Dakota Robertson The Rise of the Digital Creator

[Speaker 3] (0:00 - 0:38) You are now listening to the Here for the Truth Podcast, hosted by Joel Rafiti and Yerasimos. Yo, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to Here for the Truth. I'm Joel Rafiti. I've got my co-host, Yerasimos, with me as always. And today, we have Dakota Robertson with us. He is a young dude, 25 years old, who's kind of blown up in the digital trader online entrepreneurship space as a ghostwriter. We have an awesome conversation right now, just reflecting on his journey, getting deep, and also getting a unique perspective on some of the things that have taken place. [Speaker 2] (0:39 - 1:20) Yeah. And before we bring Dakota on, I just want to let you know, this is the final call for the next round of Rise Above the Herd. You have until Wednesday, October 11th, to sign up. This is the seventh time we've run this. This program has changed so many lives. People who have been feeling a little stuck or stagnant or really want to take their relationships, their work, and their life to the next level, they've really gotten a lot out of this. So if this speaks to you, you're here to post about it, talk about it. Just a few days left. If you want to go on the journey with us, just go to riseabovetheherd.co. And if you have any questions at all, you can also shoot us an email or jump on a WhatsApp with us. [Speaker 3] (1:21 - 2:05) All right, guys. He's Dakota. All right, everyone. Welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. Today, we have Dakota Robertson in the house. He's a social media ghost writer, and he is the operator of the company GrossGhost. Dakota, thanks for being here for the truth, man. Thank you, Gents. Really stoked to be here. Yeah, us too. Dude, one way we always like to kick this one off is I want to dive into your personal hero's journey, just from observation. It seems as though you've had quite a unique trajectory, particularly to get to where you are today. So my first question is, what was some of the major catalyzing moments that really, I guess, transformed you and, I guess, alchemized where you are today? [Speaker 1] (2:07 - 4:25) I think a big one was growing up without a father, because that really kind of cascaded a lot of things in my life, where I became a mama's boy. Because I became a mama's boy, I adopted a lot of feminine traits, because I adopted a lot of feminine traits. I became very shy and closed in, and then that led to me just not socializing as much as more of a loner kid when I was young, and that turned to me video games down the line. Because I played video games a lot, I didn't move as much. I started gaining weight. I was eating double-stuffed Oreos and packing on the pounds, and then I became a bit chubby, and when you're kids, people like to point it out. So people started making fun of me, and that really hurt my confidence. I remember feeling a lot of low self-worth as a kid, just not feeling good enough and not liking myself. And that kind of created such a pain point in my life, where it's like, well, I got to do something. I got to go in the other direction, because I'm absolutely miserable. So I started working out, going to the YMCA, and I'd go to these boot camp classes and just work out until I threw up all the time. But I loved it, and it got me hooked on the gym, and that was kind of my first foray into self-improvement. And then I found self-development books when I was 18. Rich Dad poured out all those, and I just got hooked on that and applied a lot of the principles from the gym to reading and business and all these other areas. But yeah, I think the big one was growing up without a father, being fat, being made fun of, not feeling good enough. And that definitely was a big driver in my life, to kind of have a chip on my shoulder and try to prove something. And I mean, it worked well in business and in social media, but at a certain point, I had to kind of face that, address that, and do a lot of work to overcome that. But yeah, it was pretty bumpy early on. [Speaker 2] (4:26 - 4:58) Yeah. I mean, you highlight something that I just think is so important from a personal development standpoint, even I'm sure in the work that you do, is pain. Being able to face your pain, being able to feel your pain, and then using that pain as a motivation to improving as an individual. And then I guess I'm assuming even from your business standpoint is how do you tap into those pain points of an individual to inspire them to want to shift their life and change their life? Yeah, dude. [Speaker 1] (4:58 - 5:51) That's a big problem with a lot of the narratives that go on right now. You're a victim and you can't do anything. You're oppressed, all that stuff. And I think it screws over a lot of people because they're like, oh yeah, I'm a victim. I can't do anything. But when you take responsibility, although it might not be your fault, it's your responsibility for your life, it's really empowering. And it puts you in control, puts you in the driver's seat. You can go take actions to overcome that instead of just feeling sorry for yourself. So yeah, man, pain's a beautiful thing. If you have pain, it's like, well, it's there anyways. Might as well reframe it as some kind of fuel or something to drive me to get me ahead in life, right? Fuck, we all got pain to some degree. [Speaker 2] (5:52 - 6:11) Yeah, definitely, man. We've all been traumatized. We've all experienced things. And it's like, what do we do with it? And do we allow ourselves to feel it? Whereas everything out there in the world is there to distract you from it, is to keep you further away from feeling the depths of it so we can act as that great motivator and great alchemizer. [Speaker 1] (6:12 - 6:33) Straight up. It's like, oh, yeah, I'll just check my phone. I feel uncomfortable. I'll check my phone. It's like a pacifier. It's straight up. I used to be very anxious. I had to tell myself, no, you can't check your phone. Just sit there and just embrace it. It's really uncomfortable, but it helps you just get comfortable with the uncomfortable. [Speaker 3] (6:34 - 7:01) Yeah. What do you think are the primary drivers of apathy among young people today? Apathy means hate, right? Well, I mean, to me, apathy is like not being motivated to really make something of one's life, you know, or to venture out on one's own and to walk the hero's journey, you know, basically sitting on your hands, sitting on the couch, doing nothing. Yeah, just not caring about anything. No enthusiasm, no concern for anything. [Speaker 1] (7:02 - 9:31) Yeah. Yeah, I think, well, one, it's because we don't really have many great role models, especially true for men, but I would tell women too, I think, you know, there's not many strong figures to look up to. And it's like, well, that's really demoralizing. And then also God, like I'm not religious. I'm a bit more spiritual now, a lot more spiritual now after my ayahuasca journey, but I think not having God in your life, there's some kind of higher power. So I will, there's nothing to strive for. There's nothing, there's nothing to, you don't really got a rule set for life. You're just kind of, oh yeah, life's meaningless, all this shit. But I think when you have a higher power in your life, it's very powerful, whether that's, you know, a God or you're striving towards some kind of project, or, you know, you're working on your body or something like that. People need something to work toward something to progress. And I feel like a lot of people don't have that because I get, and it goes back to not having role models. No one's told me, Hey, you know, go to the gym. Hey, work on this, you know, it's all just, you know, get your degree. Sure. And then work a job for the next 60 years and hope to retire when you're 70. It's crazy. It's also nuts to just thinking about like, how many people have only fans and all this shit. And we're like praising this, this fucking crazy culture where you, Oh yeah, you should go expose yourself on the internet to strangers. And that's empowering. Same with the same with the guys though. It's like, yeah, go, go rack up a body count. That's that means you're high value. So what is going on here? This is nuts. And I fell into that trap too. You know, it's like, Oh yeah, I mean, you're, you got high worth. If you go sleep with a bunch of women, it's like, no, you just empty in this inside and you just don't feel good about yourself. It's such a crazy narrative that a lot of these, you know, celebrities and, and societal norms are just being pushed on people. And I think it's led to a lot of people just like, well, is this all there is? And they're like, Oh, I guess maybe I just got to do it more and then I'll be happy. But it's yeah, it's, it's sad, man. It's really sad. You're, you're in your twenties, man. I'm just 25. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (9:31 - 10:18) Yeah, man. So it's like, I would say the majority of people in your age demographic, they're not thinking about the things that you're thinking about. You know, they are stuck in this way because it starts education, our education system. I mean, you're self-educated primarily, right? Books, courses, mentors, et cetera. The education system, higher education, isn't teaching the things that people need to really, um, improve their, their life, you know, beyond just a work standpoint, but even who they are as a human being and how can they evolve and how can they grow? You know? So it's like, it's a completely different system. You have to, you have to get yourself out of, not to mention the media and all the programming that's going on in the media to keep people small, to, to inspire them to self-sabotage even more and not to connect to these deeper elements of themselves on, on a, on a spiritual level, on a personal level. [Speaker 1] (10:19 - 12:25) Trade up. There's no profit in it. It's crazy, man. They, they want you sick. You know, the, the big pharma and stuff, they want you sick. Um, the, the corporations, this is kind of controversial, but I was just thinking about this the other day. I was like, you know, the plus size models and, and, um, you know, saying fat is sexy and all that stuff. Um, that's fucking crazy in my mind. Like you're encouraging people to live an unhealthy lifestyle. It's going to shorten their lifespan. And I, I feel like it's like big food corporations pushing this narrative in America and all these other places. Like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good. Just to encourage people to go out and eat more fast food or the, the shit process food and just slowly kill yourself. It's like, damn, like maybe we should encourage people to live healthier lives instead of prescribing them another pill to treat these, these symptoms. Maybe we should actually get to the root cause. You know, it's, it's, it's absolutely asinine. Like I did, um, I did ayahuasca. I went to ayahuasca retreat a few months ago. And one of the psychologists