Having high expectations for yourself is great.

It’s an internal obligation of needing to meet a certain standard, compelling behavior that is conducive for winning.

High expectations for yourself at work will lead you to work long and fast, helping you climb the career ladder and get raises, promotions, and unexpected opportunities.

High expectations for yourself in the gym will lead you to consistency, progressive overload, and dieting, which translates to abs, strength, or whatever fitness goal you have.

It’s without a doubt having high expectations for yourself is generally a good thing. It’s something to be proud of.

An unexpected downside to having high expectations is falling out of touch with reality.

Slowly, you normalize what high expectations are.

To you, your high expectations are completely ordinary. You grapple with them, you strive for them, and you torture yourself if you fail to reach them.

You live and breathe with your high expectations. They become part of your identity and how you see yourself.

Your high expectations are not high expectations anymore. They simply are expectations. They become a minimal level of acceptable performance.

Like a drug addict who’s now looking for an even larger dose to feel a high, you keep raising the bar for what high expectations are. After all, you want to improve right?

Over time, your performance gradually moves away from what society understands as normal, yet you still think you are the norm.

You’re at the 95th percentile, yet you still think you’re average.

This creates friction when interacting with others and assessing your own strengths.

Since you believe you are the norm, you believe everyone must live like the way that you do.

You believe everyone works out everyday and eats their body weight in grams for protein.

You believe everyone works 60+ hours a week.

You believe everyone practices the fundamentals of good sleep hygiene or avoids the infinite scroll of social media.

And when people don’t meet your curated level of high expectations, you think they’re wrong. You think they’re weird.

You think: “doesn’t everyone live like I do?”

In reality, you’re the one in the wrong. You’re the weirdo. Not them.

When your high expectations become normal to you, you don’t realize your strengths.

You don’t realize how many standard deviations you are from what is considered normal.

Even as you enter new fields or climb to new heights. You believe everyone in this new stratosphere must be operating with the neuroticism for performance you have.

After all, you’ve been chasing these people for so long. You think there’s a reason why they’re so far ahead.

But when you finally reach them, you have a pang of disappointment.

You think: “How come they don’t meet my expectations?”

Thinking it’s just a fluke, you tear yourself apart to meet your own rising bar of expectations.

Certainly, the next group of people you’re trying to catch will be everything you expected.

The cycle of having continually rising expectations continues.

"The good ones know more."

David Ogilvy

I’m convinced that reading is one of the most underrated and highest leverage activities someone can spend their time on.

Today’s society is built by people who moved mountains to shape the technologies, industries, arts, and pop culture that we regularly enjoy.

With $10, anyone can buy access to these figures; decades of worth experiences, research, stories, perspectives, and art are on paper binded by glue and sitting on shelves accessibly by anyone.

It seems as if hardly anyone reads anymore.

It’s something everyone says they should do more, but never actually do.

Attention is fixated on speed. AI exists. All the information one can ever need is a couple keystrokes away. Accessibility is praised while the slow meandering of knowledge is devalued.

In this context, sitting down and staring at paper and ink hardly seems like a good use of time. Why bother when the world’s information hub is perennially present?

Despite knowing how important reading is, I always seem to relegate it as a trivial hobby—something to do when I run out of things to scroll and have time to kill.

I don’t ever take reading with the seriousness that I know I should give it.

When I read biographies, the world's greatest founders sit me before me and tell me their secrets.

When I read non-fiction, researchers bring me through their decade long obsessions, studies, and discoveries.

When I read sci-fi, a new universe engulfs me into a dreamy state where imagination spawns galactic struggles between heroes and villains.

These are all opportunities to be inspired, to learn, and to relax.

Yet, I allocate the times when I’m most cooked to reading, reasoning that my more alert and lucid mind is spent better elsewhere.

I never really read when I’m most mentally nimble. Only when I’m slightly motion sick commuting on the subway or I’m in my bed brain dead from a long day do I start reading.

At this point, my eyes merely skip through the pages, my mind too empty to comprehend and my resolve too exhausted to re-read the same page.

In this tired state, finishing books is more rewarding than actually understanding them. I get to have the feeling of being, dare I say, better than the social media addict.

When I move reading into a priority, I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting time.

There’s only so many hours in a day and even less hours when I’m mentally fresh. Why consume books when I can produce progress? Why read about others’ stories when I can write my own?

It’s this desire to see output which hampers the time spent on reading.

The significance behind the accumulation of knowledge that comes with wresting potentially useless information during reading is difficult to quantify.

It’s usually the most random times when I notice my time spent reading was not wasted, during which references to random passages pop into my mind, as if history’s greatest founders are directing me how to act.

It’s also difficult to weigh reading against other ways to spend my time.

FOMO is heavy; “I gotta read” seems like a terrible excuse not to go out, hang out with friends, and live a little.

Compounding upon the solitary nature of my other hobbies, reading feels akin to traveling alone.

I get to see all the wonderful sights I want to see, but I can’t share the joy in the moment—only snippets of highlights in the photo album equivalent of quotes in random settings.

Deep down, I know I just need to plop down and read.

There’s tremendous value in reading. All the titans I read about have read about the titans preceding their eras.

The people I want to emulate just know more. And I want to know more too.

There is a kind of work that will forever be overlooked.

The work to avoid disaster.

Successfully avoiding disaster means the status quo staying the same. There are no losses (and no gains).

Since impact is often related to observable and verifiable output, the lack of net new progress from avoiding disaster makes its completion under appreciated.

This creates a conundrum around structured incentives and priorities when thinking about what to spend time on.

In an environment where moving fast is the default and there are an infinite amount of features, workflows, and designs to build, you can forever rationalize that there are more important things to do.

Those important things often have some tangible output: new features, happier users, expedited sales, etc.

Internally, there is a surge of dopamine from completing those important things. Without a doubt, progress is made; you and everyone else can see what you’ve done and you deserve the praise that comes with it.

As checkboxes get ticked, more will appear. They will never stop appearing. There will always be important things to do. They will appear as urgent, unable to be pushed back.

As this goes on, the unsexy work of avoiding disaster will never be done; you have no incentive to ever do them before disaster ever appears.

If you happen to start working on them, you will be questioned and doubted: why are you spending so much time on this when there’s bigger fish to fry?

And so, it languishes at the bottom of a forever expanding todo list, eventually being forgotten, so much so that the act of regaining context surrounding the work is a task unto itself.

Maybe your judgment in prioritization is right. The disaster never happens. Fair play.

But what if it does?

Then it’s your ass on the line.

What didn’t you do this sooner? Why did you do those other things first? Why are you so short sighted?

The world seems to 180. The evidence which garnered your praise is the exact evidence of why you are deficient.

The importance of tasks that avoid disaster only become apparent when disaster actually strikes. By then, the downstream repercussions are much more difficult to contain.

This concept of work that avoids disaster also applies to the everyday decisions.

When making decisions, we have this urge to improve our current lives; it’s easier to dream how great life can be than to genuinely believe how great life already is.

