Grow Your Cashflow

Grow Your Cashflow helps accredited investors ($3M+ net worth) build diversified passive income portfolios through strategic, cash-flowing alternative investments. Our mission is to simplify investing, empower financial freedom, and enable our clients to live life on their terms.

What We Do:
→ High Cash Flow Investments: Deliver consistent monthly income by focusing on opportunities in real estate, private equity, and other alternative assets.

→ Strategic Partnerships: Partner exclusively with top-tier operators to ensure stability and expertise. We invest in every deal alongside our clients, aligning interests and building trust.

→ Hands-On Guidance & Transparency: Provide end-to-end support—from deal analysis to execution—helping investors navigate the complexities of alternative investments confidently.

Key Achievements:
→ Helped clients generate over $120,000/yr in monthly passive income.
→ Curated a portfolio of 6+ vetted investment opportunities in 2023 alone.
→ Built partnerships with operators managing over $5 billion in assets.

How We Help:
→ Eliminate the stress of managing volatile markets by offering reliable, cash-flowing investments.
→ Build portfolios tailored to each investor’s financial goals.
→ Empower investors to reclaim time and freedom while building wealth.

👉 Ready to start building your financial independence?

Message me directly or sign up for your free Passive Income Starter Kit (link in bio).

Founder & CEO

Pascal Wagner Holdings

Pascal Wagner Holdings is my personal investment and advisory portfolio, focused on high-yield real estate investments, high-growth startups, and alternative assets. My portfolio reflects a strategic approach to wealth building through diversified investments and trusted partnerships.

Advisory Roles
Serve as Board Member/Observer for:
→ Forecastr (forecastr.co) – Financial forecasting software for startups.
→ Cubby Beds (cubbybeds.com) – Transformative sleeping solutions for children with special needs.


Investment Portfolio
Pre-IPO and Angel Investments:
→ Forecastr – Financial modeling for startups.
→ Enaia – Innovative tech solutions for scaling startups.
→ SpaceX – Space exploration and advanced transportation.
→ Stripe – Online payment processing for internet businesses.
→ PadSplit – Affordable shared housing for workforce tenants.
→ Sheets & Giggles – Sustainable eucalyptus bedding products.
→ Machinery Partner – Equipment marketplace for small contractors.
→ Favs – Community-driven e-commerce recommendations platform.


Real Estate Investments (Co-Living Capital):
→ Built a portfolio of 11 co-living properties in Atlanta, Georgia, generating sustainable monthly cash flow.
→ Developed rental models achieving 90%+ occupancy rates by transforming underutilized assets into vibrant, cash-flowing communities.


Real Estate Funds:
→ Oil & Gas: LCP Chocwell 10A.
→ ATMs: Real Asset Investor – Fund 5.
→ Self-Storage: Reliant Capital Management – Fund 3.
→ Debt Funds: DLP Capital – Debt Lending Fund, Preferred Credit Fund.
→ Multi-Family: Rise at Suncrest, Cardone Capital – Fund 20, Quantum Capital – Highland Park & Penn.

Founder

Techstars

As Fund & Portfolio Manager at Techstars, I led the deployment of $150 million across three years, investing in over 200 high-potential early-stage startups. My role involved creating scalable systems to identify, evaluate, and invest in top-tier opportunities, ensuring strategic allocation across diverse industries and geographies.

Key Achievements:
→ Capital Deployment: Oversaw the allocation of $150 million in venture capital investments, driving portfolio growth and targeting startups with exceptional scalability and market potential.

→ Deal Sourcing & Evaluation: Developed a comprehensive system to analyze thousands of startups, enabling efficient decision-making and ensuring investments focused on the most promising companies.

→ Board Participation & Founder Mentorship: Provided hands-on support to portfolio companies as a board member, guiding founders on growth strategies, fundraising, and operational improvements.

→ Portfolio Value Creation: Played a critical role in securing equity positions in high-growth startups, aligning investments with Techstars’ strategy and contributing to a high-performing portfolio.

Fund & Portfolio Manager

Walkthrough (a PlanOmatic brand)

After buying & selling 4 properties, I realized how backwards and outdated the real estate industry was. 

I searched on Google & Yelp for photographers, inspectors & appraisers only to find many of them couldn't help me within the next 3 weeks to meet a deadline. After 15 phone calls and hours of searching I finally found someone who could meet with me in 2 weeks but they would only accept checks and took their sweet time getting everything I needed back to me. 

In the age of being able to instantly book a ride (Uber) or vet different places to stay (AirBnB), I knew there was a great opportunity to bring the industry to the 21st century. 

To solve these problems, at Walkthrough we enabled agents (and any other home owners) to book the services they needed, when they needed it, and at the best price without sacrificing quality. All of this was done through an easy online app, filled with reviews & instant booking.

We built what I wish I had when I bought & sold my first few properties. I went on to sell the company to a national photography firm called PlanOmatic in 2019. 

---Here are a few things I accomplished---
‣ Pre-sold $5,000 in orders from customers before any code was written or product existed.

‣ Grew Walkthrough from $0 to $10,000+/mo in revenue in 6 months and ultimately to above $55,000+/mo from 3,000+ customers.

‣ Scaled the company from just an idea to 47 team members and launched 6 markets. 

‣ Tested 27+ acquisition channels before focusing on a channel that repeatedly converted at a 33% conversion rate with a ~$30 CAC.

