What is My Why?

Why am I doing all this?

An observation about projects…most people start them without first crystallizing a reason why.

Then, as ambitious humans tend to do, we stack these projects on top of each other until we’re overwhelmed.

To find relief from the overwhelm, the easiest path out is to quit. So we abandon the project and move on.

And the cycle continues. This is why most people fail at most things.

To combat this, I decided I wouldn’t start anything new unless I had a super clear reason why.

These are the 3 reasons why I quit my job to go full-time on being a creator/entrepreneur…

Reason #1: I love building

I love making cool stuff and putting it into the world.

It’s what I think about. It’s what feels most effortless to me. It’s the lens through which I see the world.

There was a time in my early twenties when I resisted this nature. I was trained to think people get put into career boxes and must find a way to survive despite their natural abilities.

I’ve learned something since then…you can’t outrun your true nature and be happy.

Much like how plants grow towards the sun, your brain and spirit naturally drift towards the things you get energy from.

Call it woo-woo, but I believe different people were meant to do different things. And when you spend time doing the thing you were naturally meant to do, things click differently.

So the first reason I’m doing this is purely for me. I believe I was put on this earth to make cool shit for the world.

Reason #2: Time and financial freedom for my family

The second reason I’m doing this is for my family that is alive today. My wife, future children, parents, grandparents, in-laws.

I want to buy time freedom for all of us. The ability to do what we want, when we want, with whomever we want, forever.

Does this mean I need the ability to buy a 5 floor NYC penthouse apartment and put a T-rex skeleton in it?

Nah, although that does sound cool.

I want to be able to fly to Italy with zero notice on a Tuesday and not have my businesses or financial security crumble while I’m gone.

I want to be able and go for a 4 hour walk on the beach in the middle of the day and not worry about missing anything.

The only way to achieve time freedom is to own financial assets (specifically cash flowing ones) that pay you regardless of your time input that day.

You cannot achieve the reality I’m describing with an hourly or salaried job unless the sum total of your wages in cash flowing assets exceeds ~$10M.

This is nearly impossible for any salaried employee in any field, especially before the age of 50.

As I see it, the greatest probability path to achieve this is the entrepreneurial one.

Reason #3: Generational Inflection

I’ve never really cared about legacy.

Maybe this will change when I have kids, but as far as I’m concerned, I care 0% about what the world thinks of me 100 years after I’m gone.

But there is one concept in this category that I’ve been obsessed with lately…changing the trajectory of my family line.

If you look at every single generationally wealthy family today, there was some entrepreneurial savage, at some point in history, that did something to change the slope of the curve for his/her family.

A generational inflection.

Generations of family members, and hundreds of great grandchildren, had better lives and more access to resources because that person decided, “I’m him/her.”

That’s dope. To me, that’s legacy.

You may not agree or resonate with any of these reasons, but if you’re in pursuit of something bigger, I strongly encourage you to get crystal clear on your reasons why.

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