My name is Daniel de Koning. Welcome to my blog!
I started this blog in August 2023 as a side hustle. During this period, I was already running my SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency), but I wanted to share my knowledge myself.
I am 20 years old, study finance, and have a big passion for health and lifestyle. I'm obsessed with all kinds of sports. Besides fitness, I like to play padel and football, cycle, tennis, and squash. You might also find me on the golf court now and then.
My main incentive will always be providing the right information to teenagers about fitness, health, and lifestyle.
My Story: Ignorant Young Kid to Disciplined Man on a Mission
What most people don't know about me, is that I've always been a shy, silent person, looking for purpose in his life. When I was 14, I got in touch with alcohol. On one night out, I made a challenge for myself to drink every beer I got in 2 seconds (great idea, Daniel). I was out with some friends, and we were planning to go to the local "club" we have in our hometown. We already started drinking at my place, as my parents were on holiday in Spain. I told my friends about that stupid challenge I set myself. "Haha, someone's getting drunk tonight."
I was surely on the right way.
When we arrived at the club, I met some older friends. And again, I told them about my great idea. The first thing I got shoved into my hands was a large pint of beer. Remember, I was 14. After a while, things went badly. There's not much I remember from this evening, but I remember I walked out of the club, as I was incredibly dizzy and nauseous. On my way to... I don't really know.
From that moment, the only thing I remember was people asking me "Are you fine? You look terrible mate!" "Yeaaaah, I'm just waiting from some friends here" (As I was covered in what some call dogshit, which I was unlucky enough to lay into), it surely didn't sound like that.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night, as I was lying in a hospital bed with 2 drips into my arm. A few incredibly kind people were still in the room, under which the parents of a friend of mine. They called my mom, as I was still in some kind of drugged state I believe. The rest is history.
To this day, I still don't enjoy drinking. Surely, I drink now and then, but my fitness and long-term goals are way more important to me. It has been a life-changing event for me, I believe. Once, but never again.
To get to know everything about me, I recommend you read further in the paragraph down below!
Work in Progress: My Life Story
March 26. 2004, Bergen op Zoom
2014-2016: Friends, Girls & Jealousy
September 14-15, 2019: A Life-Changing Event
2020-2022: Discovering Business Paths
March 30, 2022: Starting My First Business
August, 2023: Turning The Steering Wheel
On the night of March 26, a fat baby was born. My hair was terrifyingly black, as well as my eyebrows. My grandmother always tells me that she thought I was going to be a criminal because of my looks (but that I'm the opposite actually).
I don't remember much from this time. As the years went on, I played with a lot of toys, made quite a lot of friends at school, and was overall pretty popular.
I grew up with 1 brother. I'm pretty sure he has made quite a lot of impact on me. If I had any questions on social interactions, problems, or other things. He would, and will, help me out. Even in the starting phase at the gym, he familiarized me with all of the intimidating stuff in there. We played games together, played with the other kids down the street, and fought with each other.
2015-2016 were the times of jealousy for me. You might think to yourself: "You're 11, what are you talking about?!", I've always been early with things. My beard started growing at 16, and by the time I was 17 I had a grown beard. However, I've been jealous for quite a period.
There was 1 girl whom I liked (I'm not going to list any names of course). We had a relationship like a traffic light: on, out, on, out. This went on for a long time. She even gave me a chain with half a heart, whereas she would have the other half. Together, we would create the word "LOVE". Cute, right?
At the red light (from the traffic light, see what I did there), she came more and more close to my best friend. How could he?! They went on movie dates, walks, and more. I'm sure he noticed I was jealous, as I was constantly looking if they were doing something together (no, not in a creepy way). Eventually, they got into a relationship for 3 weeks. As young as I was, I stated to myself that I was never going into a relationship with her ever again.
2 weeks later, we were sitting next to each other in class. Nice.
I was quite young when I came in contact with alcohol. A lot of friends of mine were drinking from a young age as if it was normal. This event has changed my mindset forever I believe. It was after this period that I started taking the gym seriously, learned more about health and fitness, and adopted an overall better lifestyle.
Of course, it was just the start, but it was a work in progress.
I come from a family where everything was settled and well. My parents are happy together, we don't have to worry too much about financial problems and we are all healthy.
But from that day, there has always been a drive in me that pushed me to my limits. I don't settle for less, and will always strive for more.
It was a few weeks after my 18th birthday when I went to the city center to get an official business license. I've spent a couple of months finding the right business opportunity. I remember that my first business idea was day trading, but more on the technical side of it. I've learned patterns, trends, and higher highs and higher lows.
Another business I tried was selling my business analyses. By the time I was 17, I started developing a lot of interest in finance. I started analyzing a lot of businesses that I would find interesting when I got the chance to invest my own earned money in it.
I was thinking to myself: why don't I sell these things? I share them with people in my personal environment, so why not with other people? Sadly, my business idea was stranded by the time I wanted to make a website, as I needed a website, I also needed a credit card which I couldn't get at that age.
I had to find a business model that I could prepare before I turned 18 and had cash flow coming in from some simple freelance work I did. It was in the early months of 2022 when I discovered SMMA, or Social Media Marketing Agency, via guru Iman Gadzhi. I had developed a major interest in fitness... Why not combine both? We were planning to do Facebook ads, develop websites, and manage social media accounts.
My first real business was born.
The first phase of this business was really just figuring things out. I remember the first few calls I had: I was incredibly nervous. I had a small presentation prepared, with my face, a few questions, and the promise to send them the pricing details before the second call.
Exactly how I learned it from Iman, and somehow a few people agreed on a second call. I would give them the pricing details, how we would do it, and which agreements we could provide. We've worked with a no-cure-no-pay structure for a long time to gain thrust. A good friend of mine had some experience with Facebook ads, so he would create and manage the ads, and I would create a landing page and bring in the clients.
We started getting in some clients, as our no-cure-no-pay structure sounded attractive to our audience. Therefore we didn't get cash flow from it, but that didn't really matter. We were trying, which meant work in progress.
The more experienced we got, the closer we came to the real payments. And then, the moment was there! We got to an ROI of 2.5 for a client in the north of the Netherlands. I would give 30% to my partner, and we were getting more confident by the minute. As I started developing systems and automations to decrease the time spent on the outreach side, we started getting more and more clients in our no-cure-no-pay structure.
Things got serious.
At this point in my life, there are a lot of things that are going really well. I'm healthy, the business is growing, I'm in great shape, and I successfully completed every subject in school. What more could a man ask for?
During August, I still had the feeling that I could help people in a better way than I was doing. How can I help people of my age in the best way possible? Exactly, using the knowledge I already have combined with other people's knowledge. I started creating content, mainly in the form of blogs. I started creating funnels, processes, and systems to create content with structure.
Obviously, this part of DK-Socials is not that big yet. There are a lot of things that need to happen before we can produce massive amounts of content, in the desired quality. But the power is in that single word: "Yet". I'm not the man I wanna be, but I'm getting closer every single day by doing the things I have to do. With consistency, discipline, and adequate actions.
A work in progress, and the work needs to be done.
I want to finish this blog off with some quotes, that have formed the fundamentals of my life:
- Work in progress, and the work needs to be done.
- How you do something, is how you do everything.
- Actions speak WAY louder than words.
- There are no shortcuts in the path to success. It's a one-way road.
Thank you for reading.
I hope my story of life brings you motivation, peace, freedom, and happiness.
