How To Be Useful in 2025

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Now that 2024 is over, it’s time to look forward into 2025. “Be useful” is my own personal theme for the year, which was inspired by the following quote from Elon Musk.

Choosing a theme is what I try to do each year in order to capture an overall “feeling” for that year. This then helps govern my identity (looking to constantly improve myself over time), which then influences my goals. Because, if you think about it, we’re all often chasing feelings when we’re setting goals (e.g. accomplishment, pride, etc.) — not just the objective.

So in this week’s edition, I’m going to share my lessons and plan to be more useful in the new year. Hopefully it helps you in your own micropreneurial journey.

In a nut-shell, here it is:

1. Choose no more than 3 things to be useful at

2. Choose one channel to dominate

3. Use AI to accelerate and automate

Let’s dive in!

1 — Choose No More Than 3 Things To Be Useful At

This first step is all about figuring out what you want to be useful in. Personally, I like to look at elements that fall under the Ikigai venn diagram: what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for.

It helps if you’ve got some work experience under your belt but, if not, just use whatever you’ve tried your hand at as a signal or direction. Ask friends or family about what they think you’re good at or where they see your skills being most valuable. We all have value and purpose — life is just about finding or remembering it.

Micropreneurs in particular can become extremely useful through the use of emerging AI tools. Whatever it is you find to be your “niche”, you can accelerate and magnify that even more now. All you need to do is decide on what you want to do, and who you want to become (easier said than done of course).

Any action is often better than no action.

“Choosing no more than 3” is important if you want to find new, unique combinations of skills. For example, there are many musical bands in the world. But that aren’t many popular Siberian, throat-singing bands. In this example, you have a band with singers, who are Siberian, and can do throat-singing (e.g. the band Otyken). By combining three elements, you have more than enough to become something no one else can replicate as easily. Especially in an AI future.

Differentiation is key for standing out as micropreneurs.

2 — Choose One Channel to Dominate

This step is all about finding one distribution channel to dominate in. In 2025, I’m focusing on X (formerly Twitter). The reason for this is because it aligns with the type of work I do (tech) and the people I’m able to help (solopreneurs, tech execs). It’s also a platform in transition (since Musk took over), so there’s a lot of opportunity to set up a personal brand up there — as there aren’t that many “X creators” dominating just yet.

When making your own choice, be sure to align your goal with the right distribution channel. People often optimize for the channels they enjoy most, but you might be surprised that your content may be better suited to other channels. Test and explore.

Common social media channels in the West include:

• Twitter/X

• LinkedIn

• Instagram

• Facebook

• TikTok

• Snapchat

• YouTube

• Reddit

• BlueSky (up-and-comer; can find me here)

So if you’re starting out, publish content across all channels, then see which ones do the best. Then double down on that channel.

3 — Use AI to Accelerate & Automate

Last year, I started picking up a lot of AI tools — from CreateXYZ to Cursor to Bolt.new. The space reminded me of what it was like when app-building became popular in the early 2010s, and when programming itself became popular in the early 2000s. We’re experiencing similar vibes with AI creation now.

As a result, I’ve dove in head first into learning all the fundamentals of AI/ML and their associated tools. Using X has been great for learning directly from emerging and established leaders.

This way I keep up-to-date with the latest and greatest.

I also put together a 30-day #XGSD challenge on Twitter (under one of the other brands in my own micro-empire, gsdglobal.co). This challenge was put together to help start the new year with a bang, and leverage my experience building accountability groups. The challenge will then also assist in launching 3 things of my own in January (a podcast, a book, and a SaaS product).

By reverse-engineering my month, it helps me answer the question “what did you get done this week?” with more clarity (inspired by this famous scene).

With AI, you can use the following tools to better automate and accelerate your own goals for the new year:

• Zapier.com — popular automation tool

• Make.com — next most popular automation tool

• Lindy.ai — an emerging AI assistant

• Abacus.ai — embed AI into your applications

• MeetAssembly.com — social media with AI

• Captions — great for video across social media (using AI digital twins now; can mass generate edited videos in an instant)

BONUS: Measure Your Usefulness

As a result of this year’s theme, you’ll notice a new poll at the end of today’s newsletter, which will help me measure how “useful” each edition is. Have a click to test it out! But this is how you can implement “usefulness” measures in your own life or business. As is the micropreneur way, “every small thing counts.” So using the latest tools or technologies, be sure to measure what matters (a fantastic book with the same title can be also found here).

How will you be useful this year?