How much of your life are you sacrificing just to remain consistent with the person you think you are?
How much of your life are you sacrificing just to remain consistent with the person you think you are?
I'm not releasing this book the way books are normally released.
In fact, what I'm doing with it on October 1 is a little ridiculous.
But in order for you to understand why I'm doing it, I need to tell you how I got here.
Otherwise, none of this is going to make much sense.
So let me take you back to December 2023.
Dear friend,
It's December 2023.
I'm standing in Fort Lauderdale Airport with one suitcase and a backpack. That's it. Everything I've decided I need for the next year is either on my back or sitting on the floor beside me.
I'm about to board a flight out of the United States, and for the first time in most of my adult life, I have no company to run, no employees waiting for me, no clients calling me, and no real answer to a question I used to answer without thinking:
Who the fuck am I now?
A few years earlier, that question would have been easy. I was the entrepreneur. I had built the successful company. Made the money. Bought the house. Bought the cars. Built the team. I had done most of the things I once believed would eventually make me feel like I had figured life out.
And the strange part is that it worked.
I got the life I wanted. I just didn't want the life I got.
Worse, I had known that for quite some time. I felt the misalignment long before I did anything about it. But there was always another reason to keep going. People depended on me. The company was successful. Walking away from a life that was objectively working because it somehow felt wrong seemed insane.
So I stayed. Until eventually, I burned out badly enough that the decision was made for me. I shut down the company.
And when the thing I had spent years building disappeared, something else disappeared with it.
My identity.
Which is how I ended up standing in that airport with a suitcase, a backpack, and absolutely no fucking clue who I was without the life I had built around myself.
So I gave myself a year. To travel. To write. And, more than anything, to understand my own brain.
I wanted to know how a person could spend years building exactly the life he thought he wanted, realize it was making him miserable, know that, and still be unable to walk away.
I became obsessed with answering that question. And eventually, I got very, very good at it.
With no identity left to protect, I started questioning all of it. The things I believed. The things I wanted. The things I called personality. The things I thought were simply "me."
That work eventually became my newsletter, my videos, and then my first book, Unf*ck Your Thinking.
By the time I finished that book, I had accomplished almost exactly what the guy standing in Fort Lauderdale Airport had set out to accomplish.
I understood myself.
I got very good at seeing my patterns while I was repeating them. I could understand where a reaction came from, recognize what an old version of me was doing, and often know exactly what I should probably do instead.
There was just one problem.
Knowing why I was doing something did not mean I stopped doing it.
I had become extraordinarily self-aware. But awareness didn't give me agency.
I had learned how to watch myself live a life I already knew I didn't want.
And that left me with a more interesting question: If understanding yourself isn't enough to change your life, what is?
You've probably already tried adding more. Better habits. Better routines. More discipline. Therapy. Journaling. Books. Systems. More self-awareness.
Some of it probably helped.
But almost all of it starts with the same assumption: that the person you are right now is fundamentally the right person, and your job is to improve them.
The Identity Tax starts somewhere else.
You just get more disciplined at performing them.
I don't want to replace one set of borrowed ideas with mine. The point is to help you see what has been deciding for you, remove what no longer deserves that authority, and put the pen back in your hand.
The book gives you authorship.
The order of this book matters. You can't rebuild a life before you clear the old one. You can't clear it before you can see it. And you can't see it without the right instrument.
The order is the method.
One of the most powerful tools I have found for creating agency over your own life is in the book.
I didn't want to spend an entire book talking about taking your life back and then hide the thing I actually use to do it. And so…
The Protocol came before the book.
Months before I started writing The Identity Tax, I had developed a practice for myself to solve the problem I told you about: I could understand almost everything I was doing and still not move.
That practice eventually became The Second Life Protocol.
By the time I was writing this book, I was already selling it and watching other people go through it. Then the results started coming in.
Here are a few of them.
“The partnership conversation happened. The community launched. People are paying to be in it. I'm posting as myself, finally.”
“It unlocked revenue I couldn't reach while I was still hiding from it. The exercise paid for the Protocol many times over in one week.”
“DEFINITELY. I immediately joined a nutrition programme and am succeeding there. I've been looking into publishers and now have a clear direction… It was actually too effective straight away as I overwhelmed myself by starting the nutrition course, looking for publishers and trying to solve my business problems all at once. I've had to slow down and schedule things.”
“I've built an ‘ideal client’ identity that everything revolves around and speaks to, rebuilt my offers, changed the way I communicate about what I'm doing, switched up my social media… it's almost impossible to state just how pivotal this process was in my business. (and in my own self-awareness)”
“It is really deep and I am a psychiatrist! It took me a couple times to read and digest… I can't smart, educate or age my way out of my own way! You have something that I feel has merit.”
