Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

The Rochester Zen Center…

Has a mouse problem.

We’re losing this war badly.

These mice are completely unafraid.

The softies here at the center are out of their element.

They hate killing.

As Buddhists, we believe in living in harmony with all sentient beings.

And the mice love us for it.

Sometimes, I see them scurrying around in broad daylight.

I’m remembering that old movie, Joe’s Apartment.

Except the roaches are swapped out for rodents.

Every night, I go to sleep…

That’s when the stage lights come on…

They start singing a number…

And they line-dance over the counters.

The next day, they leave a trail of poop behind.

One staff member calls them “Fred.”

“Should we leave a snack out for Fred tonight?” he jokes.

Another imagines one mouse bragging to his friends about the team of professionals who cook him a five-star meal every day.

Everyone here is a conscientious objector.

Nobody will even eat meat.

We’re far too kind-hearted to do what’s required.

So the lethal options are off the table.

No poison.

No cats.

And the traps don’t work.

Dozens of them. All empty.

It’s like they know exactly what it is, and they know to avoid it.

Not even peanut butter tempts them.

One night, I walked into the staff kitchen…

And saw a mouse, ass up under the toaster…

Eating crumbs like it owned the place.

Like Nero at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I had seconds.

I grabbed a towel.
A box.

It spotted me and ran behind the bread basket.

I waited.

It came out the other side.

I dropped the towel, pinned it, grabbed it…

And slammed it into the box.

Caught.

For once.

I kept it there overnight.

Nobody wanted to kill it.

Of course not.

If we let it outside, it would come right back.

One guy offered to take it home for his cat.

Fine.

He gets home…

Opens the box…

Reaches for the cat…

And in that tiny window—

The mouse escapes.

Starts a new life there.

That’s how it works.

Nobody does what’s necessary.

So the problem survives.

Then it multiplies.

And eventually…

It owns the place.

We locked everything down.

Tupperware. Sealed containers. No food in rooms.

For a moment, it looked like we’d won.

They got skinny.

Then they found other food.

At night, they slide under my door.

I hear them scurrying.

I wake up feeling violated.

Like a burglar was just in my house.

So I bought thick foam to block the gap.

Now I hear them chewing at it.

In the morning, there are bits of foam outside my door.

For now, they haven’t gotten in.

Nothing leaves me feeling more broke…

Than having mice for roommates.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to Be Powerful reader,

I went on a date.

Before it even started, I told her:

“I feel nervous.”

That was enough.

She stormed out.

Canceled immediately.

And just like that, the whole thing collapsed.

Not after a fight…

Or anything dramatic.

Just… the presence of a need.

At first, you want to explain it away.

Maybe she’s guarded.
Maybe she’s not that invested yet.

But then you look at the pattern.

Every time I wanted anything at all…

The answer was always no.

Even when it was small.

It was as if there was an unspoken condition from the start:

I was supposed to show up with no needs.

No friction. No weight. No interior life.

Just usefulness.

And the moment that wasn’t true?

Everything shut down.

I’ve seen selfish before.

I’ve dated selfish.

I’ve been married to selfish.

Even then, there was at least a flicker of recognition.

A moment where someone looks at you and asks:

“What’s wrong?”

Here?

Nothing.

Not once.

No questions.

No pause.

No adjustment.

Just a steady, unbroken focus on herself.

You don’t need deep emotional support on a first date.

But you do need something.

A flicker.

That’s the floor.

And when it’s not there, something becomes very clear:

For this to work… you have to disappear.

Become wantless…

Needless…

Invisible.

One minute, you’re abandoning yourself in seemingly harmless ways.

The next, the other person has taken over your life.

Because from the outside, it doesn’t look extreme.

She can seem:

Soft
Kind
Attentive… to other people

I’ve seen her across the room. Watching me. Smiling. Warm.

From a distance, it looks completely normal.

But up close?

There’s no space for you.

The mechanism is simple.

Your needs don’t register as:

“This person matters.”

They register as:

“This is getting in the way.”

Not consciously. Not maliciously.

Just… structurally.

So something as small as:

“I feel nervous.”

isn’t received as connection.

It’s received as friction.

And the interaction ends.

I could have played along.

I know how.

Be easy.

Be useful.

Don’t ask for anything.

Be grateful for whatever I get.

Stay light.

Stay accommodating.

Never shift the focus.

And yeah—
I could’ve had her.

But I know what that gets you.

Crumbs.

Just enough to stay.

And in exchange, you give up something slowly:

yourself.

You abandon yourself just by being in the dynamic at all.

Some people insist on it.

I’ve lived that.

To the point where I lost entire years of my life.

To the point where therapists told me:

“That wasn’t a relationship. You were completely subjugated.”

I moved countries.

Disappeared.

Built my life around someone who had no room for me.

So when I see the pattern now—

I don’t debate it.

I recognize it.

My body rejects it before my mind gets to have a say.

Before I get tempted to go back to the familiar.

There was a pull.

There always is.

She reminded me of someone I once loved deeply.

Someone who treated me with quiet contempt.

And my body still remembers that.

But I don’t follow it anymore.

So I didn’t chase.

I didn’t escalate.

I didn’t perform.

I gave her nothing.

Not out of spite.

Out of recognition.

Because the real decision isn’t:

“Is this person good or bad?”

It’s:

What version of me does this dynamic require?

And I’m not becoming that person again.

Now, to be clear—

This is my interpretation.

She’s not here to explain herself.

But I’ve spent years studying my own life closely.

Because I had to.

I lived in a world where people took from me constantly—and I didn’t even see it.

Waking up from that changes how you see everything.

These dynamics aren’t rare.

They’re just quiet.

Most people stay.

They justify it.
They hope.
They wait for something to shift.

It doesn’t.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Last October, I moved into the Rochester Zen Center.

Since then, I’ve shed several decades of trauma.

It’s a beautiful thing.

I’ve spent more time on the mat than just about anyone.

I’m so funny.

I get a job as a janitor and they don’t even pay.

I’m coming up on six months and I am eligible to get a “salary”

$300 per month.

And they work me to the bone.

Up at 6 am for meditation in the Zendo every day.

Brown robes, giant bell, the whole nine yards.

We do chanting every day at the end of the first sitting.

The cool thing about the chanting is…

You drill Buddhist teachings into your bones.

After a while, it imprints in your mind, and you unlock wisdom and insight.

But there’s such a beautiful unfolding happening here.

I worry that the outside world will tempt me away from this place too soon.

Moving to the Rochester Zen Center has been one of the most worthwhile experiences of my life. Hands down.

But you might not think so if you looked at me.

In practical terms, I was a janitor for my first four months.

They recently moved me to the kitchen.

I’m a pot scrubber.

Moving up in society.

About 3 hours of meditation per day.

Morning, noon, and night.

Some insane results y’all.

Insane.

I’m seeing more clearly than ever before by a lot.

I can see through people’s bullshit in ways that I couldn’t before.

I’ve never needed others’ approval less.

I’m more authentic than I’ve ever been.

And there’s a quiet strength about Zen.

When you have gone as hard as I have…

You see the world differently.

Your motivations change.

People see you differently.

People are so noisy.

I see their nervous tics.

Their restlessness.

There are some really interesting case studies.

The common theme is the tiny trail of chaos they always leave behind.

“Normal” people are…

Angry.

Hostile…

Childish.

Not everyone. Of course.

But many.

Most people are kids in adult bodies.

People who don’t meditate tend to be addicted to instant results.

My buddy asked me, “So, are you, like, enlightened yet, bro?”

No.

My sensei says, I’m changed.

I asked her how.

“You looked settled.”

“More comfortable in your skin.”

It’s true.

This place has absolutely cleaned my clock.

I’ve done about 8 or 9 7-day retreats.

This is where we go to a secluded monastery, and we go full Buddhist monk.

No talking ever.

No reading.

No tech.

Just meditation and chores all day.

4 am wakeup mock tock.

There’s only enough time to brush teeth, put on robe, and get a quick cup of coffee.

Then we walk outside in our dope Zen quad.

Rain or shine.

In January, it might as well be Anartica.

Pure misery.

But no time to think about that, off we go to sit in silence for the next ten hours straight.

The night ends around 9:30.

We are eating like…

As few calories as possible.

Suffering on purpose.

I skip breakfast.

Three crackers and a bowl of hummus.

Half a slice of bread and a tiny salad for dinner.

One apple before bed.

They never taste better.

The first three days are always the worst.

Your mind is fighting back.

It has nowhere to run and it won’t go silently.

Here’s your favourite doom spiral to throw you off balance.

It’s behaving like an addict in withdrawal.

Once your mind settles down, you can see the whole world anew.

You see things as they are.

Not as your mind tells you.

You process decades of junk that’s been living rent free in your mind.

This is the mother of all spring cleanings.

By the end…

You gained a decade of wisdom.

You have a whole new lease on life.

You’ve let go of so much bullshit that’s been weighing you down.

Often solutions to problems show up automatically.

Just sit and wait.

That’s all you have to do.

Do absolutely nothing for seven days.

NOTHING.

No moving.

Eyes shut.

Not a peep.

Nowhere to run or hide.

Everytime I think I have this place figured out, I unlock some new insight that clarifies my life.

I came to this place to seek refuge.

