How to Build a Path to Ownership in 2026

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
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Friends,

Christmas has quietly become one of the most sophisticated sales funnels on earth for junk. No longer about God + family, but about your credit card.

Sugar. Booze. Boxes of stuff. It’s worth asking, honestly: How much of this makes your life freer, fuller, or actually rewarding 2 months from now?

Let’s make Christmas contrarian again.

See people you love. Eat. Gift. Be the weirdo who enjoys the celebration, but ALSO uses the season to create, not just consume.

Leave it with stronger relationships, better habits, a new skill, a path to wealth, or a clearer sense of purpose. If you want that, we want to help you.

Not with resolutions or vague self-improvement. But with 2 concrete moves.

Here’s the first, and it’s happening soon:

Learn How to Build Ownership at MSM.LIVE

Sam Altman once wrote:

“Though there are some exceptions,” he added, “almost no one in the history of the Forbes list has gotten there with a salary. You get rich by owning things…”

Okay… but how do you… do that?

The truth is, you can learn it. The problem is, “building ownership” isn’t one skill. It’s a broad stack of skills. You need to know how to:

• Source opportunities that others miss
• Analyze numbers with rigor
• Structure financing
• Negotiate terms
• Operate once you own
• Sell down the road (potentially)

No matter who you are, this stack is now essential:

• If you’re in a W-2: Inflation is eating away at your wages while AI is eating away at your role. Negotiating equity, profit-sharing, or ownership stakes is increasingly important.
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• If you’re looking to buy your 1st business: You need to know how to source, evaluate, finance, and operate deals in a way that fits your time, capital, and risk profile.‍
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• If you already own a business: Growth often comes not from within, but from acquiring competitors or complementary businesses.

That’s why we’re hosting Main Street Millionaire Live. Not as a guarantee, but as a way to affordably give you concentrated education in the skills we’ve seen matter most.

It’s 3 days of live deep dives, fireside chats, and workshops with operators and dealmakers, where we walk through the ownership stack step-by-step:

• Day 1: Deal Sourcing
• Day 2: Financing & Negotiation
• Day 3: Ownership & Scaling

What you’ll get: practical lessons and real-world tactics our community has already used to close dozens of deals. Will 3 days make you an expert? No.

But, for very little $, it will give you the tools, fundamentals, and potential network to become one much more rapidly in the weeks and months after.

“Fantastic insight into the nuts and bolts of how to go about acquiring a business.” -K.B.

“Packed with real, actionable strategies and hands-on workshops… The energy in the room was next level.” -A.C.

The reason we’re doing this now is simple:

Ever watch a basketball game? For ~40 minutes, the pace is manageable. Players jog back on defense, coaches test different offenses, stars conserve energy, and fans get up for beers.

Then the 4th quarter begins to close, and suddenly, every possession is 10x more intense. Fouls get harder. Stars stop resting. Games are won and lost over a few big, late plays.

The closer to the buzzer, the more each moment matters. Life has a version of this, too.

• Early in the year: Each decision matters, but there’s slack. You can course-correct. Mistakes get diluted.
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• As the year closes: Each choice carries more “finality.” Habits lock in, results solidify, there’s less time to recover.

It’s wild to think about how many life-changing business decisions happen as a result of this.

Here’s why the holidays are a goldmine for acquisition opportunity creation:

Think about it. Family dinners around this time of year form the perfect conditions for business owners to CONSIDER selling their business... Why?

1. Reflection on Retirement

As the year winds down, business owners take stock of their lives and futures. For aging owners, this reflection naturally leads to questions about succession, legacy, and stepping away.

The emotional weight of another year of grinding through daily operations, especially during the holidays, can tip the scale toward selling.

2. Family Influence

Holiday gatherings bring families together, sparking discussions about the future.

Children may not want to take over the family business, or they might encourage parents to consider retirement for health or lifestyle reasons. These conversations plant the seed for a sale.

3. Clean Slate Mentality

The New Year represents a fresh start. Business owners looking to simplify their lives, reduce stress, or explore new opportunities see January as the ideal time to start handing over the reins.

Folks, some of your next big moves are quietly being born right now in someone else’s dining room.

Why This Matters EVEN MORE Right Now

Look at the job market. It’s like musical chairs. Even if you’ve still got a chair, you’re learning the hard truth: these aren’t your grandpa’s sturdy oak rockers.

They’re $2.99 folding chairs from Alibaba. One algorithm change, one A.I. update, one earnings miss, and they can collapse out from under you.

That’s why coasting into January and February is a mistake.

The next 60 days are your playoff minutes.

This is when specific, intentional moves count the most. So here’s another you can start working on now to build an unfair advantage in 2026:

Mentally Prepare for the AI-First World We’re About to Enter

Here are a few ways to do that:

1. Understand why clear thinking is the new coding.

The skill that separates you now? Knowing what you want and knowing how to ask for it.

“A lot of people think I’m selling magic,” the CEO of Replit told us recently. “I’m not.”

“Management [of AI tools] is hard. You need to think clearly. You need to communicate clearly. It’s going to require resourcefulness.”

2. Use your job to find a problem

“Entrepreneurship is not always about taking massive risks,” Amjad (Replit’s CEO) told us. He shared two examples:

• An employee at a skincare business automated an inventory process with Replit. He helped his boss cut their $150K SaaS bill, and now licenses his tool back to his employer for $30K/year.‍
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• A finance guy at a VC firm built his own internal tool on Replit to manage their portfolio. Within weeks, other funds wanted it. He landed $5M in ARR before quitting his job.

“Find an industry you’re interested in and open your eyes. You’re going to find massive inefficiencies… and you’ll know where AI can plug in.”

3. Accept that there’s a rare window of opportunity for owners

“It’ll probably take 5 years before everyone in the world learns that this technology exists,” Amjad says. If you already own (or want to buy) a business:

“Find businesses that are running inefficiently, figure out where to plug in AI.”

“A lot of companies pay tens of thousands for software you can now build on Replit for $5. You can go into any business, shave off a lot of cost, and make it more profitable, even without growing it.”

In a few years, this will be common knowledge. Today, it’s an unfair advantage.

Right now, you’re probably sitting there like this:

And you’re probably thinking: “I should really learn how to own something so I can do this.”

So here’s how you can get started, right now.

Sign up for Main Street Millionaire Live, designed to give you the exact skills you need to take action.

• Learn to find the right business for you, the right way.
• Understand how to analyze deals and fund your acquisition (without draining your savings).
• Build a clear action plan for ownership that you can scale with AI and other strategies.

Just real, useful tactics from real people who’ve done it.

🎟️ Tickets are on sale for a limited time…

Click here to grab yours before prices go up.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays,

-Team Contrarian.

The information contained here is educational, may not be typical, and does not guarantee returns. Background, education, effort, and application will affect your experience and the profitability of any business. Individual results may vary.