This reflects in how we often think of past decisions. We are tempted to believe that the grass is always greener on the other side.

What if I went to that other university? What if I took that other job? What if I moved to that city? What if I dated that person?

We think about what benefits that come with these alternative realities, dreaming they can improve our present existence.

Meanwhile, we rarely think about the disasters we’ve avoided through the decisions we already made.

The disasters that could’ve happened didn’t happen. And because they didn’t happen, they’re overlooked.

The status quo of our present lives are not aspired towards, since we don’t suffer the deficiency from disaster that creates upwards room for aspiration in the first place.

When choosing what to prioritize next or what decisions to make, it’s worth borrowing the wisdoms of Charlie Munger:

For as long as I remember, I’ve had a creeping suspicion that I may, in fact, be an idiot.

It lingers in the back of my mind as I go about my day, counterbalancing the confidence brought forth by optimism and whatever sense of self I already have from what I know I can do.

This query of imposter syndrome doesn’t manifest in a way typically described by your favorite public speakers.

I don’t fear that other people will realize I’m an idiot (I’m sure many do already).

I fear that I will realize I’m an idiot.

It follows my adherence to Warren Buffet’s inner scorecard philosophy of living by my own internal values and not ones deemed valuable by others. I care about my opinion of myself way more deeply than I care about what others’ opinions of me are.

This is great in the face of criticism; it’s easy to ignore the naysayers.

It’s not so great in the face of compliments; it’s similarly easy to ignore those who believe in me and connect me with opportunities.

When being told I have a great background or I’m smart, my immediate reaction is thinking how normal I feel and what I readily lack—the gap between who I am and the potential I want to reach.

Without careful management, I find myself less confident to take bold actions.

Yes, I still pursue bold actions- they are needed to disprove my suspicions of idiocy-but I grip too tightly, stress too much, and put too much stake in the game; failing may not mean financial ruin, but may mean an implosion of self confidence.

I also cannot rest on my laurels after achievement.

After achieving the exact things I previously said would make me believe I’m not an idiot, I immediately adjust to my new level of success and fix my gaze on what’s next.

Things I previously thought was unattainable and people I previously saw as role models become coded as just normal everyday life.

The bar of what is “undeniable proof” in Alex Hormozi’s quote of “You don’t become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are” irrevocable shifts higher.

The asymmetry in the past being known and the future being uncertain warp my present perception of what is easy and what is difficult.

To presently evaluate if I’m an idiot, all my past achievements don’t mean anything anymore-they’re simply monsters I have slain and know how to slay going forward.

I don’t get any stamp of non-idiocy from reliving those experiences or pursuing those same achievements again.

And so, I start again climbing the next steeper and more difficult hill, pondering the same question.

Am I an idiot?

I guess I can only find out after my next achievement.

Alongside burgeoning independence and ability, disinterest in getting shitfaced every Friday, and increasingly uttering “back in my day”, attending weddings has been an unexpected rite of passage for adulthood.

Despite giving no thought to weddings a year prior, I just attended my 2nd wedding and will probably be attending more every year now.

A big milestone in life, a wedding is such a gift to attend.

Aside from being an excuse to travel, dress up, and socialize, I see attending a wedding as having the privilege to witness two people’s lives intertwine in a day that will forever be cherished in memories and picture frames.

It’s especially surreal attending the weddings of friends I have known for so long.

Taken aback in this mental time machine, I reminisce to what felt like eons ago when I first met my friend getting married, usually at a time when we were young, dumb, and knew nothing of the world.

Already with some story of the couple, I get to share notes when I meet the couple’s other friends.

Each guest has a piece of the story. Only by sharing does the full tapestry of their lives spill out—how they came to stand in the wedding ceremony before us today.

The trite question of “how do you know the bride or groom?” immediately projects a snapshot of the couple's lives at a given time.

Childhood friends speak on the formative years growing up on the same block in a hometown.

High school classmates speak on the shared absurdity of being a teenager and the pure optimistic dreams that sprawl from ignorance.

University classmates speak on the fast paced chaotic mess induced by caffeine, alcohol, exams, spring break trips, relationships, and internships.

Work friends speak on the professionalism (or happy unprofessionalism) that comes with becoming an adult and starting in the workforce.

It’s also beautiful seeing the families.

Like me putting the pieces to the couple’s story, the parents meets many of their child’s friends, whose names they heard for so long, for the first time.

They’re brought into their child’s story, one that wasn’t completely privy to them as their kid moved out and became their own person.

On the flip side, I find it pretty rare to interact at all with a friend’s family. Similar to the parents, I hear mentions, but never actually meet them in person.

Like clockwork, I immediately get misty eyed when the parents give speeches during the wedding reception.

In this moment, I see the parents’ gleaming pride in their child and the profound hope and sacred responsibility they now entrust to their new family member.

The bride and groom now take on the responsibility to love one another with the same tenderness, devotion, and care that their parents have shown them since the day they were born.

As the wedding continues and the families celebrate over food and champagne, their cultures blend and their destinies become inextricably linked—the wedding is the first among many more joys the two families share together.

Turning inwards, I leave weddings with renewed optimism.

I’m reminded that regardless of the individualistic pursuits I take in my own life, the greatest joy rest in the people I get to celebrate it with.

These people each carry a story of my life and cheer me on across my milestones.

I really enjoy the little things.

In my free week, I sequestered myself in Austin, Texas, situating myself in a studio east of downtown along a road of open air bars.

Having no obligations to do anything, I go about my day however I like.

After hundreds of pull ups, pushups, and squats in a shoebox apartment gym, I babysit a cappuccino in a warehouse-converted-to-a cafe.

Finally having the peace to notice the texture of foam preluding the bitterness of espresso with each sip, I let my attention float aimlessly between my favorite news podcast and one of the three books I’m concurrently reading.

These moments are pure bliss.

Satisfaction does not come only after tasting blood while chewing glass and staring into the dark abyss while oscillating between euphoria and terror.

Contentment can be found in these moments; the requirement of feeling productive and achievement be damned.

After letting my attention wander, I let my physical self drift through the Texas capital, meandering down the roads with no destination in mind.

Having no need to overtake fellow pedestrians, I notice the little things: the blinking neon “Open” signs fixed to food trucks serving tacos, the electric moan of autonomous cars dropping off passengers, and the evolution of single story bars into skyscrapers as downtown nears.

I do nothing spectacular. All typical tourist recommendations are ignored as I go about the days in complete agency.

Happy hour on a Monday at a cafe beside the library? Check.

Waiting two hours for brisket from a BBQ joint on a rainy Tuesday morning? Check.

Drinking nootropics I would never buy from Whole Foods? Check.

Sitting in a Waymo for the first time? Check.

Watching movies on an already logged in Netflix account while vibe coding? Check.

For anyone else, the highlights from my Austin trip are probably confusing—they can all be done on a typical weekend in New York without any planning.

For me, these simple highlights are reminders that extend beyond vacation.

