Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Holy shit.

I’m shocked by how little I understand my own body…

Even though I’ve been using it for 38 years.

I never read the user’s manual, and I have paid the price.

My shoulders drooped forward.

Creating a natural slouch.

A hunch forward.

I looked defeated from the jump.

And tired.

And sad.

Not a good long.

But that was my look.

As my teacher tells me…

“You lean forward so much, your head’s natural position points to the floor.”

But nobody wants to live like that…

So I tilt my head too far back…

Crunching my spin into an unnatural S shape.

Now I’m learning about how to have a “J” spine.

Apparently, this is how we are supposed to organize ourselves in order to have a healthy posture…

And I had no idea.

The body has no user’s manual.

We just use it and abuse it.

Until it starts to fight back…

With crippling neck and back pain…

Constantly crack my back…

My neck…

Constantly in pain, which I just suffered through for years.

And made everyone else suffer through…

Especially in the Zendo.

There’s nothing worse than being the guy who can’t sit still in the Zendo.

It get’s a bad rap.

One teacher always tilts my head forward…

A little awkward but I’m only hurting myself to fight it.

Back pain affected my sleep.

And it got expensive.

Lots of massages and chiropractor visits.

I met up with the people behind the Gokhale Method here at the Zen Center, and they’re changing my life one session at a time.

I’m training my copywriting knowledge for a new back.

The incredible thing is this:

Bad posture makes you look fat and ugly.

Small and timid...

Now, I look taller…

Leaner…

Sturdier…

Calmer….

And the benefits to my meditation practice are undeniable.

I wrote an article recently explaining all the noise I am making inside the zendo shifting around.

This time around…

I forgot my back brace that I depend on.

If I don’t wear this clavicle back brace, I feel twice as exhausted by the end of the week.

I was so worried about it…

I went shopping around for one…

But this monastery was in the middle of nowhere….

No luck.

To my surprise…

My back pain had been reduced by about 80%

My teacher noticed without me pointing it out.

And I look like a completely different person.

When you slouch, you literally stick your gut out…

In other words…

You are shorter… and fatter…

I really like what I see in the mirror.

I look more handsome…

And younger…

I look and feel like a new person.

And that’s just the side benefit.

More importantly:

No more back pain.

And, I haven’t even completed the course.

Only about halfway…

But the results have been stunning.

I’m the bastard who keeps cracking his neck in a room where you can hear a pin drop.

Or, I used to be.

Not anymore.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

P.S. If you suffer from back pain, check out the Gokhale Method.

I am going to interview the creator at some point.
So you can always become a paid member.

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Did you miss me?

I’ve been busy…

Trying not to go bankrupt…

Before I breathe life into my new email business.

I’m building a funnel from scratch.

To lower my costs.

To take back control…

To own every bit of infrastructure of my business.

The whole kit-and-kaboodle.

If it came with a subscription, I wasn’t interested.

After building this gigantic list…

I needed some place to put that many people.

So I could reach their inboxes reliably.

But when you’re trying to reach that many people all at once…

It’s not as simple as sending a Gmail like you do everyday.

The internet has lots of police officers in it.

If I did that, I’d get busted and go straight to email prison.

The spam folder.

Once you get in, it’s hard to get out.

It can murder your entire business.

So I needed the right set up.

If I were going to go the traditional route, I’d be paying thousands per month.

For email software.

For automations.

For a CRM.

For dashboards.

For data.

For AI.

For all the little bits and pieces they convince you that you need before they’ll let you run a real business.

And every time your list gets bigger…

Your bill gets bigger.

Those costs keep going up and up.

Growing faster than revenue.

I was trying to create rock-solid stability.

Something without training wheels programmed in just to place random limits on my machine without my permission.

These things matter.

Because if I didn’t have this approach, I would never be able to count on my business.

I could never expect it to hold strong while software companies literally made their products worse just so they could charge you more to get them to stop.

This printing press has to be fortified so it’s protected from many threats…

A company deciding it does not like what I’m doing and shutting me down.

