It’s one of those sleepless nights. 4am in the morning. Staring at the ceiling, reverting and fighting back to feelings you face every day at office lunch table:
“You spent so much time studying one subject, but you feel dumb doing it. It’s impossible to feel the comfort, happiness and sense of achievement from my work”.
You feel insecure and dumb when you sit and stare at screen. You do the work yet it’s never enough and fulfilling inner voice: “you are made for something better, creative and energetic”. Now, every day feels like a drag and a loop, to keep the kitchen running.
Then you take a moment and think through the signals of that inner voice. You want to listen it. Believe what it means to you. Find the feasibility and see where you stand. You try to look sideways, maybe seeking an approval from others.
Yet somehow, you sense they won’t like the idea, if you dare to speak your mind. Sometimes you battle with; “you can’t let the good things waiting in future hijacked by being average today“. Sometimes you feel living like a beast; to go mute and deaf mode.
You reckon this type of pivot is hardly accepted. Especially, not by people who have no to high qualification but lacks the guts to support or keep quite in others new journey.
In short: you are expected to fail if you try to do something against the norms. Even if you don’t add much weigh yourself, every conversation in your circle, will shake your morale.
The blessing in disguise? They don’t actually care about you. Which means you have chance to pull it off.
Here’s how:
- You now know exactly who cares and pisses you off.
- You are aware of where and with whom to spend your next few weeks.
- You prioritize what adds personal value and moves close to goals.
You plan to use this generously and shamelessly, everywhere.
College, university, office, friend groups, or even at home. Anything that helps you think better and get closer to your new mission — Just do it.
Nobody’s Actually Watching
You start building something which matters to you. Your immediate circle thinks you are expected to fail. They are right.
But you have a crazy mind and seeking for a few shots to prove it.
Take me, for example. I studied IT for 6-7 years, then started over in marketing and business (became notorious example in my relatives) because writing code made me feel stupid. That kind of pivot drains your mind and body before it takes you anywhere professionally.
So, you get your shit together. Binge watch boring courses and get good apprenticeship. Pass certifications. Read an insane number of books with over-the-top ideas just to level up your thinking (careful; you might get caught saying something rebellious).
Eventually you start calling yourself an expert on LinkedIn, wherever you can land your first few hands-on reps/training.
The Grind Nobody Sees
This is exactly when you are expected to fail mentally and socially, dodging questions like “so what happened to your new career?” but you keep grinding, month after month, until you finally land a few gigs by the end of year.
That’s the moment you get to say: “LETS GOO”.
You already know everyone expects you to lose. So go get your hands dirty. Shamelessly ask friends who are good at this how they do it. Get embarrassed.
Out of 5 projects, 1 succeeds.
Voila.
As it is commonly said:
“To score a goal, you have to throw the ball.”
You are pumped, ready for the next round with more confidence.
That failure & feedback is keeping your head up and your focus locked on taking on more than you can chew. Which is exactly how you learn to chew faster.
This might sound cringy, but I loved framing my passion and subject knowledge with total confidence in HR and technical interviews during my job hustle.
Stack your talking points. Be shameless about approaching people who intimidate you. That fear is real as mostly just a layer your own mind added, based on how much value it thinks other people hold.
Someone once put it to me this way:
“The smartest bets are the ones where losing costs you nothing and winning changes everything.”
None of this costs you anything. You have all the time in the world to try it without expecting anything back. Be stupidly repetitive until you finally know what kind of problem needs what kind of treatment but in your own way.
Turn Feedback into Opportunities
Say you run ads, or write a solid, slightly controversial leadership post on LinkedIn. You will get some likes, some doodles.
You will also get people curious enough to drop their two cents in the comments.
Boom!!!
scrape that list, drop it into a Google Sheet, set up a Zapier automation, and start bulk sending with a tool like Instantly to run a semi-warm email campaign around the idea. Keep pulse-checking until you land a few good clients in your pipeline.
Did a single stranger ever tell you here; “you are expected to fail”?
Of course not.
Strangers aren’t as invested in why you are failing as the people around you, unfortunately, who are watching everything. Strangers just respect that you tried something.
The Real Unfair Advantage
When you reach the level where your circle actually encourages you to test more, fail more, and share the failure openly. This provides a real shift you need to get to the extra mile mentally and professionally.
They start wanting to hear the insights from what didn’t work. Hats off to my mentor, Aatir, for building that kind of environment on his team. Such a gem 💎 MA.
Let me close with a note to myself: try building a running list of impossibly asymmetric things around daily life i.e. health, relationships, business.
- Throw yourself into every uncomfortable situation that comes your way.
- Share an uncomfortable truth with your circle.
- Run those 20miles
- Challenge anyone who try to take over your life direction.
- Journal your ideas on thinking bigger, and pitch the “stupid” strategy you always wanted to try.
Nobody is counting your losses. That’s the whole unfair advantage you can capitalize on.
If you still have room: start feeding your mind counter-narratives; find a few books, articles, research that challenge your backward beliefs and the way you have been living and while feeling stuck.
It’s never too late to start over, and rethink why you were thinking the way you were thinking.