Life doesn’t have to be the complicated, stressful, and fast pace mess that it naturally becomes.

There’s no need to impress increasing pressure to make life feel worthy in its finitude.

There’s no big narrative nor alignment of destiny I must make life meet.

I can go about and enjoy the simple things whenever and wherever.

Friday was my last day at xAI.

I’ve grown a lot since I first left a trading firm—my first full time job out of university—and joined the controversial social media and AI company.

These are the 5 lessons I learned and operationalized during my time there.

Seek Glass Shattering Moments

Glass shattering moments are when common uninformed narratives from which we base our opinions are disproved by actual experience.

None of my jobs thus far lived up to the hype of my expectations prior to joining; each of them served as distinct glass shattering experiences. xAI is no different.

I see two very distinct benefits from glass shattering.

The first is having a much clearer resolution of the world and my interests.

I’m no longer caught up in the mystique that comes with prestigious companies, titles, catered meals, and high TCs.

I also don’t feel much envy nor see others as pretentious when people talk about their lives, accomplishments, and money.

After finding it anticlimactic after getting typically sought after things, I can assert with more confidence that curiosity and self discovery are what I’m optimizing for; everything else, while welcomed, is just noise.

The second is operationalizing previously bundled and mysterious terms.

I find many things are wrapped in this hullabaloo that make them appear as these crazy things only geniuses can pull off.

Previously, I didn’t really know what “business partnerships” meant—I saw it as an amorphous thing that occurred between CEOs in a penthouse conference room.

Instead, it consisted literally of just some person calling some other person several times, legal paper work copy pasted from a template in Google Docs, and a newly created shared Slack channel.

There’s nothing inherently special in “business partnerships” or any other terms like “networking,” “marketing,” “product design,” etc. These are just a series of unsexy concrete actions performed for some desired outcome.

Only obtainable through actual experience, glass shattering moments removes all the preconceived notions and ignorant judgements for what something appears to be, replacing it with what it actually is.

To learn about the world and yourself, seek glass shattering moments.

Everyone is Human

Whenever I say “I had a meeting with Elon,” the question I inevitably get asked is “what is he like?”

Under all the headlines, he appears as this larger than life figure—a sort of demigod only found in Greek myths. It makes sense why I always get asked “what is he like”.

To the letdown of everyone who asks, my answer is always the same: “he’s just another human.”

This was another one of those glass shattering moments in which uninformed expectations and ignorant imagination buckle under the ordinary-ness of reality.

I first saw him when I nervously entered the meeting room with my team. In that instant, all the narratives, influence, power, and $800B fortune coalesced into a guy in a t-shirt sitting in the corner on his phone drinking a Diet Coke.

And when the meeting started, he made eye contact, nodded, asked probing questions, cracked jokes, and extended guidance.

This is not to say all the narratives of him are not accurate. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. That’s not my place to comment.

What is my place to comment is what underpins all these narratives is simply another human being.

There’s no mystique or magic to it. It’s just another human being.

The implications of this are twofold.

Firstly, there shouldn’t be any fear meeting anyone.

No one I interact with in the future will probably be as powerful, influential, polarizing, famous, or as rich as Elon. And if meeting him was pretty normal (albeit very cool), then meeting anyone else should be pretty normal as well.

Secondly, if he has accomplished all that as a human, than I too can accomplish plenty as a human as well.

There is no barrier to entry that allows only Gods. It’s all achievable if I’m willing to make the required tradeoffs (whether I want to do that is another story).

Everyone is human.

Work is 100s of Golden BBs

This lesson is operationalized from Alex Hormozi:

There is a prevalent romanticization of what life looks like for someone pursuing something.

Years of life are depicted with this romanticized narrative in which everyday consists solely of highlights, that every moment is purposeful or is a cool story.

In reality, day to day life when pursuing something is fairly boring.

During the half year when I was building out handles.x.com, I would catch up with friends and be invariably asked “What’s new with you?”

I would always feel the same sense of shame bubble up.

While I listened to people living up their 20s, I had no new hobbies, made no new friends, travelled to no new places, and experienced no new things.

Things were exactly the same since I was last asked that question.

Life pursuing something wasn’t that glorious crusade that was commonly depicted online and I felt I was living life wrong.

Everything in my life revolved around work. And it wasn’t exciting work.

Each piece of work was insignificant on its own. None moved the needle and I usually didn’t learn anything new doing them.

However, these pieces came together to be an achievement I am now proud of.

When I was asked “What’s new with you?” shortly after handles.x.com launched, I responded with a slew of cool stories: presenting to Elon, going viral on X, being covered by news outlets, executing 7 figure sales, etc.

The stories, lessons, and growth from the past year are all outcomes from the drudgery in crafting each individual golden BB.

Work is 100s of golden BBs and not 1 silver bullet.

Feelings Don’t Care About Your Facts

Ben Shapiro is famous for saying “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

The inverse is also true: “feelings don’t care about your facts.”

In the end, a lot of decisions really just comes down to vibes: how does it feel?

This pertains to making major decisions and building products.

I am no stranger to noodling several frameworks on making important decisions; I wrote about my favorites here: 14 Mental Models for Decision Making.

Increasingly, I find a lot of decisions centered around already having a feeling and using logic to validate that feeling.

Sometimes evidence overrides that feeling; usually it doesn’t.

If major decisions already are largely based from feelings, more inconsequential ones lean purely on vibes.

Take picking which LLM model to use for example.

At the time launch in July 2025, Grok 4 was top 3 in overall ranking on LMArena (community driven website for testing AI models), coming first in math and second in coding, creative writing, and instruction following categories.

Yet, everyone I’ve talked to still used other LLM models which were ranked lower, having never even heard of Grok or xAI.

The few people who knew of Grok only knew it for its controversies (entirely valid) and were not only driven away from using it, but actively judged others for using it.

In a world where different AI models leap frog over each other every couple of months, it appears to me that objective improvement does not lead to subjective improvement.

Improvement needs to be so great such that it shifts the vibes that anchor behavior, overriding habits, popular perception, old headlines, and social judgement.

Products cannot just be undisputedly superior. They need to feel undisputedly superior.

Feelings don’t care about your facts.

Don’t Forget About Morale

Elon companies are quite unique due to his polarizing personality.

Even though there is a large segment of the population who dislike him, there will always be a very small percentage of people who will travel to Mars and back for him (quite literally).

This naturally makes the morale of his companies (at least at xAI) very strong.

Good morale acts as this performance enhancing drug that makes the labour crafting each individual golden BB exciting.

Tim Ferris says

“In the short term, your success depends on your intensity. In the long term, your success depends on your consistency”

Good morale increases both the capacity for intensity and the duration in which that intensity can be beared.

Following the same theme of “feelings don’t care about your facts,” I find good morale is based on vibes.

Good quantifiable metrics like increasing revenue and user growth are beneficial for morale; however, if I don’t inherently feel optimistic, then no metric can convince me otherwise.