there, Lauren Touse, she was saying, she said something really, something that resonated with me was, you know, we're trying to treat the fish, you know, but it's the waters that are messed up. Like it's, it's not the fish, it's the water that's, that's toxic. And it's so true when you think about it, like everything's set up for, for people to, uh, to kind of fail, you know, watch porn, you know, eat processed crap all the time. Uh, go on Tik Tok. Don't, don't think just, you know, just scroll. It's really absolutely nuts. You know, go work a job, buy these products and all of that. I love capitalism, but there's, uh, there's some, there's crazy shit that, uh, that goes on when you think about when you just stop and kind of look at society, this is actually nuts. It's crazy. [Speaker 3] (12:26 - 13:07) Yeah, man, it definitely is crazy. And like, to me, it makes me feel a bit sad of how difficult it's going to be for many people to shake this program and, you know, discover some semblance of selfhood and find, you know, their own paths in life through the entire muck that is the culture. Um, I guess that we find ourselves in now in the Western world. Um, so like, what were some of the things that I guess shifted you from that, I guess, level of, you know, hysteria into, you know, walking your own kind of path and sharpening your own mind and recognizing, you know, that, you know, things actually quite inverted out there. [Speaker 1] (13:09 - 17:45) Psychedelics was a big one. I did, um, mushroom, I didn't mushrooms before I even drank or did anything. It was, uh, when I was 13 or maybe no, I was younger. I don't know. It was grade six. I did, I did mushrooms. And, uh, that really, uh, really, that's why I'm kind of weird, weird nowadays. But no, mushrooms have been a big part throughout my whole life, just doing that. And it's helped me with my social anxiety, my anxiety with death, how I view myself, how I view the world, my place in it. Very powerful. And then also ayahuasca that was, that was the final boss of psychedelics. So far for me, I did ayahuasca and that was really, really profound experience, especially with the setting. Cause there's only 12 people and it was a retreat and I had a psychologist, psychologist there and a shaman. And it was a six day retreat. I didn't touch my phone, but I, when I was, when I attended the ceremonies, there were three, I really closed the loop on a lot of childhood shit and trauma and how I viewed myself, how I felt as a kid, you know, it was those feelings of low self-worth came up and I'm not good enough and just feeling scared. And I, I got to, it was interesting. I confronted my, my child or who I was as a kid. And basically like, Hey man, you don't got to be scared anymore. Like, you know, taking the, taking the lead from here. And it was really profound, but also reflecting on my relationships within my life, you know, my mini society like my brother and my friends and just how I've treated them and how I could show up better in their lives. And that, that was very powerful for me. The thing is, I think if you want to change society, you got to kind of start with your own, your own group of people, you know, I, the cascading effect of that is huge when you, you, you show up in your relationships and then they start showing up in theirs and it trickles down. So I think that's the, that's a big part of it. And then also the gym, like it was kind of cliche, but man, it all started in the gym. I'm just working on myself and it's, it's parallel with a lot of other philosophies in life. I have to show up consistently for months on it. You work your ass off to only get these tiny percentages, fractions of a percent of improvement, but over a long, long enough time horizon, it compounds and you see noticeable changes and seeing that progression, you know, sparks dopamine in your brain. You're motivated to do more and you're tracking it and it becomes a project for life that you're working on. Kind of like a, a sculptor is working on the Magnus Opus. It's something to strive towards. And that was, that was huge for me because it gave me a lot of purpose early on. And then surrounding myself around other ambitious people in life, that was huge. I stopped hanging around losers. I stopped going to parties as much. And I surrounded myself with people that were striving for more and were doing better in life. And that was motivating for me because I didn't feel like such a black sheep. Once I found my community, my group of friends that I really vibed with. And then it's like a mini mastermind, you know, you're bouncing ideas off each other. You're encouraging each other. You know, when you're going through hard times, you hit them up and be like, Hey man, like blah, blah, blah. And it's, it's really motivating. I think, yeah, you need a community. You need a, a goal to work toward and progress in, and you need to do mushrooms. I'm just kidding. You don't need to do the mushrooms, but some, some kind of mechanism to reflect like journaling and journaling journeys, journaling is huge. That was absolutely huge for me. Cause I think about how often do we just sit there and think we're always got, you know, Oh notification. Oh, we got, you know, whatever it is work to do on laptop. Oh, I gotta go. You do this checklist and all this stuff, but just sitting down and writing, we're just even just sitting there and doing nothing. You just allow your brain to process what's going on, even meditating. So having some kind of practice like that is absolutely powerful too. [Speaker 2] (17:47 - 19:33) Yeah, man. I love that you said that too. Even like the little joke about psychedelics, listen, I think it's a tool. I think for a lot of people, it is really supportive of them, but there are other things out there that can also, you know, connect a person to the deepest parts of themselves and reflection is it spending time in nature? Yeah. Meditation. Just, I mean, how often Joel, have we talked about like, does a person just go and just sit on your couch, just sit on your couch and just be there, just sit there. Don't grab your phone. Don't grab your dick. Like what comes up when you're just there? You know, I think this is why a lot of people also say like when they're doing a road trip, because driving sometimes is like this unconscious thing. You're just doing it, you know? So you're just sitting there. Road trips force people to just be with themselves and they come up with these ideas and reflections and things like, I've said this multiple times on this podcast, like a couple road trips have changed my life because I came up with like ideas and big decisions that I ended up making in my life from that. So it's huge. It's huge because we're distracted from every single angle. I am, man. I'm on my phone way more than I would like to be at times, but when I don't, like that's why I could see how an experience like you going, I don't know if you were in the jungle or wherever you did your ayahuasca experience and like you're off your phone for six days, just that alone. If someone went to a cabin, left her phone, you know, in a lockbox in their house, we, you know, and just went and like took some walks in the trees and brought a journal. Like, what would that do? What does that do to your inner world? You know, it's like, you can't put a price on that. And we've gotten so disconnected. We're so focused on the external world and what's going on in the world. And it's like, well, what's happening within this universe that I call me. [Speaker 1] (19:34 - 19:46) Yeah, dude. It's yeah. Even if it's just sitting on the couch or like go for a walk, man, it's super powerful. I was went on a walk the other day without a phone and just ideas are pouring out my head. [Speaker 3] (19:48 - 20:22) Yeah. I mean, we have no mental space. We have pretty much no gap, you know, in our thinking for genius to actually arise. And you know, that real profound creativity comes from, comes from the imaginal world. It comes from the space between our thoughts, you know, that bubbles up. And you're right, man, this, this addiction to our phones is in my opinion, though, the primary form of self sabotage right now, which is preventing people from actually accessing their inner genius, you know, and accessing their own unique way of being. It's, it's an epidemic. [Speaker 1] (20:24 - 20:58) Right up, dude. Yeah. You got to put in guardrails. Yeah. A hundred percent. You got to put in guardrails for that stuff. I recommend for anyone listening, you can use apps like cold turkey for desktop where it blocks your, whatever websites you want to block or apps you want to block and whatever schedule. So like first six hours of the day, just block social media and you get work done. And then it's for the phone opal.so is great. Yeah. We have opal. Yeah. Don't even make it an option. That's my. [Speaker 3] (20:59 - 21:18) How do you, how do you manage that in terms of being like an online entrepreneur? Because obviously many people think like, you know, being an online entrepreneur means I need to be on my phone 24 seven and you know, that's my job. And they kind of give themselves a gateway, you know, into, into justifying that. [Speaker 1] (21:19 - 22:39) Yeah. It's been, it's been a struggle for sure. And it's something I've been working on for the putting a lot of focus, a lot more focusing on, but yeah. Cause it's easy to get caught in the trap. Oh, I'm doing work. You're just scrolling Twitter, but no, it's yeah. It's just putting in guardrails and just recognizing this is not conducive for my goals. You know, you spend, you can spend an hour or two hours on Instagram reels and you, it's like you're in a hypnotic state because they know how to, how to hit the next video to spark the novelty and hit the dopamine. So you keep going on the slot machine. It's literally like a slot machine. So it's a, it's recognizing how bad it is for your, for your goals. I mean, I don't think social media is bad, but I think, I think it's a tool and you can hit yourself on the head with a hammer or you could build a house. And I think a lot of us are just hitting ourselves on the head with a hammer, but yeah, just putting in those app blockers, man, those are huge. That's huge. And then, you know, get a friend to set the passcode on, on them. Like I've done that and I have, I can't, I literally can't access social media if I, I want to. So just putting in those guardrails or it's been huge for me. [Speaker 2] (22:39 - 23:15) Even with, even with Opal, like Opal, you can have like the different like sessions and the settings. Like one is like, you can't get on it no matter what. But then the other one is like, Oh yeah, you have a five second break and then you could do it. Or then the extended break. And it's like, I've tried them all. And you know, I give myself out. It's like, I have, I think I have to go back to the one where it's like, you just can't use it. You know, like, especially like maybe later in the