On June 1, 2018, Roger Alvarado climbed a ladder, smashed a window, and broke into Taylor Swift’s townhouse in Tribeca.

He took a shower.

Using her body wash and loofah...

He slept in her bed.

On her sheets…

He used her toilet.

And no - he DID NOT flush.

Police arrested him inside the home

He was sentenced to 6 months + 5 years probation for the 2018 break-in.

He broke into her home again in 2019.

Another 4 years in prison.

“I have no regrets.”

– Roger Alvarado

Frank Andrew Hoover drove from Texas to Nashville three times.

He believed Taylor Swift was the mother of his son.

He sent her hundreds of emails…

He claimed he would “wear a bomb” if he couldn’t be with her.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years of probation, GPS monitoring, mandatory psychological treatment, and ordered to stay at least one mile away from Swift and her family.

David Crowe was arrested outside Taylor Swift’s townhouse in Tribeca.

Witnesses watched him trying to open the front door.

He was charged with stalking and harassment.

There was no prison sentence for Crowe.

He was found mentally unfit to stand trial and committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Aharon Brown entered Ariana Grande’s home more than 100 times

On September 9, 2021, he was carrying a large hunting knife.

He was later sentenced to 3 years in California state prison.

On July 9, 2022, police arrested Chad Michael Busto after he drove from California to Ariana Grande’s home in Montecito

Authorities said he violated a restraining order.

He was carrying a hunting knife when officers arrested him.

Chad Michael Busto didn’t stop at Ariana Grande.

Just weeks later, he barged into a backstage dressing area at an Emma Watson fashion event shouting:

“I want to marry Emma Watson. Let me speak to Emma Watson. Let me take a photo with Emma Watson.”

He was arrested again for trespassing and disorderly conduct.

But he got no prison time.

On May 5, 2025, a man crashed his vehicle through the front gates of Jennifer Aniston’s home in Bel Air while she was inside

Security guards pinned him until police arrived.

The suspect sent Aniston unwanted texts, DMs, and social media posts for years.

On June 8, 2014, Joshua Corbett climbed over a fence and entered Sandra Bullock’s home…

While she was inside

Bullock locked herself in a bedroom and called 911.

Police arrested Corbett inside the house.

Investigators later recovered firearms, ammunition, and notebooks detailing his obsession with the actress.

On October 3, 2016…

Five men forced their way into Kim Kardashian’s residence

They bound her hands and feet with zip ties.

They taped her mouth…

They locked her in a marble bathroom…

They made off with $10 million worth of jewelry.

Kardashian later said…

“I was sure I was going to be raped and killed.”

Defendants received sentences ranging from 3 to 8 years…

But because of time served, most served little or no additional prison time after trial.

On June 10, 2016, Christina Grimmie finished performing at The Plaza Live in Orlando…

She began greeting fans…

As she opened her arms to hug the next person in line...

Kevin James Loibl shot her.

Grimmie’s brother tackled the gunman before he died by suicide.

Grimmie died later that night

This list could have been much, much longer.

The cost of fame.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Don’t you hate when you make the same mistake twice?

After months of hard work…

You’re making progress…

Sometimes in leaps and bounds…

And then something suddenly pulls the rug out from under you?

Two steps forward…

One step back.

Most people are living the same day…

Over and over…

Like Groundhog Day.

But most of us don’t realize it.

Once you figure out what the cycle looks like…

Other people become way more predictable.

But more importantly…

You can break the cycle.

And be free.

I bring all of this up because...

On November 9th of last year, I released a post called…

“They Nuked My Substack.”

It’s one of my favorite posts.

So surely, seven months later, I wouldn’t be coming out with a sequel.

Surely, not so soon…

Surely, I learned my lesson...

Surely, I would not find myself staring at another platform that nuked my work overnight…

Unfortunately…

No.

Here’s what happened:

This is what my Vacation Vault now looks like.

Gone overnight.

Months of work.

Vanished.

For about ten minutes, I just stared at the screen.

This almost broke me.

Almost.

I refused to let it.

I crossed 1,000 free subscribers…

Closing in on my 60th paid member...

In entrepreneur language, that’s validation.

It means people want what you’re making.

It means you’re not crazy.

There is demand.

That part was undeniable.

The funny thing is, Patreon didn’t shut me down because people hated my work.

They shut me down because my whole thing revolves around vacation giveaways, and that’s against their terms of service.

I didn’t know.

Did you?

Like most people, I don’t read the fine print.

Whatever.

It turned out to be a blessing.

The good news is I preserved all 1,040 free subscribers.

Nobody vanished.

Nobody got lost.

But I had to start over from scratch with paid memberships.

And honestly?

That was another lesson.

If I had owned the data from the beginning…

I wouldn’t be in this position.

That’s another reason I’m obsessed with ownership.

No more renting.

No more hoping somebody else takes care of what’s mine.

The second they shut me down, I made up my mind.

Fuck these people.

No waiting for permission.

I’m building my own site.

Just like I built my own email system.

Open source.

Hosted on my own servers.

Integrated with Substack.

Nobody gets to pull the plug overnight.

And honestly?

The final product is better.

Much better.

With the Vacation Vault merging with Permission to be Powerful…

Permission to be Powerful is starting to look beautiful.

The Vacation Vault.

Two new serials.

12 distinct newsletters.

Downloads.

Archives.

The whole thing feels like a real publication now.

This thing is starting to give me Vanity Fair vibes.

And lately, I’ve been rediscovering something funny.

I spent an hour listening to old articles the other night.

I had forgotten most of them.

After a while, you stop remembering what you’ve created.

So I got to experience them almost like a stranger would.

And I was hooked.

Every article slapped.

Not because I’m special.

Because I put fifteen years into learning this craft.

I put my heart into every piece.

And suddenly I realized something.

This is working.

Even at my meditation retreat last week, I looked at my blog archive and thought:

Holy shit.

This isn’t a blog anymore.

This is a body of work.

It took less than two days to turn some of those articles into a book.

Because the raw material was already there.

That’s what I failed to understand the first time I got shut down.

Nobody can take your work from you.

They can only take away the building you’re renting.

You just move somewhere else.

And rebuild.

Stronger.

I’m militant about owning infrastructure.

No gatekeepers.

Nobody who can shut me down overnight.

I spent too long building inside other people’s kingdoms and acting shocked when the king raked me over the coals.

That’s on me.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

But this time is different.

The Vacation Vault is back.

Permission to be Powerful is stronger.

The book is real.

The serials are real.

The archive is real.

The audience is real.

The demand is real.

And the infrastructure is mine.

Not rented.

Not borrowed.

Not dependent on any platform.

No more building castles on someone else’s land.

If they can take it from you overnight…

It was never really yours.

No more begging for permission.

Take what’s yours.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Download it here:

Read more

Beauty Queen

“I’ve never seen a flood before,” I said.

Famous last words.

I’ve always had an uncanny ability to predict the future, and this was one such prescient moment. This is precisely what I told my mother before she stuck the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine roared. She grabbed the steering wheel and twisted it. And out we went on this rainy day to our destination.

“Hopefully, you never will.” My mom said.

My mom was very risk-averse. She didn’t like dogs or, really, any pets. She didn’t know how to ride a bike and didn’t care to learn.

One time, we went on a field trip with the St. Lucia National Trust to a beach that was so remote that most people had never been there before.

It was on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island, so the seas were rough and hostile. Menacing. And there were all sorts of exotic creatures on the Atlantic side that could kill you or fuck up your day, so most people avoided swimming on that side of the island. You were indeed much more likely to drown over there.

The waves on this beach were unspeakably rough. The tide would pull back so far you could see the corals and sea urchins where the sea floor was just a moment ago. It pulled back hard for what seemed like an eternity. You could have easily gotten sucked out to sea if you weren’t careful.

But when the wave finally returned to the shore, it crashed like it was trying to kill you. The water got to our necks and knocked us over like bowling pins. One guy got smashed into the side of a cliff and broke his leg.

That’s when my mother said, “I don’t care about how great this mystery beach is… We’re all going home.”

“C’mon!” I said. “We never do anything fun.”

I had never experienced so much fear of missing out in my life. My father was also quite salty about her executive decision but went along with it.

About half the people kept going even after the guy broke his leg. And they did make it to their destination… But they risked life and limb to get there. Grown adults started to cry like children. Some parents had to hold their baby over their heads to keep it above water.

For my mother… There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that she would get caught up in a nightmare like that. She would do anything and everything to avoid that kind of situation.

But sometimes disaster strikes when you least expect it — and no amount of preparation can save you. That’s the very situation we found ourselves in one day when I was 11.

I told my mother I’d never seen a flood before because cats and dogs were raining that day.

Now, there are TWO types of rain in St. Lucia…

Sometimes rain came crashing down out of nowhere, and then five minutes later, the sun would come right back as if nothing happened. Look around, and you’d see some gutters draining out, some dripping from tree branches, maybe a little steam coming off the roads, but that was it. Ten minutes later, you would have no idea it rained.

And other times, the rain would put the fear of God in you. Usually, the rain would last the entire day. Sometimes, two or three. It would be like a monsoon. Or a wet blizzard. The sky would go completely dark and sinister. Thunder would go off like cannon fire — giving you goosebumps and startling you more with each burst.

Read more

Prisoner of War

“Put your hand out.” My teacher said.

I look around at my classmates. On their faces, I see a mixture of delight, terror, and empathy for what I’m about to endure. There’s nothing worse than doing the exact thing you don’t want to do. I didn’t want to put it out. But I did.

I tried to keep as much distance as possible between myself and my hand. I braced myself. At that moment, my teacher truly felt like God. They were all-powerful, and I was as insignificant as could be.

This may have been a traumatic encounter, but it wasn’t rare. Someone got beaten almost daily. It would be rare for us to make it a week without someone getting theirs.

Think about how fucked up this situation was — so many people can relate to being bullied by other kids at school. But what about when the violence came down from the institution itself?