This translates to the onus being on employers to maintain good morale in employees.

Once morale is gone, it’s very difficult to get back, which is especially important for high performers who have plenty opportunities and can leave whenever they want.

Here are a list of things that have affected my morale over the time at xAI. From these experiences, I have theories in building organizations (theories since I haven’t done it yet):

• Unmet expectations: Nothing sucks more than being told one thing, only to find that it’s completely inaccurate (ie: promotions, raises, nature of work). Ruses may work in the short term but will damage trust in the long term.

• Unaligned incentives: People may subconsciously optimize for their own well meaning incentives while blocking other people, benefiting themselves and harming the entire organization.

• Lack of Transparency: If people are going to sacrifice for intense work, they better buy into the underlying reason why they must do so. Having more transparency reduces uncertainty and possibility of unmet expectations.

• Lack of Management: Moving fast is not an excuse to have no management. People need to know contacts, available resources, expectations, and requirements to be rewarded. Good will only goes so far.

Don’t forget about morale

I have this strange Stockholm Syndrome relationship with poor sleep.

With a day coming to a close, my circadian rhythm has my sleep time at around 10-11pm, which is pretty early by New York standards.

Despite feeling the heaviness of my eyelids and my body begging to sleep, there’s still an unquenchable lust to stay awake.

I’m not sure where my gallant resistance against my biology comes from.

Maybe it’s the innate desire to experience more life: the realization that staying awake is more exciting than temporarily being a dead body for 8 hours;

Maybe it’s because I was never good at sleeping as a kid, often preferring clandestinely playing video games and reading in bed under the covers.

Maybe it’s because of my productivity-pilled-David-Goggins-who’s-gonna-carry-the-boats-hustle-your-face-off tendencies which perpetually devalues sleep.

After being satisfied with my bold resistance against the inevitable, I eventually saunter to bed, implicitly linking the fullness of life to the quantity of time inflated by late nights doing only God knows what and not to the quality of time actually doing identifiable, memorable, and meaningful things.

When my alarm rings the next morning, all this gusto I had the previous night of being excited about being awake can no longer be found.

Never mind wanting to experience life; I rather roll around in bed, in a dream-like state of semi consciousness where time dilates and my to-do’s cease to exist.

Corralling the courage to escape my bed, I go through my typical morning routine feeling tired and grabbing for a cappuccino. Soon it hits midday and I cling onto a Coke Zero.

Wired with caffeine, I get this strange sense of pride for grinding regardless of the amount of sleep I got the night prior.

Here, my incentives are skewed. In my masochistic stubbornness, there is more glory in making progress while having poor sleep and being tired than there is while being alert and having great sleep.

I subscribe to my own stupid rendition of the “warrior” ethos, as if my sleep deprivation is somehow equivalent to that experienced by Navy Seal recruits during Hell Week.

I gravitate towards being ok with poor sleep, even if it objectively dulls effectiveness, reduces attention span, and negatively impacts mood.

Very quickly, the phrase “I should get more sleep” morphs into “I should drink more caffeine” and muttered affirmations of “I should lock in now.”

Eventually, when night hits, I find myself again driven by the excitement of being awake and repeat the cycle again by pushing my bedtime.

It’s embarrassing how much bad sleep I get given how much content I consume around sleep, biohacking, and life insights.

No amounts of Huberman Lab, Diary of a CEO, and Modern Wisdom podcast episodes on sleep and read-throughs of Matthew Walker’s Why We Sleep can convince my caveman brain to not think “let’s stay up lmao.”

There’s infinitely more discipline required in sleeping at a proper time than there is in working or staying up.

Spring is finally here.

Feeling like winter lasted forever, I forgot what a sunny 20°C feels like in New York. The sun is radiant, the sky is beautifully blue, and the optimism feels endless.

Similarly to the shift towards warmer and sunnier weather, I find myself in a transitionary period.

I just gave my two weeks notice. I’m quitting.

Now, each remaining day of work is a slog.

There are no more carrots to chase after: promotions, resume bullet points and raises are no longer the incentive. There are also no more sticks either—being fired doesn’t do much aside from shallow damages to ego and expediting the leaving process.

The excitement for working on projects has been replaced by excitement for the work day to be over. Now, I look forward to listening to daily news podcasts and eating catered in-offices lunches more than anything else.

A normal person at this time would probably enjoy the time to relax. Maybe meander through hobbies, explore cafes around the city, or laze on the couch with a binge worthy TV series.

Me? I’m a bit lost with what to do with myself these days.

Having so much of my identity and time filled by work, being productive, and improving, I feel it off-putting to not sink an ungodly amount of time into work.

I am no longer in a perpetual state of busyness, but the exact opposite. I am in a perpetual state of doing nothing.

While it’s probably good for the soul to just do nothing after such a long time of work obsession, it frankly feels a bit uncanny.

I’m left to fill up the holes in my self worth that work no longer patches over and find a place where my type-A obsession can fixate on next.

My efforts so far as been plowing time into what was rendered casual hobbies from work: reading, writing, and gymming.

I find myself juggling reading several books at a time, exploring sentence structures when writing in my journal, and breaking down the little deficiencies in my lifting form.

When my mind and muscles inevitably become cooked under the weight of sentences and barbells, I shift to the once forgotten hobbies of my younger self: window shopping sneakers, gaming, and indulging in World Ward 2 stories.

I quickly find myself in deep work looking for good deals on a pair of used Yeezys, watching guides and esports for League, and consuming memoirs and TV shows of the US marines in the Pacific during 1945.

From an external observer, my behavior appears unchanged. Instead of stressing about progress at work, I now stress about the books I’m reading, the articles I’m writing, the weight I’m lifting, and the shoes, the games, and the memoirs I’m consuming.

The context is now trivial but the effort level has not changed. And in a weird way, I feel obligated to dive into these hobbies as seriously as I did work.

I wonder if this is a common affliction for those who are productivity pilled and very type A.

They do what’s natural, which is working hard on something.

And when that something is gone, they need to fill the hole in the fabric of their existence somehow.

They need to feel useful. Like they’re improving. That they are being productive.

So they then drown themselves in whatever interesting thing they can find.

Rest and relaxing does not come in the form of putting less effort, just in the form of different contexts.

The approaches to serious and un-serious pursuits are mirrors of one another.

Everything somehow becomes serious regardless of long term life impact.

I wonder how rested I’ll be after this transitionary period until I dive head first into another meaningful pursuit.

Regardless, I’m going to keep the obsessiveness and plow on with my hobbies.

It’s nice to get to focus on a given goal.

It makes life less noisy. It renders unimportant things trivial. It makes a typical day feel more purposeful, being singularly dedicated towards making a specific type of magic happen. And there’s beauty in that.

While this is all good and dandy, it is easy to overlook the things given up in the name of focus and its second order consequences.

Many things are pretty obvious in that they should be given up: screen usage, drinking frequently, toxic friends, etc.

The most difficult things to give up are the things that provide so much value and happiness in life, but detract from whatever is being focused on.

