Writing insights on all things business, life, philosophy, and entrepreneurship.
I turned 24 a few days ago. Twenty-three taught me some things - Here’s what I learned. Lesson 1 It started with an old book - "The Science of Getting Rich" by Wallace Wattles. Written over a century ago, it sparked a realization about life's core purpose that I've been wrestling with ever since. Here's what I've come to understand: The fundamental objective of all living matter is full expression. Every organism strives to reach its pinnacle form. A tree grows to its maximum height. A lion develops to its peak strength. Nature constantly pushes toward complete manifestation of potential. But human full expression is different. More complex. More dynamic. And here's the truth nobody wants to admit: You cannot fully express yourself without a baseline of financial resources. I know this will trigger some people. They'll quote philosophers about the virtues of poverty or preach about money not buying happiness. But I grew up with no money. I watched how scarcity creates an endless cascade of micro-problems that consume your entire existence. When you're counting dollars for basic needs, your life fills up with tiny emergencies. Each one small on its own, but together they form this suffocating blanket that leaves only the smallest space for actual living. It's like trying to write poetry while your house is on fire. Sure, it's technically possible - but the smoke makes it hard to think about anything beyond survival. When people say money doesn't matter for fulfillment, they're usually speaking from a position where basic needs are already met. They've never experienced how financial scarcity hijacks your brain, consuming the mental bandwidth that could be used for growth, creativity, and self-expression. This isn't about luxury. It's about freedom from the constant arithmetic of survival. Think about it: Every great philosopher who preached about transcending material needs had their basic necessities covered. Thoreau had Emerson's land. Buddha was a prince before his enlightenment. They had the luxury of contemplating existence because they weren't contemplating how to keep the lights on. At 23, I learned that there's a hierarchy to expression. You can't focus on your highest potential when you're trapped in survival mode. You can't explore the edges of your capabilities when you're constantly calculating if you can afford basic necessities. This realization changed everything about how I view wealth creation. It's not about accumulating money for its own sake. It's about creating the conditions that allow for full expression - not just for yourself, but for others. I watched how different my family operated once I could help eliminate their financial stressors. The mental space that opened up. The dreams that suddenly seemed possible. The energy that could now be directed toward growth rather than survival. Twenty-three taught me that money is just crystallized possibility. It's not the end goal - it's the foundation that allows you to pursue real goals. To explore what you're truly capable of. To express your full potential without the handcuffs of scarcity. This might sound materialistic to some. But those who've lived with real scarcity understand. There's nothing noble about poverty. Nothing enlightened about constant financial stress. Nothing pure about letting scarcity limit your potential. The past year showed me that business success isn't just about personal gain. It's about creating the conditions for full expression - for yourself, your family, your community. It's about building the foundation that makes it possible to explore what humans are truly capable of. At 23, I learned that full expression requires resources. That financial freedom isn't the end goal - it's the starting line. That you can't fully express what you're capable of while dancing on the edge of survival. The meaning of life isn't about money. But for most people, meaningful life starts after money. Lesson 2 I've started measuring people differently lately. Not by their current success, their status, or their achievements. But by the size of the game they're playing. The scope of their vision. The scale of their thinking. A pattern emerges in both markets and life: Size doesn't just matter - it often determines everything. Take trading. Two people can execute the exact same strategy with the exact same skill. One does it with size, one plays it small. Same moves, radically different outcomes. The one playing bigger doesn't just win more - they win differently. They get access to different opportunities. Different information. Different possibilities. I watch people build businesses in the same space, with the same resources, same talent, same market conditions. The only difference is the size of their vision. One builds to serve a city, another builds to transform a global industry. The inputs look similar. The trajectories end up worlds apart. The scope of your game creates its own gravity. It pulls in different opportunities, different talent, different capital. Someone building a local shop attracts local opportunities. Someone building an industry titan attracts forces that can reshape markets. Your horizon becomes your filter. Everything you see, every decision you make, every opportunity you evaluate gets processed through the size of game you're playing. Small games make certain moves look risky. Big games make those same moves look necessary. This shows up in every domain. The developers building a simple app versus those building an ecosystem. The investors deploying capital for returns versus those deploying capital to reshape industries. The creators building a following versus those building a movement. Most people never expand their game size - not because they can't, but because they don't think they should. Safety feels like wisdom. Reasonable feels like smart. Small feels like prudent. But markets don't reward reasonable. Life doesn't reward prudent. Impact doesn't come from playing small. Size wins. Not just in returns. But in possibility
