Welcome to Brandishing YOU

The solopreneur speakeasy where perfection’s overrated, progress is contagious, and the liquid courage is stiff enough to fuel your next fearless YOU-shaped move. 

🥃🍻🍸🥂🍷🍹

You know how in Cheers (the 80s sitcom) when Norm walks in, the whole bar shouts, “NORM!”?

Yeah, this is your “Norm” moment. 

Only instead of walking into a Boston dive bar to drown your sorrows in flat beer + questionable peanuts, you’re trust falling into a cozy, safe, virtual speakeasy for solopreneurs who are unlearning the hustle, working through the scary shit, and building a business that doesn’t require sacrificing their health or happiness for a profit margin. 

No fake smiles, empty promises, or annoying upsells—just a bunch of rebels, parents, partners, and dreamers like YOU, building fun, feel-good businesses that support fun, feel-good lives.

All the Ways We Won’t Ruin Your Life (You’re Welcome 😘)

In a world where most business advice sounds like Cliff Clavin droning on about the sociopolitical implications of glitter’s rise to fame, we’re here to remind you that joy + growth come from trying, failing, and occasionally setting the whole damn kitchen on fire.

❌ We won’t give guru sermons or peddle business blueprints designed for robots who never sleep. 

❌ We won’t sell you the dream and then leave you drowning in the fine print of "results not typical.”

❌ We won’t ask you to optimize your life until everything in it is monetized. 

❌ We won’t force-feed you productivity hacks that make you feel like you’re not doing enough.

❌ We won’t ask you to sacrifice your health or happiness on the altar of success… or tell you what success even looks like!

❌ We won’t tell you to be more like Gary Vee or start every morning at 4 AM screaming into your phone about your latest whatever.

❌ We won’t expect you to sponsor the Burnout Olympics—posting 12x’s/day, trying to network on LinkedIn without dying inside, and joining every Facebook group known to humankind.

❌ We won’t encourage you to repurpose everything you create into 47 different pieces of content until even YOU are sick of you.

❌ We won’t twist your arm into upsells while your credit card quietly weeps in the corner.

❌ We won’t pretend you need a funnel so complex it requires a PhD in engineering to set up.

❌ We won’t hype up being busy like it’s a badge of honor.

❌ We won’t make you feel like shit for prioritizing joy, rest, or literally anything besides work.

We’re a Safe Haven for the Overworked, Overwhelmed, and Over It.

This solopreneur speakeasy is the kind of place where you can admit you have no idea what you’re doing most of the time—and people will slide you a metaphorical drink and say, “Same, dude. Same!”

We pride ourselves on making this a place where:

✅ It’s safe to admit you want to work LESS and live MORE.

✅ It’s okay to say you don’t care about being a “thought leader” because you’re more interested in being a present parent.

✅ Celebrating small wins—like writing an email that doesn’t make you cringe—matters just as much as landing a big client.

✅ Experimenting with shit isn’t called “bad branding”; it’s called figuring out what actually works for YOU.

✅ Saying “no” to something isn’t a failure; it’s a fucking power move.

✅ Being yourself isn’t a marketing gimmick; it’s the entire strategy—and it’s wildly effective.

✅ Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s an invitation to connect.

✅ You can proudly say you’re building a  "tiny” business and still feel like the biggest goddamn trailblazer.

You Want Making Money To Feel Good + Be Easier. Period.

Not unrealistically, fairy tale easy!

Just accomplished easier, energetically + logistically speaking.

YOU don’t want to spread yourself across a bunch of time-consuming BS or soul-sucking productivity hacks that don't light you up and make you more financially secure.

YOU want to turn your laptop/camera/microphone/power tools/equipment on, pour your thoughts + ideas out, make a real damn difference in lives, and GET PAID for that shit!

Get in… get out… and get back to living a wonderful life.

And you don’t want to complicate it anymore than that!

Brandishing YOU helps you experience that kind of small creator, big life success.

Because you’re not beyond real money-in-the-bank success; you’re beyond sacrificing your health + happiness for a paycheck.