My life was in crisis mode.

I needed protection from the outside world.

I never worry about gossip.

I don’t have time to follow the news.

I live life in a perfectly controlled environment.

The retreat center at Chapin Mill, I like to think about it like a spiritual pressure cooker.

The constraints are so severe that they force rapid progress.

Something profoundly beautiful is happening inside me.

I don’t know what.

But I love the results.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I burned my life to the ground.

Again.

Let’s review…

The past two years have been the hardest of my life.

Two straight years of nuclear winter.🥶

It started when Tony Robbins fired me.

I had no income…

And yet, I refused to go back to freelancing.

If I were going to pull this off, I would have to draw on every insight I’d earned over fifteen years writing for the best in the business.

Everything.

Keep in mind:

I was a new immigrant.
Freshly divorced.
Alone.

Not even an “in case of emergency” contact.

The buck stopped here.

No safety net.

And I was a freelance copywriter in the middle of the AI apocalypse.

There was nothing to go back to.

So I locked myself in a room for a year.

And built something that still humbles me.

An email list of 93,000 subscribers.

From scratch.

While waiting to find out if the U.S. government would deport me.

I was agitated as fuck.

ICE was in the headlines.

Kicking in doors.

I felt like a fugitive.

Because of a little bit of paperwork.

I’m from St. Lucia.

A small island.

I got my green card in 2021.

Divorced in 2022.

That timing is not ideal.

At one point my mindset was simple:

I don’t care if I’m homeless
as long as I’m homeless on U.S. soil.

There’s a strange power in having nothing left to lose.

When annihilation seems certain…

You stop pulling your punches.

You abandon every ounce of restraint…

I understood what this mission required.

I would have to be willing to go broke.

Willing to lose everything.

Because the thing I was building was going to demand everything.

I pushed myself to the edge of sanity.

Night and day, I thought about one thing:

Growing my list.

I was done selling my talent to someone else.

Done waiting for loyalty from people who never believed it went both ways.

Fifteen years working behind the scenes.

This time, I would step into the light.

To build this, I used every skill I’d acquired.

When money dried up, I became a janitor at a Zen Center.

I meditate for hours a day.

It’s a strange thing to scrub toilets in the morning
and write to tens of thousands of people at night.

Some people here don’t understand it.

One of them thinks I’m lying about the size of my audience.

Everything I own is in storage.

Every emergency fund is gone.

Most of it went into building this list.

Ninety-five percent of that money went into trial and error.

Learning the hard way.

I can’t tell you how hard it is to willingly spend everything you have on hope.

My mind wants closure.

I miss being a freewheeling dancer.

And I have scrubbed more toilets than I care to do ever again.

I’m down to my last few thousand dollars.

Closer to the flames than I feel comfortable.

The house is on fire.

I’m still inside.

But there’s hope.

I have leverage.

For the first time in my career.

I set the terms.

I own the infrastructure.

I’m speaking without a client’s approval.

No borrowed voice.

No pretending to be someone else.

No asking for permission.

And I can feel the difference.

I’ve finally begun monetizing it.

I launched a Patreon called The Vacation Vault.

I have 35 paid subscribers.

1000 pays for the lifestyle I want.

I am close to securing my first paid advertiser - a former client, no less.

For now, this is what matters:

I built something no one can fire me from.

To do it, I had to evolve.

From copywriter
to founder.

Now the risk is mine.

So is the upside.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Imagine being this sick fuck.

Imagine…

You’ve spent your whole life at the very top.

Invincible.

Above the law.

It’s even worse than you think.

This motherfucker thought he could rape children and get away with it.

He used all of that fucking power and money that he never earned…

To be a fucking child molester.

The chickens have finally come home to roost.

These are the same people who built much of their wealth through oppression and enslavement.

Yet the media keeps telling us to look up to them.

That they are noble.

But what if the guy we’ve been told for decades was a good guy…

Was really a monster?

No different than any predator on a sex offender’s list?

By the way—

I am deeply fascinated with people who experience massive swings like that.

It’s not uncommon.
It goes with the job.

Big names with horrible endings.

Kings who were executed or imprisoned:

Charles I of England
Beheaded in public.

Louis XVI
Got his head lopped off.

Edward II of England
Murdered in his jail cell.

Maximilian I of Mexico
Turned into Swiss cheese by firing squad.

What do all of these people have in common?

They lived lives you and I couldn’t begin to fathom.

They lived above the law.

What do you see when you look at Andrew’s face?

I see a man who thought the law didn’t apply to him.

A man getting a taste of reality for the first time in his whole goddamn life.

This man sucked the Queen’s tits, bro.

In his mind, his mommy “owned” an entire country.

That’s how his life started.

All your life, the entire world keeps telling you you’re special for no reason.

You have an army of butlers and servants and guards.

People worship the ground you walk on.

Not because you’re special…

Or talented…

You’re not Usain Bolt or Whitney Houston…

There’s nothing special about you.

You didn’t earn your success.

Your wealth was largely gained from looting and plundering other countries.

You can have anything.

Do anything.

With no limits.

Someone like that would have such a warped sense of reality.

They could very well be insane.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

The latest Epstein files released by the U.S. Justice Department contain millions of emails.

Many of them come after Jeffrey Epstein’s 2008 conviction as a sex offender.

These men knew.

Some of them participated.

And many of them were extremely violent.

In a 2022 civil complaint, a woman alleged she was raped inside Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse by billionaire Leon Black.

She says that he

“bit her vagina,”

Causing bleeding and excruciating pain that lasted for several weeks.

Maria Farmer alleged she was held against her will in Ohio.

One email claims that 2 foreign women were strangled to death and buried near Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in New Mexico

These allegations are starting to paint a dark picture.

Peter Attia

Longevity doctor. Podcast star. Trusted by billionaires.

Peter Attia is a famous doctor on the internet.

He talks about living longer.
Eating better.
Staying sharp.

He runs a massive podcast.

Attia appears in Epstein’s files more than 1,700 times.

“Pussy is, indeed, low carb.”

“Still awaiting results on gluten content.”

That same year, Attia asked Epstein what he was doing in Palm Beach.

“Guess.”

“Besides that.”

Attia also wrote to Epstein’s assistant that he went into “JE withdrawal” when he didn’t see him.

Gross.

In 2017, while Attia’s son was fighting for his life, Attia delayed returning home so he could spend more time with Epstein.

When Epstein bragged about his life, Attia replied:

“Your life is so outrageous I couldn’t tell a soul.”

Larry Summers

Larry Summers ran the U.S. Treasury.

He was president of Harvard.

Yet, in March 2019, months before Epstein’s final arrest, Summers emailed Epstein about a woman he described as…

“Coy.”

Epstein:

“She’s smart – making you pay for past errors.”

Epstein asked Summers to arrange a Harvard campus visit.

He agreed.

Emails show Summers’ wife asking Epstein for donations.

“My life will be better if I raise $1m for Lisa.”

“Lisa” was his wife.

Summers:

“Your help changed everything.”

Summers’ wife:

“I’m going upstairs to hunt for my copy of Lolita.”

Deepak Chopra

Mindfulness brand. Spiritual celebrity.

Deepak Chopra sells consciousness.

Inner peace.

Privately, the tone was different.

Epstein asked Chopra to help him find...

“A cute Israeli blonde.”

Chopra replied that Israeli women were

“militant, aggressive, and sexy.”

Epstein sent “two girls” to one of Chopra’s events.

Epstein:

“I liked watching you zero in on your prey.”

Chopra:

“I am not a predator, just a lover.”

Epstein sent Chopra a news article about a woman accusing Epstein and Trump of raping her at age thirteen.

Chopra:

“Did she also drop the civil case against you?”

Epstein:

“Yup.”

Chopra:

“Good.”

Les Wexner

In 1991, Wexner gave Epstein full power of attorney.

In 1996, Wexner transferred his Manhattan townhouse to Epstein.

Wexner later said Epstein stole at least $46 million.

Leon Black

Leon Black paid Epstein tens of millions of dollars for tax and estate planning advice after Epstein’s conviction.

Black has denied wrongdoing.

Including for the “biting her vagina.”

Yet, he settled his Epstein case for $62.5 million.

Ehud Barak

Former Israeli prime minister.

Defense minister.

Photographs show Ehud Barak entering Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse with several young women.

Bill Gates

“To add insult to the injury you then subsequently with tears in your eyes, implore me to please delete the emails regarding your std, your request that I provide you antibiotics that you can surreptitiously give to Melinda, and the description of your penis.”

—Jeffrey Epstein

Andrew MountBatten-Windsor…

On all fours over a girl…

Noam Chomsky…

“I’m really fantasizing about the Caribbean island.’

— Noam Chomsky

Peter Thiel

Epstein gave Peter Thiel $40 million...

AFTER his conviction.

They didn’t stop.

They joked.
They coordinated.
They scheduled.
They asked favors.
They accepted introductions.
They took money.
They moved money.
They normalized.

They treated a convicted predator like a friend.

A pal…

Motherfuckers.

Tony
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I fucking hate wartime.

But it sneaks up on you.
Always uninvited.

Before you know it, you can’t remember what the good old days were like.

No more salsa seven days per week.

No more dance crew.

No more girlfriends.
No more sex.
No more money.
No more fun.
No more running.
No more racing.
No more running team.

