💎 I Struggled for 19 years – It Didn’t Take 19 More to Overcome It.
This isn’t advice – I’m connecting with my younger self: hoping to soothe his confusion, complacency, and carelessness.
My father graduated from engineering school decades ago, yet he’s still the most energetic student I currently know – an ingenious, creative mind that I always admired. My mother amazed me with her resilience, she remained a steady, emotional anchor to hold my family together.
I wasn’t eager. I wasn’t resilient. I wasn’t a hard worker.
I worked harder at avoiding discomfort.
At the time, I couldn’t come close to understanding myself.
For my classes, I was eager to optimize my academic performance through accelerated learning methods: priming, mind-mapping, active recall, learning by association, and more.
Instead, I continued to bury my head in textbooks and waste hours re-reading my notes. I mechanically moved through classes with brute force; I scored well on tests, but I lacked efficiency and forgot most of the information I learned after a major exam.
For debate, I struggled with public speaking. Research and case strategy became intuitive; however, my stagnant tonality and monotonous voice flattened out the impact of any arguments I would communicate.
I did speaking drills with other teammates; however, an honest audit of my time would reveal that over 20 hours/well went to case research – a skill I was already comfortable with.
I couldn’t help but ask myself: why did I allow this to continue?
My ability to learn and retain complex information could improve.
My ability to communicate, connect, and resonate with others could improve.
But I willingly chose not to.
How often do I complain about an outcome I repetitively despised, without reevaluating my inputs?
Once I knew how to improve my circumstances, why can’t I bring myself to change – despite knowing it would undoubtedly help?
Negotiating with the past, present, and future
Before discovering a higher purpose, I had to sink below the pain I was already experiencing.
It can’t be overstated: if I wanted to change, would I genuinely believe it’s worth the effort?
I had to accept that I was wrong, precisely how flawed my judgment was, and why I allowed it to happen for so long.
A previous identity, belief, or behavior had to die before a new one was born.
My brain doesn’t want to deal with processing that much pain. Why would I?
Rejecting responsibility feels safe: there’s always an underlying excuse to pin my shortcomings against.
“Well, I didn’t make it because I didn’t do (X)”
“This person has always treated me miserably, even though I never dared to speak out against them or walk away. It’s their fault they can’t adjust their behavior.”
Self-pity provides pleasure – it’s a self-defense mechanism that helped me externalize pain to another person or mental abstraction.
Maybe you picked the wrong career path this whole time and didn't want to come to terms with it. That close friend wasn’t as close as you thought they were. Someone dear to you is hurting you – it’s been eating up your conscience but you can’t bring yourself to say anything.
It was challenging for me to conceptualize the cost of remaining complacent.
Doing nothing has consequences, likely larger than choosing to act imperfectly.
Exponential and compounding growth aren’t intuitive concepts for our minds to grasp visually.
One of the core principles of finance is discounting or compounding cash flows based on two levers: the passage of time and the interest rate.
$1,000,000 today is not the same as $1,000,000 received in 40 years – precisely how much?
Considering a hypothetical annual interest rate of 8%, this cash flow is roughly $46,000 in today’s dollars.
While this checks out mathematically, it’s mentally mind-boggling. $1 million to $46,000?
When you deal with future problems in the present, they appear minuscule and manageable. The project due in 3 weeks can be broken down into 10-minute tasks each day. The conflict with your partner could realistically trickle down to a 2-minute discussion, reminding them to complete their chores or communicate how a slight shift in their tone upset you.
Instead, we wait. We wait for the issues to compound while we train a muscle of avoidance.
Why do I wait for my problems to become stronger and face them at my weakest?
Purpose, energy, and fulfillment don’t magically knock on your doorstep, it has to be deliberately manufactured and earned.
If you could design a character fueled with purpose, what inputs would you feed them?
Doomscrolling on social media? Eating fast food? Avoiding consistent exercise? Refusing to learn new information and skills? Not following any source of routine? Not seeking out different career opportunities or connecting with professionals who have insight that you don’t?
It’s no wonder I felt aimless. I deserved every reason to lack purpose – feeling lost is a state of mind I created by design.
