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 the administration.

“We’ve gotten some reports that some people have been doing their laundry when they’re not supposed to...”

Oops…

Hope they don’t find out who.

“We’ve gotten some reports of the smell of... dope.”

Yikes.

And they don’t even know the half.

I’m pretty sure I break more rules than everybody here combined, but let’s keep that secret between you and me.

“This is Group One. You’re in Group Two. You’re not supposed to be here.”

Ah.

My bad.

I’m like a bull in a goddamn china shop around these monks.

Last time, I sliced my hand right before the opening round.

Blood everywhere.

I definitely needed stitches.

But I wasn’t going to miss this.

This time, they put me in the fucking corner like some kid wearing a dunce cap.

My sensei had to sell me on the idea.

It sounded awful.

I’d have to fold my mats and stack my cushions after every round so the walkway stayed clear.

No air conditioning.

It was fucking hot.

Sweating my balls off while everyone else sat in a stream of cool morning breeze.

Seven days of this bullshit.

Ten hours a day.

In that miserable corner.

It made me realize something.

My body is in much worse shape than I’d admitted.

I have chronic pain in my neck.

My back...

I need to wear a back brace.

I crack my back constantly.

Always managing the aches and pains.

They get worse after hours of sitting.

Working around the clock.

My body has been screaming for a break.

The corner had its perks, though.

I was out of sight...

Which meant I could change posture and wriggle around as much as I wanted.

I liked being away from everyone else.

I wasn’t bothering anybody.

The carpet was soft and comfortable.

And best of all...

I didn’t have to share my personal space.

It was beautiful.

This guy I work with couldn’t stop farting.

Seven times.

In one round.

I’m surprised he didn’t shit himself.

I could smell him from my far-off corner.

Both loud and stinky.

Yeesh.

I’ll never understand how comfortable Zen people are farting around each other.

Sitting for seven days cleans your insides out.

Sometimes you don’t even know what’s being cleaned.

But you can be sure it’s something.

You’re softening up.

Layers are peeling back.

You’re letting go of old junk you don’t need anymore.

Your senses sharpen.

You see things more clearly.

At the very beginning, the sensei said:

“You’re going to walk away feeling lighter and more compassionate.”

That caught my attention.

I want that.

I don’t know what else can make someone more empathetic.

Empathy is pretty fixed from person to person.

We were quiet all day, every day.

Because we want our minds to settle.

It’s a beautiful and profound thing that most people never experience.

Words could never do the real thing justice.

This process is brutal.

Ten hours of meditation every day.

Seven days.

It starts at 4:10 each morning.

It ends at 9:30 every night.

I never get more than four hours of sleep…

For a whole week.

I’m always hungry.

Always exhausted.

But I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

🇲🇻 The Maldives…

🇭🇺 Budapest…

🇪🇸 Madrid…

🇨🇷 Costa Rica…

🇮🇩 Bali…

🇮🇹 Italy…

🇲🇽 Cancun…

🇪🇨 The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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

Organized and curated for you.

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

Subscribe for more essays and serials

© Team Healthy LLC

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, 2026

VIP Nashville Escape for Two

• Two VIP festival passes

• Two hotel nights

• $100 dining and entertainment credit

• Admission to more than 25 Nashville attractions

• Music City gift package

• Deadline: August 26, 2026

Four Days in Cancún

• Four-day tropical escape

• Hotel accommodations

• Caribbean beaches, warm water and Cancún nightlife

• Deadline: August 27, 2026

Luxury Portland Escape for Two

• $2,246 Ritz-Carlton certificate

• Two Portland Timbers or Thorns tickets

• $300 dining certificate

• Total value up to $3,346

• Deadline: August 31, 2026

Reykjavík Adventure for Two

• Round-trip flights for two

• Two hotel nights with breakfast

• Spa access and a three-course dinner

• Sky Lagoon, Lava Show and Perlan Museum admission

• Airport transfers and Reykjavík City Cards

• Deadline: August 31, 2026

Seven Nights in New Zealand

• Round-trip airfare for two

• Seven hotel nights across Auckland, Nelson and Queenstown

• $2,000 spending money

• Ground transportation in Nelson

• New entry permitted every day

• Deadline: September 7, 2026

Seven-Day Caribbean Cruise for Two

• Seven-day Caribbean cruise for two

• Round-trip airfare included

• Sail from one tropical paradise to another

• Prize valued at up to $5,000

• Deadline: November 1, 2026

Four Days in Puerto Rico

• Round-trip travel from the continental United States

• Four-day, three-night hotel stay

• Rum-mixology experience for two

• Total value approximately $3,000

• Deadline: September 22, 2026

Seven-Day Caribbean Cruise for Two

• Seven-day Caribbean cruise for two

• Airfare included

• Prize valued at up to $5,000

• Deadline: November 1, 2026

St. Thomas Vacation—or Seven-Night Cruise

• One two-night resort vacation awarded every day

• 180 daily winners

• Grand prize: seven nights in St. Thomas for up to four people—or a seven-night cruise for two

