May 17th, 2023
Cringe alert.
Nearly 10 years ago I took this embarrassing selfie.
It was my first day in corporate America.
I woke up at 6AM, put on a very uncomfortable suit and snapped this photo.
I was so excited about my big new career.
“I made it.”
I’d spent over $200K and thousands of hours for this moment (4 year degree).
But within 8 hours, I realized I’d made the biggest mistake of my life.
Here was the reality of that “career”:
- Working 80 hour weeks
- Doing meaningless work to create more billable hours
- Happy hour every night with people you don’t even like
- Begging your boss to leave at 8PM on a Friday
That day, I knew I had to change something.
But I was scared sh!tless thanks to the “sunk cost fallacy”:
- I’d already invested $200K
- I’d spent thousands of hours in the library studying for this
- I’d spent 4+ years attaching my personal identity to this career.
What would people say if I threw all of that away?
The problem with “careers” is that we invest so much into them before we know if we’ll truly love the work.
And this sunk cost fallacy only gets worse the longer you let it fester.
The next 5 years after this selfie were not pretty...
I jumped from job to job and career to career, hoping that I’d find the “career for me”.
Never did. After 5 more years I realized that no “career” would ever fulfill me.
And that’s what led me to starting my very first side project.
In a matter of days, I realized entrepreneurship was the only “career” with no limits.
Endless challenge and endless possibilities. There is no ceiling.
It’s not for everyone, but it’s the game I want to play for the next 60 years.