I've never shared this. I was offered a job working directly for Tony Robbins.
I spent weeks thinking it over. Then I said no. Yes, I'd be on the road hanging out with my biggest hero alongside people like Jay Shetty and Gary Vaynerchuk -- but the hard truth I knew deep down is I'd be living in his shadow.
Instead of using my skills to become a leader in my own right and make money on the internet, I'd become one of Tony's many minions and never have a family. That's right, I'd be on the road all year, flying from country to country.
It would have been glamorous as hell, but good luck finding a wife or having kids with a career like that. I now see that life as a nightmare.
Making money on the internet gives you a better life. This is nothing new. You've heard it thousands of times already. So the question is, if everyone is so smart and already knows this, why can't they make money on the internet?
The Ego Trap That Screws People
Making money on the internet has different rules from the real world. And it's not even close to being like the traditional path of get a degree, get a good job, get into huge debt for a house, climb the corporate ladder, brag about "years of experience," and retire at 65.
Years of experience mean jack sh*t on the internet.
I paid to get consulting from a 17 year old girl who made $50K a month with a business coaching offer. She'd never had a job. She wasn't certified in anything. Her entire business was built on a Google Doc, a simple email sequence, and showing up consistently on one platform.
Her clients -- doctors, consultants, people with 20 years of experience -- paid her $5,000 to learn what she figured out in a bedroom after doing homework while listening to BTS K-pop songs.
Her clients were in their 30s and 40s. That's how much the internet doesn't give a f*ck about age or experience.
I've observed big egos a lot with people I've met who want to make money on the internet. They'll often flaunt their many degrees or say things like "I'm good friends with Richard Branson," when if you dig deeper, you realize it was a dinner with him 4 years ago and Sir Richard has completely forgotten it by now.
Your ego tells you that you're brilliant. But the internet tells you the truth. And the internet is now the real world.
Smart, experienced people don't make money online because their ego blocks them.
The most dangerous people in the world are intelligent people who are unsuccessful. -- Thomas Sowell
The Hardest Idea You'll Ever Ponder
This is one of the best ideas I've ever come across and it's from Naval Ravikant: "The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life."
To succeed, you must change your definition of success.
Most intelligent people don't get what they want out of life. They're NOT living the good life. They're stuck in their head, angry at the world, chasing goals so they can desperately tell the world they're a somebody while quietly being a nobody.
For me, I don't care about wealth or any of that nonsense. I consider myself successful because I'm getting exactly what I want from life. No boring job. I wear Nike clothes 24/7. I don't follow anyone else's rules. I have fun online. I write whatever I want. I get to decide who I work with.
I'm not that smart. Average IQ. Zero degrees. High school dropout (went back later and barely passed). No rich family. No special privileges.
Success is less about how much money you make online, and more about what you do with the money you make to live your ideal lifestyle. Smart people on paper are dumb people in lifestyle terms.
The truest form of intelligence is designing the life you want to live. -- Graham Weaver
The Hidden Downsides of Being Smart
People with high IQ are great at seeing downsides. They're often skeptical about everything because they think they know better. So when you present a simple idea to them like "Oh, you just take your skills, package them into a high ticket offer, and sell it via an email list" they look at you like you've lost your mind.
Pessimism sounds smart and optimism looks like a sales pitch -- so they ignore the obvious opportunities. Smart people spend all their time doing calculations and assessing risks because their intelligence forces their ego to believe they can tell the future.
Being intelligent means you likely overthink, overplan, and overanalyze, which leads to painful procrastination that guarantees you never make a dollar on the internet.
If you break down what smart people are doing, you'll find a silent plea for permission hidden inside all that planning. They needed permission to get a degree, and permission to climb the ladder in their job. And, deep down, they're waiting for that kind of permission online as well. Except it doesn't exist.
I stayed stuck in a banking career for 10 years because I waited for the world to give me permission to quit. Thank god, I ended up signing my own permission slip.
Permission isn't granted. It's taken. -- Sahil Bloom
The Missing Trait Smart People Don't Understand
What's missing is courage. You can think you know everything, but if you don't have the courage to act on what you know and build something online, then you never will.
It's not one-time courage that is needed either. It's daily courage.
The leaders you follow and admire had the courage to act. Unconsciously, you probably don't realize that's why you follow them. It's why people say they follow me. I had the courage to quit a successful banking career, knowing I could never go back because of the potty mouth stuff I said online.
That type of courage does more to help you make money than an over-bloated business plan ever will.
Complexity makes you seem smart. Simplicity makes you money. -- Codie Sanchez
The Simple Pattern That Actually Works
I've spent hundreds of hours in masterminds surrounded by people doing more than $1M online with their business. Here's the pattern I can never unsee -- and it's the same every time.
One social media platform. One funnel. One offer. Daily action.
The tech stack they use is almost non-existent. They use a few basic tools like Gmail and Zoom and that's about it. Yet smart people want to use Claude bots, hire big teams, build their own customer app, and so on.
They're literally trying to boil the ocean when all they need to do is take a few simple steps that a 17 year old girl did after doing her high school assignments.
The smarter you are, the easier it is to talk yourself out of doing the simple things that actually pay. -- A reader of Tim Denning
The Mindset That Robbed Me of Millions
I've made millions of dollars on the internet. But I could have made millions more if I realized my one big flaw: I was afraid to be salesy.
Everything changed when I figured out the people who make the most money online aren't the best at sales or marketing. Nope. They're the most useful.
Selling stuff is just helping people. The more people you help, the more money you make. So the question I ask myself daily is "How many people have I helped today?" If the answer is "none," then I know it's been a bad day financially without even logging into Stripe.
Never confuse education with intelligence. You can have a PhD and still be an idiot. -- Richard Feynman
The Simple Path That Actually Works
The start is hard. Only brute force will allow you to cut through the noise. Momentum will take longer than you think.
Relentlessness gets you through. Ruthless levels of posting. Follow up that is better than the FBI investigating a murder. Stupid, tedious, hard work and painfully boring execution.
Sell things tied to your existing skills. Build systems above all else. Simple ones. Use them to run your business. Document everything.
Insist on daily KPIs for yourself. Be yourself at all costs. Don't sell to people. Offer them help.
If you're not making money on the internet, it's entirely your fault. That's not an insult. It's empowerment. Because if you created the problem that means you have the power to fix it.
Being smart won't make you money online. Intelligence just leads to overthinking. What you must do is focus on daily execution that 99% of people are unprepared to do.