‣ Raised $2M+ in funding, directly managed 3 engineers and an 8 person operations team, as well as negotiated & led the company to an acquisition.

‣ 3x company learning speed by introducing the ‘Northstar' growth framework and running 1 experiment per team member per week.

‣ Used the weekly ‘Traction’ framework to align the Support team to reduce ‘time to ticket resolution’ from 40 hrs down to ~4.5 hrs in less than 12 weeks.

Chief Executive Officer

Online Ad Labs (Acquired by PosterBrain)

I helped ecommerce businesses who advertised on Facebook get a higher return on their ad spend. 

Some of these companies we're pretty awesome to work with like Barbell Shrugged, The Amazing Seller, Inflowstyle, and the multimillion dollar brands Masterclass, Mahabis, & BC-Loans. 

After reading "Work The System" by Sam Carpenter I systematized everything and then grew the team to 5 people. It allowed me to live the 4 hour work week, live in Bali and travel all across Asia for 9 months. 

I learned how to hire & manage people, build processes & procedures, and how to fire clients that I didn't like to work with.  Thankfully, I was lucky enough to build something someone else thought was valuable. In June of 2016 I sold the company and moved on to bigger and more inspiring projects.

---Here are a few things I've accomplished here---
‣ Signed & managed 54 contracts with advertising budgets totaling over $1,200,000 delivering on the Facebook & Google platforms.

‣ Grew the team to 5 members and systematized operations to be turn-key, ultimately leading us to an acquisition.

‣ Increased ROI on Ad Spend by 7x for ~80% of the 54 companies we took on (typically reducing their cost per lead from ~$8 to below ~$1) through proper copywriting & detailed customer segmentation.

Elevate Mastermind

After graduating college I realized that a lot of my success would be determined by the people I surrounded myself with. I didn't know many entrepreneurs that could be my support system so I pulled in a few friends to help me organize an event to meet all of the entrepreneurs I had been following on "the internet" for the last several years. 

I rented a huge mansion in Breckenridge to throw our event in the first year, and then found a beach house in Bahamas the 2nd year. Somehow I managed to figure out how to have my favorite entrepreneurs buy tickets to attend an event put on by me - some random guy who just graduated college. The flow of the event focused on building deep relationships so instead of sitting around conference tables, we went on adventures, had snowball fights and went deep sea fishing together. 

I now have a solid new group of people I can call friends that have helped me achieve and become the man I am today.

Co-Founder

NotaryElite

Sick of trading time for money, I went through a program called The Foundation which taught the fundamentals of how to start a software company (i.e. building a product instead of a service).

I got on the phone with Notaries (I don't even remember how I fell into this niche) asking them what their problems were, what solutions to those problems could be, how much they'd pay to have those problems solved, and then somehow convinced several of them to pay me 6 months up front for a discount so I could use their money to build their dream product. 

I called it NotaryElite. It was my first crack at building a software company which answered calls on a notaries behalf and scheduled appointments for them in their calendar while they were unable to answer the phone on the road or in meetings. 

I was super proud of building this company - it took a lot of sweat and hustle to get this off the ground but maybe a little too late, I realized the probability of ever earning more than $10k in revenue per month with our product was extremely unlikely because the market size was too small. 

Lesson learned.

You better believe I'll do my research of market potential before starting any new company in the future.

Pünkt IT Consulting

This was my first step up after selling candy bars between classes for $0.50 profit in high school (which apparently is pretty illegal) to buy my first macbook. 

With the goal of making ends meet and graduating college debt free, I helped local companies build websites, provided them web hosting, and had my first shot at helping companies with Facebook marketing. I even fixed a few computers and ran a computer tech shop. 

It was the first time I learned to sell to businesses, write an invoice, charge ahead of time for my services instead of chasing people for payments, and learned what it was like to trade time for money.

Everyone wants to build passive income, and I figured out how.

With over $250K/year in passive income from 30+ investments, years of venture capital experience deploying $150M at Techstars, and a proven system, I can help you build a reliable cash-flowing portfolio (without spending years figuring it out).

→ In 2020: I started from scratch with $0 in passive income.
→ In 2021: I took on the responsibility of managing my family’s finances after losing my dad, ensuring my mom could retire with peace of mind.
→ In 2024: I built a $250K/year portfolio and helped 10+ executives start their journey to financial freedom.

I’ve worked with busy, high-earning professionals to eliminate stress from volatile markets, create passive income portfolios tailored to their goals, and regain time for what matters most.

Here's how I can help you:
→ Download my Passive Investing Starter Kit—trusted by 1,000+ investors. It’s your first step to building a reliable cash-flowing portfolio. (Link in bio)

→ Join the Cashflow Academy to learn how to create your own investment thesis, find pre-vetted opportunities, and start generating passive income.

→ Explore Curated Investments with exclusive access to pre-vetted opportunities, including multifamily real estate, high-yield funds, and alternative assets with built-in tax advantages.


If you're not ready for any of that yet, no worries! Stick around—I share insights on investing smarter, building passive income, and creating a portfolio that works for you.

See you on the feed 👋.

Pascal Wagner

Want to avoid losing $50,000+ on your next real estate deal?

Here are the 4 assumptions that will make or break your returns — and most investors never stress-test them.

We all (should) know that projections are just guesses.
But these 4 variables have the biggest impact on the outcome of a deal.

From reviewing 1,000+ commercial real estate deals, here’s what consistently moves the numbers the most:

1) Rent Growth Projections

Are they assuming modest rent bumps or aggressive increases?