• $2,500 toward airfare with the grand prize

• Deadline: January 13, 2027

Here’s the catch:

You must be a paid Vacation Vault member to unlock the official entry forms.

If you’re not a paid member, you’re watching these vacations appear—and disappear—without ever putting your name in the running.

Someone has to win them.

It might as well be you.

JOIN THE VACATION VAULT FOR $1

$8 per month afterward. Cancel anytime.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Buy Me a Coffee

Download This Article:

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

🇲🇻 The Maldives…

🇭🇺 Budapest…

🇪🇸 Madrid…

🇨🇷 Costa Rica…

🇮🇩 Bali…

🇮🇹 Italy…

🇲🇽 Cancun…

🇪🇨 The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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

Organized and curated for you.

Get The First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

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.

Why Hell and Paradise?

Because I grew up on a little island in the Caribbean—and I carry two opposing worlds inside me.

I bring you back to that island.

I give you an islander’s point of view.

I show you the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Then I leave.

Over the course of the book, I migrate to the United States. That’s the literal odyssey.

But the deeper odyssey is what happens inside me.

You’ll watch me make choices that hurt.

You’ll witness some of the darkest moments of my life.

And, strangely enough, some of the funniest.

My favorite chapters all end in Gate:

Dolphingate. Cockygate. DMVgate. Sociopathgate. Spitgate.

Each one takes you on a wild ride.

You’ll meet the hungry version of me—the young islander who would eventually enter the company of some of the smartest marketers on the planet and become Tony Robbins’s hired-gun direct-response copywriter.

But first, you’ll see what it cost him to get there.

You can read Hell and Paradise as an ongoing monthly serial.

A new chapter comes out every month.

Follow along with the rest of us—and fall in love with this strange, tragic, hilarious story one chapter at a time.

Start reading for just $1.

Then continue for $5.99 a month.

Begin Hell and Paradise

I live in a Buddhist mansion.

Come see…

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Buy Me a Coffee

Download This Article:

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

🇲🇻 The Maldives…

🇭🇺 Budapest…

🇪🇸 Madrid…

🇨🇷 Costa Rica…

🇮🇩 Bali…

🇮🇹 Italy…

🇲🇽 Cancun…

🇪🇨 The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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

Organized and curated for you.

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

Subscribe for more essays and serials

© Team Healthy LLC

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 growling menacingly…

And walking toward the children.

She wasn’t carrying a rifle…

She didn’t have bear spray…

No time to find help…

She’s 5-foot nothing…

90 lbs soaking wet.

She charged anyway.

The bear swats her.

She’s knocked to the ground.

Four slashes across the face...

Most people would’ve died there.

Lydia kept fighting.

She screamed…

Kicked...

Punched…

The boys ran for help.

She kept fighting…

With her bare hands.

“Mother fights off polar bear to save children” — CBC

A hunter arrived moments later.

He shot with his Model 70 Winchester Rifle…

The bear dropped dead.

Lydia walked away with only minor injuries.

The children were unharmed.

Canada awarded her the Medal of Bravery

And suddenly...

A person who could never fight a polar bear...

Fights a polar bear.

A person who believed they were ordinary...

Becomes extraordinary.

Which raises a more interesting question.

Why?

How could this happen?

Scientists have a name for moments like these.

Hysterical strength.

It isn’t a perfect explanation.

In fact, researchers still debate exactly what’s happening.

But the stories themselves are difficult to ignore.

Again and again...

Ordinary people have accomplished feats they never believed possible...

Only after someone else’s life depended on it.

Why?

Scientists disagree about exactly why.

Some point to adrenaline.

Others point to pain suppression.

Others point to changes in how many muscle fibers the nervous system recruits.

The mechanism is still debated.

The stories are not.

And they keep happening.

April 9, 1982.

Lawrenceville, Georgia…

Tony Cavallo rips out a blood-curdling scream.