• You DON’T have to dress your intellectual property up in a g-string + pimp yourself out all day, every day on social media, trying to get every Tom, Dick, and Harriet to pay you.
• You DON’T have to give all your best shit away for free (and convince yourself it’s giving ‘value’) or keep adding offers to increase your income.
• You DON’T have to hide parts of yourself that ‘seem’ to contradict who you are or what you’re good at or do things that make your skin crawl (no matter how mainstream or widely accepted they are).
• You DON’T have to complicate things with bells + whistles, have it all figured out… now, or ever, or constantly pivot your way out of choices you felt forced into in the first place.

You just need to find the strategies, systems, and shortcuts that work for YOU + and the 2.4% of the internet who think YOU’RE STRAIGHT-UP MAGIC—I call these people your kindreds.

Your kindreds think YOU drop truths like Gwen Stefani drops lyrics... and feel an almost instant understanding + connection with you—it’s like you pull the words right out of their thoughts.

You’re the ONE PERSON who makes them feel less batshit crazy + more ‘Hell yeah, I GOT THIS!’ about [the thing you help them do].

Giving Your Kindreds More Of What They Want…. YOU!

You’re the piece that’s been missing.

When you're true to who you reeeeeally are, being a solopreneur gets easier. The feel-good choices become obvious + the feel-good people start showing up.

I call this stepping into the YOU-shaped era of your business.

It happens when you want nothing more than to strip things down + just BE YOURSELF! 

Not in some quiet corner of your bedroom where no one is looking. But out in the world, sharing yourself, charging money, changing lives, and drowning in excesses of energy + time. Not caring what people think. Feeling fantastic, whole, and pretty damn successful too.

YOU Change All The "Rules," Buttercup!

• Who YOU are changes everything.

• How YOU think changes everything.

• Who YOU help changes everything.

• What YOU say + How YOU say it changes everything.

• How YOU express yourself changes everything.

• What YOU offer changes everything.

• How YOU show up changes everything.

Understanding these 7 parts of YOU (as a human + solopreneur) and how they translate into the right systems, strategies, and shortcuts for YOU is how we’re going to help you start making the money YOU want, the way YOU want, with the kind of clients YOU want, in the small amount of time YOU want.

The 7-part Brandishing YOU Framework This Whole Rule-Breaking Speakeasy is Rooted In

1. Who YOU Are Changes Everything:

You want to create in a way that’s fun, natural, and aligned. But every time you try, your inner critics tell you to “Tone it down…. “Look more I’ve-got-it-all-figured-out”… or “Make yourself more… marketable,” which makes you water everything down until it feels like the “if Gary Vee + Marie Forleo had a baby” version of YOU. 

TRUTH BOMB: 

For the 2.4% of the Internet you call KINDREDS… You're ridiculously relatable, insanely inspiring, and delightfully different. 🔥 You're basically BRILLIANT in their eyes—without changing a thing about who you are right this second. They get you the same way you get them! So stop hiding your personality like a spring break STD you don’t want anyone to know about… and let us help you lean into all the weird shit that makes you so wildly unforgettable to the people who matter.

2. What YOU Think Changes Everything:

You want a strategy that works + feels good, but everything you’ve tried either overwhelms you to your core, requires a level of extroversion + hustle you don’t possess, or just flat-out feels like you’re doing too much or not enough. You see everyone else posting about their big wins + 6-figure years, meanwhile, you’re over here staring at your to-do list, wondering if any of it even matters.

TRUTH BOMB: 

Strategy isn’t something you’re going to find (no matter they're trying ot promise you); it’s something you’re going to create. If you keep waiting for some “winning” strategy, “proven” plan, or unconditional permission slip from the business gods, you’re going to keep getting robbed of YOUR idea of success. Success is about trusting yourself enough to make a decision, try it out, and learn as you go. 🔥 Let us help you start making moves. The rest? You’ll figure it out along the way.

3. Who YOU Help Changes Everything:

You want to find the right clients—the ones who make work feel like play, who value what you do, and who actually pay you well—but niching down feels like amputating parts of yourself, and every ideal client exercise feels fake AF. What’s their age? Favorite Friends episode? Longest-running magazine subscription? Kind of toilet paper they use? Who the fuck cares? You just want to help real people like YOU, not manufacture a cardboard cutout of a Stepford client.

