Writer | Marketer | Former Contributor at Forbes

Hi, I’m Dan! 👋

I typically spend my days buried in a booth at a local coffee shop. Ideas flow best with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bagel in the other.

I've spent the last nine years helping brands like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Foundr, Google, Capital One, and SAP connect with audiences through meaningful, memorable content. I've also served as a marketing mentor for programs like the UCCS Scale to $1M Bootcamp, RMMFI, and MicroMentor. 

I now lead content marketing at Bryant Park Consulting, helping clients ditch the chaos and build businesses that run smoother with smarter strategy and tech.

Off the clock, I'm either spending time with my wife, chasing two little kids, or finding new ways to shank a golf ball.

Dan Marzullo

Conviction-driven proprietary futures trader with a focus on macro positioning, capital misalignment, and institutional flow. I specialize in identifying when asset managers or leveraged funds are offside, using tools like COT data, ETF flows, volatility indexes, and price structure to time entries with precision. I don’t chase noise—I wait for asymmetric setups where mispriced risk meets technical exhaustion. Every trade is a hypothesis tested with discipline, managed without fear, and sized to survive. My edge lies in patience, structure, and understanding where capital is blind. 

I am also a proud U.S. Army veteran with six years of service as an Infantryman, where I earned the Expert Infantryman Badge and the Combat Infantryman Badge for my courage and excellence under fire. My military background has instilled in me a strong work ethic, discipline, resilience, and teamwork, which I apply to my sales career. I am passionate about learning and growing in the field of business, and I enjoy reading books on coaching, philosophy, and sales. I believe LinkedIn is the best platform for authentic and meaningful human communication.

Theodore McIntosh

2016 me vs 2026 me…yikes!

Father time is really undefeated y’all!

Build that thing. Do those extra pushups. Read that book. Whatever.

If we have to weigh our hearts on the scales ⚖️ of time 🕰️ in the afterlife against a feather, what decisions can we make today to ensure the balance is in our favor?

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You’re weak.



That’s what I used to tell myself every time I failed.

Injuries.
Break ups.
Mental health spirals.

So I scrolled.
Dopamine instead of direction.
Relief instead of responsibility.

It worked for a minute.
Then the emptiness came back heavier.

Here’s what changed everything.

When I stopped thinking about the men that didn’t make it or the mistakes I made, and I started thinking about what I needed to become.

The self is not found by dwelling on the past negatively.

It is built by acting.

When I had nothing to move toward, my mind turned on me.
When I chose a goal, even imperfectly, the pain had somewhere to go.

That inner pressure you feel is not laziness.
It is unused energy.

Scrolling feels like rest.
But rest does not heal you.

The cure lives in:
	•	the project you keep avoiding
	•	the journal you stopped writing in
	•	the body you stopped training
	•	the future you are scared to claim

That is where the I forms.
In effort.
In direction.
In assertion.

You will falter.
You will hear the voice again.

“You’re weak.”

Prove that voice wrong. Seek direction over distraction.

Push, pull, write. Whatever it is you do.

Strength isn’t lack of failures.
Strength is returning to the direction anyway.

If this resonated, like this post.
Then close the app.
Add one sentence.
Do one rep.
Make one move.

That is how the self appears.

In 2026, any founder can build projects without writing a single line of code.
I built a Trader Intelligence Dashboard with 5 modules, live charts, dark mode, and real-time data visualization.
Zero coding experience. Just vibe-coding with Manus.AI.
The dashboard includes: ✅ COT (Commitment of Traders) positioning
 ✅ Options Open Interest + Sentiment analysis
 ✅ FINRA Short Sale + Dark Pool tracking
 ✅ Sentiment & News aggregation
 ✅ Insider & Senator Trades monitoring
My vibe-coding workflow:
1️⃣ Think first: Define what I needed (5 modules, specific data points, sleek UI)
2️⃣ One conversation: Manus.AI built the Next.js + TypeScript + Tailwind stack
3️⃣ Iterate fast: Asked for adjustments, got them instantly
4️⃣ Deploy: Pushed to Vercel in minutes
Time breakdown:
Planning: 20 minutes
Building with Manus.AI: 1 hour
Deploying: 10 minutes
Total: ~1.5 hours for a production-ready MVP
Real talk:
I don't know what I'm doing half the time. I'm in conscious incompetence, fumbling through, learning by breaking things.
But that's the point.
Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.
Every small win, every working feature, every "holy shit it actually works" moment builds confidence.
The codebase is on GitHub, fully documented and open. I can read it, understand it, and extend it. That's progress.
Why Manus.AI is about to level up:
Meta recently acquired Manus.AI, positioning them as a leader in agentic AI.
With Meta's consumer data, imagine: → Apps that understand trending topics from billions of posts
 → UI/UX trained on how millions interact with Meta products
 → One-click Instagram/Facebook/WhatsApp integrations
 → Market validation using real consumer behavior
Building smarter with insights from 3+ billion users.
For non-technical founders:
You don't need to learn to code. You need to learn to:
Articulate what you want clearly
Break problems into pieces
Iterate based on what you see
Think product-first, not code-first
The barrier isn't technical anymore. It's clarity of vision and willingness to fumble forward.
If you're waiting to "learn to code first," stop waiting.
Start vibe-coding. Make mistakes. Have fun. Build today.
#vibecoding #AItools #founder #ManusAI #Meta #agentic #MVP

