The backstory: I’ve always gone to a decent barber. But for months, my wife has been telling me I need a better haircut—arguing that since I host a podcast and speak on stage, I need to look the part. The final straw came when my mom, who rarely says anything negative, asked, “What’s up with the messy look?”

So, I turned to AI to find a top-notch stylist—someone with a track record of working with public figures. AI gave me three options in Austin. I picked the one with the better Instagram portfolio and the higher price tag. I actually wanted to pay 4 times the normal price because I was paying not for his time, but an outcome that was valuable to me.

The moral of the story: I had a high-value problem that could only be solved by someone of a certain caliber. I pre-judged and pre-trusted them based on strong content and a premium price point.

It was worth every penny, and I’m never going back to my old barber.

I’m hosting a Masterclass: Five Mistakes That Keep Founders and Experts From Building a Brand in Their Own Name

We’ll cover the mental traps that keep perfectly capable leaders from being sought out the same way I searched for my new stylist.

If you could use a little deprogramming - Claim your spot here.

If you haven’t seen my latest pod - check out my talk with David Simons. He is the founder of Kingdom Social Media, where he helps experts sell their knowledge through webinars and challenges.

In this episode, he walks through the exact method: how to position authority before you teach, why storytelling converts where lectures confuse, the Parable Presentation Method, and how to fill a webinar starting with nothing but your phone contacts and Gmail list.

Think about that. Nobody knows what the next five years look like. AI, careers, the very pillars of human activity — all in motion. And the biggest cinematic event of the year is a story older than Rome.

When everything is changing, the things that never change become the most valuable.

The Odyssey is a cornerstone of Western civilization, alongside the Bible. Every hero’s journey you’ve ever loved runs on its template. Christopher Nolan and some of the finest actors alive make it spectacular. But spectacle is the smallest thing it offers.

Meet yourself in this story and you get a shot at becoming someone better.

I watched the film. Before I did, I spent hours in the history behind it. And one insight explains why the poem has lasted: we want a hero and a villain — one way right, the other wrong.

Homer tells us we are both hero and antihero, and the best we can do is be more of one than the other. There are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Choosing your tradeoffs well is the whole game.

Here are three timeless lessons I took away.

1. the call will cost you. the refusal will cost you more.

Odysseus tried to dodge the war. He feigned madness, sowed his fields with salt, anything to stay home. The greatest adventure in Western literature almost didn’t happen because its hero wanted to stay comfortable.

If you’re like me, you’ve felt your calling for years. Success, stability, comfort make refusing it easy. Every year of waiting feels like the responsible thing to do.

But dreams don’t die dramatically. They die in the waiting for the right time, which never comes.

Answer the call and storms are guaranteed. Cyclops, sirens, shipwreck. But the storms also produce the you who returns to Ithaca — the one who can do things the you who never left could never do. The battles and the scars are part of the gift.

Even if the call is unclear, confusing, persistent — answer it.

I often second-guess my proclivity to rush into adventures that cost me. I almost always land in the same place: answering the call, and paying for the adventure, made me who I am.

2. glory devastates. service builds. hiding does neither.

In the underworld, Odysseus meets Achilles — the most glorious warrior who ever lived, the man who chose a short, glorious life over a long one. Achilles tells him he’d rather be a poor farmhand alive than king of all the dead. He got everything glory promised, and it was worth nothing.

Then Odysseus makes the same mistake in miniature. He defeats the Cyclops with pure cunning, sails away — and can’t resist shouting his name from the ship. That one flex summons a god’s curse. He left home with twelve ships full of men. He returns as the only survivor.

Me-centric actions will devastate your life every time. At the peak of my ego years, entertaining millions as an artist, I learned the cost and rebuilt toward a service-driven life.

But there’s a second ditch on this road, and I see accomplished people in it constantly. They’re so afraid of looking self-seeking that they never build at all. They call it humility. It’s fear wearing better clothes. I did that for years too, and had to shed the fear to lean into calling.

The second ditch is more dangerous, because it’s masked as a virtue.

3. love makes every decision directionally correct.

Odysseus had no map. Twenty years of wrong turns, dead ends, and detours through hell itself.

Then the ultimate test. Calypso, a goddess, offers him immortality. Eternal youth, eternal pleasure, zero storms. He sits on her beach and weeps for Penelope. He chooses a mortal woman, an aging body, and a brutal road home over living forever.

That choice is the entire epic in one scene.

I come from three generations of broken homes. At 26 I made one central decision: I will probably fail at many things, but I will not fail at marriage. Deb and I are approaching 28 years. She takes my breath away every day. She is the home in every way — the north star behind every move I make. This one thing has never failed me.

You want certainty before you move — a guaranteed roadmap, the next five years de-risked.

That’s never coming.

What’s available is better: a why anchored in love. For the people you serve, the family you adore, the work itself. Love makes decisions directionally correct when nothing else is clear.

This is not in the movie, but here’s one image Homer saves for the end of his epic poem.

Odysseus finally stands in his own house after twenty years — and Penelope doesn’t run to him. Twenty years of suitors and impostors have taught her caution. So she tests him. She orders a servant to move their marriage bed out of the bedroom.

Odysseus erupts. Because he knows that he built that bed with his own hands, carved from a living olive tree still rooted in the ground beneath the house. It cannot be moved. And only the two of them know it.

That secret is how she knows it’s really him.The thing they built together that cannot be moved.

The bed is the marriage. Made by hand. Alive at the root. Anchored too deep for any storm to drag out of place.

If there’s one overarching lesson in the Odyssey, it’s this: Adventure gets you out the door. Only love gets you home.

Build your bed from a living tree.

Forward it to someone who needs to answer the call to adventure. And if someone forwarded it to you, subscribe so you never miss one.