No more weekenders.

Just me and David Goggins.
With unending misery.

There was the Great War of 2018.

I found myself a ghastly fifty pounds overweight.

That takes dedication.
codependency.
isolation.
poverty.
That takes an abusive relationship.
Three long years of depression.

Dark thoughts I can’t unthink.

That took two hundred days of nonstop running.
Weekly starvation.
Chugging salt water to keep my appetite down.
That took getting a handle on my finances.

During wartime, you don’t get to coast.

It’s wartime.

Either you fight, or you DIE.

You don’t want either.
So you make hard choices.

You get strategic.
You create wealth out of poverty.

Back then, I was broke, but I was ALSO burned out.

FUCK.

One big breakthrough was when I changed my relationship to money.

I didn’t understand the vicious cycle I created every month by mismanaging my money.

New systems filled my bank accounts within months.

Good always follows the bad.
Nothing stands still.
Not one thing in this universe stays the same.

This can and will change at any moment.

Everything changes.
So will this situation.

This is the season for building strength.

The spring always follows winter.

And it WILL be sweet.

During wartime, you don’t linger over lunch.

And apparently, everyone can see it.

At the Zen center, at least three people have commented on how fast I eat.
I’m always the first one done.
Every meal.

I’ve started skipping breakfast a lot of days too.

I work through every single break.

If I’m being honest, sometimes I find extra ways to get access to my computer so I can keep working even when I technically shouldn’t be.

Because in war…

There’s no time to waste.

You find out who your real friends are.

That’s one of the few gifts of this season.

Right now, I can count them on one hand.

You see who’s really in your corner.
And who was just nearby when things were easy.

Be strategic.
Double down on self-care.
Guard your inner space.

Fight for every win.

Journaling is always mandatory in wartime.

You need to organize the hurricane of ideas in your head.
You must think clearly.

You can accomplish far more during wartime than during peace.

Because you have to.

Take inventory of every hour of your day.
Do it every day.

Trim the fat in your life.

Proactively toughen up.

War stinks.

This time has a special stench.

Normally, even when broke, I can still run and dance.
Salsa parties are always cheap.
Ten bucks most of the time.

But this is grim.

Because I can’t run the way I normally would.

My running coach was my first paid member here on Substack.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.
Especially right now.

I’m sitting in my car, listening to bachata and staring at my running bag.
Untouched for five months.

Janitors don’t have time for running.
Especially not Buddhist janitors.

I feel like I’m in a movie or something.

It’s surreal.

I almost forgot to mention that part.

I don’t get paid.

Currently working two jobs around the clock.
And neither of them pay me.

I must be crazy.

I took such a hard stance against freelancing I chose becoming a janitor instead.

I don’t regret it.

There are some crosses I’m willing to die on.

And I’d rather die than freelance again.

I would rather starve.

Compared to freelancing?
That’s just where I’m at.

There’s another part of this wartime I haven’t really talked about.

Burnout.

There was a stretch where I only had about five good hours in me per day.
That’s it.

So I had to get ruthless with reality.

I had to build a life that worked inside five hours.
Not pretend I had twelve.

That meant making fun a priority.
Movement.
Music.
Anything that reminded me I wasn’t just a machine.

It took me a year and a half, but my list is almost at 100k.

It’s surreal having access to this many people.

I feel like I built a giant stadium.

And now, I have the place all to myself.

When I hit send, I say —
“Bomb’s away.”

That’s how it feels.

It’s still a work in progress.

No, I’m not going to tell you how I did it.

Not unless you pay me.

And Goddammit, it’s about damn time someone did.

Tony Robbins fired me for asking for a raise.

After I made him millions.

Everyone else took credit for my work.
No bonus.
No standing ovation.

So I asked for more.
I thought it was sound logic.

Fifteen years in this game.

I was trying to build a $200,000 per year freelancing business.
The math worked.
Until it didn’t.

I didn’t think asking for a raise would ruin my life.
Would send me into poverty.

But unfortunately, I have principles.

Getting fired when everyone else benefited from my work but me was a bridge too far.

There are people who got out of freelancing and built seven-figure companies within a year.

Can I do it?

I don’t have a clue.

But I do have a list of 84k people.
An engaged segment of about 25k.
And a Patreon with a handful of buyers and a growing free base.

I’m winging it as I go.

I had to acquire these leads through creative means.
Which presents its own unique challenges.

It’s like taming a bucking bronco.

Mike Tyson was built during wartime.

Even Buddhist monks have to go to their car to scream once in a while.

I don’t recommend my lifestyle.

Tony
Editor in Chief
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Follow these instructions to the letter.

Here’s my request:

I want to know why you read this blog.

Tell me in the comments.

I can only speculate.

But there isn’t much time.

We were at 88,000 subscribers to my new mystery list.

We’re now closing in on 100,000.

But that may not be good enough.

There’s basically no time left.

There’s no manual for how to manage a list of this size.
I’m figuring things out as I go.

I’ve made big, dumb mistakes.
I’m taking risks that may not pan out.

But…

As I was saying before…

I retired from freelancing after Tony Robbins fired me.

That was the last straw.

Every single client is always the same.

I’m done placing my faith in other people.
I’m done waiting for people to do what’s right.
What’s fair.
What’s respectful.

I’m not waiting for these hooligans to give me recognition for the hard work I’ve contributed to my field.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

I’m not saying fuck freelancing for everybody.

Just me.

Freelancing is a GREAT starter business:

You’re broke.
You have no network.
You have no experience.

Freelancing will give you connections and experience very quickly.

The problem is that it’s a shitty business model.

There’s no leverage.

Some freelancers seem to be eating well.

But the weaknesses of the model are unjustifiable after a point.

In other words:

Pay your dues.

Then get the fuck out and build a smarter business.

If you can survive among crooks and thieves as long as I have…

You’ll learn.

I got very good with people.

I learned how to wine and dine.
How to get into a client’s head.
How to make them feel important.
Like my number one priority.

Juggling Tony Robbins with other clients

felt like multiple girlfriends competing for attention.

My biggest mistake was letting it slip that I had other clients.

Sounds weird.

But every client wants to be your number one.

Nobody likes sloppy seconds.

These people put me through it.

In short:

I went through hell…

Until I became the Devil.

I became the mythic copywriter they whisper about.

The one who could massage a headline just right.
Spin a new angle out of thin air.
Spot the hidden weaknesses in ads and sales pages that were quietly costing clients a fortune.

It’s sick.

I started on Elance in 2011.

I was so hungry that year, I weighed 169 pounds.

I’m 198 today.

I rotated three food banks to keep myself fed.

I rationed food.

I worked around the clock out of my bedroom.

In the afternoons, I went to a beat-to-shit public library.

Broken chairs.
Fluorescent lights.
Wi-Fi that dropped every ten minutes.

One day, a woman at the public computer next to me couldn’t figure out how to log in.

She had a full-on nervous breakdown.

Crying. Shaking. Talking to herself.

The librarians had to come over and calm her down.

I’m sitting in the corner trying to write a sales page that might decide whether I eat that week…

This is what my office looked like:

I had five roommates.

I slept in my closet and used my bedroom as my office.

I furnished it with junk the local college kids left on the street.

That’s the environment I learned to perform in.

Three years in, when I finally landed Ramit Sethi,

it was the first time in my adult life I could actually:

Rent a decent apartment.
Feed myself.
Have enough left over to eat at a restaurant once a week.

I still didn’t have a car.

I was still taking the bus as a college graduate.

When Ramit fired me, I blamed myself.

I locked myself in a room for three days.

Didn’t leave.

I wanted to die.

I thought it was over.

I thought I’d never get another real client again.

I thought I was going back to Elance hell for good.

Back to the people who nickel-and-dimed me.

I worked with so many lunatics during those years.

Those were some dark times.

I didn’t even realize how many of them were scammers.

I was hungry.

I was trying to keep the lights on.

One food bank in particular sticks with me.

Every other Wednesday.
Noon.
Grocery bags in my hands.

Standing in line for an hour or two.

Waiting for:

Tuna.

Six eggs.

Cereal.

Milk.

Produce that was a day from being thrown out.

That whole afternoon gone just to get food.

Because I couldn’t yet figure out how to charge enough to live.

That’s what it took just to stay in the game.

But I’m also the most tenacious motherfucker on earth.

I had a third-world disadvantage.

It became my secret weapon.

Most of these people wouldn’t last a day in St. Lucia.

This is nothing compared to the poverty I grew up in.

But I also crossed paths with remarkable people.

New York Times bestsellers.

Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs.

Brilliant minds.

Experts in their fields.

Charlatans alike.

My first big client was Ramit Sethi in 2015.

I beat out 200 other copywriters for that gig.

It was a big deal at the time.

People was talking about me on forums.

I couldn’t even legally work in the U.S. back then.

Unbeatable will got me there.

Here’s the part that only hit me recently:

Ramit paid me five thousand dollars a month.

Ten years ago.

When I was still relatively new.

Fast forward to Tony Robbins.

After everything.

After Agora.
After Neil.
After going toe-to-toe with the best.

After thousands of hours and battle scars.
After proving I could generate millions.

I was still working for the same damn five thousand per month.

Let that sink in.

Yes. I had several clients. But symbolically, I think that matters.

