Stop Living In Your Fantasies
GM.
And unfortunately, some sad news this week.
Ben Bader, a 25 year old millionaire copywriter passed away, just 2 days ago on Thursday.
Supposedly, a freak sauna machine accident.
I didn’t know the guy personally and he never knew me, but nevertheless, he was a guy who had that sort of an effect on people.
He had charisma in spades.
I remember seeing a video of him maybe a year or two ago and being fascinated by the idea of becoming a copywriter.
He wasn’t the reason I got into copywriting, but there was this guy, making money hand over fist, wearing the coolest $600 Gucci sunglasses I’d ever seen, vlogging from his penthouse view somewhere in Miami.
He was arguably the coolest, youngest copywriter around and he made everything look effortless.
I don’t normally name drop people, but death deserves that respect.
And so, today, this email is dedicated to him.
Let’s talk about fantasy.
See today, most people have this problem, where all their relief comes from fantasy.
The endless movies people watch or the doomscroll of social media as they bed-rot in the pitch black of their rooms on laptops.
Cue the duvet from Fight Club, symbolism of material goods like bags, designer clothing and cars to elicit status.
Whacking off to pron in the bathroom with furrowed brow.
Dreaming of the nonexistent 10/10 BF/GF that they’ll have.
Places they’ll travel to, etc.
Now normally, a bit of balance isn’t a bad thing, it’s human.
In fact, it’s necessary to figure out what you want out of life.
Like me deciding to become a globe-trotting, 6-figure wifi-money earning copywriter.
It becomes an issue, however, when energy and time is spent maintaining the fantasy as opposed to building and realizing the reality.
Because the reality for 99% of people is that reality is ugly and boring.
A bullshit job, a dingy apartment, a beater car, a rotund gf/wife, blah blah blah.
Reality is ugly for most people.
That’s when they try to escape reality. Then they get lost, where they become pron addicts, alcoholics, get 1-shotted by ayahuasca, lose all sense of ambition, and ultimately lose touch with reality.
If instead, they had actually worked on reality, given their energy and time to it, they could genuinely build the fantasy in reality and live it.
To drive the point, I have 2 stories today.
Story 1: The Venetian Con
Jump back to 1589. Venice is dying.
The Portuguese had discovered a sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa), destroying Venice’s monopoly on the lucrative spice trade.
The Ottoman Empire had captured Constantinople (modern day Turkey) and was seizing Venetian colonies in the eastern Mediterranean, while Dutch and English merchants were aggressively competing for trade dominance.
By 1589, the Venetian government recognized their maritime commerce was in serious decline with diminishing customs revenue.
The once-mighty empire is hemorrhaging wealth to Spain and the Dutch.
The streets are depressed. The nobles are desperate.
Then rumors spread about Bragadino.
An alchemist.
A master who could somehow multiply gold using a secret substance.
The Venetian nobles rushed to his palace. They watched him transform worthless minerals into gold dust right before their eyes.
When the Senate heard the Duke of Mantua (Italy) was competing for his services, they panicked.
They made him an offer he couldn’t refuse:
Unlimited funding. A splendid palace. Banquets. Expensive clothes. Whatever he wanted.
“Just come to Venice and save us”.
Bragadino (what a name, right?) accepted.
He moved into his palace. The republic funded his lavish lifestyle.
Hawkers sold alchemy books and apparatus in the streets. Everyone in Venice was trying to practice alchemy.
Except Bragadino.
He didn’t hurry to produce gold. This made him MORE popular.
People from across Europe and Asia came to visit. The citizens grew impatient, but the Senate warned them: “He’s a capricious genius. He must be cajoled.”
Finally, the nobility and his enemies demanded proof. Immediate proof.
Bragadino’s final play?
“Venice’s impatience has betrayed me. I’m leaving.”
He left for Padua (Italy). Then Munich (Germany). Repeated the pattern. Lived comfortably everywhere he went.
Here’s what nobody noticed:
The glass pipe up his sleeve.
The one he used to slip gold dust into his “worthless minerals.”
The Venetian senators were so desperate to believe, so blinded by the fantasy of easy salvation, that they funded a con artist for years.
They could have analyzed Venice’s economic decline. They could have implemented hard reforms. They could have done the brutal work their ancestors did to build the empire.
But reality was ugly. The solution was painful.
Fantasy was easy to understand. And infinitely more palatable.
Story 2: The Exotic Dancer
Paris, 1905. Word spreads through the salons of the elite about a mysterious woman.
An exotic dancer. She only performs in private homes. Invitation only.