You can cross-check their numbers in 5 minutes using YoY rent data on Zillow or Reventure.

If their assumptions outpace the actual market, that’s not a business plan — that’s optimism.

2) Occupancy Rates

Are they projecting occupancy above the market average?

If yes, how are they getting there?

→ Lower rents?
→ Better amenities?
→ Stronger execution?

If they can’t articulate it clearly, don’t trust the projection.

3) Exit Interest Rates

What rate are they assuming when they sell or refinance?

A lot can change in 5 years.

If the returns only work when rates fall… that’s not underwriting — that’s hope.

4) Operating Expense Growth

Are they assuming realistic increases for insurance, taxes, maintenance, and other operating costs?

In many markets, the biggest expense lines — especially insurance and maintenance — have been rising 4–8% per year, not the old 2–3% underwriting standard.

If they assume flat expenses, the deal’s in trouble before it starts.

And the best part?
These are all 5-minute checks you can run on any deal.

You don’t need hours of research — just a simple stress test.

A deal might “look great” on paper…
but if the assumptions are off, your actual results can look very different.

Am I missing anything? What else do you check before investing?

Sharing How I Built $250K+/Year Portfolio with 30+ Investments | Best Ever CRE Podcast Host (200K+ Monthly Listeners) | Ex-VC @Techstars, Deployed $150M in 3 Years | Join 1K+ Investors Using My Free Starter Kit👇

A few things I’ve been reflecting on as we head into Thanksgiving:

1) Living in Miami

Miami has honestly been such a gift. The pace, the energy, the weather, the people — it’s a city that makes you feel alive and pushes you to dream bigger. I didn’t expect to love it this much.

2) More time with family

I got to see my mom a couple times this year. Those trips weren’t long, but they meant a lot. The older I get, the more I realize how rare it is to get time like that back.

3) Trips with Ashley

Getting away together — even just for a weekend — has been a reset button for both of us. Some of my favorite memories from this year came from those small windows where it was just the two of us.

4) The team around me

This year, a few people stepped up in big ways. It’s hard to put into words how much that matters when you’re building something that feels bigger than you. I’m grateful for the people in my corner.

5) Taking a bet on myself

I built a mentorship program from scratch and turned it into a real consulting revenue stream. It took longer and required more belief than I expected, but I’m genuinely proud of it.

→ As the year winds down, I’m taking time to reflect, simplify, and double down on what’s already working.

Do less — but better.

And keep improving the things that are already moving in the right direction.

Everyone was loading up their Amazon carts yesterday…

I loaded up on Bitcoin.

Didn’t realize Cyber Monday came with a BTC sale—down almost 5% this week.

Better than 99% of the deals I scrolled past.

Not sure what I was doing all these years. 😂

Ever driven past a parking lot and wondered who owns it — or how much it actually makes?

I recently sat down with Kevin Bupp, founder of Sunrise Capital Investors, to break down one of the most overlooked (and surprisingly profitable) niches in commercial real estate: parking.

Kevin’s team has acquired more than $400M in assets — including 4,000 mobile home parks and $150M in parking garages and surface lots across the country. With 20+ years of experience and multiple market cycles under his belt, he explains why he’s doubling down on this niche… and why almost no LPs are watching it.

Here’s what we covered:
 ✅ Why parking lots often outperform multifamily on a hassle-to-return basis
 ✅ How Sunrise blends mobile home parks and parking assets in one fund to balance steady cash flow with long-term appreciation
 ✅ The macro trends driving supply compression and stable demand in parking
 ✅ How self-driving technology, urban redevelopment, and zoning shifts could transform this overlooked sector
 ✅ Why “highest and best use” can create asymmetric upside for investors
 ✅ The biggest mistakes LPs make when evaluating alternative asset classes

If you’re an LP looking for stable, tax-advantaged income and diversification beyond multifamily, this conversation will show you how institutional investors are quietly repositioning capital toward these low-volatility, cash-flow-driven assets.

YouTube link in the comments 👇

It’s surprising how much your life improves when you stack tiny habits.
 
A few things quietly made my life better this year:
 
1) Walking more
 
When I moved to Miami, I told myself, “Alright, I’m ready to step up and finally get a six-pack.”
 
At the time, I was averaging around 7,500 steps a day. Nothing too impressive.
 
Then I bought a walking pad for my desk and started walking during one meeting a week.
Then two.
Then most of them.
 
Now I regularly hit 12–15k steps a day without thinking about it.
 
I look leaner, I feel better, and it’s honestly one of the easiest habits I've ever built. 
 
(Photos to come soon 😉)
 
Wild how such a simple thing can change your whole baseline.
 
2) Treating social media like a craft
 
This one surprised me too.
 
Posting consistently takes time and effort — way more than people think — but it’s been worth it.
 
Every single client I’ve worked with this year came from social.
 
On LinkedIn, I’ve been growing around 350 followers a month.
On YouTube, my videos now get 300+ views in the first week.
 
It’s been fun to learn, fun to iterate, and fun to feel like I’m finally getting the hang of it.
 
It’s starting to feel like a real skill.
 
3) Building momentum slowly
 
Not everything has to be sprint → burnout → repeat.
 
Some things get better when you show up a little bit every day and let the reps stack.
 
Walking more.
Creating more.
 
Being a little more visible.
Just nudging things forward.
 