evening, you know, after a certain time, no reason I feel like to be on your phone, super late, not to mention like the, what the blue light and what that does to you. And that's a whole nother conversation, but yeah, it's interesting. [Speaker 1] (23:16 - 23:58) Yeah, man. It's yeah, it's, it's crazy. It's like you're time traveling. Like time moves like two times faster when you're on your phone. I find when I, when I was in Costa Rica at that ayahuasca retreat and I didn't have my phone, I was shocked with how long the day was. And not even in a bad way. It was, it was great. I just, I would sit on a chair and I would just stare out to the mountains and it was fun. That was the thing too. I mean, dopamine got reset. So a lot of boring things were actually stimulating and I had an appreciation for it. And it was, it was amazing. I was so blown away. [Speaker 2] (23:59 - 24:34) You know, all this stuff that we deal with, with technology and everything, it is so new from a historical standpoint, you know, which is why I think it's like fucking with our systems to this degree that like people are just not in a good place around it. And I know times change. And like you said, it's a tool, how do you use it to your advantage to be able to have the freedom? I mean, you know, you, you're an online entrepreneur, you have the freedom to be wherever you want to be and you're able to create your business. You have a laptop and internet connection on a phone, you know, it's incredible. Technology is great. And there's the shadow side of it. [Speaker 1] (24:35 - 25:03) Yeah. It's definitely a double-edged sword. And you know, if you don't lack discipline or you don't even realize it, you're kind of screwed. You're kind of screwed unless you have someone to tell you, Hey, do this. Like, you know, this is screwing you up or whatever. But it's even then, man, it's, it's also hard. Like sometimes I still struggle with it. God, I just wasted two hours on Instagram. You stupid reels. They're pretty funny, but yeah. [Speaker 2] (25:04 - 25:40) I mean, I did too, man. I mean, there's times where I'm like, I'm holding this phone and in my head, I have the thought like in 10 minutes, I'm going to, you know, go out and plant a tree, you know? And then like an hour later, I'm like, what the fuck? And it's like this cycle. It's really, it really requires this level of just self-awareness and discipline to just have a certain level of self-control and just be like, okay, now that's it. And I'm getting up and I'm doing what I have to do. And then you walk back in the house, like in 10 minutes later to get a glass of water. And before you know it, the fucking phone's in your hand again. And you're like, what the fuck? Straight up. [Speaker 3] (25:40 - 25:46) Or I think about it, man. Like if you're doing six to eight hours a day on your phone, like that's a third of your life. [Speaker 1] (25:46 - 25:59) Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of scary, man. That's why I like Opal because it shows you, yeah, you're spending like 23 years of your life. If you keep up with this rate, you're like, oh shit. [Speaker 2] (26:00 - 26:12) Crazy. And then add on top of that, the few hours of Netflix that the average person is watching every night, be on top of like the phonies. Yeah. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (26:13 - 26:14) Both at the same time. [Speaker 2] (26:15 - 26:40) Yeah. And again, it's interesting. We did an amazing episode with this woman, Laura Lee Scaife, who's like an expert in Lord of the Rings. And she says Lord of the Rings is the guiding myth of our time. I mean, we get really deep into it. She's done tons of videos and she says like the fucking ring is the cell phone. Like my precious, my precious, our phone. It's like, we must have it. Like if I don't have it, what's going to go on? It's pretty fascinating. [Speaker 1] (26:41 - 27:02) Yeah. That's actually interesting. It's interesting how stories relate to life so well. That's why they resonate so well. And even something like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, so there's different realm of stuff, but we get so engrossed in it because it's, you can extract the lessons. It's archetypal, man. [Speaker 2] (27:02 - 27:03) It's archetypal at the end of the day. [Speaker 3] (27:04 - 27:23) And like, I mean... Coming from a shared truth, you know, among the collective. All right. What do you, I guess, let's flip this. Like, what do you love about like being an online entrepreneur? Like, how has, you know, how has your life shifted as a result of the technology that we now have in order to build and create? [Speaker 1] (27:24 - 31:09) Man, I love life. It's great. My biggest value is freedom. You know, freedom to do what you want, work on what you want, live where you want, wake up when you want. And man, it's actually crazy. I remember waking up as an electrician. I was 18. I was in the oil and gas industry. I'd wake up at 4 a.m. Cold as shit outside. I'm just miserable, surrounded by miserable people. I'm like, oh, okay, got to go to work. Work for 12, 14 hours, come back to the camp, eat whatever slop they had, go to bed, repeat. So depressing. I was on the brink of depression. That's why I started journaling. But then contrast to now, man, it's amazing. I meet so many cool people. I've become friends with amazing people that have inspired me in so many different ways and have improved my life. And I'm very grateful for it. I'm grateful for the relationships I've made. And also too, it's like money isn't an issue now. I don't look at the price of things anymore. And I'm very grateful because I used to live in a motorhome, man. I know what it's like to struggle financially. And when you eliminate price from the equation of a lot of things, I'm not saying I'm fucking multi-millionaire, but you appreciate things for what they are. You don't factor in price, so you can evaluate things on their value to you. And that's been huge for me. My sisters, one of my sisters wanted goalie pads for hockey. And she's like, I wish I had them. I was like, send her money, go buy them. That's cool. That's so cool. And you can take care of your family like that. It means a lot to me because I know what it's like not to have money. And then traveling, I love travel. So I get to have all these crazy experiences, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Dubai, all these places. And just experiences I never forget. I wouldn't be able to have that if I worked a job for somebody else. They wouldn't allow me to do that. But I set my own schedule, my own hours and all of that. And it's great. And it's really fulfilling too. With social media, whenever I write a vulnerable post or something that really means a lot to me, I actually pour a lot of effort and time and kind of put myself out there. And someone DMs me like, hey, man, this really meant a lot to me. This really changed how I thought about whatever my situation. That's cool. That means the most to me. That when you actually can see how it impacts someone's life, that's really, really cool. Because I'm by no means perfect, not even close. But if I can kind of be that role model I wish I had growing up to some degree and kind of guide people in the right direction, then I think that's great. Because then you get the money, but then it's also aligned with your purpose. So it's win, right? So that's, yeah, I think purpose too is a huge thing. I'm very grateful for it. And it's at scale too. As I keep growing on social media, I can affect more people's lives. And it's, yeah, it's really gratifying. [Speaker 2] (31:10 - 31:58) And just because I was going to say, just goes to show like, man, when you're truthful, just the importance of truth, when you're really honest with who you are and you share a piece of who you are, people relate to that, man. We're all fucking human. We're all going through shit. No one has it all figured out. And even if you think you have it figured out now, you're going to approach a different stage in your life that you've never experienced before. So you're not going to have it figured out. You know what I mean? So it's this ongoing evolutionary growth process. But when you're on purpose, when you're doing what you want to do, and you are being truthful about your struggles and your challenges and the things that you've That's what people want, man. That's what people want at the end of the day. You know, so it's amazing to be able to impact people's lives, doing something that is aligned with who you are and what your gifts are and what you're putting out into the world. [Speaker 1] (31:59 - 33:22) Yeah, man, it's, it's always easy. I say majority of the time, it's hard to be truthful, you know, especially to yourself. I think if a lot of people reflected like, oh yeah, you know, I said I was going to do this thing. I didn't do it. Why is that? You're just being honest with yourself. God, I keep effing this up. Like what's going on here? Why am I not doing this? If you just keep asking why and why and why instead of saying, oh, you know, I'll do it tomorrow, whatever, you actually get to the core root of it. I'm sure you've uncovered a lot of stuff. And again, that goes back to spending time alone, whether it's journaling or sitting on the couch, or going for a walk. That's why it's so powerful because you uncover a lot of the reasoning behind stuff and you can actually get to the core, the core problem. And then be putting yourself out there and being vulnerable is huge too, especially for men. I'm sure you guys know how hard it is sometimes to do that, to put yourself out there. One book that changed my life was Models by Mark Manson. And it was a dating book, but it was talking about how being vulnerable is so powerful and how men need to be vulnerable and like put yourself out there. And when you do that as well, you give people permission to show up as their vulnerable selves, their truth. And yeah, it's powerful. [Speaker 2] (33:22 - 34:31) Yeah. It is balanced, man, because it's like vulnerability without the strength and you're a victim, you know? And so it's like, how can you almost stand in between the tension of opposites, this part of you that's like super strong, like warrior-like, but then there's these little colors of sensitivity and vulnerability that come through. And that's what really, I think, inspires people, impacts people. And that's what intimacy is ultimately. Intimacy is this almost middle point between these two poles where you're able to touch in and tap into these different parts of you and communicate from that place. If you're just online, hysterical and crying, you might attract a very small percentage of an audience that just wants to be with you in your misery. But if you're able to communicate clearly, solid, grounded, and you can see maybe in your eyes, there's just something that's welling up and you're there. I mean, that's the stuff people are drawn to. Those are even the biggest moments in cinema that people connect to, that moment of connection, of intimacy, of depth, where there is that almost integration of opposites where magic happens. [Speaker 1] (34:33 - 34:45) Yeah. That's the powerful stuff, man. Yeah. I like what you said, the balance too, because a lot of people can just go away in one direction, blah, blah, blah, boo-hoo, and all that shit. It's like, well, what did you learn from it? [Speaker 2] (34:46 - 35:18) Yeah. And the flip side too, especially in the personal development world, it's like being a man. It's like, yeah, yeah, I'm a fucking man. Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, fuck this. Yeah, man, don't get vulnerable. I mean, none of that bullshit. And it's like, yo, that's incomplete from a psychological standpoint. You're repressing and repression at the end of the day serves no one. It's all about how do you become the conductor of your own inner orchestra? How do you build a relationship with these different parts of you and how do you utilize them in connection with others and communication in the work you do, et cetera? [Speaker 1] (35:19 - 35:37) Yeah, man. I saw a post on Twitter a few days ago and this guy had this tape. He's saying, if you're a man, you smile. It's like, you're not a man. He's like, he was trying to say, if you're a man, you're like, don't smile. What is that? Some of the alpha male shit is so funny. [Speaker 3] (35:39 - 35:52) The tread manosphere is a bit of a messed up phase we're experiencing. It's crazy how many people are magnetized to these kinds of ideologies. You know what I mean? [Speaker 2] (35:54 - 36:28) Like... It's a flip. It's a complete flip. And I think hopefully, everyone is on their journey. They bounce from one pole to the opposite and hopefully they come back to a more integrated place, which I was there in my life, man. I got really into health in my early mid-twenties and I played the food police, man. I was like the food police. I was like, you can't do that. It was so rigid. And then you realize there's more to life and especially how you communicate and how you live and you become more balanced. So that's my hope for some of these hardcore dudes. [Speaker 1] (36:29 - 36:38) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think as they get older, they'll kind of realize, oh yeah, that's kind of crazy, some of the shit that they're saying. [Speaker 3] (36:40 - 37:21) Totally. Totally. And you know, showing up as a complete or more holistic human being is even a little bit more difficult on social media, which kind of encourages and incentivizes most people to just show up very rigid and very one way and maintain a very strict, certain image. And then people are scared to show multifaceted sides of themselves very often, because now they've built an audience that expects them just to be one single away. And we think, oh, engagement is going to drop, et cetera, if we show up differently, if we say something different, if we speak outside our niche. But like, well, fun is there and only being it was one robotic way your entire life, just simply to build an audience and create an income. [Speaker 1] (37:22 - 38:55) Yeah, dude. Yeah. It's interesting. People cater their whole personalities, their whole lives toward an algorithm. And I think it also speaks to, if you're not vulnerable enough or you don't share yourself enough, that's how you screw yourself. Because if I grow a social media account, it's just AI and chat GPT or whatever. I'm just talking about that all the time. And I grow to 200,000 followers. And then maybe I tweet something personal. Nobody cares because you've grown your whole audience on this one thing. It's like you just trapped yourself. That's why I'm big on telling people, share your story throughout the whole thing, teach an actionable skill that'll solve people's pain points or help them reach a desired outcome. But along the way, talk about your opinions, talk about your worldview, ship posts, post memes, stuff like that, stuff that really shows there's a human element. And what that does is it will shift the focus away from what you're talking about to who you are. I can post. I posted the word potato. That was it on X or Twitter last week. And it got a lot of engagement. It was just because, oh, it's just Dakota being Dakota because they know me. So yeah, I think it's important to build your brand to level of autism. I was going to say autism, level of authenticity, maybe a little bit of autism, but from the get-go and just be true to yourself. [Speaker 3] (38:56 - 39:02) Right. How fucking lonely would it be to have like a 200,000 follower account and you can't even say one thing real? [Speaker 1] (39:04 - 39:29) Yeah, that's sad, bro. It's kind of like digital handcuffs. That's how most people are living too. A lot of these influencers, they got to do this one thing, this one stupid TikTok dance or whatever. That's your old shtick. Screw that. I'd rather have lower engagement, way, way less followers and just be true to myself. [Speaker 3] (39:30 - 39:48) One of my most liked posts ever on Instagram was actually me replying to you. You posted on Twitter back in the day, what advice would you give to a teenager in five words or less? And I responded to you saying, don't get vaccinated. I just screenshotted that and posted it on Instagram and had like 15,000 likes. Based. [Speaker 1] (39:50 - 40:45) Yeah, that shit's crazy. It was crazy in Canada for that, man. I had to get vaccinated because I was moving to America. I couldn't go otherwise. But when I went to the nurse, it was actually crazy. She was blaming the people that were unvaccinated for all this. Tell your friends who are unvaccinated to come get vaccinated because we're over this. We need to end lockdowns. I was blown away. This is the narrative. A healthcare professional is putting on somebody. That is actually sick. It's crazy how people that are unvaccinated are demonized, they don't want a job from this rushed medical thing. It's crazy, man. [Speaker 2] (40:45 - 41:30) You lose your job, like you said, you're demonized. Sick. But we live in an upside down world, man. From a media standpoint, from an academic standpoint, from a political standpoint, from a medical and scientific standpoint. We really do. People that are at the upper levels of all these industries, man, they're living in a make believe fantasy world. That's why when you take the power into your own hands and you become an entrepreneur and you understand, yeah, we talk shit about a phone, but we have almost all the information at our fingertips. What do we do with it? We can learn anything we want to learn if we have the will, if we have the desire, and then to create that and put that out into the world, which is, I think, a big piece of what you inspire people to do. [Speaker 1] (41:31 - 42:08) Yeah, man. It's also encouraging people to think for themselves. They trust everything the government puts out. It's like, imagine someone like Hitler gets into power and you just do everything he says. How screwed up that would be? You got to question the government. You got to question their intentions and keep them in check because they work for the people, right? It's not the other way around. I think we've lost sight of that. It's crazy shit, man. The shit that's going on in Canada right now is just like, whoa, that's why I'm exiting the tax system. [Speaker 3] (42:08 - 42:39) Yeah, I hear you, man. I'm originally from Australia. I moved to Mexico as a result of the intensity of the experience, man. I'm here now with my family, but it also goes to show, obviously, what we do in many ways. Marketing is a primary skill of being an entrepreneur. It shows you the flip side with marketing when it's not grounded in truth. The kind of mind control and the propaganda that can lead people down a very inverted path. It's really got to be grounded in truth, I guess. [Speaker 1] (42:40 - 42:48) That's why I'm grateful, man. Just learning these skills. Marketing, I've studied propaganda and you see that shit everywhere now. It's like seeing the matrix. Like, oh, they're doing that. [Speaker 3] (42:49 - 42:49) Okay. [Speaker 1] (42:49 - 43:01) Yeah. All right. It's absolutely nuts. Yeah. In Australia, man, I feel for you. That looked like a shit show. That was next level. Canada didn't come close to that, although we're on the road. [Speaker 3] (43:03 - 43:21) Yeah, dude. Those days, man. 23-hour curfews, bro. People were allowed outside for one hour a day. And in that one hour, you could only be exercising. If you were doing anything other than that, you can get arrested, get fined. This went on for months, months. It was crazy. So sad, man. [Speaker 2] (43:21 - 43:45) Joel had four tickets. He got four tickets and he represented himself and beat the government by representing himself and going to court a few times. Again, more power to you. And it's a testament to who Joel is because how many people would have just been like, okay, I'll pay the fine or whatever the case may be. Again, you talked about earlier about changing society, man. It starts with the community. Let's go back. It starts with the individual. [Speaker 3] (43:45 - 43:49) Smallest minority on Earth. What? Smallest minority on Earth. [Speaker 2] (43:49 - 44:35) Yeah. It starts with the individual and what you do and how deeply you can accept where you're at and then realize, okay, where do I need to go and what do I need to do to get there? Go to the gym, read books, reflect, whatever it is. Everyone's on their own path. But the information is there. The mentors are out there if you need them to be inspired. And at the end of the day, it just comes down to you when you're looking in the mirror, being 100% fucking real with yourself. Am I happy with the life that I have right now? And if I'm not, and you can really allow yourself to feel the pain of that because like we keep saying it is a motivator for change. But if you're getting drunk all the time, if you're getting high all the time, if you're jerking off all the time, if you're doing all this shit, it doesn't allow you to allow that pain to bubble up to the surface to really act as the great motivator that it is. [Speaker 1] (44:36 - 45:20) Yeah, man. Yeah. I view it as a video game. You got yourself in the video game character. You're starting at level zero. You don't have any of the gear or any of that stuff. And you're surrounded by these maybe other party members that just don't have much resources. And then you start leveling up. You level up your intelligence stat, your strength stat, all these other stats. I feel like all the stuff you do as an entrepreneur or whatever, it allows you access these new levels to life that maybe other people don't see or can't access. And yeah, it's interesting. You start viewing life differently. [Speaker 3] (45:21 - 45:28) Totally, man. You meet new allies. You meet better community. 