These could be hobbies, friends, interests—whatever that detracts time and energy from the goal in mind.

Giving up these things is making a bet on yourself—you’re betting that your future life from accomplishing whatever you focus on will be better than the present life you have now.

And even if you win this bet and things turn out the way that you wanted to, there still comes the bill of giving up the things you valued.

I’m experiencing this right now when it comes to the gym.

Since I first started going a decade ago, the gym has morphed into an integral part of my self confidence.

My identity is wrapped in the deterministic outcomes that come with lifting heavy things; it’s the closest thing I found that translates discipline and work directly into results without a component of luck.

Last year, I made a bet on myself, giving up gymming consistently to focus on work.

It worked out in the way I wanted to: I found sprouting confidence in my ability to build things people would give money for.

In trade, I weakened what previously bolstered so much of my identity.

Nothing is more apparent of this tradeoff than when I’m at the gym, squatting with a barbell on my back.

My entire body is weaker.

My knees shake in the hole of my squat. My rear deltoids ache under the barbell’s unforgiving weight. My shoulders struggle with the flexibility to position my arms. My core stifles in the unfamiliarity of breathing and bracing.

What previously was a light warm up is now a top working set.

The barbell does not care about my new engineering skills; it just cares about being lifted.

Even though I’m cognizant of the tradeoff I made, I still feel tinges of sadness when confronted by the deteriorated skill I previously was so effective in.

I wish it were as simple and emotionless as saying, "It was a tradeoff I made to focus on work,” whenever someone asks why I can’t squat what I used to.

It’s never easy giving up cherished things for the sake of focus.

And it never should be.

It is precisely that difficulty that gives the pursuit its value—and makes the focus worthwhile in the first place.

Only after the initial euphoria of accomplishment subsides do I finally return to the long-ignored pieces of what I once held so dear.

I pick them up again and slowly begin to aspire to who I was in those forgotten corners of my life.

With the proliferation of LLMs, the largest unlock for me has undisputedly been the ability to move fast.

Previously, moving fast seemed to be a moat, only achievable by people with some level of deep knowledge and skill in a particular area. The excuse “I have no context” was completely valid.

Now, seemingly anyone can move fast.

Just the other week I vibe coded payment features at xAI in Rust, a programming language I have no knowledge in and is notoriously complicated.

What would’ve taken a month to learn a new language, get context, and test took just a couple days.

While this is very empowering as an individual, I noticed the ability to move fast exposed weaknesses in the teams I work with.

Here are some of those observations on moving fast.

Sense of Urgency

While AI has provided the ability for people to move fast, it has not provided with the feeling they must move fast.

When given leeway, I noticed people will still dilly-dally and take their sweet time with things, even if they don’t need to.

Just because a person can move fast does not mean they will actually move fast.

I believe this is the difference of having an innate sense of urgency.

Personally, I have this vague sense of falling behind, which manifests as an obligation to be aggressively productive. Moments of doing nothing feels uncanny even if i truly need it. As such, I will happily move faster given the opportunity to do so.

Now, it’s totally fine for people not to have this feeling of what Oliver Burkeman coins as “Productivity Debt.” And it’s probably healthier to not be ruled by a productivity tyrant anyhow.

Regardless, having expectations that people will move fast because they can is not realistic. Not everyone wants to.

Agency

A big part of moving fast relies on agency - the less reliance on other people the better.

In a similar line to urgency, just because people have a tool to get high agency does not mean they actually will have higher agency.

Even though the barriers of high agency are lower than ever before, people with low agency will still shift the responsibility of their progress onto other people.

Recently, my team recently welcomed a new joiner and paired me to work on a new project with him.

What ensued was firestorm of slack questions from him for context that 1) I don’t have (because I am new with the project space) and 2) is easily searchable. And when I didn’t answer, he just sat there did nothing.

As someone who values moving fast, nothing sucks more than to be bogged down by actually stupid questions from someone who can answer them himself with a simple LLM chat.

The foolishness of having misplaced low agency is more exaggerated than ever before.

Blockers

There will always be blockers, in which progression solely relies on someone else.

For individuals in the age of AI who already have high urgency and agency, blockers become more apparent and frustrating. Accumulating increasingly large opportunity cost, blockers need to be removed immediately to maintain morale and momentum.

A reoccurring example I experience is getting code approvals.

In order to merge code and release it to production, I typically need someone to review my code and approve that it’s ok.

Now that I move at a higher velocity, code approvals become more frequently the main bottleneck.

If I don’t get approvals, I get stuck and can’t make anymore progress, becoming increasingly frustrated as I remind people on Slack to review my code every hour.

Just because a manager says “we move fast” does not mean the team actually moves fast. Actions mean more than words.

To me, being slow to unblock blockers eats away at a team’s legitimacy and claims of moving fast.

Incentives

Now that moving fast is easier, the need to align incentives become even more apparent.

Incentives are everything. If you want people to move fast, the best way is to figure out an incentive structure that rewards them when they do so.

In the example I gave previously on code reviews, the reason why it’s difficult for me to get code reviews is because of the incentives of others.

Given that there’s more pressure to move fast in one’s given project with AI, people are more focused on their own code instead of giving someone else code reviews.

There’s a flex for all the project someone’s built, not in how many they’ve reviewed.

As a result, my project gets frequent blockers and moves slower.

If this is multiplied across an org, it’s quickly apparent that overall progress begins to be hampered by conflicting incentives.

Aligned incentives are even more important now when people are moving fast and the costs of not doing are ever the more apparent.

One of the most important currencies is morale.

Morale is what keeps the energy going while working obsessively towards a goal.

While it may not make the pursuit objectively any easier - difficult pursuits will always be difficult - high morale will certainly make pursuits subjectively easier to commit to.

Speaking from experience, I am infinitely more willing to invest my finite life towards seeing the success of the project with high morale vs middling morale. It also lessens the pain that comes with long hours and deteriorating lifestyles.

Tim Cook has a quote on passion, though it applies equally well to high morale:

You will work hard, but you won't mind doing so. You will work harder than you ever thought possible, but the tools will feel light in your hands

Similar to health, morale is one of those things you take for granted. You never really think about it until you don’t have it.

When low morale comes, I struggle to not only execute at a high level, but to execute at all.

Operationally, this bleeds into my day to day.

Already being what normal people would characterize as a workaholic (I literally write about work as a hobby lol), I find it increasingly difficult to grip onto discipline under low morale. There is this “grinding teeth” experience required to hit the minimal requirement of internal permissible productivity—I actively need to convince myself that working is worthwhile.

Burnout and feeling desolate come naturally. Optimism becomes scarce.

Now, most people don’t need a persistent high morale to work effectively (myself included).

While some amount of morale determined by vibes is usually sufficient, I don’t think it’s enough to produce repetitive “holy shit” achievements across a prolonged period of time. A normal morale certainly won’t help when circumstances are dire and timelines are short.