For this reason, I can honestly say that growing up in St. Lucia felt a lot like being a prisoner of war. I know this because I once watched a movie called Unbroken. At one point, there’s a whole section of the film where the main character is a prisoner of war. I watched him get beaten and tortured. I watched him shovel latrines. I watched his tormentor gleefully commit war crime after war crime. And I thought, how relatable.

The teachers took sadistic pleasure in causing us pain. Some of them gave their thick wooden sticks pet names. Like “Long Hot and Spicy”. Or… “Tickler”. This barbaric practice was only recently abolished, thank GOD. However, some people fought for decades before they were able to sway public opinion on the topic of corporal punishment.

Violence was so normalized that it would genuinely shake you to find out what kinds of brutal acts are commonplace in the country.

Everyone in the class got their ass whooped, so we bonded over it. I got it, so you deserved to get it, too. And, after growing up like that, most people here couldn’t wait to dump all of their rage, aggression, and hostility onto the next generation. You couldn’t convince them otherwise.

The tiniest bit of therapy would have gone such a long way, yet ironically, most people here look upon therapy the way Americans think about voodoo. It’s this scary and evil thing that never works. They were hardcore “spare the rod and spoil the child” types. It was all so fucked up. And it gets so much worse than what I’m describing to you right now…

The first strike would always be the worst.

My teacher cranked her arm back with her stick raised to the sky.

There was dead silence. Everyone held their breath.

Her arm comes down like an axe.

I jerk my hand back as a nervous reflex—an involuntary act of self-preservation.

“If you do that again.” She said. “I’ll make it worse.”

I put my hand out. This time, I have to force myself to keep it there. The stick comes crashing down. It makes a whoosh as it cuts through the air. The strike makes a crack that could be heard three classrooms away. Everyone in my grade would know what happened by the time it was over. It feels like hot lava. At that moment, my brain broke. I can’t believe this is happening to me. This is so violating.

I take eight strikes in total. My palm is swollen and blood-red.

Most boys my age could take the beating and pretend to be completely unfazed. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t one of those boys.

Read more

Frenemy

“I think it’s okay for a man to eat a woman’s ass…” Erika said as she slurped her black coffee.

“But I’ll be DAMNED if I EVER eat a man’s ass.”

This was how my day started with Erika every day.

We drank coffee strong enough to kill a horse and talked about the most ridiculous bullshit. Every single day for eight years. This was our ritual. It went with the territory. Two creative geniuses attached at the hip all day—every day.

We were codependent as fuck. Dangerously codependent. We had a three-bedroom apartment from which we lived and worked. It was a universe unto itself. We rarely had visitors. We kept to ourselves. Two writers up in that house all day. With anywhere between four and eight cats. More if you counted their stray lovers. With nothing but our crazy thoughts — it always made for great discussion.

She was a Tumblr feminist.

This is a VERY niche type of personality. VERY.

People on Tumblr were thoroughly indoctrinated in a worldview that ran counter to mainstream Western values.

Tumblr Circa 2018 was the original woke mob. Everyone was a communist or an anarchist. Everyone used pronouns — long before pronouns were a thing. All the girlies were leaking the tea about racism, intersectional feminism, and all things LGBTQ.

Tumblr’s user base was younger than most other social media sites. About half the users are under 25 years old. It was where all the kids absconded because their parents were now on Facebook, which meant that Facebook was no longer cool. It was full of high school drama, silly in-jokes, and kids trying to figure out who they were and what they believed—sometimes by getting into absurd arguments with strangers.

There was always something hilarious going viral on Tumblr.

It always made for great conversation in the morning.

Most people on Tumblr write for a small audience of their friends, not for public consumption by their grandmothers and coworkers, as you write on Facebook. Most people use Tumblr with a pseudonym and don’t connect it to their “real name.” Because of the anonymity on Tumblr, there were some real psychos on the platform. This was a place where sex workers would do long, deep dives into their entire lives and how they got into the business. How much money do they make per night? What positions do they like? What they think about the Johns they fuck. You would be surprised at how much thought goes into being a prostitute. Many sex workers had husbands and children. Some parts of their lives looked very ordinary on the surface.

People would be incredibly open with each other on the platform. This was the place to let your freak flag fly.

There were all sorts of strange parasocial relationships, lasting for years between people who had never met in real life. It was such a wacky place.

Where all the nerds went to be nerdy together.

Naturally, the discourse of that day on Tumblr was ass-eating, and Erika was weighing in with all of her Tumblr friends. The whole of Tumblr was split down the middle on ass-eating. Some for, some against. There was even a microbiologist who weighed in. She was definitely against it. Scientifically speaking… there was no way to explain away the millions of microbes you can see under the microscope with your own two eyes.

But some people on Tumblr defended ass-eating vociferously.

Read more

Chapter 1: Hell and Paradise

St. Lucia is both hell and paradise.

I wondered how I might capture the island’s mystique in a way that might register with an American reader. A place like that is so far off the average American’s radar that they have no clue what it’s like until they finally visit.

Every time a foreigner comes here, culture shock hits them like a bus—a rude awakening. After I moved to the U.S. and started working for big influencers like Tony Robbins, any time I felt self-doubt or unworthy, I’d say, “These fools wouldn’t have lasted one day in St. Lucia.” And I know I’m right—not one day.

One look at the teacher’s stick…

One step into the bathroom at my school…

And 99% of Americans would be on the first flight back to their country!

But I don’t want to tell you the bad stuff right now.

After thinking about it, I thought I’d start with Pigeon Point. We begin here for many reasons. Pigeon Point is a little island about half a mile offshore at the northern tip of St. Lucia. Back then, nobody could access the place without a boat… so most people only got to go there once or twice. Suddenly, The Pirates of the Caribbean becomes real when you go to Pigeon Point.

On the island stood ruins from St. Lucia’s colonial past: old army barracks, an armory, two lookout points at the top of two mountains, and maid’s quarters. Cannons littered the place. A couple of old houses and a cemetery rounded out the site. It was a time capsule for the 1700s. Everything was made out of bricks that people don’t make anymore, from an archaic type of cement that no longer exists.

Today, the island is connected to the mainland with a causeway constructed in the 80s. So, now, people go there all the time. I had many birthday parties for myself and others there. People get married all the time there. They throw massive concerts and events there. It’s a stunning backdrop. The air there is extra salty. You can detect the vague whiff of sea life wherever you go in the air. And the winds are heavy and constant—the type of wind you need to propel a sailing ship across the Atlantic.

There’s no denying that Pigeon Point is a magical place. I’m sure thousands of babies have been conceived at that place. Erika and I spent lots of time there.

I wanted to start here because Erika and I once went to Pigeon Point, and the strangest thing happened.

Erika was near the shoreline, enjoying the crash of waves in the water. I sat further up the beach, watching her do her thing. Looking down at the sand—at my feet—I saw two dead baby leatherback turtles.

It is a very curious sight. Sea turtles are rarely spotted during the day. When a turtle comes to shore to lay eggs, it’s usually very late at night. Likewise, baby turtles head to the sea at night when they hatch. So, I rarely saw such things in my day-to-day life. I’d lived on the island for most of my life, yet this was still a once-in-a-lifetime moment.

If Discovery Channel hadn’t told me about the creatures swimming around in the sea, I probably would never have known most of them existed in St. Lucia.

Maybe that’s an exaggeration. Once in a while, a starfish, a pufferfish, or perhaps even a super poisonous translucent jellyfish might wash up on land. But I’ve never seen a shark in the water—although some have.

These days, scientists are studying a pod of 500 sperm whales in Dominica. Scientists from Oxford University are using AI to try to decode the sperm whales’ language literally. And yes, they speak a real language.

Sperm whales have the largest brains in existence. It’s six times bigger than a human’s brain. They also make the loudest noise of any animal. Some say their clicks are louder than a jet engine. Others say it can kill you if you’re in the water and you’re too close. They have distinct names and words for all sorts of things. They hope someday to have the world’s first whale-to-human conversation. I can hardly believe that people are doing cutting-edge research like this in my backyard.

Two dead baby turtles. What an odd thing to see.

My mind started noodling over this puzzling mystery.

Why were there two dead baby turtles lying in the sand?

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Foreword

When I started this journey, I didn’t know it would lead to this book. I didn’t know I’d write about betrayal, resilience, dancing until sunrise, or fighting my way through life’s messiness to find my own rhythm. I didn’t know how many layers I’d uncover within myself or how much I’d grow in the process.

This isn’t a story about perfection—it’s a story about becoming. It’s about the moments that broke me, the ones that healed me, and the ones that made me feel alive. It’s about heartbreak and redemption, vulnerability and strength, and the endless pursuit of joy in a world that sometimes feels too heavy. It’s about choosing to keep going, even when the weight of the past feels impossible to carry.

You’ll meet the people who shaped me: mentors who believed in me, friends who held me up, rivals who challenged me, and those who hurt me in ways I never expected. Each of them left a mark, and this book is as much about them as it is about me.

At its core, this is a love letter—to dancing, to resilience, to connection, and to the messy, imperfect, beautiful journey of being human. Writing this was an act of courage, and I hope reading it feels like an act of connection.

Wherever you are in your own journey, I hope my story encourages you to take the next step. To embrace the hard lessons, to find your own rhythm, and to never stop dancing—even when the music changes.

Welcome to my story. I’m so glad you’re here.

Tony V.

December 2024

Introduction

I like to party with a 77-year-old woman named Frances.

She’s the queen of our dancing cult here in Rochester.

Even though she’s a dinosaur, she still parties at least once or twice a week. She’s at practically every salsa event, every time.

We’ve probably done 100 parties together over the past three years. Yeah, that’s about right.

Frances is so flexible that she can still do a dropkick that would knock a grown man in the face. She loves whipping out a big dropkick whenever a salsa song starts with a dramatic opening.

She’s been dancing salsa for over 50 years.

When she was younger, she danced for Garth Fagan, the choreographer behind the Broadway production of The Lion King.

Frances gets nervous and restless if she goes without dancing for too long. Since I’ve known her, she twists every dancer’s arm to assemble a show for the local community every six months.