100%. [Speaker 2] (45:29 - 45:56) And that starts with being true to yourself, man. When you are true to yourself, that's when you start bringing these people in and attracting them in. But if you're afraid to use your voice, if you're afraid to speak your truth, 10, 20 years are going to go by. And you'll be like, why is it my life the way it is? Well, it's because you haven't lived a more heroic life. I'm not asking people to be the most heroic individuals that have existed on planet Earth. But it's like, what is that to you? [Speaker 1] (45:59 - 46:08) For you guys, what was the shift for you? Or were you always kind of rooted into this philosophy? Or was there a moment that just kind of snapped it for you? [Speaker 2] (46:09 - 46:13) I feel we probably answered this question on different podcasts and probably at some point in ours. [Speaker 3] (46:13 - 46:14) Do we have three hours? Go for it, you guys. [Speaker 2] (46:15 - 47:49) Yeah, we have three hours for me. I've always been a curious person. But I grew up first generation parents. My parents probably had a certain idea of how they wanted me to live. But I think especially after college or during college, I studied abroad in Australia. And I just met these people that were just traveling for two years. Wait, what? That's a thing? It's not in our culture in the US growing up, especially when I did. I'm 43 right now. That's not something that's taught, where you can just don't go to college or take a few months off and backpack. And for me, that's what it was. I started backpacking and reading books. And then realized the initial path that I was on very quickly, my first post-college job. I just left it. And then I began this more alternative path. And I don't need to get into my story. But each thing led me to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing. And a lot of it was about self-education. And a lot of it was about tuning into that inner truth, that inner guidance system, and making decisions based off of that. And then seeing where that led me. So it was really like going, wait, something feels off. And then realizing, okay, I'm going to act on that, as opposed to let me just stay in this feeling of feeling shitty and feeling handcuffed for 10 years. I think that was one of my gifts, is that right when I felt this moment of, eh, I made a shift, I made a change. So self-education played a huge role, finding good mentors that inspired me, and aligning with people that I loved and that shared my value system. [Speaker 3] (47:51 - 49:19) Yeah, well said, man. I think being willing to learn your lessons. The authentic path, which is something we talk about often, man, it's full of rattlesnakes. It's full of everything to bump into that could damage you, that could hurt you. But freedom comes with a responsibility. And I think for most people, their lives are pre-paved for them. They go to school, they go to uni, they go and work with the one of 10 to 15 jobs available to them. And there's no real learning experience. But when you go out on your own, you have to become a captain, you have to learn how to navigate, you have to learn how to make decisions that other people aren't making and be willing to, I guess, metaphorically live or die by the consequences. And you're going to learn very quickly when you decide to walk that way. So yeah, I mean, that's kind of overarching what it was for me, but also remaining steadfast to what actually inspires me and really listening deeply. What excites me? What lights me up? What am I genuinely curious about, as opposed to what's the purest that's been programmed or implanted into me from other people, from TV or from the crowd as to what paths I should follow. So I think being willing to stick true to what I actually wanted out of life is absolutely key, man. And when you do that, you're very quickly going to push away the debris, push away what's not meant for you, push away the people that aren't aligned with you, and you're going to magnetize what's really authentic in life. [Speaker 2] (49:20 - 50:21) Yeah. And I think also too, you have to be willing to disappoint people that have certain expectations and projections on you. Yep. How they want you to live, obviously, it usually starts with the parental figures usually, but even just society, I mean, there's such a huge pull to go along to get along. And when you're in a certain friend group or a family, and just to be willing to go, no, I want this path. I'm going to go down this road. It's uncertain. When I left my first job post-college, and I was fortunate, I had a friend who built a tiny little room in his New York City apartment for me. And I lived there for $200 a month. I was living off my savings and was able to just live in New York City and do all the things I wanted to do and take acting classes and go to Central Park and read books. And people thought I was insane. Yeah. They're like, look, Lizzy Rossimo is living in the closet. But you have to be like, fuck it. I know deeply inside, this is something that's meant for me. [Speaker 3] (50:21 - 51:13) Yeah. That's what happens when you question the status quo, man. You're going to trigger a lot of people. And we're talking about vaccines now quite openly. For me, I started talking about vaccines back in 2015. And back then, man, it was a very, very, very different conversation to what it is now. So our niche on this podcast, listening to us right now, they're truth seekers. That's the community that we're in. And many of these people, they've been questioning government agendas and what's really going on around us and what's being programmed and conditioned upon us for a very, very, very long time. And that's a lonely road. It's becoming a lot more popular, probably the wrong word, but people are starting to catch on. So, okay, maybe something's not right in terms of the control systems. But yeah, man, that fortifies you. [Speaker 1] (51:14 - 52:29) Yeah, dude. It's nice because anyone can start a podcast or put out information and it's not this monopoly of CNN and ABC News or whatever now. It's like, you got to look at Joe Rogan's podcast. It's the most popular form of media. The news corporations can't even come close to that. So yeah, I'm really bullish on the decentralization of information. And yeah, I think a platform like X, Twitter, Elon, I think that's great because it's not censoring stuff that questions the government agenda anymore. I think it's going to become way more important as we go forward. With you see what Russell Brand just got demonetized on YouTube and Andrew Tate and Trump getting de-platformed. It's like, we may not agree with them, but at the end of the day, we need truth. We need both sides. If you don't have that discussion or arguments in some case, it's going to have an echo chamber or whatever and it's going to become worse. [Speaker 3] (52:30 - 52:52) And the biggest catalyst for awareness continually increasing is how repressive and how oppressive these systems have been in the last few years. Without that degree of, I guess, quote unquote, tyranny, the level of awareness would never have risen in accordance to what people are actually witnessing. [Speaker 2] (52:53 - 54:36) Yeah. And just generally speaking, man, I'm a free speed absolutist, but what individual is better equipped to give an opinion on something? Someone who understands multiple angles and has done the research or someone who's just has one narrative within themselves because they've been fed that. So it's like, you have to have discernment. You have to be able to... The truth seeking process, whether it's externally, what's happening in the world or internally, it's not linear. You're not like, okay, I just do this thing and it leads to the next thing and leads to the next thing. So you have to be willing to grapple with ideas. You have to be willing to deal with cognitive dissonance. Oh shit, something just smacks you in the face and talk about pain. Do you feel the pain of your entrenched belief system being challenged and being like, okay, let me investigate this. Let me see why that is. Why do I feel so triggered? Why did I just react to that person so strongly? Because they just shared a point of view. And I think the people who have the psycho-emotional fortitude and the education and have done a certain level of inner work, they just have a greater capacity to navigate the world and to grapple with these ideas and to be okay. So back to your question to us personally before, I think there's been a part of me, whatever it is, man, I was born with it, but that's always been like, okay, if something makes more rational sense, I throw away whatever belief system I stood on before. I'm like, man, this makes more sense. I've investigated it and like, cool. Whether it has to do with health, whether it has to do with some other subject. And I think you have to be willing to grapple with things that challenge your belief systems. [Speaker 1] (54:37 - 54:59) Yeah. It shows control over your ego. I look at people who subscribe to groupthink, maybe it's a vegan or it could be even someone on the right or left or wherever. It's like they just let the group think for them and they just don't have any opinions on their own. [Speaker 3] (54:59 - 54:59) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (55:01 - 55:24) It's fucking nuts how many people have that. I'm sure I have that to some degree, but it's crazy how people, they don't even think for themselves. You can hit them with these logical arguments. They're like, yeah. And then they just shut up. Then they go to personal insults. It's like, damn man, it's legit mass hypnosis or big psyop or so. [Speaker 2] (55:24 - 56:37) Dude, it's everywhere, man. We talk about even in the so-called truth community or conspiracy community are people that are more open to things happening in the world. People get suckered into a certain ideology or a group. And it's like anyone who even challenges that is controlled opposition or is a shill or whatever. And it's like, man, the reality is we all, we may know some stuff, but we don't really know what the fuck is going on in a lot of ways. We just don't. We speculate, we take in information, we analyze it, but I don't fucking know. I may know more relative to another person on a certain subject. So I think this is where I think I love the humility, that word humility. In some ways I don't like it, but in this way to just realize you don't fucking know everything. You don't have everything figured out because your neighborhood doctor told you something or because you read a textbook in your fucking 11th grade science class or because you went to college. You know what I mean? It's like you're fucking 18 and you went to college and you think you know everything about what's going on in the world and what's going on in the community and what's going on, whatever. Like chill, bro. Like fucking chill. [Speaker 1] (56:38 - 57:18) Yeah, straight up. Yeah, dude. Dude, the shipwrecks teaching at college, dude, is hilarious. In my second year of college, I was forced into this class to get the credits. And