I woke up in the hospital. Blurry, confused, and angry, I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. There were straps tied tightly to my wrists, holding me down.

“What the fuck? Where am I?”

A stern-looking nurse approached the hospital bed. She refused to make eye contact. Aside from a contemptuous curl of her lips, I couldn’t tell whether or not she noticed me at all.

“Stop moving,” she said. “You’ll pull out the IV.”

Damn right I was going to pull out the IV. I had no idea where I was and how I had gotten there.

“Where am I? I need to know.”

Once she told me, a hollow feeling formed in my chest. I didn’t know what to think or do. I was scared.

I had sustained a serious injury, and she was telling me I needed surgery, along with a whole host of other things. I felt powerless. I felt like it was all one big nightmare.

Then, I realized something. I was her patient. I was the customer. She was an insignificant hospital worker and I owned a growing business, at a very young age mind you. Who the fuck was she to tell me what to do.

Anger began to swell up in my belly. I was determined to get out of the situation, no matter what happened…

What followed was a long and dangerous story that I’ve catalogued here. It was a powerful experience in my life that caused a cascade of changes. Since then, I’ve taken up meditation, yoga, and worked to grow my emotional intelligence.

I’m not going to lie, this post might dissuade you from starting your first online business. But, if you’re actually driven to change your lifestyle, I don’t think it will.

I’m writing this, because of all those entrepreneurs out there who make it seem like the journey is a fucking cake walk. I also hate those speakers who gloss over and glorify the difficult times, acting like it didn’t leave any scars.

Like most things in life, nothing is black and white. There are shades of gray down every path you embark upon.

I’m going to go through my entire story and share with you the very real psychological price of entrepreneurship. Ready? Okay, let’s begin.

The Learning Phase

This is a phase that every entrepreneur goes through, where you’re learning how to set up a business or how to monetize whatever you’re doing. You don’t have to necessarily learn from books or teachers. You could also learn through trial and error in the field.

For me, this journey started in Barnes and Noble, when I picked up a copy of the book Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing. It was my sophomore year at George Washington University, in Washington DC. I wanted to learn how to invest my own money once I graduated from college and got a real job.

Sipping a steaming cup of coffee, I turned the pages of the book in shock. Here was this whole other world that I had never seen before. Apparently, rich people thought quite differently about money than I had been taught my entire life. With each new chapter, I felt angry, confused, and intrigued. I had to read more.

Over the next few days, I’d blow through the book and gain a ravenous appetite for more information about business. I wanted to know how the economic system worked and why I hadn’t been taught these ideas in school. I felt like the business owners that the book talked about were operating off of a completely different set of principles than everyone else.

Of course, looking back, this is exactly how the author wants you to feel. It’s only by peaking your emotions that he’ll make sure you actually read the book and recommend it to your friends.

Regardless, this book started the journey for me. In the coming months, I’d come to devour multiple books on business, accounting, and eventually start attending networking events that my college put on.

For me, the learning phase was, and continues to be, one of most enjoyable parts of entrepreneurship. You’ll gain enormous clarity about how the world works. You’ll also learn to separate what consumers say from how they actually behave. Your friends might get bored of you talking about business all of the time.

During this phase I was driven by these emotions:

• Curiosity. I wanted to learn how business works.
• Anger. I didn’t like that I wasn’t taught these ideas in school. I wanted to become the man I thought I was meant to be.
• Fear. I didn’t want to waste my life working at some dead end job. I wanted to be noteworthy.

I also began to form a vision in my head of what economic success looked like to me, which was very different than I had originally thought going into college. Of course, I have always wanted to earn a decent amount of money, but it became more about earning money on my own terms.

The Trying Things Out Phase

I went mad. I knew that the only way I was going to have any shot at being an entrepreneur, making millions, and being noteworthy was if I took massive action.

I started my very first online business called Books2eBooks.net, which I’ve catalogued here. I knew that I wanted to pursue this new path for the rest of my time at GW, so I instantly declared an Econ Major, without ever having taken an Econ class. I enrolled in some business courses, even though I didn’t have the perquisites. I interned at a entrepreneurship-related organization, where I met my first entrepreneurs in person.

Soon, I’d experience my first “success.” I participated in this business challenge while I was studying abroad in London. I won the title of London’s Rising Star, along with my 4 other teammates. We competed in the houses of parliament.

It was pretty cool. A bunch of people came up to us when we won. That was the first time that I had any kind of validation that maybe I should actually pursue this entrepreneurship thing. All the while, I was reading books on business leaders like Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Richard Branson. Deep down, I was convincing myself that I too could be one of these success stories.