Thanks to Frances, I can proudly say that, at 36, I have a dance crew—and we’re damn good. This past summer, she used her connections to get us a performance at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. That’s the most prominent art gallery in the whole city.

She’s so revered that whenever I take her to dance in Syracuse, the DJ has Frances lead a group dance at the night’s end. She improvises a bunch of moves, and the whole room follows. And yes, we all do follow.

Despite her age, Frances is always the baddest bitch in the room. She taught me how to be larger than life. It’s a skill—and she gave it to me. It was a critical ingredient in shaping the person I am today.

She taught me to bring the party with me wherever I go. To be the source of fun.

If the dance floor is empty, I fix that fast.

Frances taught me many dance moves, but that’s not what’s stuck with me the most.

A lot of guys go out, don’t see many cute girls, or think the dancing isn’t great, and then whine about how the party sucks.

Not me.

At 36, I thought my best partying days were behind me. Boy, was I wrong? I was leaving 98% of my party-animal self on the table without realizing it.

Frances taught me how to be an expert at having fun. How to bring joy to the masses.

Read more

🩸A Year Through Hell

Let’s do a Live Autopsy on a Bad Relationship

I wrote this in 2022, when I was getting divorced.

I filed it away.

I didn’t want to be bitter.

Three years later, I don’t see bitterness.

You tell me.

I thought marriage would be a passport to a bigger life.

Instead, I got five years in solitary confinement.

I was her everything—

Her chauffeur.

Her scapegoat.

Her emotional punching bag.

A professional doormat.

Two hours of chit-chat before breakfast. Every day.

Miss one morning, and I was the villain who didn’t care.

Friends? Off-limits.

Family? Excommunicated.

The only “safe” place was inside her orbit—

which felt less like love and more like house arrest with pretty curtains.

I shudder to think of it.

By the time I woke up, I was fifty pounds heavier and flirting with a

.38-caliber exit.

I couldn’t see the truth staring back at me.

That this relationship was killing me.

I didn’t want to see it.

No — she was my ticket to America.

My one and only.

I wasn’t going to pass it up.

What saved me wasn’t therapy or prayer.

I ran like a gazelle.

Danced like there was no tomorrow.

Meditated for days nonstop.

Tony Robbins hired me.

I travelled all over the country.

And with every mile, every salsa spin, every meditation—

I felt the chains rattle… then drop.

It’s like I crawled out of the nine gates of hell into a land of milk and

honey.

Almost.

This isn’t a revenge story.

Or a pity party.

It’s a jailbreak manual for anyone sleeping beside their warden…

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

This year, I’ve been through hell.

I’m not broken.

And I’m winning the war.

It’s been hell, all the same.

Many previous versions of me would have crumbled in so much

turmoil.

But I went the distance.

34-year-old Anton had the strength to win.

To not be a victim.

To figure out why he was broken.

To heal.

My relationship always felt oppressive.

I was unhappy for a long time.

The whole time?

Hard to tell when misery is your norm.

She had an insatiable need for attention.

It took me a few years to figure that out.

People hide their craziness.

Avoid it.

Deny it.

I thought I was the bad guy for not wanting to meet her constant

demands.

But then one day, I thought about it…

Most adults spend time with each other at the end of the day, after

the kids have been cared for, work has been done, and responsibilities

have been attended to.

Not us.

Read more

The Subtle Ways You Abandon Yourself

The Signs of Neglect You’re Overlooking—and How to Fix Them

Neglect isn’t always a big, obvious issue.

Sometimes, it’s the little things—those habits you fall into, those parts of

your life you ignore because you’re too busy, tired, or overwhelmed to face

them.

For years, I let things go unaddressed, and they became so normal to me

that I didn’t even realize I was neglecting my well-being.

Vertigo, for example, became just another part of my routine. Every

time I stood up, the world would spin, and my balance would falter. It

wasn’t a dramatic fall—most of the time. It would happen quietly, maybe in

a crowded room or meeting. I’d stumble slightly, trying to steady myself,

hoping no one noticed.

It wasn’t very comfortable, but I didn’t go to a doctor for help. I lived

with it. It took me years to realize that this was something fixable that

didn’t have to be a part of my daily life.

The cause was an old ear injury; all I had to do was ask for help. The

fix? Simple and free. I finally sought treatment, and the vertigo was gone,

but it took far too long for me to take action.

Read more

I Thought That’s What Good People Did

I spent Christmas all alone. No friends. No family. Honestly, I’m

sincerely thrilled about it.

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I’ve never, in my whole life, done 100% me for Christmas.

It’s very illuminating what kind of person I am at my core. Just this alone is

worth trying sometimes. I think.

I always get sad around the holidays.

At this version of Mike Tyson, I realized I thought it was because I felt

lonely around the holidays. It’s actually because every holiday season, I

abandon myself.

I spend time with people who I don’t like. Who don’t value me?

Who can’t see me?

Who don’t deserve me?

They reinforce the idea that I have no worth. I will do my private

meditation marathon, which involves lots of running and writing.

I’m going full Chris McCandless.

I’m doing me 100%.

I’m going to shine more brightly than ever.

Just ONE year ago, I was still so heavily programmed to prioritize

others over myself that I spent THOUSANDS to go and spend almost a

month among a bunch of people I don’t particularly like being around.

I was around many people who would NEVER go out of their way to

come and see me.

I am still in a one-sided dynamic with my entire family. I’m single, have

no kids, and on a low-contact basis with my kin. I’ve never had Christmas

all to myself.

I Don’t Feel Sad at All.

I know this might have left me feeling depressed in past years. Not today. I

used to suffer from pathological loneliness. It caused me so much trouble.

Because I was neglected growing up, I have had a pronounced desire to

find a partner for my whole life.

This wasn’t just about connecting with somebody. It was also about

feeding a malnourished soul. It was about validation.

But today, I have permitted myself to enjoy being single. Even if my life

does not follow a conventional path. I’ve never been traditional. I was so

eager to find somebody to love, but that eagerness was unhealthy.

I think, on some level, it means not being able to walk away after seeing

red flags and staying in relationships WAY past their expiration date.

I am a big believer in the expiration date of relationships.

This is the point by which, if you were healthy, you would decide to

break up with someone. Knowing what I know now. Having changed my

standards completely…

My ex-wife wouldn’t have made it past the third week.

Generously, we should have broken up by year five. Why? There comes a

point in a relationship when staying means abandoning yourself.

If you wake up one day and your partner hits you, it is cruel, hurtful,

wild, entirely out of control…

If you realize they will not change.

If you know your non-negotiables and they don’t live up to that

standard… It’s time to go.

But I’d say most people can’t be so logical about romance. Most people

don’t even know what their non-negotiables are.

After you’ve bonded with someone, it can be easy to start getting ideas

about the relationship that do not serve you. Nothing lasts forever. Not one

thing.

People come and go.

Sooner or later, they WILL have to go. That part isn’t up to you. It’s the law

of the universe. Everything comes and goes.

But we can get invested in faulty ideas about love. You might struggle

with letting go.

I know I do. It took me a whole year to get over my last relationship. I

don’t think feeling so attached for so long is good.

But I certainly could have moved on more quickly. Sometimes, people

stay in relationships for unhealthy reasons.

I believe in letting go of people who do not value me, even if it’s my

blood, because experience has shown me that this is the better choice.

That can be hard advice to follow if you’ve spent your life around

people who invalidate you.

You are vulnerable if you have spent your whole life around people who

make you feel unseen. There’s a hole in your heart that needs filling.

So, when you finally find somebody who does make you feel heard,

seen, and valued…

it’s going to be hard to let go of your new drug. But sometimes you must. If

the relationship is on shaky ground, things can go sideways whether you

want them to.

But either way, I think it’s usually a mistake to stay in a relationship

past that expiration date.

You should not have to abandon yourself as a condition of meeting your

need for love and connection. I already talked about what constitutes a good

relationship.

There are some ingredients that a healthy relationship can’t exist

without. Honesty. In other words, if you wake up and find out you married a

pathological liar… you got the wrong one.

Respect. If you devalue your partner, you undermine the entire

relationship. Safety. If you introduce violence or some other destabilizing

force to the relationship, it will make things worse.

Moreover, recovering these non-negotiables is extremely difficult once

they are gone.

Read more

book.

Anton.

Tony.

The Chauffeur.

Mike Tyson.

They’re all me.

No, I don’t have multiple personalities.

At least, not officially.

Anton is my birth name.

Tony is the name I use now.

That isn’t some random reinvention I pulled out of my ass.

Look up nicknames for Anton.

Tony is one of the most popular.

It’s especially common in places like Germany.

And it makes perfect sense.

Andrea becomes Andy.

Anthony becomes Tony.

Anton becomes Tony.

Nobody calls an Anton “Anty.”

That sounds ridiculous.

You pull the middle out of the name, add a Y, and there it is: Tony.

Anthony is the English version.

Anton is the Russian and German version.

Antoine is French.

Antonio is Spanish and Italian.

They all trace back to Antonius.

And hiding inside every one of them is Tony.

So Tony and Anton are not entirely different names.

But they became two very different identities.

The name Tony had been hiding inside Anton the entire time.

The man had to be built.

A Better Name Was Hiding in Plain Sight

I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning, announce a new name, and demand

that everyone play along.

Tony had history.

It had been hiding inside my usernames and online accounts for more

than thirteen years.

Secretly, I had wanted to change my name for almost twenty.

I just never got around to it.

Like so many things, it belonged to the life I imagined living someday.

Then someday arrived.

When I started using Tony publicly, people accepted it.

Then they started calling me Tony without thinking about it.

The change stuck.

I had a friend who tried changing her name.

It bombed.

Nobody took the new name seriously.

Eventually, she gave up.

Tony was different.

It didn’t feel imposed.

It fit so naturally that people barely questioned it.

And yes, there was another reason I liked it.

Tony Robbins.

I once heard Tony Robbins say he didn’t believe he would have become

as big as he did if he had gone by Anthony Robbins.

He was probably right.

Anthony Robbins sounds like someone who prepares your taxes.