A price increase arriving when I’m already behind on my bills.

A platform deciding that the 130,000 people I worked so hard to reach somehow belong to them.

One bad month could shut down my business.

The slow death of a business from ten different subscriptions bleeding it dry.

I know you’re already wondering how I did it.

And I’ll get to that…

First, you must understand that from the very beginning, I made the decision to build something that was…

MINE.

Completely.

No more middlemen.

No more people who could stick their fingers into my business and meddle with it.

Shut me down if they feel like it.

Tell me what to do with the subscribers I earned fair and square.

No more subscriptions.

Why rent when you can own?

You have one bad month, and you can’t pay your bills.

You make more money, but your costs keep growing faster.

These are some fundamental business principles.

The building is more important than the furniture.

Owning is always better.

I was prepared to build my own custom stack to give each subscriber what they want—and leave a glowing review.

Because here’s the way I see it:

America is in a debt crisis right now…

And I think all of the random subscriptions you forgot about are robbing you blind.

I found a whole bunch that I forgot about.

Your mind isn’t as reliable as you think it is.

You sign up for something because it is only $12.

Or $19.

Or $29.

Then another one.

And another one.

And by the time you notice, you are working all month to pay companies whose names you barely remember.

That is not how I want to live.

And it is not how I want to run a business.

So I started cutting.

I got rid of anything I did not absolutely need.

Then I started replacing the expensive parts of the machine with things I could own.

Open-source software.

My own servers.

My own domains.

My own data.

My own list.

My own backup systems.

My own internal tools.

Instead of buying the same machine from some venture-capital-backed company and paying them forever.

The central piece is called Listmonk.

It is open-source software.

Which means nobody can suddenly charge me more because the list grew.

Nobody can decide I need to upgrade from the “Starter Plan” to the “You’re Finally Successful Enough For Us To Fleece You Plan.”

Nobody can pull the plug because they want to push me into a more expensive tier.

I run it.

It lives on my servers.

It belongs to me.

Around it, I built the rest of the system.

Four private servers.

Systems that track engagement.

Systems that handle bounced emails.

Systems that deal with complaints and unsubscribes.

Systems that let me send slowly and carefully, instead of blowing up the list and wrecking my reputation with Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

A separate channel for colder outreach.

A real database of the people who joined my world.

Not just a pile of exported CSV files I would have to pray I could make sense of during a crisis.

The total web and server infrastructure is paid through next March.

The only recurring software bill I have right now is about $16 per month.

That is Mailgun.

And even that is not the heart of the machine.

It is useful.

It makes things easier.

It gives me a safety net.

But the core of the business is mine.

That is a very different position from being trapped inside a $1,000-per-month software stack and praying you make enough sales before the next credit-card charge hits.

Then we started doing something even stranger.

We gave the machine a brain.

At first, I connected ChatGPT to the machine.

I built a private bridge between ChatGPT and the actual machinery of my business.

My servers.

My apps.

My internal tools.

The code.

The dashboards.

The reports.

The systems that are running the list.

And it was wild.

Most people use ChatGPT like they are talking to a very smart stranger through a window.

You type something.

It gives you an answer.

Then it disappears.

It has no idea what your business looks like.

No idea where the files are.

No idea what is broken.

No idea what you are trying to build.

No idea whether you already built it yesterday.

That is useful.

But it is not intelligence inside your business.

So I asked a different question:

What happens when the AI can actually see the machine?

What happens when it can inspect the moving parts instead of making guesses from whatever I remember to tell it?

What happens when I can say:

“Check why this is broken.”

“Show me what this system is doing.”

“Build me a tool for this.”

“Find the bottleneck.”

“Look at the data.”

“Fix the code.”

And it can go into the real environment and find the answer?

That is what we built.

A private bridge lets ChatGPT communicate with my infrastructure without me copying and pasting terminal windows, error messages, server logs, and spreadsheets back and forth all day.

It can look at the systems.

It can help build inside the systems.

It can help me understand what I own.

And because the bridge is mine, I control the access.

