The Middle Finger Reframe for Showing Up + Selling Without Feeling Like a Keebler Elf in Witness Protection

What I'm UNlearning To Be Able To Make Money In A Way That's Fun + Feels Good

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Being Fearless = embarrassing yourself until you stop giving a shit

One study shows it only takes 47 times to reach that point.

With only 48 more weeks left in my year of getting over video fears + into feel-good sales,” I had to pull up my big girl panties and get this show on the road.

Sooooo, I went live on Substack the other day, and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

I mean, full-body, existential-crisis, “who even let me have WiFi” level panic.

It was like watching a baby giraffe take its first steps in roller skates, except the giraffe has Wi-Fi, a cell phone, and an unfortunate case of full-body stress sweats.

I could feel my soul trying to claw its way out of my body the moment I hit “Go Live.”

My brain? A complete void.

My voice? Full of anxiety-laced deep breaths.

My body? Drenched in sweat, shaking from the inside out.

I was such a bumbling fucking fool that my buddy Jaime Buckley laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair! It was 4 straight minutes of wheezing laughter. I know because he sent me a Voxer (audio message) of him in hysterics. 🤣

Here’s the weird part—I loved it. I mean, not “loved it” but loved it.

I’m soooo proud of myself for pressing that damn button + letting THAT be enough. That’s all that mattered to me!

Have fun, don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t you dare stop the broadcast for at least 5 minutes.

THAT is what fearless looks like!

Normalizing the art of UNlearning.

But being fearless is more than fumbling through a live video like a squirrel on espresso. It’s ushering in the Unlearning Era—the time in our lives when we finally admit that all the weird baggage we carry around about selling, promoting ourselves, and putting ourselves out there is fucking nonsense.

All along the painful solopreneur path, we picked up programming like:

• Selling makes you a pushy dbag

• Good people don’t promote themselves

• If you’re truly talented, people will just find you (as if the universe has a built-in GPS for brilliant but silent entrepreneurs)

• If you’re not already great at something, it means you’re not ready (or worthy) to start charging for it

This is the kinda steaming hot bullshit beliefs that get stuck in our head like Barbie Girl by Aqua does when it comes blasting out of Pandora unsolicited.

Instead of making life better, I just made shit gross.

I used to think selling felt bad because I was bad at it. But actually, selling felt bad because I thought it was supposed to feel that way.

❌ I thought I had to create fake problems.

❌ I thought I had to handle objections like a hostage negotiator.

❌ I thought I had to use urgency timers like a deranged game show host.

❌ I thought I had to get people on a call + trap them in a live infomercial.

❌ I thought I had to end every post with “DM me if you’re ready to LEVEL UP!!”

❌ I thought I had to call my offer a “no-brainer” while people actively had 37 brains about it.

❌ I thought I had to guilt-trip people into buying, like some kind of marketing mom whispering, “I just want what’s best for you.”

❌ I thought I had to act like my offer was the only possible solution to their problem, or they’d be doomed forever.

❌ I thought I had to tell people they weren’t serious about their dreams if they didn’t buy.

❌ I thought I had to charge $5K for a PowerPoint and a “You got this!” email sequence.

❌ I thought I had to post screenshots of Stripe payments + rent a Lamborghini for the backdrop of my sales videos.

❌ I thought I had to lure people in with free masterclasses + ambush them with a 2-hour sales pitch.

❌ I thought I had to use a 27-step funnel of doom to get people to buy from me.

❌ I thought I had to price anchor my offer by first mentioning a number so big it made people blackout for a second.

❌ I thought I had to make it sound like working with me would single-handedly fix their life, business, relationships, and dog’s digestive issues.

❌ I thought I had to make success sound easy even though I know it actually takes a lot of effort.

❌ I thought I had to tell people my price was only available for the next 7 minutes before it mysteriously doubled.

❌ I thought I had to create an unnecessary “high-ticket” version of my offer just to make the regular price look like a steal.

❌ I thought I had to use social proof that was so generic, it was basically just “Someone somewhere said something nice once.”

❌ I thought I had to pretend I was booked out when I wasn’t.

❌ I thought I had to sell transformation instead of the actual thing I was selling.

❌ I thought I had to make people feel like their life would fall apart if they didn’t buy TODAY.

This predatory programming has created a reality where the moment I think about selling something I believe in, my brain is like, “HOW DARE YOU, YOU GREEDY, SLEAZY, DIRTY WHORE OF A CAPITALIST MONSTER??”

Being healthy, happy, and ethical while running a business shouldn’t feel like a moral crisis… or an act of rebellion—but here we are. 🤷‍♀️

I’m officially putting all this sleazy, manipulative, “buy-now-or-your-dreams-will-die” sales garbage in a flaming dumpster + rolling it off a MFing cliff. 🖕🔥

When I say I’m going to be fearless this year, I mean:

💀 I’m done selling like a desperate, unhinged carnival barker.

💀 I’m done selling like a bro-marketer whose entire personality is “I make 7 figures while working from my yacht.”

💀 I’m done selling like an MLM rep who swears it’s not a pyramid scheme while aggressively drawing a triangle.