Like every design, it can also be changed. I realized I’m not naturally lazy or naturally “locked in” – my state of being is a culmination of decisions and beliefs, that’s it.
I was told to listen to my feelings, but honestly, I felt best when my actions were controlled by intention prior to emotional impulses.
My feelings aren’t always right.
Act first, and the right emotions will follow.
I’m not the best student, debater, or startup founder by any means – the only edge I developed was embracing control over my struggle.
Before complaining about lacking purpose, I always asked myself: did I give myself an honest opportunity to earn it?
The path behind me is different than the one ahead.
No one sees reality objectively, including myself. It’s impossible.
The world is bizarrely complicated – simplification manifests as a survival instinct.
What objects in my garage are useful? What foods are safe for me to consume? What people should I avoid? Who should I trust?
As we overlook the intricate complexities of everything in front of us, the world is presented in relation to the utility we obtain from it. I’m typing this newsletter post on a computer; I’m not thinking about each hardware component of my laptop, the wifi signal, battery power, or keyboard buttons as I’m writing.
As far as I’m concerned, this computer is helping me speak to you.
That’s all I perceive while writing this post.
Therefore, the reactions to my setbacks were ultimately reflections of what I chose to see.
My eyes can only pick up on so many sensory details, and my brain will retain even less.
When I was overwhelmed with negative emotions, I often asked what lens I decided to see this problem through. What details am I choosing to fixate on, are they optimal for my own growth? What implications am I extracting from each experience?
In times when nothing goes your way, all you have is your vision.
While the ground beneath you violently shakes, it will keep you standing on two feet: it’s the armor you wear that can never be stripped from you.
Give yourself the best possible defense; the world is relentlessly attacking you. Why make it harder on yourself?
Out of a million choices, there’s only one wrong answer: assuming I’ll get it right the first time.
If I gave this advice to my younger self, nothing would change.
I would receive a temporary surge of motivation and regress into my old habits.
Now, I didn’t waste your time – I still believe this context would be essential to uplift myself. However, intention must be met with implementation.
There’s an infinite buffet of perspectives I can choose from – ever wonder why your friend can see the same movie and have two different takeaways?
What vision am I supposed to create? Where do I even start?
I began with minimizing what sucked in front of me before optimizing for the future. I guarantee anyone, with sincere effort, can write for hours about what they hate before expressing what they love.
Humans are more reactive to pain than they are to pleasure. For every 100 classmates I’ll meet, 99 will voice their complaints, sorrows, and struggles before one articulates genuine optimism.
It’s hard to look forward to something when everything in front of you is suffocating.
I started by getting my head above the water before looking up at the sky.
Here was my “actionable” takeaway: I heightened my awareness by writing on paper (not on my computer or Facetime with another friend. It was silent writing, without music or stimulation).
I’ve consumed hours of self-development books and videos on entrepreneurship, quite frankly a lot of those hours were wasted with advice that felt good but never resulted in lasting change.
No one could give me a cookie-cutter solution to my problems – I was pleasantly shocked that my biggest breakthroughs happened through my own introspection.
The sound of my struggle appeared so overwhelming, that I didn’t realize I was best equipped to drown out the noise. No one possessed the silver bullet solutions to my problems except for myself.
All I needed to do was sit quietly with my mind.
In practical terms, I stuck to these three journaling prompts for 10 minutes a day: a tiny shift that yielded a dramatic difference in my clarity and desire to overcome complacency:
1.) What is something I know would make my life better that I haven’t been changing
2.) Why hasn’t it changed?
3.) How would my life precisely get worse if I didn’t address this now?
From there, I understood which actions and attitudes were polluting my life, and cleaned them up by doing the opposite.
Heightening awareness allows me to strike at something. I won’t be perfect, and I wasn’t. I adjusted my vision countless times, but at least I was doing something.
At least I’m not shrinking and becoming less capable.
Keep it simple – or remain stuck forever
This became a necessary simplification I needed in my life. Our minds love complexity: debate taught me to love details, exceptions, and complications in every topic. While nuance is often glamorized, it’s the last thing I need when making decisions in favor of my future.