For high performers, morale is especially important, since it is additionally needed to stave off other attractive opportunities.

While I can’t say if I’m a high performer - I believe results are the arbiter of performance, not personal opinion - I can definitively say I get regularly bombarded with attractive opportunities.

My email inbox always has new outreach from hedge funds advertising $1M+ TCs, recruiters from premier AI companies, and founders looking for founding engineers.

For any team, you must persistently give high performers enticing reasons not to leave for other opportunities, especially the opportunities that look more promising than what you’re offering.

High morale plays a large part in this.

Ben Shapiro is famous for the line “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” The inverse certainly holds as well. Feelings don’t care about your facts.

What largely stops me from pursuing other opportunities is vibes. While I can spreadsheet out my net worth, plan out lifestyle changes, and draw a decision matrix, I can’t easily forecast optimism or joy in working on something.

The current morale offered must feel higher than what can be imagined elsewhere.

Current certain vibes must be better than any imagined vibes I get elsewhere.

Once morale drops, it’s difficult to restore. And it’s also difficult to monitor morale dropping in the first place.

Bad morale is similar to what I read marriages that end in divorce to be like. They both slowly decline until they fail all at once.

The accumulation of small missteps from management grows into failed morale.

Some examples I have experienced are hurried timelines that have no apparent reason and being blamed for someone else’s errors I had no control over.

When inflicted with bad morale, I find it harder to believe in the central purpose of the goal and its importance. Pessimism, skepticism, and cynicism become natural. Trust that management is competent is lost.

Also, outside opportunities become infinitely more exciting.

One of the most admired business leaders of the late 1900s was Katharine Graham, who led the Washington Post as President and later CEO from 1963 to 1991.

As the first female Fortune 500 CEO, Graham yielded an astronomical annual return of 22.3% to shareholders, compared to the annual 7.4% of the S&P 500 and the annual 12.4% of industry peers.

This means $1 invested in the Post became $89 by the time she stepped down. Meanwhile, $1 invested in the S&P 500 became $5. $1 invested in industry peers became $13.

Her influence was not just experienced by shareholders either.

During her reign, she would publish the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the decades of US government lies regarding the Vietnam War, and the Watergate story, which forced the resignation of 37th US President Richard Nixon.

While her resume is already impressive as it stands, the most remarkable part of her story is her experience before taking over the Washington Post.

Prior to stepping in as president of the Post after her husband’s death, she was, as she described herself, a “doormat wife” with absolutely no business experience and only brief entry level journalism stints.

This exact contrast is what amazes me about Graham - how can someone with no experience become one of the most influential and effective business leaders in history?

It seems very counter intuitive.

Led by an urge to grow resumes, promotions, and LinkedIn experiences, I find it easy to forget about stepwise increases - sudden vertical shifts in life trajectory that betray the idea of a line steadily increasing to the top right side of a graph over time.

This all begins with just the right opportunity.

Ask yourself this: who is the best singer, artist, actor, athlete, or business mind in the world right now?

While there are many successful people to point at, I wager it’s someone no one knows or will ever know.

In a world of billions of people, there can be millions with the right alignment of genetics, upbringing, and skill who just don’t have the opportunity to show it yet.

And when I grow introspective, I often wonder: what are my unique dispositions (if any) and what will my opportunities be (if they ever arrive)?

Though I may never become an executive much less one as legendary as Graham, these questions nevertheless press me to be proactive and bold.

Since opportunities lie in luck, there’s a constant internal pressure to carpe diem - to proactively apply pressure and to increase the surface area of my luck, even if I don’t know what I’m doing.

And when do opportunities arrive, from the realization that there may not be another one, there’s an attitude to bet that the accumulation of untested traits will somehow prevail.

After alI, it only requires one right opportunity for life to entirely change - for all past failures and middling mediocrities to be revered as a grand journey for success.

It’s May 1946 in Japan.

A year after World War 2 ended in September 1945, Japan’s economy was non-existent.

Cities were razed in wartime firebombings.

Famine was imminent, fueled by a combination of historically low industrial production and agricultural output.

People scavenged, queued for meager rations, and resorted to a black market in an environment of mass unemployment and hyper-inflation.

Japan was in ruins.

Yet, this was the exact circumstances in which Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita founded Sony.

Now, Sony is worth $143B USD.

How does that ever make sense?

Yeah… it doesn’t make sense.

Working out of a bombed out department store, Ibuka and Morita had no evidence of any future, yet chose to build something anyways.

The combination of optimism and agency is among the most important traits someone can have.

And optimism and agency will never be easy - pessimism is evolutionarily natural and not trying requires no effort.

It’s easy to just say and believe that everything is going to shit. There is an endless torrent of social, political, and economic evidence justifying this.

It’s easy to just settle with the idea that the world is the way it is and that your place in the world will not change no matter how hard you try.

It’s easy to doom scroll TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, or whatever other mind numbing social media, outsourcing rationality to strangers and pointing to echo chambers as consensus of everything being hopeless.

It’s easy to be a pessimist and to not try. And it seems almost cool to be one.

So… what do you get out this?

Does wallowing and being outraged at things that you cannot control ever actually improve the thing you cannot control?

Does the feeling of hopelessness ever drive agency and a proactive entrepreneurial spirit to make your life better?

Does complaining with people on the internet and in real life ever actually improve the actual underlying circumstances that causes complaining in the first place?

There is no utility in being pessimistic and not trying.

And sure, pessimists may actually be right 99% of the time. The grievances they point to usually are pretty legitimate.

But, being right, in this case, does not result in more outcomes; it’s very much the contrary.

All the outcomes are bestowed upon the optimists who are right 1% of the time but look like idiots before then.

This ranges across life from pursuing start ups to dating. Only one right business idea is needed to be rich. Only one right partner is needed for a successful marriage. It doesn’t matter how many failed ideas or bad break-ups there were before.

Over a long enough time horizon, optimists who keep trying are eventually rewarded.

And even if it is somehow known beforehand that the reward will never come, why not try?

What else is there to lose if everything is hopeless and the world is going to shit?

There’s a common pattern I’ve observed in type A people.

It starts with noticing some deficiency in self. The most common one for me is “I’m not being productive.”

This identified deficiency comes in tension against internal high expectations—“I should be productive.”

Then, self flagellation of not living up to personal standards grow and tap into underlying suspicions of insufficiency. Questions of “Why am I not productive?” morph into “Why am I not enough?”

Obviously, ruminating almost never resolves the issue, instead leading to more deficiency—stressing on not being productive is not productive.

The self perpetual machine now begins when the new additional deficiency is inevitably noticed.

This infinite regress productivity spiral seems to perfectly plague insecure overachievers, who usually are highly introspective, have high personal expectations, and deeply fear insufficiency,

The high introspection does not allow graceful ignorance. Deficiencies will always be noticed.

The high personal expectations starkly contrast against present deficiencies. Stress and self-enforced pressure to strive for impossible to reach expectations build.