Tony Robbins sounds like someone who walks across fire.

Names matter.

I know that better than most because I spent fifteen years learning how

words influence what people think, feel, buy, and believe.

My Name Had a Marketing Problem

There was another problem with Anton.

It confused people.

And as a copywriter, that bothered the hell out of me.

I spent fifteen years eliminating confusion for a living.

If a headline confused people, I rewrote it.

If an offer required too much explanation, I simplified it.

If customers couldn’t remember the name, the name was wrong.

Clarity matters.

Friction kills.

And there I was walking around with a name nobody understood.

Anton.

People didn’t know how to pronounce it.

They didn’t know how to spell it.

They wondered where it came from.

They assumed I was Russian.

I’m not Russian.

I don’t speak Russian.

I grew up on a tropical island in the Caribbean.

The name communicated absolutely nothing useful about me.

You rarely meet an Anton.

You almost never see an Anton as the hero in a movie.

The most famous fictional Anton I can think of is Anton Chigurh, the

psychopath from No Country for Old Men.

Wonderful.

Meanwhile, everybody understands Tony.

You hear it once.

You know how to say it.

You know how to spell it.

You remember it.

Tony Robbins.

Tony Soprano.

Tony Montana.

Tony Stark.

The name is familiar without being invisible.

Simple without being boring.

It has personality.

It moves.

That matters to me.

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

This is a photo of my twin sister and me.

Her name is Ashley. She’s been missing for almost 15 years. People ask me all the time, “Where’s your sister? What’s going on with her?”

The truth? She vanished. Became a ghost.

Which brings me to last summer…

In 2024, I was living the dream—writing copy for Tony Robbins. Dream client. High performance. Big wins.

I was the golden boy. Just delivered a $23 million sales letter. The numbers didn’t lie. The results spoke for themselves.

So after a year of relentless deadlines, I asked for a raise. But it wasn’t just about the money. It was desperate.

You see, my sister spends most of her time in catatonia—like a ghost, really. Rail thin. Tormented by voices all day. She can’t work. She can’t drive. She’s totally helpless. And she’s in a third-world country with no real medical help.

She’s all I’ve got.

We grew up side by side. Same schools, same classes, same university. We even started our first business together. And with all the professional success I’ve had, I’m haunted by what could have been. She was brilliant—top of her class, a ballerina, a pianist. She earned a medical degree on a full scholarship. But schizophrenia ravaged her life, and there’s nothing I can do.

Behind my career, there’s a mission. I need to move heaven and earth to get her the care she needs. But the reality is, I wasn’t making enough money to help her. So, I asked for a raise. It wasn’t just a “nice to have” request—it was a matter of life and death for her. I needed to get her the help she deserved, and quickly.

But instead of compassion, I got fired.

Consider donating to my sister Ashley’s GoFundMe here—because we can’t wait for the world to change for us. We’re taking matters into our own hands.

When Tony Robbins fired me, they didn’t warn me or even talk to me.

So I had no idea for a week.

I just kept doing my job until Melanie—who helped me land my first big client 10 years ago—told me I wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.

That broke me.

But here’s the kicker—this wasn’t just about a missed email or an office mistake. No, they used AI to analyze my work retroactively, searching for “weaknesses” to justify firing me. I had just delivered a $23 million sales letter. My work had generated millions for them.

And now, they were using AI to find reasons to criticize me. It was like a betrayal on top of betrayal. They didn’t even have the decency to confront me personally. Instead, they used a machine to pick apart my performance after the fact.

I spiraled. Questioned my worth. Blamed myself. Felt like I was back in a struggle I thought I’d left behind.

I know how to perform at the highest level, but when I’m down, I can’t function. And I was sick of being punished for asking for what I was worth.

Jesse called me “ungrateful.” “Undeserving.”

After a $23 million launch. After 15 years of grinding.

I came from a third-world country. There was a time I couldn’t even open a U.S. bank account. I made it to Tony’s doorstep, and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.

I’m an Agora-trained copywriter.

That’s like the Harvard of copywriting.

I’ve written for the sharpest marketers out there: Ramit Sethi, Neil Patel, Jason Fladlien.

You call that “undeserving”? Nah.

That’s what late-stage capitalism gets you—sell your soul, then get stabbed in the back.

Whatever. I’m done with that.

I’m starting something nobody can take away from me.

For the longest time, I didn’t know what I’d do next. I spent years writing for others, but never knew what I’d say for myself.

Now I know.

This newsletter, Permission to Be Powerful, is special. People are already raving about it. One reader told me my posts made her cry four times.

My voice is more powerful than ever.

The world is listening.

I’ve got so much love for Tony Robbins. I wouldn’t be who I am today without him. I’ve listened to his work since I was 18. He taught me to think big and dream even bigger. No question—he helped shape the man I am today.

But, I’m coming for him anyway.

Why?

Because Tony’s best years are behind him. But my voice is just getting started.

That’s why I started Permission to Be Powerful.

We’re small now, but this newsletter has been forged from 15 years of writing alongside the best, and it’s only going to grow.

Consider donating to my sister Ashley’s GoFundMe here—because we’re taking matters into our own hands.

And as for my next step, Permission to Be Powerful is my mission to build something nobody can take from me. It’s a product of 15 years of writing for the best, and it’s only going to grow from here.

By subscribing, you’re supporting more than just a newsletter. You’re part of this journey—my journey—to empower myself, my sister, and anyone who’s ready to take control of their own life.

I’m not asking for a handout. I’m asking for a community of people who believe in empowerment, authenticity, and the power of taking action.

Join us.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

It’s called, “How to Get Hired For Your Dream Job (Without Bowing to the Bullshit!)”

I’ll be teaching you the secrets that got Tony Robbins to hire me.

You’ll learn:

• The one question to ask at the start of every job interview that flips the script and makes you the boss. (They’ll say, “Nobody’s ever said that before.”)

• How to become the best in your field.

• What it was like working for some of the biggest players in the online marketing world, including Ramit Sethi, Neil Patel, Agora, Jason Fladlien, and more.

• How to seed your future with career victories 2-3 years in advance.

Reserve your ticket here.

(VIP members get access for free. Upgrade here.)

But first…

Let’s drag Tony…

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I used to work for Tony Robbins.

The guy who tells millions of people every year to raise their standards.
✅ To know their worth.
✅ To take massive action.
✅ To never settle for less than they deserve.

I believed him.

I listened.
I executed.
And then one day, I decided to actually live that message.

I went to my boss—Jesse Ecker—and asked for a raise.
Not a crazy ask. Just a raise that reflected the A-list copy I was delivering for one of the biggest personal development brands on earth.

What happened next?

I got fired.

Not for doing bad work.
Not for slacking off.
Not for missing deadlines.

I got fired because I dared to believe I was worth more.

Let’s just be clear about what that means:

I got fired from a company that teaches people to know their value…

…because I knew mine.

The irony doesn’t just sting—it screams.

This wasn’t some faceless tech firm or soulless corporate giant.

This was Tony Robbins.

The "Take massive action!" guy.

The "Raise your standards!" guy.

The "Live with passion!" guy.

And the second I did that—lived his teachings—

I got slapped back into place like I’d committed some cardinal sin.

Let’s call it what it is:

Hypocrisy.

Because if you’re preaching one thing outwardly—and practicing the opposite internally—what do you call that?

A brand?

No.

A scam.

Let me break this down:

They didn’t fire me for being bad.
They fired me for being brave.

They fired me when I stopped being the “grateful freelancer” and start being the “true professional.”

They fired me when my belief in myself threatened the chain of command.

That’s what happened to me.

And the worst part?
I had looked up to these people.
I studied Tony’s work for years.
I dreamed of being part of this movement.

And then—bam.
One conversation.
One honest request.
One act of self-worth… and I’m out.

Let me tell you something most people inside the personal development industry are too scared to say:

These companies don’t build leaders.
They build followers who buy tickets.

They don’t want you to rise.
They want you to clap harder.

And the second you show up with an actual spine…
The second you embody what they’ve been preaching?

You become a problem.

A “bad culture fit.”
A “diva.”
An “egotistical freelancer who’s asking for too much.”

That’s how they spin it.

But the truth?

I didn’t get fired for failing.
I got fired for being powerful.

Jesse told me I was “undeserving” for asking for more money.

Not “Hey, we can’t afford it right now.”
Not “Let’s revisit this in 90 days.”
Not “Here’s what we’d need to see to justify that number.”

No.

Just straight-up: “You’re not worthy of more.”

Said from the inside of a self-worth empire.

Ain’t that a bitch.

That told me everything I needed to know.

Outwardly: transformation.
Inwardly: control.

Here’s what I learned

This wasn’t a death.
This was a birth.

It forced me to wake up to a pattern that had been governing me for my whole life:

I kept asking OTHERS to validate my worth—because I hadn’t claimed it for myself yet.

I thought I NEEDED permission.

Turns out—I needed exile.

Because it was only after Jesse fired me that I finally understood:

Those who preach power will often try to crush it when it appears too close to home.

But there’s no hard feelings.

This is just the law of the jungle.

Power is NEVER given.

It’s taken.

Because if you become powerful, who’s left to buy the ticket?
Who’s left to stay in line, applaud on cue, and say, “Yes sir, I’m so grateful to be here”?

Not you.

You’re dangerous now.
You own yourself now.
You’re outside the story.
And once you’re outside the story?

They can’t control you.

So here’s my message to you:

If you’re in a situation where you’re doing excellent work…

And the second you ask for more, they punish you?

That’s not feedback. That’s fear.
Their fear of your independence.
Their fear of your self-belief.
Their fear of losing control over you.

It means you’ve already outgrown the room.

And the door that closed behind you?
That wasn’t rejection.
That was release.

Now, go build something nobody can ever take away from you.

Or, join me this Friday to find your dream job.

I’m not teaching you how to “get hired and stay small.”
I’m teaching you how to land positions on your own terms.

So you leverage the system to buy your freedom faster.

Without becoming a corporate drone.

LIVE workshop this Friday at 2 pm EST.