None of it is flashy.
But it’s working.
 
Can you tell?

Bitcoin just dropped 30% — from around $126K to the low-$80Ks.

Whenever we get a move like this, I catch myself doing the same thing:

I start digging. Charts, articles, graphs… anything that helps me double-check whether I still understand why I own this.

A lot of my friends say the same thing every time:

→ “I don’t get Bitcoin. It doesn’t cash-flow. What’s the value here?”

I used to ask that too.

But then you step back and look at what’s actually happening around us:

→ The dollar losing ~25% of its purchasing power in five years
→ Government spending exploding
→ Savings getting quietly eroded
→ A financial system that chips away at you slowly

At some point, owning a scarce, non-sovereign asset starts to feel less like speculation… and more like insurance.

Bitcoin isn’t perfect.
It’s volatile.
It’s frustrating.
It doesn’t send distributions.

But it does protect you from something every investor underestimates:
→ your dollars getting diluted while you sleep.

Here’s one of the pieces I revisited this week during the drop:
https://lnkd.in/ebaPBZG5

Did you hold through this move?
Or did it make you second-guess things?

Open article: Part 1: Coup to Code - The End Run Around the Fed by marylandhodl.substack.com

Part 1: Coup to Code - The End Run Around the Fed

Everyone wants more affordable housing. 

But no one wants it in their backyard.

That’s the core issue no one in real estate wants to talk about.

People say they want lower rents.

They say they want to “solve the housing crisis.”

But the moment you try to put an actual solution next to them…

Like co-living, micro-units, or shared housing…

They fight it. 

I’ve been looking a lot into why we have an affordable housing crisis, and the more I dig, the more obvious it gets:

 It's NIMBYism. 

"Not in my backyard." 

No one wants a house next to them that has bedrooms added by dividing living rooms, dining rooms, or garages.

They don’t want micro-units.

They don’t want co-living.

They don’t want anything that looks like it’s meant for someone who isn’t a top-echelon high earner.

Because there’s a stigma:

Micro-units = slumlords, crime, mental illness, drugs, homelessness, and overcrowding.

And because of that, cities make it nearly impossible to build them.

→ Look at Seattle.

Back in 2012, they allowed micro-apartments.

Developers actually started building them to spec.

Then the city slowly raised the minimum square footage you had to have per bedroom…

And then, a couple years in, they changed the zoning to basically not even allow them.

It’s wild.

There are plenty of people (myself included) who would build these structures.

But regulation blocks it.

Not economics or demand. 

But red tape from cities. 
 
→ So how do you solve the problem?

A few ideas: 

1). Stop pretending you can fix affordability without changing zoning.

2). Call NIMBYism what it is: “I want solutions, just not where I can see them.”

 3). Let developers build smaller units instead of forcing luxury square footage.

 4). Recognize that micro-units work in Asia, Europe, New York (and they can work here, too).

 5). Stop raising design requirements after builders already commit to projects.

Until something changes, we’re stuck in the same loop:

People say they want affordable housing....

They’re just not willing to live near it.

Writing on LinkedIn almost every day has been way harder than I expected.

Most mornings I’m asking myself:

“Do I actually have something worth saying today… or am I about to break the streak?”

I’m not doing it to “build an audience.”
I’m doing it because distribution is leverage—and the ability to communicate clearly online is only becoming more valuable.

But the process is messy.

I worry about sounding dumb.
Or watching something that felt sharp in my head fall apart on the page.

I’ve tried writers.
I’ve tried systems.
Still—my best ideas arrive late at night.

ChatGPT helps, but not by writing for me.
It helps me see my own thinking.

I’ll read a draft and immediately feel,
“Wait… that’s not quite right. What did I really mean?”

That’s when the real work begins—pulling on the deeper thread I almost skipped.
And here’s the surprising thing I’ve learned:

Your voice doesn’t appear fully formed.
You find it by publishing imperfect work in public.

It’s uncomfortable.
It’s messy.
But it’s also how you grow.

If you’ve ever considered sharing your thoughts more often, I’d encourage it.

The reps don’t just improve your writing—they sharpen how you think.

You've invested $250K across 5 deals.

But you still don't have a plan.

Some tax plays here. 
A little equity growth there. 
A syndication your friend told you about.

And now you're wondering why it all feels disconnected.

I've been there.

A few years ago, I was doing the same thing. 

Not gambling — just evaluating each deal in isolation instead of as part of a full strategy.

I only invested in things I believed were high quality:

→ Real estate in downtown Denver (because I knew the area)

→ Funds from well-known operators (because I didn't want to lose money)

→ Passive deals through my friend group (because I wanted to spread the risk)

I was investing in what I had access to...

But the market shifted, and the plan I had wasn’t designed for the conditions we ended up facing.

So if you've built your strategy from podcasts and LinkedIn posts, I get it. 

But you're not positioned to win, either.

→ Because when you invest without a plan, your portfolio isn't optimized for what you actually need. 

Maybe you need cash flow now, but half your capital is locked up in long-term equity plays.

That's why you need to ask yourself some hard questions:

→ What do I want my portfolio to look like in 5 years?
→ How do I balance cash flow vs. equity growth?
→ How do I know which deals fit my goals?

At the time, I wasn’t asking those questions yet — because my plan was built for a different stage.

And it left me with capital tied up in deals I wished I could reallocate.

But now I know better.

I'm not falling in love with deals that look good on paper.