The deep fears of insufficiency add fuel to the flame. Differences between reality and expectations readily serve as evidence of insufficiency and confirm pre-existing fears, thereby increasing stress and pressure.

This spiral extends beyond traditional realms of productivity, ironically popping up in type B settings.

In the past, I treated sleep—which is supposed to be for relaxing—as another productivity tool (better sleep = better work later). I reframed it into a dopaminergic pursuit that could be optimized and agonized over, much like work itself.

Fueled by wearables, I chased sleep PRs. Any downward blip became evidence that I was under-optimized and below my full potential.

Obviously, my sleep became terrible. Turns out, stressing about sleep does not help sleep, particularly when I’m trying to sleep.

So what’s the solution here?

While I haven’t found a singular silver bullet that works for me (I can’t simply “let it go,” nor do I have 129038120938 hours of meditation to become fully ascended), I’ve found that a combination of kindness and continual progress helps.

The first is taking the inverse of the Golden Rule: treat myself how I treat others.

If I extend grace, understanding, and patience to others in their struggles, why should I be an unrelenting tyrant toward myself?

It’s ok—not ideal, but ok—to move slower than what my inner drill sergeant demands. I am not and will never be perfect.

It’s also ok to beat myself up. I shouldn’t be beating myself up over beating myself up. And if I do, that’s ok too.

Furthermore, it’s ok to feel bad for not reaching my expectations. It’s only natural given the high expectations.

In the midst of this kindness, there is profound solace in knowing that the tried and tested way out is to continuously make progress, falling back on whatever systems available.

No matter how small, these defiant pieces of progress serve as evidence, going against the grain of insufficiency and contributing more toward morale than even large leaps gained during optimistic times.

They feed into the realization that internal thoughts and external actions are independent.

Despite feeling terrible, I can still perform enough that an external observer will never know my internal strife.

And if I somehow still find myself spiraling in the face of kindness and effort, I can always fall back on several nights of good sleep.

(as long as I’m not trying to set sleep PRs)

In the rumors of an upcoming IPO with potential to be the largest in history, I oscillate between fear and greed.

Should I sell? Should I hold? Should I buy?

These emotions rattle against one another overwriting any spreadsheet analysis or rational thought.

In the end, this decision will not be based on maximizing for returns, but what Morgan Housel writes “maximizing for how well I sleep at night.”

Regardless, I can’t help to ask the second-order question: What is the point of me making money?

This isn’t some nihilistic question—a view that I’m going to die and the whole world is going to burn so everything will be pointless—but a utilitarian one. Money certainly has utility.

Let’s say the stock goes ballistic.

Cool.

Then what?

If not already, I will buy a house.

Beyond that, what else is there?

Short of what billionaire Sam Zell calls “private jet money”, there are few materialistic things that can drastically improve my life.

Furthermore, if having money’s main purpose is no longer needing to obtain it, the endless pit I can spend money on is savings.

“The trick is viewing every bit of savings as having actively purchased something, even if it doesn’t come with a receipt: You have purchased the ability to do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, for as long as you want. And it is priceless.”

Morgan Housel

The most luxurious thing I can do for myself is to minimize lifestyle inflation and to accumulate the financial security and peace of mind which enables my risk averse self to act on that freedom.

I lengthen my life equivalent of a startup runway.

If I distill that idea into the present, why must I wait for a financial windfall to leverage this freedom, given my current savings and minimal lifestyle costs?

Bill Perkins outlines this idea called Consumption Smoothing in Die with Zero:

Our incomes might vary… but that doesn’t mean our spending should reflect those variations—we would be better off if we evened out those variations… we need to basically transfer money from years of abundance into the leaner years. That’s one use of savings accounts.

In my case, using my savings account is not the act of buying things nor going on lavish vacations, but actually being ok with it not accumulating, which goes against my risk-adverse nature.

Currently in my prime, free from illness, responsibility, and cynicism, I have great utility of using my money now.

Just like how others in their 20s can use their money and youth to go out, travel, and let their lifestyles inflate (nothing wrong with that! Enjoy it!), I can make risky bets with infinite long-term upside, absolutely work my face off with little distractions, and gather the stories that drive future wisdom and personal memory dividends.

By reframing my present savings as a cushion to act and de-weighting the need to make so much money now, I take steps towards authenticity, conviction, and agency—the very characteristics I’m optimizing for in my 20s.

I also get to loosen the golden handcuffs a bit more.

So here I am, back at square one, still stewing in fear and greed.

Have I made any progress towards a decision?

Not really.

But I have made progress on identifying what truly matters now.

If you’re thinking about breaking golden handcuffs:

If you’re also grappling with the desire for money

If you’re curious on what I’m optimizing for in my 20s:

A year and a half ago, I worked at a trading firm and was surrounded by conversations about TC (total compensation) and rumors on what the next bonus looked like.

Despite having minimal lifestyle inflation from university when I had no income, I found myself grappling with greed and desire for more money while feeling trapped in Golden Handcuffs.

You can find my deliberations at the time here: Golden Handcuffs (sorry for the big wall of text!).

In the current landscape of rising AI valuations and prevailing news in tech, I find myself in a similar situation as before.

Except this time, it’s much more pronounced.

In the past, I lamented about being held in golden handcuffs.

Knowing that I wanted to pursue something else while being heavily rewarded in what did not interest me felt like a luxurious prison.

Even though I held the keys for my escape, I hemmed and hawed about opening my own cell, tortured by the weight of losing what gave me so much comfort: a healthy work environment, status in an exclusive industry, and guaranteed net worth accumulation and liquid cashflow.

Now, I see golden handcuffs as a test rather than a prison.

I am a strong believer that one cannot call oneself authentic and courageous without being tested otherwise.

The decisions surrounding golden handcuffs serve as evidence for authenticity and courage due to their nature of having very rewarding and tangible opportunity costs in selecting for what is authentic and courageous.

There are 2 paths when I project my possible lives based on any given decision revolving around golden handcuffs.

One path is of certain gold. My net worth reliably increases over early adulthood to compound significantly later in life. Buying property becomes more of a question on “when” versus “if”. Rich experiences from travel and time spent with friends will be plenty.

The other path is of an authentic yet uncertain future. I cannot come close to accurately predicting how much money I’ll have, what home I’ll afford (if any), and what experiences I’ll accumulate.

If I am to believe myself as an authentic person, I will have to provide evidence of it by choosing the path that leads to a more authentic life, regardless of its downsides and the opportunity costs of other more rewarding paths.

In fact, the more attractive the alternatives are, the stronger the temptation to divert from my true path- and thus the greater evidence that I am indeed authentic.

The shininess of alternatives also gives weight as evidence of courage as well.

Best defined by Jocko Willink, courage is not acting while being fearless, but quite the contrary.

It’s acting while being fearful.

In the context of golden handcuffs, the fear of losing certainty and the other attractive possible opportunities makes the decision of breaking out of them as evidence towards courage.

The greater the fear, the greater the evidence towards courage.

