​

Lose yourself in this scenario, and I promise I’ll pick you up on the other side, unscathed…

You’re lost in the woods.

It’s been hours. Maybe days. You’re tired. Hungry. Your phone is dead. Your sneakers have somehow been eaten by a self-righteous vegan bear, leaving you barefoot + deeply regretting your life choices.

Then, just when you think, At least the wolves will raise me right, you see a tiny cabin up ahead. Smoke curling from the chimney. A warm light glowing from the window.

A friendly weirdo (me) steps out onto the porch holding a fire-roasted hot dog.

Instead of running toward safety, warmth, and what is clearly a fully loaded dawg, you freeze. Spidey senses go up. Suspicion creeps in.

What if I’m… selling something? 😳

What if this isn’t kindness? What if I secretly expect something from YOU in return? What if the hot dog isn’t free? What if the map has strings attached? What if the warm clothes include a subscription box full of obligations?

Instead of taking the life-saving shit that’ll actually help you, you shout back, “HELL NO. I’ll figure it out myself,” and wander off into the darkness to get eaten by a bear—the vegan one’s cousin, Fred.

THAT’S exactly what selling feels like.

​

Selling is just plain… terrifying.

I’m reopening Brandishing YOU next week, and the number of times I’ve considered chickening out + running into the woods to get eaten by a bear is… troubling.

It feels like I’m standing on that porch with a plate full of hot dogs, hoping lost hikers solopreneurs don’t think I’m part of some elaborate, aggressively questionable, underground meat-based MLM.

Like I’m watching people need what I have—genuinely, wild-eyed, palms out with a pile of half-burned blueprints in them, need it—but hesitate because they’ve been burned so many times.

It’s building something with my blood, sweat, and tears—something that could actually help people—and then realizing I have to put a price tag on it + throw it into the world to be judged, ignored, and possibly trampled by the internet’s equivalent of a table full of PTO moms who have already decided they don’t like me.

It’s brutal.

And the w-o-r-s-t part?

The second I go to sell, I find myself backsliding into all the shady tactics I swore I’d never touch again.

Not because I want to!

But because it’s all I’ve ever been taught.

Selling—real selling, the kind that doesn’t make me want to retreat into a cave + live off moss—feels like a myth.

I don’t see it modeled.

I don’t see it championed.

I don’t see it talked about.

But I feel it.

And I feel like I’m being called to normalize it.

​

The capitalist world has decided that selling = trickery.

Instead of being taught how to invite people to be part of something with honesty, we’ve all been handed a blood-stained instruction manual on “The Seven Circles of Sales Hell (And How to Drag Your Customers Into Them).”

Fake urgency.

Manufactured scarcity.

Manipulation so subtle it should come with an FBI warning.

I’m working soooo hard to unlearn all of this garbage, but breaking free from these deeply ingrained instincts is like trying to quit Amazon Prime when you want to ‘shop small’ but you live rural + need a weirdly specific cable by tomorrow.

One second, I’m standing firm in my integrity.

The next, I’m 12 articles deep into psychological pricing hacks, entertaining thoughts like, But what if I just... lightly threatened them with their own mortality?

🤬

It’s a trap that I refuse to fall into again… no matter how human, real, or raw I have to keep myself.

Because selling—real selling, the feel-good kind I’m willing to do—isn’t about tricking; it’s about giving.

It's standing on that cabin porch, saying,

No trickery.

No mind games.

No “Buy now or this offer self-destructs in 60 seconds” BS.

Just a full belly, dry clothes, and a goddamn map.

​

Everything I want is on the other side of figuring this out.

If I don’t figure out how to sell in a way that's natural, fun, and feel-good, I’m screwed.

I don’t just deprive myself of an income + lifelong goal—I deprive my kindreds of something that could actually change things for them.

The alternative is letting you get eaten by a bear while I go get a “real job.”

The second I imagine myself in a fluorescent-lit cubicle without YOU, trying to pretend to care about Q4 projections , while some dude named Gary explains “corporate synergy” to me… my body physically starts dying inside.

I can’t go back! 🥺

I can’t pretend I don’t want freedom, fun, and success on my own goddamn terms.

I want THAT LIFE! I want THOSE CHOICES. I want THIS KIND OF REALITY.

And I know I’m not the only one.
​

And that? That’s what Brandishing YOU is.

It’s the cabin in the woods.

The rebel hideout.

The safehouse to figure this stuff out.

It’s the place where we stop pretending we don’t need help, stop believing that selling = tricking, and start finding a way to make money that feels fucking G-O-O-D!

No funnel tricks. No “just triple your prices + manifest harder” garbage.

Just real people, figuring this shit out together.

Giving each other the safe space to sit in the discomfort that healing requires.

​

I’m doing this. **deep breath**

The doors reopen next week.

This is me standing on the porch with my fire-roasted dogs in hand, hoping you won’t mistake me for a forest monster who scams people out of their money, time, and dreams.

Because I made this for you.

If you want it, it’s here.

And if you don’t?

I’ll be here anyway—with hot toddy + a bear whistle, just in case.

​

To not getting a "job" or getting eaten by Fred the bear,

Dre ‘The Cabin Concierge’ Beltrami