From the Desk of Maverick Brenton.
Subject: 2023 Annual Christmas Letter.
Merry Christmas lads.
It’s my favourite time of the year.
All I am doing at the moment is eating 1kg of grass fed beef per day, lifting a lot of weights, writing, and watching the sunset from my balcony every evening. Haven’t been smoking too many cigars lately as bodybuilding is my focus. They impact my recovery and strength too much.
I was going to work through Christmas but I decided to take a little break from the grind and just focus on creative work + smashing the iron. It’s my second Christmas away from family which I don’t like very much, but it is too far and too long to get back out into that little country town so I’ve decided to stay put in my little jungle oasis.
As always I’m going to share some insights from my year and drop a few lessons I picked up during it.
These letters are always more conversational as opposed to hard hitting and in your face like my other works.
It’s how I like doing them.
2023 contained more personal growth and success than I’ve ever had in my entire life. Not only was it one of the hardest years of work I’ve done, it was the most lucrative and fulfilling I’ve ever had. Taking well over 1000 sales calls. Making over six figures in commissions on the side of my main work. Flying to Singapore to buy a $14,000 watch. Attending various networking events. Fun times with girls. But mostly working my fucking ass off to the point where I crashed and burned a few months ago. Couldn’t even get out of bed. Found my limits.
There were times when I was so stressed that my Lymphnodes were like golfballs and all I could do was lay on the floor of my villa. Staring at the ceiling fan. Asking myself - why the fuck do I put myself through this shit?
Juggling multiple sales gigs, establishing international banking, foreign residencies, problems across the board, trying to see my girlfriend, trying to make it to the gym, investing multiple five figures and then fighting to get it back because it wasn’t what I thought.
That’s what I spent most of the year doing, day in and day out. Grinding. Taking money from people. Developing skills and experience that will serve me for the rest of my life.
I could have just been cruising. Partying and enjoying life in Bali which is home for me. But instead I was locked in a wooden villa pounding cigars, coffee and drilling my sales skills endlessly. Up at 5am. On calls by 6am. Sometimes working entire days without making sales and ripping my hair out with frustration. Once again the weights saved me from myself and provided a way to channel all the frustration and anxiety. Who knows what I’d do without the gym.
All of it paid off but I definitely went into unchartered territory in terms of what I am capable of.
This year vanished into an abyss of work and stress.
Just a moment ago it was January. Now I look around and it’s December. Stress and problems eat up your time and peace of mind more than you could imagine. It’s worth asking yourself if it’s worth it, sometimes.
Why do it?
Why not just take the easy path?
Why not just settle?
It comes down to your own personal preferences at the end of the day. The kind of man you want to become and the kind of life you want to live. The bigger you go the harder it gets, new levels come with new devils.
Towards the end of my battle my dad had a heart attack and almost died. Then I got so sick I could barely get out of bed. Things seem to have finally settled. Life is simple again. All I want to do is go to the gym, write, and be left alone. That said I miss my little brother, my mum, my family more than anything. Alone in paradise I sit. It’s an interesting dynamic. My life is exceptional, but I do not have the close relationships I desire. This is something you need to keep in mind.
I’m a completely different man than I was at the start of this year.
I look completely different.
My face has physically changed.
You can see this below.
Dealing with endless problems, stress and frustration all on your own is good for you. It teaches you about endurance and pain tolerance. Which is essential to doing anything worthwhile in life.
Because no matter what you do you’re going to run into turbulence.
Life is going to test you.
Throughout this year there have been many times where I have tried to sit down and write for this blog.
But I couldn’t do it. I had too much going on. The second I tried to stop and do some writing my mind pulled me away to solve something else.
Overall there’s a few solid lessons I have taken away from this year. That’s what this Christmas letter will be about. It’s my gift to you. Some of the shit I paid for in blood, sweat and stress.
There’s a big difference between reading something online and living it but if you can have a better life because you applied something I said then that’s a win for me.