Instead, I'm creating a structured portfolio with:

→ Targeted equity positions with clear upside
→ Monthly cash flow from low-volatility debt funds
→ Diversification across operators and asset classes

Don't wait until your portfolio underperforms to realize you needed a strategy from the start.

It’s the end of the year… 

You’ve made great income,
Your CPA mentioned you need depreciation, 
And every operator is promising massive write-offs.

But before you wire that $100K, here’s the truth: not all write-offs actually lower your taxes the way you think they do.

In this solo episode of The Passive Income Playbook, Pascal Wagner breaks down the 3 types of income the IRS recognizes — and how to align your investments so the write-offs you earn actually hit your tax return.

After personally investing $3.3M across 23 private deals, and managing capital professionally at Techstars ($150M deployed), Pascal shares the framework that turned one painful $40K tax surprise into a repeatable system for year-end planning.

Most investors chase “tax-advantaged” deals without understanding which bucket their income sits in — active, portfolio, or passive.

Once you learn how they actually work, you’ll never look at write-offs the same way again.

In this episode, you’ll learn:
✅ The 3 income buckets the IRS uses — and why mixing them up kills your deductions
✅ How to know which type of investment actually affects your taxes
✅ The 3 rare ways to offset active income (and when they actually apply)
✅ Why depreciation only works if your income is in the passive bucket
✅ The real reason wealthy investors “stack” funds and real estate strategically
✅ How to engineer after-tax returns instead of chasing headline IRRs

If you’re looking at deals right now and wondering “Which of these will actually help my taxes?” — this episode shows you exactly how to tell before you invest.

Youtube link in comments👇

Take Action Copy

www.takeactioncopy.com

I write words that make you money.

Founder, Ghostwriter & Copywriter

CRE Digital

Head of Content & Ghostwriter

AllianceBernstein

Team Lead | Assistant Vice President - Regional Consultant

Assistant Vice President - Regional Consultant

Jackson

Sold variable annuities. Yeah. I know. 



Attained Internal Wholesaler Level 3 status -- the highest level available.  

Was named Internal Wholesaler of the Quarter for quarter 3 in 2017 for the Northeast Region, and was awarded "Top Gun", an internal award given to the top performer in a two-day showcase.

Internal Wholesaler

Grand Valley Lanthorn

Assigned and edited stories, wrote up to four pieces a week, and ran the Lanthorn sports Twitter account. Covered beats for GVSU football, men’s basketball, and baseball.

Sports Editor

Wrote and edited stories and briefs while covering a variety of games and athletic events.

Assistant Sports Editor

Local Sports Journal

At this Muskegon prep website, I wrote feature stories profiling high school athletes and teams. My main focus was football, though I branched into soccer, volleyball, and tennis. I also helped with editing, which involved monitoring our WordPress page, reviewing stories, and posting them to www.localsportsjournal.com.

Sportswriter

FOX 17

With FOX 17, I shot video at local sports events, edited the clips for broadcast and wrote scripts. I covered high school basketball, Grand Rapids Griffins hockey, West Michigan Whitecaps baseball, and various Division I and II sports. I also wrote news releases for the FOX 17 website.

Freelancer

Grand Valley State University

More than 4,000 incoming students went through freshman orientation during summer 2014, and 
I assisted every one. Over the course of 40 orientation dates, I worked closely with faculty members, professional advisers and other student assistants to help freshmen choose courses and ease into college life.

Orientation Assistant

During my time as a staff writer, I covered golf, lacrosse and cross country, as well as club sports like hockey and rowing. I wrote two stories a week, either features or game recaps.

Staff Sportswriter

Getting financial advisors millions of dollars & impressions | $20+ million in capital & AUM raised from LinkedIn | 100+ million client impressions | 400+ meetings booked | $1+ million in client courses sold

If you work in finance or real estate and want to add clients or capital through LinkedIn, send me a DM.

If you want to write a memoir or lead-gen book, send me a DM.

Adam Knorr

Last Wednesday, I knocked on 11 doors and invited 11 strangers to dinner. But the story doesn’t start there. 

In October, I was on a flight from Houston to Austin. 

When I’m on a flight, I like to honor the miracle of air travel by becoming the least approachable human I can be. Hood up, laptop out, headphones over the ears. I’m Simon Cowell with a toothache, Gordon Ramsay judging a toddler bake-off. I’m the Grinch — stuck in economy. 

But on this particular flight, I was sabotaged. 

Her name was Kay, and she was in her 70s. 

Kay caught me with my headphones down and started chatting me up. 

After a few minutes of small talk, Kay looked at me:

“This is nice,” she said. “No one talks on airplanes anymore.”

“Tell me about it,” I beamed. “A travesty.”

Kay went on to tell me how she puts on social events for her friends back home in New Mexico. She talked about how community is dying. How we're all in our phones to stay in touch, forgetting that those phones just keep us out of touch.

Six months before this flight, I had been invited to a dinner in Toronto by Tony Albrecht. 

Tony got some people from LinkedIn together and treated us all to a family-style dinner. 

I told Kay about this — and about how cool it was — and she asked me:

“Do you have anyone you could do that with?”

“Well,” I said. “I have 11 neighbors on my apartment floor, but I never see any of them. I guess I could put together a dinner and knock on their doors.”

So Kay made me promise that I would. She even gave me her personal card — the one she started carrying after she retired and no longer needed a business card — so I could tell her when I did it.