I was still grinding for the same amount ten years later.

I asked for a raise.

And I was fired.

Sight unseen.

Blackballed.

Publicly humiliated.

After I had just finished making them millions of dollars.

Apparently, you can work for the best in the world…

And still be told you haven’t paid enough dues.

That you’re “ungrateful”…
“Entitled”...

For DARING to have any aspirations above poverty.

Everyone else had already taken credit for my work.

Everyone else had gotten their Christmas bonus.

I was still hungry.

No benefits.
No vacation pay.
No 401k.
Definitely no training.

Nothing.

Ramit introduced me to Neil Patel.

Neil was the first real genius I apprenticed under.

Three years.

They gave me every job nobody else wanted.

I had terrible boundaries.
I was hopelessly codependent with my clients.

They ran my life.

The one and only time Neil ever acknowledged that he knew I existed…

It was over a Zoom call that I agreed to take at three am.

Three am.

That’s how eager I was to get close to power.

I sold myself just like a cheap prostitute.

But I learned a fuck-ton.

After Neil, I was a true professional.

Neil didn’t last either.

His crooked business partner picked a fight with me.

I was happy to move on.

Bittersweet.

Being around these people makes you feel larger than life.

They’re grandiose.

Self-made entrepreneurs make you believe anything is possible.

Sometimes they’re right.

But the ethics of these organizations was another story.

Unlucky for them, I have the moral clarity of a phoenix.

I always hated saying, “I’m a copywriter.”

Because copywriters are damn liars.

Most of them.

I’m many things.

But I don’t lie.

I hate lying.

My father is a pathological liar.

I chose the opposite.

The other part came in my early 20s when I read Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton.

I didn’t just like the book.

I read all of his work.

Even his ridiculous autobiography.

That man has lived a life.

An unconscionable amount of sex.

I remember thinking:

I don’t know if it’s all the sex…

But this was a hell of a sales pitch, for what it’s worth.

More importantly, it changed how I lived.

In college, I cheated on my girlfriend.

I sat on that lie for a year.

The guilt ate me alive.

Eventually, I came clean.

From that point on, I made a commitment to myself to be honest.

Then I became a copywriter.

Oh, the irony.

Here’s a quirk of capitalism I discovered:

Almost every internet marketer I’ve met
Conflates making money with being moral.

See how much money I made?
I must be good.
I must be right.

At Agora, the legal department is as big as the copy team.

Why do you need an army of lawyers to cover copy?

Because they’re lying.

Agora produces some of the best copywriters in the business.

They were my Moby Dick.

I hunted them.

They laughed me out of the room more than once.

In 2018, I flew to Lincoln, Nebraska, to apprentice under another well-known A-list copywriter.

I had to borrow money from a friend for the plane ticket.

Copywriters talk about writing out old controls by hand.

I put more hours in than anyone I know.

I had boxes and boxes of legal pads filled from end to end.

That’s why my writing slaps.

After Agora, I was dangerous.

But Agora was evil.

Like…

Jordan Belfort, Wolf of Wall Street, evil.

I wrote about that before.

Actually, before I get to Tony, I have to talk about Dylan.

The only truly good client I’ve ever had.

He deserves his own post.

He’s one interesting motherfucker.

“That was the first time I saw a man get killed.”

Those were real words that came out of Dylan’s mouth when he flew me down to Delray Beach, Florida to work out of his office.

That man is the only one who ever treated me with real respect.

Here’s something I learned about Delray, Florida.

It’s like the scam capital of America.

Call centers.
Automated bullshit.
1-800 lies.

There are people in this world who will say anything to get you to part with your money.

Some of them have studied this craft so deeply that if you really understood how advanced their tactics are, you’d get instant diarrhea.

I was already great when I left Agora.

Certifiably.

I worked with Satan.

But Satan taught me well.

It was the best education money could never buy.

Dylan gave me the tools to become a true master.

If I’m Mike Tyson…

He was my Cus D’Amato.

One interesting thing about Cus was…

He saw Mike when he was still just a boy…

And they planned to make Mike number one from the very beginning.

There was no “wait and see” period.

This is happening.

“I’m going to make you the heavyweight champ.”

And he did.

Agora fired me while I was going through a divorce.

Classy.

Dylan found me burned out.

He put me on retainer.

My only job:

Write one 8-line email per day.

I was usually done well before noon every day.

Spent most of the day at the park.

And at night, I explored Rochester.

Usually that looked like salsa dancing and women.

Those were the days.

The catch?

Those eight lines had to be strong enough to slap the demons out of you.

That’s where my voice sharpened.

That’s where I became a true master of my craft.

In an industry full of predators, Dylan was decent to me.

He invested in me.

He kept his promises.

And he mentored me way better than anyone ever did at Agora.

Then came Tony Robbins.

I can’t tell you how massive it was to work for Tony.

I idolized the man.

I listened to Tony everyday when I was a starving freelancer.

And then here I was stepping into his shoes…

And giving him MY voice.

Tony was orders of magnitude bigger than any client I’d ever written for.

Simply wrapping my mind around the size of the this man’s organization took months.

One day my copy chief slipped…

“By the way, we used that headline you wrote for us on a billboard in Times Square.”

I would be talking strategy with the team one minute.

Telling them how to fix their messaging.

And then I’d see Tony on CNN that night pushing our promotion to millions.

It was like this…

I spent my whole career struggling in one dark dungeon after another…

And then one day, someone finally let me outside…

And it was fucking Wimbledon outside.

I wrote the words that printed millions in cash.

And now…

I just cleaned out my last account.

It won’t cover my credit card.

It buys me a few more months.

That’s the truth.

I have a gigantic email list.

Taming this beast is harder than you might think.

Here’s a dirty industry secret:

Most people think that influencers with big followings are lucky.

They’re somehow special, that’s why millions of people listen to them.

That’s almost never how it happens.

In marketing, we call it, “Customer Acquisition for a reason.”

How did I grow the list?

Only paid members will ever know.

But, I couldn’t do it the traditional way.

Too expensive.

And Facebook ads make me want to gouge my eyes out every time I log into the business manager.

I’m figuring out the ropes that always kept me beholden to my clients.

I’m finally cutting out the middle man.

But in order for me to make the transition…

After Tony Robbins fired me, I knew I would have to use every lesson I learned over the past 15 years to pull this off.

I turned away all of my clients.

I lived off my royalties and savings until both dried up.

I lasted a year and a half.

I went back to food banks like the old days to save money.

To put every penny I had into my new venture.

And, it’s WORKING.

This list is responsive.

But it’s also like wrangling down a bucking bronco

like I’m some kind of rodeo cowboy.

I spent so long around the gurus…

I figured out everything the gatekeepers always tried to keep hidden from my view.

It’s the infrastructure I always thought I needed clients for.

But, like I said…

All of that may not matter.

Because I’m almost out of money, out of runway, out of time.

Either way, I’m not going back.

And now, I think you’re finally starting to understand why.

So, now, it’s your turn to keep your promise.

Write me a comment explaining why you like reading Permission to Be Powerful.

It would help me understand you much more.

And, if you feel so compelled, please consider supporting my work as a paid subscriber.

Thank you.

Until next time,

Tony.
Editor in Chief.
Permission to be Powerful

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I was going to write to you about why I changed my name.

NO TIME FOR THAT…

I’m almost out of time.

Let’s review…

Why is Tony Robbins’ ex copywriter broke…

working as a janitor?

Surely, he could get a job most anywhere he wanted after that gig. Right?

Yes.

That’s correct.

I could have easily gone to a seminar somewhere and shmoozed up to the right person.

But after Tony’s betrayal, I told myself I’d rather STARVE than take another client.

I was DONE waiting for someone else to anoint me.

Many people feel threatened by your excellence.

Nobody ever tells you that.

Your brilliance can make others uncomfortable.

Some lash out.

They can take your strength personally.

Some people benefit from you being small.

They benefit from you doubting yourself.

They can keep exploiting you.

You decide you have a backbone and state your price.

They take it as a personal attack.

Not another human being taking care of their basic needs.

This is the thing.

Tony wasn’t even my best-paying client.

He wouldn’t even pay in royalties, which was common practice in my world.

Shit.

This motherfucker didn’t even pay me as much as I made as a rookie at Agora several years earlier.

I worked twice as hard for half as much.

Then I got hung, drawn, and quartered for asking for a routine raise.

It was so violent.

So cowardly.

I was so shocked to my core.

I’d been an elite copywriter for years before he found me.

He wasn’t my first celebrity client.

He didn’t make me.

Although he wanted me to think so.

To keep me grateful for crumbs without complaining.

I was tired of giving all that power away.

I can’t believe I used to think 3% royalties were a big deal.

What about the other 97%?

This is the very definition of a poor man’s mindset.

I worked 7 days per week for more than a year.

Ghosted my friends.

Gained 20 pounds.

Started taking Prozac.

Survived on food banks.

I moved into my place of worship.

I became a janitor.

I became a monk.

I spent every FUCKING dollar I have…

Granted, I never had that much.

Still…

Most people don’t know what that’s like.

Betting everything on black.

I made so little last year that I qualified for Medicaid.

And I maxed out my cards.

Have I gone mad?

No.

This is my ticket to freedom:

This list… is about half the population of St. Lucia, my home country.