When I came back to the US, I started to attend business networking events left and right. I was 20 years old, and not even old enough to get in the door of some of the bars where they were hosted.  Slowly, I started to make friendships in the business world.

I made a decision that I had enough “learning.” I was going to take action. So, I began to try starting actual businesses. There were a lot of businesses I worked on in the next year and a half.

I interned/worked on a startup for a restaurant loyalty app called LoyalCurve. I worked on a recruitment software startup. I tried starting a music platform with a friend I met at a networking event. There were some other minor projects.

Basically, my goal was to get a lot of experience. I primarily wanted sales experience. It might seem strange, because I’m more of an introverted person, but I actually started to do well on the sales front.

I will never forget the time I just walked into a store, struck up a convo, and then tried to sell the manger on our restaurant loyalty app. It was intimidating to say the least. I just didn’t care about those emotions. I needed to get over them. I pushed myself in other ways too, like through public speaking and working at a table during a conference while I attracted new interns.

I started to ignore all of the emotions that did not contribute to my goals, both in business and in life. Believe it or not, but this produced great results. It allowed me to push past my comfort zone and accomplish things that I didn’t believe were possible.

To give you an example, I would frequently ignore any feelings of tiredness in order to drag myself out of my bed and go to the gym. The same went for the pain I felt during workout sessions. For the first time in my life I got a six pack.

I was taking a lot of sustained action and I was beginning to see results in different areas of my life.

As I pushed on with my business ventures, I realized that I was facing an impending date, graduation. I was soon going to graduate from college.

During the last year of my undergraduate degree, I launched a blog as a fun project. I honestly didn’t think anything of the blog. In no way did I expect to become a full-time blogger. I was just taking lots of action. I was also working on a tech startup and trying to finance that startup with a web development company where we’d build apps and websites for clients.

I was seeing some success with my various projects. At the start of my last semester of college, I had to make a choice. I was either going to get a job or try to go full-time on my tech startup/web development company. I didn’t know what to do. I began to go on job interviews to see what would happen. Even if I got a job, I didn’t know if I wanted to be a web developer or more of a sales person.

The “Take The Leap” Phase

It was time to make a decision, and I had made mine. When I graduated, I was going to join this nonprofit promoting entrepreneurship in Las Vegas and other up and coming cities. I was going to get some experience working at a startup before I did my own.

This seemed like the “right” decision to make. But, something didn’t feel right in my stomach. I called my parents to let them know about the job opportunity.

The first words out of my Dad’s mouth was, “I think you’re making a mistake.” I was confused. It seemed like a great job. “You’ve learned enough already, you need to go out there and make it happen.”

My Mom chimed in, “I agree. You need to just go for it. It’s time. You’re making $XXX a month and you’re in school. If you went full-time, you could turn the business into a real thing.”

I was taken back. My parents are some of the most conservative people that you’ll ever meet. They rarely take risks. Now, they were telling me to take a huge leap at a very young age.

At that time, my web development business was producing revenue. We were getting clients. We were executing on the projects. I was doing it in my spare time between classes.

“These people can’t teach you anything that you don’t already know,” my mom went on to say. “You’re young. I think you should just try going full-time. There’s not much to lose. You can always live at home for a while.”

After that phone call, my entire mindset changed. They were right. I had no excuses. There wasn’t very much to lose. I could live at home if I really wanted to. The fact that two conservative people were encouraging me to take the leap certainly strengthened my resolve.

In the coming weeks, I’d set up the planning necessary to go full time on my business after graduation. I made a pact with my friend to both find our way to New York, where my girlfriend had gotten a job, and we’d build the business from the ground up out of a shitty apartment.

While I had made this commitment, I was still going on job interviews. I wanted to prove to myself that this wasn’t just a lazy decision because I couldn’t be bothered to actually get a job. I had a few phone calls with recruiters and potential prospects. Eventually, I met and built a relationship with one company at a GW career fair.

One day, out of the blue, I got a call saying that I’d been invited to interview at the DC startup. This was only a month or two before graduation. I had no idea what to expect. I decided to go on the interview and see what happened.

To make a long story short, I killed the interview and my presentation. I’ve always been good at interviewing. I had four paid internships in college, so I had some experience. I had also been reading lots of books on sales and relationship building.

I was doing work for an entrepreneurship project when I got the call. They offered me the job. The starting salary was a little over $50k. I’d be teaching their software product to clients, doing some relationship building, and likely help with marketing, since they were a small company.

$50,000 seemed magical. As a poor college kid, the most I had earned at a job up until that point was $10/hour.

When I got home, I danced around my apartment, filled with happiness. I had actually done it. I only went on ONE in-person interview and I got a job straight out of college.