When anything becomes complicated, my brain always finds an excuse to avoid it.
So, I made this process stupidly simple.
With every decision I made moving forward, I would check in with myself by asking one question: am I upgrading or downgrading?
Will the pleasure I feel help me now or will it compound in the future?
That’s it. End of discussion.
The more tokens I could deposit to my future self, the better I would feel. The less I would jeopardize myself. The less resentful and cynical I would feel about the world around me.
While starting this process, however, I found the act of journaling to be an immense friction point. Ironically, I overcame this while journaling.
I found the mental effort and expectations of arriving at an “epiphany moment” blocking my creative flow. It felt like another writing assignment at school.
Instead, I reframed this as a messy yet soothing process of self-discovery. My words and sentence structures can be non-linear. I have permission to be messy. Not every idea has to pack a punch or read like poetry. I wasn’t writing an essay or research paper, it was a relaxing warm shower, washing down the restless thoughts of an overstimulated mind.
The most effective medicines are the ones you can administer to yourself.
If I could figure everything out on the first trial, there wouldn’t be a point to experimentation. Life would be dull – all the levels would be crossed. All the mountains would be climbed.
I grew up in awe, watching all of Kobe Bryant’s podcasts but questioned why I couldn’t mirror his love for basketball. You may have heard of other celebrities, or people in your personal life that nurture a hyper-specific passion in their life. If you can find a magical purpose in your life, by all means, that’s fantastic.
I didn’t have that.
Instead, I crafted my vision around two qualities: adaptability and heightened awareness. The more I could generalize my purpose to simply doing hard things that would benefit my future self – the more versatile I became, allowing me to eagerly contend with a wider range of problems.
If you don’t have a niche purpose, that’s okay. It might be your unfair advantage.
The world will manifest an infinite series of issues in front of you: health, fitness, career, finance, motivation, relationships, spiritual alignment, and more.
Suppose I was deeply passionate about my startup. In that case, I can’t simply neglect everything else in my life because I lack a narrowly defined interest in them.
(A critical mistake I made during my first two years of undergrad).
Thus, my vision oversimplified these problems in my favor. I made each obstacle small enough to deal with until I believed it was within my reach.
Even if when I didn't reach a goal, it was the pursuit, the desire to care, the willingness to walk, that added genuine content & joy to my life.
I was at my worst when I grew apathetic and numb.
Small efforts create extraordinary results – don’t underestimate how easy it is to continue once you break the ice.
Once you get outside the house, you’re more likely to walk a mile than you are to sit back in your chair.
Likewise, obeying my vision became second nature after enough practice.
Momentum is contagious.
I can catch it flying in two opposing directions.
My thoughts and emotions are always accelerating at 100 mph – do I want to race forward and backward?
Up to me to decide.
How I never lost another game of tug-of-war
My previous analogy can explain why I’ve seen people go from rock bottom to achieving their highest successes, fulfillment, confidence, and happiness in just a few years ... if not a few months.
Likewise, I’ve observed friends who were killing it, living their best life, and unexpectedly, plummet downward with minimal self-correction.
Getting on the elevator was the hardest part; from there, I wouldn’t need to try as hard to keep rising.
To abandon my old habits and get out of my comfort zone, I couldn’t just logically convince myself.
I had to “feel” it too.
I was the laziest person I knew until a deadline was due. Creating a future vision for myself, in simple terms, allowed me to move that deadline closer.
I always wondered, why go through the trouble of doing all of this? Shouldn’t I naturally “want” to act in my best interest?
Every time I wait in a shopping line, I pull out my phone: watching Instagram reels, checking business texts, or opening my email. YouTube, Uber Eats, or blasting music in my Airpods became an escaping mechanism to my stress and anxiety.
Technology isn’t inherently bad, but I used it as a numbing agent. It distracted me, giving me the illusion that my problems were dissolving. In reality, the threats compounded while my awareness was dimmed.
I didn’t even consider or contemplate the future consequences of my actions. I might have passively thought about it in my head, but that’s why journaling was essential for recalibrating my emotional and mental state.
