Rebirth

Welcome to the 1st ever letter of Building Utopia.

I want to start things off with my story and where I came from.

This way you’ll have more insight and understanding as to why I started a newsletter on:

•Creativity

•Spirituality

•& Self-Improvement

The Younger Years

I’m Darion, I’m 31 years old and was born and raised in Canada.

My upbringing was fairly ordinary.

I have a beautiful mom who had me and my 2 older brothers when she was young (in her teens).

Our biological father was never around.

From what my mom’s told us he drank a lot and was fairly abusive, so she left.

She ended up marrying another man who became my stepdad while I was still in elementary school and stayed with him for over 10 years.

We grew up middle class, not rich by any means, but definitely not poor.

We had everything we needed.

My childhood was pretty normal as well.

I loved school, played sports, and hung out with my friends daily.

I had lots of passions come & go throughout my childhood.

Ranging from magic tricks to breakdancing, from basketball to rapping.

Basketball was the 1 that really stuck though, it’s what you’d call my 1st “love”

I played on the school team, practiced every hour I could before and after school, & even on my lunch break.

I fell in love with it.

This taught me a lot about what it takes to become great at a skill.

The dedication it takes, the mindset, the discipline.

In high school I was 5’7, and as I started playing more competitive ball, the other guys just kept getting taller and taller.

This is where my dream of playing in the NBA became a reality check.

I accepted my fate haha.

After Highscool

After graduation I kind of coasted, I didn’t enroll in post-secondary education because I wanted a break after 12 years of schooling.

I didn’t pursue anything with basketball after either, but I still loved the game and played at the park almost every day (still do at least once a week)

I ended up switching to full time employment at my 1st job which was Tim Hortons.

About 2 years after high school is when I met my 1st “real” girlfriend.

I was always a hopeless romantic and was fairly choosy when it came to my partner.

But this girl struck something in me I had to pursue.

After finding out she liked me too, we started dating.

The relationship only lasted a total of 4 months after I found she cheated on me.

I was devasted.

I cried.

I yelled.

I swore females off.

Which is silly looking back on, but I was only 20 & you know the stages of growing up.

Confused, I started writing raps every night.

It was the only thing that took my mind off her and the pain.

Even though I did still occasionally write songs about her (which were all not very nice) it helped free my mind.

This is when I 1st realized my true love for writing.

Discovery

I always knew I loved hip hop.

I would freestyle with my brothers growing up, but this time I was actually writing songs.

Now even though the writing took my mind off her, the rest of my day was still filled with confusion, anger, and betrayal.

Which led to me drinking alcohol alongside all those nights I wrote.

Slowly over time, it turned into a daily thing.

Next thing you know all the people I hung out with were people who drank every day.

They were people who didn’t think it was weird to day drink.

People who would hit the liquor store with me in the morning when it opened.

There were periods over the next years where I drank less, like when I met my 2nd girlfriend 3 years later.

But after things didn’t work out with her, I went straight back to the bottle like I never missed a beat.

Over time this habit began to have a strong hold on me, and the sickest part is it formed so innocently.

Just me drinking and writing raps in my bedroom trying to numb the pain of my 1st heartbreak.

It got to the point where the booze ruled my life.

I started to choose it over my job, so I wouldn’t show up because I was either drunk or passed out.

I chose it over family events, one year I even missed my own family birthday party because I was out drinking with “friends”.

I hid it from most people, even my employers gave me lots of chances because when I was there, I was one of the best employees.

Eventually though, it all caught up to me.

After a bunch of:

•Lost jobs

•Girlfriends

•Years of memories

When I was 26 years old, I got in a freak accident that resulted in me having to have my right eye removed.

I’ll save you the whole story (I have a song detailing it) but this is when my world came crashing down in a way it never had.

The reality of my actions and my chaotic lifestyle were catching up with me and had me thinking about what was coming next if I didn’t stop?

Was I going to die?

Would I lose my other eye in a drunk accident?

These are questions I was asking myself.

I knew I had to make a change.

The Shift

It wasn’t easy, and it still took a bit of time even after my accident.

I was already in such a dark place, losing my eye made it even darker.

Thankfully, when I was 28, I woke up 1 day and said this is it.

I’m done drinking.

It’s taken so much from me and given me nothing in return.

Since that day, March 21, 2021, I put the bottle down for good.

This changed the compass for my whole future and is where my journey of self-improvement truly started.

I had to change 1 thing, and that was everything.

So, I changed my whole friend group, my daily habits, my environment, almost everything you can think of.

I started exercising every day again, lifting weights, playing basketball, jumping rope.

I started reading books, listening to podcasts on spirituality, self-improvement, business, anything that sparked my curiosity.

With my newfound clarity, I realized I had to go for the passion I always wanted to…music.

I invested in a laptop, a condenser microphone, and started writing raps again except this time, I was recording it.

I was afraid of living a life where I was on my deathbed and thought “I regret not going for music, my passions, and challenging my potential.”

After about a month of figuring out the recording software, I started to put my music out on Soundcloud.

Even though I knew the quality wasn’t great, I had to start somewhere.

My passion and curiosity grew more and more every single day.

It was all I thought about, all I wanted to do was get better.

This led me to enrolling at a private music school in my city taking their Audio Engineering & Music Production program.

This 2-year diploma leveled up my production skills 100 times over meanwhile I was still writing and working on my rapping skills throughout.

How I Ended Up Writing Online

At this school I met a guy named Taylin Simmonds.

He was teaching Electronic Music Production which was part of the course curriculum.

Over the months he was my teacher, I noticed him make multiple music references to writing.

The 1st couple times I kind of shrugged it off, but then he mentioned he was making money writing online.

Curious, I had to ask.

So one day after classed I stayed behind and asked him what all the writing stuff he was talking about is.

He told me he was ghostwriting for founders on Twitter.

I had no idea that world even existed, so I asked him more.

He explained to me a brief rundown of what he was doing and how he himself didn’t even know that world was there and so big.

I told him I wanted to get started in it, so he suggested I started with learning copywriting.

Excited, I went home and that very night watched 2 hours of YouTube videos on copywriting.

This was my introduction to the world of online business.

It was this eye-opening revelation that I don’t have to go work for a business that doesn’t truly value me.

It was also exciting to think I could pick my own:

•Hours

•Clients

•& delegate my own time

Eager to start I bought my 1st ever digital course on Udemy.

After completing the course on the fundamentals of copywriting, the next step was to start freelancing.

I started on Upwork.

After a bunch of sent & ignored proposals, I finally landed my 1st gig.

It didn’t pay well, but I didn’t care.

It was an opportunity.

I vividly remember jumping around my room when the PayPal payment came through for $100 USD which was $128 Canadian at the time.

It was real.

From that moment I knew you could actually make money online.

I was sold after that.

I stayed freelancing for 8 more months as a copywriter and then joined in on Taylin’s Ghostwriting cohort.

This is where I made the switch into where I am now, ghostwriting on LinkedIn.

As you can see now, self-improvement changed my life's trajectory.

5 years ago I was a severe alcoholic, lost my right eye, and couldn’t keep a job or a girlfriend.

Today I’m in the best shape of my life, running a ghostwriting agency, and creating my own reality.

Change is possible, it all starts in your mind, with your daily habits, & your choices.

There were lots more twists and turns along the way, lessons, wins & losses, but I’ll share those all in weeks to come.

With this 1st letter, I wanted to share my story and show you that I’m not just some guy on the internet teaching you how to change your life who hasn't done it.

In the next weeks we’ll dive into more practical concepts & ideas.

See you next Thursday!