People were making decisions they had been avoiding for years. Having conversations they had been rehearsing in their heads for months. Starting things. Ending things. Moving.
I knew I couldn't write a book about agency and leave out the most powerful tool I had actually found for creating it. So I put it in.
But I couldn't put the entire Protocol in a book.
There is prerequisite work. Exercises. A process around the tool. Things that aren't meant to be read. They're meant to be done.
And I kept coming back to the same thought while writing: what a shame it would be to give you the book, give you the tool, and then stop right before the part where you actually use the whole thing.
So I'm not going to.
And if all I had done was write a book, I'd sell you the book.
But I've now spent enough time going through this transition myself, teaching the Protocol, and watching what happens after the initial insight to know something you don't know yet: I know what comes next.
Once you see what has been running your life, you're going to want to know what to do about it. That's why the Protocol exists. And once you begin doing something about it, you're going to discover that this isn't something you finish.
The book ends. The practice doesn't.
I could sell you the book, then sell you the Protocol separately, then try to explain the practice that comes afterward. But you'd be taking my word for all of it.
I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to experience it.
So for one month, I'm putting the entire sequence together and taking you through it with me.
See what has been running your life and reclaim authorship over what comes next.
Use the complete practice, with me live, to turn awareness into decisions and movement.
Keep exercising your own judgment after the Protocol is over.
October is the only time I'm putting all three together and taking a group through the entire sequence with me. I'm not doing this again.
The Protocol ends too. I don't want the practice to.
The point of The Identity Tax isn't to replace your old answers with mine. It's to give you back the authority to form your own. The Protocol gives you a way to act on that. But authorship is something you practice.
And to be clear, this isn't a writing workshop. Writing is simply where we practice. The thing we're training is judgment.
I started writing because I had too many thoughts and needed somewhere to put them. But a blank page kept doing something useful to me. It forced me to stop collecting other people's conclusions and produce one of my own.
You can read forever without deciding what you think. A blank page eventually stops letting you hide. You have to decide. What do I think? Why? What would change my mind?
Do that often enough and you start developing something considerably more useful than another collection of answers. Judgment. Taste.
Information isn't scarce anymore. Answers aren't scarce anymore. Increasingly, even intelligence isn't particularly scarce. What becomes scarce is knowing which answer matters. What to ignore. What deserves your attention.
Whatever you do, judgment sits on top of it. Better tools make you faster at your job. Judgment makes you better at deciding what the job requires in the first place.
In an economy where almost everyone has access to extraordinary amounts of information and intelligence, the ability to form your own judgment is becoming a luxury. A very valuable one to possess.
Michel de Montaigne called his attempts at thinking on paper Essais. In French, essayer means to try, to attempt, to test. I love that. So I'm stealing the idea and turning it into something we can practice together.
One question I genuinely don't know the answer to. I think it through on paper and mail you what I find.
You read it, challenge it, write against it, change your mind, and arrive at your own conclusion.
A new question every month. A continuing practice in judgment, taste, and independent thought.
And you're not going to have to imagine what this practice feels like. Your first issue is included in October.
Around the third week, I'll put it in an envelope and send it to your house. You'll read it. Think about it. Write against it. Come to your own conclusions. And we'll go through the first one together.
I'd rather put it in your hands.
At this point, you may reasonably be wondering what exactly you're buying.
The book. The Protocol I've been selling separately. Thirty days with me living and testing the ideas with you. And now apparently I'm mailing things to your house.
Remember when I said, "Buy me lunch and I'll teach you everything I know"? I was being literal.
Which raises an obvious question: Why the fuck would I do all of this for $30?
Because of everything I just showed you. The book, the Protocol, and the practice belong together. That's why I built October this way.
I could separate them, price them separately, and spend another ten pages trying to convince you what each one is worth. But you haven't experienced any of it yet. I don't want you to take my word for it. I want you to experience it.
Give me the month. Read the book. Let me teach you the Protocol. Do the work with me. Let the first issue arrive at your house. And by the end of October, my job is to make myself unnecessary.
You'll understand what has been making decisions for you. You'll know how to use the Protocol. You'll have practiced it with me. And you'll have the tools to make the choices your Second Life requires without needing me to make them for you.
That's the point. Agency.
Now, I already know some of you are going to want to keep going. I've seen that happen too. But I'm not going to sell you that today. I don't want you making that decision from where you're standing now.
Sometime during October, once you've actually experienced what we're doing together, I'll show you what continuing looks like. Then you can decide.
For transparency, continuing after October is $49/month beginning November 1. You can cancel at any point during October and you won't be charged again. That's all you need to know about November right now.