It is not some random chatbot wandering through the whole business with the keys to the kingdom.

It is connected carefully.

Deliberately.

Through my own protected setup.

I decide what it gets to see.

I decide what it gets to touch.

I can shut the door whenever I want.

That was the beginning of Tony AI.

But then I saw something else.

ChatGPT was still another gatekeeper.

A powerful one.

But another company between me and the brain of my business.

Another company that could change the product.

Change the rules.

Move the useful parts somewhere more expensive.

Decide what I could access.

Or make me pay more and more to keep using the thing I had built my system around.

I had already spent weeks removing every vulnerable point from my business.

I was not about to build a beautiful, independent machine…

Then put its brain in somebody else’s building.

So I took the next step.

I moved from using ChatGPT…

To building a local brain.

A private home for the intelligence layer of my business.

Something that lives with the rest of the machine.

Something with its own memory.

Something that can know my work without pretending every conversation starts from zero.

Something I control.

The AI can still be connected to the outside world when I need it to be.

But the place where my business thinks, remembers, organizes, and operates is mine.

That was the goal all along.

To know that every vulnerable system in my business was completely under my control.

My list.

My domains.

My servers.

My data.

My sending infrastructure.

My tools.

And now…

My brain.

And I want to be clear about what that has meant in practice.

Not someday.

Not in theory.

In the last 24 hours.

Before this, when something went wrong, I was basically working blind.

An email would fail.

A number would stop moving.

A page would send people somewhere stupid.

A server would choke.

And I would have to figure it out manually.

Log into one server.

Copy an error message.

Try to understand it.

Take a screenshot.

Paste it into ChatGPT.

Explain all the missing context.

Get an answer.

Try something.

Break something else.

Go back to the server.

Start again.

Or wait for somebody technical to explain what was happening.

That is how a lot of small businesses work.

They are not actually running systems.

They are babysitting problems.

And I was doing it with four mail servers, a 130,000-person list, a membership site, a newsletter, a checkout system, an affiliate program, an outreach machine, and no room for expensive mistakes.

Then we connected the brain.

In one day, it was able to inspect all four mail servers together.

Not just one.

All four.

It found nearly 28,000 messages sitting in queues.

It showed us which server was getting throttled by Yahoo, AOL, and AT&T.

It showed us that another system was failing to sync important deliverability data.

It let us see the shape of the problem instead of guessing.

We took the bad server out of rotation.

We protected the rest of the system.

We built new routing so different types of email could go through the right channels.

We tested the new setup and got a real confirmation from Google that the mail had gone through.

Not “I think it worked.”

Not “the screen looks okay.”

A real successful response.

Then we fixed the membership side.

We removed duplicate paywalls that were confusing people.

We reconciled the member data.

We made sure paid members and free members were being treated differently.

We repaired the checkout flow so the paid $1 offer came before the free sign-up.

Which sounds small until you understand that a single stupid line of page logic can quietly bleed sales for days.

We found nearly 11,000 warm people who were not members.

Then we created fresh, clean sending groups so I can speak to them carefully instead of blasting the whole list and hoping for the best.

We built a real reporting layer.

Now I can see sends.

Bounces.

Complaints.

Opens.

Clicks.

Active subscribers.

Campaign performance.

Thirty-day sending volume.

Before, those answers were scattered across different apps, different server windows, and whatever I could remember.

Now they are beginning to live in one place.

We also rebuilt the outreach path.

Before, finding a possible advertiser or partner meant opening tabs, checking websites, trying to remember who I had contacted, writing a message, wondering where I put it, and losing track of the whole thing.

Now there is a path:

Find them.

Qualify them.

Draft the pitch.

Queue it.

Track the reply.

Follow up.

That is not just “being organized.”

That is turning a vague, exhausting activity into an actual business process.

And that is the thing that keeps hitting me.

Any one of these fixes could have taken me days.

Some of them would have taken weeks.

Some of them would have sat there broken because I did not know where to begin.

