- The Fraudfather's Dead Drop
- Posts
- Get Off the X, Or Die On It
Get Off the X, Or Die On It
That plan you’ve been perfecting? It’s killing you.
The Fraudfather
June 26, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
Many years ago in a far away land, I found myself in darkness, in a house I was not welcome, nor supposed to be in.
As I crept through the house, every sound and every shadow was another possibility of ending me.
And the most dangerous thing in that moment? It wasn’t the man with the gun waiting for me to round the corner. It was the man in my own head.
Maybe this is for you. Maybe it's not. But if you struggle with decisiveness, keep reading.
You’re not frozen. You’re overloaded.
This isn’t some therapist’s couch diagnosis.
This is the longest running war; the psychological kind.
“Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor”
Action-absorbing anxiety is the silent killer of high performers, warfighters, strategists.
It feels like overthinking.
But it’s really your nervous system trying to game every possible outcome until you forget what the objective was.
You’ve rehearsed the plan 50 times.
You’ve imagined the failure 500.
Your subconscious is flooding the zone with every possible play, until you become your own bottleneck.
The X Is Real, But You’re Not Supposed to Stay There
In the military, “The X” is the kill zone.
It’s the place you’re ambushed. Exposed. Targeted.
The only rule? Get off the X.
But most people sit on the X their entire lives.
Overthinking.
Second-guessing.
Obsessing over every possible scenario except the only one that matters; the one where they move.
The civilian world doesn’t come with IEDs or snipers.
But it has something worse: paralysis disguised as preparation.
They think they’re being cautious.
What they’re actually doing, is dying in slow motion.
Action Isn’t the Result of Calm; it’s the Cure for Chaos
Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear:
You don’t get clarity first. You get it after you move.
Anxiety is a buildup of potential energy with no outlet.
When you don’t move, it builds pressure.
When you do, that pressure dissipates through the action.
This isn’t mindset fluff. It’s biology:
The prefrontal cortex activates after task engagement, not before.
Movement triggers the reticular activating system, sharpening attention.
Even micro-decisions reduce cortisol and re-center your nervous system.
Remember, action isn’t the reward for courage. It’s the process that manufactures it.
What It Feels Like When the Floor Can Explode
When I say “get off the X,” I’m not being poetic. Like many of you, I’ve lived it.
I’ve walked through houses in the dark, clearing rooms, stepping over explosive-laden floorboards, knowing that every sound or shadow could hold my end.
And I’ll tell you this:
You don’t wait to feel calm in that moment. You move.
You move through the fear, with the fear, and because of the fear.
And in that movement, anxiety gets absorbed into the mission.
You either channel it, or it eats you.
The same rules apply in life.
Every day you hesitate, stall, rehearse, your nervous system thinks the danger is growing. It floods your body with stress chemicals.
Until the X becomes your identity.
The Choice is Binary; Move or Decay
Every time you act, you absorb the anxiety into momentum.
Every time you freeze, you feed it.
It doesn’t matter if the action is ugly, small, or clumsy.
It only matters that it breaks the loop.
Send the message.
Hit submit.
Step into the arena.
Make the call.
Say yes.
Say no.
Anxiety is a liar that sounds like your voice and steals your future one hesitation at a time.
Whatever your X is… MOVE.
Because anxiety doesn’t survive in motion.
It dies in action.
Or it feeds in stillness, until it owns you.
You don’t wait to feel ready. You act to become ready.
Anxiety is fuel. Burn it.
Get off the X… or die on it.
Start learning AI in 2025
Keeping up with AI is hard – we get it!
That’s why over 1M professionals read Superhuman AI to stay ahead.
Get daily AI news, tools, and tutorials
Learn new AI skills you can use at work in 3 mins a day
Become 10X more productive
When You Judge, You Bleed: How Criticism Rewires Your Mind…Against You
The Double-Edged Tongue
What You Say About Others, You Program Into Yourself
You think you’re just venting.
Mocking that coworker. Tearing apart that influencer. Whispering about someone else's flaws.