It’s why I started this website many years ago. To share my stories and help guys avoid doing dumb shit. I’m still ironing out and figuring out what this website will be over the long term.
For now it’s the place I come to be creative and share what life has taught me with young men who could benefit from it.
So here’s three things I learnt from moving to a foreign country and working my ass off all year in the jungle.
Lesson #1.
Average People are Disconnected from Reality.
When you spend 6 days a week for months on end taking money from people on zoom calls and closing deals, you get extremely good at seeing through bullshit. You get good at reading people, you start to categorise personalities, you know when they are lying, you know when they are being honest, you know what is going on, and you know who is going to come up with a bunch of bullshit when it is time to pay.
The thing about closing deals is that unless you can see reality and take the money from them on that first call it’s probably not going to happen. Because they will go away and start overthinking, the emotion will decrease in intensity, and the probability of making a purchase decreases massively. Unless it’s very high ticket which is a different dynamic. Sometimes people need time to work that out because most consumers don’t have multiple five figures sitting on their debit card.
For the most part however they will weasel their way out in whatever possible way they can unless you have the skill and the killers edge to prevent it.
That’s why it is so hard and such a great tool for personal development.
My biggest takeaway from all of those calls is how FULL OF SHIT the average man is.
All he does is talk shit about what he is going to do.
But does nothing.
He also has unrealistic ideas about how the world works and his place in it. The average man is delusional beyond what he realises. He thinks that he is going to one day wake up and be where he wants even though he is doing nothing to get there. This is what happens to most people, and then they have a mid life crisis. Someday never comes.
His head is buried in the sand. Unable to face his problems. Unable to accept his life situation and do something about it.
$50 million dream and $5 work ethic.
The expectations of most people are completely out of touch with reality. They have a huge sense of entitlement and feel they deserve the world, because that’s exactly what the modern world tells them. But then they get out there and realise that in a competitive, capitalistic environment - skill and competency are the only thing that counts.
Can you do the job and get results, or not?
My biggest takeaway from this year was the improvement in my ability to see reality and to deal with it effectively.
Sales forces you to get good at thinking and asking questions.
When you are good at thinking and asking questions, you can use it on yourself to expose your own bullshit, of which there is always plenty.
Lesson #2.
You cannot escape problems in life.
A trap a lot of us fall into is the greener pastures illusion. Thinking that there is a perfectly green pasture somewhere else and that you should leave what you have to go find it. Then when you get there you realise it’s still full of problems. Something is broken, something is fucked, you’re dealing with idiots. So on and so forth.
I have done it in the past on numerous occasions.
I have also watched other people do it.
Changing businesses. Changing jobs. Jumping around like a fucking grasshopper with it’s cunt on fire.
Do you know why this happens?
First and foremost it is an inability to handle boredom and solve problems.
Secondly it is thinking that perfection exists.
In life and in work and in your relationships, the bigger you go the more problems you are going to have. If you don’t want more problems, don’t go bigger. Expecting to get more and go bigger without running into problems is delusional. You need to accept this unless you want to become extremely frustrated. Because that frustration is you having expectations which do not match reality.
This really hit home for me throughout the year. I realised that no matter what you do in life, you are ALWAYS going to have problems. If you do nothing, you’ll still have the problems of doing nothing; lack of money, lack of purpose, lack of connections. You can’t escape them. The more you do, the more life becomes an endless game of wack-a-mole where you just spend all day with your hammer running around smacking shit that keeps going wrong.
It’s why I started smoking like I do. I couldn’t handle the stress and frustration of living internationally, processing residencies, opening five different international bank accounts, juggling 3 different income streams, a girlfriend, and a bunch of other shit all at once. So I just smashed cigars. Like I am right now even though at the start of this article I said I stopped. Look, the tobacco helps me think clearly. Fuck off.