But wait, what about my commitment? What about the promise to myself? I had a vision for my future. I wanted to be someone in the world. I didn’t want to be a slave to money or time. I wanted to be my own boss.

Even as I celebrated this win, I knew that deep down, I could never accept the job. It wouldn’t be right. I’d be lying to myself and everyone around me. This isn’t what I actually wanted. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It was at that moment that I officially took the leap into the scary world of entrepreneurship and never looked back.

I passed on the $50k job, to my parent’s surprise and the surprise of everyone around me. I was serious about growing my company. I was either going to win, or tap out all of my skills and energy and go bankrupt.

The First Year in Business Phase

The first year of my company was purely robotic-style action. I just executed. A lot. I also tuned out all emotions. I kept a short blog during this time, and will reference one of the entries below.

I was working part-time for a friend of mine who owned a company while I was building the startup. The plan was to meet my cofounder in NYC and grow the company. I also had some other emotions surrounding this new decision. I wrote the entry below on the same date.

“Point blank, I do not feel “accomplished” for having graduated from GW. I did however have great experiences in college. The only thing I feel is intense anxiety, anger, and a strong determination to prove myself to the world. Anxiety because nothing is ever set. It would make me feel more comfortable if I was already in NYC. I always have that faint thought in the back of my mind that I might not make it there for some reason, but fear is the 500 pound gorilla that we must all face.

I feel anger because I feel like my family/extended family doesn’t take me seriously. I know they are just being nice and my parents are just looking out for my well-being, and I also don’t readily communicate the things I have been involved with with regards to business. However, people act like I am going home to take a break before I look for a job, when I clearly turned down an official job offer for more than any of them made or could make entry level.

No one likes risk and everyone loves to point out the potential holes in your plan or the downsides to any course of action. I see it as a reflection of society as a whole. It makes me very angry. Then again, I have always been an angry person and find that it turns well into passion and hard work.

Ever since I was little, I always felt like I was different, special, and meant for great things. Looking back, that’s not really how the world works. I think college taught me most of all that the rewards go to people who take massive action year after year and are utterly determined to shape the world to their vision. Not people who think they are different or who think they deserve more than the next person. In addition, there is also no such thing as longterm success aside from having acquired a set amount of money. Every success fades from the first macintosh to myspace. I imagine that’s why Steve Jobs always sought to reinvent himself and stay relevant.

I want this period of my life to be about massive action. I want to push the limits of my mental endurance and work ethic, in the same way I did in the gym with my physical muscles. As Felix Dennis says, I don’t want to give in until they bankrupt me.

Many great artists, businessmen, and entrepreneurs have gone through this period of struggle before me. More than ever, I am convinced that it is intelligent strategy, trial and error, extreme and uncanny passion, and a die hard work ethic that gets them through it. Say, you challenge an opponent to a contest. You both get on a treadmill and whoever gets off first loses. It’s the kind of work ethic where you say “One of two things are going to happen: You are getting off first, or I am going to die – of dehydration or a heart attack.”

Sometimes, I am very scared – like fear to the bone kind of scared – that I will not achieve my dreams. Business really is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I’m sure that you both feel that way about your disciplines as well. I imagine it is overcoming that fear that builds character. Many individuals in history have taken greater risks than us. If they can do it and are only flesh and blood, so can we.

Fear is the 500 pound gorilla and since graduating, he has been in the room watching me. Time to get started!”

This gives you a very clear idea of my mindset at the time. I was having a lot of feelings, including:

• Uncertainty
• Fear
• Need to prove myself

I was also doing a lot to “hypnotize myself” into believing certain things and thinking certain ways in order to get past these emotions. Ironically, that strategy worked out pretty well, but it also had some negative effects. In one entry below, I’ll share a bit of the damaging mindset, but before I do that, I’ll show you the workspace that I had set up in my parent’s house.

I was pretty focused on work, haha. But, that was taking a toll in other areas of my life. The entry below followed shortly after the previous entry.

“I was talking with —- the other day regarding being “happy.” That’s the first question that she asks me every time we have a talk after a while. “Are you happy?” For some reason, I’ve never put happiness as a priority in my life.

I have an extreme deep seated fear that I will not accomplish what I want to in life and at the same time am not putting in enough energy to make the dream a reality. What is the point of being happy knowing that you are just like every other human being on this earth with no distinguishable accomplishments in the eyes of society? 

For some reason, I do not feel compelled to push myself to the limits of my abilities at the moment. It’s like…doing all this social media and responding to emails and —– posts and bullshit is taking my eye off the ball. I don’t tend to do well without singleminded focus. I feel entitled too much. I think that’s the problem, as usual. 