Most people are taught to shrink their “I”.

School trains compliance.
Jobs reward obedience.
Titles replace identity.

And nobody ever says it out loud.

Your sense of self slowly gets capped.

I learned this the hard way.

The military teaches discipline, structure, sacrifice. Powerful lessons.
But it also teaches you where your thinking stops and who decides for you.

Business looked like freedom at first.
Then I noticed the same pattern.

Pay bands.
Career ladders.
Invisible ceilings.

You are encouraged to “be yourself” right up until your self becomes inconvenient.

Over time, people stop authoring their lives and start managing permission.

Here is what recently changed everything for me.

One day I fell into a philosophical rabbit hole and found one of the lesser known German Idealists, Johann Gottlieb Fichte. His concept of the “I” was fascinating because he posits that it is an original activity. Kant limits reason by requiring an unknown external ground. Fichte’s point of view is that the “not-I” exists only as a limit posited by the “I”. 

	•	Kant: Reality exists beyond me, and I can only know its appearances (this is fine if you are willingly to be dependent on appearances, willingly to receive reality at all turns). This is part of why he is widely studied, his work is presented as conformity.

	•	Fichte: I am the origin of reality, and through my activity all else emerges. The world is not just received; it is co-generated by your activity. 

Fichte argued that the self is not a thing you discover.

It is an act.

The “I” does not WAIT for permission from the world.

It posits itself.

Meaning, you become who you are through action, through striving, through choosing to create in the face of resistance.

Most modern systems do the opposite.
They minimize the “I”.

They want predictability, not self-authorship.
Stability, not growth.
Output, not becoming.

That tension is why so many people feel restless even when they are doing “everything right”.

The solution is not quitting your job tomorrow.

The solution is reclaiming authorship.

Writing forces you to clarify your own thinking.
Publishing on social media is the modern form of self-positing.
Sales teaches you how real humans decide, not how spreadsheets assume they do.
Time-flexible pursuits like trading or art restore agency over your day and your energy.

These are not side hustles.
They are philosophical acts.

Your identity is the rough stone hewn with the chisel of actions, transformed into the sculpture of your design.

Every post is a declaration of “I am”.
Every project refines who you are becoming.

Every sale is proof you have empathy.

Every trade is another opportunity for you build resilience and shape why you make decisions.

You are not finding yourself.

You are building yourself.

So the real question is simple.

What will you author? What “I” am are you creating?

Enjoy creating yourself through Fichte’s “I”

THE SELF POSITS ITSELF ABSOLUTELY!

I am a slave to sin.

Not in the dramatic sense. In the quiet, modern sense.

Short-form content is an instrument of sloth, envy, and gluttony. The tecpatl that cuts into precious awareness. My phone is the altar upon which my focus is sacrificed to these sins.

These sins are subtle, they wear entertainment as a costume while quietly hollowing you out. 

Consumption disguised as staying informed. 

Comparison disguised as inspiration. 

Complacency disguised as rest. 

“I am just chilling, just catching up, just havin a few giggles, no biggie”. 

Swipe after swipe, focus degraded, awareness altered. 

This is the carousel 🎠 from hell 🔥 

It does not punish you. It indulges you. It feeds you novelty, validation, outrage, lust, and distraction in perfectly measured doses, just enough to keep you moving and never enough to let you arrive. 

Around and around you go, mistaking motion for progress, stimulation for life, and consumption for thinking.

I see it in the small moments. Between sets at the gym. Waiting for food. A pause in conversation. Any gap in experience is immediately filled, not with thought or presence, but with noise. And the more I give myself to it, the less capable I become of depth, patience, or sustained desire for anything difficult or meaningful.

Short-form content is not evil. The sin is surrendering to it. Allowing it to replace my own interior life, the internal monologue I developed over 34 years. Letting it train me to crave what is easy, shocking, and instantly gratifying while slowly losing my taste for wisdom, strength, beauty. Letting it undermine work that requires time. That is the true sin, the true price of the ticket to ride the carousel.