I just dropped my episode with JJ Virgin. Four NYT bestsellers. Forty years in a very crowded market. Built a company, sold it, got kicked out of it, bought it back.

None of that is the reason to watch. The reason is a tension she named better than anyone I’ve talked to.

You want to be known. You want to be trusted. You’ve wanted it for years. And you can’t say it out loud — because you fear people will it’s arrogant and vain. So instead of putting yourself out there, you get another certification. Another degree. More letters after your name.

You convince yourself this next certification will make you credible and worthy of trust - and deep down you know you’re just hiding. Delaying the moment you put yourself out there.

And JJ unpack why trust doesn’t come from any of it, but from the very thing you were trained never to show. Your humanity. Your story. Your scars.

The thing you hide is the thing that people want to see and resonate with.

Here’s the proof, and it may sting a little. Forbes found that 82% of people go to social media to check if you’re real before they buy. Not your credentials. Not your resume. You. If they look and find nothing human, they move on. Someone less qualified, more visible, gets the person you were meant to help.

Your desire to be known is actually a sense of responsibility, not a vanity. Hiding isn’t humility, it’s fear.

If you’ve ever felt that tension, watch this one.

If you’re done hiding - join the Passion to Profit Lab wait list and you’ll be the first to know when it opens.

If you want a perfect gift to yourself, to friends and family that will put a smile on your face about living in the US - my Little Book of Big Reasons to Love America is it.

Get it here.

Eric Metaxas, bestselling author of Revolution: The Birth of The Greatest Nation in the History of the World said this about my book:

“Christian Ray Flores reminds us that what we have in America is a rare and extraordinary gift, not the norm across the world. His remarkable stories are a wake-up call we desperately need.”

Freedom - roughly 72% of the world lives under some form of authoritarian rule. That’s why it falls to immigrants like me, who’ve lived the alternative, to remind everyone else how precious freedom is. It’s not normal. It’s a privilege.

Entrepreneurship - prosperity is a precondition to happiness, and prosperity is generated by one thing: business. America has an entrepreneurial culture unlike anywhere else on earth. The idea generates the culture, the culture generates the prosperity. It’s impossible to overstate how not normal that is. And for a case study in how fast that culture can create scarcity - just watch the states and cities electing socialist policymakers.

Faith - a prosperous society’s relationship to spirituality moves in cycles. We’re quick to shake off religious tradition, then just as quick to rediscover it and see how central a transcendent practice really is. America holds every kind of faith, and roughly 50% claim no religious affiliation.

What the stats don’t capture is how deep the Judeo-Christian baseline runs through the culture itself - a shared moral and ethical framework everyone inherits, believer or not. In America, even atheists think Christian thoughts and see the world through a Christian lens.

Because of it, we build families, defend freedom, believe in entrepreneurship, and strive. Dysfunction, darkness, and mess included - America is an extraordinary place to live. And I’m proud to be a citizen.

Speaking of daring greatly - the Passion to Profit Lab, my 4-day challenge, is going live soon. If you’re an expert, business owner, consultant, or CEO - this is for you.

Four days. One hour a day. We’ll find your unique competitive edge, build a business model that gives you more impact and income, and develop a brand strategy that makes your brilliance known to the world.

Join the waitlist here and we’ll let you know the moment it’s live.

Happy 4th of July everyone! God bless America.

I just shot a video for a client — I know you’ll love it when it comes out. It’s built around the ultimate underdog story: a shepherd boy named David versus a giant named Goliath. We all know it, even if we’ve never opened a Bible.

I pulled five insights from David’s story that I think will hit close to home — especially if you’re in that place where what got you here won’t get you there.

Your sense of destiny arrives before your first win — learn to trust it. David was told by the prophet Samuel that he would be king long before he became one. He walked back to his sheep carrying a secret destiny with zero proof. Every person I know who built something real lived in that gap — knowing before proving.

Your past experiences equip you for future victories — learn to make the connection. When Saul said David had no business fighting Goliath, David didn’t argue qualifications. He pointed to a lion he killed with his bare hands and a bear he fought off to protect his flock. Experiences that looked like shepherd problems but were actually warrior training. Most people are sitting on more than they realize. They just haven’t read their own story the way David read his.

Your range of life experiences is as important as your specialized skill. David was a fighter — but what got him into the king’s inner circle was music. He had been playing the harp for King Saul, literally performing in the palace, long before anyone knew him as a warrior. The breadth of who you are opens doors your expertise alone never will.

The weapon you’ve mastered is always better than the weapon the world hands you. Saul dressed David in his best armor. David took a few steps and took it all off — impressive as it was, it didn’t fit his way of doing things. He picked up his sling instead. A shepherd’s weapon. His mastery of it gave him an unfair advantage in a fight he couldn’t win up close.

Attach motivation to the reward — it will carry you through the rough seas on the way there. David asked specifically what the reward was for the risk nobody else in Saul’s army was willing to take. The king’s daughter. Freedom from taxes. Every successful person I know accepts high risk when the reward is high enough. Clarity on the reward isn’t greed. It’s fuel.

“Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.” - Proverbs

King Solomon wrote that. I think he was writing about his father — a shepherd boy who got skilled in private, in a field nobody was watching, and eventually became a king.

You don’t need to be a giant to win. You just need to keep getting skilled in the work — especially when no one is watching.

If you’re ready to take on your next giant, the Passion to Profit Lab will equip you for the fight. Click here.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

If you’ve missed my epic story of having Michael Jackson at my event and what he taught me about personal branding. You should definitely check it out.

Happy belated Father’s Day! I’m writing this as the house is still asleep. Two of my three daughter and my niece came over last night to have a Father’s Day breakfast with me today.

I’ve done and still do a few cool things I’m proud of, but a house full of love is by far the greatest accomplishment of my life. My girls love spending time with Deb and I and we love having them around.