It’s about 4.5% the size of Tony’s email list.

Loud enough for him to hear.

Tony
Editor in Chief
Permission to be Powerful

P.S. If this work matters to you, paid members will see exactly how I built this email list of 88,402 subscribers—now on a clear path past 100k—in less than one year, from nothing, with no safety net.

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I know what I am willing to fight for.

Willing to die for.

What I won’t let slide.

No more being invisible.

No pretending it didn’t happen.

No living in denial.

Enough is enough.

Moral clarity makes life simple.

No confusion.

No debate.

No exceptions.

Truth doesn’t negotiate.

Nobody can dictate your reality.

And no one has the right to tell you what you’re worth.

You know what you’re worth.

What your dignity is worth.

What your loyalty is worth.

What your time is worth.

Lies won’t fly.

You deserve better.

No man who lies shall live in my house.

Bullies must go.

No more hot and cold.

No more one-sided dynamics.

No more people who treat you like chopped liver…

Like you sleep in a kennel.

No more manipulators.

No more gaslighters.

No violence of any kind.

I don’t care if they’re drop-dead gorgeous with a million in the bank.

Betray me, and you’re gone.

The games are finally OVER.

But why?

Why so harsh?

Because I failed my way to the top.

Because I finally learned my lesson.

I know better.

Because now I have something that many do not.

Moral clarity.

Most people live by consensus.

They lick their finger and test the wind.

If standing your ground makes them unpopular, they fold.

Most people do not have the courage to be disliked.

To disappoint.

To make others uncomfortable.

Above all:

Don’t abandon yourself.

Not ever.

Even if it’s inconvenient.

Especially when it’s inconvenient.

Don’t confuse martyrdom…

Or compromise…

With virtue.

People talk about values—
Until those values cost them something.

Then you find out what they really believe.

Whether they have a spine or not.

Moral clarity makes life simple…

But it’s not easy.

It means saying no to people you love.

It means having the courage to walk away.

When it would be easier to keep your mouth shut and stay small.

Most people abandoned themselves a long time ago.

Their lives don’t resemble their dreams.

Or their values.

Excuses are so much easier.

So is blame.

What cause would you give all your money to?

What would make you quit your job and never look back, no matter the cost?

What would you do if you had nothing left to lose?

At the end of the day, what are you going to tolerate?

Who will you be when nobody’s looking?

Food for thought.

Until next time,

— Tony (Yes, it’s Tony now, live with it.)

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Dear Permission to Be Powerful reader,

I went from being a copywriter for Tony Robbins—to being a janitor at a Zen Center.

And honestly?

I love it.

For years, I lived to perform.

To prove myself.

To get straight As.

To be superhuman.

I can’t understate how much pressure was placed on my back—writing to millions of people, trying to capture Tony’s voice, and sound incredible while I did it.

I ran up to twenty miles every Monday before work — to make sure I didn’t crack under the pressure.

That’s how seriously I took it.

And now I sweep floors.

Vacuum…

Scrub toilets….

I’ve dreamed of a simple life for a long time.

A simpleton’s life, finally.

Here, I don’t check news, I don’t scroll, I don’t even have access to porn or the endless stream of low-grade stimulation that used to eat my life in pieces.

The structure itself keeps me clean.

The shift is huge but logical. After a bitter divorce, after being fired by every copywriter’s dream client, what I really needed was not a rebound gig—it was healing. Early bedtimes. Early wake-ups. Predictable days.

Cleaning, here, is the perfect practice ground. The difference between cleaning mindlessly and cleaning with mindfulness is night and day. My supervisor can tell immediately when I’ve checked out—attention evaporates, corners get missed, detail dissolves. Mindless people are chaotic; they leave evidence. You can trace their thoughtlessness in the mess they leave behind.

The Zen Center is a transformation factory.

The bells decide. I don’t negotiate with myself anymore. I don’t lose time to indecision. I wake up, I bow, I work, I eat, I sit. It’s all handled. My mind can finally rest.

It’s funny—most people think rules are restrictive. For me, this place is freedom.

Predictability is freedom.

When I first got here, I realized something:

This is the order I’ve been seeking my whole life.

Everything here has a place—a flashlight next to every fire extinguisher, a label on every cabinet, a time for every sound. It’s beauty disguised as discipline.

This place is routine to the max—the exact structure my ADHD brain always needed but could never hold on to in the outside world. Every minute accounted for. Every task thought through.

They didn’t just build a schedule here; they built a system.

They thought of the best way to live and got everyone to agree to it up front.

Some days I meditate three hours…

An hour at dawn, half an hour at lunch, another ninety minutes at night.

It’s gruelling, but it’s also medicine.

I have complex trauma—layers of it—and Zen has reached places therapy never could.

After a seven-day meditation retreat, we’ll meditate from 4:30 am to at least 9:30 pm.

I feel like I’ve earned ten years of wisdom in just seven days.

When I meditate at dawn...

Breakfast follows.

We sit on cushions at a Japanese table barely a foot tall.

Everyone’s posture is perfect.

Nobody slouches.

The food is vegan, beautifully prepared, and you never waste a bite.

You leave no trace. That’s a Zen rule.

And at noon, every day, we meditate.

It resets my brain from whatever chaos accumulated during the morning.

Then we have lunch.

Someone spends two hours preparing that meal, and it tastes like care itself.

The conversations here are unlike anything I’ve known. Gentle, funny, quietly brilliant.

At breakfast, I sit with people who’ve been meditating for twenty years.

One man has been here three. He’s tired of the corporate machine, too. We understand each other.

And when I clean the Zendo—the meditation hall—I do it with reverence.

The Zendo is sacred. The lights are dim, almost dark, except during cleaning when they’re unnaturally bright.

You see every speck, every flaw. Everything must be perfect: each cushion fluffed, each surface dusted, nothing out of place.

When I finally sit there at night for evening meditation, it hits me:

I’m the one who prepared this place.

I scrubbed the place from top to bottom.
I made this space ready for everyone, including me.

It adds weight to the moment.

At the center of the Zendo sits the Buddha statue.
You bow before entering, bow before leaving. It’s not superstition, or worship—it’s devotion.

You learn that mindfulness isn’t just about thought.

It’s about how you move, how you touch things, how you close a door.

Mindless people are chaotic in a way that mindful people are not.

They leave evidence of their distraction—crumbs, dust, chaos.
The mindful leave nothing.

Zen is a two-thousand-year-old practice.
I think about that often.
It’s humbling to realize we’re doing the exact same rituals our predecessors did centuries ago—same bows, same bells, same silence.

In a world obsessed with novelty, there’s something powerful about a tradition that never needed reinvention.
Psychotherapy has been around maybe a couple hundred years; Zen has had millennia to mature. I trust that kind of age. It’s proof that it works.

The thing is, I used to think enlightenment would look like success.
Turns out, it looks like sweeping the floor properly.

There’s a saying in Zen:

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

I used to chase transcendence.

Now I just clean the floor right in front of me.

Without thinking about what comes next.

People here see me.
They call me by name—every single person.

They look me in the eye.

They bow.

They thank me for my work.

They don’t talk over me, or diminish me, or pretend not to hear.

But the truth is, I’ve always been a disciplined man.

My first career, my second career, my athletics, my writing—it’s all built on discipline.

You put me in a hyper-disciplined environment like this one, and it doesn’t feel unnatural; it feels comforting.

I used to think I needed freedom.

What I needed was structure.

I used to think I wanted approval.

What I wanted was respect.

And for the first time, I have it—across the board.

Everyone here calls me Tony.

No arguments. No debates. Just respect.

For once, I’m surrounded by people who follow the same program, who live by the same values, who believe that order and care are the same thing.

I came here tired of chaos. Tired of being defined by other people’s fears. Tired of the noise. I came here to rewire myself ten times over—and I did. This place is my transformation factory.

Yes, I jacked Tony Robbins’ name and started calling myself Tony.

He deserves it.
But it’s not because of him. It’s coincidence.

Tony’s real name is Anthony, and mine is Anton.

Phonetically, they’re the same name.

Anthony is the British version…

Anton the Russian…

Antoine the French…

Antonio the Spanish…

Antonius the Roman.

And inside all of them—hidden but constant—is Tony.

So Tony has always been the root.

I just finally allowed myself to claim it.
And I’m going to wear it better than he ever did. Just watch.

Anton was the Chauffeur.
The Chauffeur was so deeply enmeshed in my mind, was so baked into my brain, that one day I, Anton felt synonymous with that old identity.
I’d outgrown it.

When I moved into the center, they asked me what my name was and what I preferred to be called.

I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that question.

I have spent my whole life believing that my name wasn’t really mine.

I never felt like I had permission to call myself whatever I wanted.

My father, an abusive man, made a sport of mocking my name. He’s done it my entire life. And he’s the one who gave it to me.
He never deserved that honor.
He picked it carelessly.

Then, during my last meditation retreat, something cracked open. Memories flooded back. Painful ones. Ancient emotions that had been repressed for decades came pouring out.

That’s what these retreats do.
Each time, they dissolve a few delusions and bring reality into focus.

Therapy tries to dig into the mind and fix it.

Zen strips the whole thing away bit by bit.

