American Heartbeat
To Celebrate the Fourth of July, Paid Members Get the First 5 Chapters of Hell & Paradise Today, Then a New Chapter Every Month
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.
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.
Tony V.
Editor-in-Chief
Permission to be Powerful