When people ask what the secret is, we know exactly what it is: weaving our lives together like a tapestry. When they were little - we somehow landed on this concept of their formation as human beings to be our primary responsibility. We rebelled against a conveyer belt way of seeing them in short bursts of “quality time” and opted on integrating our lives with theirs to the maximum degree possible. We just built a life around being around each other all the time. That’s it.

It’s a lost way and it wins every time. It feels impossible to most simply because of our short memory. Until just 200 years ago in all of human existence - this was the way and it wins because human nature does not change quickly.

The same is true of professional development. Education as primarily a system of transfer of information has become irrelevant. Information is free and everywhere. What has always been and always will be the winning formula is following someone with real mastery - doing what they do, saying what they say, learning to think like they think.

This weeks Xponential Podcast drop is about this lost way making a comeback as illustrated by a crazy story of my first career success in entertainment being possible by my virtual apprenticeship from Michael Jackson and him amazing attending one of our events in person.

Beyond some sick dance moves by yours truly, you’ll see some cool footage of MJ and I - along with the framework of how the lost way of apprenticeship works - and wins.

P.S. If you’ve been following me for awhile and are, in fact, convinced that your expertise deserves to be known and trusted beyond your network - join the waitlist of the Passion to Profit Lab. It’s a online challenge - 4 days, 1 hour a day coached by me to find your edge, build your brand and monetize your brilliance.

It usually starts with passion. You want to build something, help people, create real value. And you do — you build it. Somewhere in that process, you find the profit too. The status. The comfort. But you also find the complexity. And slowly, without ever deciding to, you go from builder to maintainer. From leader to operator. That’s where passion quietly slips out the back door.

Here’s the part that’s harder to see: you keep growing. Maturing. Recognizing patterns others miss. Your vision gets sharper, your expertise deepens — and at some point, even the profit you’ve built starts to feel inadequate next to who you’ve become. Because while you’ve been operating and maintaining, the world simply doesn’t know you exist.

That’s the passion to profit gap. I’ve sat across the table from a lot of people sitting with it — brilliant people, successful by every measure, who still feel like something’s missing. Usually it’s this: the edge they’ve built over decades has never been named, packaged, or shown to the world the way it deserves.

I’ve been working on something new — taking the work that normally takes months and compressing into a four day group coaching challenge. One hour a day, live online.

I’m calling it the Passion to Profit Lab — because closing that gap, the one I just described, is exactly what it’s built to do.

You’re the first people I’m telling.

If you read this newsletter, I know you think about these things — your edge, your brand, what you’re really worth — more than most people do.

So if any of this hit home, I put up a waitlist. The lab is not open yet, but you’ll be first in line when it is ( I’m thinking in about a week.)

Join Waitlist

Also — after a bit over a month away from the podcast for a variety of reasons, I’m back with a string of new interviews coming out soon. First one’s already up.

I sat down with Markus Kaulius because his story grabbed me. Grew up broke. Broken home, no dad around, no confidence. Then at 15, on a flight to Hawaii, something clicked. He came home a different person — cold-called a CEO, talked his way into a yes, started a business out of his bedroom. Sold the company. Wrote a bestseller. Now he’s running an investment fund with billionaires in the room.

But honestly? What stuck with me most was the personal stuff. 21 years married — same as me. He broke a generational curse of divorce that had hit his whole family. That’s where we really connected.

If you’ve got that burning feeling that you’re meant for more — and the doubts that come with it — this one’s for you.

Follow Markus here.

We started the Ascend Academy with nothing. No funding. No infrastructure. Just a gut feeling and a few friends who said yes.

I’m telling you that story today because most leaders I know are missing a mission outside their business. They care — but are too busy building. And they bought into the myth that giving back is something you do after you’ve arrived.

That arrived state keeps moving back - like the horizon. Here’s what I know to be true — you don’t give because you finally have enough. You give because giving is how you stop believing you don’t. It trains you. It breaks the scarcity thinking that is running your decisions.

And the freedom you’re trying to build for someone like Sheila — you’re building it in yourself at the exact same time.

I arrived in Mozambique at age seven — it was my fourth country. My family had been refugees in Chile after my dad was imprisoned in a concentration camp, and when he got a job offer in a country that had just gotten its independence, we went.

It was a rough place — food shortages, civil war in the north, bombings in the city — but it was also the happiest place in the world for a kid. We roamed the streets, got in fights, went to the beach, took road trips to wild beautiful places. It was full of life, freedom and natural beauty.

Then I grew up, moved away, got an education — and that chapter faded into a distant memory. It became a story I told friends, not really part of my present. I was building a thriving career as a recording artist, fully consumed, and even when things were going well I never felt like I’d arrived.

Scarcity tends to be just part the entrepreneurial journey even when on paper things are going well. I was playing sports arenas and still felt the scarcity. The goal posts kept moving no matter what I achieved.

In that headspace philanthropy felt like something other people did — richer people, people who had finished building. I hadn’t finished, so it wasn’t my turn. Then a friend who was serving orphans changed my mind. I realized I had something to give now, not someday.

That slowly became a lifestyle, and that lifestyle slowly transformed my scarcity thinking into something else entirely. I discovered that when you devote your time, talent and treasure to someone with less, you go from lacking to overflowing in all other areas as well.

Serving the less fortunate in places like Ukraine and Latin America became second nature - and my kids grew up going on these trips with us, giving them a generous character and also a great antidote against entitlement.

Years later that became the Ascend Academy — a few kids in one of the poorest neighborhoods on earth, a meal, computers, English lessons, character mentorship — with one goal: change the trajectory of an entire family line.

I can’t tell you how this mystery happens exactly, but a truly abundant life only happens when we acknowledge and serve those in need and scarcity. It’s not just abundance in love, gratitude and meaning - it’s actually abundance of possibility and resources. They just show up out of nowhere to fill the space you want to fill. I’ve seen this spiritual principle happen time and time again.