TRUTH BOMB: 

Your kindreds don’t need to fit into a clearly labeled box—they just need to recognize themselves in YOU. They’re not choosing you because of your niche or elevator pitch; they’re choosing you because they love how you think, what you stand for, and how you show up. Kindreds aren’t a demographic—they’re a vibe (just like YOU). 🔥 Finding them happens when you show up as the real, ooey-gooey, complex, imperfect version of YOU who has all the human experiences + circumstances that they relate to so much. Forget picking a lane—your kindreds ARE the lane. Let us help you stop overcomplicating this.

4. What YOU Say + How YOU Say It Changes Everything:

You sit down to write, and your brain immediately short-circuits. What do I even say? How do I say it? Cue the existential dread. You type, delete, rewrite, tweak, overthink, and tweak again—until what started as a tiny spark of an idea is now a lifeless, over-filtered pile of word salad. It doesn’t even sound like you anymore. You want to be bold. You want to be real. You want to say things in a way that actually feels like YOU, but every time you try, that shitty little internal gremlin pipes up, “Too much. Too weird. Too risky. No one will get it.” So you water it down, polish it up, and sand off every rough edge until it’s safe, inoffensive, and completely fucking forgettable. And then? You don’t post at all. Because deep down, you know it’s garbage because it’s devoid of all YOU.

TRUTH BOMB: 

If filtering yourself into oblivion actually worked, you’d already own your private island. But guess what? Safe doesn’t sell. Bland doesn’t build trust. And trying to fit in sure as hell isn’t making anyone care. The people who need you? They need the full, unfiltered, wonderfully weird YOU. Not the bedazzled, shrink-wrapped, over-edited version designed to be “likable.” Screw playing it safe. 🔥 Say the thing. Take up the space. Let them see YOU. The right people will get it—and the wrong ones? They were never yours anyway. Let us help you dissolve your internal filtration system.

5. How YOU Express Yourself Changes Everything:

You didn’t sign up to be a graphic designer, but here you are in Canva, tweaking, resizing, swapping graphics… only to realize it still reeks of “I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m going for” energy. The templates are chaotic, your colors feel off, and don’t even get started on the font crisis. (Why are there so many??) You’re tired of looking like a soulless Powerpoint + feeling like Pinterest fail in human form.

TRUTH BOMB: 

You’re not trying to design a brand that looks good. You’re trying to create a space that feels right. A world where the moment your kindreds land, they immediately feel something. That feeling? That’s what matters. 🔥 Not whether your logo is pretty or your color palette is Pinterest-worthy. You’ve been trying to “get it right,” but right isn’t out there—it’s in YOU. You don’t need to be a designer. You need to be a creator of spaces. Let us help you get your Canva hours + stress down by 92%.

6. What YOU Offer Changes Everything:

Your offer was supposed to be simple—just the thing you love, the way you love doing it. But somehow, it’s morphed into an overstuffed, bonus-packed, “high-value” monster you barely recognize. It’s bloated, overcomplicated, and packed with stuff you don’t even want to offer—but you keep it because someone said it would make it “easier to sell.” (Spoiler: it didn’t.) Instead, you’re avoiding sales completely, tripping over your price, and explaining yourself like you’re defending a thesis. And now? Selling feels gross, marketing feels fake, and you need a nap.

TRUTH BOMB: 

Turns out, the way you wanted to do things all along? That was the right way. You never needed the sales scripts, the sleazy scarcity tactics, or the giant, overcomplicated offer that drained the life out of you. You don’t need the hacks, formulas, or ad budget bigger than your rent. You just need to trust yourself.🔥 Trust that what you love is valuable. Trust that you can charge what you want, and people will know you’re worth it. Trust that the right people will see you, hear you, and say, “FUCK YEAH” Let us help you UNlearn all the horseshit you’ve been taught about selling online.

7. How YOU Show Up Changes Everything:

You started your business to help people, not to turn into a cringy, cold-DM-sliding, algorithm-chasing marketing bro. But here you are—stalking comment sections, posting “ads” in Facebook groups, and wondering if you should finally cave and start a LinkedIn blog. You don’t want a sales script. You don’t want to trick people into buying shit. You don’t want to “handle objections” like you’re closing a hostage negotiation. But if you don’t do all of this… then how the hell are you supposed to get clients?