Instead, in 24 hours, the machine was able to inspect itself, show us the problems, help build the fixes, and test the results.

I am still the owner.

I am still the editor.

I am still the one who decides what goes live.

But I am no longer alone in a dark room with a broken machine and a browser full of tabs.

That is what a business brain does.

It helps the business see.

It helps the business remember.

It helps the business move.

And this is why I am excited.

Not because I think I have figured everything out.

I have not.

I still need revenue.

I still need sales.

I still need to prove that this whole thing can feed me.

But I now have something I did not have before.

A machine that can survive.

A machine that does not become more expensive every time it becomes more powerful.

A machine that will still be here even if I go bankrupt.

A machine nobody can casually take away from me.

I built an email list of 130,000 people.

I built my own publishing infrastructure around it.

I built systems for taking care of it.

And now I am building the brain.

This is not just an email list anymore.

It is a real business.

A real asset.

A printing press.

And it is mine.

Only paid members will find out how I did this in detail...

So if you want to find out how I did it...

So you can do something like this too...

You’ll have to get on the waiting list.

Right here:

Read more

Friends,

The time has come.

And there’s no time to waste…

Become a paid member of Permission to be Powerful for just $1 per month.

Subscribe now

Come on this journey with me.

I’ve priced membership at just $1 per month.

For perspective:

Substack’s minimum monthly price is $5.

I have to give you a lifetime discount of 80% just to offer you this price.

And it won’t stay $1 fore…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Dolly Parton fascinates me.

She’s such a beloved figure across the country.

I’ve never seen someone so universally beloved.

Not since Princess Diana died.

What makes a person so beloved?

Why?

Here’s what everybody said:

“What a punch to the gut.”

“I had hoped she would live forever.”

“There should be a national day off for mourning. Nobody working 9 to 5 in her honor.”

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

My readership has grown very gradually.

This means most of you have been reading my work for months, if not years.

I imagine you like the material I put out.

Maybe something I wrote changed your life.

Or maybe I just entertained you for five minutes while you were sitting on the toilet.

Either way, my work means somethin…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

I have a new prison pen pal.

I can’t tell you anything about them just yet…

Because, frankly, I don’t want a convict who I barely know to have a vendetta against me.

I still don’t know much...

I don’t know what they did.

I don’t know how long they’re in for.

I think they may be black, but that’s just based on the name.

They handwrote a letter addressed to the Zen Center.

I picked it up.

You won’t believe what they told me.

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

People say they’re not gonna pay $1 per month to read Permission to be Powerful.

A lot of people will say no.

That’s okay.

Because this is not really about the people who say no.

I’m looking for the people who say yes.

This is me creating a filter.

This is a social experiment.

See, I’m thinking about this publication...

And…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Permission to be Powerful is changing.

Starting today, every new article on this publication will become available to members only.

I want to explain exactly why.

Because if you’ve been reading for a while, you deserve to know what is happening.

And honestly?

I think you’re going to love where this is going.

I’ve been wat…

Read more

I don’t talk about this enough.

It’s my secret weapon.

I call it my Magic Voice.

What do I mean?

I spent 15 years mastering the art of written persuasion.

I studied the craft so deeply it got into my bones.

At this point, I’m unconsciously competent.

I’m not even fully aware of what I’m doing anymore.

You just experience it.

Read more

For two years, I’ve lived what other professions are only beginning to understand.

I’m broke.

And my way of life…

That I depended on for 15 years…

Is gone forever.

I was patient zero.

Millions more will follow.

And yes — AI made me obsolete.

You want to know what’s going to happen?

Then pay close attention…

Because I’ve alre…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

I’ve been made to sit in the corner of the zendo.

Technically just outside the zendo...

Like a kid with a dunce cap.

Too many complaints about me being noisy.

I’m the worst.

Constant agitation.

I’ve got that ADHD motor in my butt...

Literally can’t sit still.

I get complaints every Sesshin.

I hate drawing the attention of th…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Ten vacations are currently open inside the Vacation Vault.

Some disappear in a matter of days.