And that’s how, last night, I hosted a dinner with nine new friends. 

Turns out, knocking on doors gives you what tapping on screens promises you.

Gratitude post for all writers who continue to use the em-dash in the face of libelous AI allegations.

We will rightfully protect what's ours.

Do not surrender ground.

I stand with you.

Write in paragraphs if you want people to take you seriously.

Not walls of text — never walls of text. But use two sentences. Even three.

Yeah, white space is good. But if it's all you use, you're telling your audience you don't deserve their attention.

I rarely talk about fitness on LinkedIn, but it's such a massive part of my life that it seems crazy not to. Here are 5 fitness tips that will change your life:

JK I just wrote that hook as an excuse to share this photo. 

You know it. I know it. We all know it. 

Anyway, book a LinkedIn consulting call with me here: 

https://lnkd.in/gXRi8zYd

My profile appeared 87,495 times across LinkedIn from Nov. 11-18. 41,018 of those appearances were from comments.

Every week, someone sends me a DM saying:

"How do I get more engagement on my posts?"

And I respond saying:

"How often do you comment? DM? Engage with other people?"

And then, 9 times out of 10, they don't respond.

The irony.

Goodness, gracious.

The irony.

I've edited 200+ LinkedIn posts for students this year. Here are 5 pieces of advice I'm tired of repeating:

1. Metaphor posts are gross.

Bad: "Here's what saving a baby deer taught me about financial planning."

Good: "Lol, I saved a baby deer. It was crazy. Let me tell you about it. 

Overly engineered content repels people. 

2. Write "poorly" on purpose to show you're human.

Four in every five students who comes to me says, "I'm not a good writer."

"Perfect," I say. "Please avoid using ChatGPT as much as possible so people can hear your voice in your posts."

As long as you can show me you're human, I can improve your writing. 

Developing voice is a legit competitive advantage. 

3. Controversy > consensus 

Lean into opinions that fire people up. Eliminate qualifying language like "sometimes." Say it with your chest. 

4. Stick to one topic per post.

One of the biggest improvements most people can make on LinkedIn is sticking to one idea/topic/theme per post. 

If you see two themes, split into two posts.

5. Tell your complete story before breaking for context.

When you start telling a story in the hook, continue telling the story until it has concluded.

THEN pivot to your opinion or the lesson you want to share.

When you stop your story to interject, you lose the reader.

If you did it right, you have them hooked from the start. Keep them there! Don't let them get away!

--

P.S. What's the No. 1 question you have about writing LinkedIn posts?  

AMA

Elementary schools should be teaching personal branding, not biology.

Everyone laughs at Gen Z/Gen Alpha for wanting to be influencers.

Do you realize how much of a cheat code having an audience is?

I made my first post on LinkedIn in October 2022.

Since then, I have:

• Made more than $500,000 from writing.
• Created 5 different income streams.
• Been hired to write books. 
• Charged $400/hour for consulting calls.
• Worked with founders, CEOs, and celebrities.

And most importantly, I have built a distribution network for my future work.

When you build distribution, you create optionality and flexibility for yourself.

If every single one of my clients fired me tomorrow, I'd create a new offer and push it on all 15,259 of you so fast you'd think I was Pablo Escobar at a Korn concert. 

I imagine in 2035, I'll be making money online in a way I never considered in 2025.

And that's a heck of a lot more valuable than learning about peas and some guy named Gregor.

The "AI slop" problem is so bad that companies will now pay you $274,000 for human storytelling.

From this WSJ article:

• Vanta is hiring a head of storytelling for $274K.
• 70,000 LinkedIn job postings say “storyteller” 
• Google, Microsoft, Notion have storytelling teams.

If you had told me three years ago that I could make more money writing LinkedIn posts than I made working in finance, I would have... guffawed? Gut-busted? Asked you where you bought your acid?

I originally quit writing because I didn't think there was any money in it.

And — considering my best job offer out of school was in International Falls, MN making $27,500 a year — I feel that was a fair assertion.

But the pendulum has swung all the way back.

Now, storytelling is how you get clients.

Founders, CEOs, and brands need to control the narrative. And the backlash against AI-generated media has been so strong that producing ChatGPT-scented content in 2025 is akin to doing what the Falcons did in the second half of Super Bowl LI.

Not only will you lose, but they'll laugh at you. 

Oh, how they'll laugh. 

Once more, from the WSJ:

"CEOs [say], ‘It sounds like I need a content strategy,’" said communications CEO Steve Hirsch. 

“The AI slop of it all creates so much distrust, and they see that the brands that are winning right now are the ones that are most authentic and human and relatable.” 

--

Oh, btw:

Do you know what Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2025 is?

Every year, I work from my dad's office over the holidays. It's a good reminder that I've had more advantages than 99% of freelance writers.

I've been writing professionally three years. I'm finally sort of comfortable claiming I've had a little bit of success — but if I want to claim success, I have to tell the truth about where it came from.

And the truth is, I have had every single advantage.

My dad was a freelance copywriter. It was the first job I knew you could do. Before I ever dreamed about playing shortstop for the Detroit Tigers, I saw myself alone in a quiet office, armed with a red pen and an AP Stylebook.

My parents were both entrepreneurs — my mom in real estate — so I grew up watching early mornings, stress, sacrifice. But because it was all I saw, I didn't realize it was remarkable. It just was. That's how everyone works, right?

