame (or thank) this AP tweet for sparking my swirling mental meltdown. I read it, and something clicked: I’m only a few hundred tasks away from something big. And for me, that’s unbelievably exciting. Also terrifying. But mostly exciting.

Final Rant (TL;DR)

• Yes, if someone dangled $10M in front of me, I’d do whatever tasks they said.

• Yes, without that guarantee, I’m more prone to inertia, doubt, Netflix, doomscroll.

• But I realize that $10M was just a stand-in for freedom, status, comfort, and possibility.

• Therefore, if I peel back the layers, it’s the meaning behind $10M that lights a fire under me.

• Hence, I can replicate that drive by internalizing the big vision, the path, the 500 tasks.

• And if I systematically do the work (and filter out 99% of nonsense), I stand a real shot at capturing the equivalent value in my own life.

So that’s it. I have my coffee, my to-do list of 500 (or 5,000) tasks, and a raging desire to manifest that intangible “$10M effect.” If I keep this mindset alive and override my lazy neural circuits, maybe I’ll see you on the other side—in the land of actual freedom. Let’s get it.