Here’s what you can still enter to win:

Las Vegas: First-Class Flights + $2,500 Cash

• First-class flights for two

• Two nights at a four-star hotel on the Strip

• $1,000 wardrobe

• $750 dining allowance

• $2,500 cash

• Deadline: August 12, 2…

Read more

I’ve lived a strange life.

I didn’t fully realize how strange until I wrote the whole thing down.

I always knew I would write a memoir.

After Tony Robbins fired me, I couldn’t do much of anything.

I was burnt to a crisp.

In no position to take another high-stress job.

So, I wrote Hell and Paradise: An American Odyssey.

Wh…

Read more

I live in a Buddhist mansion.

Come see…

Read more

February 8, 2006.

Ivujivik, Quebec...

A woman...

Fought a 700-pound polar bear.

And won…

It happened in a tiny Inuit village on the northern edge of Canada.

Children were playing hockey outside the community youth center...

Then...

Someone started screaming.

A 700-pound polar bear had wandered into the village.

It was growlin…

Read more

Hell and Paradise is the true story of one man’s impossible journey from the Caribbean to America.

Not the Caribbean from the brochures.

The real Caribbean.

The one tourists rarely see.

You’ll step inside my childhood in St. Lucia, where breathtaking beauty and brutal reality exist side by side. You’ll experience the people, the culture, the humor, the chao…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

This publication is getting out of hand.

When I started Permission to be Powerful, it was just me...

Now?

This thing is starting to feel like a real publication.

A place you can wander around for hours.

We’ve merged Vacation Vault into Permission to be Powerful.

• There are multiple newsletters.

• Two serialized stories.

• A mem…

Read more

Dear Permission to Be Powerful reader,

Raising your standards sucks.

It’s a bittersweet feeling.

Because I can see two futures depending on what I choose.

If I settle…

If I tolerate more than I should…

If I abandon myself…

If I let someone walk all over me and ignore my boundaries…

Then I suffer.

My mental health falls apart.

I hate myself.

I feel small.

I feel weak.

I feel disrespected.

I feel resentful.

I already know where that leads.

But when I maintain my standards…

When I hold my boundaries…

When I refuse to settle for less than what I know is right…

That also sucks.

Because now, I have to face reality.

Now I can look at you…

And you look amazing.

My body is screaming yes.

Please.

I want you.

Bad…

But my nervous system?

Fuck no.

Stay the fuck away from that girl.

She’s bad for you.

She will use you.

Every time you’re around her…

You feel small.

You feel weak.

You feel used.

You feel like an errand boy.

You feel disrespected.

There’s a power imbalance.

It’s one-sided.

She drains you.

And if you mess with her…

She’ll give you an amazing night.

And then she’ll ruin your life.

So now I have a choice.

Because I know what tolerating disrespect gets me.

I know what ignoring red flags gets me.

And once you see the pattern…

You can’t unsee it.

You don’t need 5,000 days to confirm what you saw on day one.

And it’s not just with women.

I told my cousin I was at my breaking point.

Not I was having a bad day…

My breaking point.

He responded with a sales pitch for his new AI software.

Some people can’t see you.

And if you don’t catch that early…

You’ll spend years trying to be understood by people who were never capable of understanding you.

I’ve been treated right.

I know what it’s like.

And once you’ve felt that…

Settling becomes unbearable.

So here I am.

Alone.

But honest.

Saying no to the bad…

So I can make room for the good.

Refusing to abandon myself under any circumstances.

Tony V
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

I recently merged my Vacation Vault with Permission to be Powerful…

And I’m thrilled about the results.

I think the vibe makes my Substack feel more like a fancy publication…

And I love that.

I wanted to take the time to tell you more about the Vacation Vault…

So you understand precisely how much fun you’re missing.

Out o…

Read more

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

The strongest attraction of your life may be pointing in exactly the wrong direction.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone in my life...

...who made it worse.

I worked really hard to get those people out of my life.

The people who can’t take no for an answer.

Who always burdened me with their problems.

Who always …

Read more