It was the only invitation I got to shatter the abstractions of tomorrow; I could “feel” the benefits and drawbacks of each decision more clearly, once I defined and understood them.
With enough practice, I no longer had to play this tiring game of tug-of-war: instant gratification pulling me from one side, and my future self pulling from the other.
The clearer my future vision got, the less friction I felt.
My identity today was becoming indistinguishable from my identity tomorrow.
Both versions of myself are no longer pulling from opposite sides of the rope: I’m freely flowing in the same direction.
When I felt discomfort, I stopped suppressing the pain away; instead, I attentively listened to each request: what was it trying to communicate to me?
My subconscious mind had a way of telling me when I was pushing something off.
Something I knew I could do, that would be good for me, that I wasn’t doing.
Noah Jacobs and Aleeza Jahan.
To my surprise, these accountability systems actually worked – but something was missing.
I was making progress but it wasn’t fluid.
I moved without motion.
I woke up each day – walking, talking, and thinking like a rigid NPC.
When I crafted a future-oriented system and stuck to it habitually, I missed out on novel experiences. The ones presented to me, screaming right in front of my face.
The unplanned event from my friends. The spontaneous family trips my parents planned. An exhilarating business idea that percolates through my team.
Focusing too much on tomorrow can blind me today, overlooking something exciting, something worth pursuing right now.
I was searching for clues on bridging a sustainable balance, one that accounted for the present and future.
I picked up some answers this past summer.
While attending the Residency Program – a startup community located at Harvard for young entrepreneurs – I met the most brilliant minds and wholesome hearts.
What resonated with me most was the adventurous spirit these people were infected with.
I didn’t have it.
I could speak about each person I met for hours, but there are two notable people I’d like to highlight.
Meet Noah: Jacked. Self taught himself sales, how to code, speak multiple languages, write poetry, and learned Brazilian jiu-jutsu for over 2.5 years. Upon personal observation, I noticed he has an extraordinarily small gap between what he intends to do and what he actually does.
While this sounds simple, it’s beyond impressive. Taking an honest look at myself, It’s shocking to comprehend how frequently I deviate from the promises I made to myself.
However, here’s what I found most intriguing: he desires to pursue novel experiences just for “the “plot”. At the age of 23, he possessed a wealth of memories and stories that seemingly never ran out.
While I obsessively fixated on the future, part of creating a better life is being able to look back and cherish memories from the past.
(By the way, I’d highly recommend subscribing to his newsletter)
https://www.noahjacobs.ai/writing
None of this is sponsored. I call him once every three weeks, and I genuinely love the persistence he puts in every day. I’ve done my best to encapsulate his work below 👇
Anyone building a product right now understands how excruciatingly painful it is: aside from making something that genuinely adds value, people need to know you exist. Your two most valuable assets – time and money – go straight down the drain after searching through cluttered & outdated CRMs, writing cold emails that no one replies to, and the 1% chance that someone does get on a demo call with you, they don’t even have the authority to make a buying decision.
Noah’s product, Birddog, gives you the only cheat code you need to build an unstoppable sales pipeline: access a goldmine of personalized data for your prospects, customers, and key decision-makers.
Write to people who will actually reply to you, and speak to people who will actually buy from you.
If you’re interested, go check him out!
Becoming Present with People.
Meet Aleeza: Clown. Walking circus show. Unequivocally the most spontaneous person I met at the Residency Program.
I always despised talking to new people.
To clarify, I didn’t despise other people; it was an internal problem with myself: I didn’t feel like I could entertain them, keep someone engaged, or add enough value in conversation especially when I lacked information about them.
Maybe this occurred through debate, but public speaking felt more comfortable than socializing with someone at a party.
It was easier for me to speak to an audience of 100 people compared to speaking with one stranger.
For the past two years at college, I lacked depth and connection with the people I met at university.
I second-guessed myself. Was there something flawed with my character? Why don’t I have anything to add to in conversation?
Around the first few weeks of the program, I felt something change after meeting her. I found myself talking for hours about my childhood memories, the deepest struggles I faced, my favorite hobbies, and more.