The point is though it doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. Life will always have problems, especially when you are trying to level up. ESPECIALLY then. Because it is new and unchartered territory. Things will go wrong. You will be frustrated. People will drive you insane. The answer is not to lock yourself in a box and hide from the issues, the answer is to get good at suffering - that’s probably the only advice I can give you.
Don’t hide from the problems or try to escape them.
Get GOOD at suffering.
You can’t escape problems. It’s not going to happen. The more you do, the more shit you have to deal with. Accept that. Don’t fall into the trap of running around with your head implanted in your asshole trying to find heaven on earth because it’s not here.
When life gets tough, just dig in your heels. Don’t buckle. Fight back. Hold fast. Weather the storm and have faith that you will get through to the other side. This is the absolute best advice I could give any young man because it is how life works.
Lesson #3.
The lifestyle portrayed by people on the internet is not an accurate reflection of reality.
Most people on the internet are completely full of shit and using your insecurities to take money from you. They flash their fancy stuff. Only show you the sunshine. Make you think there is some heaven on earth that they hold the keys to.
The truth is that this is a lie.
But lost kids scrolling social media think this is real because they have no strong men in real life to guide them into becoming a man of their own.
I see kids quitting apprenticeships in legit high paying professions such as electrical or building, and chasing the dream of trying to make money online so they too can buy a Lambo in the next 8 months. It’s complete bullshit.
You can have a great life in the trades.
You can have a great life doing whatever you want.
It’s a matter of perspective.
Making money online comes with it’s own dark side and it’s way harder than people think.
What these cunts leave out of their marketing is how hard it is to really get traction and become successful online.
What they don’t tell you is that you will fight a constant battle with your own mind. Distractions will plague you. You will be lonely. You will spend days in front of a screen. You will feel isolated. You will become immensely frustrated because you can’t solve problems with your hands and instead have to argue with some asshole on the other side of earth through emails.
Nobody shows you the reality of the game.
The majority of these little 22yr old cunts flexing their Rolex’s and cars on social media are full of shit. Nobody is making that kind of money quickly and certainly not without immense amounts of pain and frustration. Yet the internet has convinced a generation of people that all they have to do is buy a course and within 7 weeks they will be making $20,000 a month.
Do you understand that those courses exist only to take YOUR money?
This is crystal clear to anyone with a brain who has lived a good amount of life, because we understand what is really required to win and how hard it actually is to make money and achieve a decent level of success.
There aren’t any shortcuts. You certainly can’t just buy a ticket and sit on the success train, then end up successful. It’s a constant fight. It’s a war.
Kids like Luke Alexander have everyone convinced all they need to do is become a “remote closer” and they can print $20k a month just like that. In the background he makes a fortune selling that dream to a bunch of other kids who believe it’s true. Well it’s not. I live that life. It’s way harder than most people think.
I hate social media. I don’t like anything about it. I use it for this blog because the instagram feed looks cool. But I fucking hate it. It’s just a bunch of people coaching other people on something they don’t even do themselves.
If you’re a young man, just delete all that shit. Go get a job on an oil rig, learn to be a man, get your ass kicked. You are RUINING your life by being on social media consuming content that is designed to fuck with your brain. Shut it out and keep shit simple.
Otherwise it will completely distort your perception of life and make you miserable.
Final Thoughts.
That’s all I have for you this year.
Merry Christmas to anyone reading this.
Leave a comment if you enjoyed it, I’d appreciate that.
I hope you had a great year and achieved everything you wanted.
If you didn’t, then it’s not ok.
You just lost a year of your life for what?
Where did you go wrong?
Why are you in the exact same position that you were a year ago?
Sit down and figure out why it didn’t work out and where you went wrong, then do something about it.
Because nobody gives a fuck about you and nobody will ever change anything for you.
This world can be a lonely and ruthless place.
It’s up to you and you alone to make your life into something worth waking up for.
Thanks for reading.
Filed under · Annual Christmas Letters