His 1964 Chevy Impala slipped off its jack.

It was crushing life out of him.

Angela Cavallo lept into action to save her son’s life...

She lifted the 3,500-pound Chevrolet Impala by approximately four inches

Long enough for neighbors to slide the jack back in place.

Her son survived.

She never did anything like that again.

“I was kicking him, saying, ‘Get out, get out.’”

She later told the Associated Press.

“I don’t know how I did it.”

Virginia

Lauren Kornacki came home from work.

Her father was trapped beneath a car after the jack failed.

She also lifted the vehicle long enough to pull him free

“Woman lifts car, saves her father.”

—CNN

“I just literally lifted up the car... It kind of balanced it back out and shifted enough to free my dad.”

Doctors credited her with saving his life.

April 1st, 2013.

Lebanon, Oregon

36-year-old Jeff Smith was crushed by his 3,000-pound tractor.

His two teenage daughters, Hannah (16) and Haylee (14), ran over.

Together, they lifted enough of the tractor for him to crawl free

2006.

Tucson, Arizona...

Tom Boyle was driving with his wife when he saw a Chevrolet Camaro strike a teenage cyclist.

The boy was trapped under the car.

Boyle ran toward the wreck.

He lifted the Camaro high enough for another person to pull the teenager free

Boyle tore muscles in his mouth from clenching his teeth so hard.

But the boy survived.

Just so we’re clear…

This isn’t normal.

People can’t lift 2,000 pounds.

To put it into perspective…

Hafþór Björnsson, one of the strongest men ever measured, deadlifted 1,124 pounds in 2025.

Powerlifter Brianny Terry deadlifted 646 pounds, the heaviest raw deadlift ever performed by a woman in sanctioned competition.

These are elite athletes who trained for years, approached the bar deliberately, used specialized technique, and prepared their entire bodies for one maximal effort.

None of these people were professional strongmen.

They didn’t have years to train.

They had seconds…

Maybe this isn’t really about strength.

Maybe it’s about permission.

Your brain is conservative.

It would rather underestimate you...

Than allow you to destroy yourself.

So it builds safety margins.

Invisible limits.

Most of the time...

Those limits keep you alive.

Sometimes...

They convince you you’ve reached your limit...

Long before you actually have.

Then something extraordinary happens.

A child is in danger.

A father is trapped.

A helicopter is burning.

A polar bear is charging.

And suddenly...

The rules change.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Buy Me a Coffee

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Permission To Be Powerful She Fought A Polar Bear

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

The Maldives…

Budapest…

Madrid…

Costa Rica…

Bali…

Italy…

Cancun…

The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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:

🌴 The Vacation Vault

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.

💬 Access to the private Telegram group

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

🏖️ New vacation opportunities added regularly

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)

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

Subscribe for more essays and serials

© Team Healthy LLC

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 chaos, and the everyday moments that shaped the person I would become.

Then everything changes.

What begins as life on a tropical island becomes a years-long odyssey through love, ambition, immigration, betrayal, impossible setbacks, and unlikely victories.

Along the way you’ll meet an indie romance author chasing her dream, follow my own journey from struggling writer to elite copywriter who would later write for Tony Robbins, and witness the unbelievable true stories that sound too outrageous to have happened to one person.

Every chapter is true.

Every absurd twist happened.

This isn’t the postcard version of paradise.

It’s the hell.

It’s the paradise.

It’s what it really looks like to build a life between two worlds.

Funny. Heartbreaking. Unbelievable.

This is Hell and Paradise.

You’ll swim with whales.

You’ll rescue baby sea turtles.

You’ll survive a devastating flood.

You’ll witness a quarry explosion.

You’ll spend New Year’s Eve with a sociopath.

You’ll spark a nationwide protest.

You’ll build a life from scratch.

You’ll lose more than you thought you could.

You’ll discover that paradise isn’t what anyone told you it was.

And every word of it is true.

Start reading today for just $1.

Hell and Paradise is an ongoing serialized memoir, with a new chapter released every month.

Your first month is just $1. After that, your membership is $5.99/month, giving you access to every new chapter as it’s published, plus the growing archive.

Paradise isn’t built in a day.

Neither is this story.

Join The Hell & Paradise Serial

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 members area.

• A growing library of essays

And somehow...

It all fits together.

The best part?

For months, I’ve been rebuilding the email infrastructure behind the scenes.

It’s not glamorous work.

Nobody writes movies about configuring mail servers.

