In this article I want to share a bit of my story, explain why I remained anonymous until today, and why I have decided to start writing under my own name from now on.
A Little Background
I started writing online four and a half years ago. Back then, the internet was a very different place, and it’s only now, looking back, that I realize how much things have changed since the day when I decided to start posting stuff online.
In 2021, I had just graduated from college and completed my degree in Business Administration with a minor in Journalism. During my first year, I set a goal for myself: I’d build a business during my time in college so that I wouldn’t ever have to work a 9 to 5. The reasons behind that goal were mostly prideful and immature, but even then, I think it might have been God’s way of motivating me not to settle and try to build something of my own.
I didn’t accomplish that goal. I did some interesting stuff during my college years, sure. I wrote a few books that I self-published, started a few minor businesses, but none of them were that serious nor did any of them bring me any significant income.
The temptations of the world got the best of me, and even though I never forgot my dream to build something of my own, it got postponed and I chose instead to half-ass my way through college, spend my time playing videogames, meeting people, and going to the gym. I was never a fan of going to parties or getting drunk, but still, I wasn’t focused on anything higher. I was just going through the motions, distracted by shiny objects and living far away from God.
My family is devoutly Catholic, and while we always went to Mass together on Sundays, when I moved out to go to college, I disregarded my faith entirely. I was arrogant and prideful, and thought I knew better (I didn’t).
Surprisingly, I managed to graduate with a Cum Laude distinction (academic success is something that has come somewhat easily for me, and it truly is just a blessing from God, because I made no merits to deserve that success).
As soon as I graduated, after the “pandemic”, I realized that I had failed at my goal and I would have to find a job to start supporting myself. This truly wasn’t as terrible as I had imagined it would be (I was actually rather excited), and thanks to my good grades and to some connections I’d made in college, I got a job fairly quickly, as a Product Analyst for a FinTech startup.
The salary was quite low, but the hours were good, and I only had to go to the office twice per week, which meant I’d have a lot of free time to do other things. I could’ve gone into consulting or finances —which I considered—, for a much higher salary, but my intuition always told me to choose something that wouldn’t consume my entire life, in order to have energy and time to pursue other interests. My intuition, or as I see now, the Holy Spirit, wasn’t wrong.
Simple Men Is Born
After the first few months of working there, the desire to build my own thing got rekindled. I had free time and worked from home three days per week, which made it easy to pursue other interests. Initially I just spent my free time playing video games, but after a while, the Holy Spirit illuminated me and I became convinced that I needed to start writing to share some of the lessons I’d learned and some things which I thought could help other men navigate the complicated age of postmodernity.
And thus, Simple Men was born.
I mentioned how I had self-published a few books in college, so it’s no surprise that I wanted to keep pursuing my interest in writing. This time, however, I decided to to start the blog anonymously, for a few key reasons:
I didn’t want to be subject to others’ expectations: I didn’t want to have to sugarcoat whatever I wanted to say out of fear of a friend of family member criticizing it (which had happened with my books) or it affecting their image of me. I wanted to write straight from the heart, whether that meant being vulnerable, offensive, or plain wrong.
I wasn’t ready to face criticism: Writing and any other form of creative expression always requires you to open up and be vulnerable. And when you’re starting out, criticism can absolutely crush you (I had stopped various other projects simply because of some mean words from people who weren’t even close to me). I knew eventually I just had to be able to deal with criticism, but I accepted very honestly that I simply didn’t have such a tough hide at that point and I wanted to increase the chances of me sticking to this project.
I had a regular job and didn’t want to risk it: 2021 was a controversial year: vax mandates were in full effect, every conversation was politically loaded, and the world was in turmoil. Or that’s the way I felt it back then. My job was at risk because I chose not to get vaccinated (the startup I was working for made it mandatory to get the vaccine, but thankfully I got an exemption because my boss was fond of me and I was doing a good job), and I wanted to write about controversial issues like feminism, abortion, the whole vaccine fiasco and others, and I didn’t want to have to risk my job or have to limit myself.
Anonymity provided me with a shield that would allow me to grow into the new identity I wanted to build without it being torn down by the opinions of others.
I simply was an insecure kid, and anonymity would allow me to explore this new creative pursuit honestly, and strengthen the principles I wanted to promote in my writing.
I’ll spare you all the details because this post is getting fairly long, but here’s what happened next:
I opened up an Instagram account to try and get traffic to the articles I was writing, started posting daily, and after about a year of doing it, I decided to focus just on the Instagram account, because it was starting to grow and it took less effort than writing long-form articles.
Regarding my 9 to 5, I kept working there, I got promoted, and eventually got sent to Mexico to open the company’s operations there. I liked what I was doing, my boss was a good man and we had a good relationship. But my heart started calling out for me to allocate more time to my personal project, as I felt truly happy when writing, growing the Instagram account, and building something of my own.
That led to me deciding to try and earn some income out of my page, to see if I could replace my 9 to 5 income with earnings from the Instagram page. I created a self-improvement program called “The Superman Program” and started selling it on Gumroad. For two straight months, I managed to make more from selling that program than from my 9 to 5, so I decided to quit my job and go all-in into my project.