TRUTH BOMB: 

Marketing isn’t about feeding an algorithm—it’s about feeding relationships. You don’t have to fight for attention in a sea of content you don’t even want to create. You don’t have to play the engagement game, chase trends, or shout into the void hoping someone hears you. People DON’T buy because of content; they buy because of connection. 🔥 The best marketing isn’t posting 12 times a day; it’s creating a business that makes your kindreds feel something worth talking about. It’s word of mouth, referrals, and real relationships built on real trust. That’s the anti-content game we’re playing. One that doesn’t drain you but actually feeds you.

What’s On Tap When You Become A Barfly:

We keep it really simple because we’re not here to drown in details—just to serve up liquid courage. Here’s how the speakeasy works…

🪑 Get your ass on a barstool.

Become a barfly in under 5 mins. with a monthly or annual membership and gain instant access to every nook + cranny of the speakeasy, which is hosted on Mighty Networks. As soon as you complete the checkout process, you’ll be whisked inside our private slice of internet and greeted by yours truly (Dre). There’s a whole welcome experience, where I help you set up your profile, give you a tour, connect you with your fellow barflies, and help you make this safe place home.

🥃 Sip your way through the playlists.

Work your way through my personality-laced ‘branding yourself’ frameworks + resources. I detail every single YOU-shaped decision you’re going to be faced with, including why it matters, what to consider, and how to make the best decision for YOU, so you can roll up your sleeves + bravely start doing the ooey-gooey YOU-shaped healing needed to make your fun-sized business goals a reality. Each part of YOU (listed above) is covered in detail in its own section in the speakeasy, so everything is easy to find.

🫶 Lean into the bottomless (ride or die) support.

There’s a Barfly Headquarters where you can reach out to me + your fellow barflies anytime, so you don’t have to go far to feel like you can trust-fall into whatever’s going on with genuinely amazing people who are working through a lot of the same shit you are. The relationships you make here will be worth far more than anything I ever teach you. Nowhere else on the internet will you find a more supportive + genuinely giving group of solopreneurs committed to being themselves and creating a safe space for YOU to do the same.

Here's to the rebels, the dreamers, and the doers who believe that success should feel as good as it looks. Welcome to the solopreneur speakeasy—where we mix business with pleasure + serve it straight up, no chaser.

Pick your membership (monthly or annual) and get your ass on a barstool so we can get this YOU-shaped party started already! 🥳

What My Barflies Are Saying... and I Didn't Even Have to Bribe Them!

What's Included With Your Brandishing YOU Membership:

A safe space to discover yourself + 60 people’s time in your corner, supporting you, sharing what’s worked, sharing your work, creating a safe space where you can heal from the internet indoctrination + rebuild your business in a fun, fearless, and fulfilling AF way. Like Norm’s barstool at Cheers, your seat is saved, your people are waiting, and you belong.

Personal attention from me + built-in accountability for you—this is a collaborative, supportive, active, pro-human, anti-guru initiative that you’re going to be part of. I hopscotch around the bar, mentoring the hell out of anyone who needs it. Got a question? A roadblock? A wild idea you’re too scared to say out loud? Tag me in the Support Lounge, tell me where you’re stuck, and I’ll pour up exactly what you need—whether it’s a strategic shot of clarity, a WTF-have-you-tried-this?! Loom video, or a straight-up reality check (served with love, of course).

A fully stocked branding bar with 45 handcrafted playlists—each one a 190-proof shot of wisdom, wit, and why the hell didn’t anyone tell me this sooner? Pick your poison. Then, sip + savor the food for thought, frameworks, and resources that'll help you build a business that doesn't eat you alive.

Monthly brainstorming sessions (on the 2nd Wednesday of every month at 10am PST), where we spark ideas for each other, discuss specific experiments we’re conducting, share shortcuts we've found, and riff on what’s working, what’s not, and what’s worth a shot.

Annual Members Get Some Extra GOODIES For Their Big Brave Commitment!

🍾 A big, heartfelt shoutout in my much-talked-about email newsletter, Branding In The Wild, which 7K+ solopreneurs, power couples, and families in business are currently drunk in love with. I love gifting barflies a spot in my newsletter! It’s the biggest compliment I could give you because my people are what I prize the most in my business.

