“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.” – Franz Kafka
It’s 7 am in Mexico City.
I’m sitting in the only good coffee shop that opens this early, wrestling with the blank page.
This doesn’t happen often.
I’ve been writing these emails for over 15 years, so usually the words flow pretty easily.
But today I have something important to tell you, and I’m not quite sure how to say it.
For context:
We’ve had a huge flow of new subscribers join us over the past week.
(if that’s you, welcome — if you’ve been here a while, you’ll want to see this too)
So I should probably take a moment to tell you exactly who I am and what I do…
…And make it simple, clear, and compelling enough to keep you reading.
The problem is, the simple answer would be a lie.
Sitting around the campfire at our retreat last summer, a long-time attendee put it this way:
“When friends ask me what we do here, I never know what to say.
We build businesses, but it’s not just about business.
We go deep on self-development and spirituality, but it’s not about that either.
We talk about training the mind, life strategy, relationships, communication, human potential — basically everything.
What we do here isn’t about any single topic.
But when we bring it all together…
This is, hands down, the best place in the world.”
Moments later, as the fire began to die down…
Long-time coaching client Mason Vranes turned to me and said:
“That’s your greatest strength… and biggest weakness.”
Mason’s business, FundLaunch, just passed 40M in revenue, and he’s well on his way to a 100M exit before he turns 30.
So he knows the rules of the game:
Niche down.
Speak to one “avatar.”
Keep making your offer more specific until it clicks.
Then, hit the gas and scale it as hard and fast as it’ll go.
No doubt, that approach works:
It’s how my first business, EGTBasketball, cracked 8 figures in lifetime sales, and held the top spot in the basketball training industry for nearly a decade.
So I know it would be better for business if I crammed what I offer into a neat little box…
But every time I try, we lose what makes our work so uniquely powerful.
Since you’re here, I’m guessing you feel the same way:
There isn’t a single word that fully describes who you are or what you’re looking for, so being forced down a one-dimensional path feels like cutting off a piece of yourself.
The problem is, every available path feels one-dimensional.
Business gurus tell you spirituality is make-believe.
(sit down, shut up, work 12 hours a day, cut out all your friends, and when money doesn’t fill the emptiness inside, go make more money)
Spiritual teachers tell you ambition is ego.
(sit down, be peaceful, love everyone, wave these crystals at the chick with dreadlocks sitting across from you in the sharing circle so she likes your “vibes”)
Self-improvers tell you… well, a whole lot of sh*t.
(sit down, stop fapping, start maxxing, join my Skool community to farm that good aura so you can finally get ahead of 99% of people and escape the matrix so fast it feels illegal)
But that’s the internet, and it’s the only one we’ve got.
So you keep trying to fit yourself into systems built by simpler people with simpler goals…
But no matter how much content you consume, and how much progress you make….
It still feels like something essential hasn’t clicked yet.
That’s where our work begins.
I spent my 20s searching for a deeper path, as I scaled my first business while travelling to over 40 countries, training intensively in Taoist meditation and Amazonian plant medicine, and obsessively studying human potential.
I’ve spent my 30s, so far, in a “creative retirement”, writing, teaching, running retreats, and privately coaching 6, 7, and 8 figure founders.
I haven’t seen it all yet, but I’ve seen a hell of a lot.
And here’s the good news:
The most successful individuals I’ve worked with aren’t sacrificing parts of themselves to achieve their goals.
They’re not choosing between money and spirituality, outer achievement and inner mastery, ambition and relationships, or success and freedom.
They’re integrating all of it, because that’s what mastery is.
If that’s the game you’re playing, welcome.
You may have just found exactly what you’ve been looking for.
- T
P.S. Over our next few emails, we’ll talk more about this integrated approach to business, life strategy, and self-mastery.
In the meantime, here’s where I recommend going deeper.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”― Robert A. Heinlein
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