It’s called, “How to Get Hired For Your Dream Job (Without Bowing to the Bullshit!)”

Register here 👉 https://lu.ma/82gemhv7

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Okay — so I used to write copy for Tony Robbins.

I’m still salty about them, but I think it’s worth talking about, so I will power through the salt for now. Tony Robbins was a world-class educator.

I’m so damn proud of myself for the work I did and the lessons I learned. I left Tony Robbins feeling self-aware. I finally understood what I was — what I had become.

And it just so happens that I’d become a finely tuned instrument. I became self-confident. I appraised the value of my work there, and it became evident that, somehow, some way… I had become Mike Tyson. At least as far as copywriters go.

How I got there is a wild but very long story. Save that for another day.

I want to say that I was doted on so much by the company. My job was so easy compared to my other client, Dylan. The level of copy I had to deliver was elementary compared to writing for him. More on him another time.

I discovered that I do know what the fuck I’m talking about. Not only that… I’m a freak of nature.

My path to this point was very unusual.

I suppose there’s a reason to be grateful for St. Lucia that I never considered before. I worked from St. Lucia for five years with my now ex-wife. Those five years were a crucible, shaping me into this incredible instrument. But I had no idea.

At ground zero, I was depressed. I was broke. I was stressed out. But I didn’t give myself enough credit for my hard work. Because freelancing has always been a game of survival, I had a very frantic energy about myself. I was always afraid.

It was not necessarily the recommended path, but it shaped me into Mike Tyson. I got enough reps in, and then one day, I was buff as fuck.

I can walk around with my enormous dick energy and fuck-you attitude because I earned it. I had to eat a lot of shit to get here. I finally became a professional.

Tony showed up exactly when I was ready for him to show up.

I had so many epiphanies working for him. I realized I’d crossed a threshold where, having worked for so many brilliant marketers, their training was inside me.

I don’t know why I keep shaking in my boots about keeping the lights on. This is yet another trauma that I’m working through. The reality is… I have a black belt in marketing, and I know that because I’ve hacked it among the best.

Even among the best, people look at me like a freak.

How did a boy from an island just 14 miles long get to write to 2 million people? How did my copy find its fucking way to Times Square? What the fuck.

I scraped and scrunted by for so long; it behooves me to think I made it this far coming from where I started — on Elance for $10 bucks per hour. I made every mistake I possibly could. I failed my way to the top.

I had some massive inner blocks I needed to overcome. I’ve been busting my ass for so long I became a fucking samurai.

My words are lethal weapons. And but a rare few people have put in as much sweat as me. Just on this one area. I understand copy better than you, bitch. I know this shit so well… I have a magic voice.

Whatever I say sparkles in the night. I know how to make it rain. And I’ve dropped some monsoons for Tony Robbins himself.

I had the great honor and pleasure to write alongside a dear friend and colleague I’ve known for 10 years.

It was such a remarkable combination — me and her. Both are in our prime. Both are smart as fuck. Both salsa dancers (I introduced her to dancing, and she became a badass, as God intended).

There was a magic between us.

One of the sweet pleasures I had working for Tony — I was so good, everybody just got the fuck out of my way. Everybody knew whatever I wrote was going to be good.

There’s nothing like selling 20,000 tickets to Unleash The Power Within to inflate a man’s ego. It adds a certain gravitas to my words, don’t you agree?

I know what the fuck I’m talking about.

If anybody is curious, I marveled at the real Tony Robbins, which was not quite what I was expecting, in a good way.

Tony seemed sincere about his desire to help people. I also think his Unleash program was about showing people how to feel worthy.

The feeling of unworthiness is one of the major blocks to success. How can you ever get it if you don’t feel like you deserve success? It’s impossible.

As a man thinketh, so shall he be.

I concluded that Tony must be selling something of value if this is what they are getting on the other side.

A worthy cause to stand for, to be sure.

The people inside the company were primarily good.

I think my ex-boss was a pussy bitch, and I think it’s toxic to go firing your talent over stupid personal grievances.

But honestly, I’m finally starting to see that there’s so much more for me in the wild.

I don’t think I give myself nearly enough credit.

So, I’ve written copy for some of the best in the industry.

Beyond that, I’ve put almost 15 years into writing every single day. The muscle is so strong; I think not too many people have put more hours in than me. I’m too good at this point.

If I can stop being a basket case and get my act together.

Yes, Tony forced me to grow. Necessity is the mother of invention. I had to finally face the parts of myself that I didn’t want to face—or I would be homeless.

There’s been a side of myself that I’ve been too afraid to look at for a long time, and it’s held me back for the longest time.

I didn’t believe people would value what I had to say.

Meanwhile, I’ve got Frank Sinatra’s voice, JFK’s charm, and Mark Twain’s wit. Sexy Ernest Hemingway. LOL.

So humble. I know.

Since I left Tony, things have been falling into place so perfectly that I can’t deny that God is at work.

The precision with which things have fallen together gives me renewed faith. And thank God.

It took a while to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but I can feel the giant within waking up.

I feel mighty.

Add ChatGPT to the mix. Ya, I’m unstoppable.

I’ll have to write something about ChatGPT very soon.

The literal perfect clients are just showing up on my doorstep.

I have no choice. My apartment, as of tonight, is now a place of business.

I’m working on a tight schedule to roll out several webinar launches concurrently.

Not just that, I met a hot babe who might be my dream girl. I’m not sure yet, but she will be my point guard.

She has an automated webinar funnel running, so I have someone on the technical side who can help me fill that gap.

I have some incredible mentors.

I’m incredibly pleased with the various people I keep in my orbit.

My mentors have been a Godsend.

With my 15 years of experience as a copywriter, I’ve put in an incontestable number of person-hours into my craft.

The blueprints for making millions of dollars have been seared into me.

It’s encoded into my nervous system. My body knows what to do, even if I feel self-doubt.

I can work off muscle memory, at the very least.

It’s incredible how much alignment I’m experiencing right now.

I love all of my clients, even if one pays dirt.

My clients are Stansberry, Investorplace, Behind the Markets, Foundr, and my two gurus, who will be my first true business partnerships.

Talking to this Jamaican dude tonight was so special. He taught me so much he doesn’t even realize it.

I thought about it… and worked with a therapist and my cult leader.

Ah, perfect. This is my cup of tea. There are two causes I can get behind.

I think it’s an excellent sign that I’m feeling mental clarity around this guy.

I’m so excited to have a new mentor in my life.

This guy is so far out that I should dedicate a whole post to him.

But let’s just say this motherfucker is better than Tony Robbins on so many levels.

No disrespect to Tony… He’s got some powerful stuff.

But this guy is introducing me to a new universe of wisdom and power.

The harmony between us is perfect.

He wants it more than I do. I got this.

His mindset is perfect for the moment.

And he has a proven brand already.

With my copywriting prowess, I expect good results.

As of tonight, my house is now a studio, and I love that.

We’ve got webinars to make.

We’ve got launches to do.

I know what must be done and feel ready to take that big, bold step forward.

I’ve worked for a ton of scumbags in the industry.

And, as I was telling him earlier, I think it’s more than just the shady industry filled with unscrupulous actors.

This is just late-stage capitalism doing what it does.

Like, I could judge people for sidestepping ethics when they create content…

But there are so many other industries that are just as bad… Or worse…

When I think about it, I conclude that that’s just the nature of the beast.

Sure, I could question my ethics or my colleagues.

But if the same shit is happening everywhere else, too…

I don’t know. There’s more happening behind the scenes.

This is a systemic issue.

I sleep better at night, knowing I’ll be in good company if I go to hell.

This guy is better than Tony. Believe that.

His words cut with precision, profoundness, and truth.

I’m currently most fascinated with — fuck, I forget.

Sorry. It’ll come back. Don’t worry. It happens.

This guy has spent time with all of your fave gurus.

He’s gone into the Amazon to disappear into the jungle for months.

How wild is that?

You know you’re a little crazy when you can claim to be a hunter-gatherer on your resume.

He’s seen things. He’s been placed.

I think I will be exactly like him when I’m old.

We just read and read and read.

An unquenchable thirst.

And the dividends are compounding.

I have my marketing black belt. No superpowers.

So I won’t be able to wow people.

It’s not glamorous.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not deadly.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I didn’t want to write this.

I’ve avoided this topic for months.

But I realized people can benefit from hearing what happened.

So, I’ll hold my nose and tell you what I learned.

I’m a copywriter by trade, and I can tell you—landing Tony Robbins as a client is every copywriter’s dream. My friend, hired as my Copy Chief, once got a standing ovation at a seminar just because her name was announced.

That’s how much weight the brand carries.

And yeah, it inflated my ego.

One minute, I’d be on a Zoom call talking strategy, and the next, Tony would be on Fox News saying something I had written.

I’d write a line, forget about it, and the following week, my Copy Chief would casually say,

“Oh yeah, we used that for a billboard in Times Square.”

It was surreal.

The sheer scope of the work.

The audience of 2 million people.

There’s something about operating at that level—it forces you to rise. I showed up determined to crush it, and I did. There’s no better way to silence self-doubt than proving you can hang with the best.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I had truly made it.

Then, I got fired.

I Got Fired for Asking for a Raise.

I didn’t think asking for a raise could get a person fired.

Especially not when that person was delivering A-list work.

But it happened.

See, I was born and raised in a third-world country. These people have no idea what it took for me to even get in the room.

And once I was there, I wasn’t just playing to survive.

I was playing to win.

When I asked for that raise, I wasn’t just thinking about myself. I was thinking about my sister, who is in poor health and unable to support herself.

I wanted the freedom to help her.

But the response I got?

“You don’t deserve it.”

I know that’s not true.

I asked for an A-list rate because I was delivering A-list work.

And yet… I struggled to understand why my request was met with such hostility.

Until I realized something.

It Wasn’t About the Raise.

It was about control.

Because if they could make me question myself, I wouldn’t move forward.

If they could make me doubt my worth, I wouldn’t ask for more again.

If they could make me feel small, they wouldn’t have to face their own insecurity.