I’ve begun to shift my focus from —– and —- to ——. I see —– as more of a part time job now. …I’m good at getting clients and these last few weeks have made me realize it’s best to do what you’re good at rather than do something you don’t like but can do. I don’t really like the —– consulting, though I love blogging and creating new websites and products. The consulting pays better though. 

At the end of the day, the only thing that creates wealth is creating an asset of value… It seems kind of obvious, but more and more I’m realizing that it’s important to build a business in a vertical where you are passionate and where you are good. This sounds incredibly cocky, but I know for a FACT I am better than every writer and blogger in the —- industry. I am also a better marketer and have better web development skills. I should be doing my best to build the #1 —– website.

Number one, yes I do value independence and being able to say fuck you to someone who wants to pay me to work for them, but I also do want to build an asset of respectable value that is greater than the opportunity cost of buckling down and taking a high paying job as a programmer, a corporate executive, or becoming a doctor. 

… What’s funny is that when I was younger (younger meaning 2 years ago), I didn’t give a fuck about anything related to business appearances. I could go up on a stage and convince everybody that I knew what I was talking about, and if people wouldn’t be convinced at a networking event, I would just stop talking to them and find someone else that could be convinced and would buy product. 

With regards to —–, because I built it, I actually feel a bit more sentimental about it, though I am ruthless regarding cutting products that aren’t performing and such…  It just bugs the fuck out of me knowing that people are getting ahead that I read in newspapers everyday.

The most important thing is to focus on my own goals: be able to work at something of my own by 25, and have a valuable/sell a valuable asset by 30. That gives me at least 3 years to build something to the point where I can work at it without having a job. 

Do you know what people never tell you? They never tell you that passion or intense emotion matters more than everything else. I wish someone told me that when I was first starting out. The ONLY thing that matters is passion. It makes you work 10x as hard as everyone else and 10x as productive. i remember being so passionate about exercise, I would go for runs every single day even if I was so damn tired and I had to run at 2 in the morning because I hadn’t run that day, because I wanted to transform my body.

That kind of passion is so rare, and no one tells you how important that is when you’re younger. They always just emphasize competence. My passion has waned a bit now that I have been pursing this dream for 2 years, but as you can tell, it is still obviously something that is on my mind constantly and that I can never stop thinking of. The execution is about 70% of what it used to be though. I need to get that up. 

No more thoughts. I guess one more. I do really appreciate that in my life there are people who are not as self centered as I am and who are able to act beyond themselves. I hope I am able to adopt this frame of mind when I am more comfortable with my position in the world and who I end up becoming. 

I’d like to add one thing to the previous post. What brings this all on is the fact that literally every one of my friends is becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer etc. I talked with a friend the other day who graduated college a year early and is entering medical school. This is not uncommon. I know a ton of people where I’m living who are high achievers like this. Several have skipped multiple grades that were in my class and attended college while in high school. Where I’m from, everyone is being successful in the eyes of society.

Having grown up in that environment, I always have felt that it’s true that many people in my high school are smart and can get good grades on tests, but I always felt like I was better than them in some way. True, they can score higher on memory retention tests and solving math problems, but I always had this deep seated feeling that I would accomplish more in the world. 

Being at home and hearing about how so and so is gong to medical school and so and so got a full ride for graduate school makes me extremely angry and determined to achieve more success than the peers I grew up with. What’s on my side is the fact that intelligence does not matter – actions do. I guess, my dream one day is to just know that I ended up on top in some way because of viewing the world differently and taking risky actions.”

Oh boy, haha. Before I continue on with this portion of the story, let me say that I don’t believe the mentality displayed in this blog post is healthy, at all. I’ve changed a lot since then. I don’t harbor that same jealousy or need to “outperform” people around me. We are all on different journeys and have different things we want in life. A lot of this blog post is convincing myself to keep charging up the mountain.

Eventually, I did end up moving to NYC. I was subletting an apartment in Harlem for $900/month. I stayed there for one month and then moved to Long Island City for 2-3 months, then moved back to Harlem and lived with some City University students, then moved to Washington Heights and lived with a weird roommate for 2 months who ended up being a “recovering” heroin addict.

Basically, I had 4 places and lots of different roommates in the span of 7-8 months. Oh boy. During this time, I was working out of the Wix coworking space and some other coworking spaces. Most of my day was spent working and attending networking events to get clients for one of my ventures. Since I was broke, I was living off of dollar pizza, free food, and ramen. If I was awake, I was working or watching motivational videos. I’d literally wake up and start watching motivational YouTube videos.