But here’s the neuropsychological twist:
Your subconscious doesn’t differentiate between self and other in the way your rational mind does.
Studies in mirror neuron systems show that when you observe, or describe, someone else’s behavior, your brain lights up as if you were doing it yourself. That means when you say “he’s weak” or “she’s an idiot,” your brain partially codes that as you experiencing that state.
Your words don’t just echo outward. They imprint inward.
Neuroplasticity means you’re always teaching your brain what to expect and believe. Every insult is a rep. Every judgment is a microdose of self-directed programming.
“Your subconscious isn’t listening to the world. It’s listening to you. And it obeys without question.”
The Mind Has No Firewall
Your conscious mind filters. Your subconscious does not.
As shown in the Emotional Stroop Task, emotionally charged words bypass our rational defenses and lodge deeper in our attentional and memory systems. The more emotionally loaded your language, the more powerfully it penetrates.
This is why self-talk matters so much in elite performance psychology. But here's the kicker: your brain often interprets your external talk as internal guidance.
So when you fire off judgments at others, your subconscious listens and complies. Not because it’s stupid. Because it’s designed to respond to intensity and repetition, not logic.
You're not just being negative.
You're conducting a neural conditioning ritual, against yourself.
“Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge… is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another’s world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”
Projection is the Oldest Trick in the Book
Let’s go psychoanalytic for a moment.
Freud coined projection as the mechanism by which we eject unwanted thoughts or feelings and attribute them to others.
Modern psychology backs it up:
A 2011 study in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that people who are made aware of their own traits are more likely to project them onto others, especially when they're trying to preserve a positive self-image.
It’s a defense mechanism that backfires.
You dodge shame by projecting, but the subconscious absorbs every detail. And repetition reinforces identity.
Every time you call someone “narcissistic” or “incompetent,” you risk reinforcing a latent identity trait in yourself, especially if it comes from reactivity, not reflection.
Weaponized Awareness: Flip the Script
Here’s the counter-weapon: metacognition; thinking about your thinking.
It’s what cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) trains you to do.
When you catch a thought, label it, and reframe it, you weaken the automaticity and rewire the outcome. In order to tame it, you need to name it…
Instead of spraying judgment into the void (and coding your own brain for self-destruction), you flip it:
From “Her desk is a mess” → “I crave clarity. Time to clean up my own systems.”
From “He’s arrogant and always sucks up to the boss” → “Ego without empathy repels. Let me refine both.”
That’s not virtue signaling. That’s cognitive sovereignty.
You’re choosing the code that runs your operating system.
And the most powerful people on the planet are meticulous about the language they allow in their mental ecosystem.
Judge Less. Program Better. Dominate From Within.
This isn’t about becoming nicer. It’s about becoming lethal with your awareness.
You’re always running scripts.
Every word is a line of code.
And your subconscious? It doesn’t fact-check. It compiles.
So speak like your future self is listening, because it is.
About The Fraudfather
The Fraudfather combines a unique blend of experiences as a former Senior Special Agent, Supervisory Intelligence Operations Officer, and now a recovering Digital Identity & Cybersecurity Executive, He has dedicated his professional career to understanding and countering financial and digital threats.
Fast Facts Regarding the Fraudfather:
Global Adventures: He’s been kidnapped in two different countries—but not kept for more than a day.
Uncommon Encounter: Former U.S. President Bill Clinton made him a protein shake.
Unusual Transactions: He inadvertently bought and sold a surface-to-air missile system.
Perpetual Patience: He spent 12 hours in a pitch-black elevator.
Unique Conversations: He spoke one-on-one with Pope Francis for five minutes using reasonable Spanish.
Uncommon Hobbies: He discussed beekeeping with James Hetfield from Metallica.
Passion for Teaching: He taught teenagers archery in the town center of Kyiv, Ukraine.
Unlikely Math: Until the age of 26, he had taken off in a plane more times than he had landed.
📞 Book a Call with the Fraudfather! to fortify your defenses today!
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and promotes ethical and legal practices.