Her name whispered in excitement: Mata Hari.
The story she told?
She was born on the far eastern island of Java, descended from a Javanese princess. She’d traveled through India on horseback, sometimes naked, with a rifle strapped to her back. She’d studied the sacred temple dances of the East.
When she danced, she wore revealing sarongs and veils that shimmered in candlelight.
Her body moved like water, undulating, hypnotic, erotic. Bracelets clinked on her arms. Strange instruments in her hands made sounds the Parisians had never heard. A full Javanese orchestra accompanied her.
The nobility scrambled for invitations. At some performances, she danced completely nude.
Within months, she was performing for thousands. Touring across Europe.
Making more than doctors and lawyers. The toast of every salon, every gala, every aristocratic party from London to Berlin.
She was a full-blown celebrity.
But here’s what nobody knew:
Her real name was Margaretha Zelle. A boring, broke Dutch woman with not a drop of Asian blood in her veins.
She’d only seen ONE Javanese dancer, once, and copied what she remembered.
She wasn’t even particularly pretty. And according to critics who wrote about her years later, she wasn’t even a good dancer.
She’d arrived in Paris with half a franc in her pocket. No connections. No talent. No exotic lineage.
Just an understanding of something most people (marketers) never grasp:
Fantasy beats reality. Every. Single. Time.
She gave the Parisians what they craved: mystery, danger, forbidden pleasure, escape from their suffocating aristocratic routines.
She played the part so perfectly that they never questioned whether the veils hid truth or illusion.
For over a decade, she lived like royalty on pure theater.
Then came World War I.
French intelligence arrested her. The charge: spying for Germany. Trading French military secrets for German gold.
The trial was swift. The evidence circumstantial. But France was losing the war and needed a scapegoat.
On October 15, 1917, they stood Mata Hari against a wall and executed her by firing squad.
She refused the blindfold. Blew a kiss to the soldiers. Died performing.
Next:
Now I know what you’re thinking:
“Cool stories Fathi, but what does a 1900s spy and a 16th-century con artist have to do with copywriting in 2025?”
Everything.
Because here’s what’s happening right now in the marketing world:
You’re not Mata Hari or Bragadino.
You’re the Venetian Senate/Parisian Nobility.
You’re the one buying the fantasy.
You’re being given cheap bread and wine in the Roman Colosseum.
You know the fantasy I’m talking about:
“Build a personal brand and clients will flood your DMs”
“Just be authentic and the money follows”
“Start a newsletter and you’ll have a 6-figure business in 90 days”
“Post daily on X and the algorithm will reward you”
The gurus sell you this fantasy. The X threads reinforce it. The success stories validate it.
And just like the Venetian senators who watched Bragadino multiply gold, you want to believe so badly that you don’t notice the glass pipe up his sleeve.
But here’s the data nobody’s showing you:
- 87% of newsletters never break 500 subscribers
- 92% of “personal brand” accounts on X never generate a single paying client
- The average time to monetize a personal brand? 18-24 months of consistent posting
- 73% of “guru” income comes from selling courses on how to build personal brands, not from the personal brand itself
You’re so hypnotized by the fantasy that you can’t see what’s actually happening:
You’re funding someone else’s life while yours crumbles.
The reality?
Personal brands work for people who already have:
- A proven skillset that generates results
- Client wins they can showcase
- A specific niche that’s desperate for their solution
- Or an existing audience to leverage
It works for marketers who understand:
Fantasy is powerful when you’re selling it. It’s fatal when you’re buying it.
Mata Hari’s mistake wasn’t creating the fantasy. It was having nothing real underneath it when reality came knocking.
Bragadino’s genius wasn’t the alchemy. It was understanding that desperate people will fund any fantasy that promises easy salvation.
Your mistake isn’t wanting to build a personal brand or wanting to make life changing money with copywriting.
It’s choosing fantasy over the brutal work that actually generates income.
That’s what it’s all about: doing the work and not avoiding the pain.
About actually living in reality and working to make your reality beautiful.
That’s something Ben Bader knew how to do.
And as much as anyone would've liked to disagree with him, he made his fantasy his reality.
So yeah, play to people’s fantasies when you’re selling. Sell the dream, but be ethical and honest about it.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m advising an unethical business approach.
People want to be sold, they want something to believe in. Otherwise no one would buy anything material.
Just make damn sure you’re not buying someone else’s bullshit fantasy that won’t serve your reality.
The markets are exploding. The opportunity is massive.
Go get real wins first and move the needle. Build the fantasy after.
Fathi