🍾 1 x 90-minute 1:1 session with Me (Dre) where we figure out what success actually looks like for YOU, pick the best playlists (so you don’t get lost in content purgatory), and make a plan that will help you see a very real, very tangible ROI in your health, happiness, and success.

🍾  Access to 4 quarterly roundtables where I'll bring all of my clients + annual members together to spark collaborations for the next quarter. Things like newsletter link swaps, series co-creation, podcast guesting, community takeovers, recommedning each other. The prganic growth potential is endless when you get all of us together in one safe place.

I Can't Get Them to Stop Gushing About The Playlists + Lessons...

No More Wasted Money—This Is the Tab That Actually Pays Off 🍸

You could drop another $2K on a fancy website redesign that ends in a gorgeous site no one visits.

You could spend a few months' rent on a mastermind that pairs you with 15 other confused people in a Slack channel while the guru takes a PJ to Bali.

You could spend another year hoarding free PDFs, second-guessing yourself, and buying courses that promise you the business lottery.

You could say, “FUCK IT, this life isn’t for me,” and move out into the woods where your only mode of communication is rockrock banging—an off-grid Morse code that no one understands but you.

OR…

You could belly up to this speakeasy, invest in yourself, and actually start building the life + business this was always meant to be with people going through a lot of the same shit you are, with a lot of the same battle scars to heal.

This Solopreneur Speakeasy Replaces:

☠️ Shady coaching upsells with real, genuine. pro-human support that doesn’t make your credit card weep.

☠️ Having to try to go viral with a business that doesn’t depend on the algorithm having a good day.

☠️ Business advice from people who clearly don’t have a fucking clue what it’s like to be a company of one, two, or a blood-related few.

☠️ Hustle culture myths with a business model that lets you take a damn nap.

☠️ Fake urgency, fake authenticity, and fake relationships for the sake of closing a deal with real, human connections that turn kindreds into customers—with ZERO manipulation.

And the best part? No one here is going to tell you that you just need to “want it more.”

Who’s Behind The Bar?

Holy geektastrophy, I totally forgot to formally introduce myself—that happens a lot. I should probably work on that.

Well, hey there, internet kindred, I'm Dre Beltrami, ‘The HBIC’ around here! 👋

That’s ‘Head BARTENDER In Charge’. What were YOU thinking??

This is about as formal as I get.

I thought you should know, since this is MY truth! 👆🥰

I know it's hard to believe, but I do things very differently than 97.6% of the internet.

I don’t know what factory I was made in, but it definitely wasn’t an online-friendly one. I don’t ‘play nice’ with any of the BS the internet tells me to do, and yet somehow, I still grow in every way possible. It must be a bug in my software.

Nonetheless, I get the expert industry distrust; that shit is predatory AF.

UNLIKE all the internet d-bags you’re used to…

❌  I’m NOT going to hold you hostage or upsell you until your credit card company calls to check on you.

❌  I’m NOT going to phone it in for the first 30 days and then ghost your ass completely while my team takes over, and I post duck faces on Instagram for my next launch.

❌  I’m NOT going to shove shit down your throat or talk you into things that are all wrong for YOU - even if it worked for me (or some guy I follow on X).

❌  I’m NOT going to do the work for you, but I AM going to strategize this shit out with you + cheer you on like a drunk soccer mom as you brandish your magic. 

I'm here to lend YOU my decade of experience branding PEOPLE + re-finding myself under a pile of internet rubble to help you figure out each YOU-shaped piece of success..

I want feel-good independent wealth to be a reality for you, me, and every other small creator, power couple, and family brand like us who want to be equally in love with their life + work. We want to make money just as much as we want to make a difference, but it has to be on our own damn terms! Our human needs are no longer luxuries.

Welcome to the fun, fearless, fulfilling AF YOU-shaped Era of Your Business!

If you have any last words for Hustle Culture, say them now; that phase of life + business is about to be dead to YOU.

Progress is REAL! Just Ask The Barflies...

Where business feels safe, progress is fun, and hustle is strictly off the menu! PULL UP A BARSTOOL, and let's and let’s rewrite the damn rules.