How To Get Ahead Of 99% Of People

Learn how to “freeze” time or induce "trance" (the billionaire way)

Yeow! Before we get into this newsletter, I just want to welcome all the new subscribers that came from the latest letter: 33 Mini-Habits That (Quietly) Changed My Life. Glad to have you here. I know you probably get a lot of emails in your inbox, so I just wanted to give you the 80/20 of everything you need to know about me and my newsletter:

• My name is Tej.

• I’m a direct response copywriter & digital builder.

• My motto has always been: “Top of the world or bottom of the ocean. F mediocrity.”

• With that motto in mind, I jumped ship on the cookie cutter path laid out for me (which was essentially to become an investment banker/CPA) and found the online space at 14. I’m 31 now.

• Throughout all that time, I worked pretty much every day and failed a lot. Succeeded a lot. Lost a lot. Won a lot. Cried a lot. Laughed a lot. And had an absolute blast.

• As a result: I was fortunate to never have to enter the traditional workforce (besides 3 days working at McDonalds at 16). Nothing against it, just wasn’t my thing. So I lived and died at my own accord. Meaning all the money I ever made (and continue to make) came from the ideas generated by my brain the void.

• While engaged in the above entrepreneurial pursuits (which spanned pretty much every major online vertical you can think of), I also started writing online in 2011.

• My goal with writing was never to become a writer, but just to get the thoughts out of my brain so I could process experiences, generate insights, and free up mental RAM to focus on my main thing (which has always been and will always be building things).

• So I would write about anything and everything. From copywriting to online business to mindset to traffic generation to inner work to meditation to spirituality to consciousness to magic to productivity. (All my writing came (and continues to come) directly from personal experience. (I see no point in reading books and rehashing content. Pointless. Not why I write).

• By doing so, the writing somewhat took off with entrepreneurs/marketers and spiritual folks and resulted in accumulating a loyal audience of readers in the tens of thousands. (That audience eventually turned into this newsletter.)

• In addition to the writing, the businesses I was building (main thing) also took off and pretty much brought to life everything I used to envision in my mind's eye at 16.

• Having achieved my version of time/location/financial freedom at the time, I realized I got everything on the outside (“momma we made it”). But the inside still felt kind of off and like some potential was missing (“ah fuck… do I just take this to be life or figure it out?”).

• So on Halloween Day of 2020, I decided to do something about it and I became a student of the Diamond Approach and kickstarted the “real” spiritual journey (I say real because my version of spirituality up until that point was pretty fake and new agey tbh).

• By working with a realized teacher weekly for 4+ years (ongoing), I pretty much got my conditioned sense of self (what I call the character) shattered to bits and “experientially” opened up more and more to the true nature of reality

• This sounds awesome and it is (take whatever you’re imagining and multiply it by 100x), but the undoing of conditioning was (and still is) quite intense, challenging, and gruelling (hardest thing I’ve ever done… way harder than generating millions online).

• Nonetheless, pain is temporary and infinite glory is forever… so it opened me up to experiencing a profound level of glory, bliss, joy, ecstasy, freedom that I always felt was possible (our true nature), but didn’t quite know how to reach.

• This, in return, quenched the deepest thirst in my being and experimentally proved beyond a shadow of a doubt: There’s (a lot) more to you and I than just these meat suits and our true nature is heavenly.

• So with those realizations in mind, I pretty much spend my time today going deeper into the domains of consciousness (where all the magic is) + taking all that love for life and directing it towards building bigger and badder brands with the goal of putting a ding in the universe + hitting the occasional bender (hey I clearly didn’t delete all my conditioning lol).

• In addition, I write this newsletter (whenever I have something worthwhile to share)

• Plus: Occasionally drop courses like 6 Figure Promotions (which turned out to become one of the most popular copywriting courses on money tweeter with 2k+ raving results) and Clean Your Inner World.

• But the way I “shill” courses is a little different than what you may be used to: All my courses are based on the experiments I run on myself and share my personal processes (that I use daily). Moreover, you can buy the courses by either paying me directly (thank you! I promise I won't spend all the money buying out the bar) or donating the cost of the course to ANY charity of YOUR choice (just screenshot me the receipt). I do it this way to prove that I make my money by applying what’s inside the courses & not strictly by selling courses (although the increased cashflow is definitely nice!)