I’m working on an episode on this but for now - please enjoy a quick 2 minute video that will speak louder than a thousand words.

In the spirit of abundance, I’m looking for partners, angels and donors to grow this work, and have a specific list of needs I believe we’ll meet from the generosity of the people who read my newsletter.

If you’re moved to compassion in action. Just respond to this email and we’ll talk.

Enjoy

At Xponential, we focus on personal brand strategy. And for anyone whose business lives online — the correlation between their presence and their revenue is the most obvious. Direct.

That’s who shows up in my inbox first. But it’s not where the biggest opportunity is.

The biggest opportunity is the CEO attracting institutional investors. The architecture firm head winning multi-million dollar contracts. The law firm making a quantum leap because the founder has a brand that transcends their natural networks. The luxury real estate guy who doesn’t need referrals because his YouTube audience comes to him.

At a party just yesterday, I was talking to two friends who look at dozens of multi-million dollar deals every week. Both of them said the same thing — the difference between a massive win and an anemic deal is almost always bad storytelling, weak communication, and a leader with no personal brand. Both complained how CEOs drive them crazy by simply not telling stories well. They think the numbers and track record of a business should do the job, they just don’t.

My friends were preaching to the choir.

Two common blindspots we teased out of this conversation over wine and cheese.

1 - Stories sell, not just term sheets.

2 - Stories are told by story tellers, not institutions.

For better or worse, this is just the reality.

Building and running a successful business takes leadership, vision, and entrepreneurial spirit. That’s a rare breed. But going from leader and operator to thought leader and legacy builder is an entirely different skill set. And the ones who close that gap — they don’t just grow. They become the category.

If that’s you — here are the five levers. You don’t need to nail all of them. Two or three done well will change the game.

1. Polished Packaging

Think about the first time someone unboxed an iPhone. What Apple did to consumer electronics — that feeling of intentionality before you even touched the product — is what great personal brand media does for a leader. When everything you put out feels considered, it elevates your authority before you say a word.

2. Distinctiveness

The bell curve of mediocrity has never been thicker. AI slop is everywhere. Which means a distinct set of ideas — ones that stick, that are quotable, that people forward to someone else — is now the winning ingredient. The signature concepts are already inside you. They’re in the way you think about your industry, the frameworks you’ve developed, the hard-won lessons you’ve never bothered to organize and share. That’s the asset.

3. Practical Value

This isn’t about being inspirational. It’s about knowing your audience so precisely that when you unpack an idea — from the high-level concept down to the specific steps — they feel like you’re describing their exact situation. Their problem. Their stuck point. Their path to the win. When someone finishes reading your content and thinks “I could have paid for that” — that’s the signal. That’s the level of specificity that builds the kind of trust that converts.

4. Uniqueness

This is where you lean into the quirks. The rough edges. The parts of yourself you’ve been quietly editing out because they felt too unpolished for the rooms you’re in. The ones who win here are the ones who put it out there with confidence anyway.

5. Charisma

The je ne sais quoi. That pull people feel toward your presence before they can explain why. It shows up in how you tell a story — whether it lands or loses the room. It shows up in your body language, your eye contact, the way you hold space when you speak. It shows up in whether people lean in or check their phone. It sounds like a gift. It isn’t. It’s a craft. And like every craft on this list, it responds to the right kind of work.

None of these are gifts. All five are skills. Every single one can be cultivated and coached.

Two or three operating at a high level is enough to stand out in your field and own a real advantage in the marketplace.

The only question is whether you stay on the laurels of a successful leader and operator — or bridge the gap to legacy builder by finally taking your personal brand seriously.

I haven’t posted a new Xponential video in three weeks. For someone who coaches others on the power of consistency in content creation — and lives by it — that’s not a small thing. But what filled those three weeks made it worth it.

Last night I was standing at a graduation party, tears running down my face, stopping every few minutes to say thank you to people who have known my family for over a decade. Parents. Friends. People who showed up in the hard moments and the good ones. All three of my daughters are now college graduates. An era ended for Deb and me. That was last night.

Three weeks ago, a friend’s son died. Hundreds of people gathered to grieve together.

In between — a baptism of a friend.

A surgery of my daughter.

Another graduation of my oldest daughter. Five moments.

All of them held by the same thing. I’ve spent fifteen years deliberately giving up some of my autonomy. Not because I had to. I still lean hard toward freedom. I’ve engineered my life for more choices, more presence, maximum agency. But I also realized that true freedom does not mean going it alone.

People are messy. Community is inefficient. It will slow you down, cost you something, and at times break your heart. But we are wired for it — and the research on what happens when we walk away from it is striking.

Investigative journalist and bestselling author David Epstein just released Inside the Box. The research on what happens to people who walk away from community confirmed what I’ve felt and been intentional about for fifteen years.

People with high social engagement — clubs, faith communities, volunteer groups, showing up regularly for something beyond themselves — have a 42% lower risk of death. Forty-two percent.

We left. We left the clubs, the civic organizations, the faith communities. We optimized for personal freedom. And the people chasing maximum personal satisfaction report being less happy than those who accepted the friction of doing life with others.

What makes it worse is that disconnection has become so common it no longer feels like a problem. It just feels like life. We are paying a steep price for it.

Modern doesn’t mean progress. In this case it’s regress.

The answer isn’t giving up freedom or agency. It’s giving up some autonomy for the sake of something that will outlast you — healthy, rooted, committed community.

For my paid subscribers, I’ll lay out my 10 move playbook from the last fifteen years that led me to a life full of love.

And I’ll leave everyone else with this video my daughter Bella found of herself talking about graduation — fast forwarding to the moment she walked as a Summa Cum Laude graduate.

Read more

It’s the quiet hour before dawn; my kids are home, the house is still asleep, and we’re preparing to celebrate Mother’s Day as a family.

