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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.

If you challenge their “Branson friendship,” they’ll say, “Well, he said my idea was brilliant and I had potential.” Okay.

He says that to everyone because he’s a gentleman. Nice words aren’t proof of work or results. They’re just words. If Sir Richard really believed in you, he would have stayed in touch or invested his money in you.

But he didn’t. He’s kite surfing in his underwear not giving two sh*ts about you.

Your ego tells you that you’re brilliant. But the internet tells you the truth. And the internet is now the real world.

If you attempt to build anything online, you’ll be humbled real fast. It’s hard to get attention. People are skeptical and don’t trust anyone easily. Experience doesn’t mean you can solve a person’s problem. And how many degrees you have doesn’t fix the “I don’t trust you” and “I’m not sure you can help me.”

Smart, experienced people don’t make money online because their ego blocks them.

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. And I’m surrounded by the top 1% in my field who I look up to.

Life could not get better if I tried. I don’t say that to brag. I say it to smash your view of the world into a thousand pieces.

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 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 went to a billionaire’s naughty island to make out with seals.

Pessimism sounds smart and optimism looks like a sales pitch.. so they ignore the obvious opportunities. “That make-money-online stuff is all a pyramid scheme.” Tell that to the doctors, lawyers and accountants I’ve worked with who have built 6 and 7-figure online businesses. Are their businesses scams too?

Smart people spend all their time doing calculations and assessing risks because their intelligence forces their ego to believe they can tell the future, like some sort of drunken fortune-teller living in a gypsy van with her grandma.

Being intelligent means you likely overthink, overplan, and overanalyze, which leads to painful procrastination that guarantees you never make a dollar on the internet.

On the surface, they’re in motion, “doing stuff,” but in the eyes of the internet, they’re nobodies who’re helping no one.

An idiot in motion will always go further than a genius at rest – Kpaxs

If you break down what smart people are doing, you'll find a silent plea for permission hidden inside all that planning.