the way that the professor ran the first class was like, all right, class, I want everyone to go around and mime a weather system that you're feeling today. I was like, what am I paying money for? What is this? I want to be a high school English teacher. What is going on? Why am I paying thousands of dollars to this institution to teach this? It's nuts. [Speaker 3] (57:18 - 57:29) Yep. Totally, man. Go watch the 1984 interview between Yuri Bezmenov and J. Edwin Griffin and you'll find out exactly that answer. Yeah, that shit is crazy. [Speaker 2] (57:29 - 57:30) Oh, you've seen it. Great, man. [Speaker 1] (57:30 - 57:30) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (57:30 - 57:33) It's a big recommendation on our end. Yeah. [Speaker 1] (57:34 - 57:56) Yeah. It's eye-opening shit, dude. It's crazy to see it happening, you know, straight up. Yeah, it's so true. A lot of my more friends that were with interesting ideas, they're deeply entrenched in academia and they're just sipping the Kool-Aid. [Speaker 3] (57:57 - 57:57) Oh, yeah, dude. [Speaker 1] (57:58 - 58:00) Teaching, man. Yeah. It's activism. [Speaker 3] (58:02 - 58:15) So, let's shift a little bit, I guess. I mean, what is ghostwriting and like, is this something that, you know, like, I guess, what's your connection to this and how do you find yourself kind of down this path? [Speaker 1] (58:16 - 1:01:55) Yeah. So, ghostwriting is you just pretend to be people on the internet. You basically take over someone's account, you create content for them and you grow their account and I came across it because I was growing my own Twitter and I was going to be a copywriter. Copywriting is when you write persuasively online and my friend, JK, he was talking about ghostwriting, how he's ghostwriting for other people's accounts, growing their social media. I was like, oh, that's interesting. At the time, it was very new and I was kind of thinking, okay, I could be a copywriter and be a small fish in a huge pond or I could be a ghostwriter because I know how to grow my account and, you know, I'm decent at it. So, I could be a big fish in a small pond and as you kind of looked at it, I'm like, yeah, you know, ghostwriter sounds cool, you know, very mysterious and I enjoy creating content. So, you know, I can do this for other people. So, I hired my mentor, Dan Coe. He helped me really monetize the offer and get things dialed in. But yeah, I launched in November of 2021 and there's such high demand for ghostwriting because people see where the internet's going and they see how powerful it is to build a brand. So, within 28 days, I hit $11,000 a month of launching my business and it was just people hitting me up. They saw me growing. I had like maybe 5,000 followers on Twitter at the time and people, yes, they went to my profile. So, I had a website, clicked on the website, filled out an application form. Yeah, hopped on some sales calls, closed them and yeah, it's been an interesting ride. You meet some interesting people when you go straight. Like I've written for male porn stars, I've written for more, nothing like sexual, it's like male self-improvement. That was an interesting, he's an interesting cat. But like founders, like eight-figure founders, seven-figure founders, you know, people in all walks of life with interesting views. I've written content for them and I've become friends with them and some of them got some crazy ass opinions but I put it out there for people. I'm like, okay, if that's your truth, I'll write that for you, man. But yeah, it's basically where you interview your clients, you ask thoughtful questions so you get good answers, you transcribe the call, the interview you have with your client, use a transcriber like Otter.ai, transcribe the call, turn it into content, you write all the content, you send it to the client for approval or feedback. When it's all approved, then you schedule the content for the client and the content goes out and then you also pay for distribution for the client. So from accounts that have the audience that are aligned with who they want to attract. So, you know, I'd pay 20 to 40 dollars a retweet to get my clients retweeted and I would get like 2 to 15 people at a time to retweet a piece of content. It would go viral, you know, they get all these followers, you know, sales, whatever. And that's pretty much ghostwriting. You write content, pay for distribution, mix the two, that's how you grow. Cool. Yeah, yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:01:55 - 1:02:00) What was the, yeah, you have to do much research for the male one-star role? [Speaker 1] (1:02:01 - 1:02:15) Uh, no, he put out a lot of YouTube content, not like sexual. So he was like an ex-porn star, then he like became a YouTuber. But yeah, he's an interesting dude. I really like him. [Speaker 2] (1:02:15 - 1:02:20) What, um, like what first made you realize you're a writer? Is this when you started journaling back in the days? [Speaker 1] (1:02:22 - 1:04:47) Dude, so it's actually interesting when I think back on it. When I was in grade one, I loved to write. I would just write and write during class. And even when the class was done, I would just keep writing in my journal and the stories and stuff like that. And kind of killed my love of writing as I've progressed further in the school system, because you're writing these 2000 word essays on topics you do not care about. And although writing was my strongest subject in school, I just didn't like it. And same with college, you know, you're writing these dumb ass essays on stuff you don't care about in this format that is just crazy. And you got to use these fancy words and all that. And I was like, this is stupid. But when it came to Twitter, and I was writing about my ideas and my thoughts, building community, I really enjoyed it. I found my love for writing again. And I started actually self-educating, writing, reading books, like cash advertising, or writing tools by Roy Peter Clark, or, you know, 100 ways to improve your writing by Gary Provost. I just saw like, this is beautiful. Like you can craft words in a certain way, certain structure, and it produces an emotional response for the person, or you can communicate an idea much clearer, or you can persuade someone to do something. And it was just, I just loved it. Again, I felt like I was that kid in grade one. And I just love creating content and seeing the actual impact, you know, with an essay or whatever, it's, you know, you don't care about it. And then you're like, oh, I get a grade. Great. But you actually see the actual impact in real time, whether it's money, influence, or, or helping people in their lives. You're getting a message back. Oh, this is amazing. That's cool. And that's, that's where I think really sparked my love for writing again. And yeah, it's cool. And yeah, I never really saw myself as a writer until like nine months in on writing on Twitter. I'm like, yeah, I'm a writer. I classify as a writer. So yeah, it's been a journey. It's funny how it came full circle. [Speaker 3] (1:04:47 - 1:04:51) Yeah. Do you write much like long, long form content or is it mainly just? [Speaker 1] (1:04:51 - 1:06:16) Yeah. Yeah. So I, I write my newsletter every week and I've been doing that for a year and a half now. And that's the most meaningful thing, piece of content I create right now is my newsletter because I'm actually going in depth on, on my thoughts on stuff, you know, with Twitter or Instagram, you know, it's just a short form post and you know, whatever. But when people actually take the time you spend five, 10 minutes reading a newsletter from you, you know, you get to go in depth on a thought and actually I think it's, they're more likely to take action on something, but you know, a short form piece of content, they're scrolling onto the next thing. So my newsletter is where I put most of my effort when it comes to writing. And I've put a lot more focus on that in the past three weeks because I'm taking my newsletters, I'm turning on the YouTube videos. So it's kind of like I'm writing my script. So I'm going a lot more in depth, but yeah, I think long form is really important because you, you, not even for the audience, but for yourself because you go in depth on a thought and it's, I think it's very therapeutic and it also helps you build understanding because to convey a thought, you know, if you don't have cohesive ideas, if you don't say in a simplistic manner, it's not going to make sense to the audience. So you have to actually understand what you're talking about. It forces you to understand it. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:06:17 - 1:06:31) Like building a full-time online income to most people, it seems like such a pipe dream, you know, like what, like what you say, what would you say to someone who thinks like that's such a, you know, far outreaching fantasy and like what's actually possible for digital, for digital creators? [Speaker 1] (1:06:32 - 1:10:18) Yeah, man. I mean, the creator economy is just going to keep growing. I think it's going to double Goldman Sachs. I think it's going to double by 2027. I forget what the number is, but some crazy big number. But I mean, why not you? Really? Like you think about it, you know, you got Logan Paul, Jake Paul, all these people, they're not smarter than you. It's like, why not you? Why can't, why can't you create something? Why can't you create, you know, you don't need millions of vans, you know, you just create. If you think about it, you know, if you grow following over the span of a year, 10,000 followers, let's say 10,000, that's definitely doable. If you grow a follower, 10,000 followers, and you have a product or service or something for a thousand dollars, is it not, it's not realistic to assume you can get a hundred people out of 10,000 people to buy that. Well, it's just got $100,000 a year, you know, there, you know, chop it up at whatever price point you want. But man, it's, it's a lot more achievable than people think, but people are conditioned to, to color within the lines, you know, like, go to school, get a job, you know, invest in the S&P 500, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, it's like, okay, if you just like, kind of steer off the path of like traditional path a little bit, and you're okay with people questioning you and doubting you for the first few months, you just keep going off the path, you find this like crazy path that no one knows about, you know, they're, they're going on this like shitty path, you go, you're going on like, fun mountain and all this shit, maybe it's a trek to get up there, but kind of weird analogy. Let's go to fun mountain. Well, but it's a lot more doable. And I think if you follow people that have their head on straight, you know, like Dan Coe, or JK Molina, or I don't know, you find it, find it like a good group of people that are like Dan, fuck Dan Lok, or those, those, some of the people, those self improvement gurus or business gurus are just such jokes. But if you find people that you know, you can kind of tell they're authentic. And they're, they're not just trying to sell you a course 24 seven. But you consume content from them, you like actually listen to what they're saying. And they're laying out the roadmap for what to do. It's like, okay, that's definitely doable. You know, if I just do x, y, and z over a long enough time horizon, it's fair to assume that I'm going to see success, you know, if you put in consistent effort. And I think a lot of people, they maybe have this expectation that, oh, if I don't go viral, then I'm a failure, it's not going to work out. So, you know, well, it's two months in, and I'm not at 100,000 followers, like, your expectations are so it's like cognitive dissonance, man, you just got to have the expectation, I'm going to do this for 12 to 36 months. And, okay, if I get the 36 months, and I haven't seen any results, or much results, then okay, maybe it's fair to assume I'm not cut out for this. But you'd be shocked. I'm amazed at how some people look like how successful stuff, even myself at times. But it's so doable, man. It really is. It's just finding someone that lays out the roadmap, they're not a complete potato. And you actually take action on what they're saying, whether, you know, you're consuming a free resource from them or a paid resource. And you just execute on it, you have a long enough time horizon, you just do it, I guarantee you're going to see results. It's really, really that simple. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:10:18 - 1:10:41) And you got to be willing to invest in yourself. We consume so much, we spend so much in, I guess, non-meaningful acquisitions and goods. But when it comes to investing in yourself, it seems like such a struggle for some people to be like, oh, yeah, that's worth it. Oh, yeah, maybe I'll learn something worthwhile that could change and shift my entire life. [Speaker 1] (1:10:42 - 1:11:50) Yeah, dude. So I was procrastinating for a long time, reading one more book, listening to one more podcast. And it wasn't until I invested 75% of my savings, I had like eight grand saved up, and I paid Dan Coe six grand for mentorship. That's when I really lit a fire under my ass. I'm like, if I don't do this, I just wasted a bunch of money, and I'm going to feel like an absolute clown, I'm actually going to take action. I don't think everyone has to invest 80%, 75% of their savings to do it. For me personally, it worked really well because it lit a fire under my ass. I felt the pain of investing a significant portion of money. So it was kind of like the sunk cost fallacy working for you, where it's like, okay, now I got to take action. With a book, it's like, oh, I paid 25 bucks for it, whatever, I'm not going to read it or take action on it. And I think that's a trap a lot of people get into. It's like, oh, they're jerking themselves off, listening to podcasts, they feel like they're progressing. It's like, well, yeah, listen to podcasts, but take action on the shit too. Just something. For real. Yeah, 100%. [Speaker 2] (1:11:50 - 1:13:13) Yeah. I mean, I have a similar story. I mean, I've been someone who was always into learning, growing, and I feel like I hoarded knowledge for a long time. And I think it was like several years ago, I met someone at a coaching workshop and he hit me up on a sales call. And I ended up investing a pretty penny. I just threw it on a credit card. And that was a big deal for me. And the coaching I got, yeah, it was good. But I think the biggest thing for him, for me, was where he said, listen, okay, enough fucking bullshit. You're going to go, you're going to find a place, you're going to book the place, and you're going to lead your workshop. Because I've done a lot of different work in the health sphere and body work and somatics and trauma and all this other work. And so I went and put money down to book a place for the day. And then I was like, fuck, I got to fill it up. And I filled it up. And then I led a bunch of men in this workshop. And it was fucking incredible. I got all this awesome feedback. And I met someone there who was a mindset coach. And then we teamed up to do these monthly Zoom calls. And that led to the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And it's like this one decision to invest in myself and put down a little bit more money than I was comfortable with led to where we are right now, the three of us fucking having this conversation and what Joel and I have created. I mean, it's pretty incredible when you think about where it started. [Speaker 3] (1:13:13 - 1:13:50) But even in the process of monetizing this podcast, remember, initially, we were doing second half episode paid via Patreon. And we saved a bit of money on Patreon, maybe 4 or 5K. And then we're like, all right, how do we actually make a full-time living out of this? And we invested the entire thing into coaches to get us on the track of creating a group coaching program. And without that initial investment, this wouldn't be the full-time gig. Yeah. So, I mean, it hurts. It's painful because you don't understand. It's like, what if this doesn't pay off? What if it pays off fucking greater than you could ever imagine? [Speaker 1] (1:13:51 - 1:14:00) Straight up, dude. That's one of the biggest mindset hacks is what if it does work out? Really? Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:14:01 - 1:14:39) Straight up. It's a completely different reframe. And I know it's corny and we say it all the time, but it's like, what's the definition of insanity? It's like, you're going to keep doing the same fucking shit that you're doing and expecting your life to just turn into something just out of nowhere. No, you have to do something different. You got to start going to the gym every day. You got to hire the coach that inspires you and that resonates with you. Whatever. You got to sit down a few hours a day and start writing. That's it. You have to make a shift. You have to make a change. And that change is going to be uncomfortable because it's not the same thing that you've just built this complacency around. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:14:40 - 1:14:55) Fuck mediocrity, man. That's death to me. I'm not here for that shit. Why would I want to sit on the fence my entire life and not realize potential? And to me, that's what's most exciting is the realization of potential because it's infinite. [Speaker 1] (1:14:57 - 1:15:59) Yeah. And when you think about it too, man, we're all going to die one day. It's so good. It's cliche, but man, if you actually just think about it, isn't it crazy? You just cease to exist. It's such a crazy concept. Sometimes my brain just can't even wrap my head around. It's like, what do you mean? Forever? You're just dead forever. That's crazy. I know, dude. What do you think about it? It's like, well, goddamn, I'm going to lick the plate clean of life. I'm just going to do everything and fuck it. Just put yourself out there. Living a life of just going through the motions. You come home. It's a wife you tolerate. Your kids are like, oh, my God, my kids, they're such a handful. Give them the iPad and you just wake up. You hate your job. People don't respect you. Kids don't respect you. And you just do that every day until you fucking die. That is depressing. You're not even living, man. That is depressing shit. [Speaker 2] (1:16:00 - 1:16:01) You're not living. [Speaker 1] (1:16:01 - 1:16:01) Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:16:02 - 1:16:25) Yeah. Memento Mori, man. Memento Mori is a spiritual practice in itself, knowing that you will die and you can die at any moment. Any one of us right now, we don't know what tomorrow will bring. And so, how do you live when you know that death is inevitable? Do you use that? Do you cower in fear? Do you use that to inspire you to lick the fucking plate clean of life, like you said? I love that. I love that. I know. [Speaker 3] (1:16:26 - 1:16:52) Yeah. And the other big thing is the whole concept of imperfect action. Just take the fucking step forward. If you fall, it doesn't matter. If someone laughs at you, it doesn't matter. If someone leaves a fucking shitpost troll comment, at least you've taken a step forward and you're either going to win or you're going to learn. But one way or another, you're going to be in a different place than where you were before acting. [Speaker 1] (1:16:53 - 1:17:08) Yeah. But most people don't have the courage to try. Even then, that's a win. It's easy to criticize. Oh, you're trying to do XYZ. It's like, yeah, well, fuck around, find out, man. Yeah. What are you doing? [Speaker 2] (1:17:10 - 1:18:18) Yeah. The trolls are always the ones that want, it's the crabs in the bucket theory, man. Just want to keep you in the bucket, the bucket of the status quo, the bucket of comfort, the bucket of complacency, the bucket of what is. And it's like, we're trying to climb out of that shit or we have climbed out of it and we're doing what we're doing. And these people, whether you make the decision to stop drinking, whether you make the decision to stop going out, whether you make the decision to change your diet, leave your job, whatever. Most people that don't have that psycho-emotional fortitude or the education or the knowledge, man, they're just like, no, no, no. Because by you doing that, you signal something to them that triggers vulnerability that they don't want to deal with. And so they'll get into judgment, they'll attack you, they'll ridicule you, whatever the case may be. Because they can't sit with that pain of like, well, if what that person is doing is right, right, you know, whatever that means, what does that say about me? And most people can't sit with that, you know? And that's the basic dynamic that's going on, you know, in the world when you see people attacking and judging. It's like, but what if they're right? Can you sit with that? Can you sit with that? Oh, okay. [Speaker 1] (1:18:19 - 1:18:42) But most people don't. Yeah. So, yeah, it's pretty, when you think about it, you have to be in a pretty sad state in life if you take the time and energy to comment on someone else's post or whatever and just try to leave hate and try to bring it down. Like, that's a sad, sad life, man. It's kind of feel empathy toward those people. [Speaker 2] (1:18:42 - 1:20:19) Yeah. Also, you're just not really solid in who you are. The people who really know themselves or feel confident in what they know, they're not out there like, you have to, you have to, this is the truth. No, you have to know it, you know? And it's like, I just started doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu with my wife, you know? I'm totally new at it, but we went to the headquarters in Torrance, the Gracie University there. And it's like, Hannah or Gracie was talking about how the people who just start doing Jiu-Jitsu, they're more likely to be like, oh, well, if someone tries