There is no work in the human experience more vital than motherhood. My wife, Deb, is the love of my life and a true matriarch—the queen of our household. I also carry the legacy of my own mother, a single mom who laid down her life for my sister and me. So much of who I am today is because of her sacrifice.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms. I want to send an extra thank you to the single mothers out there: thank you for “spending yourselves” to ensure a bright future for your children.

the reshuffling

One of the greatest opening lines in historical writing belongs to Gregory of Tours, a 6th-century bishop who watched an empire disintegrate in real time and still had to get up in the morning:

“A great many things keep happening in this world of ours, some of them good, some of them bad.”

If it sounds banal — that’s the genius. The man chronicled the collapse of Rome’s western order, the chaos that followed, the whole brutal reshuffling of who mattered and who didn’t. And the most honest thing he could say was: things happen. Good and bad. Always.

I’m writing this from the same posture.

Nothing has changed. And everything is changing.

We are entering a storm of unprecedented scale — not a metaphor, a genuine restructuring of work as a category of human activity. Times roll. The reshuffling accelerates. And still — people act surprised. Complain. Feel like victims of something that was always coming.

Victims get paralyzed. Victors get mobilized.

Overnight, entire skill categories are collapsing in value. Entry-level knowledge workers. Junior coders. The people who were promised that doing the thing well enough would be enough.

Meanwhile, electricians, plumbers, and craftsmen are ascending. And quietly, unexpectedly — so are the people who read widely, think across disciplines, understand human nature, and have lived something real. The humanities are having their revenge. The education everyone called impractical turns out to be the only one that transfers.

Here’s what navigating storms since early childhood taught me: the paralysis is the danger. Not the storm.

The storm will sink many. It will fill the sails of the few.

The ones most exposed are not the weak — they’re the talented. The high performers who traded agency for salary. Who chose to be exceptional doers inside someone else’s structure rather than builders of their own. That trade made sense once. The market has stopped honoring it.

The ones who move through this are the directors. The builders. The people who treat AI not as a threat to manage but as an amplifier to master.

More and more of what we do at Xponential is exactly that — fusing this technology with deep expertise to build something the market cannot ignore. The clearer that fusion becomes, the more extraordinary the outcomes we see.

You will win in ways you cannot yet imagine.

None of us can.

↓ In a recent Xponential episode I lay out the exact tools and frameworks driving this. Watch it.

And if something in this post named what you’ve been feeling — here’s what I’d tell you:

The goal isn’t to survive the storm inside a structure that might not survive it either. The goal is to build something that belongs to you. A personal brand strategy rooted in what is deeply, irreplaceably human about you — pointed directly at the people who want to work with you, not the company you happen to work for.

The good news is better than most people realize. A visionary with real AI skill can do the work of ten. The gap between a builder who has mastered these tools and everyone else is widening by the month. You don’t need an army. You need clarity, craft, and the right amplifier.

That’s the work we do at Xponential. A couple of spots are opening in May. If you’ve read this far and something has been building in you — reply with the word May. We’ll have a quick conversation about details and fit.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Top 1% Use AI Differently—Everyone Else Becomes a Commodity

I’ll tell you the crazy story of how Michael Jackson — at the time the biggest star on the planet — came to an event we were hosting for orphans in Moscow in the mid-nineties, how he was the reason I went into music and had massive success.

More importantly, I’ll tell you why this story unlocks the secret to your success in any area.

Unfortunately for my daughter Bella, who was sitting next to me, I was leaning over every few minutes to share a fountain of knowledge about every aspect of Michael’s life. Thankfully, she found it entertaining.

I knew every word of every song, every intonation and rhythmic vocal pattern, every dance move, every shot in every music video. I know every turning point in Michael’s biography, the name of his manager, who produced and played on every album, and what mic he used to record Thriller. I hadn’t thought about any of this in decades — until last night.

The reason for any “overnight success” is obsessive learning from someone way ahead of you for years before the big break comes. And it always comes if you stay with it. I can tell you insane details about the work ethic, strategic moves, personal and business lives of a whole slew of people I obsessed over — not just as a fan, but as an apprentice. Prince. Boyz II Men. Terence Trent D’Arby. Bobby Brown. Every one of them also obsessed and apprenticed under masters they’d never met. Eventually you may be lucky enough to meet your heroes.

I met George Duke, Al Jarreau, C&C Music Factory, Chaka Khan — and many others you’ve never heard of. I was lucky enough to share the stage with some of them.

There are three stages to every journey to mastery.

Imitate — you do what they do, period. Not even close to as good. Mechanically and faithfully.

Iterate — you create variations of what you’ve learned and make it second nature.

Integrate — you synthesize your own original style, voice, and signature brand.

At any point in history, with any notable person — this is what happens. It’s the way of mastery.

The trick is to know it and have the humility to wholeheartedly imitate the master, in the hopes of someday becoming a master yourself.

I’ve never stopped doing this. I still do it at 57 with every new skill I learn.

Imitate. Iterate. Integrate.

Can you recognize an apprentice in this picture?

It started with the moonwalk. I learned it from playing, pausing, and rewinding Michael’s Billie Jean performance — the moment the world was introduced to that magical move. I learned every choreography he had in his videos and combined it with the breakdancing I was doing at the time. I even recorded a cover of one of his songs on my first album. Heaven Knows I Love You Girl.

Fast forward to 1996. From a daydreaming apprentice in the USSR — with zero chance of ever becoming a well-known artist or seeing my heroes live — I was now one of the top artists across the entire post-Soviet space of 15 countries, with a string of hits and millions of albums sold.

I was having breakfast with my buddy Shawn Wooten, head of HOPE worldwide, an organization I was deeply involved with in serving orphans. We had a yearly event where thousands of orphans had a full day of sports and entertainment. I headlined and invited my celebrity friends. I told Shawn that Michael was coming to town — and how incredible it would be to align our festival with his visit and see if he’d be open to coming.