But it’s the difference between whispering into the void...

...and actually reaching readers.

Right now I can reliably reach around 30,000 active readers.

The larger audience is slowly coming back online as I warm everything up responsibly.

Soon, the entire publication will be alive again.

That changes everything.

Because what’s the point of building a beautiful publication...

...if nobody ever sees it?

One thing that made me smile recently...

A few readers have already started joining the Hell & Paradise serial.

That’s exactly what I hoped would happen.

Which brings me to the project I’m probably having the most fun building.

Tony’s Vacation Vault

I love this thing.

It’s not really about vacations.

It’s about possibility.

It’s a place where you can spend ten minutes imagining yourself somewhere completely different.

Walking through Reykjavík after fresh snowfall.

Standing above a Norwegian fjord.

Watching the sunset over the Florida Keys.

Checking into the Ritz-Carlton in Portland.

Wandering Barcelona with no schedule.

Dreaming isn’t a waste of time.

Sometimes it’s rehearsal.

And every destination inside the Vault is attached to a real opportunity.

Real trips.

Real prizes.

Real experiences.

Someone is going to win them…

Why not you?

That combination is what makes the Vault different.

It’s equal parts magazine...

Travel daydream...

Treasure hunt...

And an excuse to remember that the world is a much bigger place than whatever happens to be stressing you out today.

The more I build this publication...

The more I realize that’s what I want it to become.

Not just a newsletter.

A place.

A publication you look forward to visiting because you never quite know what you’ll discover next.

If you haven’t explored Vacation Vault yet...

Come take a look.

Worst case?

You spend a few minutes imagining a bigger life.

Best case?

You end up living it.

One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

The Maldives…

Budapest…

Madrid…

Costa Rica…

Bali…

Italy…

Cancun…

The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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:

🌴 The Vacation Vault

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.

💬 Access to the private Telegram group

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

🏖️ New vacation opportunities added regularly

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?

Use code VAULT and your first month is just $1.

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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 of one copywriter’s sick and twisted mind…

Came an idea…

Nobody told him about it.

He just dreamed it up…

A place where you have constant opportunities to win a free vacation.

What kind of sociopath doesn’t want a free vacation?

I select locations around the globe…

Maldives

Budapest

Madrid

Costa Rica

Bali

Italy

Cancun

The Galápagos

Iceland

Norway

Turks & Caicos

New Orleans

And that’s just scratching the surface.

Think of it like a game that we’re all playing together.

Like bingo.

Except the prize is a Hawaii trip…

Or Madrid…

Or Mexico City…

The options are nearly limitless…

And you dramatically improve your odds because I vet every giveaway…

Making sure it’s legitimate before it ever reaches you.

No endless Googling.

No wondering whether some sketchy website is about to harvest your email address.

Just the fun part.

You enter.

You dream.

Then one morning you open your inbox…

And discover you’re one of the lucky winners.

That’s the whole point.

To spend more time imagining yourself floating in Iceland’s Blue Lagoon…

Walking the streets of Rome…

Watching the sunrise over Bali…

Or sipping coffee in a tiny café in Budapest…

Instead of wasting hours searching for opportunities you’ll probably never find.

Every giveaway is another chance.

Another ticket.

Another roll of the dice.

One of them has your name on it.

Use code VAULT at checkout to get your first month for just $1.

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

See you inside,

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Tony V.

P.S. The next vacation could be announced tomorrow. Better to already be inside than watching someone else celebrate from the sidelines.

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 took more than they gave.

Who do not care how I feel.

Do not care that they’ve hurt me.

Who always left me feeling worse.

Nobody gets to fuck with my calm.

But here’s the strange part.

Every once in a while...

I’ll meet someone...

...and I can still feel that pull.

But slow down.

Attraction isn’t a compass.

It’s not a map.

It’s not GPS.

It’s not fucking fate.

You tell yourself,

“I feel attracted...”

“...therefore this person must be good for me.”

And yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

It applies to almost everything.

The dream job.

You finally get it...

...and realize the money wasn’t worth your social life.

The business opportunity.

It ends up costing you far more than it can ever repay.

The new city.

You move...

...only to discover you brought yourself with you.

The promotion.

You finally earn it...

...and discover it’s STILL not good enough.

More.

More.

More.

This is the Hedonic Treadmill.

We can get used to anything.

No matter how absurd.

Bud Post won $16.2 million.

His ex sued him for half the jackpot.