And that’s the hardest part of losing that gig.

Not the job.

Not the money.

The bragging rights.

I had my identity deeply invested in being Tony’s copywriter.

And when that was taken away?

It felt like a part of me died.

Losing the Job Felt Like Losing Myself

Before this happened, I had a sense of stability.

Maybe not perfect, but enough.

Then overnight, it was gone.

And that version of me—the one who felt secure, the one who thought he had made it, the one who believed he was safe—died.

That’s a grief process.

That’s why I felt stuck.

Because I wasn’t just mourning a job.

I was mourning the version of myself who trusted that the world was fair.

This wasn’t just about getting fired.

It was a betrayal of my worth.

It hit deep because I wasn’t just working a job—I was climbing. I was making it.

Landing a client like Tony Robbins felt like proof that I was on the right path.

And then, in one moment, it was all taken away.

That kind of thing shakes your foundation.

It’s not just about losing income—it’s about losing certainty, security, and the feeling that you’re moving forward.

And worst of all?

They made it seem like I deserved it.

That’s what lingers.

That’s why it haunted me for months.

That’s why I kept replaying it in my head.

Because even though, logically, I knew my value…

Somewhere, deep down, I felt like I got kicked out of the room I had worked so hard to get into.

The Trauma of Unfair Rejection

Most people don’t understand this.

When you get fired in a normal way, you can process it. You can move on.

But when you get fired in a way that feels unjust, cruel, or manipulative, your brain loops on it.

Because it doesn’t make sense.

Because there was no closure.

Because it wasn’t fair.

It’s like a relationship ending when you weren’t ready.

It’s like watching someone burn your house down and walk away like it was nothing.

This wasn’t just a job. It was my identity, my future, my proof of success.

And they ripped it away—while making me feel like it was my fault.

That kind of betrayal doesn’t just go away.

Why It Took Me So Long to Move On

Because I was too close to it.

I took a risk. I asked for what I was worth.

And instead of being met with fairness, I got punished.

That kind of experience sticks with you. It makes you question everything.

Maybe I was out of line for asking.

Maybe I wasn’t worth that much.

Maybe I should have known better.

But all of those are just the echoes of how they wanted me to feel.

💡 It’s hard to see someone else’s insecurity when you’re the one they took it out on.

But from the outside?

It’s crystal clear.

I wasn’t fired because I wasn’t good enough.

I was fired because someone felt threatened.

When You Work Under Insecure Leadership, You Have to Play Small

I wasn’t fired for my work.

I wasn’t fired because I failed.

I wasn’t even fired because the company couldn’t afford me.

I was fired because someone felt threatened by me asking for more.

That’s the real reason.

They didn’t want people around them who knew their worth.

They wanted people who would accept crumbs and stay quiet.

And when I made it clear that I wasn’t willing to play small, they had to cut me loose.

I wasn’t fired for asking for a raise—I was fired for refusing to shrink.

Because my existence challenged their illusion of power.

The moment I started thinking bigger, they needed to push me out.

That’s what insecure leadership does.

• They don’t reward talent.

• They don’t promote strength.

• They don’t respect ambition.

• They punish independence.

And the ones who stand up for themselves?

They get shown the door.

Because in environments like that, it’s not about talent.

It’s about control.

The Lesson I Took Away

At first, I thought getting fired was a failure.

But now? I see it for what it really was.

It was proof that I was outgrowing the room I was in.

Because here’s the truth:

When small people have power, powerful people have to leave.

And that’s precisely what happened.

I wasn’t meant to stay small.

And neither are you.

A lot of good has come from losing this gig.

It forced me to stop relying on the whims of my clients to support my business because you can’t control what they do. I could have been perfect in every way, but I still would have gotten fired.

Because I got fired, I finally wrote my memoir, started this substack, and started 2 YouTube channels.

Getting fired compelled me to stop being a freelancer and start being an agency.

I refuse to let this loss define my career.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

“What’s the worst thing that can happen in this business?”🤔

Some said writing a promo that flops.

👉 “Zero conversions. Client pulls the plug.”

Others said pouring your soul into a campaign, only for the client to shelve it.

👉 “We love it—but we decided to go in another direction...”

Some said it was writing a promo that makes millions… but someone else gets all the credit.

👉 “Congrats to our Copy Chief for this record-breaking launch!”

But that’s not what I answered…

The worst thing that can happen in this business?

👉 Getting fired.

👉 Blackballed.

👉Your life’s work gone overnight.

This is a true story.

But except for my own, I’ve obscured all the names and identities for reasons that’ll become clear.

I’m Anton Volney, and I thought I’d never write again...

Read more

Don’t skip this.

You wouldn’t leave a dying man alone out in the cold to die, would you?

Dear Permission to Be Powerful Reader,

The hour of my death has finally come.

If you saw the numbers, you’d probably agree.

The savings are gone.

The credit cards are smoking.

The situation is ugly.

I’ve spent almost 2 years fighting this battle.

Drinking one humiliation after another with no chaser.

Fired.

Blackballed.

Unemployment.

Food banks.

Janitor work.

Depression.

ICE immigration nightmares.

Isolation.

Getting betrayed.

Working on projects that went nowhere.

Taking abuse from people I didn’t respect.

Starting.

Stopping.

Quitting halfway.

Getting scared.

Settling.

Watching other people succeed while wondering if I was crazy.

Watching other people have fun while I grinded alone seven days per week.

And after all of that…

I finally arrived.

Funny, isn’t it?

Most people would call this the end.

I call it judgment day.

Because there are no excuses left.

• No wife to blame.

• No boss to blame.

• No country to blame.

• No gatekeeper.

• No mentor.

• No cavalry.

No imaginary future where everything magically comes together.

It’s here.

Now.

The hour I spent my entire life avoiding.

The hour where I finally have to find out.

Because I have the list.

I have the servers.

I have the offer.

I have the book.

I have the publication.

I have the experience.

I have the scars.

And I have absolutely nowhere left to hide.

Good.

I’m tired of hiding.

People think confidence means certainty.

It doesn’t.

Confidence means betting on yourself when certainty doesn’t exist.

I’ve spent years pretending.

Years bluffing.

Years thinking, “One day.”

One day I’ll finish the book.

One day I’ll take myself seriously.

One day I’ll stop begging for scraps.

One day I’ll stop waiting for permission.

One day I’ll build something real.

One day I’ll trust myself.

Well.

One day has arrived.

And strangely enough, I’m calm.

Not because I’m safe.

Because I’m free.

I’ve finally hit rock bottom.

Thank God.

I’ve already been living through hell.

Rock bottom means there’s nowhere left to fall.

There’s nowhere left to hide.

And strangely enough, I’m grateful.

Not because I enjoy suffering.

Because suffering already introduced itself.

We know each other now.

I’m not scared of it anymore.

I’ve already lost everything.

I’ve already started over.

I’ve already eaten the humiliation.

I’ve already survived being broke.

I’ve already survived loneliness.

I’ve already survived failure.

What exactly am I afraid of now?

Another scar?

Good.

I know what to do with scars.

I’ve collected enough of them.

They heal.

People think they’re afraid of dying.

Most people are afraid of living.

They’re afraid of finding out.

Afraid of discovering whether they actually have what it takes.

Afraid of reality itself.

Not me.

Not anymore.

Reality can vote.

The readers can vote.

The market can vote.

I’m done arguing.

Let’s find out.

My fate doesn’t belong to critics.

It doesn’t belong to enemies.

It doesn’t belong to people who laughed.

It doesn’t belong to people who left.

It belongs to reality.

And reality is honest.

Maybe I’ll win.

Maybe I’ll lose.

But I refuse to spend another decade wondering.

The hour of my death has finally come.

Thank God.

I’ve waited my whole life for it.

Until next time,

Tony V.
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to Be Powerful

P.S. This is a crucial time.

War hardens you.

I planned for the worst.

Being broke forced me to think strategically.

There was a fundamental flaw with my business.

The bigger my list grew, the more expensive it became.

And that motherfucker is BIG.

Here’s what’s happening.

There’s bodies everywhere.

Open war.

Smoke.

Gunshots.

I saw a huge flaw in my business.

The bigger my list became, the more software I needed.

The more money I needed for overhead.

I don’t like doing things the dumb way.

I like smart.

To me, that means owning your assets, not renting them.

Because I knew that if someone could switch off my business at the flip of a switch, eventually they would.

This is late-stage capitalism.

The jungle is undefeated.

Another pet peeve:

Too many service providers telling me what I can and can’t do.

Not your call, homie.

I’m out.

I discovered something amazing.

I love open-source software.

It’s free.

You pay a guy to hook up your servers.

Then your thousand-dollar-per-month MailChimp problem becomes a twenty-dollar-per-month asset that prints money.

I prepaid my servers for an entire year.

So even if I go broke, the lights stay on.

We stay open for business.

The psychological freedom is incredible.

This thing is hard to kill.

I own every piece of it.

Most of the software is free.

And it’s every bit as good as the expensive stuff.

Better, in some cases.

I don’t rent.

I own.

132,000 subscribers.

They’re all mine.

Four servers.

Paid for a year.

Open for business no matter what.

I built the infrastructure myself.

I know how the plumbing works.

No more wondering whether I can keep up with ever-growing bills while trying to get this publication off the ground.

This baby is here to stay.

My mindset on this project has been simple.

This project was not cheap.

Mostly because I had to figure out how to build the machine.

Create a stable environment.

Cultivate my list.

There’s so much work to do.

But things are coming together nicely.

Even though I’m down to my last $3,000…

Even though I maxed out my credit cards…

I’m not scared.

Not with the reach of a small city at my fingertips.

Not after everything it took to build this thing.

Not now.

I had to kill Anton in almost every sense to survive this trip.

His credit is certainly dead.

His old plans are dead.

His excuses are dead.

Good.

He got me this far.

Tony will take it from here.

I put everything on the line.

It forces clarity.

I spent every moment of the last two years thinking about this.

I had to find a way.

So I did.

Where are we now?

132,000 subscribers.

A working offer.

