Why You Need to Be Stimulant Maxxing (And What to Avoid)

Today we're talking about drugs.

My name is Daniel Fazio. I've been an entrepreneur for five or six years, I'm a co-founder of Client Ascension and ListKit, and we do about $500,000 per month. The entire time, I've been debilitatingly addicted to nicotine and caffeine.

Here's what I want to cover: why you need to be stimulant maxxing, my near-heart-attack story, why weed is for losers, and my thoughts on alcohol.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. Don't take drugs. Ever. Assume this is comedy and parody.

Why You Need to Be Stimulant Maxxing

The best way to understand this is through compound interest.

Compound interest is when your assets generate returns, you reinvest those returns, and the base keeps growing — until 30 or 40 years later you have a disgusting amount of money.

Effort in your business works the same way. If you put incrementally more effort in every single day, you very quickly start to lap your competitors. Someone working 4 hours a day versus someone working 12 hours a day — that gap compounds fast.

Caffeine helps you do that. It's clean, it works, and for me personally it has never been a problem to start or stop.

The Nicotine Trap: Don't Start, But If You Do, Keep It to 1mg

Nicotine is a different story.

I think it was Alex Hormozi who pointed out that the maximum effective dose of nicotine for hyperfocus is about 1 milligram. One milligram. That's it. Above that, you're not getting more focus — you're just getting more addicted.

A standard 3mg Zyn is three times the maximum effective dose. And that's the lowest common option. Some people are slamming 6mg pouches like it's nothing. It's insane to me that this isn't more regulated.

How I Got Destroyed by Nicotine

About four years ago, I started hitting a girl's vape socially. Then she wasn't around and I bought my own. Then I was smoking unfiltered American Spirits with Twitter health guys in Miami. Within a couple years I had gone from occasional vape hits to full-on cigarettes.

Then I started feeling something weird in my lungs and cold-turkey quit.

Day four of zero nicotine, I ate a big meal, felt chest tightness, and got hit with this wave of absolute impending doom. Heart rate spiking. Couldn't breathe. I turned to my girlfriend and told her I thought I was having a heart attack. We went to the ER.

Here's the kicker: I had just turned 26. I'd just aged off my parents' health insurance and hadn't gotten new coverage yet. They ran every test, told me nothing was wrong, and I got a $15,000 bill.

It was a severe nicotine and smoking withdrawal — not a heart attack. But it felt like dying.

The Withdrawal Fog Is Real

I moved to 6mg Zyns, then had cardiovascular issues. Cut to 3mg, went through withdrawal again. Cut to 2mg gum. Now I'm stepping down to 1mg lozenges.

Every time you cut your dose in half, you're in withdrawal. There's this fog in front of you. You can't focus. It's like thinking through wet concrete.

I need serious mental bandwidth to produce at the level I produce. At 9-10am I'm running on caffeine and a small amount of nicotine and I'm turbo focused. Without it, I can't sit in front of a camera and talk. I can't write. I can't create.

The point: if you don't take nicotine, don't start. If you're going to use it, stay at 1mg and don't go higher. There is no benefit above that dose — only addiction.

Weed Is for Losers

I get it. There's a window — maybe 30 minutes after one hit — where creativity spikes and ideas flow. I used to do exactly that: one hit at 5pm, go for a walk, dump ideas into my notes app.

But the rest of the day is shot. You're eating everything in sight, chasing dopamine, and over time you're just perpetually tired.

Weed and alcohol are downers. Caffeine and nicotine are uppers. If your business requires producing a lot of output and talking to people, you cannot afford to be pulled down constantly.

There are people who would be great at sales or content or marketing, but they're being held back not by lack of skill — but by the fog that comes from smoking too much weed. It creates a low-grade background anxiety that never fully lifts.

Alcohol Is Quietly Wrecking Your Output

Here's a question I started asking people: When is the last time you went 14 consecutive days without a single sip of alcohol?

A lot of people over 25 have to think about it. Some can't remember. That's wild, because alcohol is literally a poison. It's ethanol. It's gasoline.

In November, I was on an absolute tear — writing VSLs, ad copy, YouTube scripts, LinkedIn posts, Twitter threads. It was flowing effortlessly. I couldn't figure out why.

At the end of the trip, we started drinking at the mastermind. And it hit me: I hadn't had a single drink in three weeks. That was why I was operating at that level.

It also explained something I'd noticed for years: Thursday is always my most productive day. I always blocked Thursdays for deep work because I just knew I'd produce. I never understood why — until I realized Thursday is the day farthest from my last drink on Friday.

The Summary

Here's how I actually think about this:

• Caffeine — do it, it's fine, no real downside for most people

• Nicotine — 1mg max if you're going to use it, and if you don't currently use it, don't start

• Weed — avoid it if you need to produce and perform consistently

• Alcohol — the hidden productivity killer; try 14 days off and see what happens

Stimulant maxxing is real — but it means being strategic, not just slamming whatever's available. Work harder than your competitors, protect your mental clarity, and don't let the downers drag you below your baseline.