As a kid, I wrote a lot. Since the guy who determined my bedtime was also a professional writer, I had access to high-quality feedback. I charge $900/month for that now, but he did it for free.

I'm good at writing. It's what I'm supposed to do with my life. But it certainly doesn't hurt that I got professional guidance before I ever put down a Junie B. Jones book for the last time.

I studied journalism, but took a job in finance. It hurt my heart to stop writing, but it helped my bank account.

Six years later, when I finally walked away to try freelancing, I had the thing most new writers never get: time. Runway. Margin for error.

I knew I could go a full calendar year without making any money and still be OK.

Most people trying to make it as a writer don't have this breathing room. Turns out, it's easier to score goals when you aren't white-knuckling the stick. Yeah, I was still tightrope walking, but my safety net was so close it was scraping the rubber off my soles.

For my first 20 gigs, my dad edited everything before I sent it. He introduced me to his contacts in the industry. 

The first time I charged more than $2,000 for a project came when my sister-in-law put in a good word for me at her company.

Yeah, I've worked hard. But I never had to work scared.

My family wanted to see me win, friends wanted to see me win, and strangers wanted to see me win. And instead of just golf-clapping from the sidelines, they each got in the game and dished me some assists.

So, yeah.

When you're comparing yourself to other people, remember that you're not seeing the invisible advantages baked into someone's default assumptions.

One morning, I quit my 9-5 job and said, “I’m a writer now.” 
 
Want to do something similar? Listen. 
 
Quitting my job to bet on myself is a decision I agonized over for years. 
 
But when it came down to it, the actions it took to create my reality took me less than 24 hours. 
 
-> Woke up  
-> Printed a 2-week notice 
-> Gave an 8:00 A.M. presentation 
-> Quit at 9:00 A.M. 
 
When you're "stuck" in the day-to-day grind, it's easy to get tunnel vision. And it’s hard to grasp the vastness of opportunity that simply being alive offers you. 
 
And because the years whip by at breakneck speed, it can feel impossible to find the time to break patterns. 
 
So instead of taking advantage of the limitless sandbox of the human experience, you blink and years have passed and you still haven’t progressed toward That Thing You Wanted To Do. 
 
But the life you live is simply a result of the actions you take. 
 
Most outcomes are determined by your input — not by random chance. You have control to change situations you don’t like. 
 
And look — these don’t have to be drastic things. They usually aren’t. I know plenty of people who love their patterns. Their jobs. Their relationships. 
 
But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn’t have something they want to change. 
 
So whether that’s quit-your-job-and-move-4,000-miles-away drastic or man-I’m-sick-of-eating-the-same-thing-every-day mundaneness, the actions it takes to change your situation are often less daunting than your brain makes them seem. 
 
Remember: 

Who you are is who you choose to be.

If I were a financial advisor struggling to stand out on LinkedIn, here how I'd fix that in 7 steps:

1. Define my Ideal Client Profile.

When you try to speak to everyone, you end up speaking to no one. Your posts sound like every other advisor. And prospects scroll right past because nothing you're saying feels like it's for them specifically.

2. Redesign my profile.

Your banner, tagline, and featured section should all be designed to get your profile viewers to take the next step in your process.

If you haven't done this yet, do it immediately.

3. Never send out a firm-generated post again.

Sorry Hearsay, sorry FMG, sorry Buffer.

No one gets on LinkedIn to click a link to your Q4 market update.

(I know. I used to post this stuff.) 

4. Stop using ChatGPT to write my content.

You're using an amalgamation of everyone else's voice and wondering why you can't stand out.

I mean? 

5. Stop posting content rooted in zero personal experience.

"You're making $500K and you still feel broke."

Wow. Inventive. No one ever saw that one before. 

Prospects can tell when you're writing faux-pain point content. It all looks the same — generic content written in the second person that literally anyone else could have slapped together. 

You need to be telling stories from your experience that only you can tell. Yes, tweak some of the details, but write from the real conversations you have every day.

6. Learn how to write hooks.

Learn how to write hooks.

7. Lean into controversy.

What are your contrarian opinions?
What do you hate about the industry?
When did you go against the grain with client advice?

You can't hope to stand out when your content is written to blend in.

--

P.S. If you're a financial advisor who wants to 5-10x your reach and start generating monthly leads from LinkedIn, DM me "GPS."

Spots for my January cohort are filling fast, but have a few still left.

I have been paid $30,000 in a single day for a writing project, but nothing will ever beat closing my first client for $500.

It was October 2022, and I was living in Basecamp — a one-story, tarp-covered house on the bottom of a Kona coffee farm.

There were eight of us living in the house. At 28 years old, I was the Old Man By the Mango Tree, nearly a decade older than all my roommates. 

Often, I would wake up at 4:00 AM to start my day, fist-bumping a couple of roommates I passed in the hallway on their way to go to bed for the night. 

Between the eight of us, the farm provided two vehicles. I figured if I was going to be living in Hawaii, I didn't want my adventures to be constrained based on vehicle availability, so I found a guy with a car rental business.

I also figured if I was going to wear Hawaiian shirts and sport a mustache, I owed it to Tom Selleck to drive something better than a Hyundai Sonata, so I signed up for a long-term rental on a silver Dodge Challenger.

I met the owner of the rental business in the parking lot of a Shell station in Kealakekua, Hawaii.

