He got mugged in front of me...

The Pocket-Dial That Ended in a Robbery

I watched my friend get robbed a few days ago.

All because I had to take a piss.

It started with me (mistakingly) texting my friend happy birthday. He then asks me “How’s life?”

At this point, I’m at a cafe working.

I grab my phone to respond to him, but decide to take a piss first.

So I do my thing in the bathroom and wash my hands.

And that’s when I hear a weird sound…

I’m looking around the bathroom like a paranoid lunatic.

Is someone dying? Did the government bug the toilet?

I listen closer…

It’s a ringing noise coming from my pocket.

Shit.

Pocket-dial.

I look at my phone’s screen to find my friend, Kieran staring back at me.

“Hey what’s up!” I say to him (playing it off like I totally meant to call him).

We start shooting the shit for a couple minutes.

Kieran tells me he just got to Buenos Aires from Paraguay. And he’s excited.

“Dude, Buenos Aires is a 100x better than Paraguay,” he says.

“My friend told me to skip it. He said it wasn’t worth the trip.”

He’s walking down the street while we talk.

Hyping up the city.

The food. The architecture. The weather. The energy.

“I don’t know what my friend was talking about. This place is incredible.”

Then I hear a motorbike.

Loud.

Getting louder.

His screen goes black.

I’m sitting in the café, staring at nothing.

5 seconds pass…

10 seconds…

Then the camera comes back on.

Kieran is now driving on a motorbike with a full-face helmet on.

“Did you just get on a motorbike?” I ask, confused.

He doesn’t say anything to me, just stares.

And that’s when I realize:

That’s not Kieran.

We held eye contact for what felt like an eternity.

Probably 2 seconds.

But in that moment, me and this man who just committed a felony shared something.

A connection. A brief window into each other’s souls.

He hangs up.

Didn’t even say goodbye.

Just robbed my friend and dipped. No manners. No decorum.

This is the problem with crime today… no professionalism.

So now, a thief is scrolling through Kieran’s messages wondering why I’m telling him “Happy birthday you sexy bitch.”

The comedic timing was almost too perfect.

“This place is incredible” → Robbed.

The universe heard him hyping Buenos Aires and said:

Lemme offer a counterpoint.

The Advice That’s Holding You Back In Life

I can’t stop thinking about Kieran’s friend.

One guy.

One opinion.

Delivered with total confidence: “Skip Buenos Aires.”

And now Kieran’s phone is in the pocket of a guy on a Yamaha.

You could look at this and think:

“See? The friend was right. Should’ve skipped Buenos Aires.”

But that’s not how decisions work.

One bad moment doesn’t make the whole decision wrong.

Kieran spent days in Buenos Aires before this.

Loved every second.

Had experiences he’ll remember forever.

The robbery sucked, sure. But it doesn’t erase everything good that came before it.

And that friend who told Kieran to skip Buenos Aires?

He just had an opinion.

Maybe he read a Reddit thread. Maybe he talked to one guy who had a bad time.

Maybe he just assumed it wasn’t worth it because he’d never done it himself.

One person. One perspective. Delivered like it was fact.

How many decisions have you made because of one person’s opinion?

That friend who told you building a business is “too risky.”

That colleague who said content creation is “oversaturated.”

That family member who told you to “just be grateful you have a job” while you slowly die inside at a desk you hate.

One person.

One perspective.

Shaped entirely by their experience. Their fears. Their failures. Their ceiling.

And you treated it like gospel.

The people who give you the most confident advice are usually the ones who’ve never actually done the thing they’re warning you about.

They’ve never built a business.

• Never landed a client.

• Never posted content.

• Never bet on themselves.

But they’ll give you 17 reasons why it won’t work. 

They’ll present their fear as wisdom and their comfort zone as common sense.

Meanwhile, those who’ve actually done it?

They know how messy and uncertain and absolutely possible it all is.

They know that the path forward is paved with rejections, flopped posts, and maybe a felony or two.

But they did it anyway.

Take The Leap

Kieran’s friend said skip Buenos Aires.

Kieran went anyway. And discovered it was incredible.

Yes, he got his phone stolen.

But the robbery didn’t prove his friend right.

It just proved that life has plot twists.

Just like how you can post content for 2 weeks and get 0 engagement.

That doesn’t mean content doesn’t work.

You can land a client who ghosts you.

That doesn’t mean online biz is a scam.

You can try something new and fail spectacularly.

That doesn’t mean you’re dad who left for milk and never came back was right.

The advice that’s holding you back? Question it.

The voice in your head saying “that won’t work”?

Ask whose voice that actually is.

Because most of the time, it’s not even yours.

Your Canadian friend,

Dakota “Keep Your Phone In Your Pocket” Robertson