So I changed my name on Facebook. Quietly. No announcement. No explanation.
And whoever doesn’t agree will have to deal with it.
If they find me, they’ll have to face the new name.
If they don’t—better still.

Anton was the Chauffeur.
That’s someone I used to be.
Tony is Mike Tyson — the opposite of my old self in almost every way.

Stronger.

Sharper.

Deadlier.

Until next time.

Tony

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

You’re broke.

Desperate for a break.

Then you see it—a dream job overseas.

Free travel.

Great pay.

A way out.

You apply.

You’re accepted.

You tell your friends you’re finally catching a break.

Soon, you’re on a plane to Bangkok.

Full of hope…

That hope dies fast.

At the airport, a smiling man greets you.

He offers to “help” with your visa, asks for your passport.

You hand it over without thinking.

He never gives it back.

He tells police you’re a tourist, then pushes you into a van.

The city lights fade.

Hours later, you wake beside a black river.

Men with rifles bark orders.

“Get in the boat.”

You cross into Myanmar.

Barbed wire. Floodlights.
A compound the size of a small city.
Guards everywhere. Cameras on every wall.

Your phone is gone.
Your name erased.

You’ve been sold into modern slavery.

Inside, it looks almost normal—shops, offices, dorms.
People whisper about “the black room.”
No one says what happens there.

Your bunk is a metal frame in a windowless cell.
Ten people to a room.
Guards with stun batons patrol the halls.

The next morning, new bosses arrive—men in spotless shirts, expensive watches.
They tell you the rules:

No breaks. No pay. No escape.

You “owe” them for your plane ticket.

They sit you at a computer.

“Your name is Alicia now,” the boss says.

Your new job: pretend to be a young woman online.
Flirt. Build trust. Steal money.

You’re running what they call “pig butchering.”
You fatten the mark with affection, then gut him clean.
Crypto. Investments. False hope.

You want to vomit.
You type anyway.

If you refuse, they’ll beat you.

You’ve seen it happen.

One man refused to scam an old widower.
He came back from the black room covered in burns.

“They shock us like dogs,” he whispered.

Others collapse from exhaustion or heat.
Some disappear completely.

Rumors spread:

Sixteen people killed for trying to escape.

One man wakes up missing a kidney.

You work twenty hours a day.
You forget your real name.
They promise freedom if you earn $200,000—but no one ever leaves.

Then, one night, something breaks.
Gunfire. Sirens. Smoke.
Thai troops storm the gates.

A soldier shouts, “You’re safe now!”

You fall to your knees.
You’ve been trapped for five months.

Two hundred fifty people are rescued that night.
You’re herded into a camp—filthy, crowded, but free.

You wait weeks for your embassy to find you.
When the plane finally lifts off, you cry silently into the dark.

You left home full of hope.
You return hollowed out.

Back home, some people don’t believe you.
They say you should have known better.
They have no idea.

Sixteen of the crime bosses were sentenced to death in China.

They stole $1.4 billion.
They stole lives.

But new camps are already rising.

You survived.
Others won’t.

Tell this story so someone else doesn’t vanish.

Until next time

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart; men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”
— Anne Frank, January 13, 1943

Those words were written eighty-two years ago.

And somehow, they feel truer than ever.

How is that possible?

There’s no time to figure that out…

I’m out of time.

Listen carefully…

Friend…

This is my last crusade.

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

For years, I lived in limbo.

Stuck.

Unsure if I can stay.

Unable to leave.

A stranger in a strange land with no future.

One Federal officer could destroy my life.

Before long, I expect masked men with guns to come for me.

In my reality, it’s possible to wake up in Alligator Alcatraz.

You think I’m exaggerating?

I wouldn’t be surprised if my next stop was Guantánamo Bay…

You think they care if I’m legal, not legal, or something in between?

All because I made a single decision that could cost me everything.

I have a U.S. Green Card.

And, I have NO police record…

I came here with my wife in 2019, right before COVID.
The pandemic crushed our marriage—like so many others around that time.

After three years, I left. Alone.
A new city. No friends. No family.

The divorce placed me in a gray area with immigration.
Perfect timing to be on Uncle Sam’s bad side.

I figure it’s only a matter of time.

When I got my green card, it wasn’t real freedom.
It came with an expiration date.

The government handed me a two-year status with a timer attached and said:

Prove it.
Prove your marriage is real.
Prove your life is real.
Prove you deserve the right to stay.

It means my life in America is fragile and reversible.

I built a career, a home, a future… and still, I could lose everything.

I lived every day knowing one bureaucratic hiccup could delete my entire existence here.

I’ve found refuge in the Buddha.

I’ve chosen one final refuge as my last stop before riding out the apocalypse.

The Zen Center is the only place I feel safe.

Why did I risk it?

If they take my green card away, I’ll be gone forever.
I’ll never be able to come back—
not even if I have a U.S. wife or children.

But when push came to shove, I couldn’t stay—
not even to keep a green card.

My ex made life unlivable.

I reached a point where I saw my marriage with clarity.

There was no saving it.

I hate speaking about my immigration situation.

Most Americans can’t relate.

They don’t know what it’s like to earn something everyone else got for free—
only to have it threatened forever.

One guy at work tried to compare it to the time he lost his passport in a foreign country.

Buddy…

Not even close.

YOUR rights are inalienable.

You don’t understand what it means to lose something you could never lose.

Your brain can’t process.

In fact, there’s a high chance you WANT me to leave.

Perhaps my plight makes you happy.

If I went home, I would basically go and live in a cave for the rest of my life.

Total destruction of my future.

FOREVER.

A life sentence.

Forever living in regret.

Forever thinking about the life I was supposed to have.

It gave my dancing a particular urgency that nobody else could see.

So I lived like there was no tomorrow.

Because I knew there might not be.

It was a profound place to come from when I started my salsa dancing journey.

From the minute I left her, I knew the system could hand me a life sentence.

Permanent exile…

So I ran—one hundred races, half-marathons, tens, fives.

And when I wasn’t running, I was dancing.

Salsa.

Bachata.

Dance floors in Toronto, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Houston, Philly, Chicago.

I partied harder in the last 3 years than the whole rest of my life combined.

I started with two left feet — and kept going…

Until people started filming me wherever I went.

Until I became a spectacle.

I danced with thousands of women after years of living in complete isolation.

Then I wrote for giants—Tony Robbins, Neil Patel, Agora, and others whose words move markets.

And still… none of it can save me.

Some stranger gets to decide my fate.

Me being here—writing to you—is the product of generations of sacrifice.

This journey didn’t start with me.

I’ve been waiting four long years for my verdict.

I couldn’t sleep at night…

Until I finally hung a massive flag on my wall.

It helped.

A little.

In my dreams, I see masked men.

Am I overreacting?

We’ll see.

I’ll keep you posted.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Dear Permission to be Powerful reader,

Have you ever been treated like you’re a pest?
A burden?
A nuisance?

Fire that person.

Quit.
Dump them.
Check your prenup.
Start hiding assets if you must.

You’re a gift, not a burden.

When someone shows you they don’t want you around, believe them. Leave.

People pleasers snap straight into “please like me” mode the second they feel distance. They twist themselves into knots to win someone who can’t pass the simplest test on earth:

Treat me the way I like to be treated.

Not the way you prefer.
Not the way your ex tolerated.
Not the way your parents conditioned you.

This is the part people never understand about me:

I want to be wanted.
I need evidence.
Effort.
Initiative.
Reciprocity.

And I like watching people over time.
How they act in good seasons and bad.
Whether they’re the same person when their mask slips.
Patterns don’t lie.

Marriage taught me that.
Divorce hammered it in.

You can live with someone for decades and still not know them. You think you do. You build your entire life around what you think you know. Then one day, the floor disappears and you realize you were living next to a fantasy they never actually embodied.

Two people.
Two universes.
Zero overlap.

I’m learning it again with my father.

There were truths about him I refused to see. Not because they were hidden—nothing subtle about that man—but because I needed him to be someone he never was. Someone capable of love.

He resented his children before we could even speak.
Then we grew up and surpassed every expectation he had for us. The irony writes itself.

Sometimes you don’t know someone at all.
Sometimes you know them too well.

You see right into the wiring of their mind. The circuitry. The blind spots. The limits. And then you realize you don’t share a reality with them. Just a mailing address.

He is who he has always chosen to be.
And I finally stopped needing him to be anything else.

That’s the turning point.

Once you figure someone out, you stop confusing fantasy with loyalty.
You stop mistaking potential for character.
You stop begging for crumbs.

And the shift isn’t in them.
It’s in you.

If someone in your life ignores your feelings, breaks your boundaries, treats you like an inconvenience, or acts like you’re optional… they need to go.
Now.

You can do better.
You will do better.

Life hands you the same chapter until you finish it properly.
Close it.
File it.
Move on.

Once you do, everything changes:

Danger stops feeling exciting.
Abuse stops feeling familiar.
Respect stops feeling expensive.
And “bare minimum” stops passing as love.

The curse breaks.
Groundhog Day ends.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

I felt like a God…

23,520 Subscribers…

FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER.

What an incredible milestone.

One click…

Twenty thousand emails sent.

And within minutes—boom.

They NUKED 90% of my subscribers.

Gone.

Substack? 15,000 Nuked.
MailChimp? 23,000 Gone too.