to fuck with me, I'm going to try this move out and whatever. But the people who have been doing it and understand the principles, they're not out there. They're trying to not get into a fight. They're just like, I don't need this. I know what I'm capable of. I'm not trying to go out there and force something or push something. So, I think there's a similar mindset that goes on with people who don't really know themselves or don't really know the subjects they're talking about and get so triggered when anything crosses their path that challenges it. Well, I mean, real power isn't allowed. I mean, it's more grounded. It just exudes off of you. I mean, I think back in the days, man, when I was a lot younger, I got into back and forth on Facebook, man, in my mid-twenties. I'd spend hours in a day trying to convince someone. It's so funny to think back of that younger part of me. And now it's like, I'm too busy living a dope life to be concerned about these kinds of things. [Speaker 1] (1:20:21 - 1:20:34) Yeah. Facts, bro. Yeah. It's crazy. It's a full-time job for a lot of people. It's always on Facebook too. Facebook's so toxic. It's crazy. You get the weird shit all day too. [Speaker 3] (1:20:35 - 1:20:36) Facebook's a wild west, man. [Speaker 2] (1:20:37 - 1:21:17) Yeah. Even with us, like in the beginning, we weren't really sharing tons of stuff on Facebook. We do a couple reels per episode usually. And there was this moment, I think a few of our reels went viral. And so now on Facebook, we never even planned it. We have a little bit more of a following. And so when we share a reel on Facebook, it gets so much... There are people that's getting on. I don't even watch them. I just see my notifications. This person commented, this person commented. And you just know these people are arguing over this reel that we posted that I don't even know what they're arguing about because I'm not paying attention. But Instagram doesn't really, at least for us, we don't really get that same kind of engagement. But yeah, Facebook's a trip. [Speaker 1] (1:21:17 - 1:21:19) Yeah. It's nuts. Yeah. It's crazy. [Speaker 3] (1:21:21 - 1:21:48) One other thing I wanted to touch on, when people start shifting into wanting to be a digital creator, wanting to be an online entrepreneur, and they start reframing their social media, who they're most afraid of is not strangers or randoms. It's their friends and their family. It's the people closest to them that know how they are on social media. Now, all of a sudden, they're trying something different. That's what holds them back the most. It's the fear of that judgment. [Speaker 1] (1:21:50 - 1:22:48) Yeah, dude, 100%. The big thing I would recommend too, if that's a hindrance, just create a new profile. Same name, just different profile. Really, it's definitely something that's uncomfortable. But yeah, I think you get over it after enough reps. It's so unsexy, but a lot of it's just reps, man. I had such imposter syndrome when I rebranded as a writer. It's like, oh, I don't got a degree. I'm not some successful novelist. But I just did it enough times where it's like, oh, yeah, I do this. It's funny too, because I've grown this big following, but you just realize people don't really care. It's like, they don't care what you're doing. They're like, oh, yeah, that's cool. Then they're on to the next thing. It's like, oh, yeah, you just realize no one really gives a fuck. Do whatever you want. It's true. [Speaker 2] (1:22:49 - 1:23:12) Also, at the end of the day, man, with this, it's like, are you effective? Are you effective? Do you provide something of value? We're moving past this stage of like, what letters are after your fucking name? I mean, I don't really have any letters after my name, and yet I feel very confident in my abilities when talking about health and talking about the things that I talk about. [Speaker 3] (1:23:13 - 1:23:16) You have a ZZIR after your name, don't you? [Speaker 2] (1:23:16 - 1:23:27) Yeah, those are my pronouns. Those are my pronouns, ZZIR. But I can't believe I didn't put them on my Zoom chat right now. Dakota, what do you think of me right now? This is hard. [Speaker 1] (1:23:27 - 1:23:28) Oh, geez, you're a piece of shit. [Speaker 2] (1:23:29 - 1:24:46) I am a piece of shit. I can't believe neither one of you have your pronouns listed after your names also. But yeah, man, it's like we are, we live in this information age, and it's like, you can read thousands of books, and you can learn in these workshops, and it's like, you gain all this knowledge as opposed to going through these conventional modes of schooling that are so rigid and indoctrinate you to think in a certain way. So yeah, man, most of the shit that I've learned that really has changed my life as a man, as a person, it happened after college. I went to college. I went to Boston University. Yeah, sure, I had the ability to memorize and regurgitate information. I didn't go to class. I just fucking popped a riddle in and fucking studied for 36 hours straight, memorized the material, went out and regurgitated it. I had that ability, so I was able to just do what I had to do to get the grade. But I left college, and I backpacked Europe for a few months, and I brought like 10 books with me. This was in 2002. And I was just traveling and reading, and I was like, whoa, I love reading. I love this shit. I wasn't that way really in college personally. And so that really started it for me. And so taking classes, reading books, traveling, that changed my life. So it's like the real education happened for me outside the academic system. [Speaker 3] (1:24:47 - 1:24:50) I love how you speak about your life journey twice in one podcast, Brian. [Speaker 2] (1:24:51 - 1:24:52) Well, you know, man, we're getting real. [Speaker 1] (1:24:52 - 1:25:05) We're keeping it real here. Straight up. Yeah, we need more kids traveling. That was the big transformative moment for me, just traveling, backpacking Asia. [Speaker 2] (1:25:05 - 1:25:42) Yeah, bro. In the old days, man, before we had our academic conventional schooling, that's what people did, man. They had a mentor. They read books. They maybe traveled around. They learned through experience. They learned a vocation. It was not like, hey, let's all get into a room. You have to raise your hand in order to go to the bathroom. Everyone gets the same education. Everyone gets treated the same way, even though we're unique individuals. And all of us, we learn differently. And it's just like education just isn't catered. It's just not catered to the individual in a traditional, more conventional schooling system. [Speaker 1] (1:25:43 - 1:25:45) Yeah. Now it's activism. [Speaker 2] (1:25:46 - 1:26:06) You know, I hear you, man. So, man, we're coming up to the end. Do you have any final words? What would you say to someone? Because now you're 25. So someone who's 17, 18, 20, 23, even older, but like, let's just say like someone younger who's, you know, struggling in life and, and, you know, unsure of what exactly they want to do. Like, what would you say to them? [Speaker 1] (1:26:07 - 1:28:00) I'd say lean into discomfort. That's been the big thing my whole life was, you know, if it's uncomfortable, it's a sign that you're changing. Whether it's imposter syndrome, you know, if you're experiencing imposter syndrome, then it's a sign that your brain's trying to protect you from something because you're doing something new. But to become someone more than you are currently, you have to do new stuff. It's like placing stress on your muscles. To build muscle, you need to take on things that are, you know, you're not used to, break down the muscle and then you rebuild bigger. So I think adopting that philosophy in all areas of life, but yeah, man, leaning into discomfort and learning to trust yourself and build your confidence, you know, stack small wins and realize you don't have to have everything figured out. But, you know, the, just trying, you know, just trying to pursue what you want and having faith over a long enough time horizon, it's going to work out. Really like contemplating death a lot. Not suicide, but death. And it really puts things into perspective. You really think about it. It's like, okay, am I going to just live a mediocre life and then just die one day? Or am I going to like put myself out there, do some crazy shit. You know, maybe it's uncomfortable, but I'm going to live a fucking kick-ass life and I'm going to meet some cool people. I'm going to, you know, have some dope kids that I like and do work that I love and all this stuff. It really puts it into perspective. Like, you know, read some Marcus Aurelius or whatever stoic philosophy stuff. I think it would really guide you in life, but yeah, man, learn an online skill. I think that's, if I could give a recommendation, definitely learn an online skill that makes people money or improves their health to some degree. [Speaker 3] (1:28:01 - 1:28:39) Well said, bro. Dakota, man, I've loved the last 90 minutes hanging out with you. I mean, very, very impressive, the trajectory that you've taken and, you know, the path that you've taken. It's beautiful to see, really, man, you know, someone move the needle from, you know, a place where, you know, life wasn't feeling so good into something that's really meaningful and purposeful. And I look forward to continuing to see, you know, the growth and the journey and observing from, you know, afar. Just in closing, dude, I guess, I mean, how can people contact you? Can I get in touch with you? Like what, any offers you might have at the moment? [Speaker 1] (1:28:39 - 1:28:49) Uh, yeah, I guess like the main thing and just my website dakotarobertson.net.com was taken by another Canadian social media marketer. I tried to get it, but I couldn't. [Speaker 3] (1:28:50 - 1:28:50) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:28:51 - 1:29:14) Yeah. Fuck you. It's a woman, but fuck you still equality. No, but yeah, I guess I'd add dakotarobertson.net and then, uh, Twitter acts as my main social media. So at wrongs to write W R I W R I T E ironic. I can't write. Um, those are the main ones, Instagram, but just go to Twitter. Twitter's based. [Speaker 3] (1:29:15 - 1:30:05) Cool. All right, guys, thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Take care. Just a reminder. This is the final curtain call for rise above the herd. Our eight week group program for truth seekers. Um, you know, this program, uh, if you are sincere in doing the work, it will change your life. Um, it will provide you with a deeper sense of heroism and a deeper, clearer knowing of who you are and what you're born to give to the world. And more importantly, the empowerment to take action and bring that into actualization. We'd love to meet you. Love to connect with you. Love to go on this journey with you. There is an up until Wednesday, the 11th of October to apply that's to join, to sign up. That's the cutoff. Thanks for listening. Thanks for the support. Take care.