Doing My Own Thing
As soon as I quit, I got presented with the opportunity to start my own startup with two friends and I took it. This would allow me to maintain some financial stability (we raised funds quickly so could pay ourselves a salary), while having even more flexibility to work on my own time and keep growing Simple Men on the side. This was at the end of 2022.
One year went by, and although Simple Men Blog on Instagram kept growing, I found myself a bit disenchanted with the direction it had taken. It had become a “masculinity theme page” that I used to make some good extra income without much effort.
Additionally, even though at that time I had gone back to being Catholic (thanks in no small part to Simple Men, but that’s a topic for another article), it still wasn’t an explicitly Christian project, and more of a “secular masculinity account that sometimes mentioned God”.
I missed the days when I would actually sit down to write long form articles, motivated not by money, but by an honest desire to share my thoughts, opinions, and advice with the world.
Since I had some financial stability thanks to the startup (although not nearly as much as I would have wanted to), I decided to take a leap of faith and rebrand and restructure Simple Men: It was going to become, once again, a writing project, and it would not be secular anymore but explicitly and openly Christian.
Simple Men 2.0
In January of 2024, I gave up the income I was making from it, and relaunched Simple Men Blog on Substack. I changed my Instagram bio and created a content strategy focused not on engagement but on directing traffic to Substack, in order to make the long form articles the priority.
I lost a lot of followers during that transition period, as many of my followers weren’t Christian and didn’t like the new direction my content was taking.
That was a year and a half ago, and since then, there’s been a few key changes to my life that make me think it’s now time to stop being anonymous:
I quit my startup, and this is now my full-time job. Even though I was self-employed, we still had investors and other stakeholders, and it was sensible to maintain this project private and anonymous, as I didn’t want to give them the impression that I wasn’t fully committed to my role as cofounder.
I’m in a professional and financial position that is comfortable and stable enough to see myself writing for a living for the foreseeable future. That means that I’m now ready to take the risk that comes with my name being linked to my work (as it’s undeniable that some of the most controversial topics I write about could be a red flag for some corporate employers). I don’t intend to have to look for a job anytime soon, and even if it became necessary for me to do so, I trust that with the connections I now have and through God’s providence I could find something.
After much discernment, I feel called to put my face and name behind the message, to give it strength and to show readers I’m not some random anonymous account who doesn’t practice what he preaches. I think this would help the message carry more weight, allow me to create different types of content (videos, lives, Q&As, etc.), and help me connect with my readers on a deeper, more human level.
What Comes Next?
So that’s the story and that’s why I decided to “doxx” myself. Here’s what you can expect to be different from now on:
The Simple Man pseudonym will be no more. I’ll update my name and picture in my author page in a few days, to give readers time to read this article and understand what is happening.
Simple Men blog will maintain its name, but it will now be written by me, with my real name, instead of by “Simple Man”.
The content will remain pretty much the same, except that now this opens up possibilities to do live Q&As, videos and other kinds of content. I highly recommend you keep an eye on the chat for any future announcements.
I’ll remain anonymous on Instagram and X. The reason for that is that I have zero interest in being “public”. I won’t share details about my life nor will I become an “influencer”. I’ll no longer be anonymous on Substack because I’m a writer and I want my readers to know who they’re reading. But social media is a whole different story and I do not want to be recognized there.
That’s pretty much it.
Thank You For Being Here
As I said, I’ve prayed a lot and thought long and hard about this decision, and I think and hope it’s the right one.
I want to thank you all for being here, for having shown me your support throughout the years, and for allowing me to write for a living.
It’s genuinely an incredible blessing that I never take for granted, and I pray that God gives me the necessary graces to keep creating content that serves you, that inspires and uplifts you, and most importantly, that helps you to get closer to God and move forward in the pursuit of holiness.
If you want to support this new phase of Simple Men, I would be honored if you considered becoming a paid subscriber of the blog. Your support goes a long, long way in allowing me to keep going.
If you can’t support financially, that’s okay too. Just the fact that you subscribe and read my articles is something I truly appreciate. I’d just encourage you to like and share the ones you like so they can reach more people!
I’m incredibly excited for this new phase, and I hope you are too. There’ll be opportunities to meet face to face in the future, and I’ll be incredibly glad to be able to give you a real, heartfelt, thank you for supporting the mission.
In Christ,
Juan Domínguez — “Simple Man”
Thank you for reading!
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Best of luck. In 2009, a year after graduating law school, I started my own practice. Unlike smart people, I did it when I had zero clients and while living paycheck to paycheck. The paychecks stopped but not the need for them.
I made every mistake known to mankind at the time regarding hiw to start and build your own business.
It took 3 years, the largess of big banks with easy credit rules, and the unsolicited but always welcomed input from others to turn things around to profitability. But it was worth every sleepless night and every hungry day.
Best of luck to you. You're much further down the road to succes than you might imagine.
Bob
It’s wild to think that when you relaunched Simple Man in January 2024, that’s exactly when I got introduced to your content. By March, I had ordered and read your Christian Vitality book—which came at just the right time, as I was seeking to reconnect with going to Mass again and grow deeper in my Catholic faith.
That book ended up being just the tip of the iceberg. Since then, by the grace of God, I’ve grown so much—and every day keeps getting better. Thank you for the role your work has played in that journey!