Two new books.

Four servers.

A publication.

A twelve-to-twenty-four-week warm-up period.

Brutal.

I know.

But I chose a hard path.

And I have no regrets.

I built the audience.

Then I built an ultra-secure arena for the audience.

I have a working offer.

I’m launching two new books.

I told myself I might have to go broke building this thing.

I have.

And I don’t care.

If you want to support the mission, you can join the Vacation Vault.

Join 1,057 Members

Inside the Vacation Vault, you’ll discover new vacation giveaways, luxury escapes, and dream-worthy destinations from around the world.

Past destinations include:

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These are real opportunities for you to win a free vacation.

All organized and curated for you.

Enter your email.

And one day, you might find yourself drinking something ridiculous on a beach in Bora Bora on someone else’s dime.

Here’s what you’ll get:

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✍️ Weekly essays, stories, and ideas that hit different

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Discover beautiful destinations, luxury escapes, and ongoing vacation giveaways that could potentially be yours for free. Think of it as a really fun game that you’re playing with 1057 friends.

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Hang out with fellow members, swap ideas, and connect with people who refuse to live small.

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Past destinations have included Bali, Italy, Cancun, Costa Rica, Madrid, Budapest, the Maldives, the Galápagos Islands, and more.

😎 Because why not spend your time in a place where, best case scenario, you’re chilling on a beach in Bora Bora on someone else’s dime?

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

Or become a VIP member of Permission to Be Powerful.

Here’s what you’ll get:

⚡ PDF copy of Permission to Be Powerful - Stop Begging for Permission and Take What’s Yours.

📚 Full private member archive

📝 Every future member-only release

🔥 Weekly essays that hit different

🎥 Behind-the-scenes videos and updates

📕 Annual only: signed copy of Permission to Be Powerful

🧠 VIP only: Tony’s Brain Trust + AMA office hours

You can try the first month for only $1.

After that, you’ll pay $5.99 per month.

Get The First Month For Only $1

(Then $5.99/ month after that)

Since I’m already careening off a cliff…

I might as well hit the gas.

THANK YOU.

Dear Permission to Be Powerful Reader,

Parents possess an extraordinary amount of power.

They can create an entire human being.

Then, while exhausted and possibly medicated, they are allowed to name it.

No committee.

No quality-control department.

No requirement to demonstrate basic judgment.

Two people can look at a newborn baby and say:

“Let’s call her Marijuana Pepsi.”

And society just has to deal with that decision for the next eighty years.

That actually happened.

Marijuana Pepsi was born in 1972.

Her mother chose the name because she believed it would take her daughter around the world.

Marijuana’s sisters were named Kimberly and Robin.

So this woman clearly understood regular names.

She simply chose violence for the middle child.

Marijuana spent years being teased, questioned, whispered about, and encouraged to call herself something else.

Instead, she earned a doctorate.

Now, when people feel uncomfortable calling her Marijuana, she tells them they can call her Dr. Vandyck.

I respect that.

She took an absurd name and conquered it.

But not everyone has been so fortunate.

Consider Ima Hogg.

Ima Hogg was born in Texas in 1882.

Her father, James Stephen Hogg, later became governor of Texas.

Which means this was not the work of an illiterate drifter living beneath a bridge.

A future governor looked at his daughter and named her:

Ima Hogg.

Apparently, Ima came from a character in a poem written by his brother.

That explains Ima.

It does not explain why nobody said it next to Hogg before the christening.

Sometimes the first name is innocent.

The crime happens when nobody bothers to say the whole thing aloud.

Holly Wood.

Paige Turner.

Justin Case.

Crystal Ball.

Barb Dwyer.

Stan Still.

Sue Yu.

These names sound like the supporting cast of a sitcom canceled after one episode.

This is why every maternity ward needs one sober person with veto power.

Twins are especially vulnerable.

One bad decision becomes a matching set.

Pete and Repeat.

Kate and Duplikate.

Denise and Denephew.

Juan and Amal.

Phil and Lil.

At that point, you didn’t name two children.

You wrote a joke and forced two human beings to perform it for the rest of their lives.

Imagine growing up knowing your entire identity depends on your sibling standing nearby.

Then there were twins named Benson and Hedges.

Benson & Hedges is a cigarette brand.

Most parents want their children to become doctors.

These parents apparently wanted theirs displayed behind the counter at a gas station.

• Fish and Chips — proposed for New Zealand twins, but authorities rejected them.

• Corona and Covid — twins born during India’s 2020 lockdown.

• Zion Mixolydian and Zillion Heir — Nick Cannon’s twins.

• Moroccan and Monroe — another set of Nick Cannon’s twins.

• Rumi and Sir — Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s twins.

New Zealand authorities have prevented other parents from registering children as:

Anal.

Lucifer.

V8.

4Real.

Mafia No Fear.

Queen Victoria.

And one solitary period.

Just:

.

Celebrity parents are especially dangerous.

Frank Zappa named his children Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva Muffin.

Moon Unit sounds like a discontinued NASA department.

Actress Shannyn Sossamon and Dallas Clayton named their son Audio Science.

That sounds less like a person than a course you take after lunch at community college.

Jason Lee and Beth Riesgraf named their son Pilot Inspektor.

Pilot came from a song they liked.

Inspektor came from an apparent hostility toward conventional spelling.

Penn Jillette named his child Moxie CrimeFighter.

CrimeFighter is the middle name.

Which means Penn understood that every child deserves at least one portion of their name they can hide.

Jermaine Jackson named his son Jermajesty.

He combined Jermaine with Majesty.

That is an astonishing concentration of narcissism for three syllables.

Nicolas Cage named his son Kal-El after Superman.

Elon Musk and Grimes named one of their children X Æ A-Xii.

I’m not even sure that is a name.

It looks like the temporary password a router comes with.

Then there was Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.

That was the legal name given to a girl in New Zealand.

By age nine, she was so embarrassed that she refused to tell her friends her real name.

She told everyone to call her K.

Eventually, a family-court judge placed her under court guardianship so her name could be changed.

The judge said her parents had made a fool of her and saddled her with a social disability.

That is how badly you have to name your child before the government intervenes.

“Parents lose custody of girl for naming her Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii.” — The Gaurdian

Number 16 Bus Shelter.

That was not where the baby was found.

That was the baby’s name.

Midnight Chardonnay.

That is not a child.

That is how the child happened.

Violence.

Imagine a teacher saying:

“Violence is never the answer.”

And one child raising his hand.

Richard Head

This one is real enough that Wikipedia specifically mentions people named Richard “Dick” Head.

One story recounts someone asking a man how he got the name.

His answer:

“Because me father was a bloody arsehole.”

Honestly, that’s hard to top.

Harry Baals…

Mayor of Fort Wayne from 1935–1948

Dick Kink…

Member of the Washington House of Representatives for the 42nd district

and Tiny Kox…

Member of the Senate from 2003 – 2024

Dick Swett…

Former Congressman.

Dick Pound…

Member of the International Olympic Committee.

Hugh Mungus…

In 2016, a man named Rudy Pantoja jokingly told a city councilwoman his name was Hugh Mungus.

She replied:

“Humongous what?”

The video went viral and collected millions of views.

Dick Assman…

Canadian gas station attendant Dick Assman became famous after David Letterman found his name in a phone book and declared him “the coolest name in Canada.”

Letterman:

“We’ve found the greatest name in the world.”

Poor man spent the rest of his life introducing himself and immediately becoming a punchline.

Izzy Inyet…

Bride Izzy Trimborn went viral because marrying fiancé James Inyet would make her name:

Izzy Inyet

When asked if she was excited to take his name.

One commenter added:

“’Is he in yet’ is pretty dire.”

Which is one of those sentences nobody expects to read in a wedding article.

Fecalynn…

Parents tried to honor grandparents Fernando, Cameron, and Lynne.

They accidentally produced:

Fecalynn

There are unfortunate names everywhere.

But I have laughed at strangers long enough.

We need to discuss mine.

My middle name is Herbert.

Fucking Herbert.

I have despised that name my entire life.

Bitch, you named me after the least popular president ever?

Who got blamed for the Great Depression?

Breadlines.

Mass unemployment.

Economic catastrophe.

This is the name you selected for a newborn baby.

Herbert.

Works in accounting.

Nobody has ever looked at a beautiful newborn baby and said:

“He looks like a Herbert.”

Nobody that loved their child, anyway…

Herbert sounds like a man who was already seventy-three years old when he was born.

It sounds like a man who wears the same brown cardigan every day.

And complains that the library got too loud.

You can shorten it to Herb, but that makes it worse.

There isn’t even a good way to spin it.

Herb.

Maybe if I were vegan.

You’re named after a section at the supermarket.

I hated seeing Herbert written on documents.

I hated saying it aloud.

I hated knowing it belonged to me.

To anybody else, it was only a name.

To me, it became a container.

Every embarrassing thing I believed about myself went into it.

Weakness went into it.

Shame went into it.

Awkwardness went into it.

Every version of myself I wanted to escape went into it.

The name did not create those feelings.

But it came to represent them.

Whenever I saw it written down, it felt like official confirmation of an identity I had never chosen.

That is the strange authority parents have.

They choose a word in an afternoon.

You spend the next eighty years answering for it.

My first name was not much better.

Anton.

Anton is not objectively terrible.

But it is awkward.

People can’t pronounce it.

They can’t spell it.

They’re always asking if I’m Russian.

I’m not Russian.

I grew up on a tropical island in the Caribbean.

Small island mentality.

Their idea of being fancy.

The Soviet Union. How quaint.

They read Doyeskoski, and now everyone wants to name their baby Vladimir.

The name communicated nothing useful.

You rarely meet an Anton.

You never see an Anton in a movie.

The most famous fictional Anton I could think of was Anton Chigurh, the psychopathic murderer from No Country for Old Men.

Wonderful.

Then there was Anton LaVey.

The Satanic Bible Guy.

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

Then there’s Anton Yelchin

Star Trek actor.

In 2016, he died in a freak accident.