Impossibly, we got a tentative yes. Until about 15 minutes before, there was no guarantee he’d show. We were all just praying he’d walk through the door. And he did.

It felt like an out-of-body experience. It meant so much that I froze. I was a few feet away from the man who inspired me to go into music — and I couldn’t bring myself to say how much his music meant to me.

Then it hit me: I was about to perform for the King of Pop. That sent me into a deeper paralysis. When he finally walked out — after spending a generous amount of time with us and before I hit the stage — I was euphoric with relief.

To this day, it is one of my biggest regrets that I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you to him in person.

Then a bizarre twist. Michael’s people loved our event and our volunteers so much that they asked if we could provide a few extras for his stadium show. Michael had this epic performance of Earth Song where a mix of people — including two or three middle-aged women — come up on stage. One of them was my mom.

My mom performed on stage with Michael Jackson in front of an ocean of people — while I sat in the audience with my bags packed in the car, about to leave on a tour of my own. The year Michael tragically died, I lived in LA 15 minutes away from where he lived. I was inconsolable for weeks.

I dug up a clip from the charity event for you to enjoy. I watched it last night and it still feels surreal.

To this day I apprentice under masters to become a master myself. In my mind, it’s a lost art that needs to be talked about more.

Imitate. Iterate. Integrate.

better than them, losing to them anyway

I had a music video production company.

It failed.

Not because we weren’t good. We were good. It failed because I had no idea what I was doing on the business side. That’s a hard thing to sit with when you’ve poured everything into something.

Heavy hearted, I picked myself up and started over. Took everything I knew about media and launched a new company — Third Drive Media. Almost no portfolio. No reputation in this new space. I took whatever job walked through the door.

Then one day a scientist from NASA Earth Sciences reached out. Needed a logo for one of their international projects. I was just grateful someone found me. We did the work, got paid a few hundred dollars, said thank you — and they kept calling.

Four or five projects over the years. Each one they came back to us.

The last logo we did for them paid 12 times what that first one did.

Let that land for a second.

Same team. Same hands. My people weren’t more talented or more creative on that last logo. We didn’t have better equipment or a deeper process. Nothing about our capability had changed that dramatically.

But to them — we were known. We were trusted. We were the team that had shown up and delivered, again and again. And the market pays a completely different price for that than it does for equally skilled and invisible.

Years later, Third Drive has worked with some remarkable businesses and nonprofits — helping them tell their stories well enough to raise millions in investments and donations. None of that came from being the loudest. It came from being known and trusted by the right people.

You already know this feeling.

Someone gets the opportunity. The client. The speaking slot. The introduction that changes everything. And you look at their resume, their work, their track record — and you know. You know you’re the better option.

It’s not a good feeling.

The person beating you isn’t better. They just made one decision you haven’t made yet — that becoming known is as much the job as doing the job. I’m going to show you why that single decision resets the entire game, and give you the exact framework to make it yours.

This one is for my paid subscribers. If you haven’t become one, now is a good time.

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the proximity rule

A 14-year-old girl in one of Maputo’s poorest neighborhoods just got a commitment to study in the United States.

She didn’t get smarter. She didn’t get lucky.

She got proximate.

Her name is Sheila. The man next to her is my dear friend and board member of Ascend Academy - Robert Gauntt.

Her father is gone. She lives with her mom and two sisters in a single room — the four of them sleep on the floor. That is the world she wakes up in every morning. That is the ceiling most people looking at her life from the outside would quietly assign to her future.

She joined Ascend Academy at age 9. And from the first time our group spent time with the kids this week, something happened that I’ve seen before but never get tired of. One by one, without coordinating, everyone started asking the same question.

Who is this girl?

Not the loudest kid in the room. Not performing for attention. Just completely, unnervingly present. There’s a quality in her that is hard to name — it’s what happens when raw intelligence meets genuine hunger and nobody has yet told her what she’s not supposed to be capable of.

We too an afternoon and visited the homes and families of our kids.

When we got to Sheyla’s house, we asked if she could show us where she sleeps. She started crying. I quietly panicked — I thought it was shame. I told her it was okay, that we just wanted to know more about her life. We walked her neighborhood together, and I wanted to make sure she was alright. So I asked her why she cried.

She looked at me and said:

“I didn’t cry because I was ashamed. I cried because I was grateful for you being there and wanting to know about my life.”

This is who Sheila is. Not a girl defined by what she lacks. A girl who experiences someone caring enough to show up — and calls it something worth crying over.

Later that week, mid-session, no script, no plan — Robert, one of our donors and board members looked at her and made a commitment on the spot.

Sheila is going to study in the United States. She immediately fell into the arms of Cidalia- her mentor and kept saying “Teacher, you always told me I would go far.”

Then my daughter Bella joins the hug.

I’m attaching the moment it happened. Watch this magical moment.

This week, her life changed beyond not only the wildest dreams of her classmates — but beyond the dreams of most people in this country.

She didn’t change that day. She’d already been changing — for five years.

This is the power of the Proximity Rule.

The leap that Sheila took from sleeping on a floor in Mafalala to studying in the US works exactly the same for business leaders we help at Xponential. It’s access to people who see beyond their own horizon. Through proximity. Through repeated, sustained contact with someone operating at a level you haven’t reached yet.

That’s Ascend Academy’s real secret sauce. Not curriculum. Middle-class professionals from Maputo — showing up 4 to 5 days a week, consistently, in the room with these kids. The vision transfers before the skills do. And then the skills follow.

I know this because I lived it.