Today, you're only deciding whether to give me October.
Read The Identity Tax at your own pace. Take the Misalignment Quiz. We meet live to discuss the book, identity, and where you are now.
The complete Second Life Protocol unlocks. I teach you to use it live. You sign the Second Life Contract and begin.
We work through what you're discovering, the decisions you're making, and where you're still stuck. Live coaching.
By now you'll have the first issue of Les Essais. We meet around the question, your argument, mine, and what comes next.
I don't want you to commit to something you haven't experienced yet. Spend October with me. Then decide whether this is something you want to continue.
If you stay, your membership continues November 1 at $49/month: Les Essais every month, the community, and one live monthly gathering with me. Cancel at any point during October and you won't be charged again.
The initial $30 is non-refundable because access begins immediately.
You've made it this far. So rather than hide the annoying details in tiny type, let me answer the questions I'd be asking if I were you.
No. This is important, so I want to make it painfully clear.
Your $30 gets you the entire October experience. If you do nothing, it continues on November 1 at $49/month. You do not have to decide today whether you want November.
Spend October with me. Then decide. If you don't want to continue, cancel at any point during October and you will not be charged the $49 on November 1. No application. No awkward email. Cancel and you're good. If you stay, it continues month to month at $49 until you cancel.
I'm deliberately not going to spend this page selling you November when you haven't even experienced October yet. During October, once you've gone through enough for the next part to make sense, I'll show you what continuing with me looks like.
The only thing you need to know before you buy is the part that affects your credit card: if you don't cancel during October, it renews November 1 at $49/month, then monthly until you cancel.
Yes. Any point during October. If you've seen enough after five days, cancel. If you want the entire month and decide on October 31, cancel then. Either way, you keep what you paid for in October and there is no November charge.
Because then I'd be stopping exactly where I think this gets useful. The book helps you see what has been deciding for you. The Protocol is where you start doing something about it. The practice afterward is where you keep exercising the ability to decide for yourself. I'd rather let you experience the whole sequence once. That's October.
God, no. Writing is the gym here. The thing we're training is your ability to think something through, form your own conclusion, test it, change it, and develop judgment you can actually use. That matters whether you run a company, work in a hospital, teach, design, parent, or have no desire to ever publish a sentence in your life.
Four 90-minute live gatherings during October, one each week. I'm planning them for the weekend to give the largest number of us a chance to be there live. I'll give you exact dates and times before we begin. And I really do want you there live.
Don't panic. Every gathering is recorded and uploaded to the group. That said, come live whenever you possibly can. There's a difference between watching afterward and being in the room while we're working through it together. The recordings are there because life happens, not because I want October to become another folder of videos.
No. You'll get the complete book as soon as you join, and you can read it at your own pace. We begin together on October 1. You don't need to arrive prepared. You need to arrive willing to participate.
No. I'm not your therapist, and nothing here replaces professional mental-health care when you need it. What I am giving you is probably the most selfish project I've ever made public. I built the successful life, got trapped inside it, burned out, dismantled much of it, then spent years understanding what happened and building differently. October is me putting all of that on the table. Please don't fire your therapist because of a sales page.
Maybe you built something successful and don't want the life required to maintain it. Maybe you have a good job and keep thinking about the thing you've wanted to do for five years. Maybe nothing is obviously wrong, that's part of the problem. Your life works. You're capable. You're self-aware. And there's still something you know that you aren't doing. That's who I made this for.
My goal is that you don't need me. You understand what has been making decisions for you. You know how to use the Protocol. You've practiced it. Some of you will want to keep going. Great, I'll explain that during October. Some won't. Also great. Agency is the point.
October 1. That's when we begin. The private prerelease goes out, the group starts reading, and we start the work together. Once we're underway, I'm closing the door.
No. The initial $30 is non-refundable because access begins immediately. You can cancel the ongoing membership at any point during October and you will not be charged again.
Then wait. The physical edition comes out November 15. But in November you'll only be able to buy the book. What you won't be able to buy is what I'm doing around it in October. I'm doing that once. In October. The book will still exist November 15. This experience won't.
Because this wasn't designed to distribute 200 pages of information and disappear. It was designed to create change. For that to work, everyone needs to start together on October 1. A private digital prerelease means someone in California, France, India or Australia can open the same book on the same day. The physical edition can come later. October can't.
U.S. shipping for Les Essais de Benoît & ___ is included. International members will pay an additional shipping charge.
You don't have to wait until October 1 to begin.
Join now and I'll send you the complete private prerelease of The Identity Tax immediately.
Read it at your own pace. On October 1, we begin together.
Enrollment closes October 1.