Crushed to death by his Jeep Grand Cherokee outside his house in Studio City, Los Angeles.

Unlucky.

Ok, so let’s recap…

A psychopathic murderer.

The founder of the Church of Satan.

And a Guy who got murdered by his own truck — Final Destination-style.

Strong lineup.

The name also created friction everywhere I went.

I know what name friction looks like because I watched it happen to my ex-wife for eight years.

I won’t use her name.

But she had an unfortunate name too.

Most people assumed it was a man’s name.

And I watched nearly every person she introduced herself to fuck up the pronunciation.

Every time.

For eight years.

Even while my ex-wife and I were getting divorced, the judge fucked up her name.

I couldn’t believe it.

We were in a court of law.

This was a moment that counted.

And he butchered the shit out of her name in front of everybody.

Of course the judge got it wrong.

Everybody got it wrong.

Without fail.

The gaffe was a recurring joke.

This fucking name.

The strange part is that a better name had been hiding inside it the entire time.

Tony.

Look up nicknames for Anton.

Tony is very common.

Only second after Ant - but if you call me Ant, I’ll kill you.

It is especially common in places like Germany.

And it makes perfect sense.

Andrew becomes Andy.

Thomas, Tommy

Joeseph, Joey

Elizabeth, Liz or Lizzy.

Anthony becomes Tony.

Anton also becomes Tony.

You pull the middle out of the name, add a Y, and there it is:

Tony.

It’s like going by William whole life and then suddenly deciding on switching to Bill.

Anthony is the English version.

Anton is the Russian and German version.

Antoine is French.

Antonio is Spanish and Italian.

Even Antoinettes commonly go by Tony.

The most famous example is Antoinette Perry.

An actress, director, and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing.

She went by the nickname Tony, which is how the prestigious Tony Awards got their name!

They all trace back to Antonius.

And hiding inside every one of them is Tony.

So Tony and Anton are not entirely different names.

But they became two very different identities.

Secretly, I had wanted to change my name for almost twenty years.

I just never had the guts.

Like so many things, it belonged to the life I imagined living someday.

Then someday arrived.

When I started using Tony publicly, people accepted it.

Then they started calling me Tony without thinking about it.

The change stuck.

I had a friend who tried changing her name.

It bombed.

Nobody took the new name seriously.

Eventually, she gave up.

Tony was different.

It didn’t feel imposed.

It fit so naturally that people barely questioned it.

And yes, there was another reason I liked it.

Tony Robbins.

I once heard Tony Robbins say he did not believe he would have become as big as he did if he had gone by Anthony Robbins.

He was probably right.

Anthony Robbins sounds like someone who prepares your taxes.

Tony Robbins sounds like someone who walks across fire.

Names matter.

I know that better than most because I spent fifteen years learning how words influence what people think, feel, buy, and believe.

There was another problem with Anton.

It confused people.

And as a copywriter, that bothered the hell out of me.

I spent fifteen years eliminating confusion for a living.

If a headline confused people, I rewrote it.

If an offer required too much explanation, I simplified it.

If customers couldn’t remember the name, the name was wrong.

Clarity matters.

Friction kills.

And there I was, walking around with a name nobody understood.

Anton.

Most people just Call me Anthony as a reflex.

Pronounciation was all over the map.

They did not know how to spell it.

They wondered where it came from.

They assumed I was Russian.

I’m not Russian.

I grew up on a Caribbean island.

The name said nothing useful about me.

Meanwhile, everybody understands Tony.

You hear it once.

You know how to say it.

You know how to spell it.

You remember it.

Tony Robbins.

Tony Soprano.

Tony Montana.

Tony Stark.

Tony Hawk

Tony Bennett

Tony the Tiger

The name is familiar without being invisible.

Simple without being boring.

It has personality.

It moves.

And it’s American.

I cannot believe I had a better name sitting inside my existing name for my entire life and never used it.

The alternative was obvious.

But I did not look for alternatives.

I accepted what I was given.

Even my name.

Tony was not merely more comfortable.

It was better copy.

Tony V.

Sounds way better than “Anton Volney.”

Way more memorable.

For fifteen years, I helped other people find the clearest, strongest, most memorable way to present themselves.

Changing my name was the moment I finally did the same thing for me.

That is the deeper problem with a name you hate.

It does not stay on the birth certificate.

It follows you.

It walks into classrooms.

It appears on forms.

It sits on bank accounts.

It shows up in courtrooms.

It gets printed on envelopes.

It introduces you before you arrive.

It tells the world what to call you before you get a chance to explain who you are.

And because it is your name, people act like you are supposed to have some sacred loyalty to it.

But why?

I did not choose Anton.

I did not choose Herbert.

I inherited them.

Some people inherit money.

Some inherit property.

Some inherit beautiful family names.

I inherited Herbert.

That is not an inheritance.

Now I am becoming an American citizen.

And as part of that process, I can finally make the change legal.

America is admitting me into the country and allowing me to get rid of Herbert Hoover at the same time.

That feels fair.

I get to remove the name I hated most.

I get to replace the name that never fit.

I get to walk into my citizenship process carrying one identity and leave carrying another.

The country is giving me citizenship.

But it is also giving me an editorial privilege I have wanted my entire life:

Delete.

I’m not becoming a different person.

I’m removing words that no longer belong to me.

I entered this process as Anton Herbert Volney.

I will leave it as Tony V.

My parents named the child they imagined.

I get to name the man who actually exists.

Names are not everything.

Marijuana Pepsi turned her name into a triumph.

Ima Hogg became a respected philanthropist.

Some people take the strange name and make it shine.

But that is not everybody’s obligation.

You do not have to spend your life redeeming somebody else’s bad decision.

You do not have to convert every inherited burden into a heroic origin story.

Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is not transform the thing.

Sometimes you just remove it.

Herbert had a long run.

Too long.

I’m giving it back.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to Be Powerful

Dear Permission to Be Powerful Reader,

I didn’t realize I couldn’t trust myself until I started to trust myself.

That’s when I could see all the earlier versions of me that didn’t.

That’s the strange thing.

You don’t realize you’re abandoning yourself while you’re doing it.

You realize it afterward.

Self-abandonment is simple…

It’s not acting in your own self-interest.

That’s all.

You came into this world alone.

You’re going to leave alone.

And you came for a reason.

You have to look after yourself.

And the further you get away from that, the weaker you become.

More depressed.

More confused.

More resentful.

More lost.

That’s what happened to me.

My life began to improve in radical ways when I started putting myself first.

Not because I became selfish.

Because I tested the opposite to death.

I really did.

I tested it thoroughly.

I spent years putting everybody else first.

And I have the receipts.

It never got me anything good.

Nothing.

I know what self-abandonment gets me.

I’ve lived it.

Here’s an example.

I lived with shin splints, plantar fasciitis, knee pain, and joint pain for years.

My whole life, really.

And I never looked into it.

I just suffered.

I didn’t ask questions.

I didn’t advocate for myself.

I just grit my teeth... for decades.

I didn’t go to a podiatrist until I was thirty-three.

Thirty-three.

And afterward I thought:

“What the hell took me so long?”

Why didn’t I fight for myself?

Because I wasn’t the kind of person who fought for himself.

I fought for other people.

That’s how I lived.

I thought that’s what good people did.

I lived that way in my marriage too.

I moved to a city I didn’t want.

Bought a house I didn’t want.

Built a life I didn’t want.

Not because anybody forced me.

Because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do.

Then I got divorced.

And I started dancing.

I danced all over the country.

I ran a hundred races.

I lived in a monastery.

Things I had dreamed about.

Things I fantasized about.

Things I would’ve never done if I stayed married.

And I discovered something.

Life was radically better my way.

Not perfect.

Better.

That’s what taught me to trust myself.

Experience.

I tested the alternative.

And the results sucked.

Even in my work.

The further back you go in my career, the more editors I had.

Everybody had opinions.

Everybody knew better.

Everybody thought they were right.

Today, nobody edits my work.

Ironically, I write better than ever.

Because the truth is, most people don’t know what they’re talking about.

They don’t have your experience.

They weren’t there.

They’re guessing.

Everybody is guessing.

And if you let enough people edit your work, eventually you’ll start believing your own ideas are dog shit.

And who wants to sell dog shit?

Nobody.

Recently, somebody emailed me after reading one of my essays.

He said one line stuck with him.

He was curious about my writing process.

How do I know when an idea is ready?

How do I know when I’ve pushed it far enough to become an essay?

And I realized something.

That isn’t really the question.

The real question is:

“Who am I to believe my ideas are good enough for the world to see?”

That question took me more than a decade to answer.

Because for most of my career, I didn’t trust myself.

I abandoned my own perspective before anybody else had the chance to reject it.

I assumed other people’s voices mattered more than mine.

What changed wasn’t my writing.

It was my psychology.

The conviction people hear now didn’t come from finding a better process.

It came from living a hard life.

From therapy.

From meditation.

From making mistakes.

From slowly learning to trust myself.

Most of what I publish today are the same kinds of conversations I would’ve had with my ex-wife over coffee years ago.

The difference is that back then, I would never have published them.

Not because the ideas weren’t good enough.

Because I didn’t believe I was.

That’s self-abandonment too.

Years ago I read Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar.

And his whole message was simple.

You have to believe in yourself.

Then you have to believe in the product.

Because people know.

They can feel it.

And if they sense you don’t believe in yourself, they’ll back out every time.

Life works the same way.

People think self-abandonment is noble.

I don’t.

I’ve done it.

I know where it leads.

It leads nowhere good.

And here’s another example.

Somebody disrespects you.

And they’re still your friend.

Why?

Somebody bullies you.

And you let it slide.

Why?

Somebody crosses your boundaries.

And you tell yourself it’s not that bad.

Why?

That’s self-abandonment.

That’s you saying:

“I’m not worth the effort.”

And after living both ways, I’m completely convinced.

Life is better my way.

Not because I’m always right.

Because I have the receipts.

I know what abandoning myself gets me.

I’ve been there.

I’ve done that.

And I know where it leads.

Nowhere good.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to Be Powerful