So yeah…

That turned out to be more than just the 80/20.

But whatever. It’s done now and you’ve been welcomed!

So let’s dive into the newsletter.

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I grew up middle class. And was surrounded by people that were always busy, anxious, and in a rush. Constantly fighting mental ghosts. Moving through cluttered calendars. And fraught with worry and stress.

So I naturally concluded:

This is just what it takes to get ahead (in the video game of life).

And the people that are even higher than middle class (upper class and ultra wealthy) are probably like this, but on steroids.

Then my life unfolded in interesting ways and I was fortunate enough to be in my early 20s and have dinner and drinks with high net worth individuals (mostly from the business world).

Upon doing so, I realized something interesting and a little weird.

On the surface, these high net worth individuals had large businesses with a lot of employees and a lot of fires they had to put out daily. From legal battles to tax bullshit to regulations to all the stuff that comes with running and growing a business.

So I naturally thought:

Compared to the middle class people I know, these individuals have infinitely more problems that are bigger and badder in size, so they’re probably going to be infinitely more stressed and plagued with worry.

(Because that’s just the way life is.)

But then, I would meet these individuals…

And the majority of them wouldn’t be like that. At all.

Instead of being stressed and worried, these individuals would be present, grounded, and completely in the moment. Cracking jokes, going down random rabbitholes, and shooting the shit.

“What the flying F.” I remember thinking at the time.

The high net worth individual before me got an ocean full of problems that are MASSIVE (objectively speaking) and he is sitting here, chilling.

Whereas all the middle class people I know back home don’t even have 10% of his problems and they’re running around stressed to the gills.

What’s going on here?

I didn’t understand. I chopped it up to “high stress tolerance” or “putting on a brave face” and stopped thinking about it.

But then years later, I had one dinner with somebody who had made millions, lost millions, made millions, lost millions, made millions, and went through the gauntlet.

Yet he was sitting before me, laughing and not giving a single F.

So I kindly asked him: Why and how?

And he responded by saying something that burned a hole in my brain and made all the above make complete sense.

Here’s what he said (obviously paraphrased):

When you have a few big problems, the brain hyper focuses on them and is constantly thinking about them. Visiting the past and beating yourself up over what you did. Or travelling into the future and anxiously wondering how things are going to unfold. This obviously puts you in a state of stress, worry, and fear (which is how the majority of the world… and especially the middle class live and operate).

But if you 100x your problems, something else happens entirely.

What happens, I curiously asked?

The brain glitches out. There’s too many problems. There’s too many fires. There’s too many uncertainties. The brain doesn’t have the firepower to obsessively stress over each and every one (because there’s way too many), so it kind of throws in the towel and you drop out of the past/future (where all worry and stress reside) and into the immediacy of the Now.

In the now:

There are no problems. Only potentials.

There is no stress. Only simplicity.

There is no friction. Only flow.

There is no anxiety. Only action.

And it is here in the now that high level business (similar to high level sports/creative arts) “conditions” you to operate (in order to be effective) because otherwise if you leave the now and go off into your mind to think about your problems, then you’ll get swallowed whole and lose your ability to actually perform/lead your employees.

“Ah… shit. That makes complete sense.” I thought.

Not only because of how he put it, but also because at this time I had been reading The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle and he too had stated:

The safest place to be is in the present/in presence.

When you’re in the present, nothing can touch you because all problems exist in the mind. Not in presence/reality.

When you leave the present, everything sticks to you because you have made yourself vulnerable to all the ghosts, parasites, and demons of the (conditioned) mind to leech onto you.

And this, my friend, was one of the most surprising differences I spotted in the middle class people I knew and the ultra wealthy.

But it wasn’t just freedom from psychological attacks that made this difference so important (practically speaking).

What makes it important is when you escape the mind and live in presence, you unlock the ability to: “FREEZE TIME” and achieve more than you previously would otherwise.

Now I know this sounds mystical, but it’s really not.

It’s actually quite simple to understand:

When you live in the mind, your perception of time speeds up (because you crowd your mind with thoughts and this takes up all the available space). This results in you feeling like the day ends before it even really begins. (Hence why normal people are always bitching and moaning about not having enough hours in the day.)