Despite conversing with someone else, I felt like I was learning more about myself. I couldn’t help but wonder why this felt different.
I didn’t feel judged. She was super curious to understand my motivations for everything I did, and I realized it wasn’t substance I lacked.
I would wait for other people to give me permission. Permission to be myself – it’s something I’m still learning to have authority over.
While I experienced the benefits of aligning my actions with the future, presence is vital in conversation.
I didn’t think overthink which jokes I should crack. I didn’t hesitate to share a story I would anticipate wasn’t worth sharing. My filter was essentially removed and open to experiencing the present.
After meeting both Noah and Aleeza, I began challenging myself, seeking a compromise between structure and spontaneity.
I found myself doing things I would have never considered: going to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes, camping out for a spiritual retreat in a forest located in Amherst, and rock climbing with my cofounders.
(Yes, I’m aware rock climbing is a tech bro activity; maybe not the most unique thing I’ve mentioned, but it’s definitely progress from where I started).
Meanwhile, I spent every day either booking sales calls, recruiting mentors, building our product, or expanding outreach efforts.
Before heading to the Residency, I didn't "grind" as much as I expected.
But the memories were worth it.
One foot was anchored in routine, the other was dangling in excitement for unpredictable adventure.
The Intersection of Life and Business.
Adaptability uplifted me out of the lowest points in my life.
It’s also the central thesis… the building block of my startup.
The demands of the job market are changing. So is technology. And it’s moving ridiculously fast.
Traditional education is already getting outpaced; I’m afraid that gap will grow exponentially – particularly for young professionals.
This past summer at the Residency, my cofounders acquired mentors from Nvidia, Tesla, Neuralink, and Harvard to establish a peer-to-peer ecosystem – helping young professionals accelerate their technical skills, personal brand, and career development.
Tenured academics, professors, and educators are still tremendously valuable. Their work is commendable, and someone with decades of experience teaching a field can simplify the most complex concepts and disciplines. They know what pitfalls to help you avoid because they’ve walked there so many times.
This assumption only holds true when those pitfalls are the same.
For learning the conceptual foundations of mathematics, physics, law, and medicine, there isn’t anyone better to teach you than a seasoned expert.
However, we vastly undermine the unique value proposition of peer-to-peer career mentorship.
The technical projects, skills, connections, and career hurdles young professionals have to climb aren’t even constructed the same way anymore, and artificial intelligence will only bridge that divide even further as industries rapidly shift.
This also comes full circle to the concept of compounding growth.
Technology is the interest rate, and age is the passage of time.
The differences in the obstacles young professionals need to overcome today become more pronounced as the labor market adapts. To make matters worse, they continue receiving antiquated advice from older guidance counselors who are walking with a different pair of shoes.
“Have you tried applying on Handshake?” “Use the recruiter's name in your cover letter” “Format your resume with this template.”
Sure, that’s a good start, but how is this advice supposed to help any student gain a genuine advantage? How do you stand out? How do you become useful to other employers with limited experience, connections, and context?
A good mentor doesn’t just tell you what to do. They help you do it.
Okay, you don’t get into a consulting club with a .01% acceptance rate, what do you do from there? Other people have found ways to be successful in the long term. How did they secure a meaningful internship? What professional connections did they make? What strategies did they implement to build their personal brand? How did they apply it in their interviews? What projects did they build? How did they learn these skills? Can they teach you those skills directly? What resources were relevant to them, so that they can be relevant to you?
How did they research which career paths were worth picking? When building professional connections, what specific adjustments did they make when their cold outreach wasn’t working? How did they market themselves despite having minimal work experience? What technical skills did they refine, and how did they intuitively know those were the right ones to pick?
You went to a career fair and got told to “apply online”. How did other people stand out? Did they even need to rely on a career fair to succeed? How did they pivot in case they didn’t enjoy their job? How did they plan out different exit opportunities? What skills equipped them with that versatility?
The answers to each of these questions are evolving.
Meanwhile, guidance counselors are handing students an instruction manual to build a completely different engine.
In essence, these considerations boil down to a bigger picture question: how can we create an ecosystem that teaches young professionals how to adapt?