Aaron Colvin While he was doing tricep presses at the gym, he spotted a cartoonishly huge bodybuilder across the room from the mirror. The man was coaching a woman on a set of rope rows when Colvin, 18, stopped to study their technique. Colvin was worried when the bodybuilder caught him staring and lumbered over. He thought he would be accused of ogling the man's girlfriend - one of the cardinal sins of fitness culture.

But the bodybuilder just wanted to have a friendly conversation, during which he asked Colvin what he did for a living. In August 2023, Colvin is about to begin his freshman year at Niagara University, a small Catholic school near his hometown of Niagara Falls, New York. But his attitude toward college was anything but lukewarm. He wanted to commit to becoming an entrepreneur, like two of his heroes, Grant Cardone or Alex Hormozi. At 13, Colvin vowed to follow in their footsteps so he could relieve the financial pressure on his mother, a special education teacher who had little help raising him. As an energetic teen, he launched a series of one-person businesses that never took off: T-shirt seller, carpet cleaner, affiliate marketer, dropshipper, Amazon arbitrageur. He currently works daily shifts at Chipotle and Pet Supplies Plus to save $3,000 to take classes on how to run a personal training business.

Colvin's new friends wanted to steer him toward different opportunities: "What do you know about solar energy?" he asked. The man said that when he's not competing on the amateur bodybuilding circuit, he works for Freedom Pros, the door-to-door sales arm of Freedom Forever, one of the nation's leading solar system installers. The bodybuilder had just returned from a trip to Florida, where he took part in a "blitz" - solar industry slang for a sales event where a group of young men in crisp polo shirts and khaki shorts descended Go to a city and fall into a cheap hotel. or Airbnb and spend a few weeks visiting as many people as possible. He boasted that he made "insane money" — as much as $20,000 a month — by convincing a handful of homeowners to cover their roofs with solar panels.

Colvin, a muscular former high school wrestler with a scholarly demeanor wearing round, silver glasses, was intrigued. “I was like, Oh my God,” he recalled. "Like, yeah, cool, I'll look into it."

A few weeks later, Colvin had a FaceTime call with Freedom Pros' bodybuilding manager, a feisty 21-year-old named Will. Even though his college semester had just begun, Colvin told Will that he was considering dropping out: As a man who had suffered a lot — he and his mother once lived above a drugstore in Niagara Falls that Frequently burglarized by drug addicts - he was going through a difficult time with his classmates, most of whom came from more relaxed backgrounds than he did. “I had a midlife crisis in my dorm room,” Colvin said. Will urged him to join his door-to-door sales team, which he dubbed "Seal Team Six." He said the effort was a breeze and simply made homeowners realize they could save thousands of dollars by installing solar panels and selling excess power back to the grid. As long as Colvin stands on strangers' doorsteps delivering this message, his sales commissions dwarf his salary at Chipotle. "Behind every door is $5,000" is the unofficial motto of SEAL Team Six. (Freedom Forever claims total revenue will exceed $1 billion in 2023.)

After some consideration, Colvin declined the offer. He worried that he would regret not being treated fairly and drop out. But Will is a relentless recruiter. That fall and winter, he posted almost daily Instagram Reels on Colvin produced by the “Solar Brothers,” showing off their six-figure commission checks, their penthouses, and their exotic cars. These tanned, shapely and confident influencers emphasize that the rewards are available to anyone who has the courage to give up their ordinary lives and enter the forefront of the green economy.