When you live in the now, your perception of time slows down (less thoughts = more space in the mind = slowing down of time). This results in you being able to achieve more in each moment/day.

To illustrate this phenomenon, I present to you this quote from AH Almaas.

He is a true spiritual genius/a modern day master that is on the cutting edge of human potential, but hardly anybody knows.

Anyhow that’s not the point of this email.

Point is that he was asked:

“How do you have the time to be a husband, father, and spiritual leader and to write a dozen original and profound books?”

Here was his response:

“I think what underlies this sense of the availability of time is the awareness of the timelessness of reality. Timelessness gives the sense and feeling of spaciousness in time, which psychologically or subjectively feels like the absence of time-crowdedness. This, plus the mature recognition of the limitations of ordinary time, become integrated into efficient functioning and living. Actually, the real trick is not that of finding time for the things you mention but having enough empty space and time for the arising of discoveries that develop and enrich the teaching.”

And in another book he stated:

“The more we are present and the more fully we are experiencing and being our essential presence, the more we will experience things slowing down. This seems to be a law of time—not that linear time is being altered, but more time becomes experientially “available” to us. Thus, the slowing down of our experience of time will place us more and more in the present. The more we are the presence, the more we are in the present. So, the slowness of time has a lot to do with being in the present.”

Quite interesting, right?

You bet.

This is something that I’ve experienced in my own life time and time again.

In short:

There are days when I work 12 hours a day and get nothing done (welp).

There are days when I work 1 hour and get everything done.

What matters is not hours worked.

What matters is your ability to freeze time.

(This is also where one of my favorite quotes comes from: “Most people are too busy working to make any real money.”)

With that being said…

The reason I mention this is because if you’re like 99% of people who want to get ahead of 99% of people (lol), then you can do it by following the traditional advice you find in every cheesy YouTube video.

OR…

You can do it by learning how to do what nobody in the 99% knows how to do, but if done will lead you to actually getting ahead.

And that, my friend, is learning how to freeze time (aka how to experientially make more time “available” to you).

So question now becomes:

How exactly can you start to freeze time?

I don’t know what will work best for you (I only write to myself, never to you).

But here’s the radical approach I took:

Meet the moments in “time” with the “timeless” part of you.

Read and reread that again.

This is the secret to elite performance (in every domain of human endeavor).

Moments in time are everything and anything you spend your day doing:

• Walking

• Eating

• Working

• Sleeping

• Talking

• Exercising

• Reading

• Etc.

The timeless part of you is not the personality (which is a product of time aka the result of all your past experiences), but the eternal presence that you are beyond the personality (that exists outside time/space).

When you meet the moment before you from a place of presence, you get out of the mind (aka time) and into reality.

This, in return, creates more space which slows down the passing of time. And allows you to get more done.

(This is what happens when you slip into “flow state”.)

The question now is…

How can you “activate” this timeless part of you?

And the real aka ultimate answer is:

Learn how to meditate with your eyes open.

(Not on the cushion, but in the midst of life.)

Do that and linear time will cease to exist.

But chances are you won’t be able to do that right away (develop the skill of open eyed meditation!), so the more immediate and practical answer is to:

Put yourself into a deep work trance for hours a day.

How do you do that?

By applying this tweet:

Do that (daily) and time will drastically sloooooooooooooooow down which will allow you to “FREEZE TIME” and get ahead of 99% of people (who live and die in time).

Thanks for reading.

Your friend who wrote this newsletter while deep in trance,

/tej

P.S. In addition to freezing time, the ultra wealthy also had the following five traits in common (that the middle class lacked). Recognizing this pattern was and still is huge for my journey. Maybe it’ll help you too? I don’t know, but here were the five traits:

1. Obsession with simplicity & deletion.

2. All in on a mission that is bigger than em.

3. Moving with maniacal levels of urgency.

4. Commitment to excellence.

5. Being relentless for decades. Never losing heart.

+ 30/60 minutes daily of “staring into space”.

If you apply the above (what the 1% do), it’s pretty hard not to get ahead (of the 99%).

Cheers and have an epic Saturday!