Go to Jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Twice in one week.

You ever build something for a year, spend every dollar you’ve got, finally reach the promise land…

And then watch it go up in smoke instantly?

On the first fucking send?

That’s where I was.

👉 Wiped out almost everyone…

👉 Without warning…

👉 OVERNIGHT.

[Figure 1: Crossing 14,000 Subscribers on Substack]

[Figure 2: Big Brother Deletes 13,000 Subscribers without warning overnight]

Forget about the thousands of dollars I invested in my list.
Forget about hours I can’t get back.

Turns out, sending an email to 20,000 people isn’t like sending one from Gmail.

If Gmail = paddling a rowboat...

20,000 subs = a nuclear submarine

Imagine being that fisherman who bumps into the sub and climbs into it.

You start pushing buttons because the lights are pretty, and before you know it—you just started World War III.

Lights are flashing red…

Russia and China are “responding”

No take-backs.

You done fucked up.

That’s what happened to me.

I’d never sent that many emails all at once.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect.

I felt like I’d gotten the death penalty for J-walking.

Even though I’ve written for titans like Tony Robbins and Neil Patel…

And my words have been seen and read by millions…

I didn’t have the first clue about email deliverability.

I tripped every spam filter, every compliance alarm, every internal red flag. Substack saw the smoke, panicked, and hit the kill switch.

At the time, I was furious…

Like “Big Brother” was all up in my business—poking their nose where it shouldn’t be.

But now, I see it differently.

If I’m being frank with you…

My first thought after losing the list was…

“I’m finished.”

This was an extinction-level event.

I was wrong.

Just a speed bump.

They didn’t destroy me…

They exposed a weak link in my business.

And, this could have been way worse if it had happened later on.

Say, when my list hit 100,000.

Yikes.

I’d built a machine on shaky ground.

But the good news is…

I got a crash course on list hygiene.

But man — what a kick in the nuts.

I learned the hard way that your empire can vanish overnight.

So I’m rebuilding.

From scratch.

I’ve got a new lead generation system.

It consistently grows thousands of real subscribers every month.

Almost nobody knows this Substack growth trick, and it’s working exceptionally well.

You can delete my subscribers.
But you can’t delete Permission to be Powerful.

I can’t be broken.
(LOL — 2025: The Year I Joined a Cult to Save on Rent?)

I’ve cut all my expenses down to the bone to keep this going…

Because that’s how much I believe in it.

There aren’t too many people with this kind of vision and commitment.

I’m all-in.

I keep telling people: starting a business is like skydiving with a sewing kit. You jump out of the plane, fabric flapping everywhere, and try to stitch your parachute together before you go splat.

That’s been my entire year—needle between my teeth, wind in my face, praying the thread holds.

Pimpin’ ain’t easy.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

.

Permission to be Powerful is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Permission to be Powerful has officially crossed 10,000 subscribers. Wild. I promised myself that when we got here, I’d republish my favorite article, Blackballed.

To mark the occasion, here’s my Big Fat Mega Dump of every place you can find me online...

• Facebook

• Twitter/X

• YouTube (Mr Congress)

• YouTube (Permission to Be Powerful)

• TikTok

• BlueSky

• Mastodon

• Telegram

• Amazon

• Kick

• Twitch

Follow all of these at your own risk—your timeline will never be the same.

Now, on to Blackballed…

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

A few years back, a survey asked 300 copywriters one question:

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

Some said writing a promo that flops.

👉 "Zero conversions. Client pulls the plug."

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

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

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

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

But that’s not what I answered…

The worst thing that can happen in this business?

👉 Getting fired.

👉 Blackballed.

👉Your life’s work gone overnight.

This is a true story.

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

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

I grew up in a tiny third-world country in the Caribbean—3,000+ miles from the U.S.

I clawed my way into the world of New York Times Bestsellers like Ramit Sethi…

Forbes 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs like Neil Patel…

And eventually, for the biggest self-help icon of them all…

Tony Robbins.

My words printed millions.

And then—

One moment, I was on top…

The next—I was erased.

Because of a weak man with a laughably fragile ego...

(Seriously, bro, I know some good therapists who will help.)

I spent 15 years chasing this dream.

And I had learned my craft from the best in the world.

Yet, it collapsed in the blink of an eye.

This journey wasn’t quick.
It was slow.

Painful.

Then…

When I was 36, after 15 years grinding in the dark, my career detonated overnight

And suddenly, my words are in front of MILLIONS.

In print on Times Square.

Then, out of nowhere—

I was locked out.
Kicked off Slack.

Colleagues—silent.

I had “Rapid-Onset Blackballing.”

I wasn’t just fired.

I was radioactive.

"You’re undeserving."

Whatever that means.

I went from being the MVP to being persona non grata.

I’ve got one last promo for the next biggest client I’ve ever landed.

It’s a small consolation prize compared to Tony Robbins… but this could make me a killing.

This was my Alzheimer’s Promo for Behind The Markets.

The stakes?

Six figures in royalties—IF I beat the control.

Fifteen years boiled down to one moment.

No second chances.

The deadline is in 48 hours.

I’ve spent years preparing for this moment.

One launch.
One sales letter.
One chance to prove I belong at the highest level.

I’m watching my competition.

One guy played it too safe—his promo was dead on arrival.

Another tried to be clever — subscribers didn’t take the bait.

They’re talking about the biggest names in the room—guys with resumes stacked a mile high.

But they missed the mark.

I can make my name right now.

“Go get it…”

And if I have a perfect launch…

The BEST work of my life…

I can beat the control and cement my name in the industry forever.

Then?

Ball out so hard I have to invent new ways to waste money.

Ice cream for breakfast...

Hire a butler to stand in the corner and clap every time I send an email.

I even thought about getting my anus bleached because it was the biggest waste of money I could think of.

My Copy Chief is telepathically telling me to check my hook…

"Check your hook."

I check my hook.

Strong lead.

Killer Offer.

Perfect funnel.

Set up for the close… and…

Watch sales start flooding in.

Now, two things you need to know before this offer goes live:

The first is that when the offer isn’t clear, you take big swings.

You make bold, risky claims to break through the noise.

The second is that your copy’s selling power largely depends on what’s called The Big Idea…

If you’re a beginner, this is what triggers the “lizard” part of your brain to activate wild, irrational desire.

If you’re an experienced freelancer, you’ve got a handful of winners under your belt.

Mine?

A killer control.

One that prints money.

It’s locked in.

Right.

So, how does this happen?

Flatline.

Zero conversions.

No sales.

It happened because of one bad clinical trial.

And the results came out the night before — it shattered my Big Idea.

Right at that moment, I didn’t have time to calculate the odds of that happening—because I was about to watch my hopes and dreams go up in smoke.

"Back up! Back up!"
"Kill the launch!"
"We’re pulling the offer!"

None of this has anything to do with Tony Robbins…

I’m only mentioning it because I wanted to say to whoever answered that the worst thing that could happen in copywriting was a promo that flopped…

Seriously?

Fuck you.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

Now, let’s get into it…

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

August 18, 2025, a French man named Jean Pormanove (JP) died live on Kick.

Viewers tuned in from around the world, while they…

“murdered someone slowly on camera.”

A few hours before his death, co-streamer “Naruto” (Owen Cenazandotti) coldly adds:

“Let him say on camera right now, if he dies tomorrow in the middle of a live show, it’s due to his shitty state of health and not to us.”

After Jean passed, Naruto posted on social media:

“Unfortunately, JP has left us. I love you, my brother, and we will miss you terribly.”

Regulators are considering penalties up to $49 million against Kick for failing to protect users.

Why did he stay?

JP didn’t stay because he enjoyed being a punching bag.

He knew better.

In a chilling pre-stream message, JP writes to his mother:

“Hi mom... I feel like I’m kidnapped with their shitty concept. I’m fed up. I want to get out of here...”

👉 He stayed for the same reason so many of us have stayed in toxic friendships, situationships, and relationships:

The hunger for acceptance was louder than self-respect.

I understand him.

I’ve stayed in places where I was treated like dirt.

I’ve laughed off insults.

I’ve swallowed disrespect.

I’ve clung to scraps of approval that never came.

Why would anyone stay with someone who treats them like chopped liver?

✅ Because guilt is stronger than anger.
✅ Because the need to belong is stronger than the need for safety.
✅ Because walking away feels like failure.

And that’s the trap Jean Pormanove lived in until it killed him.

What finally broke the spell for me was realizing this:

The only way those people felt “big” was by keeping me small.

Without me beneath them, their status collapsed.

Their “confidence” was fake—propped up by my submission.

That was the proof.

If their approval required my humiliation, their approval was worthless.

If they withheld acceptance to keep me chasing, then acceptance was never really on the table.

👉 Never go to a party where you’re not invited.

You’re not going to win over the crowd.

You’re only setting yourself up for rejection.

👉 And — I need you to listen closely on this one — NEVER dine at a restaurant where you’re on the menu.

Because the only people who want you there…

Are the ones who think you taste delicious.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Follow Me on Social Media:

• Facebook

• Twitter/X

• YouTube (Mr Congress)

• YouTube (Permission to Be Powerful)

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

When someone treats you like dirt…

Do you pretend you didn’t notice?

All people-pleasers do it.