The emotions I was feeling during that time included:

• Fear of how I was going to pay next month’s rent
• Anxiety about whether or not what I was doing would work out.
• Stress and a sense of being overwhelmed.
• Feeling lonely. I only had 2-3 friends in the city from college and didn’t really know how to make friends.

For the most part, I dealt with my emotions by partying to let off steam, going to the gym to keep fit, and spending time with my friends when I could.

As a word of warning, I’ve seen many other entrepreneurs face these same emotions and like me, deal with them in unhealthy ways. I think the best chance of getting through this phase is if you surround yourself with friends/family that love you and support you. You should also do daily meditation to check in with the emotions you’re feeling. I wish I did that.

A lot of the emotions that I was feeling also started to spill into my personal life. I’d take my anger and frustration out on the girl I was dating sometimes, along with some of my friends. It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions and rather than talking about them, I just let them out sometimes and hurt people.

I think that a lot of the stress comes from simply not being able to stop working. Like, you literally cannot stop working. Any time that you stop working is an opportunity that you could look back on and say, “well, if I had only worked harder.”

By the end of my first year in business, my partner had decided NOT to move to NYC, my virtual part-time job had decided to let me go, and my girlfriend had dumped me (rightfully so).

Everything was going up in flames at the same time.

Shortly after New Years Eve, after a lot of thoughtful reflection, I made the decision to tune EVERYTHING out and bet 100% on my skills. I was going to go full-time on my blogging business and make it work. I wasn’t going to rely on any partners or anyone else. I was going to work every waking minute and make it a success.

The Going Full-Time Phase

There’s a theme here. Whenever I’ve structured a decision in the form of an ultimatum, it’s usually worked out well for me. Basically, I had no other choice than to go full-time on my business, so that’s what I did.

Ironically, even though I was now fully dependent on my business for my income, this second year in business was much more pleasant than the first. I dove into work. I put all of my time and energy into the business. Things started to grow like wild fire.

I moved to a better location in the city in Brooklyn, where I would end up residing for the next year. I started to have enough money to be able to go out a little more and even save. I was dating, having a good time, and meeting new friends.

When I first graduated, my mission was to “be able to work at something of my own by 25.” I clearly accomplished that ahead of schedule. But, I started to notice something. While I was excited about the growth of the business, it didn’t exactly bring me all of the things that I was hoping for.

I don’t quite know what I was expecting. I guess it was the lifestyle that all of those marketers promise you. The happiness that comes with money and owning your own business. The respect of your peers. The response from wildly attractive women.

The big realization that I had during this phase was that I wasn’t building a tech startup anymore. I was building a small business. A lifestyle business. I started to get interested in people like Tim Ferriss and location independent entrepreneurs.

I started dating a slightly crazy girl, who was very nice sometimes, but other times had some issues. Don’t worry, I still had issues of my own. Haha.

Time flew by and before I knew it, I had made it through my second year in business, with far less anxiety than the first year. I ended up doing nearly $40k in revenue and was supporting my lifestyle.

But, I still had many bad habits, chief among them, letting off steam by partying. Considering that I was a young dude, it’s also socially acceptable for the age group.

Quickly, this habit was going to get me into some trouble. It was also going to force me to re-define who I am and what I want in life.

The “Oh Shit” Phase

It was the end of my second year in business. I was officially a full-time entrepreneur and blogger. I felt like I was on top of the world. All of my friends were amazed that I had actually pulled this whole lifestyle off. It was only a year ago that I was living off of dollar pizza and ramen.

Even though my bank account was looking much healthier, I still felt a weird emptiness inside. Of course, I wanted to continue to expand my business. I wanted to keep challenging myself. But I didn’t exactly know what I was moving towards. Was I just trying to become some rich guy? Was I now a “blogger,” whatever that meant? Along my current path, I was never going to become the next Mark Zuckerberg. No matter how much logic I threw at the problem, it still didn’t feel resolved.

One day, I got a text from my best friend from high school.

“Hey dude, I’m gonna be in town next week. You wanna come see this band with me?”

It was some South African band that had developed a cult following. I hadn’t really been to any concerts in New York yet since moving there, so I said yes. I also was pumped to see my good friend.

For some weird reason, the band was playing on a Sunday night. It didn’t really matter though. I didn’t have any kind of boss to answer to. I’d probably just get a late start on Monday.

“Yeah, sounds like fun.” I said, “I’ll see ya there.”

I was excited for the band, the chance to have a great night out, and to share all of the progress that I’ve made in the last year with my friend.

The days flew by and soon it was Sunday. I still remember what it felt like as I left my small Brooklyn apartment. It was cold. Very, very cold.

Screw getting a taxi. My cheap ass had decided to walk to the place. Bad decision. It was so cold that I could see my breath in the air. Fucking New York weather.