I grew up in Maputo in the 1970s. I would not have predicted any of what my life became — not the countries, not the work, not the conversations I now get to be part of. The difference wasn’t talent or timing. It was teachers, mentors, pastors, and new environments that exposed me to a different ceiling — and then quietly convinced me it wasn’t a ceiling at all.

I’m not the exception. I’m the evidence.

And so is Sheila.

Which brings me to you.

Sheila and the leader reading this are after the same thing — and I don’t say that to be poetic. I mean it mechanically. The thing that is changing her life is proximity to people who showed up and wanted to know about her life. That’s it. That’s the whole mechanism.

And that is precisely what Xponential is built to deliver. The podcast. The newsletter. The coaching. They’re not content — they’re contact. Repeated, sustained exposure to the ideas, mindsets, and lived experience of people running at a level you’re moving toward.

Someone showing up and saying: I want to know more about your life. And I think it can be bigger than you’ve imagined.

Same rule. Different room.

Two things before you go.

If Sheila’s story moved you, type angel in the comments or email reply. I’ll reach out personally — I want to tell you more about what we’re building in Maputo and how you can be part of it.

And if you’re ready for proximity to change your trajectory — the podcast, the newsletter, and the coaching are all there.

Start anywhere.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I fully intended to create two posts this week about our time in Maputo Mozambique, but I underestimated how all consuming the days here would be.

If you’re just tuning in, we took a group of 10 friends who have supported our Ascend Academy to spend time with the country, culture and children we serve.

It’s safe to say, it’s been a transformative week for all. Our approach with Ascend is quality over quantity, invest in a smaller group of children at around age 8-9 and see them all the way through high school into a college. The idea is a clear path from the shanti town of Mafalala out of poverty.

A highlight: One girl, stood out in particular to the whole group. She got a commitment to get her into University of Texas in the US. She lives in a shack and sleeps on the ground with her mom and two sisters.

We got them a bed right there and then.

We need your help. From laptops for the program, a printer for their elementary school all the way to a water well desperately needed because 750 kids flush their one tiny bathroom house with buckets.

Your dollar goes a long way here. If you’re moved by this ( and there’s more coming) - and want to help, please reach out to me here and I’ll get in touch with you personally.

I’ll leave you with this image. As we were walking the Mafalala neighborhood, I found out that only one of the children had ever been to the beach. They live a 15 minute drive from it. So we took them all to the beach. Look at their faces.

if you missed it

This is my latest podcast episode - a powerful 360 assessment of your life dimension.

Highly recommend.

High Performers Don’t Fail at Work. They Fail Here.

Greetings from Africa. A land of magical animals, tragic history, epic sunsets and the perfect place to reset our palette.

We came to Mozambique with a few friends to support a project we started a few years ago. The Ascend Academy is a place where a kids come after school as a second home. They spend time with mentors to learn about values that will get them out of poverty, they also learn english and computer literacy.

After just 3 days, I find myself feeling the layers of western complexity peeling off and abundant joy streaming into the liberated space.

I show friends around the places where I roamed free as a child. We feast on the freshest seafood, walk around an old Portuguese fort with cannons pointing at the Maputo bay they used to guard, and I ring the bell of a beautiful train station built by Gustav Eiffel himself.

The joy does not diminish the sense of the poverty still plaguing a beautiful country, and the echoes of the civil war that claimed a million lives. It comes from the greeting “bom dia” with a special gentleness Mozambicans have, and the realization that abundant joy does not need to rely on circumstances to align to be a life-giving fountain.

It’s liberating and humbling. I’ll leave you with proof. This is a wedding. Not the party after it, this is just the pre-party at a park before the wedding. Enjoy, and may you experience what we all felt when we were welcomed into the circle, no questions asked.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Watch this.

For those of you who have generously given toward the Ascend Academy in Maputo - from the bottom of my heart - thank you! If you missed that post and may be willing to donate any amount, here’s the link to the post in more detail.

three words

I’m writing this on Easter Morning. Three words are proclaimed on this day all over the world that go beyond tradition, religion, to a core human tension. Our mortality.

My girls are all grown and still insist on coloring eggs every year and doing the traditional egg hunt. The eggs on Easter thing has a fun back story.

Persians, Egyptians, and Romans were already trading eggs every spring long before Christianity arrived — drawn to the same quiet magic of life coiled inside something that does not look alive. Early Christians simply recognized a good metaphor when they saw one, the cracked shell mapping perfectly onto resurrection, the empty tomb.

The medieval contribution was more practical. Lent forbade eggs for forty days, but hens didn’t get the memo and kept laying eggs. By Easter Sunday the surplus was staggering, and so the faithful feasted because nobody knew what else to do with all the eggs.

For centuries now - those of us in the Christian faith have an Easter greeting and response that I love deeply. The greeting is just three words: He is Risen!

The response is: He is Risen Indeed! ( or Truly He is Risen!)

It breaks open a core human tension. The fleeting nature of our earthly existence and the finality of death. This simple greeting is a reflection of a life lived with a different perspective on the whole affair.

They say the most dangerous man is one who has nothing to lose. But I’d argue the truly dangerous one — dangerous to fear, to smallness, to a life half-lived — is the person who has nothing to gain. Because they already know the story ends in victory.

This victorious mindset — rooted in your unsurpassed worth and the conviction that what you do in this life echoes in eternity — changes how you live day by day. It infuses us with a spirit to face the mundane daily frustrations and endless obstacles with relentless and joyful optimism.

Happy Easter.

And may you get one step closer to becoming that truly dangerous person — the one with nothing to gain, because the ultimate victory has already been won.

He is Risen!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

if you missed it

My latest pod episode is about the power making sense of your origin story and weaving it into you’re life’s work. If you haven’t watched it yet - I think you’ll enjoy it.

the ultimate wealth

A little over a week. I’m going back to Mozambique.

I spent my formative years there — seven to fourteen. A few years ago I went back with friends and started a small afterschool academy in Maputo. The Ascend Academy. Computer literacy. English. Mentorship.