So I am trying to get off the ride. Not by pretending I am above it, but by building practices that pull me back into myself.

Here is what is actually helping.

1. Be ruthless with inputs. I remove content that feeds envy, lust, outrage, or idle amusement, not because it is immoral, but because it weakens me. The algorithm is a mirror. I teach it who I am by what I refuse to consume. Attention is finite. I spend it where I want to grow.

2. Transmute temptation into depth.
When something grips me, I stop scrolling immediately and move into creation. I write about it. I interrogate it. I follow the thread until it becomes understanding instead of sensation. Shallow inspiration must lead to deep work, or it becomes another empty calorie.

3. Replace indulgence with creation. I structure my days so that real effort crowds out easy pleasure. Long walks. Long reading. Long writing sessions. Creation satisfies in a way consumption never does. When I build, the hunger to escape diminishes on its own. This is not a moral stance, it’s W mentality.

We live in a world designed to keep us distracted, indulgent, and fragmented. Choosing depth, presence, and creation is an act of quiet rebellion, and if you have ever found yourself mindlessly scrolling, trust me you are not alone.

Meet Warren.


Warren is a cat. He’s obese, striped, and sometimes nice.

But when he’s overstimulated, he’s problematic.

The weird thing? If I pet him for too long, he bites. 

If I STOP petting him, same.

Not because he’s malicious (hopefully), but because he can’t regulate himself.

He wants more. He needs more. Even when more is overstimulating him.

Sound familiar?

This is you demanding the market soothe your ego and placate your animalistic emotions of fear and greed.

You’re up $1,500 on the day. You should stop. You don’t.

“Just one more trade.”

Or worse - you’re down $800. You think the market owes you. Your setup isn’t there. Volume is low. You’re close to your daily loss limit.

You trade anyway.

CHOMP.

Some platforms are great and have daily loss limits, lockout features, profit factors so you have a gauge on when to cut winners and losers. Risk management parameters that physically stop you.

But here’s the thing: 

we should be in control of ourselves

Daily loss limits and win limits are great. They’re necessary. But what happens when you fail? When you break the rule? When you blow past your limits? 

What happens when you break your rules, trade outside of your setups, and win?

Because statistically speaking, it’s going to happen.

How do you rehabilitate your mind after that?

How do you rebuild your identity back to someone who follows their edge?

It’s not about better strategy. It’s not about more rules.

It’s about what happens when you become Warren - overstimulated, unable to regulate, biting when you know you shouldn’t.

So I’m asking: How are you managing your emotions through wins and losses?

How do you rebuild discipline?

How do you stay consistent?

Let me know. I’m genuinely trying to figure this out.

(And if you’ve never struggled with this… Warren and I are very jealous of you.)

What is the most useful mental model you’ve discovered in the last 12 months?

Sales Architect | Applying Futures Trading Risk Logic to Local AI Agents (Moltbot) | Building Secure B2B Sales Pipelines

What gets measured gets improved.

Is this the case always?

No, not always.

But the Hawthorne Effect was observed in the 20s’ and 30’s where workers in the Western Electric Factory in Cicero, IL became more productive upon receiving the awareness that they were being observed and studied.

If I watch myself and track my actions I improve them.

Can this get out of hand and cause negative consequences? Sure, but I’m not a factory where observed workers might skew data with illusory actions or fake productivity.

It’s me in the moment vs me in the past, just trying to be better for the future me.

James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits said that we don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the levels of our systems.

My system is to check each day how many steps I’ve taken.

I know a guy who doesn’t track it at all, but everday he walks the exact same route, same time, no headphones just raw.

That’s his system.

I like to create voice notes and listen to books. Sometimes I walk in the mornings, sometimes the evenings, different days, different routes.

That’s my system.

What are your systems?

I’m a loner…
And I’m ok with that.

As an INFJ, I trend toward solitude and introspection. I read, write, and look for patterns that reveal a bigger picture.

The mannequin in this photo is my companion of silence. Quiet, still, present. Being by yourself can bring immense clarity.

It is inert, devoid of spark. It reminds me: revelations shouted into empty tunnels return only echoes of your own mind.

Solitude is an energy source, not a deficit. I engage with two ears and two eyes. After clarity, I speak with one strong, steady voice. I live my truth, not the world’s script.

Are type indicators full of 💩 or do they stand the test of ⏰? 

Drop the emoji that matches how you feel, I’m all in on type indicators ⏰🕕🕦

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Dan Marzullo

Theodore McIntosh

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The Battle

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Theodore McIntosh

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Theodore McIntosh's LinkedIn Performance

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