Flash forward a bit, and I was a few drinks in, having an epic time. The band was great. Everyone was cheering them on and dancing. There were beautiful girls in the audience. I felt young and alive.

“Dude this band is sick!” I said, taking another swig of beer. “I like em.”

My friend smiled. “Yeah? I thought you would. They’re big in South Africa.”

The song ended and everyone started applauding. I spotted a leggy brunette in a tight dress making her way to the bar. She passed by us, and for a moment, perfume filled my nostrils. It was intoxicating.

“Hey man, I’m gonna grab a drink.” I said, “Be right back.”

I moved through the crowd towards the bar and ordered a Jameson on the rocks. I had enough beer. It was time to get the party started…

A few more drinks, and I found myself talking to some girls about the show. I didn’t remember their names. They seemed lovely enough. The night started to turn into a whirlwind of faces, laughter, and playful banter. I was drunk, but not too drunk. Things weren’t slowing down or anything, and I was still reasonably able to be articulate. I was, however, mixing drinks and I hadn’t eaten since lunch. That was soon to spell doom.

I sat down next to my friend, happy, talkative, and having a great night my 20s. The show was over. We were shooting the shit, talking about a whole range of topics. I remember feeling pleasant, cheerful, and at home. After a few minutes, I excused myself from the table and made my way to the bathroom.

That’s the last thing I remember.

… I was told that there was this big commotion in the bar. When I didn’t come back, my friend went to see what it was all about.

I had been found at the bottom of a staircase in a pool of my own blood and a bit of vomit.

Without knowing what happened, I can only assume that I had passed out, fallen down the stairs, and hit my head hard on the concrete floor.

It’s clear I had been drinking too much. My system was trying to rid itself of the poisonous alcohol.

I was rushed to the hospital. The rest of the story is too long to go into here, but to shorten it, let’s just say I woke up drunk in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was. I was sedated multiple times and tied down. When I woke up, I got a shitty diagnosis that I was going to need surgery. I didn’t believe the doctors, so left the first hospital. I forgot it was the dead of winter.

I made my way with no money, phone, key, or subway card back to my apartment. At that point, my family and friend had heard what happened and caught up with me. Eventually, I made it to a second hospital, which ended up taking care of me.

After a week of doctors appointments, I found out that I didn’t need surgery. I would recover. I just needed a lot of rest. Boy, it looked pretty bad though, as you can see below.

As you can see, it eventually did heal!

But, inside, I was still processing everything that had happened.

I got SO many lectures from doctors at the first hospital.

“Why were you drinking so heavily on a Sunday?”

“This behavior is abnormal. You might be an alcoholic.”

“Are you aware that you need surgery?”

“No, you can’t leave.” (eventually I signed a waver and left).

Didn’t people understand that I was just 23 and partying? College kids party all the time.

Didn’t they understand that I didn’t have to work on Monday? I was my own boss!

I thought to myself, these doctors might be intelligent by society’s standards, but they misdiagnosed me and couldn’t answer my basic questions. They only gave robotic, scripted answers. They clearly hated their job and didn’t give a shit. They were working at dead-end jobs that they despited. What’s more, it was clear they didn’t care much for their patients.

(Yes, this is unhealthy thinking, but I was upset).

After a period of anger, confusion, and fear, I decided that I was going to actually examine what happened and why. I was going to make some major changes. But right then, having recently been in the hospital, I couldn’t. I needed to go into survival mode.

For me, when I go into survival mode, I set my mind to achieving whatever I want, at any cost. In my head, I started to go over the principles that I’ve learned in the last few years, since the beginning of my business journey.

No matter how much people told me to take it easy, I ignored them. I rejected everything that anyone told me, and plunged back into business. I was getting better and I started to devote time to making my very first online course. While I was home, I made and launched that course. It’s one of the reasons that over the next year, I would DOUBLE the revenue of my company.

This was the biggest “fuck you” that I could come up with to life, which had been kicking my ass. I was going to show everyone that I could bounce back quickly. I was going to show them that this wouldn’t hold back MY success.

The next thing on my list was to get my body back. I hadn’t worked out in forever since the accident. My muscles were starting to weaken and I was putting on fat. I started to hit the gym more aggressively. I first started with the bicycle, and gradually incorporated running and weights.

As you can see, I was pretty much back to my normal self. There were lots of starts and stops, but I had recovered and turned this big negative into a positive.

Despite the fact that my business was doing well and I was starting to see success in other areas of my life, like dating, I knew that something was off. I hadn’t learned the lesson that I needed to. I had pushed it off, because it was too painful. I needed to get to the root of this problem and solve it.