Lesson 3 A line from Succession that crystallized something I've been observing about success, about life, about the fundamental divide in how people move through existence. It's not about wealth, talent, or opportunity. It's about seriousness. The gravity someone carries in their orbit. The weight behind their movements. Seriousness isn't stern faces or heavy moods. It's the difference between someone playing with life and someone shaping it. Between those who treat existence as a spectator sport and those who approach it as architects. The distinction reveals itself instantly. In how someone carries themselves. In what occupies their mind space. In the precision of their language. In the depth of their thinking. Even in how they respect their own vessel - their health, their appearance, their energy. Serious people operate at a different frequency. Each decision carries weight because they understand the cascade effect of choices. Each action holds purpose because they grasp how small moves compound into massive shifts. Each moment matters because they see time as finite capital to be invested, not infinite currency to be spent. You see this in every domain. The ones who treat their craft like a hobby versus those who approach it like a science. The ones who dabble in business versus those who study it like a master game. The ones who float through relationships versus those who build them with intention. The world naturally sorts along these lines. Serious people recognize each other. They're drawn to similar mass, similar gravity, similar weight of purpose. Not because they're exclusionary, but because aligned frequency creates natural resonance. This explains why some people seem to attract success while others remain in perpetual orbit around it. Why some build empires while others build castles in the air. Why some transform industries while others just occupy space in them. Serious people understand something fundamental: Life responds to weight. To intention. To the gravity of purpose. Every domain yields to those who approach it with true seriousness - markets, relationships, craft, legacy. The divide isn't permanent. Anyone can choose seriousness. Can decide to stop playing at life and start architecting it. Can shift from spectator to creator. From floating to building. But first comes the recognition. The understanding that life responds to the gravity you bring to it. That success yields to seriousness. That legacy belongs to those who carry real weight. Some people drift through existence. Others bend it to their will. The difference is seriousness. I've been thinking about how we instinctively pile on solutions. See a challenge, add complexity. Face an obstacle, stack on responses. Layer after layer until the original problem is buried under solutions. Da Vinci nailed it centuries ago: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." The more I operate, the more I realize true masters aren't adding - they're subtracting. They're stripping away noise until only the essential remains. Look at how most people attack problems. More features. More processes. More elements. As if quantity of solution correlates with quality of outcome. But the real breakthroughs almost always come from reduction. From removing rather than adding. What fascinates me is how uncomfortable this makes people. Doing less feels wrong. Removing feels like giving up. We're wired to equate effort with progress, to believe more is better. But in any situation, only a handful of elements actually create meaningful impact. The Pareto principle became my lens for everything this year. That 80/20 rule isn't just about identifying what matters - it's about having the courage to eliminate what doesn't. Because when you strip away the unnecessary, what remains shows its true power. The Pareto Principle states that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of inputs, but the real insight isn't just identifying that crucial 20%. It's developing the courage to eliminate the other 80%. To recognize that most of what we consider necessary is actually creating friction, splitting focus, and diminishing impact. This pattern reveals itself across every domain of value creation. The strongest brands don't win by adding more messages - they win by reducing to one core truth that resonates deeply. The most effective strategies don't succeed through complexity - they succeed through elegant simplicity. The best solutions don't come from adding more components - they come from finding the essential ones. But this approach feels unnatural. Addition feels like progress. Subtraction feels like loss. Our instinct is to solve problems by creating rather than eliminating, by adding rather than subtracting, by doing more rather than less. Everyone wants to be the person who added the crucial piece, not the one who removed the unnecessary ones. The truly great operators understand something profound about how value works: Every addition creates friction. Every new element adds complexity. Every extra piece increases potential points of failure. They've mastered the art of reduction, understanding that power often lives in elimination rather than addition. This year showed me that real sophistication isn't found in complexity - it's found in elegant reduction. In the courage to eliminate the unnecessary. In the wisdom to recognize that less is often more powerful than more. Success isn't found in doing more things, but in doing less things better. Not in adding value, but in distilling it to its purest form. The edge isn't in complexity but in finding the essential core and removing everything else. The answer is usually less. Not more. That's what this year taught me about power, about impact, about creation itself. Lesson 6 In life you are always running towards something and away from something. And it's extremely important that you understand what these things are and why you are doing so. I spent a lot of time this year examining my own momentum. What became clear is that every major decision, every significant move, every substantial choice had these two forces behind it. When I started my first business all those years ago, I told myself I was running toward financial freedom. But I was also running away from the scarcity I grew up with. When I push myself to build bigger, I'm running toward impact. But