We return every couple of years with friends and donors to immerse ourselves in that world and strategize how we do better. I’ll be documenting this trip and will compile it into a podcast episode, maybe two.

Doing this, I receive so much more than I give — and so can you. The reasons are paradoxical but true. Here they are.

giving is the ultimate wealth.

Even if you’re not wealthy by someone else’s standard. It means you’re overflowing with intention — your thoughts are on someone who can’t give anything in return, your time, talent, and treasure directed to the benefit of others. It helps you see the resources you already possess as abundant enough to benefit someone else. You don’t have to wait until you’ve “made it” before you “give back” — that’s a flawed concept.

caring for the dispossessed is a core human virtue.

Generosity is a lifestyle and a mindset at any level of wealth. The Judeo-Christian tradition embeds this into what it means to be fully human. In the agricultural age of the Bible, it meant not harvesting all of your crop — leaving a portion in the field for the poor. Not a suggestion. Built into the system.

For individuals, it has largely been outsourced to governments. And while a government can provide aid at scale, it cannot replace the compassion of the individual — nor the enriching power a generous life has on the one living it.

in an imperfect world, we have it good.

Being in places where the social environment works against most people and there is no economic ladder to speak of makes you appreciate what you have and stop taking it for granted. A country, deeply flawed as it may be, that gives you a genuine shot at a better life — you don’t feel the weight of that until you’re somewhere it simply doesn’t exist.

consumption does not make us happy.

You feel this experientially when you spend time with people who have almost nothing and are still completely alive and full of joy. The joy is infectious — hard to explain the feeling unless you’ve been there. A big part of why we keep going back is that reset.

Simple, pure unmanufactured joy.

It doesn’t at all mean we must feel in any way guilty to be living in the lap of luxury compared to most of the world. I grew up in some of the poorest places and experienced poverty first hand and feel a profound sense of gratitude for the abundance I enjoy. It’s a blessing and responsibility - not to become a substitute for true happiness.

weave it into the fabric of your life

Giving is the ultimate wealth regardless of how much you have. Weave it into your life and you’ll find it will fundamentally change you for the good. Beyond donations — get involved with a cause you can be part of regularly. Go along for the journey.

If Ascend inspires you, get involved. Join us for the next trip. Learn more here. The next 2-3 weeks of the newsletter will be a deeper dive into this.

I hope you enjoy it.

You’re getting this before everyone else. We finished it yesterday.

Triple the effort on this one. It goes deeper into my origin story — and that required getting it right, not just getting it done.

Here’s the real subject: most people I work with have a gap between their story and their brand. That gap isn’t just leaving value on the table. It’s leaving impact on the table — the kind only they can create for the people they’re built to serve.

This episode closes that gap. Five elements. Consistently ignored. Consistently transformative when activated.

I also wove in clips from The Fifth Element — the 1997 sci-fi classic. If you don’t know it, you will by the end. If you do, you’ll see exactly why I couldn’t leave it out.

This one’s personal. I think you’ll feel that.

Today I want to reveal a practice I do daily and coach my clients through. If you take it seriously, it will boost your energy, creativity, and joy within seven days.

For paid subscribers, I’ll unpack it in full detail below.

First — why this will jump start life change. Most of my readers don’t lack expertise, talent, or capability. They lack the personality. Before you get offended, let me explain what I mean.

I’m not saying you’re boring, uncharismatic, or average. I’m saying that slowly — almost invisibly — the responsibilities of family life, the demands of work, and the tyranny of the urgent have reshaped your personality into something smaller than you.

This may not be true of you. But if it is, it’s worth paying attention to — because it’s statistically true for most of us at some point. In the words of Henry David Thoreau:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — Walden, 1854

I won’t cite statistics to prove what that sentence already makes you feel. Just look around. You know. The real question is this: do you have the personality of someone who — upon recognizing their own quiet desperation — will actually change? If that’s you, read on.

One hour a day. Seven days. I’ve seen this with myself and with every single client in my cohort who actually does it. I’ve never seen it fail — because it targets three mechanisms that are non-negotiable for human flourishing: consistent physical, mental, and spiritual exertion.

Twenty minutes each. Daily. That’s it.

1. Move. You are a physical being. Most of us have stopped acting like it — and it slowly deteriorates everything else. Physical weakness overflows into weakness across the board. You may have gotten away with not moving in your twenties. Each decade after will punish you for it with compounding intensity.

2. Meditate. Develop a transcendent practice that builds metacognition — the ability to observe your own thinking. Metacognition is non-optional at any higher level of performance. It is knowing yourself. And knowing yourself is the ultimate foundation for every meaningful decision you will ever make. Without it, you are permanently reacting. You are not building — you are responding.

3. Master. Learn a new skill. Narrow skills are a documented liability. You grow by doing hard things and solving real problems across a range of disciplines — not by consuming more information. I spent a decade thinking about writing a book. The moment I committed to daily writing mastery as a discipline, the book wrote itself. Find a problem that requires you to learn something new. It will compound in ways you can’t predict from where you’re standing now.

Before I go deeper for paid subscribers, I want to reiterate the brutal truth this entire piece is built on:

Your personality determines your personal reality. — Dr. Joe Dispenza

I regularly take calls with people who want to build a personal brand, become a thought leader, and create a different future. If I take the meeting, it means I already know they’re capable. And yet — about half of the already pre-qualified people I speak with aren’t a fit for one deeply personal reason:

they don’t want to change who they are. They’re hoping real transformation can be delivered as a service. It can’t. It never will.

The three practices below aren’t information. They’re the mechanism. And the mechanism only works if you decide — in advance — that the person doing them will not be the same person who started.

If you haven’t decided to become a paid subscriber. Now’s a good time. Small investment - consistent value.

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