The Making Life About MORE THAN Business Phase

As young men and women, we’re sold the American dream by venture capitalists and entrepreneurship magazines. We’re told to work insane hours out of the hopes of one day being able to retire rich. Like Budd Fox says in the classic movie Wallstreet, “I think that if I can make a bundle of cash before I’m thirty and get out of this racket, I’d be able to ride my motorcycle across China.“

Not only is this dream propagated by marketers and the media, but also by the movies that young men look up to with awe, like Scarface, The Wolf of Wallstreet, The Social Network, and more.

The problem is that money, success, and fame will not fill that deep hole inside of you that you’re trying to fill. It won’t make you a better person. It won’t make people love you like a close friend. It won’t make you happy. The scary thing is, even if you love what you do, it won’t complete you.

Up until this point, I had seen success in every area of my life because I IGNORED my emotions. I ignored the pain. I kept climbing up the mountain.

But, this mentality was destructive. It was slowly eating me up from the inside. It was destroying my personal life, my relationships, and my own happiness.

Towards the end of my third year in business, I had doubled my revenue from the previous year, but I wasn’t tremendously happier. I still felt many of the negative emotions that were harmful to my life.

I needed to change.

In March of my 3rd business year, I read the book, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. In my review, I said, “I think that I’m going to look back on this book as the starting point of a lot of positive changes in my life… As an analytical introvert, I’ve always struggled with reading social situations and understanding emotions.

To be quite honest, it’s something that I just rarely think about. For example, I focus far more of my attention on what someone says, rather than how they say it. This book showed me just why it’s so important to understand your own emotions and those of the people around you.”

I thought long and hard about some of the lessons that I came across in this book. I felt like my life was speaking to me. It was staring me in the face saying, “PAY ATTENTION TO THIS.”

For my fourth year, I decided NOT to make a business-related New Years Resolution. Instead, I decided to focus all of the next year on mastering emotional intelligence.

At the very beginning of the year, I went to Thailand for a month! I had so much fun. I chilled on the beach. I meditated. I met new people. I had some epic parties. I also worked a bit.

You can read more about my Thailand adventures here.

While I was in Thailand, I visited several islands, worked out, and really, worked on myself. I also felt like for the first time in a while, I was enjoying the success I had up until that point.

When I came back to NYC, I made the commitment to work towards a different mindset. I started to do daily meditation and work through some of my habitual emotions and thoughts. I gotta admit, it wasn’t easy at first. Slowly, I started to change my old ways of thinking.

I sought out new teachers, I read books, and I listened to podcasts. I examined my own emotional cravings and fears. I realized that many of the behaviors I exhibited in the past were destructive to me and others in my life. My actions were not consistent with how I viewed myself and the type of person I wanted to be. While I’m still a long way from where I want to be, I’ve significantly improved my emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and overall happiness.

To cap off this journey, I wrote a post entitled “Life Secrets I’ve Discovered At 25!” Of all of the points I’ve made, the one that stands out to me now is “your only job is to figure out who you are.”

I was making many positive emotional changes, but there were always setbacks. At the beginning of fourth year in business, my uncle passed away. I was very close to him growing up. He always played chess with me and we discussed things that other people wouldn’t, like philosophy and society.

At the time of his death, I wrote an email to my close friend, sharing some of the thoughts that were going through my mind.

“If I was in a box, how many people would show up at my funeral and how would people describe me, talk about me, or what would it even matter what I’ve done?

The memories of who we are are scattered among the people that know us. I honestly, at this stage in my life, don’t think many people would be at my funeral or really care that I died. I want to change that and impact more people more positively. 

My uncle also had so many relationships and lives that we were unaware of. He actually had a lot of friends and people who he impacted in different ways. It was cool to hear people’s stories of him.

People were always talking about what a great personality he had. He was one of those types that you loved or hated. I loved his sense of  humor, but it turned away a lot of people.

I’m always afraid of being myself fully, because I know that many of my actual thoughts and views and sense of humor are extreme/not popular…. and most people probably wouldn’t find it appealing. 

He also had some great friends. One of his friends, when my uncle was very sick and in a lot of pain, was offering to get him some **** (like actually) and they both burst out laughing. The other snuck a token of their friendship in his casket when no one was looking. Those are the kinds of friends I like… that are willing to break the rules.

As I get older I understand the importance of having a family from a happiness and economic standpoint. I think I center too much on what I feel and don’t pay attention enough to the feelings of others. Most of the people there remembered my uncle because of how they made him feel… or stories they had together.

I think I’m a pretty boring person. Most of the things I find interesting, other people don’t. I have to learn how to better engage people. That’s my new years resolution though…working on my emotional intelligence.”