I'm also running from being forgettable. This dual direction shows up in everything I do. Sometimes what looks like ambition is really fear in disguise. What feels like pursuing success is actually fleeing mediocrity. What seems like chasing excellence is running from being avera ge. The wild part is how long I operated without understanding these forces. I'd make moves thinking I was purely running toward something, not realizing the 'away from' motion was actually driving most of my decisions. Some of my biggest wins this year came after getting honest about both directions. Understanding that I wasn't just moving toward creating value - I was running from being insignificant. Not just pursuing wealth - but fleeing the limitations I watched my family face. This isn't about judging the motivations. Running away from something isn't inherently bad, just as running toward something isn't automatically good. Both forces shape your trajectory, often in ways you don't realize until you step back and examine the full picture. Getting clear on these directions changed everything about how I move. It revealed why certain achievements felt hollow while others felt fulfilling. Why some successes lasted while others needed constant renewal. Why some moves energized me while others left me drained. The real insight isn't in trying to eliminate either force - it's in understanding how they work together to create your path. The 'away from' energy often provides the initial thrust, the raw power that gets you moving. But it's the 'toward' energy that gives that motion meaning, direction, purpose. I'm learning to harness both forces consciously. To use the power of what I'm running from while staying focused on what I'm running toward. To let the past push me while the future pulls me. To find strength in both the escape and the pursuit. Understanding these dual forces doesn't just change how you move - it transforms how you think about success itself. It's not about reaching a destination where you no longer need to run. It's about running with full awareness of both your motivations and your destination. This year taught me that true clarity comes from embracing both directions. From acknowledging both the push of the past and the pull of the future. From understanding that your path is shaped by both what you're leaving and what you're seeking. By far the most time I've spent dating or seeing women has been this year. I spent this year dating across the spectrum. Models, entrepreneurs, artists, celebrities - not as some playboy experiment, but because I needed to understand what actually matters when everything society values becomes easily accessible. Dating this year taught me something unexpected about success and connection. When you reach certain levels, everything you thought was rare becomes abundant. What you once thought was exclusive becomes common. The metrics you used to value people and experiences completely shift. You start to realize that beauty, status, success - all the things society tells you to chase - are actually just commodities at higher levels. There's an endless supply of beautiful people, successful people, connected people. What you thought would be fulfilling just becomes normal. And this creates a weird paradox. The more options you have, the harder it becomes to choose. Not because there aren't enough good options, but because having too many options messes with your ability to value things correctly. The truth is, when you've never felt settled yourself, you don't know how to build stability with someone else. When you're always ready to move, you never learn how to stay. When you're always optimizing for the next thing, you miss what's right in front of you. It's like trying to build a house while constantly planning to move - you never invest in the foundation. I've spent my entire life in motion. Always pushing for more. Always feeling behind. Always sensing that wherever I was wasn't enough. This perpetual state of striving created a pattern - It's made every relationship feel fleeting and transactional from my end. Here's what nobody tells you about dating when you're successful: The qualities that got you to success often work against you in relationships. The constant optimization, the relentless drive for better, the inability to settle - these traits build empires but destroy connections. You start treating relationships like business decisions. Optimizing for metrics. Looking for upgrades. Always keeping one foot out the door because that's what worked in every other area of life. But relationships don't work like business. You can't A/B test your way to love. The biggest challenge isn't finding great people - it's becoming someone capable of building something real when you find them. Someone who can stop optimizing long enough to build foundation. Someone who understands that some forms of success require you to commit before you're certain. Most people think having endless options would make finding the right person easier. But it actually makes it harder. Because when everything is available, nothing feels special. When every option seems replaceable, nothing feels worth keeping. This year showed me that the real skill isn't in attracting the right person - it's in becoming someone who can recognize and keep them when they appear. Someone who can build something lasting instead of just collecting experiences. Success creates a unique type of poverty - an abundance of options but a scarcity of meaning. An endless buffet of possibilities but a hunger for something real. I'm learning that the most important decisions in life can't be optimized like business ones. You can't spreadsheet your way to the right relationship. You can't data-drive your way to connection. Some choices require you to be still enough to feel rather than think. To build rather than optimize. To commit rather than calculate. That's what dating taught me this year. Sometimes having everything makes it harder to choose anything. And the real growth isn't in having more options. It's in becoming someone who can build something real when the right one appears. |
Writing insights on all things business, life, philosophy, and entrepreneurship.