Making a decision to break Golden Handcuffs, becomes less so about pain avoidance, but now reframed as pain acceptance and tolerance.

It’s another piece of evidence of I am who I believe I am.

Congratulations!

You’ve started!

Now, you’re a beginner, hiking the initial slopes of the exponential-growth mountain.

There is nothing hiding the reality of the situation: you have no hiking gear, you can’t see the paths to take, and you have no promise of ever succeeding.

This is the beginning of exponential growth where the difficulty stems from little observable progress over an indefinite period of time.

For me, this bubbles up the fear of wasting my precious mid 20s prime in vain working towards something that may never come true.

Undoubtedly, the most important behavior to embody at this stage is having unshakable faith and being endlessly enthusiastic despite having, at best, no evidence— or usually evidence to the contrary.

I continuously need to convince myself to keep going.

Here are the mental models and the actions I find most helpful so far.

Reframing Disappointment

Honestly, I’m terrified of disappointment, having selected pretty conservative opportunities throughout university.

To be more risk seeking, I am reframing occurrences of disappointment as tests of personality.

Because being disappointed sucks, by picking up the pieces and trying again, I see myself passing a test and gathering another piece of evidence that I’m resilient.

It’s like building a personal Lindy Effect- the longer I keep going now gives me more evidence that I can keep going in the future.

It’s also like a passive commitment to Rejection Therapy, in which increased exposure to disappointment results in a decrease in its perceived negative impact.

Patterns of Starting New Things

The same experiences reoccur across new pursuits.

My present experiences of feeling like an idiot, not knowing what I’m doing, and being uncertain of the future have all been experienced previously.

I remember when I first went to the gym at 14.

I felt like an idiot in the presence of buff dudes in tank tops. I didn’t know what the hell barbells were. I didn’t know if or how I was going to get stronger.

In the face of all this, I’ve now hit PRs I never could have previously imagined.

Not only are these all pieces of evidence that I can accomplish despite starting as a novice, they also serve as reminders that the feelings I’m experiencing now are not new.

I’ve experienced the pains of starting out and I’ve gone on to achieve goals.

Why would this time be any different?

“Networking”

Networking gets a bad rap for being transactional, associated with finessing referrals and whatever else is spouted on LinkedIn.

But, I’ve found its biggest benefit is far more profound: undeniable external proof that my pursuit is actually achievable.

While reading biographies of the super accomplished can be inspiring, meeting a real person who is a little bit further along is much more relatable.

And while the specific steps taken by others may not be applicable, their stories illustrate that there isn’t some voodoo magic involved — only the long series of small actions in the face of uncertainty.

There are plenty of real life examples to draw inspiration to keep going.

Is starting something new difficult?

Yes.

Should it not be difficult?

No.

If it isn’t difficult, everyone would do it, which, in turn, makes it less impressive to do so in the first place.

Just keep going and trust the wonders of compounding.

This isn’t some feel good “look how great I am”, but an actual weakness when it comes to personal development.

Since I find blind belief in myself difficult, I rarely have a base of confidence to work from when pursuing new goals. Being unable to identify strengths means not having evidence of present ability.

Currently, I am in a pre-founder phase where I know I want to be a founder, but I don’t know what I’m doing.

Naturally, talking to established founders is a good way to get context.

However, whenever I reach out or speak to established founders and ask about their experiences, I feel like a fraud.

What gives me the audacity to believe I (normal-ol’ me!) can do something remotely close to what they’re doing right now? It feels like I have no strengths that would help me bridge this gap.

One reason it’s so hard for me to identify my strengths is the instinctive comparison I make with others.

Being upwards aiming, I only really compare myself to people who exemplify in the qualities I lack and aspire to have. My weaknesses are pulled into sharp contrast.

The flip side is that I never benchmark myself to some model of the “normal” person, fearing these comparisons as a source of arrogance, excess pride, and comfort.

And even if these fears are overblown, why should I ever care how these people live if their actions and perspectives have no influence to how I experience my own life?

So, as I go about my typical day, only my weaknesses linger in the back of my mind— everything else about my life is completely “normal.”

Like a fish unable to see water nor realize it’s unique ability to breathe underwater, I am blind towards my life circumstances and the strengths present in the habits and behaviors I naturally do.

Only recently did I internalize my strengths of not needing variety in meals; I still enjoy the same salted chicken breast, boiled frozen veggie, and white rice dish whenever I cook for myself.

As such, hitting daily protein targets and eating clean is natural for me, whereas the vast majority who desire variety, more ingredients, and rich flavors struggle much more.

Admitting weaknesses certainly demands honesty and vulnerability. When starting something new—where self-doubt and insecurity are abundant—these same qualities are just as essential for identifying strengths.

But identifying them is only half the battle.

Courage is needed to accept that the strengths are genuinely real and discipline is needed to avoid overexaggerating their impact.

Firstly, I can indefinitely live in a perfect imaginary world and avoid facing present circumstance.

Why put in the time working towards something that may not ever materialize when I can sit within the comforts of my cozy room and fantasize about a life to be lived?

There is a sweet little hit of dopamine without actually completing any work.

If I want an additional hit of dopamine with only minimal effort, I can “prepare” to start, which means doing all the “necessary” research to get going.

Instead of venturing to meet new people (one of my goals this year), I can forever read books about how to get to know a person and search through EventBrite, looking through all the events I can register for.

Never needing to feel uncomfortable when confronting my weaknesses, I can indefinitely procrastinate while feeling awfully productive as I cast myself in my own Rocky montage without making any progress.

Another thing I can avoid by never starting is the disappointment whenever reality does not align with expectations.

The most common association with this is failure. And rightly so, failure sucks.

to me, disappointment is the scariest when real success is reached, but is underwhelming compared with the imaginary success had when starting out.

In this case, the downstream effects of obtaining success are not actualized: a lack of self worth is not fixed, insecurities are not repaired, loneliness is not eliminated but exacerbated.

All the problems that are thought to be solved with success are actually not solved.

This hollows out the upwards aiming hope that makes life feel optimistic.

A quote by Will Smith summarizes this feeling best:

“When I was poor and depressed, I could tell myself more money would fix everything. When I became rich and still depressed, that hope vanished.”

To deepen the despair, when empathy and guidance is sought, the common reaction is judgement and scorn: “how ungrateful are you to achieve all the things I’ve wanted, yet wallow in sadness about your ‘problems’ that have not been fixed.”

Perhaps, the greatest benefit I find of never starting is avoiding what Chris Williamson coins as “the Lonely Chapter.”

This is a period of isolation during self-development marked by outgrowing current friends due to higher aspirations, while desired new friends remain out of reach due to a lack of success that has not been obtained yet.

Unfortunately, this chapter expands into multiple eras if continual goals are set and accomplished.

The benefits of never starting truly are wonderful.

I can keep getting hits of dopamine by exerting minimal effort, not have to grapple with any semblance of disappointment, while continuously feeling stimulated with the company I presently have?

No wonder why so many never start.