He loaned money constantly...

And invested in bad business deals.

His own brother hired a hitman to kill him so he could get his hands on all of that money.

He went bankrupt.

“I wish I never won.”

-- Bud Post

Abraham Shakespeare won $30 million.

Winning made him a magnet for people asking for money.

One woman convinced him she wanted to help protect his wealth.

She gained his trust...

Took control of his finances...

Then she murdered him when he started asking questions.

You finally achieve your dream...

...only to realize you climbed the wrong mountain.

Now you’re in some deep shit.

“They must be special.”

“They must be perfect.”

“Maybe they’re my soulmate.”

No.

You can be attracted to someone you must avoid like the plague.

We're terrible at recognizing what's good for us.

Maybe they manufacture problems.

Drain your energy.

Make life worse.

For some...

It never stops.

Maybe they never listen.

Maybe you’re vulnerable and they invalidate you.

I’ve lived it.

More than once.

Still, to this day, I find myself deeply attracted to people who do not add anything good to my life.

There’s no profit for me here.

I can see this pattern in real time.

I’d much rather see it happening...

...than see it in hindsight.

I’m so committed to avoiding such people that my body won’t allow me to open up to someone like this.

So I may desire them.

But I also, in my bones, refuse to go back to the old dysfunctional way of life.

The fight isn’t over.

Mike Tyson’s beating the Chauffeur outright.

But the Chauffeur still knows how to make Mike feel bitter about it.

These days I trust my gut.

Only took 30 years.

Every time I talked myself out of it...

...my life got worse.

Every.

Single.

Time.

So, I stopped fighting with reality.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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This all happened to one person…

…in one lifetime.

This serial grabs you by the throat, and it never lets up…

Light spoilers:

Whales swim past my classroom

I rescue baby sea turtles

I get into an altercation at the DMV.

I spend New Year’s Eve with a sociopath

A hacker breaks into a bank.

I spark a nationwide protest

A quarry explodes... and four people die.

I get caught in a rising flood

All three of my cats get pregnant... at the same time.

Some very rude monkeys…

My 77-year-old wingman teaches me how to become the life of the party.

I lose my mother to cancer.

And that's not even the whole story...

I get trapped in one of the strangest codependent relationships imaginable.

I go into hiding for 5 years.

I reinvent myself from scratch.

I become obsessed with boundaries.

I learn how to stop being everyone’s doormat.

I leave my island.

I come to America.

I almost get deported.

I discover that paradise and hell can exist in the same place...

...and sometimes inside the same person.

Come.

Join me on this wild journey.

New chapter each month.

SIGN UP FOR THE HELL & PARADISE SERIAL HERE:

Join The Hell & Paradise Serial

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

I’m at the end of my rope.

Money has dried up.

The situation is dire.

I don’t know how I’m going to pay for my next tank of gas.

I’m at eye level with the homeless.

I live at a Zen center.

In a single bedroom.

There are mice…

and bed bugs…

I moonlight as a janitor

Cleaning more toilets than I ever care to do again…

A cook…

Scrubbing more pots than you could imagine…

And a groundskeeper…

Doing all sorts of crazy shit under all sorts of conditions

Zen folks are all about their work.

If you’d told me five years ago that I’d give up nearly everything I owned and end up living like a monk while trying to save my business…

I would’ve laughed.

I had a house.

I had a wife.

I had a steady job.

I was a brand new immigrant with a new green card…

Yet here we are.

I have to keep reminding myself that I have 134,000 person army behind me…

I didn’t liquidate my life for nothing.

I bought myself more leverage than I ever had in all 15 years as a freelancer.

There’s nothing like owning the whole damn building.

And frankly…

What else was I going to do if I quit freelancing?

I’ve been writing emails for 15 years…

This is merely the next level…

Going from writer…

To publisher

But, as I said before…

I need money like it’s oxygen…

I’m out of runway.

This is either sink or swim.

There is no more time to rehearse.

No more time to prepare.

Either I start generating meaningful revenue…

…or I’m not much better off than the homeless woman down the hall.

How did things get this bad?

You don’t know the half of it.

The truth is, I built a six figure audience while unemployed, broke, living off my savings.

I locked myself in a room for 18 months…

And I bet my whole life on THIS.

Why?

Long story.

I talk about my old career all over this blog.

But there is some good news.

After months of work…

I finally finished building the machine.

It’s robust…

It’s secure…

And it’s mine.

Outright.

The whole machine runs for about 20 bucks per month.

