College teacher turned ghostwriter | Scaling founders, coaches, and consultants to $100K+ /mo | Writing to build wealth and better self | 98,000 on Twitter (X)

Taylin John Simmonds

3 years ago, a friend lent me $40K to pay off my debt. So I could focus on business.

2 years ago, I offered to pay it back. He said no. Reinvest. Pay me later. 1 year ago, first payment. 

Yesterday, I paid him back!

Find the people who bet on you before it makes sense. Then spend your life proving them right.

College teacher turned Substack ghostwriter | Thoughts about craft, ideas, and AI as a creative partner (not a replacement) | 2B impressions | $4M+ revenue generated | All in on Substack

One pattern I’ve noticed in all the people that inspire me: They live a diverse life.

They layer unrelated skills. 
Read widely. 
And have friends you'd rarely see together. 

A rich life isn't only about money. It's about the range of experiences that made you who you are.

Stop calling yourself a content creator. Content creators chase algorithms. You're cultivating a body of work.

You're not in the content game. You're in the depth game.

And depth doesn't scale. It compounds.

I'm noticing a quiet rebellion against balance. 

People who disappear into their craft. 12, 15 hours a day for weeks. Then step back completely. No guilt. No routine. No splitting the difference. Full immersion, then full recovery. 

Seasons, not schedules.

You don't actually want to stop working. You just haven't found work worth your devotion.

The goal isn't to do less. It's to care so deeply about one thing that everything else becomes noise.

Find that thing. Then you'll never need convincing to start.

Everyone's trying to escape work. Fewer hours. Passive income. Early retirement. That's not freedom. That's avoidance.

You don't want to do less. You want something worth pouring everything into. Work that's worthy of your full attention, your full energy, your full devotion.

Find that first.

If AI is speeding up your writing process, you're using it wrong.

AI should slow you down. Stress-test your ideas. Pressure-test your arguments. Find the angle that actually matters before you write a word.

The bottleneck was never your writing speed. It was your thinking clarity.

You don't need 100 clients. You need a handful of the right ones and the devotion to serve them so well they never want to leave.

No empire. No team of 30. No "scaling to seven figures."

Just craft you're proud of and a livelihood that lets you live well.

A book you highlighted but never practiced is a book you never read.

Understanding doesn't live in the notes you took.

It lives in the choices you made differently afterward.

A life-changing habit I picked up recently: Fifteen minutes of breath work before work.

The breath brings me out of my head and into stillness. A stillness that makes creative work feel effortless.

Your best work is hiding behind the ritual you're skipping.

The real value in the AI age isn't what you know. It's who you can inspire.

Give them an aim, a compelling reason, and the next small step when everything feels overwhelming.

If you want to matter in the AI age, don't just share knowledge. 
Lend direction.

You're behind because you've never given 100% of yourself to the thing you care about.

Subtract everything that isn't it. Give it everything you have. Not 40%. Not most days. Everything.

You've never seen what happens when you actually commit. Find out.

Grow your LinkedIn & business without wasting hours a day on content · Helped 100+ business owners build their personal brands · Ghostwriter for founders scaling to 7 & 8 figures

My life changed the day I got the call...

Until September 2022, I thought I’d made it.

I got into Bioengineering at one of Portugal’s top universities.

All the years of late nights and hard work finally paid off.

But one day, the phone rang.

It was our landlord.

His voice was cold and final: “I want you out as soon as our contract ends.”

With no money and the new sky-high rents, I was left in a pit of anxiety.

With little savings and skyrocketing rents, my mother and I were soon going to be homeless.

My grades, once a source of pride, began to plummet.

Anxiety and despair took hold.

I was on the verge of depression.

Faced with no other choice, I took the biggest bet of my life...

I was going to go all in on learning how to make money online.

I didn't want the Lambo or fancy Rolex.

I just wanted to make money so my mother and I could survive.

So, with 0 idea what I was doing, I decided to hire a business mentor I had been following on social media for a little over a year.

I was going to build my personal brand and learn how to get paid to write online as a ghostwriter.

I knew the next few months would determine whether:

1) My mother and I would have a roof over our head 

Or...

2) My mother and I would be begging in the streets just to get by.

So, I went 100% in.

• I quit college
• I drained my savings
• I even took out a loan so I could afford the mentorship

Starting from 0, I faced many challenges...

• Months of no income
• Feeling like I didn’t belong
• Wondering if I’d even make it

But through many failures (and lessons), I slowly got better each day.

I went from 0 followers to growing by over 30 followers a day.

I went from being a nobody to talking with high-value entrepreneurs daily.

But most importantly, I started making enough money to pay for rent and put food on our table.

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The Battle

Taylin John Simmonds

Nickolas Carlos Grothe

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The Battle

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Nickolas Carlos Grothe

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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);}Taylin John Simmonds's LinkedIn Performance

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