Life is all about figuring out who you are, what you like, what you value, and what you want. These discoveries will significantly impact your happiness. They will also shape the type of business you build and what you contribute to the world.

Interestingly enough, while I’ve been on this path, the people that I’ve learned from and connected with most actually had many scars in their past. They’ve had to overcome these internal challenges and push forward.

I’ve talked with and learned from friends who have been through severe therapy and internal changes. Some were drug addicts or alcoholics. Others suffered from severe depression or attempted to commit suicide.

I came to learn that managing your own emotions is something that you must work at. In actuality, probably every needs a bit of therapy. At the very least, everyone would benefit from reading a self development book. Our society is pretty fucked up.

The Real Price of Entrepreneurship

I wanted to be rich so that I could spend my days writing. I wanted to spend my days reading books. I wanted to write stories that would impact people’s lives, the way that I had been impacted by books and movies. Money would give me the leisure time to do this.

I think back to a line I read in Felix Dennis’ Book, How To Get Rich. It reads “When the going gets tough, when all seems lost, when partners and luck desert you, when bankruptcy and failure are staring you in the face, all that can sustain you is a fierce compulsion to succeed at any price.”

It goes on to say that, “And yet you wish to waste your youth in the getting of money? Really? Think hard, my young cub, think hard and think long before you embark on such a quest. The time spent attempting to acquire wealth will mount up and cannot be reclaimed, whether you succeed or whether you fail...

You will be too busy keeping the sea from washing away the sand you have spent so long collecting at such terrible cost to your health and your sanity and your relationships with others.”

When I first read this book, I came to the conclusion that I was willing to succeed at any price. I would do whatever it took to become rich. I also thought that the author was being a bit melodramatic.

When I go back and re-read this passage now, I’m not so sure. I don’t know if I want to pay the price of being extremely rich. I also completely agree that it will hurt your life in many ways.

I think that as men, we naturally assume that wealth will bring us everything we want in life, be it women, power, influence, or happiness. What I’ve come to realize is that these ideas were mainly sold to us by marketers or the media. Marketers have forced these ideas into our head, in order to make us feel like we need to buy a product or buy an experience.

You don’t need to be rich to live on the beach. You just gotta set up a location-independent business and move to Thailand.

You don’t need to be rich to seduce a beautiful woman. You just gotta learn the basics of pickup and be willing to be rejected a lot.

You don’t need to be rich to have power or influence. You just need a voice. Now a days, with YouTube, blogs, and podcasts, you can have one.

You don’t need to be rich to be happy. In fact, true lifelong happiness has nothing to do with money. It has everything to do with your perspective on the world and your relationships/friendships.

Wealth might give you a short-cut to some of these items, and it might make it easier to acquire them, but it doesn’t guarantee them. You still have to put in the work.

I know that you probably don’t believe me, but it’s true.

I’ve talked with successful businessmen who can’t wait until they get enough money to retire on a beach, only then to realize that despite the nice weather, they’re bored, unhappy, and want to go back to work.

I’ve talked with beautiful women who complain about weird rich guys who buy them clothes, food, and more, all the while saying how they can’t wait to meet a “cool guy.”

I can’t tell you the number of people who have tried to “buy” my influence. Many had far more money than me and are far more experienced than me, but they ended up closing down their business or going bankrupt.

There’s nothing worse than talking with a man who has a lot of money, but who feels alone, unhappy, stressed, or not confident in social situations.

Despite so much uncertainty, there is one price that IS guaranteed. Throughout the journey, you’ll feel a lot of stress, anger, fear, and anxiety. How you deal with those emotions are up to you. That’s what shapes who you are and who you will become.

It doesn’t matter what you have, it matters who you are and who you become. As you climb the mountain, the hilltops will be few and far in between, so enjoy the journey. Enjoy each step. Don’t forget to smile. After all, it’s a moment of your life, and you’ll never get that moment back.

As for me, I’m still finding my path, and I’m okay with that. Each day, I gain more insight into who I am and what I want in life. No matter what path you choose, you will always be your own worst enemy.

Even though I’ve paid a high price going down this road, I would 100% do it again. I’ve changed my life forever. I’ve accomplished things that I didn’t believe were possible. I’m financially free and happy.

The emotions I’m feeling now:

• Confident to take on any challenge.
• A willingness to be silly and not take life so seriously.
• A drive and hunger to continue to better myself.
• Appreciation for my friends, family, and other people I meet in life.

In the future, I don’t know if there will be extreme riches. I don’t know if there will be fame. I don’t even know if there will be marriage. But, I guarantee you one thing.

There WILL be happiness, and most importantly… no matter how young or old I am, there will always be dancing ;).