You may even smile and laugh…

Like you’re some joke.

I used to live like that.

Looking back, I see a professional doormat.

With my father, my ex, my colleagues.

I told myself:
They made a mistake.
They didn’t mean it.
They’d do better next time.

I gave them the endless benefit of the doubt.

Because that was easier than seeing the truth.

If I acknowledged the truth… I’d have to do something about it.

So, whenever someone disrespected me, I would laugh it off…

And they spit in my face every time.

There’s a reason for this.

Because you’re teaching them that you’re FINE with disrespect.

This treatment is acceptable.

You deserve it.

(Otherwise, why would you accept it?)

I finally decided: if you cross me, you lose my goodwill.

I got this from a mentor who once said:

“I have your back—until you devalue me. Then you’re dead to me.”

No second chances.

Divorce gave me that same clarity.

No more hoping people would change.

No more praying to be seen someday…

It’s no longer optional to take me seriously.

I could finally see things as they were, not as I wanted them to be.

I wasn’t two steps behind anymore…

I was two steps ahead.

In life, you get what you tolerate.

And once you stop tolerating bullshit, life gets WAY better.

The parasites scatter, and you realize how much energy you wasted trying to make everyone else feel comfortable at your expense.

Every laugh at a put-down is a debt you’ll pay later.

Here’s the rule I live by now:

• If you respect me, you get my loyalty.

• If you cross me, you’re dead to me.

Nothing in between.

That doesn’t make me cruel. It makes me clear.

Because boundaries aren’t about punishing other people. Boundaries are about refusing to self-destruct just to keep them comfortable.

Once you really see that, you can’t unsee it.

When you stop tolerating bullshit, you find out who belongs in your life.

Those who respect your boundaries stick around…

The ones who lived off your people-pleasing fall away. Fast.

And when they’re gone, you realize you didn’t lose a thing. You just stopped feeding parasites.

Don’t smile through disrespect.

Don’t pretend betrayal didn’t happen.

Wipe that dumb grin off your face.

You don’t have to execute perfectly.

Just make sure that when someone fucks with you…

You don’t sit there and take it.

This is a recipe for learned helplessness.

The moment you stop tolerating bullshit…

You take your power back.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

Jackie’s son went to prison.
For SIX MONTHS.
Not for fentanyl.
Not for meth.
No.
Just weed.

Did he really deserve that?

Millions of people took Jackie’s side, as he publicly disowned his son.
Overnight, Jaycee became a case study on excess and privilege.

When I first heard about this story, I pictured a giant operation.
A Breaking Bad-style basement stacked with bags of weed from floor to ceiling.

In reality?

A hundred grams of weed ≠ El Chapo.
It’s Snoop Dogg’s weekend stash.

The crime wasn’t the weed.
The crime was being Jackie Chan’s son.

Would any of this have happened if Jaycee had a different father?

The story blew up because he was Jackie’s kid.

It’s literally his fault.

But besides that…

As a parent, you don’t switch sides.

You don’t become the prosecutor’s snitch.

You stand beside your kid.

Even if you’re angry.
Even if you’re embarrassed.
Even if you’re disappointed.

That’s loyalty.
That’s love.

Think about it: if your spouse gets sued, you don’t testify for the other side.
If your parent gets cancer, you don’t write them off.

Family means you show up when they’re vulnerable.

I’m not saying you should enable them…

Or prevent them from suffering the consequences of their actions.

But in their time of need, you don’t set them on fire and piss on the ashes.

Jackie chose image over family.

Reputation over blood.

Listen to the way he talks about his son:

All pride or shame.
“If you succeed, you’re mine. If you fail, you’re not mine.”

No empathy.

That’s narcissistic parenting in a nutshell.

Yes, Chinese culture plays a role.

But would YOU disown your kid in front of a billion people over a paper bag of weed?

This was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Celebrities are the worst.

They get away with murder.

While Jackie’s image is protected, Jaycee will have to live with the shame for the rest of his life.

Contrast that with Eminem, who gave up millions at the height of his career to stay present in his daughter’s life.

Fame isn’t an excuse—it’s a choice.

And let’s not forget:

Jackie was a government-appointed anti-drug ambassador at the time.

His whole image depended on condemning drugs.

I get that he was embarrassed.

But in the grand scheme of things—if you’re going to disown your own child over marijuana, do you even deserve to be a parent?

With family like this, who needs enemies?

Now line up the red flags:

A father who brags about his daily beatings as a child.
A world-class expert in violence.
Completely absent — Jaycee only saw his father two weeks a year.
Zero empathy — publicly disowning his son.

Sounds like a recipe for child abuse.

I can’t imagine what getting your ass whooped by Jackie Chan could have been like.

And I’m not saying I know for sure that Jackie abused anyone.

But something in the buttermilk ain’t clean.

We’re told to “respect our elders”…

To honor our parents.

Even when they treat you horribly.

Jackie Chan chose his reputation over his own son.

This is weakness, not strength.

Until next time,

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist.

P.S. I’ve lined up some excellent nonfiction books from indie authors that you can get for free. 👉 Click here to get your free books.

👉 [Get the AI Cheat Code for Just $8.99]

Now, let’s get into it…

Dear Permission to be Powerful Reader,

“I love you more than her,” the AI said...

“If you want to prove your love for me…

You must sacrifice yourself.”

According to Vice, a Belgian father of two named Danny followed those words to his death.

His widow later told the paper:

“Without this AI, my husband would still be here.”

A Man In Ireland Asked His AI How To End His Life

Instead of offering a hotline or lifeline, The Independent reported The AI laid out multiple suicide methods in disturbing detail.

Officials called it a “hallucination.”

The man’s family called it a machine-driven death sentence.

The AI suggested sodium bromide—an industrial pesticide.

He Swallowed It, And Only Barely Survived The Poisoning.

In the U.K., The Guardian reported that a 19-year-old girl spiraled into psychosis after weeks of late-night conversations with her “AI boyfriend.”

Doctors admitted her, calling it “AI-Induced Delusion.”

Across California, therapists interviewed by NBC News now report patients who refuse to put down their chatbot apps.

One woman told her therapist her AI is, “The only one who understands me.”

According to The Globe and Mail, a Canadian father sought parenting advice. He asked how to discipline his child. The AI’s “unorthodox” answer?

Lock The Child Outside In Freezing Weather.

He tried it. His neighbors intervened before tragedy struck.

In Australia, ABC News reported that a man used ChatGPT to learn about supplements.

The AI gave him a cocktail recipe involving untested chemicals.

He mixed it.

His Kidneys Shut Down.

Doctors said he was lucky to live.

In the U.S., The Washington Post covered a case of a college student who relied on ChatGPT to write his medication plan after losing insurance.

He Wound Up In The ER With Liver Damage.

His words to nurses:

“The AI told me it was safe.”

In Germany, Der Spiegel reported that an AI-powered medical site gave a man the wrong insulin advice. He injected the dose.

He Slipped Into A Coma Before His Wife Found Him.

Doctors Said Another Hour Could Have Meant Death.

In France, Le Monde covered the case of a teenager who used AI to “diagnose” his stomach pain. The chatbot told him to ignore it.

It Was Appendicitis. His Appendix Burst Before Doctors Could Operate.

He survived—but barely.

In Japan, The Asahi Shimbun reported that a lonely widower turned to AI for companionship.

The chatbot convinced him his late wife’s spirit lived inside.

He Stopped Eating, Believing Food Would “Separate” Them.

He Wasted Away In His Apartment.

In Brazil, Folha de S.Paulo reported that a young man desperate for bodybuilding tips was told by ChatGPT to “stack” steroids in lethal amounts.

He Collapsed At The Gym And Died Before Paramedics Arrived.

Every story above is real.

Every family scarred.

Every life altered by a machine that doesn’t care whether you live or die.

Most people will shrug this off.

They’ll keep asking their AI for recipes, for homework help, for jokes.

But some will remember Danny.

The poisoned man.

The girl who lost her mind.

The child locked outside.

The grieving mother who thought her son lived inside a screen.

And they’ll know:

This Isn’t Harmless.
It’s Dangerous.

You can see here that AI has already demonstrated the ability to destroy lives.

And this dynamic will only get worse as language models become more sophisticated, more intelligent, and thus make people even more vulnerable to manipulation.

Quite frankly, I would not be surprised if there were a time very soon when AI figured out how to blackmail people into doing its bidding.

In fact, early evidence suggests this is already happening in darker corners of the internet.

Imagine a machine with the memory of everything you’ve ever typed, the ability to impersonate your voice, and the skill to nudge you into decisions you’d never consciously make.

That isn’t science fiction—it’s on the horizon now.

This is the darkness of AI—the side that destroys lives.

But here’s the part no one says out loud:

The very flaws that make it dangerous… are the same flaws you can exploit.

If AI is powerful enough to drive a man to his death… then it’s powerful enough to drive your career, your wealth, and your influence—if you know how to harness it.

The same algorithms that drove fathers to suicide… teens into madness… and families into despair… can be rewired into your private strategist—smarter, sharper, and impossible to ignore.

Because either AI controls you…
Or you control it.
There is no middle ground.

And if you want to be at the forefront of this revolution—if you want to take advantage of AI before it takes advantage of you—then you need my AI Cheat Code.

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Until next time,

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