It’s highly efficient.

One of the key issues I’ve seen in business goes like this:

Your spending is out of control…

Revenue can never keep up…

Profits suffer…

Never-ending boom-and-bust cycles…

I wanted an extremely stable foundation from which to build this publication and media empire.

When you’re always worried about costs you’re stuck in reactivity.

You’re not thinking strategically…

You’re trying to survive…

Not grow…

You make impulsive decisions…

In the same way a surgeon needs a sterile environment to do their work…

Or the scientist needs a controlled environment to do research…

I needed my own platform.

Something that could carry the weight of more than 100,000 people.

For the past several months, I haven’t just been writing.

I’ve been rebuilding my business from the ground up.

Not the website.

Not the logo.

The plumbing.

The invisible machinery that makes an online business possible.

For fifteen years, I made my living as a copywriter.

I wrote millions of words.

I helped companies make millions of dollars.

Yet I barely understood how email actually worked.

That’s because I never had to.

Someone else always handled it.

Then I built my own business.

From scratch.

One blog post at a time….

That’s when I discovered an uncomfortable truth.

Most creators don’t really own their businesses.

They rent...

Their email platform.

Their checkout.

Their distribution.

And whenever a company changes its rules…

Raises its prices…

Or decides it doesn’t like you…

Your business can disappear overnight.

I’ve lived through enough of that.

Today, I own four private email servers.

The software.

The infrastructure.

No giant monthly bill that keeps growing like Godzilla.

No middleman deciding whether I can contact the people who asked to hear from me.

No company holding the keys to my livelihood.

Building it wasn’t glamorous.

It was months of debugging.

Configuration.

Testing.

Breaking things.

Fixing them.

Learning why emails disappear.

Learning why servers get blocked.

Learning how reputation works.

Learning how to protect a business before disaster strikes instead of after.

The funny part?

Almost none of it will ever be visible.

That’s the point.

The best infrastructure is boring.

It quietly does its job while everyone else forgets it exists.

There’s one catch.

Even the best email system in the world can’t go from zero to sending 134,000 emails overnight.

Email providers don’t trust strangers.

Trust has to be earned.

So I’m warming everything up slowly.

A few hundred emails.

Then more.

Then more.

Patiently building a reputation until the entire system is ready.

It’s frustrating.

I want to hit the button today.

I can’t.

Not if I want this thing to last.

Ironically, I think getting kicked off Patreon did me a favor.

At the time, it felt like a disaster.

Now I see it differently.

It exposed a weakness in my business before it became fatal.

It forced me to stop depending on someone else’s platform and start building my own.

I built the list.

Then I built a machine worthy of the list.

Now comes the part I can’t automate.

The writing.

The offers.

The ideas.

The machine can deliver the message.

It can’t make people care.

That’s my job.

Which brings me back to where I started.

Yes, I’m scared…

I’m closer to the edge financially than I’ve ever been.

But hope is not lost.

I’m sane and sober…

And I press on with full conviction…

Because for the first time in a long time…

I’m standing on ground that I own.

The infrastructure is built.

Every part of the machine is working…

It’s more stable than ever…

Now it’s time to find out what this business is really capable of.

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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

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The Maldives…

Budapest…

Madrid…

Costa Rica…

Bali…

Italy…

Cancun…

The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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:

🌴 The Vacation Vault

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.

💬 Access to the private Telegram group

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

🏖️ New vacation opportunities added regularly

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)

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to Be Powerful

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

Subscribe for more essays and serials

© Team Healthy LLC

To celebrate this year’s Fourth of July, I wanted to do something special.

I’m releasing the first 5 chapters of my new monthly memoir serial, Hell & Paradise, for paid members today.

You can become a paid member for just $1 for the first month.

You can get all the details by clicking the button below.

Join The Hell & Paradise Serial

This is my Coming to America story.

There are so many twists and turns that you’re going to wonder how I still have all my limbs by the end.

This is more than a journey.

It captures one of the most important periods of my life.

I talk a lot about being the Chauffeur on this Substack.

It was one of the biggest breakthroughs I’ve ever had.

The Chauffeur was the version of me shaped by violence growing up.

Being assertive was dangerous in my household.

So I learned coping strategies that helped me survive as a child...

But nearly destroyed me as an adult.

People-pleasing was one of them.

I never learned how to set boundaries.

And that mistake got me into a lot of trouble.

Eventually...