When he handed me the keys, I pounced:

"Hey man. I respect what you're doing with your own business. I'm actually self-employed, too. I'm a copywriter — I write websites and things like that. I noticed your website still needs to be written. Would you be down with me sending you a proposal for what I would charge to write it?"

His website existed, but it was full of Lorem Ipsum placeholders. He agreed to take a look at my proposal, so I cruised back to the shack and fired it off.

A day later, my phone rang.

"Hey Adam. Let's do it."

I was breathing like I had just done a Polar Plunge into the Pacific, but I managed to choke out:

"Sounds good. I'll send you the invoice."

Then, I hung up, sprinted out to the living room, and high-fived every 19-year-old roommate I could find.

Since then, the numbers have gotten bigger and the projects more exciting, but I have never felt the same high as that first client — and I don't ever expect to again.

I tell girls on Hinge that I'm a writer then I spend 20 minutes during prime working hours creating content like this. 

Steinbeck, Twain, Knorr.

Not everything you post on LinkedIn has to be shoehorned into a fake lesson about what you learned. 

You can just tell good stories because it's fun to tell good stories.

And as a bonus, people won't want to vomit you when they read your content.

If you want to learn how to consistently break 10,000 impressions on LinkedIn, read this:

I’m sending out an email tomorrow to 828 people that breaks down the easiest way to create viral content on LinkedIn.

It’s too long for LinkedIn, so I can’t post it here. 

DM me your email address if you want to be added before it goes out at 9:00 AM EST tomorrow.

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Only 5 spots left in The Advisor GPS January Cohort.

What you learn from me directly: 

-> Why LinkedIn actually works for financial advisors (and why most fail)

-> How to design a profile that attracts leads instead of repelling them

-> The ICP clarity exercise that determines all your content strategy

-> How to get in front of your ideal clients without spending hours networking

-> Why traditional "selling" doesn't work on LinkedIn (and what does)

-> The Sales Navigator deep dive for finding unlimited ideal prospects

-> How to send DMs that book high-value calls without being salesy

-> The commenting strategy that builds presence in your absence

-> How to escape the "first-degree vortex" where you only see the same 15 people in your LinkedIn feed

-> How the LinkedIn algorithm actually works (with proof from hundreds of posts analyzed)

-> Why "impression posts" vs "lead posts" require completely different strategies

-> How to never run out of content ideas (ever)

-> Advanced AI content creation so you're not spending hours writing (and so you're creating content that doesn't sound like you're a paint-by-numbers book that gained sentience)

-> Why email still wins (and why most advisors ignore it)

-> How to set up the LinkedIn → Email funnel

->  The 5 types of emails that get read

-> How to repurpose LinkedIn content into emails so you're not creating everything from scratch

-> How to create welcome sequences that nurture new subscribers automatically

You also get: 

• Unlimited 1:1 consulting access to me via DM
• Access to weekly group calls + office hours
• Lifetime access to videos, templates, and frameworks

I haven't posted publicly about the January cohort until now...

And 5 of the 10 spots have already been filled just from convos in the DMs. 

I'm sure the next 5 will be gone in no time.

Shoot me a DM if you want to reserve yours.

Yesterday I taught a session inside Mando Sallavanti III, CFP®'s LinkedIn community — 83 financial advisors who are already investing in their growth on LinkedIn.

If you were there, you got a preview of the system I use to help advisors generate leads and smash impressions in 30–60 days.

If you want to go deeper, I’m opening up 5 new spots for my 30-Day LinkedIn Accelerator in January.

This includes:

• the complete Advisor GPS LinkedIn system
• weekly live coaching with me
• access to our private community
• templates, scripts, and growth frameworks
• and full support for 30 days

DM me "GPS" and I'll send you the details.

Stuff My Clients Say

I've written 4,100+ hooks. One mistake kills engagement more than any other: 

Assuming your audience knows who you are. 

Most creators have a "World Revolves Around Me" mindset.

You think people are paying attention. You think people have been following along. You think people have been reading your stuff, connecting the dots, building a mental map of your expertise, your offer, your point of view.

They haven't.

Most people skim. 
They catch a post here and there. 
They don't remember what you wrote yesterday.

So every single post, you should be starting from scratch.

When you write a hook that skips the authority, skips the context, skips the problem-naming — because you assume your audience already knows — it has zero chance at getting inbound leads.

Yeah, it's going to get comments from the same 15 people who show up every day...

But they were going to be there regardless. It doesn't mean the content was actually good — it just means you successfully clicked "post."

It's an inconvenient truth for 99% of creators, but you actually have to be good at copywriting if you want inbound leads.

You have to understand:

• Audience awareness levels
• Problem awareness levels
• Solution awareness levels 

This is why persuasive writing was destined to become a high-income skillset since Johannes Gutenberg started monkeying with his tiles in the 1440s. 

And this is why most people are deluding themselves into thinking ChatGPT can "write" content well enough to get inbound leads.

If you understand this stuff? 

Sure.

If not? 

You're going to keep showing up for another year wondering why no one is DMing you "financial freedom."

My financial advisor client got 3 inbound leads from people each with $5MM+ in investible assets this week from LinkedIn content.

I can teach you how to do this.

DM me "GPS" if you're interested.

(Only 5 spots left for the January cohort.)

taplio

The Battle

Pascal Wagner

Adam Knorr

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScorePascal Wagner's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdam Knorr's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Pascal Wagner

Adam Knorr

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Pascal Wagner's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreAdam Knorr's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScorePascal Wagner's LinkedIn Performance