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.