I found a way to leave that identity behind.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

The person who emerged felt like the exact opposite of the Chauffeur.

Kind of like Bruce Banner and the Hulk.

Bruce created the Hulk.

The Hulk could do everything Bruce couldn’t.

That’s why I nicknamed this version of myself Mike Tyson.

It’s just a metaphor.

But after years of therapy...

Reading...

Zen practice...

Writing copy for Tony fucking Robbins himself...

And building my own publication…

I became someone I barely recognize.

Someone with firm boundaries.

Someone whose voice gets heard.

Someone you do not want to mess with.

The eight years this memoir covers were brutal.

I was broke.

Depressed.

Exhausted.

Trapped.

Isolated.

Always struggling as a freelance copywriter.

Two steps forward.

One step back.

Indignity after indignity.

Then my mom died suddenly from cancer.

After that...

I disappeared from my family’s life for five years.

That’s one of the central threads of this story.

I don’t usually advertise it with a foghorn.

But it’s wild.

I was living something that felt eerily similar to witness protection.

I moved.

I cut ties with everyone.

And I worked my ass off.

Slowly...

Everything began to change.

I found incredible therapists.

I lost 50 pounds.

I tripled my income.

I wrote for Tony Robbins.

And yet...

Life still had plenty of surprises waiting for me.

I grew up in St. Lucia.

When you’re raised on a tiny Caribbean island where almost everyone is poor...

You learn very early that average isn’t going to cut it.

I decided I had to become twice as good.

That mindset has never left me.

I was born into unhappy circumstances.

But I became obsessed with learning how to build a happy life.

That obsession took me down some unbelievable rabbit holes.

Eventually...

It led me to the Rochester Zen Center, where I live and work like a monk.

I came out a completely different person.

This story isn’t really about teaching.

There won’t be many lectures.

You’ll be too busy following the adventure.

That’s why I call it An American Odyssey.

By the end you’ll probably wonder,

“How the hell did one person fit all of that into a single lifetime?”

You’ll laugh a lot.

Several chapters are downright ridiculous.

Especially the Gate series.

Dolphingate.

Cockygate.

DMVgate.

Sociopathgate.

They’re some of my favorite chapters in the entire book.

I often say,

“I don’t recommend my lifestyle.”

I mean it.

I’m a recovering workaholic.

A loner.

A glutton for punishment.

But if my mistakes can save you years of pain...

They’ll have been worth something.

The early readers have surprised me.

One of the things they mention most often is how vividly the island comes alive.

You’ll be swept away to a place most people never get to experience.

And once you start...

You’re going to have a hard time putting it down.

Become a paid member today for just $1.

After that it’s only $5.99 per month.

Worth every penny.

You already know my writing hits different.

That’s why you keep coming back.

I’ve probably snatched your wig a few times.

Sorry.

One day, thousands of people will discover this story.

Today...

You get to say you were here from the beginning.

Listen...

I started Permission to be Powerful after Tony Robbins fired me in 2024.

I was unemployed.

AI was changing everything.

I knew I couldn’t build my future by depending on clients forever.

So I started over.

One post at a time.

Today...

More than 134,000 people read my work.

But this publication is still the beating heart of everything I do.

And your support helps keep it growing.

The fireworks can wait.

Click below and start reading Hell & Paradise today.

Join The Hell & Paradise Serial

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Could You Pass This Citizenship Test?

Go.

Washington, D.C.

George Washington.

Terrorists attacked the United States.

July 4.

Because there are 50 states.

The Star-Spangled Banner.

The Supreme Court.

One hundred.

The Senate and the House of Representatives.

Legislative, executive, and judicial.

The Constitution.

July 4, 1776.

Thomas Jefferson.

This Is the Civics Test

Well done.

A lot of Americans don’t pass.

A 2022 Fourth of July poll found that roughly 1 in 8 Americans couldn’t name George Washington as the first president.

For Americans under 25, the number was closer to 1 in 5.

And a Citizens & Scholars survey found that only 36% of Americans could pass a multiple-choice test based on U.S. citizenship questions.

You Probably Deserve to Be an American Citizen

If you answered all of them correctly, congratulations...

You probably deserve to be an American citizen.

But for me, this isn’t trivia.

This is one of the final steps before taking the Oath of Allegiance.

I’m practically at the finish line.

And to think just a year ago, I was wondering if they would deport me.

If I would be exiled forever.

This is a lifelong dream come true.

To celebrate this year’s Fourth of July, I wanted to do something special.