💀 I’m done selling like a bad infomercial host who yells ‘BUT WAIT—THERE’S MORE!’ instead of just letting people breathe.

💀 I’m done feeling like I need a boiling hot bleach shower every time I share something I want to get paid for.

💀 I’m done second-guessing my pricing because some asshat with veneers told me I should be charging more.

💀 I’m done telling myself I’m a greedy, soulless capitalist pig who is destroying lives for wanting to make good money doing what I love.

I’m. D-O-N-E!!!

This is ME trust-falling into my Unlearning Era–figuring out what selling looks like when it feels GOOD for me + my kindreds.

The middle finger reframe I’m leaning into…

Selling, at its core, is just telling people about the cool shit I made.

That’s it.

No psychological trickery.
No fake urgency.
No weird power dynamics.
No high-pressure guilt trips.
No flat out bullshit.

It’s just me, standing in my metaphorical digital playground, holding up my awesome “thing,” and saying, “Hey, I made this. You want it?”

It’s like walking into a bakery and the owner saying, “Hey, I just made these ridiculously delicious triple-chocolate croissants; want one?”—would you be like, “Ugh, how manipulative! You’re just trying to SELL me something, you dirty, greedy, whore!”

No, bitch. You’d be like, “HELL YES, GIVE ME THREE.”

Because we like things that make our lives better, fuller, funner, and more indulgent + gratifying. We like things that solve problems and/or bring us hits of joy.

Here’s a revolutionary thought: What if selling could feel… clean?

Not like “holy water, cleanse me of my capitalist sins” clean. But, like soulfully clean. Ethical clean. Energetically clean.

Like, I made this thing, I believe in it, and I am standing in my power saying, “This is for sale, and it’s fucking good.”

Not trying to convince anyone.
Not trying to play on anyone’s insecurities.
Not trying to make anyone feel like a failure for not buying.

Just sharing something really awesome that deserves to be in the hearts + hands of the right people.

Knowing, down to my marrow, that I deserve to be paid for my brilliance, my work, my time, my talent, my energy… my ME-ness.

THAT’s the kind of feel-good, fear-free selling I want to do.

The truth about doing scary shit (like selling, or live video, or starting that damn side hustle)

The hardest part about getting over a fear isn’t the thing itself—it’s the chaotic mental screaming match between “I got this” and “I’m going to die.”

It’s the overthinking… the cringy self-doubt… the mental gymnastics of “What if people think I suck (and tell all their friends to egg my house!)?”

It’s pushing through the fear alone even though it feels like performing your own root canal with a YouTube tutorial and a butter knife—technically possible, but 100% a bad idea.

We need people.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to hype us up when we’re convinced we have no idea what we’re doing (even though we totally do).

🧬 Sometimes it’s to remind us that we don’t sound like a GPS stuck in an existential loop—Recalculating… recalculating… oh God, where are we??

🧬 Sometimes it’s to laugh at our awkwardness so we can laugh at it, too.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to lovingly pry the endless “shoulds” out of our cold, dead, overachieving hands.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to remind us that “NO!” is a full sentence.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to stop us from signing up for another course when we already know what we need to do.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to say, “No, you don’t need a new niche; you need a nap.”

🧬 Sometimes it’s to stop us from deleting all our progress just because we had one meh of a day.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to tell us that “perfect” is a made-up concept and “done” is so much better.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to send us a stupid meme that makes us snort-laugh + shake off the stress.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to remind us why we started this whole solopreneur thang in the first place.

🧬 Sometimes it’s to buy from us + YES, remind us that our work really matters.

The secret to doing scary shit? Don’t do it alone.

This is why I can’t shut up about going ALL IN on community rather than content in Brandishing YOU–the solopreneur speakeasy where perfection’s overrated, progress is contagious, and the liquid courage is stiff enough to fuel your next fearless move.

Because connection creates more progress than content every single time!

CONNECTION is what’s going to get us past these fears that have kept us playing like we’re the size of Keebler elves.

So whether it’s video, selling, or whatever terrifying thing you’re currently avoiding but desperately wanting to conquer—just know that I’m out here, fumbling through this shit, sweating profusely, laughing at myself, and doing it anyway.

And if I can do it? Maybe it’ll show YOU that you sure as hell can, too.

Now, go forth, press that button… sell that thing… send that email… you gloriously fearless human. I believe in you! And I’ve got a bar full of progress-sparking people who do, too. I’ll let you know when Brandishing YOU reopens next week.

Oh, and when you see me go live again, just know that I’m full-blown panicking inside + have absolutely no point to make, but we’re doing it anyway. I’ve got 46 more times to embarass the hell outta myself before I’m not going to give a shit… so I’ve got more scary shit to do.

To outgrowing our Keebler elf phase,

Dre ‘Embarassing By Choice’ Beltrami

Founder, This Digital Playground
Gangster, The Entire Internet (Since 2014)
Beer Hater, No Matter How It's Brewed (Since 1979)
Step into your YOU-SHAPED ERA: Your Barstool Is Waiting 🦄🦄🦄 >>>

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