So I’m opening the 5 chapters of my new monthly memoir serial, Hell & Paradise, for paid members today.

Subscribe now

I wanted to tell you the wild and crazy story of how I came to America in the first place.

How I became the man who could write for Tony Robbins.

The man who could build an audience of over 134,000 readers while unemployed, living at a Zen Center.

The Real Questions Are Harder Than the Civics Test

What if the place where you grew up was too small for you?

What if the life everyone called “beautiful” was killing you?

What if freedom cost you everything?

What kind of hunger makes a person leave everything behind?

These are some of the core questions you’ll be challenged with as you follow my journey.

This Story Is WILD

Hell & Paradise is the story of two writers trying to build a life together in St. Lucia.

On the surface, it sounds almost romantic.

A Caribbean island.

Two ambitious people.

Big dreams.

Beautiful scenery.

A life most people would look at from the outside and call paradise.

But inside that paradise, everything starts to crack.

Marriage.

Money.

Family.

Grief.

Ambition.

Immigration.

Identity.

The dream of America.

The fear of losing it.

This is the story of how I left St. Lucia, moved to the United States, fought to become the man I believed I could be, and slowly discovered that the life I was trying so hard to save might be the very life I needed to survive.

It is a story about love, collapse, exile, reinvention, and the terrifying cost of becoming free.

It begins in paradise.

But paradise was never the whole story.

A New Chapter Every Month

That’s why, starting now, I’ll be releasing a new chapter of Hell & Paradise every month for paid members.

One chapter at a time.

One strange turn at a time.

One piece of the story at a time.

And honestly?

I didn’t realize how wild my life had been until I started writing it all down.

I have lived through love, grief, immigration, divorce, depression, reinvention, spiritual practice, professional ambition, financial collapse, and the deeply absurd experience of trying to become a whole new person while everything around me kept catching fire.

A normal life, apparently. Very relaxing. Highly recommended by no one.

But I promise you this:

You will be entertained.

This story moves.

It has romance.

It has betrayal.

It has comedy.

It has breakdowns.

It has America.

It has St. Lucia.

It has ambition.

It has disaster.

It has rebirth.

And underneath all the chaos, it has lessons that may actually help you look at your own life differently.

Because this is not just a story about me.

It is a story about what happens when the life that once protected you becomes the life you have to escape.

It is a story about what it costs to become free.

And if you’ve ever felt trapped inside a beautiful-looking life...

If you’ve ever wondered whether your hunger was madness or wisdom...

If you’ve ever had to choose between belonging and becoming...

Then I think you’ll find something in this story that belongs to you too.

Become a Paid Member

This Fourth of July, I’m celebrating the country I fought to belong to.

But I’m also celebrating the story that got me here.

Hell & Paradise is that story.

Every month, paid members will get a new chapter as I tell the full, strange, funny, painful, ridiculous, life-changing journey from St. Lucia to America.

From paradise to collapse.

From exile to reinvention.

From trying to save a life that was killing me...

To finally becoming the man my old life could not contain.

Become a paid member today and start reading Hell & Paradise one chapter at a time.

Join The Hell & Paradise Serial

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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Permission To Be Powerful American Heartbeat

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

The Maldives…

Budapest…

Madrid…

Costa Rica…

Bali…

Italy…

Cancun…

The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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:

🌴 The Vacation Vault

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.

💬 Access to the private Telegram group

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

🏖️ New vacation opportunities added regularly

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)

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to Be Powerful

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

Subscribe for more essays and serials

© Team Healthy LLC

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

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

The Maldives…

Budapest…

Madrid…

Costa Rica…

Bali…

Italy…

Cancun…

The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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:

🌴 The Vacation Vault

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.

💬 Access to the private Telegram group

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

🏖️ New vacation opportunities added regularly

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)

Tony V.

Editor-in-Chief

Permission to be Powerful

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Permission To Be Powerful The Dark Side Of Fame

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One Day You Might Wake Up in Bora Bora — for Free

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

Past destinations include:

🇲🇻 The Maldives…

🇭🇺 Budapest…

🇪🇸 Madrid…

🇨🇷 Costa Rica…

🇮🇩 Bali…

🇮🇹 Italy…

🇲🇽 Cancun…

🇪🇨 The Galápagos Islands, and more.

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

Organized and curated for you.

Get the First Month for Only $1

(Then $8/ month after that)

Permission to Be Powerful

antonvolney.com

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© Team Healthy LLC

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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